An Unattended Death

by Victoria Jenkins

  A COUPLE of hours later, Irene was tilted back in her chair with her feet on her desk, contemplating her photo montages and digesting the material she’d been reading, when her intercom beeped and Wanda, the receptionist, announced Theo Choate. Irene walked out to meet him and ushered him back to her office.

  Prosecutors didn’t last long in this part of the state. Almost no one came here on purpose. The pay was low, culture was absent, and if you had an option, you’d take it. Or at least that was the general perception. So Irene, reaching to shake his hand, wondered what had brought Theo Choate to the backwater of Mason County. Early forties, she thought, a well-cut suit hanging nicely on a lean frame, markedly more polished than the last couple of prosecutors. She led him back through the warren of partitions.

  IN POINT of fact, Mason County appealed to Theo Choate. He had grown up in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, related in a distant way to the distinguished Choates who had spawned, among other things, the eponymous prep school, which Theo had not attended. He’d gone to the local high school, failed to get into the Ivy League—disappointing family aspirations—gone to the state university instead, and then gotten a low-rent law degree in upstate New York, joined an Albany firm and married a partner. Corporate law was not a good fit, and when the marriage ended he pulled up stakes and moved to the furthest reaches of the continent, to Sitka in southeast Alaska where he bought into a fishing boat and plied the depleted waters each summer for halibut and salmon, and crabbed through the winters. It was a ferocious life in a dwindling fishery, and before too many years Theo bought out his discouraged partner and a few years later threw in the towel himself, sold his fishing shares and moved down to the lower forty-eight. When he passed the Washington State bar exam, Theo wasn’t looking for much more than a living in a career where he wouldn’t throw out his back or lose a finger to a line or go down in icy seas.

  “WHAT CAN I do for you, Mr. Choate?” Irene asked once back in her cubicle.

  “Theo,” he said, “I don’t stand too much on formality, Detective.”

  “Well then, Irene.”

  He smiled. “I’m just kind of introducing myself around, getting to know folks”—and for a tiny elated moment Irene thought this wasn’t going to be about Victor at all, but then he went on— “and your name kind of percolated to the top of my list.”

  “How’s that?” she asked, instantly prickly and defensive.

  Silence and a faint, skeptical smile.

  “Don’t you have better things to do?” Irene asked finally.

  “I’m not sure I do,” he said levelly. “When I came on I made kind of a big deal about zero tolerance. Drugs being the number one problem in Mason County. I don’t need to tell you that.”

  “It was in the glove box of a borrowed vehicle,” she said. “It belonged to the dad. They didn’t even know it was there.” She could hear herself, her voice rising. She tried to get a grip. “I thought he cited them on a traffic thing.”

  “He did but he cited them on possession too,” Theo Choate replied. “And auto theft, but that’s not going anywhere.” Giving her a look that said he knew what was what with Harley Rose.

  “Drop it,” Irene said. “Give them a break. They’re good kids.”

  “They probably are good kids,” he said mildly. “That’s why I came over to see you. It always helps to know something about the family.” He got up from her visitor’s chair and paced across her cubicle and back, stopping to eye her photo montages. “What’s this?” he said.

  “Gustavus Island,” she answered. “Anne Paris?” Giving it the rising inflection of a question. “It’s been in the paper.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “You’re on that?” She nodded and he said, “What’s that all about? Is that something other than an accident?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she said. “But I think so.”

  He looked at her, head cocked, curious. “So?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Come on,” he said, “Give me something.”

  “Well,” she said, “there’s a bunch of them out there with potential motive, and it just seems to me to be completely implausible that if it was a sailing accident she’d end up where she ended up, in the slough—you know, in an inland body of water two miles north of where the boat grounded. It just doesn’t compute.”

  “What kind of motive?” he asked.

  “The usual,” Irene said.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “You know, love or money, take your pick. It’s not the Brady bunch out there. Or Ozzie and Harriet or whatever the apt metaphor is.”

  He smiled.

  When the time came, if the time came, Theo Choate would evaluate the evidence she produced to support a charge, and he would either move ahead or let it drop. The department and the prosecutor worked hand in glove.

  “Keeping you busy though?” he asked, looking at her keenly.

  “Yeah,” she said. Her tiredness had returned like a weight and she imagined it showed. She’d like to talk to someone about the case, sit down and chew it over, get some insight, think out loud, but she was already crosswise with Theo Choate, on an antagonistic footing, not collegial at all. She desperately wanted him to cut Victor some slack. As the county prosecutor he had the authority to decide which charges to pursue and which to let go. It was all his call. If she weren’t so tired, she thought, she’d have played it differently, gotten on his good side somehow.

  “Victor’s a good boy, Mr. Choate—Theo,” she said, “I don’t see how prosecuting this thing is going to help. Perfectly good kids can get sort of a renegade mentality—you know, find themselves on the wrong side of the law over something inconsequential and start thinking they’ve got nothing left to lose.”

  “I know that,” he said. “But perfectly good kids can also start thinking that they can get away with stuff and that the law doesn’t apply to them. Sometimes some early infraction that carries consequences can sober a kid up and set him straight.”

  Irene wondered if he was a parent.

  “What do you know about Patrick McGrath?” he asked.

  “The dad’s the problem there,” she said. “Patrick senior. Little Patrick’s okay. ADHD but they’ve got him taking Ritalin and it’s helping.”

  “And the mom?”

  “The mom’s fine,” said Irene. “I know her. She works at my dentist’s office here in town, a normal, regular job.”

  “What’s the custodial situation?”

  “Joint, I think, Wednesday nights and every other weekend with the father.”

  “What’s yours?” he asked.

  Irene was caught up for a moment trying to think how to answer. A question she hadn’t seen coming. “Sole,” she said finally.

  “Father out of the picture?”

  “Out of the picture,” Irene agreed. She didn’t want to reveal her fragility, leave herself open to sympathy. Even after all this time she clung to Luis, hoarded him and refused to talk about him, as if he could be diminished by exposure, or she could be. She saw, though, the curious look Theo Choate threw her when she hesitated. He might have heard talk.

  He walked back and forth across her office, again stopping to look at her photos. “It’s a pretty spot,” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “Whose is that giant house?” he asked.

  “Guevara,” she said. And she couldn’t help it, she smiled and said, “Chez Guevara.”

  He turned and looked at her, surprised, then laughed. “Who calls it that?”

  “Me and everyone else,” she answered. “I don’t know who thought it up.”

  The shared amusement altered their dynamic. “Maybe I’ll meet with these kids,” he said. “Have a chat.”

  It wasn’t all she had hoped for, but it was better than it might be and she was relieved. At least he was still undecided.

  “Victor have a cell phone?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “You can call
the house. Or swing by if you want and see if he’s home. He’s got a job at the corner store and he mows lawns too, you know. He works hard.”

  “I have no doubt,” said Theo Choate.

  XV

  Victor wasn’t yet home when Irene quit for the day. It was close to eight, the long twilight beginning to fade. She had a lot on her mind—Victor and Theo Choate and all the material she’d read during the afternoon and now had to try to assimilate. She’d go running, she decided, tired as she was. Maybe it would clear her head.

  She locked her pistol into a dresser drawer, and wriggled into a jogging bra and Lycra bicycle shorts, and for modesty added the undershirt and boxers she slept in. She had good shoes she’d had fitted once when she was running regularly. She’d competed for a while, training hard and entering half-marathons and finishing high in her class. But later, when she decided to try to qualify for the Portland full marathon, she came down with a bout of bronchitis; so she’d had to lay off and had run only sporadically since.

  She left a note on the kitchen table saying where she was and closed the dog inside. He wanted to go with her but he’d gotten too old and couldn’t keep up. She stretched briefly on her front stoop to loosen her hamstrings, then set off down the hill, running at an easy nine-minute mile pace which she could realistically maintain for six miles, fifty-four minutes.

  She crossed the railroad tracks and turned right at Lumbermen’s Building Supply onto Highway 3, and ran north on the shoulder outside the fog line. In the warm evening air she could smell blackberries along the rail spur and resin and salt water as the highway rose slightly above the Simpson timber mill. Below she could see log booms laid out on the quiet water like a giant quilt, the boles of firs corralled together in a huge floating mosaic. The air was soft, fluttering her shirt around her ribs. A sheen of sweat cooled her skin. She was running easily, feeling strong.

  The twilight darkened into night and overhead a thin river of stars ran between the trees. Headlights came up from behind and she glanced sideways as a pickup passed, then slowed and kept pace beside her. She checked her watch—three minutes and then she should turn around. The pickup dropped back and its lights went out, but she could still hear the rumble of the engine. A phone call, she supposed, the driver pulling over where there was a pocket of reception. All over Mason County along the two-lane highways you could see turnouts where contractors and UPS drivers and even cops, for that matter, had learned you could find cell reception. Phone booths people called them. “I’m in the phone booth up on Mason Lake Road,” you might say and whoever was asking could picture exactly where you were.

  Irene wished she’d worn a headlamp or a reflective vest. Darkness had come on more quickly than she’d expected, and only the stripes on her shoes would flash her presence to an oncoming motorist. She was otherwise invisible.

  Twenty-seven minutes into her run she turned around and started back. It was fully dark and she ran just to the left of the fog line, the only thing she could see to navigate by. She was still running easily, though she knew the hill home would be hard. She smelled hot metal before she saw the darker shape within the darkness, which was the pickup pulled off onto the shoulder, the engine now quiet, ticking as it cooled, and she veered onto the berm to skirt around it.

  She was completely unprepared for the arm that laced out, hooking her neck and slamming her down hard onto her back, shoulder blades skidding on gravel, the wind knocked out of her and her breathing momentarily paralyzed. Someone was on top of her, pinning her arms behind her, one hand on her throat. She smelled him, smelled alcohol and sweat and cigarettes and an unwashed animal stink, and she felt his erection sliding against her midriff under her shirt as his hand yanked at her pants. Her skin was wet with sweat and the tight Lycra shorts stuck to her, resisting him.

  A spectrum of survival instincts presented itself to her in a split second while she twisted beneath him. Succumb, acquiesce, said an interior voice. You will never prevail against his strength and weight. Let it happen, it will be over. Struggle is futile and dangerous. He humped against her, his weight pinning her arms.

  Despite the inner voice Irene kicked and bucked, legs splayed. Then, contrary to instinct, going on the offensive, she turned her face to his and bit into the bristled skin along his jaw. Her teeth hit bone and she tasted blood. He yelled and his fist hammered into the side of her head. But he’d taken his hand from her throat and she was able to curl her body and squirm away, sliding out from under him. He grabbed at her arms but his hands slid on her wet skin and she slipped free and kicked hard, hearing him grunt as her foot connected with somewhere soft.

  She ran, her breath rasping in her chest, dizzy and dazed from the blow to her head, but free. Running to save her life, running now faster than a nine-minute mile, a seven-minute mile or six-minute mile, her personal best. Behind her she heard the pickup start up, the rumble of the engine gunning away, receding. Running past Lumbermen’s and up the hill as if her life depended on it, legs pumping.

  On her porch two figures were silhouetted in light streaming out through the open front door. The dog, running to greet her, came up short and growled, circling her. “Hey,” she whispered, and slowed to a walk, panting, trying to get her breath. The dog’s muzzle like a wand at airport security running up and down her legs. He didn’t like the way she smelled. “Hey,” she said again softly, her hand in his fur, sorting the people on her front step into Victor and Theo Choate and walking on past, her breath whistling. They had seen her and were watching. She tasted blood in her mouth, her stomach lurched, and she dropped to her knees in the darkness on the side of the street and vomited.

  “Mom,” she heard Victor say.

  “Go in,” she called and retched again, her stomach turning inside out, thinking of his blood in her mouth and of his penis sliding against the skin under her shirt.

  When the vomiting subsided, she got to her feet and went to the side of the house where the hose was coiled. She turned it on hard and sluiced her tongue and her teeth, rinsing and spitting until her mouth felt clean and cold.

  Victor had gone in, but Theo Choate was still standing on her porch. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to explain, didn’t want to try for normalcy or calm. She wanted to get past him, get inside, get to her gun, get her back to a wall and wait until her heart slowed and she could think. She wanted to take a shower.

  As she came up the steps he moved aside. “What’s wrong?” he asked as she reached for the screen door and slipped past him. She ran up the stairs and into her room and unlocked the drawer where she’d left her gun.

  Walking back down the hall she heard Victor call to her from behind his bedroom door. “It’s okay,” she answered. “I’m okay now.”

  Theo Choate had followed her indoors and was standing at the bottom of the stairs when she came down with her gun in her hand. He followed her into the kitchen. She laid the gun on the table and stood at the sink with her back to him. “You’re all skinned up,” he said, touching her shoulder with his fingertips. Irene twitched away and yanked the cord to close the slats of the Venetian blinds in the window above the sink. She was starting to shake, a reaction setting in. She didn’t want to cry. Behind her she heard him pick up the phone. “No,” she said. “Don’t.”

  “You should be seen,” he said.

  “No,” she said again. She turned around and sat down at the kitchen table. Theo Choate winced when he saw her face.

  “What happened?” he asked her again.

  “Someone jumped me,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “I didn’t see him,” she said. “I didn’t even see the pickup to say what color it was or what make or year. But it was Patrick McGrath. Patrick McGrath Senior. The father.”

  “Did he—”

  She knew what he was asking even though he didn’t finish the question. “No,” she said. “I got away.”

  “You should report this,” he said.

  “Maybe,” she said, �
�but I’m not going to.” She touched her cheekbone and eye socket gingerly.

  After a moment Theo Choate said, “If you have a bag of peas you could put it on that.”

  “Maybe I do,” she said and behind her she heard him open the freezer compartment.

  “Succotash,” he announced after a moment, handing it to her.

  This struck Irene funny and she started to laugh but was suddenly crying after all, uncontrollable, shaky sobs. Theo Choate made a move as if to comfort her but she jerked away, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I want you to leave,” she said fiercely, “I want to take a shower.”

  “Irene,” he said, protesting. But she flashed him a steely look, and reached for the Glock where it lay on the table, meaning business. He turned to go. Irene walked down the hall behind him with the gun in her hand and locked the door as he went out.

  LATER SHE stood in the stinging hot shower for a long time, until she felt calm and clean and thought it was possible she’d sleep.

  XVI

  He wouldn’t, Theo Choate decided as he drove away, prosecute those boys. Talking to Victor earlier he hadn’t yet made up his mind. He’d knocked long and loud and it was only the dog barking that finally penetrated whatever was playing on Victor’s headphones. Victor, when he appeared, was younger and less tough than the boy Theo had imagined. He looked blurry as though he might have been sleeping, but he snapped into focus when he learned who Theo was. Then he was nervous but earnest, with a solid handshake—calluses on his palm—and an engaging sidelong gaze. He offered Theo iced tea and brought it out to the porch, and they sat down side by side on the step in the gathering dusk.

  Theo wondered belatedly why he’d come. Something to do with the mother perhaps, if he was honest with himself. It was arguably inappropriate for him to be here, since there wasn’t anything he could legitimately ask or learn in this setting about the facts surrounding the charges.

  He’d inquired generally about Victor’s work, school and friends, and asked a little more pointedly about Patrick McGrath. Victor was polite and, to a lawyer’s ear, admirably concise in his replies. Work was okay, he liked mowing lawns better than the grocery store, Patrick was fine. He tossed the Frisbee for the dog while they talked.