excerpt
– It was dark and I didn’t have my glasses on, she said. But I could
see he was about the same height as the boy. He ran like hell when
Cookie started barking. She’s got quite the temper, you know. Why,
I remember —.
People were also finding that their milk bottles— delivered early
in the a.m. in those days and left on the front stairs—were drained,
yet the exact change was rattling around inside the empties left for
the delivery man. And then a young lady called to say that while
walking home from the bus stop one night she noticed a pair of eyes
following her from a row of hedges.
– His eyes, she said, were as green as the grass.
Buoyed by the news, the All-Stars redoubled their efforts. They
sought clues in horoscope columns and tea leaves. Some scrutinized
religious literature, others read Tarot cards. Strangers were eyed
with renewed suspicion.
Though Sgt. McManus had set up a mobile command centre at
the back of the Shop Eazy parking lot, team members walked the
railway tracks, as Fender often did, tramping through vacant homes
and boarded-up buildings. They peered into those damp, sunless
spaces where the underaged smoked and cats coupled. They looked
under stairways where old dogs retreated to die.
Then something happened . . . The most popular program on TV at
the time was The Fugitive, which was loosely based on a real case.
Airing Tuesday evenings, it was about an American doctor — Dr.
Richard Kimble—accused of murdering his wife. Each episode was
about the people helping him elude a Lt. Philip Gerard, who had
become obsessed with his capture, and the doctor’s hunt for the
one-armed man he believed responsible for the slaying.
For the 60 minutes The Fugitive was on TV, the search for Fender
ceased. Even Mrs. Rhodes stopped bawling and pulled up a chair. It
was impossible to pinpoint exactly which episode encouraged the
metamorphosis, but as the TV season progressed, as Fender’s flight
from the Department of Social Services became more widely known,
our young neighbour shed his identity as the local nut. Somehow, in
people’s minds, Fender became like Dr. Richard Kimble: an innocent
on the run.
On the walk to school, discussing the search on park benches, …
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