“Dad!” Madeleine scrambles from the living-room floor and runs to him.
“Hi old buddy.”
“Hi Dad,” says his son, absorbed in a Meccano creation.
The Froelichs’ living room is chaotic—laundry hamper, newspapers, playpen, toys. The young gal in the wheelchair doesn’t seem to register his arrival so Jack doesn’t greet her. He finds his wife in the kitchen, feeding the two baby boys, one screaming. He grins at the sight; he’ll tease her about it later, but it looks good on her, a baby at the end of each spoon, strained peaches in their hair. But she doesn’t smile back, just says, “There’s soup on the stove. Ricky Froelich’s been arrested.”
“What?” Jack hesitates, but the soup smells good. “What for?” He reaches toward the stove and lifts the lid on the pot.
“Claire,” says Mimi.
The metal is hot but it takes a second for that message to get through, so that, by the time Jack replaces the lid on the pot, the pads of his thumb and forefinger are shiny and seared.
“Claire?” he says, his lips drying. The word dissolves like a capsule in his gut, spreading outward. Claire. He takes a breath. Sits at the kitchen table, the little boys racketing their fists against their high-chair trays. Mimi is sliding peach goo from their faces, folding it expertly into their mouths. He watches her lips move and struggles to follow what she is saying—the Froelichs have gone to look for their son, the police came and took away his clothes, claimed not to know where the boy was being held. She goes to the sink to rinse the bowls.
“Why?” says Jack. She hasn’t heard him over the din. “Why?” he repeats.
Mimi says, “They don’t believe his alibi.”
Jack examines the word “alibi”—like a strange fish on the end of his line. He sees Colleen in the doorway. She says, “I’ll put ’em to bed, I’ll change ’em,” barely moving her mouth, eyes more guarded than ever.
Mimi says, “You’re a good helper, Colleen, let’s you and me do it together.”
Jack is alone at the kitchen table. In the living room, Shirley Temple’s intimate tones boom from the hi-fi, a certain plaintive sexy catch in her voice. His alibi. How did he miss it? What he should have known. The boy on the road with his sister and his dog … a trick of perspective. Jack makes the realization that his memory of the event has been from Rick’s point of view: the blue car, oncoming into the sun, bounce of light off the windshield obliterating all but the shape of a hat behind the wheel; a hand raised in greeting, a man waving. And as the car passes, the dent in the rear bumper, the yellow sticker.
Now Jack plays the same memory from his own vantage point behind the wheel. He sees Rick jogging on the road with his sister and dog, pushing the wheelchair. The boy lifts a hand to shield his eyes against the sudden glare of sun. Then he raises an arm, tentative, in response to Jack’s wave. Wednesday afternoon. When the little girl went missing.
The police were never interested in what the boy saw. They were interested in whether or not anyone saw the boy. “On the afternoon of Wednesday, April tenth,” is what Bradley asked. That must have been the time of the murder. Even thinking or saying “the time of the murder” seems to bring order to an obscenely disordered event. No one should call it anything; to name it is to include it in the world, and it should not be included.
Jack stares at the kitchen table; grey Formica sparkles blend with crumbs, a ring of milk. He folds his hands next to a wad of bills blotched transparent with butter.
He was just doing his job, it never entered his mind…. But who in his right mind could have imagined the police were after Ricky Froelich? He shakes his head—now that the “war criminal” is out of the picture, the picture is suddenly clear: Rick was the last one seen with her. Rick found the body—knew where to look for it, according to the police. And now, thanks to Jack, they can say, Rick lied about his alibi. The police were not impeded in their deductions by the knowledge of what a nice boy Ricky Froelich is. To them, he is just a male juvenile.
A sizzling—Jack looks up, the soup is boiling over. He gets up, turns off the heat. Warms his hands over the mess.
From the hi-fi a pert command, “Wake up, wake up! Wake up, friend Owl!”
Inspector Bradley’s face is inscrutable, his voice as expressionless as if he were reading from an instruction manual. “You left your sister in her wheelchair and, accompanied by your dog, you lured Claire McCarroll into the field, where you attempted to rape her, and when she threatened to tell, you killed her.”
“What’s so funny, Rick?” asks the cop from the chair.
“Nothing.”
“Something must be funny, you’re laughing.”
“It’s crazy, that’s all.” He tried not to laugh, but it turned out that tears were easier to fend off. It is funny. It’s eight-thirty and he has been in this room for five hours, he hasn’t peed, he hasn’t eaten, he has told the same story countless times, they are saying he would leave his sister alone in her wheelchair—“I would never leave my sister alone in her—” He is laughing so hard that tears trickle down his face. He lays his head down on his arms on the table. Heaving.
“What did you say?”
“You should ask her,” says Rick, wiping tears.
“Ask who, Rick?” says Inspector Bradley.
“My sister. She was with me the whole time. She knows.”
Inspector Bradley says nothing. The big cop sips his Coke and asks, “What good’s that going to do, Rick?”
“She can tell you, I didn’t do it.”
“She can’t tell us diddly-squat, Ricky.”
“Yes she can, she was—”
“She’s retarded.”
Rick is so tired. He looks from the man in the suit to the man in the uniform and says, “Fuck you.”
Madeleine reaches into the Lowney’s candy tin that Mike brought from home and fishes out a green army man poised to hurl a grenade. Like a good book, it’s impossible to tire of the Bambi story record. Shirley Temple’s grown-up voice compels you to listen to the bittersweet end, her voice tearful yet brave, it’s the sound of your own heart. “When Bambi and his mother came to the edge of the meadow, they approached it with great caution for the meadow was wide open.”
She surveys the impenetrable phalanx she has arranged around Elizabeth’s wheelchair, repositions a prone sniper and feels a wet drop on the nape of her neck. Oh no, she realizes, Elizabeth drool. But you can’t get mad at her, she can’t help it. Madeleine looks up.
It wasn’t drool. It was a tear.
“Don’t worry, Elizabeth,” says Madeleine, in the exaggerated kindly tone reserved for cats and toddlers. “Ricky will be home soon.”
They have stripped him. They are searching his body for traces.
“How did this happen, young man?”
Rick says nothing. He looks down at the unknown doctor genuflecting before him. He has lifted Rick’s penis with a wooden tongue depressor—a Popsicle stick.
“You stick it in a tree knot?” asks the cop.
The doctor gives him a look and the cop folds his arms, muttering, “This is making me sick.”
A lesion on the side of the shaft below the glans, about the size of a dime. The doctor writes, then asks again, “What is it?”
Rick says, “Ci qouai ca?”
“I beg your pardon?” says the doctor.
“What the hell did you just say?” asks the cop.
Rick says nothing. Inspector Bradley waits impassively. A second uniformed officer takes a picture of Rick’s penis. There is the sound of a commotion outside the room.
Rick knows the sore on his penis is from his denim shorts. From swimming in the freezing quarry on Sunday, then putting them back on without underwear. He says nothing as he zips his fly back up.
The doctor examines Rick’s arms, face and neck with a magnifying glass. They are looking for evidence of a struggle. They have searched his clothes for an object, a mark, a stain, anything he might possess.
Inspect
or Bradley says, “Let’s start from the beginning, Rick. Where did you go once you got to the intersection? Try to remember.”
“Asseye de ti rappeli.” He remembers metal beds. Women with hard voices and white shoes, taking him along by the arm. Murky linoleum with white streaks, the smell of beans cooking, the smell of pee.
“What did you say to get the little girl to go with you?”
“En pchit fee,” says Rick.
“Cut that out,” says the cop from his chair.
“We’ve got all night, Rick,” says Bradley. “Try to remember, son.”
He remembers the curious feeling of recollecting from time to time that he had a sister. It was as though the word “sister” had come to mean something that you used to have. Sisters were not things you hung onto. They didn’t die, they just quite naturally disappeared. When brother and sister saw one another again, it was as if Rick had awoken from a spell. He swore he would never fall asleep away from anybody of his, ever again.
When he and Colleen turn twenty-one it will be up to them whether they go back to it their real last name—their first one—Pellegrim. His father played Cajun music and sang. Rick doesn’t know where he was from, he never said, nor would he say whether he was Canadian or American, but he claimed Indian blood. He had fought in the Pacific. He had no passport, yet they were always crossing the border in the car—there were places then. Back roads across the Medicine Line. Rick’s mother had long black hair, her features round and sweet. Her eyes dark and twinkly like Rick’s. Genevieve.
They followed the rodeos. His father wore a cowboy hat and a fringed buckskin jacket with an eagle embroidered on the back in beads, the work of their mother’s hands. She was from the Red River Valley, and one day Rick will go back and see if anyone is left. This is what he possesses. It fits into a very small bundle that you could hang on a stick if you had to up and leave. Ousque ji rest? Chu en woyaugeur, ji rest partou.
“Speak English,” says the cop.
They are alone. The inspector and the doctor have left. Another noise in the hall—Rick recognizes his mother’s voice. He turns and simultaneously doubles over in pain. The cop has kicked him in the nuts with his thick knee, still bent, blue fabric straining. The door opens and Inspector Bradley comes in before the officer can use his boot. The inspector places Rick under arrest for the rape and murder of Claire McCarroll and advises him of his rights under the law. Then Rick’s parents come in. Rick is grateful that he is fully clothed when he sees his mother.
She takes one look at him and screams at Inspector Bradley, “What’ve you bastards done to him!” But the uniformed officer has left the room, and it’s no good how loudly his mother insists she is taking him home, the arguments of his father, the professorial outrage in his voice, none of it makes any difference.
In his office, Inspector Bradley writes a memo to his chief, requesting that the officer who struck Richard Froelich be transferred to another unit. Bradley is not the “beating with a rubber hose” type. His job is to serve the justice system. This is a delicate case. Richard Froelich is a juvenile but he has committed an adult crime. He should be tried as one. Allegations of police brutality against a “defenceless child” will not help.
Jack crosses the street for home, following his kids, who are racing each other to the TV.
“Dad, can we watch ‘The Flintstones’?” asks his daughter.
“Sure.”
The small picture is worse. But Simon has control over the big picture. Jack will have to phone him from home this time, and tell him to talk to someone right away.
“Dad, can we have orange pop?” his son asks.
“Go ahead,” says Jack and picks up the phone. Once Simon has adjusted the big picture, the small picture will come back into focus.
He goes to dial, then recalls that he will have to use the night number. It’s in his wallet. Along with the key to the Ford Galaxy. He meant to toss the key into the scrapyard. He unfolds the slip of paper from his wallet, dials the number and listens to the ringing at the other end. When Simon answers, he speaks quietly. It’s just as well the television is blaring in the next room.
“My neighbour’s son has been arrested for the murder of McCarroll’s daughter.”
“Good Lord.”
“Yeah. The police were never interested in Fried, it was the boy they were after.”
“That’s the boy you were mentioning,” says Simon. “The one you saw from the car?”
“That’s right.”
“How appalling. Well, they’ve got him now, I suppose that’s a relief.”
“What? No, Simon, the boy is innocent. I’m his alibi.”
The briefest pause, then “Oh.”
From the living room, Madeleine sees her father facing away and leaning against the fridge. His head is bowed and his free hand grips the back of his neck.
Jack speaks with his mouth close to the phone. “The police ought to be out finding this pervert, not wasting time with—”
“Quite.”
In the living room, the kids are squabbling. Jack moves farther into the kitchen, as far as the phone cord will allow. “The OPP need to know that I can vouch for the boy. We need to clear this whole thing up, discreetly, right away, Si. You’ll have to have a word with someone.”
“With whom?”
Jack feels faintly ridiculous. He licks his lips. “External Affairs; RCMP Security Service, whoever’s got a back channel to the police here.”
“The fact is, old friend, there is no one.”
“… What do you mean?”
“Just that,” says Simon, almost breezy. “I’ve closed the loop on this one. The Soviets think Fried is dead. I’ve had to keep the points of entry to a minimum. You’re the only Canadian directly involved. I told you that.”
You’re the only one who knows. He had meant it literally. “What about—well, how did you—?” Jack shakes his head. “How in God’s name did you manage to get Fried a Canadian passport? How can you be operating here without Canadian authority?”
“Did you get rid of the car?”
“It’s scrap by now. Simon, I asked you a question.”
“We’re not doing anything that contradicts our obligations under NATO.”
“Bullshit. What’s going on?” He has sworn like a cadet, right in his own kitchen. He glances over his shoulder but his kids are fixated, blue shadows dancing on their faces, bathed in undifferentiated racket.
“It’s the truth,” Simon is saying. “Politicians may prefer either not to know, or not to be seen to know, the details, but their policies implicitly authorize this sort of work, and they expect it to be done, otherwise we’d be part of the U.S.S.R. by now.”
Is it legal? The job he’s doing for Simon? What does Jack really know about Oskar Fried?
“Who are you working for, Simon?”
“It’s time I bought you that drink.”
Oskar Fried is a Soviet citizen, for pity’s sake. And Jack has embraced him on the word of an old friend. A man he has seen once in twenty years. “You told me it was an American–Canadian–British operation.”
“I never specified. I can tell you it ain’t Soviet.”
“You know there’s a killer on the loose here, buddy?”
Jack’s knuckles are white around the receiver. But Simon’s voice, when he answers, is quiet. “Not a very happy place right now, eh? Centralia? I’m not keen on seeing an innocent boy punished, Jack. I’m not keen on child-killers going free.”
A burst of gunfire from the living room.
Simon says, “That’s not why I do my job.”
Jack waits.
“That’s not what we fought for, Jack.” We.
Jack hears a sigh on the other end of the line, and feels ashamed. He takes a breath finally. Simon is not the enemy. The enemy is out there. He looks at the black shine of the kitchen window and sees a man, head bowed, on the phone. He steps forward and draws the curtains—the ones Mimi sewed in Germany.
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“Your police are putting on a pretty poor show,” says Simon. “They clearly haven’t a fucking clue who’s responsible.”
“I’m sick about it, Simon. I’ve sent the police on a goddamn wild goose chase.”
“Do you really think you’ve done that single-handedly?” Simon in the seat beside him. Asking the right questions. “We’re taking some flak that’s all. We’ll ride it out. Don’t shake hands with the Devil before you meet him.”
Jack takes another deep breath, as quietly as possible, so as not to rouse his headache. Simon is right. They picked up Ricky Froelich because there are no other suspects. He wonders if there is any Aspirin in the house.
“What’s the situation on the ground there, Jack? Has your neighbour….”
“Froelich.”
“Has he spoken to anyone else, any mention of Dora in the press?”
“No. The arrest will be all over the papers, but…. If I were his lawyer, I’d tell him to keep his war criminal story to himself. Just makes the boy look guilty.”
“Good point.”
“Simon, if this goes any farther, I’ll have to come forward.”
“I don’t imagine it’ll come to that.”
An air-raid siren wails from the living room. Simon adds, almost as an afterthought, “Have you mentioned this to anyone at all? Fried? The fact you were in the car?”
“No—”
“To your wife—?”
“I’ve told no one.”
“Good. You did the right thing, mate.”
Jack’s headache blooms. His left eye pulses, he sees a diagonal silver flash and loses a patch of vision. “I’ll keep you posted.” He hangs up and pauses, his hand still on the receiver. In the next room his daughter sings along with a commercial, “‘You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!’” Where does Mimi keep the Aspirin? He begins opening drawers. In the cupboard under the sink he finds a ragged old housedress, not anything Mimi wears, surely, what’s it doing here? Is it really possible that no one in the Canadian government is aware of Fried’s presence? Or is Canada in the habit of granting carte blanche to the Americans and Brits? A grenade explodes behind him; he turns and is in the living room in two steps. “Turn that godforsaken box down!”