The Great Alone: A Novel (40 page)

“Why?”

“It’s about a … killing.”

“Of a human?”

Only in Alaska would that question ever be asked. “I have information on a crime.”

“Follow me.”

The uniformed woman led Leni past an empty jail cell to a closed door with a placard that read:
CHIEF CURT WARD
.

The woman knocked hard. Twice. At a muffled, “Come in,” she opened the door. “Chief, this young woman says she has information on a crime.”

The chief of police stood slowly. Leni remembered him from the search for Geneva Walker. His hair was trimmed into a tall crew cut. A bushy red
mustache stood out against the auburn stubble that had obviously grown since he shaved this morning. He looked like a once-gung-ho high school hockey player turned small-town cop.

“Lenora Allbright,” Leni said in introduction. “My dad was Ernt Allbright. We used to live in Kaneq.”

“Holy shit. We thought you were dead. Search and Rescue went out for days looking for you and your mom. What was it, six, seven, years ago? Why didn’t you contact the police?”

Leni settled MJ in a comfortable chair and opened a book for him. Her grandfather’s advice came back to her:
It’s a bad idea, Leni, but if you’re going to do it, you have to be careful, smarter than your mother ever was. Say nothing. Just give them the letter. Tell them you didn’t even know your dad was dead until your mother gave you this letter. Tell them you were running from his abuse, hiding so that he wouldn’t find you. Everything you’ve done—the changed identities, the new town, the silence—it all fits in with a family hiding from a dangerous man.

“I wanna go, Mommy,” MJ said, bouncing on the seat. “I want to see my daddy.”

“Soon, kiddo.” She kissed his forehead and then went back to the chief’s desk. Between them was a wide swath of gray metal decorated with family photographs, studded with sloppy stacks of pink while-you-were-out messages, and cluttered with fishing magazines. A fishing reel with impossibly tangled line was being used as a paperweight.

She pulled the letter out of her purse. Her hand was shaking as she handed over her mother’s confession.

Chief Ward read through the letter. Sat down. Looked up. “You know what this says?”

Leni dragged a chair over and sat down facing him. She was afraid her legs would stop supporting her. “I do.”

“So your mother shot your dad and disposed of his body and you two ran away.”

“You have the letter.”

“And where is your mother?”

“She died last week. She gave the letter to me on her deathbed and asked
me to deliver it to the police. It was the first I’d heard of it. The … killing, I mean. I thought we were running from my father’s abuse. He … was violent. Sometimes. He beat her really badly one night and we ran away while he slept.”

“I’m sorry about her death.”

Chief Ward stared at Leni for a long time, his eyes narrowed. The intensity of his gaze was unsettling. She fought the urge to fidget. Finally he got up, went to a file cabinet in the back of the room, riffled through a drawer, and pulled out a folder. He dropped it on his desk, sat down, and opened it. “So. Your mother, Cora Allbright, was five-foot-six. People described her as slight, fragile, thin. And your dad was nearly six feet tall.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“But she shot your father, dragged his body out of the house, and, what—strapped him onto a snow machine—and drove up to Glass Lake in the winter and cut a hole in the ice, loaded him with iron traps, and dropped him. Alone. Where were you?”

Leni sat very still, her hands clasped in her lap. “I don’t know. I don’t know when it happened.” She felt the need to add on, layer words to solidify the lie, but Grandpa had told her to say as little as possible.

Chief Ward set his elbows on the desk and steepled his blunt-tipped fingers. “You could have mailed this letter.”

“I could have.”

“But that’s not who you are, is it, Lenora? You’re a good girl. An honest person. I have glowing reports about you in this file.” He leaned forward. “What happened on the night you ran away? What set him off?”

“I … found out I was pregnant,” she said.

“Matthew Walker,” he said, glancing down at the file. “People said you two kids were in love.”

“Uh-huh,” Leni said.

“Sad as hell about what happened to him. To both of you. But you got better, and he…” Chief Ward let it hang there; Leni felt her shame hang on the hook of the unspoken. “I hear your dad hated the Walkers.”

“More than hated them.”

“And when your father found out you were pregnant?”

“He went crazy. Started beating me with his fists, with his belt…” The memories she’d spent years submerging broke free.

“He was a mean son of a bitch, from what I hear.”

“Sometimes.” Leni looked away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw MJ reading his book, his mouth moving as he worked to sound out the words. She hoped these spoken words didn’t find purchase in some dark corner of his subconscious, able to rise one day.

Chief Ward pushed some papers toward her. Leni saw
Allbright, Coraline
in the corner. “I have sworn statements from Marge Birdsall, Natalie Watkins, Tica Rhodes, Thelma Schill, and Tom Walker. All of them testified to seeing bruises on your mother over the years. There were a lot of tears when I took these statements, I can tell you that, a lot of folks wishing they’d done things different. Thelma said she wished she’d shot your dad herself.”

“Mama never let anyone help her,” Leni said. “I still don’t know why.”

“Did she ever tell anyone he beat her?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You have to tell the truth if you want real help,” Chief Ward said.

Leni stared at him.

“Come on, Leni. You and I both know what happened that night. Your mom didn’t do this alone. You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault. You did what your mom asked of you, and who wouldn’t? There’s no one on the planet who wouldn’t understand. He was beating her, for God’s sake. The law will understand.”

He was right. She
had
been a kid. A scared, pregnant eighteen-year-old.

“Let me help you,” he said. “You can get rid of this terrible burden.”

She knew what her mother and grandparents wanted her to do now: to keep lying, to say Leni hadn’t witnessed the murder or the drive to Glass Lake or her father sinking into the icy water.

To say: not me.

She could blame it all on Mama and stick to that story.

And forever be a woman with this dark, terrible secret. A liar.

Mama had wanted Leni to come home, but home was not just a cabin in
a deep woods that overlooked a placid cove. Home was a state of mind, the peace that came from being who you were and living an honest life. There was no going halfway home. She couldn’t build a new life on the creaky foundation of a lie. Not again. Not for home.

“The truth will set you free, Leni. Isn’t that what you want? Why you’re here? Tell me what really happened that night.”

“He hit me when he found out about the baby, hard enough to fracture my cheek and break my nose. I … I don’t remember all of it, just him hitting me. Then I heard Mama say,
Not my Leni
, and a gunshot. I … saw blood seep across his shirt. She shot him twice in the back. To stop him from killing me.”

“And you helped her get rid of his body.”

Leni hesitated. The compassion in his eyes made her say quietly, “And I helped her get rid of the body.”

Chief Ward sat there a moment, looking down at the records in front of him. He appeared ready to say something, then changed his mind. He opened his desk drawer (it made a scratchy, creaking sound) and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. “Can you write it all down?”

“I’ve told you everything.”

“I need it on paper. Then we’ll be done. Don’t lose steam now, Leni. You’re so close to the end. You want all of this behind you, right?”

Leni reached for the pen and pulled the paper toward her. At first she just stared down at the blank page. “Maybe I should ask for a lawyer? My grandfather would recommend that. He’s a lawyer.”

“You can do that,” he said. “It’s what guilty people do.” He reached for the phone. “Shall I call for one?”

“You believe me, right? I didn’t kill him and Mama didn’t want to. The law knows about battered women now.”

“Of course. And besides, you’ve already told me the truth.”

“So I just have to write it down and I’ll be done? I can go to Kaneq?”

He nodded.

What difference did it make to write the words? She began slowly, word by word, rebuilding the scene of that terrible night. The fists, the belt, the
blood, the gore. The frozen trek to the lake. The last image of her father’s face, ivory in the moonlight, sinking into water. The sound of ice slushing over the rim of the hole.

The only omission was about Large Marge’s help. She mentioned nothing about her at all. She didn’t mention her grandparents, either, or where she and Mama had gone when they left Alaska.

She ended with:
We flew from Homer to Anchorage and then left Alaska.

She pushed the paper across the desk.

Chief Ward looked down at her confession.

“I’m done reading, Mommy,” MJ said. She waved him over.

He slapped the book shut and half charged across the room. He climbed up onto her lap like a monkey. Even though he was too big, she held him, let him stay, his skinny legs hanging as he kicked the metal desk with his sneaker toe.
Bang. Bang. Bang
.

Chief Ward looked at her. “You’re under arrest,” he said.

Leni felt the world literally drop out from under her. “But … you said we’d be done if I wrote it down.”

“You and I are done. Now it’s up to someone else.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I wish you hadn’t come in here.”

All the warnings over the years. How had she forgotten? She’d let her need for forgiveness and redemption trump common sense. “What do you mean?”

“This is out of my hands, Leni. It’s up to the court now. I am going to have to lock you up, at least until your arraignment. If you can’t afford an attorney—”

“Mommy?” MJ said, frowning.

The chief read Leni her Miranda rights from a sheet of paper, then finished up with: “Unless you know someone who can take your son, he’s going to have to go to Social Services. They’ll take good care of him. I promise.”

Leni couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid and naïve. How could she not have seen this coming? She’d been
warned.
And still she’d believed the police. She knew how unforgiving the law could be to women.

She wanted to rail and scream and cry and throw furniture, but it was
too late for that. She’d made a terrible mistake. There couldn’t be another. “Tom Walker,” she said.

“Tom?” Chief Ward frowned. “Why would I call him?”

“Just call him. Tell him I need help. He’ll come for me.”

“What you need is a lawyer.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Tell him that, too.”

THIRTY

Processed.

Before today, Leni associated that word with food that had been stretched out of recognition and changed into something bad for you. Like spray cheese.

Now it had a whole new meaning.

Fingerprints. Mug shots.
Turn to the right, please
. Hands patting her down.

“This is fun!” MJ said, banging his hands along the cell bars, running from side to side. “I sound like a helicopter. Listen.” He ran again, as fast as he could, his hand hitting the bars.

Leni couldn’t manage a smile. She couldn’t look at him but she couldn’t look away. It had taken endless pleading on her part to get them to let him be in here with her. Thank God she was in Homer, not Anchorage, where she was pretty sure the rules would be more strictly enforced. Apparently there still wasn’t much crime in the area. Mostly this cell was used to house drunks on the weekends.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

“MJ,” Leni said sharply. It wasn’t until she saw his face—the worried green eyes, the gaped mouth—that she realize she’d screamed it.

“Sorry,” she said. “Come here, kiddo.”

MJ’s moods were like the sea; one glance told you all you needed to know. She’d hurt his feelings, maybe even frightened him with her outburst.

Something else to feel bad about.

MJ shuffled across the small cell, purposely scuffling his rubber-soled tennis shoes. “I’m ice-skating,” he said.

Leni managed a smile as she patted the empty place beside her on the cement bench. He sat down next to her. The cell was so small the lidless toilet was practically touching his knee. Through the metal bars, Leni could see most of the police station—the front desk, the waiting area. The door to Chief Ward’s office.

She had to force herself not to take MJ into her arms and hold him tightly. “I have to talk to you,” she said. “You know how we’re always talking about your dad?”

“He’s brain damaged, but he would love me anyway. That’s a gross toilet.”

“And he lives in a facility where they take care of people like him. That’s why he doesn’t visit us.”

MJ nodded. “He can’t talk anyway. He fell down a hole and broke his head.”

“Uh-huh. And he lives up here. In Alaska. Where Mommy grew up.”

“I know that, silly. It’s why we’re here. Can he walk?”

“I don’t think so. But … you also have a grandfather who lives here. And an aunt named Alyeska.”

MJ finally stopped banging his plastic triceratops on the bench and looked at her. “Another grandpa? Jason has three grandpas.”

“And you have two now, isn’t that cool?”

She heard the station door open. Through it, the sound of a truck rumbling past outside, tires crunching on gravel. A horn honking.

And there was Tom Walker, striding into the police station. He wore faded jeans tucked into boots and a black T-shirt that had a huge, colorful
Walker Cove Adventure Lodge logo on the front. A dirty trucker’s hat was pulled low on his broad forehead.

He came to a stop in the center of the station, looked around.

Saw her.

Leni couldn’t have remained seated even if she’d tried, which she didn’t. She eased away from MJ and got to her feet.

She felt a flutter of energy that was equal parts anxiety and joy. She hadn’t realized until right now, this moment, how much she’d missed Mr. Walker. Over the years, she’d romanticized him. She and Mama both had. For Mama, he’d been the chance she should have taken. For Leni, he’d been the ideal of what a dad could be. In the beginning, they’d talked about him often, until it had become too painful for both of them and they’d stopped.

He moved toward her, pulled the hat from his head, crushed it in his hands. He looked different, more weathered than aged. His long blond hair was gray around his face and had been pulled back into a ponytail. He had obviously been working in the woods when Chief Ward called him. Dried leaves and twigs stuck to his flannel shirt. “Leni,” he said when there was nothing but a set of jail-cell bars between them. “I didn’t believe Curt when he said you were here.” He clutched the bars in his big, work-reddened hands. “I thought your dad killed you.”

Leni’s shame reared up; she felt her face warm. “Mama killed him. When he started in on me. We had to run.”

“I would have helped you,” he said, lowering his voice, leaning in. “We all would have.”

“I know. That’s why we didn’t ask.”

“And … Cora?”

“Gone,” Leni said in a thick voice. “Lung cancer. She … thought of you often.”

“Oh, Leni, I’m so sorry. She was…”

“Yeah,” Leni said softly, trying right then not to think of all the ways her mother was special, or how much her loss hurt. It hadn’t been long enough yet; Leni hadn’t learned how to talk about her pain. Instead, Leni stepped
sideways, so he could see the boy sitting behind her. “MJ—Matthew Junior—this is your Grandpa Tom.”

Mr. Walker had always seemed impossibly, superhumanly strong, but now, with one look at the boy who looked so much like his son, she saw how it cracked him open. “Oh, my God…”

MJ popped to his feet. He was clutching a red plastic dinosaur in one fist.

Mr. Walker squatted down to be eye to eye with his grandson through the cell bars. “You remind me of another boy with blond hair.”

Hold it together.

“I’m MJ!” he said with an oversized smile, jumping up. “You wanna see my dinosaurs?” MJ didn’t wait for an answer, started pulling his plastic dinosaurs from his pockets, producing each new one with flourish.

Over the sound of the growling (that’s what
T. rex
sounds like,
grrr
), Mr. Walker said, “He looks just like his dad.”

“Yeah.” The past muscled its way into the present. Leni looked down at her feet, unable to meet Mr. Walker’s gaze.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said. “We had to leave fast and I didn’t want to get you into trouble. I didn’t want you to have to lie for us, and I couldn’t let Mama go to prison…”

“Ah, Leni,” Mr. Walker said at last, rising to his feet. “You always had too many worries for a girl your age. So why are you in here if your mom killed Ernt? Curt should give you both a freaking medal, not lock you up.”

Leni could have crumpled at the kindness she saw in his eyes. How could he not be angry? She’d abandoned his brain-damaged son, lied for years by her absence, and stolen years of his grandson’s life from him. And now she had to ask him for another favor. “I helped her after the fact. You know … to get rid of the … body.”

He leaned in. “You admitted that? Why?”

“The chief outsmarted me. Anyway, maybe it’s the way it has to be. I needed to tell the truth. I’m tired of pretending to be someone else. I’ll figure it all out. My grandfather is a lawyer. I just … need to know MJ is safe until I’m … out. Will you take him?”

“Of course I will, but—”

“And I know I have no right to ask you this, but please don’t tell Matthew about his son. I need to do that myself.”

“Matthew won’t—”

“I know he won’t understand, but I need to be the one to tell him he has a son. It’s the right thing to do.”

She heard the jangle of keys, footsteps. Chief Ward was coming this way. He eased in past Mr. Walker and unlocked the cell door. “It’s time,” he said.

Leni bent down to her son. “Okay, baby boy,” she said, trying to be strong. “You need to go with your grandpa now. Mommy has … things to do.” She gave him a little shove, so that he was outside the cell.

“Mommy? I don’t wanna go.”

Leni looked to Mr. Walker for help. She didn’t know how to do this.

Mr. Walker laid his big hand on MJ’s little shoulder. “It’s a pink year, MJ.” His voice was as unsteady as Leni felt. “That means the humpies are clogging the rivers. We could fish the Anchor River today. Chances are good you’ll catch the biggest fish of your life.”

“Can my mommy and daddy come?” MJ asked. “Oh. Wait. My daddy can’t move. I forgot.”

“You know about your dad?” Mr. Walker said.

MJ nodded. “Mommy loves him more than the moon and the stars. Like she loves me. But he has a broke head.”

“The boy needs to leave now,” Chief Ward said.

MJ looked at Leni. “So I’m going fishing with my new grandpa, right? Then we’ll play jail more?”

“Uh-huh,” Leni said, doing her best not to cry. She had taught her son to trust her, always, and to believe her, and so he did. She reached out and pulled him into a hug, imprinting the feel of him. Of all the courage she had expended so far—coming home, telling the truth, calling for Tom Walker—it took the greatest toll on her to simply let her son go. She managed a shaky smile. “’Bye, MJ. Be good for Grandpa. Try not to break anything.”

“’Bye, Mommy.”

Mr. Walker swept MJ into the air, planted him on his shoulders. MJ’s high-pitched giggle rang out.

“Look, Mommy, look! I’m a giant!”

“She doesn’t deserve to be here,” Mr. Walker said to Chief Ward, who shrugged. “You always were a by-the-book prick.”

“Insulting me. Good plan. Tell it to the court, Tom. We’ll arraign her quickly. Three o’clock. Judge wants to be out on the river by four.”

“I’m sorry, Leni,” Mr. Walker said.

She heard the gentleness in his voice and knew that the man was ready to offer comfort. Leni didn’t dare reach out. Any kindness now could break what little control she had. “Take care of him, Tom. He’s my world.”

She stared up at her son on his grandfather’s shoulders, and she thought,
Please let this be okay
, and then the cell door clanged shut.

The rest of the day passed slowly, in unfamiliar sights and sounds, in a phone jangling, in doors opening and closing, in lunch orders being taken and delivered, in boots stomping across the station floor.

Leni sat on the hard concrete bench, slumped back against the cold wall. Sunlight streamed through the small cell window, heated everything. She pushed the damp hair out of her eyes. She’d spent the last two hours crying and sweating and muttering curses. Everywhere she could be damp, she was. Her mouth tasted like the inside of an old shoe. She went to the small, lidless toilet, pulled down her pants, and sat down, praying no one saw her.

How was MJ? She hoped Mr. Walker had found the stuffed orca (inexplicably named Bob) in his suitcase. MJ wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight without him. How had Leni forgotten to tell Mr. Walker that?

The station door opened. A man walked in. He had hunched shoulders and hair so tangled it looked like he’d been electrified. He wore hip waders and carried a scuffed green nylon briefcase. “Hey, Marci,” he said in a booming voice. Leni returned to her place on the bench.

“Morning, Dem,” said the female officer at the front desk.

He glanced sideways. “That her?”

The female officer nodded. “Yep. Allbright, Lenora. Arraignment at three o’clock. John’s coming in from Soldotna.”

The man headed her way, came to a stop outside the jail cell. With a sigh, he pulled a folder out of his dirty nylon briefcase and started reading. “Pretty detailed confession. Don’t you watch television?”

“Who are you?”

“Demby Cowe. Your court-appointed attorney. We’re going to zip in, enter a plea of not guilty, and zip out. The pinks are running. Okay? All you have to do is stand up when the court tells you to and say not guilty.” He closed the file. “Do you have someone who can pay bail?”

“Don’t you want to hear my side of it?”

“I’ve got your confession. We’ll talk later. Plenty, I promise. Brush your hair.”

He was gone before Leni could even really process that he’d been there.

*   *   *

T
HE COURTROOM LOOKED
more like a small-town doctor’s office than a hallowed hall of justice. There was no shining wood, no pewlike seats, no big desk up front. Just linoleum floors, a bunch of chairs set out in rows, and desks for the prosecutor and the defense. In the front of the room, beneath a framed picture of Ronald Reagan, a long Formica desk awaited the judge; beside it, a plastic chair awaited witnesses.

Leni slid into her chair alongside her attorney, who was sitting close to the desk, studying tide charts. The prosecutor was seated at the desk across the aisle. A skinny man with a bushy beard, wearing a fishing vest and black pants.

The judge walked into the courtroom, followed by the stenographer and the bailiff. The judge wore a long black robe and Xtratuf fishing boots. He took his place behind the desk and glanced at the clock. “Let’s be quick, gentlemen.”

Leni’s lawyer stood. “May it please the court—”

The courtroom door banged open behind them. “Where is she?”

Leni could live to be one hundred and ten and still know that voice. Her heart did a little flip of joy. “Large Marge!”

Large Marge barreled forward, bracelets rattling. Her dark, aging face was speckled with tiny black moles and her hair was a tangle of fuzzy dreadlocks held back from her face by a folded bandanna headband. Her denim shirt was too small—stretched taut across her large breasts—and her pants were stained blue from berry picking and tucked into rubber boots.

She yanked Leni right out of the chair and hugged her. The woman smelled of homemade shampoo and wood smoke. Of Alaska in the summer.

“Damn it to hell,” the judge said, banging his gavel. “What’s going on here? We are arraigning this young woman on serious criminal charges—”

Large Marge extricated herself from the hug and pushed Leni back down into the chair. “Goddamn it, John, this proceeding is what’s criminal.” Marge strode up to the judge’s bench, her boots squeaking at every step. “This girl is innocent of everything and Whack Job Ward coerced a confession out of her. And for what? Rendering criminal assistance? Accessory after the fact? Good God. She didn’t kill her piece-of-shit old man, she just ran when her terrified mother told her to. She was eighteen years old with an abusive dad. Who wouldn’t run?”

The judge slammed his mallet on the desk. “Marge, you got a mouth on you like a king salmon. Now shut up. This is my courtroom. And this is just a damned arraignment, not a trial. You can present your evidence when it’s time.”

Large Marge turned to face the prosecutor. “Drop the damn charges
,
Adrian. Unless you want to spend the last days of the season in court. Everyone in Kaneq—and probably on the pipeline—knew Ernt Allbright was abusive. I will bring an endless stream of folks to testify on this girl’s behalf. Starting with Tom Walker.”