Way the Crow Flies (71 page)

The angry man smiles at her.

“I can’t lie,” whispers Madeleine.

“It’s not a lie. They want to know if he turned left, and you know he did, so say it.”

“You say it.”

“I’m his sister, they don’t believe me.”

Madeleine glances at the classroom door. She sees a shadow move behind the Easter bunny taped to the window. She turns back to Colleen. “Did you see him turn left?”

Colleen doesn’t answer. Instead she says, “We’re blood sisters.”
Seurs de san
.

“I know.”

“So?”

“So?”

Colleen clamps Madeleine by the wrist. “That means you’re his sister too.”

“Where did he touch you?” asks the man. He smells like metal shavings, but it’s not a bad smell.

“In the schoolyard.”

“I mean where on your body, Grace.”

“Here,” pointing to the small of her back. “He pushed me on the swings.”

Mr. March coughs again and Inspector Bradley says quietly, “Please, sir,” but does not take his eyes from the child. “Has Ricky ever touched you as if you were his girlfriend?”

Grace hesitates. Her tongue finds the corner of her mouth.

“Just tell the truth, Grace,” says the inspector.

But Grace has heard him the way you might hear someone speaking as he rolls up a car window. She tilts her head, her eyes wander over the floor. “Yeah … sometimes … we do exercises.”

“What exercises?” He has a nice voice. He’s kind, like a doctor.

“Oh—” Grace sighs. “You know. Backbends.”

“What else?”

“And squeezing.” Her voice is gentle, almost singsong.

“Squeezing what?”

Rocking again. “His muscle”—the linoleum is grey with queasy streaks—“he said to call it his muscle, but it’s really his thing.”

Inspector Bradley says, “Now Grace, I know this is all very difficult for you.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Well”—his pen poised—“have you ever told anyone about the things Ricky did to you?”

She nods.

“Who did you tell?”

“Marjorie.”

He nods and writes it down.

“And there’s something else about Ricky,” says Grace.

Inspector Bradley looks up.

“He strangles.”

Bradley pauses ever so briefly before resuming his notes. Grace relaxes and, while waiting for him to finish writing, says, “He gave me an egg.”

“An egg?” There is a frankly quizzical expression on his face at this point. He neglects to erase it—he is human, after all. “When?”

“That day.”

“Wednesday?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of egg?”

Grace doesn’t answer.

“A cooked egg?”

“No, a blue one.”

“What kind of egg is that?”

“A special egg,” she says.

Bradley looks up at the pictures lining the walls. The work of nine-year-old and ten-year-old artists. There are bunnies and chicks—even Batman and Robin—but eggs prevail, all gaily decorated with stripes, solids and polka dots in every colour of the rainbow and beyond—including baby blue. He looks back at the child. “An Easter egg?” he asks. She nods.

“Was it a chocolate egg?”

She nods again, then confides, “He said he knew where there was more.”

“Thank you, Grace,” says Inspector Bradley. He stares at his notes while the teacher escorts the child to the side door. The boy used chocolate to lure his victims. Every pedophile knows the power of candy.

Madeleine feels hot. She wants to get away from Colleen.
I’m not your sister, he’s not my brother
. Colleen lets go of her wrist and takes her hand instead, pressing against it, palm to palm, until Madeleine
feels her scab shift and moisten. The door opens. Colleen releases Madeleine and disappears down the hall.

“I don’t remember. I think—I don’t know if I saw him.”

“Look at me, Madeleine.” She does. “Did you see him or not?”

“Are you going to hang him?”

The inspector raises his eyebrows. “Do you think he should be hanged?”

“No!”

He leans back, tilts his head and regards her. Madeleine folds her hands. This policeman with his raincoat and his hat on Mr. March’s desk, he is the boss of the nice one in the uniform standing writing in a notebook with a leather cover, like the kind the Brownies have. Inspector Bradley is like a teacher who already knows how you have done on your test and you haven’t even taken it yet so what’s the point? Madeleine knows she is going to fail.

“Does Ricky like to play with younger children?” he asks. It’s a hard question. Ricky doesn’t go around “playing,” he plays sports and he fixes his car and little kids hang around sometimes and he doesn’t care.

“He doesn’t care,” says Madeleine.

Inspector Bradley’s face has tiny, faint red lines like on a map; it’s square with two vertical wrinkles that run, one from each cheekbone, down to his jaw. Thin ginger hair. Hazel eyes, bloodshot; they say,
This is not a joke. Nothing is ever a joke
. He seems not to have heard Madeleine’s answer. He asks, “Does he seek out younger children?”

Madeleine knows the inspector isn’t talking about hide ’n’ seek, but she is tempted to be a retard for him. “You mean like hide ’n’ seek?”

“No.” He just looks at her. She pulls her chin in so her face looks fat, raises her eyebrows and bugs out her eyes at the floor.

Mr. March says, “Madeleine,” and she unmakes the face.

The inspector asks, “Has Ricky ever behaved toward you as though he were your boyfriend?” Madeleine chortles, but he isn’t kidding. “Answer the question please, Madeleine.”

“No,” says Madeleine.

“I’m afraid you have to answer—”

“I mean no, he never….”

Inspector Bradley proceeds methodically. He knows she has the thing he is looking for, she has hidden it in one of her pockets or her shoe, he will just keep frisking her until he finds it. “Did he ever ask you on a picnic?”

Madeleine shakes her head.

“Did he offer you a ride on his bike?”

“You mean his motor scooter?”

“Any bike.”

“Once we were all down at the schoolyard and—”

“Did you ever go for a ride with him alone?”

“No.”

“Has he ever touched you?”

“Pardon?”

“Has he ever touched you?”

“Um. He put his hand on the top of my head once and said try and punch him, but I couldn’t reach.”

“Has he touched you where he shouldn’t, or has he made you touch him?”

Madeleine gets the glue feeling. Behind her is the glue man, Mr. March. What has he told the inspector?

Inspector Bradley resumes his search. “Has he done anything dirty?”

She sits very still. Shakes her head. Heat prickles up from her stomach to her face. She can smell the smell, can anyone else?

“Did he undo his pants?” The undertow tugs at her stomach—“Madeleine?”

Gravity is working at different rates on different parts of her, it will suck her insides out and her head will come off and float away.

“That day when you and Colleen Froelich saw Ricky and Claire on the county road—”

“And Elizabeth and Rex—” Her mouth feels very small, the words look very small in her mind.

“You say you saw him turn down the road to Rock Bass with Claire—”

“No,” says Madeleine, and swallows. “I didn’t see him go with Claire.”

“Are you telling me you saw him turn left toward the highway? I’ll know if you’re lying, Madeleine.”

“He didn’t do it,” she says.

“Did you see him or not?” He looks at her the way he has looked at her from the start: at a thing—at a broom in the corner.

“He turned left, toward the highway.” She doesn’t break her gaze or blink. “I saw him.”

It’s quiet except for the scratching of the policeman’s pen in the corner of the room.

“Run along then.”

She rises, and as she walks to the side door she resists the temptation to look behind her, to see if she has left a puddle of sweat or anything on the chair.

Bradley has asked all male staff to wait to be re-interviewed this afternoon, and he plans to follow through. He doesn’t want any loose ends. He doesn’t believe the McCarthy child’s story, but a jury might.

M
IKE IS LETTING HER
run for grounders and pop-flies out in the grassy circle behind the house. Warming up for his game tonight in Exeter. This is his first year playing bantam. Madeleine wears his old glove, but avoids catching the tempting fastballs for fear her cut will open up again.

She keeps an eye on the house, wanting to waylay Dad before supper. She needs to ask him a question. Two questions: Will they hang Ricky Froelich? And is it all right to lie in order to make someone know the truth? Also, she wants to tell him about the policemen who asked her the questions today after school. Maman didn’t notice she was late because she was babysitting at the Froelichs’. Madeleine spots her father between the houses, coming up the street, and calls out, “Dad!”

Jack turns and sees his kids, carefree, happy as clams, out in the field behind the house. He waves, then turns up the Froelichs’ driveway. The patchwork hotrod is near completion, missing only a set of tires, but the old station wagon is gone—one of them must have driven to Goderich to pick up their boy. He taps on the door on the chance of finding Henry at home.

Betty Boucher opens it. Jack smiles and says, “For a second I thought I had the wrong house.”

“I’m part of the bucket brigade. Mimi took the morning shift, they’ve neither of them been home all day.” The women have snapped into action. Betty’s own youngest clings to her skirt while one of the Froelich babies bounces on her hip. The other screams from inside. “It’s beyond me how they do it, Jack. I thought I was a veteran.”

“When are you due to be relieved?”

“I expected the lot of them home before this, what time is it?” She shifts the baby in an effort to glimpse her wristwatch.

“It’s ten past five.” Jack follows her into the front hall. “Hank told me reporters have been sniffing around.”

Her expression says what she thinks of that. “Three of them this afternoon”—indicating with her fingers—“Toronto, Windsor and Detroit, if you can believe it, all wanting to know, did I think our Rick was a”—she glances down at her toddler—“suspect. I told them they wouldn’t find a solitary soul on this station who thinks that boy is aught but a sterling young man.”

“You better believe it,” says Jack.

“Henry—” The baby spits up on her shoulder. Betty dabs her sweater with a tea towel and continues. “Henry called from the courthouse. They were about to go in for the bail hearing.”

Bail hearing. Courthouse. Suspect. None of these terms were on anyone’s lips this time last week—strange how seamlessly they have introduced themselves into neighbourly conversation. Life has stretched to accommodate the bizarre. Life has begun to run around it—the tragedy and now the mistake—like water around a rock, softening it till it’s worn to a bruise on the surface that seems to change nothing. But nothing will ever be the same. The river has altered its course.

“Poor little bugger….” Then, looking past him through the screen door, “Hang on, who’s this then?”

Jack follows her gaze to a taxi rounding the corner, crawling toward them.

“What can have happened?” says Betty. There is only one passenger. Henry Froelich.

He pays the driver and joins them on the porch. Karen Froelich is still at the jail in Goderich. Ricky Froelich has been denied bail.

“Henry,” says Betty, “I’m so sorry, love.”

Jack lingers after Betty leaves. In the Froelich kitchen, Henry has his hands full and Jack is doing his best to help, holding one of the babies—it feels suddenly suspiciously warm against his uniform jacket. Froelich is heating milk. He rolls up his sleeve to test the baby bottle on his forearm and Jack sees the numbers tattooed there. “Where was your lawyer when all this was going on?” he asks.

“He was there.”

“Well, is he any good?”

“He has letters after his name.”

“QC? Queen’s Counsel, that’s good. He’s appealing the bail ruling, right?”

“Oh yes, but he tells me this judge is known for this, so there is little to be done. All of them wait only for this judge to die.”

“What about—the police detained your boy improperly, can’t your lawyer—?”

“He tries but they say Ricky volunteered to talk to them. My lawyer says all he can do is get Ricky’s statement ruled off.”

“What’s the good of that? There’s nothing incriminating in his statement to begin with.”

Froelich shrugs. Rolls down his sleeve.

“Henry, you were in a concentration camp during the war, weren’t you?”

“Yes.” He reaches for the baby and Jack passes him over.

“I wish I’d figured that out sooner. I wouldn’t’ve made so damn many stupid remarks.”

“Which remarks?”

“Ah well, about your work, and you being a typical German, and how it’s such a beautiful country….”

Froelich puts the bottle into the flailing hands and guides it to the mouth. The child begins to suck, gazing up into the dark beard, curling star fingers absently against his own soft cheek. Jack waits quietly. Finally Froelich nods in the direction of the second baby, already asleep in his high chair, head relaxed at an impossible angle, face closed like a flower. Jack picks the child up carefully, knowing it to be a volatile substance, and follows Froelich up the stairs.

They lay the babies side by side in a crib in the master bedroom, which is as messy as the rest of the house. No headboard on the unmade double bed, an unframed painting tacked to the wall—unintelligible blocks of colour—clothes, books, towels. The characteristic smell of the Froelich house—baby powder, urine and tobacco. He tries not to look closely, not wanting to glimpse anything too personal. Karen’s underthings—a slip….