Where the Crawdads Sing

The investigation into the death of Chase continues. The sheriff learns from Jumpin’ and Tate (now Dr. Walker) that Kya has an alibi. She was in Greenville meeting her editor on the night Tate died. This alibi clashes with what the man from the shrimp boat told them, so the sheriff decides to verify the alibi.

They receive further confirmation, however, when the cashier at Kress’s, located across from the bus station, tells him how the whole town was shocked to see Kya take the 2:30 PM bus to Greenville on the day Chase was killed and that she didn’t come back until afternoon the next day. The sheriff doesn’t see this as verification of Kya’s alibi. He notes that she could have simply taken another bus back into town on the night Chase died, and then back out again. The sheriff decides that Kya’s trip was just an effort to establish an alibi, and gets a warrant for Kya’s arrest.

Jodie returns home in the winter of 1968. Kya is shocked when she sees that he has a terrible scar down the middle of his face. She has a sudden flashback, remembering that on Easter Sunday before Ma left for good, Pa hit Ma on her breast and Jodie on his face with a metal poker. He was angry about Kya’s Easter bonnet, accusing Ma of prostituting herself to get the money to pay for it, and attacked Jodie when he attempted to intervene. Ma hid outside of the cabin with Kya but returned later to sew up Jodie’s torn face with a needle and thread. Kya repressed this memory because it was so terrible, she realizes.

Jodie is a veteran of the Vietnam War, after which he went to college. He saw Kya’s book in a shop one day and decided to re-connect with her. He doesn’t know what happened to their brothers and sisters, but he does know that Ma died two years ago in New Orleans.

Their mother went to New Orleans to stay with her family of origin. She was broken in mind and body by Pa’s abuse and showed up at her sister’s house nearly in a catatonic state. It took months for her to begin to communicate again, but when she regained her speech, the first thing she did was to write Pa to ask if she could take the children to New Orleans. Pa wrote back that if she ever contacted them again, he would beat the children to death. After that, Ma lived a narrow, unhappy life because she feared ever reconnecting with her children. She died of leukemia.

Jodie brings back some of Ma’s paintings, including one of the five Clark children. Kya can’t remember her siblings, so Jodie must identify them for her. Another painting is of Tate and Kya; Tate saved Kya from drowning once and called out Pa for leaving her unattended. As tragic and violent as the family’s history is, Kya is struck by the beauty and peace Ma managed to impart in her pictures of the family.

Jodie pleads with Kya to be understanding of Ma’s pain and isolation, but Kya tells him that she has known great loneliness as well. Some animals engage in seemingly ruthless behaviors like abandoning offspring to increase their chances of surviving and reproducing. Maybe early humans did that as well, and Ma’s choice to leave, not come back, and never write is an echo of those same behaviors. Kya is not sure that she can forgive Ma, whom she labels a “failed mother” (238). Jodie and Kya end the evening “not remembering” (241) their painful lives side by side.

Kya eventually tells Jodie that Tate left her but has now come back. Jodie chides her a little when she argues that all men are dogs. Women can also be faithless, he reminds her. Love sometimes works out, but sometimes it does not. In the end, connection to others is what is important. His words make Kya think. When Jodie leaves, he gives Kya his address. She is sure he will come again.

The sheriff and the deputy serve the warrant to search Kya’s shack, but she is not there. They search her place and discover a hat that may match the red fibers from the crime scene. They are surprised because the hat was out in the open.

Kya publishes her second book. Tate has left her another gift on the stump in the clearing—his grandfather’s compass, along with a note signed with love. Kya sees him later in his boat, but she hides as usual. She still feels wary of him because of how he left her when he was in college.

When the lab report on the red cap comes back, the fibers match those from the crime scene. The sheriff feels like they have built a solid circumstantial case against Kya, but are having trouble establishing the motive that she was a “woman wronged” (250). However, they can never get their hands on Kya because she always slips away before they get to her shack. The deputy tells the sheriff he knows a lot about trapping. If it comes to it, they can hunt her with hounds. The sheriff feels like hunting a woman with hounds might be too much and should only be used a last resort.

On December 15, the sheriff is finally able to establish a motive. Rodney, a local who likes to fish, gives the sheriff the information he needs to arrest Kya with information not disclosed until later.

The sheriff arrests Kya one evening as she makes a run to Jumpin’s for supplies. She sees their speedy boats as “gray sharks” (254) that she for once cannot outrun.