Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

His Lordship says, “The right-hand side, is that what you said?”

“I said ‘the right.’ As far as I can remember, it was the right.”

“Is that the girl’s right?”

“Yes, the girl’s right, I’m sorry.”

Jack knows from the press that the child was raped, and yet….

“… and it was bruised and the whole of the entranceway was widely dilated.”

“Pardon?”

“Widely dilated.”

Is it a failure of his imagination that Jack never anticipated these details? He glances around and wonders if others did. Toward the back he sees a familiar face. The schoolteacher, Mr. Marks. He looks like an overgrown child. It would not have been worth beating the can off him. In the same row is the pretty young woman teacher who leads Madeleine’s Brownie pack. Did either of these teachers imagine they’d ever hear one of their pupils described in this way?

“… masses of maggots about in this region, and on removing the maggots it was quite obvious this area was grossly bruised….”

Jack has told Mimi to be prepared to move within weeks. She has already cancelled next fall’s dental checkups for the kids. Madeleine will testify some time next week, and her testimony will put the kibosh on this travesty.

“Concerning the injury in the outer labium and to the vagina,” asks the Crown attorney, “has that any significance to you?”

Any significance? “A female child at that age would have a hymen, which is something through which you cannot normally insert a little finger, and that was completely missing, it had been completely carried away….”

Jack permits his mind to run elsewhere. He is expecting a call from his contact in Ottawa any day now. A teaching post has opened up at the Royal Military College in Kingston. He is a shoo-in for it.

Although just about any place will do.

The Crown attorney says, “In your opinion, Doctor, how were these injuries caused?”

“In my opinion—”

The defence says, “My lord, I don’t want to unnecessarily interrupt, but might I suggest that in view of the changes, post-mortem changes that this man found in this area, that it would be extremely dangerous for him to express any opinion at this time because he told us he found some very serious post-mortem changes in this area …”

Is the defence logic garbled or is Jack merely having difficulty concentrating? His mind drifts sideways again. Changes . A gentle word, yet not a euphemism. We change from the moment of conception and we do not stop changing until we change back into earth. It’s a kind of miracle, thinks Jack. This return to earth … to land a man on the moon, and return him safely to earth . That indeed would be a feat, but to return a man to earth after he has died is far more complex.

“No, listen to the question as put—”

As miraculous as conception. The intricate particle-by-particle detachment and falling away of our bodies. It takes years. A longer gestation than birth.

“Are these lesions a type of injury you would expect to see with some large object dilating this area?” asks the Crown.

The defence attorney interrupts, “My lord, I suggest that it would be dangerous for the doctor to — the doctor is not a pathologist, my lord.”

“You might demonstrate later on that it is of no particular weight,” says the judge, “but I think the doctor is entitled to give his opinion as to what caused these changes, since he was at the autopsy, and we shall see what the pathologist says later.”

Jack looks at the defence lawyer, expecting him to object again, but he doesn’t. Things seem to have speeded up. Something is changing….

The Crown says, “Dr. Ridelle?”

“Would you repeat the question, please?”

Why is Steve even up there? He’s a GP, not a—

“Is it possible these injuries are consistent with a very inexpert attempt at penetration?”

Dr. Ridelle says, “Possibly.”

“Such as by an inexperienced or immature male?” says the Crown attorney.

The defence attorney interrupts, “My lord.”

The judge says to the jury, “Gentlemen, you are to disregard the Crown attorney’s last question, you are to put it from your minds.”

Lunch.

JACK STEERS THE RAMBLER into the PMQs, hoping to get a glimpse of his kids before they head back to school for the afternoon. He has no more patience for the courtroom. Besides, he has heard all he needs to hear — or not hear — of the day’s proceedings: there was no physical evidence to place Rick at the scene. There was not even semen, nor a trace of the chemical that semen changes into after it decomposes. The rain may have destroyed it. The maggots. But there would have been something left, inside her, and there wasn’t. Had there been, the police lab could have determined blood type and ruled Rick either out or in. As it is, there is not a scrap of direct evidence. The defence will make this clear after lunch, surely, during cross-examination. How much is Hank paying that guy? He’d better start living up to those letters after his name.

He turns onto St. Lawrence and sees a moving van in the Bouchers’ driveway. Perhaps it’s time to pass his hat around the mess again, before everyone is posted away. As he slows toward his driveway, he notices that the Froelichs’ front lawn is yellowing — he’ll get the sprinkler out this afternoon and run it for them. After he mows it. He pulls into his driveway.

The absence of sperm makes it impossible to prove that she was penetrated by a penis at all. The child was raped, but perhaps with something else. Perhaps with a blunt object used by some sicko who turns to little girls because he can’t get it up the normal way — or can’t climax and therefore can’t ejaculate. Neither would describe a healthy teenage boy. Surely that will not be lost upon the jury, who were all teenagers once. Teenage boys can be brutal, but only an older man could be that warped and impotent. He gets out and slams the car door shut, picturing some sorry specimen in his fifties, thick fingers, thumb marks on the windpipe —he locks the car door — then unlocks it, because he never locks his car, no one does — then locks it again, because Mimi may wish to use the car after dark and what if …? Then he unlocks it, because this is ridiculous.

No one is home. Of course, they are across the street. He tosses his hat onto the halltree. It’s Mimi’s day to look after the Froelich kids. The women have been wonderful — although there are fewer hands since the Ridelles moved away, and now Betty Boucher is all but gone. Vimy Woodley has been good about pitching in but they’re moving too. That leaves Mimi.

By September, a quarter of the PMQs will be filled with new families. They won’t know the Froelichs personally. They will only know what they have read in the papers. Jack pours himself a Scotch and takes the newspaper to the couch.

Mimi is standing over him.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

“What?” Where is he? On the couch. Must have fallen asleep.

“What are you doing home?”

He grins — his mouth is dry — and gets up. “Playin’ hooky,” he says, heading for the kitchen with his empty glass.

“You were at the trial.”

“I dropped in this morning.” He runs the cold water.

“You took another day of leave.”

“We’ve got the whole afternoon to ourselves, what do you think, Missus?” He winks at her and gulps the water.

She joins him at the sink, pulls on a pair of rubber gloves, opens the cupboard below, bends, takes out that ragged dress and puts it on. Ties an old diaper around her head and kicks her high heels into a corner. He watches as she fills the bucket at the sink, clunks it to the floor, plunges a brush into the foam, then gets down on her hands and knees and starts scrubbing. “Move your feet,” she says.