2 Roth

Tyson and Rylie Baumgartner stood among the gawkers, watching people pound on their mother and roll her about on the sand as the efforts to save her life grew increasingly frantic and violent. Lifeguard Kelli Crowell saw them standing at the edge of the crowd, clearly upset. Someone was holding up beach blankets to conceal the lifesaving effort from the rubberneckers.

“Are you okay?” asked Crowell, not knowing who they were.

“That’s our mom,” said Tyson, nodding at the activity. Crowell took them by their hands.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Crowell said. “Come with me. You don’t need to stand here and watch this. You come with me and we’re gonna go up to the guard shack.” As they went to the lifeguard office, Crowell asked Tyson and Rylie for their names and ages. The two boys looked alike, neat and clean, sturdily built, with light brown hair. They could have been anyone’s idea of normal, healthy, happy kids, except for the fact that they had just been watching their mother die.

“Is there anyone I can call for you? Your dad?”

“That’s our dad down there,” Tyson told Crowell. Tyson was obviously referring to the man in the sunglasses. Crowell was flabbergasted. She thought the man squatting at the drowned woman’s feet was probably a stranger, someone who found the woman floating in the lake and had done the responsible thing by rowing her into shore. The man sitting by the woman seemed so remote, so uninvolved with what was going on.

“What’s your dad’s name?” Crowell asked.

“Randy,” Tyson told her. “Randy Roth.”

Crowell pictured the man she’d seen next to the dying woman. He was short, maybe five eight or so, but very well-built, quite muscular actually, and attractive. His weight might have been around one hundred sixty to one hundred seventy pounds. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties or so. He had dark hair, not overlong, and a thick, neatly trimmed mustache. He was shirtless and wearing shorts and rubber beach sandals, along with the sunglasses. The most noticeable thing about the man was his utter lack of demonstrativeness while his wife’s life was ebbing away. He had said nothing, showed no signs of agitation or anxiety. Crowell now saw him in a different light. She guessed the man was in severe shock.

Actually, Tyson continued, Randy was really their stepfather. Their own father had died years before, and their mother married Randy only a year ago. After the marriage, Randy and their mother bought a new house, in a new neighborhood, and they had all moved in together, along with Randy’s son Greg. Now they were worried Randy might lose track of them and go to the hospital without them, stranding them at the beach. Crowell told the boys she would tell their stepfather where they were if they promised to stay at the lifeguard office. The boys said they would, so Crowell set off to talk with Randy Roth.

While Crowell was walking back down the beach, Randy Roth suddenly stood up and walked over to his raft. Several people in the crowd of onlookers saw him remove several soaking wet plastic tote bags and empty a considerable amount of water from the bottom of the craft. Then he opened the raft’s air valves. The paramedics continued to call out to each other and back to their base on their radio.

Police arrived. Motorcycle officers pushed the crowd back, and another officer produced a notebook and started assembling the facts. He noticed the dark-haired man with a mustache deflating the raft. Because the man was only a few feet from the lifesaving work, the police officer told him to get out of the way.

“I’m her husband,” Randy said, pressing on the raft’s air chambers to force the deflation.

“You’re her husband?”

Officer Randall G. Cox was taken aback. Until that moment, Cox had assumed no one present knew who the woman was. He’d been trying to figure out a way to identify her. Now this. It was weird; whoever this guy was, he sure wasn’t acting like anybody involved. “I’m her husband,” Randy repeated.

Cox covered his surprise by pressing the man for the details. Like the victim’s name. “Cindy,” Randy said. “Well, Cynthia. Roth.”

Randy wasn’t looking directly at Cox. He continued pushing the air out of the raft. Cox got Randy’s own name, address and phone number.

“What boat were you in?”

“This one,” Randy said as he pushed the last of the air out. His actions were beginning to bother Cox. “Maybe you shouldn’t be deflating it,” Cox suggested.

“Well, I have to get ready to go.”

“Tell me what happened,” said Cox.

“Well, we were paddling around the lake,” Randy said, finally looking directly at Cox. “We were swimming around out there. And she got a cramp in her leg. She was hanging on the side of the raft. And then a boat went by and swamped us. That was when the raft flipped over. I heard her choke, like she swallowed some water. I turned the raft over and I found her floating face down. I tried to get her back into the raft, and I did. And then I just paddled in, to get help.”

Randy’s tone made it all sound so matter-of-fact. He might as well have been talking about an everyday event. “Where are you going to take her?” he asked.

Overlake Hospital, Cox told him. “We’ll give you an escort,” Cox said.

“No, that’s okay,” Randy said. “I’ve been there before.” He began rolling the raft up.

One of the onlookers in the crowd who had been watching Randy closely for some minutes now took Cox aside. “I don’t think he should be driving anyplace right now,” Alicia Tracy told Cox. “I think this man must be in shock, he’s just so devoid of … devoid of anything.” Tracy thought the enormity of the event might hit the man while he was driving to the hospital. Roth might have a bad accident when the reaction set in.

Cox thought so, too. It just wasn’t human to be so distant, especially in the midst of a personal tragedy. Who knew when Roth might go off? This guy is sitting on the edge of an emotional explosion, Cox thought. “Well, I think we’ll give him a ride,” he told Tracy.

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Randy said when the police offered him a ride to the hospital a second time. “I have my truck here. I have to drive my truck over.”

The police persisted. “Well, we’ll bring you back to your truck,” Cox said.

“No. I’ve got all my stuff here, and I’ve got two kids somewhere here on the beach.”

Then Randy rose, shouldered the deflated raft, picked up two of the bags, and walked toward the parking lot some two hundred yards away. Tracy and Cox stared after him.

What do you mean, you have two children here on the beach? Tracy thought. You have been sitting over there this whole time, rolling up your raft, and you have two children over here watching their mother die? Now Tracy wasn’t sure Randy was in shock after all.

As Randy strode away, Patti Schultz grabbed the two remaining tote bags and went after him. She too was concerned that he might be in shock. She told him she would be happy to drive him to the hospital. Randy again refused.

“Well, at least let me ride with you.” Randy ignored her and walked off toward his truck. Schultz followed him.

As they neared the parking lot, Kelli Crowell caught up with him. “I’ve got your kids,” she said, but it seemed like Randy didn’t hear her. Crowell followed, trying to get his attention. A fire department official also gave chase, wanting more information for his report. Randy ignored everyone as he made for his truck.

The fire official finally got Randy to slow down. He asked him what had happened on the lake. How did the accident happen? Randy explained again about the boat and the raft capsizing. “I turned over the raft,” he said, “and she was dead.”

“Dead?” The fire official was incredulous.

“Well, unconscious,” Randy said.

Crowell trotted back to the lifeguard station and got the two boys. They ran after Randy, sobbing. Randy stopped. He took the wet tote bags from Schultz and gave them to Tyson and Rylie to carry. Schultz got the impression that Randy was disgusted with the boys for weeping.

“Come on, boys, we’re going to the hospital,” he said. Tyson and Rylie took the sacks and choked back their sobs.

Randy’s behavior seemed increasingly surreal to Tracy and several other onlookers in the crowd. Tracy couldn’t believe that he had simply ignored the two boys throughout the entire lifesaving ordeal.

He hasn’t said a word to them, she thought. He hasn’t gone over to them, he hasn’t put his arms around them. He didn’t drop all his things and run to them and cry. He has done absolutely nothing. Those little boys are terrified, and their daddy’s not even giving them a hug. It made Tracy sick to her stomach to watch.

Patti Schultz stopped Tyson and Rylie before they could follow their stepfather. “Hi, what’re your names?” she asked, hugging both boys. The boys started to cry again.

“Well, my name’s Patti,” Schultz said, “and I’m gonna ride with you to the hospital.” Randy marched on toward the parking lot, carrying his rubber raft.