Twisted River (19 page)

“I'll try,” said Oscar, really wishing that Helen were here.

He had a sudden flashback to Annabel Klein. Annabel Klein, whom he had punched in the stomach in fourth grade. It was Helen who had sorted all that out. He remembered the teacher screaming at him, Annabel screaming at him, the school principal shouting at him accusingly. Jack and Estelle Harvey looking at him in disgust.

But none of them thought to ask. No one asked why. No one but Helen, that is. It was self-defense. Neither the teacher nor the school principal nor his parents knew about Annabel Klein and what
she
did. Jabbing him with her fountain pen.
Jab, jab, jabbing him as he sat beside her.
Under his school sweater, his side was blue with ink and red with blood.

He'd told Helen. She was the only one who ever listened. He knew that she'd believe him. Helen wrote a formal letter to the school principal—Helen was good at letters—and then she marched him into her office with the letter. She made Oscar verify everything she'd written down. She made him pull up his navy sweater to show the puncture marks. Then she suggested that the school should take Oscar for a tetanus shot because they were the ones responsible. But Oscar balked at that. He wasn't sure if salvaging his reputation was worth a needle.

But Helen's ploy worked. The school principal backed down in her threat to expel him. In a letter to Jack and Estelle Harvey, she said there had been “unforeseen mitigating factors.” Helen always looked
out for him. He remembered celebrating his clean slate with her. They'd had a whole drum of fried chicken together. He learned again that food could be used to celebrate as well as to comfort.

“Dad?” Jess had come into the kitchen. Spike was making tea.

“Yes?” said Oscar.

“I think the police are here. I can see flashing cars outside.” She was trembling, her eyes swollen from crying. But at least she was talking more than Elliot. He wondered if they needed a doctor. He wondered if they should be given a sedative.

“It's okay. I'll go,” said Spike, looking with concern at Jess.

“Come here, honey.” Oscar patted the sofa. Obediently, Jess sat down. He put an arm around her.

“This is horrible. Unbelievable. The most horrible thing that has ever happened to you. But you are going to get through this, Jess. You'll get through this. I'm here. I'll make sure of that.”

“Oh God, Dad . . .” She looked at him with dead eyes.

He felt her shoulders shake. Once again, she was convulsed by tears and anguished sobbing.

“Shhh, honey. Shhh, the police are here. I'll need to talk to them.”

On autopilot, he found the strength to stand up and greet the officers. There were three of them but he had a feeling that there were more outside.

“Detective James O'Rourke,” said the middle policeman, holding out a hand.

“Oscar Harvey,” he said, offering his own. “And this is my daughter, Jess.”

“There are two children, is that right, sir?”

“Yes,” said Oscar. “My son is downstairs.”

“I'm here, Dad,” came a small voice around the doorway.

“Ah, Elliot, my son . . .” Oscar said, gesturing.

“They've put a tent up over the car, I can see out the bedroom window,” Elliot said, his eyes glazed. “There are police everywhere,” he added, moving to stand next to Jess.

Oscar felt a tightness at his collar. There were too many people
in the room, too many people looking awkwardly at one another. He was starting to feel claustrophobic, hunted.

“Maybe we can get started, sir,” said the detective. “Detective Gary Burke here is going to assist me. The sooner we get started, well . . .” He didn't finish his sentence.

“The kids?” asked Oscar. “Not in front of my kids. Not yet . . .” He couldn't bear that. To see the looks on their faces. He'd spare them that as long as possible.

“That's what Garda Dolan is here for,” said the detective. “Garda Dolan is our on-call junior liaison officer. Maybe the kids could go downstairs with him for now . . .”

“Come on, Elliot,” said Jess, taking her brother by the hand, glancing back at Oscar.

“Don't worry, Jess,” said the detective in a kindly voice. “It shouldn't be for long. Garda Dolan will take care of you for now.”

“Spike, can I ask you to step outside a moment also?”

So the detective knew Spike. Oscar thought he'd seen a flash of recognition pass between the two of them.

Seconds later, there were only three of them in the room. Oscar, Detective O'Rourke, and Detective Burke. They sat around the small kitchen table underneath the
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
banner.

“In your own time now,” said James O'Rourke. “Just take a run at it and tell us as best you can . . .”

Digging his nails into his palms, Oscar recounted again what he'd told Spike. He imagined it was almost word for word. Not a detail more, not a detail less. The two men opposite nodded and wrote and nodded again. In a way it felt cathartic, telling it again. The suddenness of it, the fury, the finality.

When he'd finished, the two men looked at each other as if satisfied.

“Now, Mr. Harvey,” said James O'Rourke, “you do realize you'll have to come with us to Henry Street Garda station?”

“Yes, I thought as much,” he replied. He knew nothing of the Irish judicial system but he'd reckoned on this at least. He knew he'd have to make a formal statement.

“Do you have anyone in Ireland? Any relatives? Anyone who can look after the children?”

“I'm afraid not. Hazel, you see . . . well, Hazel was an only child, adopted.”

“Pity.” The detective nodded.

“But my sister,” he said hurriedly now. “My sister, Helen. She's on her way from the States. Can't it wait until tomorrow, till she arrives?” he asked. “My kids love Helen.”

“I'll need to check,” said James O'Rourke. “In the meantime, would you like us to contact the U.S. embassy in Dublin? Would you like some consular assistance?”

“Yes. Do that, please. That would be good.”

Oscar knew that he would need all the help he could get.

Much later that night he'd lain on the bed, fully clothed in the dark. Jess and Elliot had sought the comfort of each other, both collapsed in the same room in a wretched slumber. Through a half-sleep Oscar gradually became aware of an awful sound. It was something deep and sorrowful and mournful and it frightened him. More lucid now, he listened again, and then slowly, horribly, it came to him. He knew where the noise was coming from—it was coming from himself. From deep within himself. His body was convulsed with pain. His face wet with tears. Oh, his poor, poor children. What were they to do? The chambers of his heart had emptied and the sound escaping from his body was the sound of his own heart breaking.

OCTOBER

T
he sun had gone down completely when they stepped off the cruise ship again at West Forty-second Street. Kate had been glad to spend the afternoon outdoors. Sleep had not come easily to her last night and it must have been after four when she finally succumbed. Mannix lay beside her, having drifted off hours earlier, midconversation.

All day, her heart felt heavy. The world felt like a different place today. She was struggling with Izzy's confession of the previous night, trying to understand her drastic actions. What had driven solid, reasonable, cautious Izzy to such a violent attack? Disbelieving at first, the cold reality of what she'd done, with all its possible repercussions, had started to set in.

“But why, Izzy? Why did you do it?” Kate had asked.

“Are you really asking me that, Mum? Seriously?”

Izzy's tone frightened Kate. Izzy's eyes seemed darker than ever. Was there something obvious that Kate had missed?

“Yes, Izzy. Your father and I would really like to know.”

“I can't believe I really have to explain this.” Izzy shook her head.

Kate was completely unnerved.

“I kept telling both of you,” said Izzy. “I kept telling you what they were doing to Fergus. But you wouldn't listen, either of you. Dad was too busy. And you, Mum, well, I tried. And every single time you said you'd look after it. You told me not to worry. But you never did a thing, Mum. You never did a single thing.”

Her dark eyes seared into Kate. Accusing her. Blaming her.

“Who else was going to sort it out for Fergus?” Izzy challenged.

Kate was reeling. She looked to Mannix for support. But Mannix didn't open his mouth. He was listening carefully.

“But we didn't bring you up like that, Izzy,” Kate protested. “We didn't bring you up to take the law into your own hands,
to act like a savage.
”

“No, you didn't, Mum. But you made us go to school with them.”

Kate slumped back on the sofa, winded.

She never expected this. To be so judged by her eleven-year-old daughter. She'd seriously miscalculated. Had she really failed her children that badly? Kate felt sick. Sick at the thought that she'd failed in the most fundamental of all parental duties—to make her children feel safe. Had she failed so abysmally in providing a duty of care to Izzy and Fergus that eleven-year-old Izzy had been forced to take matters into her own hands?

Kate's head was a mess. She'd always thought of herself as a good mother and Mannix as a good father, for all his faults.

“Come here and sit down, Izzy,” Mannix said quietly. “Now, this is important. I want you to tell us exactly what happened that night. Every last detail. You may not think so, but this is really important.”

Mannix, ever practical, was thinking ahead. He seemed calm, seemed unscathed by the criticism, but in truth, the worst of it had been directed at Kate.

“You already know what happened,” Izzy said petulantly.

“Tell us, step by step, Izzy.” Mannix was firm.

Sitting down, Izzy stared at her feet, curling her toes. “Well, I took the hammer, for starters—okay, so you know that already. I took it out of the toolbox in the hall at home. I knew that night that Frankie
would be at home on his own. He was always boasting, Frankie, you see, about how when his mother was working he'd have a can of cider from the fridge and watch a load of horror movies. He'd been talking all day about this horror movie he got from his uncle. He showed everyone in the yard a video clip on his phone of his uncle biting off a guy's ear.”

Good God.
Kate winced. It was all coming out now. The
scale
of the intimidation. The pedigree of their classmates. Kate looked at Mannix, shaking her head. Her stomach churned. Mannix was listening intently.

They'd had no idea. Choosing the school had been a joint decision. It had a good social mix. There were middle-class kids and kids from disadvantaged areas. And as Mannix often argued, in life, the children would meet all sorts. They needed not to be judgmental and to negotiate the social divide. But at no point had either Mannix or Kate realized the rawness of that divide.

“I had the hammer in my Girl Guides bag along with the pillowcase that Dad got for me. You dropped me off at Guides that night, Dad, remember?” Izzy looked at her father.

“Not really, but carry on . . .” Mannix stared at his daughter with a blend of shock tinged with respect.

“Well, you did.
I
remember.”

Izzy was adamant.

“And the Flynns' house is around the corner from the community center. So when Dad dropped me off, I waited until he'd driven away and then I went around the corner to the Flynns'.” Izzy paused to draw breath. “I knew the house. Everyone knows the house. There's a shopping trolley in the front and there's a car with no tires on it set up on bricks. There's a big bush at the front door that nearly covers the door completely. It's all overgrown and everything.”

Mannix nodded as if he too knew where the house was. Kate had never seen it.

“It was dark,” Izzy continued, “but I could see that Frankie was inside the sitting room watching TV. He was eating crisps and
drinking from a can. I rang the bell and waited. I waited behind the bushes in the dark. But I don't think he heard me. The TV was really loud, so I rang the doorbell again. He came to the door this time and I ran back behind the bushes. There was something not right with him—the way he was walking. I think he really had been drinking cider. Frankie started shouting ‘Who's there?' but I stayed where I was behind the bushes. Then Frankie turned around to go back in. That's when I got him . . .”

“You got him?” Kate repeated, her throat getting tight. She was finding it hard to listen to this.

“Yes,” said Izzy.

“I threw the pillowcase over Frankie's head so he couldn't see and then I hit him with the hammer. I hit him hard. He fell. I kept hitting him on the arm. I wanted him to pay for everything he did to Fergus. Frankie was roaring his head off. Roaring and screaming, going crazy. You should have heard him cursing lying there on the ground. He ripped the pillowcase off and threw it out on the footpath. I hid behind the bush again but when he pulled the pillowcase off, I ran. I picked up the pillowcase and I ran as quick as I could, back to the community center.

“Oh my God, Izzy. Oh my God.” Kate went numb.
What had her child done? What had she let her child in for?

“I know you're saying ‘Oh my God,' Mum. Like you're really disappointed and stuff. But I'm not sorry. That's God's honest truth. I'm not one bit sorry for what I did. If I had to, I'd do it all over again.”

Kate stared at Izzy, seeing her anew. She felt a sudden spasm of panic.

“Do you realize what you've done, Izzy? What the Flynns would do to us all if they ever found out?”
Her own voice was shrill in her ears.

“That's not helping, Kate,” Mannix said calmly. “Izzy has told us what happened. Like we asked her to. Now we have to deal with it.”

How could Mannix be so calm?

Izzy looked her straight in the eye. “Well, Mum, the Flynns haven't found out anything so far and they're not going to either. Frankie has
no idea who did it. Like I said, he was drunk.” Izzy looked from Mannix to Kate. “Can I go back to bed now?”

It was as if she'd told them nothing more unusual than an account of a book she'd just finished or a movie she'd watched.

“Yes, Izzy, off you go.” Mannix was equally casual. Ridiculously unperturbed. Was Kate the only one who was totally petrified and bewildered by all of this?

“Is that all you're going to say to her?”
Kate exploded.

“Take it easy, Kate. Let the child go. You and I need to talk.”

Reluctantly, Kate signaled that Izzy should follow her father's advice. Kate was shaking. Her confidence as an able parent shattered. Her view of Izzy forever altered.

“Oh my God, Mannix, what are we going to do about this? I feel so guilty. So very, very guilty . . .” Kate stared at Mannix, expecting him to follow suit. But he was lost in thought. Mulling it all over. For a while, they both sat in silence, gathering their thoughts, absorbing a side to their daughter they never knew she had.

Kate thought back over the last few months. She had spent so much time concentrating on Fergus, she'd never noticed the effects on Izzy. All this time, Izzy had been brooding, harboring a vengeful hate for Frankie Flynn, and a sneering disdain for Mannix and Kate.

It was frightening. Kate tried to think back to her own childhood. Would she have been capable of such a thing? In spite of her youth, Izzy had managed to concoct a plot that had inflicted serious injury. Izzy had coolly analyzed the situation, and with a focused determination had carried out her plan.

But none of this was Izzy's fault. Kate was the one who'd let her down. She'd let the situation slide and fester. In her role as Izzy's protector, Kate had surely failed. She'd exposed her children to danger, putting them in harm's way. And by her own desperate actions, Izzy had brought her childhood to an abrupt and bloody end.

“We don't have to talk about it all again, do we?” Izzy said, arriving into their bedroom that morning. Despite her insistence on going back to bed the night before, she looked like she hadn't slept a wink.

“What's that, Izzy?” Mannix had said, propping himself up on his pillow.

“You know, the stuff we spoke about last night? I don't want it to ruin the holiday. Fergus's holiday. We were having a really nice time. I'd just like to go back to having a nice time.”

“Okay, Izzy,” Mannix said. “If that's what you want. We won't talk about it for the rest of the holiday. I don't want to spoil a nice time either. But when we get home, we'll have to talk about it again. It's not over.”

Izzy seemed relieved with this.

“Okay, Dad.” Her mouth turned up at the sides, but the smile stopped short of her eyes. “Until we're home.” She turned on her heel and left the room.

Kate looked at Mannix and held her tongue. Typical Mannix. Why do today what you could put off until tomorrow? Kate knew she couldn't let this slide. Somehow Izzy would have to realize the gravity of what she'd done. She couldn't behave like that and get away with it. It would be far too dangerous to let her think she could behave with such impunity. And, as always in these matters, it would be up to Kate to nudge their child back on track. Other things would stuff their way into Mannix's headspace, and what seemed urgent today would fade into inconsequence. Kate sighed. It was true, they had been having such a wonderful time. Maybe Mannix's advice was the best they could do for now. She'd deal with Izzy once they got back home.

 • • • 

They were sitting in a coffee shop in Greenwich Village. “This is a very different Halloween,” said Fergus, entirely unaware of just how right he was. They were finished with the cruise and tired of trawling around the secondhand shops in search of some great vinyl find for Mannix. They'd abandoned him and his “old-folks' music” to the shadows and mustiness of the one-roomed shops down the street.

The coffee shop was busy and they'd decided to have a sandwich before the parade kicked off in about an hour. Even though Fergus's sandwich was minus the crusts, as requested, Izzy threw her eyes to
heaven as he still insisted on slicing off the edges and making a neat tower at the side of his plate.

As Kate sat sipping her coffee, a familiar face peered in at them through the fogged-up window. It was Mannix—brandishing a square-shaped plastic bag and a wide smile. At least the quest for that elusive album was over.

“Mission accomplished,” he said, beaming. Kate was always amazed at his powers of recuperation. At his ability to pigeonhole the distressing things in life.

By the time they entered the street again a Mardi Gras atmosphere was building. Street artists with ghetto blasters were putting on performances. They passed at least three Michael Jackson look-alikes doing versions of “Thriller.” As they made their way to Broadway, police were ushering the crowds back from the roadside with the gravitas of bomb disposal experts.

Mannix found them a spot next to a basketball park where he reckoned they'd have a view. Their corner was thronged with Chinese tourists taking photographs of themselves taking photographs. The noise and excitement was growing and people kept looking to the left, wondering when the parade would start.

“Here they come!” screeched a bystander from the other side of the road. This time, the urgency in the voice had the ring of truth. Fergus was hopping up and down, trying to see over the heads in front. Minutes later, carnival sounds were followed by a giant paper dragon that weaved and shimmied, manned by a line of puppeteers pumping poles like pistons in an engine.

“Is the whole of the New York Police Department on duty down here?” Mannix asked.

There seemed to be as many police officers manning the barricades as there were street performers.

“Oh, wow . . .” gasped Fergus as a sea of floating eyeballs lit the sky.

“Now, that's impressive,” Mannix remarked.

The eyeballs were fashioned from white helium balloons
festooned with ribbon nerve endings. The naked eyes without their sockets were macabre against the dark night sky. An excited woman in front shifted and stood on Kate's foot. “It's getting a little crowded, don't you think?” Kate was starting to feel uneasy. The crowds had become more dense and packed more tightly. “I think we should make a move,” she shouted at Mannix above the din of the music. But Mannix hadn't heard. He was busy pointing out the display of skeletons coming up the road. The skeletons danced and leaped far above the crowd, jaws dropping and closing, limbs flailing, skulls lolling.