Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

The inspector smiles at Marjorie, just-between-you-and-me, and continues, “Has Ricky ever acted as though he were your boyfriend?”

“Oh yes,” says Marjorie, solemn now.

“In what way?”

She turns to check in with her teacher, but Inspector Bradley says, “Look at me, Marjorie, not at the teacher. Can you answer my question?”

She starts crying.

Inspector Bradley hands her his hanky.

“I told him I couldn’t.” She wipes her eyes. “I’m too young.”

“Did Ricky ever touch you?”

She pauses, her face in her hands. Then shakes her head.

“It’s all right, Marjorie,” says Inspector Bradley. “You don’t have to say anything else. You’ve been very helpful.”

Marjorie smiles up at the inspector and thanks him for the use of his hanky.

“Side door, little girl,” says Mr. March.

Grace pulls the rope tight.

“Come in, Grace.”

She hesitates in the doorway. Her plaid jumper, braids, white short-sleeved blouse — Grace is looking very fresh today. She enters the room in response to Mr. March’s prompting, and looks up at the two strange men. Both are big, one is old; he looks angry already.

“Grace, the officers want to ask you one or two questions,” says Mr. March, then sits at Philip Pinder’s desk.

“Hello Grace,” says the angry one, taking a step toward her.

Grace groans, her hand strays to her crotch.

“Grace,” says Mr. March, and she clutches her hands together. “Sit down.”

She obeys, entwining her fingers inwardly as though she were playing “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple.”

The angry man pulls up a chair and sits. “How are you today, Grace?”

“Speak up, Grace,” says Mr. March.

“Fine.”

The man smiles and leans toward her. She can smell his face. What does he want?

“You knew Claire McCarroll, didn’t you?”

Grace moans and hugs herself, begins to rock slightly.

“It’s all right, Grace,” says Mr. March. “Just a couple of questions, then you can run along.” Grace nods, looking down, still rocking.

“Grace,” says the angry man, “did you play with Claire last Wednesday?”

Grace groans, then cries, her forehead crumpling, her voice rising rapidly, mouth wide open like a much younger child—

“Grace,” says Mr. March firmly. She grinds her fist into her eyes, wipes her nose on her wrist. Mr. March hands her his hanky. “Calm down now.”

The other policeman, standing in the corner near the door, writes in a notebook.

Mr. March says, “Can you answer the officer now, Grace?”

It’s silent in the dim green corridor. Kids only experience this odd aquarium feeling when they are excused to go to the bathroom in the middle of class, and they float down the empty halls.

“What are you gonna tell them?”

Colleen’s face looks darker than usual; she is standing too close to Madeleine, outside the classroom where Grace has just gone in.

“Depends what they ask.”

“Tell them you saw Ricky turn left toward the highway.”

“But I didn’t see him.”

“Yeah, but he did turn left.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t see him.”

Colleen licks her lower lip in the dry way she has and says, “You better say you did or they’ll hang him.”

Madeleine stares into Colleen’s eyes — blue flints, narrow, almost slanted. She says, “They won’t hang him,” and sees a pale featherless bird slowly tumbling.

“Say it or you break our friendship,” says Colleen.

“Did you see Claire last Wednesday?” the inspector asks. Grace answers the corner of the big desk. “Yes.”

“Did you play with Claire?”

Grace nods, her lips still parted, her nose red, eyes glazing.

“When was that, Grace?”

“On Wednesday,” she tells the desk.

“When on Wednesday?”

“Um. At the schoolyard.”

“During school? Or after.”

“After.”

“Go on.”

Grace steals a glance at him from under her brows. He is leaning back in his chair; she pictures him with his thing out. “I saw her at the schoolyard ’cause me and Marjorie helped Miss Lang for Brownies.” Bwownies .

“This was after school?” He is writing in a notebook now too.

“Yeah, after school, and Claire said, ‘Want to come to Rock Bass?’”

“But you didn’t go with her to Rock Bass?” He looks at her.

Grace looks away so he won’t think she’s looking at his thing. “No, I didn’t want to go to Rock Bass.”

“Did she tell you she was going to Rock Bass with anyone?”

“Yeah, Ricky.”

“Ricky Froelich?”

“Yeah, everyone knows that.”

“Do you know Ricky Froelich?”

“Yes.”

“Has Ricky Froelich ever touched you?”

Grace looks up as though at the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers. The teacher erupts in a fit of coughing. Inspector Bradley raises a hand to silence him. Grace whips her head around as though she has just remembered that Mr. March is there.

“Answer the question please, Grace,” says the man.

He isn’t angry at me now, he’s angry at Mr. March for coughing .

“Yes sir,” says Grace, straightening in her chair. “He touched me.”

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?”