A Superior Death

The unexpected nature of the question startled Patience momentarily from her fears. “Friday.” She waited for an explanation.

“Tattinger’s lieu day,” Anna said. “My guess is when Carrie said she was going to ‘end it’ she meant her childhood, not her life.” Anna dropped into the Venture and dragged a life vest out from under the seat. As she buckled it on she told Patience what she had learned of Tattinger.

“The first time she ran off it was Jim who told me where she was,” Anna said. “He was acting fishy but I wrote it off to general assholery, and after Denny was found, I figured his running without lights and creeping around had something to do with that. Carrie was with him, I’m willing to bet. That’s what he was hiding. She was the second shadow I thought I saw in the cabin.”

“What kind of boy could be so unacceptable?” Patience repeated her question of several weeks before. “A boy pushing forty. I’ll kill her.”

Had she been a mother, Anna thought, her first impulse would have been to kill Jim Tattinger. Tattinger couldn’t charm, dominate, or compete with women, so he’d turned his sexual attention to girls so young he could still wow them with his wisdom and maturity. Carrie Ann, awkward, plain, wanting to grow up sooner than her mother thought fit, would be the perfect choice.

Anna said: “Unless you saw a light-colored cabin cruiser called the Gone Fishin‘ on your way here, head south. That’s where I found him that first time. I expect he’s scouted out some little cove.” Patience turned south down Amygdaloid Channel. “I wouldn’t blame Carrie,” Anna said.

“I’m going to kill her for lying and for scaring her mother half to death,” Patience explained. “I’m going to kill Jim Tattinger for the good of the human race.” She shoved the throttle to full and the Venture leapt forward with a speed that took Anna by surprise. Clearly the engine had been overhauled, souped up. It was more powerful by far than the engine in a standard Chris-Craft cabin cruiser.

The roar ripped the stillness of the evening as the keel ripped the stillness of the water. Habitually watchful for snags and other water hazards, Anna kept her eyes on the channel. Her mind rattled on the Fate Worse Than Death they raced to stop, or interrupt. End her childhood: “Do you think Carrie was a virgin?” Anna asked.

“Yes. I’m pretty sure of it. She’s not boy-crazy at all. And it’s not like the seventh-grade boys were lining up to walk her home. Eighth grade was scaring her. They start having dances, dates, all that. God!” Patience exploded. “Barely thirteen. Eight weeks ago she was twelve. I will rip Tattinger in two. It’s not like she’s a Lolita. She’s just a goofy-looking little girl.”

Anna didn’t doubt that that attitude had done half of Tattinger’s work for him, but she didn’t say anything.

Finding Carrie and Jim together, the ensuing scene-certainly if the scandal was made public-the fuss and notoriety, might do Carrie more harm than simply waiting for her to return and dealing with it quietly in the morning. Unless Jim was exerting undue pressure, unless she’d been resisting because she’d not felt ready to commit her body to anyone, unless she was planning on “ending it” tonight not because she wished to enter into a sexual relationship at thirteen but to spite her mother. And at thirteen, does one know the difference?

“Do you think Carrie Ann has had sex with Jim yet? Has she seemed different, said anything?” Anna asked.

“How would I know? I’m only her mother,” Patience snapped. The anger momentarily vented, she gave the question due thought. “Carrie seems dull but she’s not stupid and she feels things. She’s never been any good at hiding things either. If she’d been sexually active I think she’d either have gone religious and remorseful or smug and insufferable-depending on how it went. Mostly she’s just been sulky. My guess is no, she’s too scared, too confused. Damn him! She hasn’t even had her first period.”

No fear of pregnancy, Anna thought. Somehow it made things worse, not better. It made Carrie such a child.

Silence was drummed deep by the throb of the engine. The Venture carried her cargo of anger and worry forward, the peace of the summer night descending in her wake.

“I know it seems like I stopped caring,” Patience said without looking at Anna. “But I didn’t. I just got tired. Single parenting: the formula for guilt. I got tired of feeling guilty because I wasn’t Supermom. I took the last year off, I guess. Kind of a sabbatical from motherhood. Bad timing, but I just ran out of gas.”

There was nothing Anna could say. Merely looking at Carrie Ann shuffling sullen-faced through puberty had made Anna tired. Still, she pitied the girl. Nobody chooses to be from a broken home. Maybe Carrie Ann just needed a dad and Tattinger had chosen to exact a price for playing the part.

“Little girls should never have to pay for love,” Anna said, but she’d spoken only to herself and Patience didn’t hear over the noise of the engine.

They found the Gone Fishin‘ anchored in Little Todd Harbor. A white light bobbed dutifully at the stern. Tattinger was taking no chances on this rendezvous getting interrupted for a petty maritime misdemeanor.

No one was on deck but there was a faint glow from the cabin. Anna wasn’t surprised. Tattinger harbored no affection for nature. He would choose the civilized discomfort of a cramped but man-made cabin to the glories of a summer night.

Patience headed the Venture straight for the side of the anchored vessel and didn’t cut power. For a sickening moment, Anna thought she meant to ram the other boat.

With an accuracy that would have done Holly Bradshaw credit, Patience pulled up short, came alongside, and caught the Gone Fishin‘ with her stern line before the wake could wash it out of reach.

“Let me handle this,” she said as Anna belatedly deployed the fenders.

Anna was more than happy to let her do the honors. She put herself in the stern of the Venture where she had a clear view, and settled in to watch the fireworks.

Patience stopped at the cabin door and drew her five feet two inches up to what appeared a quite formidable height. Anna was glad it was not she who was about to be discovered in flagrante delicato.

Patience knocked, opened the door a crack, and softly called: “Carrie, honey, it’s Mom.” Then she waited a few moments as if to give her daughter time to drag on enough clothes to cover the worst of her embarrassment.

From within the cabin came a frantic scuffling that, despite the situation, made Anna smile. One of her least favorite aspects of being a park ranger was coitus interruptus. She’d inadvertently waded into more than one wilderness frolic.

The cabin light flicked out. Patience pushed open the door and stepped inside. “It’s me, baby. You’re not in any trouble,” Anna heard her say. Seconds later a huddled form was pushed gently out. Patience followed. She tried to put her arms around her daughter, but the girl shrugged them violently off.

At some point in the two hours it had taken to locate Carrie, she had lost her blouse. She crossed her arms protectively over her flat chest. She’d retained black denim trousers, and her high-topped sneakers were on and still laced. They’d arrived in time to save her, if not from sex, Anna thought uncharitably, then from the memory of having had it with Jim Tattinger.

Carrie was crying like a baby, great whooping sobs and hiccups. Whether from humiliation or fear or just plain anger at being caught, Anna couldn’t tell.

Patience pulled off the sweatshirt she was wearing and Carrie struggled into it awkwardly, twitching away from her mother’s helping hands.

“Get on the Venture,” Patience ordered, maternal softness turned back to asperity by rejection. She caught up something from the floor just inside the cabin door. “You forgot this,” she added acidly, dangling a white bit of cloth from her fingers. It was a training bra. In the light from the stern, Anna could see the little spandex cups and the thick sensible straps.

With a shriek Carrie grabbed it and, gulping air and sobs, clambered over the gunwale into her mother’s boat and disappeared into the cabin, slamming the door behind her. From the muffled sounds that followed, Anna guessed she had thrown herself down on the seat and cried into folded arms.

During all this Jim Tattinger had not appeared. The light in the cabin on the Gone Fishin‘ had stayed resolutely out, and there hadn’t been a single sound from within.

Patience pushed the cabin door wide. An unseen hand pushed it shut again. With a force that made Anna flinch, Patience kicked the thin wood. The veneer cracked and the door banged inward. There was a sharp scream of hinges or of pain. Anna hoped it was the latter. Patience stood to one side of the black opening. “Come out or I will