Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

The first streaks of green have begun painting the naked soil. In gullies and along the roadside there remain scabs of dirty snow, but the cows are out and their brown hides have the look of summer already, as though they themselves were a source of sun and heat. Up ahead a tractor lumbers along the shoulder, raising early dust. He wonders if the police have gone door to door up and down these endless driveways. Who lives here, really? They are his neighbours; who are they? Would the police treat this investigation differently if the girl were not an air force child?

It’s eleven-thirty. With luck he’ll be home before dark.

The Kinsmen, the Rotary Club and the Royal Canadian Legion welcome Jack to Exeter on a freshly painted sign. If the Ford is not where he left it, at least he can be sure the police haven’t got it. He half hopes it has been stolen — a thief would be unlikely to come forward with evidence of his own crime in order to help solve another. Crocuses are up around the cenotaph, and two folding chairs have reappeared out front of the barbershop, setting the scene for a summer-long game of checkers. He follows the main street out past the edge of town and pulls in and around the back of the old train station, to see the blue Ford Galaxy, gleaming, untouched but for its dented rear bumper. So much for any hope of a convenient thief. He pulls into the shadow of the boarded-up building and steps out into the winter of the noon shade. From the trunk of the staff car he takes a box of tools, a crowbar and a jack. He brings them to the Ford, gets in, removes his uniform hat, jacket and tie. He is banking on the idea that the police will not put out a bulletin for the Ford until they have finished questioning personnel late this afternoon. By that time, he will be on his way back home and this car will be as good as scrap — halfway to its next life as a washing machine. If he is pulled over, he has Simon’s telephone number. And if, in spite of everything, the lid blows off the entire mission, well, c’est la guerre . Don’t shake hands with the Devil before you meet him.

They have found Claire’s bike. Madeleine can see it in the trunk of the OPP car parked in the driveway of the little green bungalow. Mr. McCarroll is standing on his front porch. One of the policemen takes it out of the trunk and holds it up. Mr. McCarroll nods.

Mike has been tailing Madeleine as usual. Now he says, “Quit staring, come on.”

The policeman puts Claire’s bike back into the trunk.

“I’m not staring, I’m just walking slowly,” says Madeleine, catching up with him. “How come they’re taking her bike away?”

“’Cause it’s evidence,” says her brother.

“What do you mean, evidence?”

“Against whoever did it.”

“Did what?”

“Murdered her, what do you think? What are you doing now?”

Madeleine has sat down in the fine sharp gravel at the side of the road. Murdered .

“Well, what did you think happened to her?” asks Mike.

Madeleine doesn’t know.

“Come on, get up.”

Claire died, Madeleine knew that. That’s what happens when children go off by themselves for too long. To the woods, after supper. Sometimes they don’t come home. They stay out after dark and, when you find them, they are dead. Passed away .

“Madeleine.”

Madeleine had not thought about how. Something terrible had happened and Claire was dead; “something terrible” had seemed specific. But it wasn’t. Otherwise, Madeleine would not be cut down by the side of the road like a daisy.

“Come on,” says Mike. “Okay, don’t come on.” And he keeps walking toward home, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure she is not getting murdered.

Madeleine stays in the cindery gravel, her bare legs folded under her. Her hands have disappeared. Her head is turned and she is looking and looking down the street at Claire’s house, where the OPP car is backing out of the McCarrolls’ driveway. Claire got murdered .

Whatever will become of me? cried the little girl when the birds had stolen the last of her food. Evil has become of her. Madeleine has the sick smell feeling. Like before, only worse. As if she has done a bad thing— but I haven’t done anything . As though she has seen Claire lying dead in her blue dress— but I didn’t . Just lying there, that’s the most shameful thing for a little girl to do, to lie there dead and anyone could just pull her dress up. Oh it is a bad smell.

The policeman touches the brim of his hat and Mr. McCarroll raises a hand. Mrs. McCarroll is inside the house somewhere, Madeleine knows. She is in there with Claire’s Brownie uniform and all her ankle socks and unbroken toys. There is nowhere for Mrs. McCarroll to go, the whole world is sore.

The cruiser comes slowly up the street in her direction. When it passes, she sees the handlebars of Claire’s bike hanging out between the bouncing jaws of the trunk. “She only have one streamer,” says Madeleine to nobody. “She only has one streamer,” she corrects herself.

A pair of hands wedges under her armpits and pulls her up. “Hop on,” says Mike. She climbs on and he piggybacks her home. “Sack o’ potatoes,” he says as she slides off his back onto the front porch.

Maman comes to the door, takes one look at Madeleine, feels her forehead and says, “Straight to bed.”

Jack has made a loop west from Exeter, zigzagged south through a series of uncharted dirt roads until he knows he is below Centralia, then veered east again to pick up Highway 4, which he will follow south to London, and thence Highway 2 all the way to Windsor, where so many cars are born and go to die. He realizes he is squinting and tries to relax his eyes against the noonday sun. He knows exactly where his sunglasses are: on his desk.

Maybe it’s time Simon had a word with someone in Ottawa — filter it down to the OPP that they are barking up the wrong tree, going after so-called war criminals. Get them back on the scent before it goes cold. Jack wishes he had thought to suggest this to Simon over the phone; he’ll call and do so this evening.

He shades his eyes with his hand and longs to put on his hat with its merciful dark brim. But he leaves the telltale hat where it is, on the seat beside him, and points the Ford Galaxy west.

Madeleine convinced her mother that she was not sick. She is surprised at herself, passing up a legitimate opportunity to miss an afternoon of school. But she had a morbid feeling — as though, if she lay down on her bed or even on the couch in front of the TV, her eyes would go glassy, her head would heat up like a furnace and she would never get up again. So she has returned to school after lunch but, apart from the brief respite from monotony afforded by Grace Novotny’s shrivelled-looking hands, she has been unable to concentrate on anything but the window.

Grace returned from lunch without her bandages. Her fingers are white and wrinkly, as though she has just got out of the tub. Someone called Children’s Aid. Grace’s dad would like to know who.

Jack squeezes his eyes shut once or twice, and increases his speed, driving into the afternoon sun. If the police do their job and come up with an honest-to-goodness suspect, the war criminal story may never be reported; left to fizzle at the local level. He is watchful, glancing frequently into his rearview mirror. He curbs his speed as he sails toward Chatham — the last thing he needs is to be stopped for speeding.

At recess, Madeleine leaves her friends and drifts over to the stormpipe, intending to look inside once and for all but she sees Colleen sitting on the sunny side of the school, where the white stucco prickles back the sun; she is bent over a piece of glass and a page from a discarded newspaper that has blown up against the wall. Madeleine sees a puff of smoke rise from the page, and approaches. Suddenly the paper levitates and curls inward, consumed by a brief orange flame. Madeleine doesn’t say anything and neither does Colleen, but soon they have strayed round the back of the building, leaving the charred headlines to blow away, Ban-Bomb Trekkers Storm Secret Haven .