Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

Mimi pours his tea. “’tention, Jack, c’est hot.” The radio news echoes in the kitchen: “A youth was arrested yesterday and charged with the murder of—” She switches it off.

Jack sits at the table and reaches, without looking, for his cup. The bail hearing is this afternoon. The boy will be home tonight. It crosses Jack’s mind to wonder what will happen if Froelich goes public with his “sighting” once Ricky has been cleared. But that’s Si’s problem, not his.

“Papa,” says Mimi. Jack looks up. She indicates, with her eyes, their son slouched over his cereal bowl, chin in hand.

“Elbows off the table, Mike,” says Jack, and is surprised the next moment to see Mimi staring at him, eyebrows raised, trying to communicate silently over the boy’s head.

Jack remembers and says, “Mike, what do you say to a round of floor hockey this afternoon?” The boy mumbles something in reply.

Jack refrains from reprimanding him and says simply, “What’s that, pal?”

“Baseball tonight.”

“That’s right, the big game, good stuff.” Jack is itching to remove the boy’s elbow from the table himself, to say, “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” but he catches Mimi’s glance as she refills the kettle, and returns his eyes to the paper. A dog starts barking somewhere outside. It sounds like the Froelichs’ dog, but it never barks like that — continuously.

Madeleine comes into the kitchen and says, “There’s a police car in the Froelichs’ driveway.”

Mimi looks out the window. So there is. The dog is tied up, barking at the house.

Madeleine says, “Ricky must be home.”

Her father glances up from his paper but says nothing. Rex keeps barking. Her mother switches on the radio and turns the dial till she finds music — a rock ’n’ roll station! An escalation of saxophones and big echoey drum-throbs — Martha and the Vandellas are on fire with desire. Madeleine waits for one of her parents to switch the station, but it doesn’t happen. Mike is making mush out of his Cap’n Crunch. She pours Rice Krispies and puts her ear close to the bowl to hear the snap, crackle, pop . Sexy music at breakfast, it’s a mad, mad world. She starts moving to the beat in her chair. The song makes her think of Ricky and Marsha kissing on the porch that night, and she gets a hot liquid feeling in her chest.

The song ends and cheerful voices sing, “Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat, today!” Jack gets up, puts on his uniform jacket, folds the newspaper under his arm and, as he reaches for his hat, feels in his pocket for dimes, only to find the wretched key to the Ford Galaxy. He’ll toss it away when he gets to work. “See ya, fellas.”

“Jack,” says Mimi.

“What, Missus?”

She turns to the kids and says, “Ricky Froelich is not home. Not yet. The police think—”

Jack takes over, using his most patient voice: “The police think”—speaking slowly, much better his children should hear it lucidly explained at home—“that Ricky Froelich may somehow be responsible for what happened with regard to—”

His son interrupts, “They think he killed her.”

Jack takes a breath. He resumes speaking, his voice dangerously quiet. “The police are just doing their job, but they’ve made a mistake and pretty soon they’ll realize that—” he jams his hat on his head—“and Ricky will be home.” He is surprised at the sudden constriction in his throat. He hardly trusts himself to say goodbye to his wife, afraid his voice may have reverted to the reedy register of last night. What is that voice?

He kisses his wife on the cheek and she turns and kisses him on the lips — she doesn’t want him leaving the house angry, or thinking that she is.

He is halfway down his driveway when the answer comes to him: it’s the voice of an old man.

The police car is still in the Froelichs’ driveway ten minutes later, when Madeleine leaves for school. Mike has not waited — he seems to have forgotten that he is her jailer. Rex is straining toward the Froelichs’ front door at the end of his rope, still barking. “It’s okay, Rex,” she calls.

Foam has gathered on his chops, and Madeleine is worried lest the police mistake him for a rabid dog and shoot him. Perhaps she ought to wait until they come out, so she can tell them Rex is perfectly fine.

“Madeleine!” She turns. Her mother has called from the kitchen window. “Va à l’école, tout suite! ”

She catches up with Auriel and Lisa. They have reassured one another with their dads’ predictions of a speedy homecoming for Ricky Froelich, and she asks Auriel how she knows that her father is going to let her have horseback riding lessons. “Cripes, McCarthy, I hope I didn’t ruin the surprise!”

Lisa has started riding and has quickly become horse-crazy. “Oh Madeleine, you should see Socks, he’s so cute, and his mother is—”

Colleen’s voice cuts in: “Madeleine.”

Madeleine is shocked. To be addressed by Colleen en route to school, in the presence of her other friends….

Colleen says to Auriel and Lisa, “Keep walking.” Auriel is about to object, but Madeleine says, “It’s okay, you guys.”

Colleen waits until Auriel and Lisa are out of earshot, then asks, “What are you going to say if anybody asks?”

“Asks what?”

“If you saw him.”

“Saw who?”

“Ricky, who else?” Colleen is looking straight at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Last Wednesday with Claire.”

Madeleine doesn’t want to talk about Claire any more. She wants to drive away from Claire like scenery she will never visit again. She starts walking, and Colleen walks backwards ahead of her.

“You got to say you saw him turn left at the willow tree.”

“Yeah but I didn’t,” says Madeleine.

“Yeah but he did turn left.”

Madeleine squints and curls her lip. “Why should I shay I sheen what I never shaw, shee?” asks Humphrey Bogart.

“’Cause they think he raped and murdered her.”

Madeleine stops short. “What’s rape?” The question escapes her like a weak bird, emaciated and able to slip through the bars. She looks down, because she doesn’t want Colleen to answer. It’s a dark, sour word. She knows what it means, she only wishes to go on not having a word for it. She smells tobacco and looks up. Colleen is lighting a cigarette, cupping the flame with her hand. Madeleine looks around; the street is full of kids, a mother behind every kitchen window.

Colleen funnels smoke out the side of her mouth and says, “You’re so innocent, McCarthy.”

Madeleine turns red. “My mum and dad say it’s all a mistake, my dad says Ricky’ll be home in time for supper,” and as she says it she is aware that she is parting with something. Something just flew away, it will never come back. My mum and dad are wrong .

Colleen says, “Do you believe everything your mummy and daddy tell you?” Madeleine pushes her. Colleen stumbles back a step but doesn’t flinch or retaliate. Madeleine takes off for school, running.

“Eee tuh neff! Eff! Oh dah highwayyy!” Elizabeth thrashes slowly in her chair, eyes rolling, spittle on her lips, sobbing, almost drowning out Rex barking himself hoarse outside. Henry Froelich lifts her from the chair and carries her from the room. “Shh shh, Lizzie, ja, ruhig.”

Karen Froelich says, “You heard her, she said they turned left. Toward the highway. How many times does she have to repeat it?”

Inspector Bradley rises from the Froelichs’ tattered couch and crosses one more loophole off his mental list. Even if the judge does allow this child as a witness, her testimony won’t count for much — she’s the boy’s sister, after all. But Bradley has interviewed her so that no one will be able to accuse him of leaving a single stone unturned. This case is already national news; outraged letters to the editor have begun to trickle in. They will be a deluge by the time it goes to trial. People do not wish to believe that a child is capable of raping and murdering another child. In a perfect world, none of us would have to entertain the thought. But this is Bradley’s job. And the boy is not a child, he is an adolescent male who has reached full sexual maturity. Still, though he doesn’t share it, Bradley can sympathize with the disbelief of ordinary people. What annoy him are the bleeding hearts, safe in their ivory towers, far from the brutal realities of the modern world, who are ready to exonerate the worst criminals on the basis of an unhappy childhood and an assortment of half-baked Freudian notions. The truth is, many people suffer terribly in childhood but they don’t grow up to be murderers. Bradley intends to get it right.