A Superior Death

Were he stealing artifacts, destroying their historical significance and robbing the public trust, Anna could easily imagine him on the stand, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny neck, nasal voice whining: “It was just a bunch of old junk hardly anybody got to see anyway. At least now it’s where people can look at it…”

Anna let him rattle on. Tattinger had become what Christina always referred to as “a bit of a pill.” There was no arguing with him because there was no substance to his complaints. Just sourness born of disappointment.

Even in this generous and understanding mood, Anna was glad to escape his company when the Loon docked at Mott.

Sandra Fox was in the dispatch office. For once both radio and phone were silent. She sat with her feet up on the printer table reading Peyton Place.

“Reviewing the classics, I see.” Anna flopped down in the visitor chair and winked at Delphi.

“I only read the underlined parts.” Sandra set the book aside. “It’s sociological research. I’m gathering tons of insight into the Park Service in general and Isle Royale in particular.”

“It’s beginning to feel a little like that, isn’t it?”

“You make it sound like a bad thing,” the dispatcher said with a comfortable chuckle. “All part of the grand comedy, Anna. A veritable combination pizza of life laid out on our dinner plate.”

Anna laughed. She’d been taking things too seriously. Monomania did that. And she was not yet cured. “Find anything out about Jim’s quitting the Virgin Island job?”

“Oh, Anna, you user you! No flowers, no candy, you never call me the next day.” Sandra chortled and Anna squirmed. “As a matter of fact, I did garner the odd tidbit. Alicia Folk is the dispatcher down there. Good talker. Nice gal. After a few preliminaries, I got the goods. It seems our Jimmy boy was having a torrid affair with the District Ranger’s daughter. The DR raised a modest stink and Jimmy left for a healthier climate. Who would’ve thunk it? Still waters and all that…”

Anna shook her head. “That can’t be it. Affairs in the Park Service are so common as to be de rigueur. I’m surprised first wives haven’t been declared a threatened and endangered species. An affair with a woman-even the boss’s daughter-”

Sandra interrupted with a clucking of her tongue. “You are jumping to conclusions, Anna. Making assumptions. Did I say the affair was with a woman?”

Anna waited with a blank mind and a blank look on her face.

“The District Ranger’s daughter was twelve years old.”

Anna had a sour taste in her mouth. She needed to talk with Patience.

Sandra looked fire from blind eyes. “Kinda makes you proud to be human, don’t it?”

“What happened to the little girl?” Anna asked.

“Who knows. Little girls are always spirited away in cases like this. What could happen? Hopefully she wasn’t pregnant. Hopefully she wasn’t punished. Who knows?”

“Why didn’t Jim get canned? Seems there were grounds enough.”

“You know the gub’mint. It’s harder to fire somebody than it is to get a tax bill passed in an election year. He was counseled. Had to serve a little time on the couch. That stuff seldom seems to take.”

Anna made a mental note to ask Molly why. And if anybody ever got their money back. She stood, stretched. The joints in her ankles cracked and Delphi cocked a concerned eyebrow. Sandra picked up Peyton Place and settled it against her thighs.

“Let me know when you’re finished with that,” Anna said. “I think it should be required reading for all law enforcement personnel.”

“You dig, you get dirt,” Sandra replied philosophically.

Lunchtime had come and gone. Anna was beginning to feel light-headed. Back out in the sunshine, she found a warm, windless place on the dock and dug her sandwich and water bottle out of her daypack.

Twenty yards away Scotty Butkus and Jim Tattinger stood together near the fire-weather box in front of the ranger station. There was just enough of a breeze to move the line on the flagpole, and the low grumble of their words was punctuated by ringing as the metal fasteners hit against the pole.

Anna could tell by the looks they shot her way that they were not only talking about her but wanted her to know it. She’d not made a friend of either. For all her bravado, she knew Scotty could and would make trouble for her. Even if it was only the burr-under-the-saddle variety, it would be tiring to deal with. It was already tiring. She chose to ignore them.

Ducklings-black ducks-feathered now but still in the impossibly cute stage, rocked around the stern of the Loon. As if on cue, they’d all flip bottoms up and for several seconds Anna could see nothing but orange feet and brown feathery rumps. The mother paddled nearby, a running commentary of instructional quacks percolating from her bill.

Anna chewed her cheese sandwich and resisted the urge to throw so much as an illegal crumb to the baby ducks.

The ducklings put her in mind of Donna Butkus, who fed the birds every morning on a secluded stretch of shore; Tinker and Damien standing by, opportunistic birders who’d never dream of feeding the wildlife-or missing a chance to view it if someone else did.

She pictured Donna from the descriptions she’d been given since the woman was first reported missing: an old-fashioned pretty, gentle, southern dumpling, the perfect Texas wife. Married young and-one presumed from the rest of the package-innocent, to a man more than twice her age, then swept away from family and sunshine and home to a snowed-in Houghton winter.

Anna imagined her loneliness before her sister, Roberta, had come, her disorientation. Scotty would react the only way he knew how: with anger and alcohol. Denny, with his gentleman’s ways and fanatic’s intensity, had stepped into the breach. Donna’s confusion must have deepened into pain, all her training, socialization, upbringing cleaving her to a husband whom she may not ever have really loved. A husband who beat her. Scotty’s jealousy would grow. There would be drunken scenes, tears, more violence.

Then what? Anna asked as the ducklings followed their mom out of sight around the port side of the Loon. One day Donna disappears and Scotty lies about it. Even her sister doesn’t know where she’s gone. Scotty orders a case of pickle relish. Damien swears Scotty is the human personification of the Windigo. Donna’s best friend reports Scotty was “… killing Donna… eating her alive…”

Woman’s intuition or just an unfortunate choice of words?

Scotty and Jim finished their tete-a-tete. Butkus disappeared into the Administration Building. Jim crossed the concrete to where the Loon was moored. Both pointedly refused to acknowledge Anna. She had to holler Jim’s name twice before he responded, and then she thought he was going to refuse her a ride to Rock. Good sense, if not manners, prevailed, and he acquiesced.

On the short trip Anna had trouble not staring at him. She’d never seen a pedophile before. In every seminar she’d ever attended on sexual deviants, the instructors had stressed what normal, guy-next-door types they often were, attractive men with good personalities, with wives and children. Jim Tattinger broke with tradition. He looked like a child molester right out of Central Casting’s Obvious Perverts book.

For half the trip she debated the wisdom of letting him know she was aware of his propensity; debated whether it would scare him into walking the straight and narrow, or push him into taking a risk that might be damaging to his latest inamorata.

She chose silence. She would talk with Patience, then the Chief Ranger. After all, that’s what he was paid the big bucks for.

At the lodge, Anna was told Patience and her daughter had gone to the mainland for a few days to get Carrie’s braces tightened. She was glad of the reprieve. This was one hornet’s nest she did not look forward to stirring up.

TWENTY THREE

Anna stayed around Rock Harbor just long enough to collect her mail from the Ranger III. As always, there was a letter from Chris to be treasured away for later. As she headed overland toward Lane Cove and her duty station, an unexpected bit of good news came her way.