“… so help you God?”
Madeleine says, “I do.” You may now kiss the bailiff. She looks out, expecting Dad to be beaming, but he is just watching her steadily. So is Colleen. And Mr. Froelich.
She is ready. To Tell the Truth, with Kitty Carlisle and your host….
“Did you know Claire McCarroll?”
She feels hot again. “Yes.”
It’s Ricky’s lawyer. He is on our side.
“Were you a friend of Claire’s, Madeleine?”
“Yes.”
Then why didn’t you take care of her? Madeleine’s stomach goes gluey.
Mr. Waller says, “Do you know Ricky Froelich?”
“Yes.”
“Was that a yes?”
The judge says, “Yes, yes, it was a yes, the witness nodded, please proceed, Mr. Waller.”
“Were you in the playground with Claire and the other children on the afternoon of April tenth?”
“Yes.” She has to go to the bathroom.
“Speak up, please.”
“Yes.”
“Did Claire tell you—?”
The judge says, “None of that, Mr. Waller.”
Mr. Waller continues, “What did Claire tell you?”
“She told me she was—”
“Speak up, Madeleine.”
“Pardon?”
“What did Claire tell you that afternoon, the afternoon of the tenth of April, in the schoolyard?”
“She said she was going for a picnic with Ricky Froelich.”
Mr. Waller’s shimmering silk robe has begun to look like the uniform of the losing team. He says, “What exactly did Claire say?”
“She said, ‘I’m going for a picnic with Ricky Froelich.’”
“And what did you say?”
“I said—I sang—I hummed ‘Beautiful Dreamer.’”
“Why did you do that?”
“’Cause everyone knows—”
The judge says, “Only say what you know, Madeleine.”
“Because I knew she made things up. Not lies, just … her imagination.”
“Why did you think she made it up?” asks Mr. Waller.
“Because she wanted to go for a picnic with him.”
“No, let me—what I mean is, Madeleine, what made you think that it might just be Claire’s imagination?”
“Well, one time she told me they went to a dance together at Teen Town.”
“And had they?”
“No. Only teenagers are allowed. And she said she was going to marry him.”
Madeleine smiles to show that she isn’t criticizing Claire, but no one else is smiling. There is a table full of things over there in front of the jury. A jar of something brownish. A rag with yellowy spots. Bulrushes. Claire’s Frankie and Annette lunchbox. It’s like show-and-tell. What’s in the jar?
“What did you say, Madeleine?”
Did she ask it out loud?
The judge says, “Cover that table back up, and keep it covered.”
Someone coughs. Mr. McCarroll is sitting on the other side of the aisle from Ricky. He is wiping his lips with a hanky. Seeing him gives Madeleine the idea to call on Claire when she gets home this afternoon. Then something jumps behind her eyes—like when you turn a light switch off and on really fast—and her brain flicks on again and says, “You can’t call on Claire, she’s dead.” Madeleine knows that’s true, but there is something else underneath her brain that wants to walk her feet down the street and call on Claire. Something that knows Claire is still there in the green bungalow, if only someone would go and call on her.
Mr. Plodd covers the table with a white sheet.
“And who else was there when you said—hummed, rather—‘Beautiful Dreamer’?” asks Mr. Waller.
“Um. Colleen.”
“Colleen Froelich?”
“Yes. And Marjorie and Grace.”
“So they overheard Claire say that she had received an invitation—”
The judge says, “Mr. Waller.”
“My lord, I am establishing that Marjorie Nolan and Grace Novotny had a basis for concocting—”
“I know what are you doing, Mr. Waller, and you will refrain from it.”
Jack works through the logic of the two girls’ testimony this morning and finds it flawed. Their story hinges on the claim that Rick asked them to go to Rock Bass that day, presumably to do what he had done to them in the past—namely, molest them. And that when they refused, he asked Claire and she obliged—she must have, because she went with him. But Jack knows that Rick didn’t take Claire to Rock Bass. Therefore, it’s reasonable to conclude that he didn’t invite her. Thus the claim that he only invited her because the other two little girls turned him down falls apart. Rick never invited any of them, because he had no intention of molesting anyone at all.
His neck begins to tighten again. The idea that he could have breathed a sigh of relief at the notion of his friend’s son being a child molester—when did I become that kind of man? All the little girls had crushes on the boy, it’s that simple, and that innocent. Jack is relieved to have unflinchingly faced the most unpleasant part of himself. There is no necessity for Ricky Froelich to be guilty of anything. Besides, he will go free because Madeleine will say which way he turned. Jack reaches for Mimi’s hand and squeezes it to reassure her.
Mr. Waller says, “When did you last see Claire McCarroll that day, Madeleine?”
“Me and Colleen—Colleen and I went to Pop’s—”
“What is ‘Pop’s’?” says his Lordship. “I don’t recall ‘Pop’s.’”
“It’s where we got grape pop,” says Madeleine.
“‘Pop’? Is it Pop or Pop’s?” says the judge.
Pop goes the weasel!
“My lord, ‘Pop’s’ is a local variety store,” says Mr. Waller.
“Is it relevant?”
“No, I don’t believe it is, my lord.”
“Then keep moving through, Mr. Waller, you’re taking five steps when you could be taking two.”
Madeleine has tucked her chin in to keep from laughing, but that always makes her eyes bug out. There is nothing safe you can do with your face except forget about it.
“Where did you go after that, Madeleine?” asks Mr. Waller.
“We were going to the willow tree—”
“The willow tree at the inter—? Where is the willow tree, Madeleine?”
“At the intersection.”
“And which direction would you turn if you wanted to go to Rock Bass?”
“Right.”
The judge says, “Do you mean to say you would turn right to go to Rock Bass?”
“Yes, my lord.” She didn’t mean to use the English accent, but the judge seems not to have noticed.
“Good,” says Mr. Waller. “And you and Colleen were on your way to the willow tree at the intersection.”
“We were going cross-country.” She looks out and meets Colleen’s eyes.
“And you could see the willow tree?”
She looks back at Mr. Waller. “Yes.”
“And you had a clear view of the intersection.”
“Yes.”
“And what did you see?”
“We saw—”
“Only what you saw, please.”
“I saw Ricky and Rex and—”
“Who is Rex?” asks the judge, sounding exasperated.
“The dog, my lord,” says Mr. Waller. “Go on then, Madeleine.”
“And Ricky was pushing Elizabeth in her wheelchair, and Claire was on her bike and Rex was towing her up the road.”
“And they were travelling toward—in which direction were they travelling?”
“Toward the tree.”
“The willow tree.”
“Yes.”
The judge says, “The willow tree and the intersection are one and the same for your purposes, gentlemen.” He is talking to the jury. He turns back to Madeleine. “And then what did you see?”
“W
e—I saw, um”—Madeleine swallows—“a red-winged blackbird.” And her throat dries.
Mr. Waller doesn’t say anything. He is waiting for her to remember her lines. But Madeleine is silent. Like the frog in the cartoon, who can sing opera but, at the moment of truth, opens his mouth and says, ribbit.
You can hear the creak of the ceiling fan, but you can’t feel any breeze.
Mr. Waller says, “Yes, and what did you see then, when you looked at the intersection?”
Madeleine’s chest is pounding, it has started to do that on its own. She is breathing through her mouth even though that dries her throat to the point of paper—it will hurt to swallow. Like the time she had her tonsils out and could eat only ice cream.
“Madeleine?”
The judge is looking at her. “What did you see?”
“Look at me, please, Madeleine,” says Mr. Waller.
The ceiling fan grows louder in her ears. Where is Dad?
He is looking at her, his face tilted slightly. Pale and shiny. Guts, that’s what you’ve got. He crashed his plane. That’s what you’re made of. The right stuff. The truth will always be the hardest thing. Stab right through, like the coat hooks going straight through your back. Stab through and you will never have to go back there again. Nothing will ever press at your back again. Do the right thing.
Dad nods gently. Pilot to co-pilot. Do it your way, sweetie. Tell the truth.
And she does.
Her parents are quiet in the car. Up ahead, a pink plywood ice cream cone tilts toward the highway, but she knows they will not be stopping, because of the silence. She is relieved because she doesn’t feel like ice cream. Maman is angry. She yanked Madeleine all the way to the car, and Dad followed.
The Rambler slows and her father pulls in. “How about an ice cream?” He glances at Madeleine in the rearview mirror.
“Jack, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“She’s earned it, don’t you think?”
Madeleine forms a smile for him. He is not disappointed. He wants to get her an ice cream. Her mother says, “Jack,” but he is already getting out of the car.
She waits in silence with the back of her mother’s head.
After she told the truth, Mr. Waller sat down and the other lawyer came up to her in his gloomy black robes. “Why did you lie to the police, Madeleine?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’ve been a very good witness, Madeleine, you’ve told the truth. No one is going to be angry with you here today, but it is important for us to know why you told the police that you saw Ricky turn left, when you didn’t.”
“’Cause I—” Her throat was no longer dry, but neither were her eyes, they were filling up like dishes, yet she didn’t know what was so sad. As though she had just heard about a dog dying.
“Speak up, Madeleine.”
“I was worried that he would….”
“What were you worried about?”
“That he would get hanged.”
There was a sound in the room. “Order,” said the judge. “Let this child finish her testimony. You’re doing very well, Madeleine,” said the king of the frogs—he was not unkind.
“Now Madeleine,” said the winning lawyer, and Madeleine was on her guard, for he sounded as though he was trying to coax something out of her. “Who told you that?”
“No one,” she said.
“You’re under oath, young lady,” said the judge.
And suddenly it no longer counted that she was a little girl. Perhaps she wasn’t any more. Perhaps twenty years had passed and she was a grown-up, she felt her neck begin to stretch effortlessly like Alice in Wonderland’s, and her head begin to rise—soon she would be at the ceiling, getting her head chopped off by the fan.
“Who told you he would be hanged, Madeleine?” asked the lawyer. She returned to her normal size. “Everyone says it but it’s not true.”
“Can you give me an example of a particular person?”
“My brother said.”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah, Mike said.”
“And who else?”
“… My friend.”
“Which friend?”
Dad returns and hands Madeleine a triple-scoop Neapolitan, but he has not bought himself one to share with Maman. The car pulls from the gravel back onto the highway. Madeleine wishes she could accidentally drop the ice cream out the window, but that’s out of the question. So she eats the whole thing as quickly as possible.
The courtroom was as hot as an oven. Everyone was perfectly still. They were all being baked into gingerbread boys. Madeleine’s tears didn’t fall, they evaporated. She looked at Colleen. When the oven door is opened, she will leap from the pan and run away. We will run away together.
“Colleen,” she said.
“Colleen Froelich?”
Madeleine nodded.
“Was that a yes?”
Madeleine nodded again.
“Yes, the witness nodded yes,” said the judge. “Go on, Mr. Fraser.”
“Did Colleen tell you to lie, Madeleine?”
Madeleine didn’t answer.
The judge said, “Answer the question, Madeleine.”
But Madeleine didn’t speak or even move her head.
“Madeleine,” said the judge, “look behind you. Who is that lady?”
“Our gracious queen.”
“Do you know that we are here today in her name? When I or this gentleman asks you a question, it is exactly as though our queen were asking. Would you answer the queen?”
Madeleine nodded.
“Would you lie to our queen?”
Madeleine shook her head.
“Now, Madeleine,” said the judge, “did Colleen Froelich tell you to lie?”
Madeleine said, “I told myself.”
Dad stops the car outside Exeter so she can be sick.
Maman says to him, “I told you.”
“I don’t think you’re going to get much more out of this witness, Mr. Fraser,” said the judge, and he seemed to forget all about her once he said, “You may step down, little girl.”
Mr. Fraser turned away from her and went back to his table. Madeleine waited. There was something not finished. He didn’t do it. That was what she had been waiting to tell them. Ricky Froelich turned left, he did not do the murder. Ask Elizabeth.
She said, “Elizabeth—”
And the judge said, “The queen has finished with you for now, young lady, please step down.”
“Not the queen—!” she cried.
“Bailiff?” Mr. Plodd came walking toward her.
“Stop!” A woman had spoken, and she was making her way down the aisle. Maman.
The judge said, “Madam, please be seated.”
“C’est assez,” said Maman, clicking toward the witness box on her high heels.
“Madam, please! Bailiff.”
Mr. Plodd reached out his hand to Madeleine, but it was slapped away and Maman’s hand was there, with its red nails. It took Madeleine by the wrist and pulled her from the box and up the aisle. A jumble of faces bobbed by—Colleen looking straight ahead, Mr. Froelich with his head down, and Dad looking at her and Maman as though they were the last two people in the world he expected to see here.
“We’ll have a short recess,” said the judge behind her.
“Jack, allons-y!” called Maman from the door of the courtroom.
Madeleine ran to keep up with her mother’s grip, down the waxed corridor, between the paintings of men in robes, past a name on a door that leapt out at her, F. DONNELLY, QC.
Maman wipes Madeleine’s face with a wet-nap and they get back into the car. One good thing about stopping for ice cream at that roadside place in the middle of nowhere: it means they didn’t stop for ice cream in Crediton, where Mr. March lives.
“I want us to leave tomorrow, Jack.” She unzips her dress, steps out of it, takes a hanger, sticks it into the dress as though she were handling a bo
ning knife and jams it into the closet.
“We can’t just up and leave.” He is standing, still dressed, with his arms folded.
“Why not? You up and go to that trial any time you want.”
“It’ll be over in a few days.”
“Are you going back?” yanking off her earrings.
“I’m not leaving before it’s over.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t do that to Henry, I can’t—they’re going to have to appeal.”
“So?” She pulls her slip off over her head, turns her back to him and removes her bra.
“The guy’s broke.”
“We don’t know that.” She pulls on a nightgown.
“You haven’t seen where they’re living.”
She turns to him. “And you have.”
He hesitates, but why should he? “Yes I have, I visited them, so?” He instantly regrets the defensive so?
“So? So what, you tell me what’s so?”
Normally he would tease her about a turn of phrase like that, but not tonight. “Nothing,” he says. “What are we talking about?”
“They’re not our family, Jack. That’s not my son.”
“The kid is innocent.”
“Maybe not.”
“He is.”
“How do you know?” She looks at him. He doesn’t answer. “Madeleine was sick to her stomach because she knows you wanted her to lie.”
“I didn’t want her to—”
“What’s going on!” She has screamed at him.
He says very quietly, “Mimi,” making a calming gesture with his hand.
She screams in a whisper, “I want to know!” Slaps her hairbrush against her thigh. “Why do you care so much about that family?!”
He waits.
“You care more about that boy than you do about your own son.”
“Mimi, that’s not—”
“And you don’t want another baby.” Her face trembles, but she compresses her lips and doesn’t take her eyes off him. “Do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s why you hardly ever—” She bites her upper lip and takes a deep breath, tears standing in her eyes.
“Mimi, what could possibly give you the idea—?” He moves to her, opening his arms.
“Don’t touch me.” Her voice has cooled. “That family, they’re having terrible trouble, but it has nothing to do with us. Does it, Jack?”