Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

Vic hangs up and squeezes out through the folding door, grumbling heartily. “Sonofagun, how did you know it was lettuce?” The phone rings. He raises his eyebrows. “You expecting a call?”

Jack chuckles at the joke before he registers that it was one. A good reflex. How do people train for this type of work? Or are they born liars? Liars with unshakeable loyalty.

The phone rings a second time. Vic reaches back into the booth and picks it up. “Hello, dis place,” he quips, then hangs up. “Nobody there.” And leaves. Strolling toward the PX.

Jack re-enters the phone booth and resumes peering at the Yellow Pages. The phone rings. Vic turns, his hand on the door of the PX. Jack catches his eye, shrugs, picks up the phone and puts it right back down on its cradle. Vic disappears into the store.

The phone rings again and Jack grabs it. Simon says, “Bit of a snafu?”

“A lineup, that’s all.”

“What’s shaking?”

“Si, it was my neighbour who recognized Fried, he’s calling him a war criminal.”

“Christ.” Simon sounds almost contemplative. “When did he tell you this?”

“He didn’t, I found out by accident — Si, is there any truth to it?”

“All I can tell you is, I cleared him for security myself.”

Jack is already relieved but he has to ask: “Then why was Fried so scared he could be hanged?”

“No doubt that’s exactly what would happen if word of his defection got out and the Soviets got hold of him.”

Of course.

It’s time for Jack to grit his teeth and make his report. “Si, the police are looking for Fried in connection with the murder of McCarroll’s daughter.”

Silence. Then, “How, by name?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Is there any truth to it?”

Jack is unprepared for the question. “No, he was — I left him at the apartment — the fact is, Simon, it’s my fault.” He explains how the car was identified when he drove it to Exeter and passed Froelich’s son on the highway on the afternoon the child went missing. “Now the police hear the words ‘war criminal’ and figure there could be someone in the area capable of … this kind of thing.”

“Fantastic,” says Simon, as though surveying a marvel of engineering.

“They don’t know it was me driving. I waved at the boy but the sun was on the windshield, all he saw was my hat.”

“That’s one for us, then.”

“Simon, I’m sorry.”

“My fault, mate, I ought never to have agreed to the bloody car in the first place. Ought to have trusted my instincts.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it disappear.”

“I take it your neighbour doesn’t know that you know Fried?”

“No one does.”

“What did you say his name was?”

“Froelich. Henry Froelich. He hasn’t the faintest. I got all this dope by accident from McCarroll. The police told him. That’s why I was able to head them off when they asked what I was doing last Wednesday.”

“Well, at any rate, McCarroll’s been good for something.”

The comment pings like a pebble from a speeding tire but Jack presses on. “What about Fried?”

“What about him?”

“Where do we go from here?”

“You don’t go anywhere, your job’s done.”

The sun splinters the booth as if through a magnifying glass, heating the interior. Jack squints. “Well, I thought what with McCarroll out of commission…. Should I drive Fried to the border? What do you want me to do?”

“Not your problem, mate.”

It’s over. Jack should feel glad. “I’ll give him a ring after we hang up.”

“I wouldn’t,” says Simon. “His phone may be tapped at this point.”

“I’ll drop down to London and check on him tomorrow then.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Jack swallows his disappointment silently. Simon has every right to question his competence at this point. “Ditch the car and it’s mission accomplished, lad, over and out. I’ll take it from here.”

“Simon, when you’re passing through—”

“Several drinks are in order.”

Jack walks from the phone booth feeling oddly bereft. Fried will cross into the U.S. and Jack will never hear of him again. Fried will have a new name and a new life. He will use his talents to help the USAF space program rival that of his old colleague, Wernher von Braun at NASA.

Jack hurries to the accounts office and gets a cash advance of one hundred dollars. Then he heads toward the ME section to sign out a staff car. It’s entirely possible Froelich is mistaken — after all, he must have suffered terribly during the war. Every face from that time must conjure up horror.

“Did you decide on some lessons?”

Jack looks up. Vic Boucher, laden with grocery bags, a lettuce poking out the top of one of them, is standing with Elaine Ridelle, likewise encumbered with groceries and a baby carriage. They are watching him, expectant. What is Vic talking about? Lessons… . Something rumbles from the back of his mind, coming closer, like a dump truck carrying the information he needs. “Yeah, I found a place on Number 4, out Goderich way. Hicks’s Riding Stable.” Too much information.

“Have you spoken with McCarroll today?” asks Vic.

Jack feels the redness creeping into his face. “I’m going to look in on them later. Drop off Sharon’s boarding pass.” He changes the subject, bending to look in the carriage. “What’ve we got here?”

The baby looks as though he has just swooned into sleep, fingers splayed and stirring slightly beneath his chin, whitish residue on his puckered lips — a flower.

“He’s a bruiser.” Jack grins. “Looks like Steve.”

“Well that’s a relief.” Elaine winks.

There is no way not to register her cleavage now that she’s nursing. Jack feels himself stir, stiffen a little, and sticks his hands in his pockets. Elaine is a flirt but harmless. His response is harmless too — a polite nod to Mother Nature. What is more stimulating than a woman pre, during, and post pregnancy? It makes the world go round. He says, “Well, I better go do a tap of work.”

He takes his leave and walks down Nova Scotia Avenue, back toward his building. He is losing valuable time but he doesn’t want Vic Boucher watching him drive off in a staff car. He thinks longingly of his wife. He has an impulse to head straight home.

When he gets to the next corner, he looks over his shoulder to see that Vic is pulling away in his orange van and Elaine is following, pushing her pram. Jack does an about-face and cuts between the barracks where he lived so many years ago as a pilot in training, and heads for the ME section.

He looks at his watch, calculating how much time he will need, for he knows where he must take the Ford Galaxy if it is truly to disappear.

The tinted windows of the staff car take the edge off the bright hard light. Jack touches the brim of his hat to the guard and drives out through the main gates, past the Spitfire, and turns north on the county road.

He does not enjoy lying, and the thought that the police are wasting time chasing a phantom war criminal when they could be out finding whoever did this thing is making him feel unwell. He passes through the old Village of Centralia, then picks up speed toward Exeter.

On the other hand, whoever did kill the child is probably long gone by now. A drifter. Unless it’s some sick bastard living alone out here on one of these farms. As he surveys the fields on either side of the road, it crosses his mind to wonder if the locals know something, and whether the police are questioning them. The civilian population. There could be a homegrown pervert among them, some known village idiot who might not prey on a local child, but might consider the transient children of the air force station easier game.