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Chapter 14. Beth: The Colours
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Catching Teller Crow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Grief
Abuse of Power, Racism, and the Law
Storytelling and Truth
Time
Female Friendship
Summary
Analysis
All night, Beth thinks about how she has to help Michael accept her death or stay stuck in the wrong world. In the morning, Michael takes down the notes from the wall—but hesitates every time he starts to take down the “Sarah Blue” note. When Beth asks him whether he’s discovered a connection between Sarah and the current case, he says no—it’s just that Gerry Bell completely failed to do what a detective should have done in Sarah’s case, and no one held him to account because Sarah was Aboriginal.
This passage makes explicit what readers may already have suspected: racism toward Aboriginal people allowed Gerry Bell’s shoddy investigation into Sarah’s disappearance to go unchallenged. Michael’s hesitation over the note with Sarah’s name on it suggests that this racist failure of law enforcement bothers him deeply.
Themes
Beth knows that Michael hates “all injustice,” particularly racism against Aboriginal people, and wants to be very different from anyone who stands by and lets bad things happen. Beth abruptly asks whether he's aware that he couldn’t have saved her life. In response, he says quietly that she was his responsibility. When Beth suggests he might be avoiding the birthday party because he believes the family blames him, he says no—it’s because he loves Beth’s cousins, and he failed his own daughter, and so he isn’t worthy of having a relationship with her living cousins. He cuts himself off, but Beth finishes his thought: he isn’t worthy of having a relationship with the cousins when Beth will “never grow up.”
Readers may have wondered why Michael is so devastated by Beth’s death when he can still see and talk to her constantly. Here, it’s revealed that he is grieving not the end of Beth’s existence—she still exists—but the loss of the future he thought she would have. Because of her death, she’ll “never grow up” in a normal way. Moreover, irrational self-blame is fueling Michael’s grief: he doesn’t want to be a bystander to injustice, and Beth’s death seems cosmically unjust, so he believes he should have done something about it.
Themes
Beth haltingly explains to Michael that he’s being “unfair” to everyone, including himself and her: it hurts Beth to know that he’s hurting people because of her. Very softly, Michael promises to “try.” Beth isn’t sure what he’ll try to do, but she understands that he’s going to amend his behavior.
Because Michael hates injustice, Beth tries to change his behavior by pointing out he’s being unfair: to himself in his irrational self-blame and to her by making her the cause of his hurtful behavior. This tactic works: Michael promises to “try,” which implies that he’ll try to reconnect with his in-laws and stop blaming himself for Beth’s death.
Themes
Michael has to go talk to the local police. In the car, Beth chatters about the case to distract him from the emotional conversation they just had. When they arrive at the station, they’re told that Derek and Allie are talking to townspeople who live on the street where Cavanagh and Flint were found. Then Allie returns. When Michael asks after Derek, Allie says that she thought he might be at the station: the previous night, he called her to say he was sick and asked her to talk to the townspeople without him. He hasn’t been answering her calls today, either.
Beth decides to drop the fraught, grief-haunted topic that she and Michael were just discussing to allow him to work. This decision implies that personal growth and healing don’t progress linearly; they start and stop according to what the people involved can bear. Meanwhile, Derek’s suspicious no-show suggests once again that he is a corrupt cop.
Themes
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Beth suggests to Michael that Derek, terrified, might have left town. Michael tells Allie that they should go check on him. At Derek’s house, Michael rings the front doorbell, but no one answers. Through a window, Allie catches sight of Derek on the floor. Michael slams into the front door until it opens. When Beth follows Michael and Allie inside, she sees Derek dead with blood on his chest. Michael tells Allie that she shouldn’t work on this case, because it will be difficult for Derek’s acquaintances. Allie asks whether Derek was entangled in something, and Michael says that “something was going on.”
When Michael and Allie find Derek dead, Allie immediately guesses that he might have been involved with something suspect—which suggests either that Allie had some suspicions about Derek before or that she believes corruption is a common enough problem among law enforcement officials. When she asks, Michael tells her that “something was going on,” which shows that he trusts her and doesn’t believe she helped Derek do anything corrupt.
Themes
Allie leaves. Michael realizes that Beth followed them inside and tells her to go. She does, gratefully. She’s horrified that Derek’s dead, likely stabbed to death by the person who killed the others. Then, suddenly terrified that the killer is still inside with her father, Beth runs back shouting for him. He reassures her that no one else is there; Derek likely died the night before. Michael and Beth walk outside, and Michael notes that the house wasn’t forcibly opened until Michael burst through the door. He says, “The only way in was—” and cuts himself off. When Beth asks him what he’s thinking, he says he’s not sure yet. He talks to Rachel on the phone and then says that he and Beth need to go visit someone.
Beth’s frantic worry for Michael illustrates how much she cares about him despite the tension and resentment his obsessive grief has introduced into their relationship. Michael’s abortive narrative about how the murderer must have entered the house, “The only way in was—”, suggests that he is trying to invent a plausible story about Derek’s murder but isn’t yet confident enough in it to tell Beth.
Themes
