Lament for Bonnie

by Anne Emery

  “He wouldn’t do it.”

  “He has been drinking himself into a stupor for years, ever since his divorce.”

  “Not to mention the loss of several of his friends in the explosion of ’79.”

  “Right. Who wouldn’t drink? And we don’t know what he might do after a night of boozing and brooding over the loss of his family and rejection by his famous and successful wife.”

  “Can’t see it.”

  “Then, two, we have the stepfather. I don’t have to tell you, Dougald, about all the stepfather cases, anh? Should be a law that they install a panic button in the daughter’s room as soon as the mother gets married again or has the boyfriend move in.”

  “Jesus, Pierre!”

  “So we have Andy, who left the party early and then went shopping —”

  “He took a quick trip to the convenience store at the Irving station, to pick up a few things.”

  “— and who is just as good a match for the CCTV image as Collie. And we have to face the fact that one of them turned into a monster, or revealed himself as a monster, with the twelve-year-old daughter or stepdaughter.”

  This isn’t what I signed up for when I got my transfer to Cape Breton. I used to work organized crime in Montreal. The RCMP worked hand in hand with the Montreal police, the Sûreté du Québec, and the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency in the USA. Even Interpol at times. I dealt with the heroin traffic between France and America via Montreal: the French Connection. I dealt with the French Canadian and Irish Canadian mobs. I dealt with the Mafia, the Italian mob families in Montreal with their ties to the famous mob families in New York. I knew some bad, bad actors, guys who would slit your throat for a failure to show respect. Mostly respect in the form of a percentage of the take, from whatever you happened to steal or extort. I saw guys who were shot or beaten to within an inch of their lives in punishment for some real or imagined offence. After nearly fifteen years of that, I was burnt out. I was starting to get the shakes, starting to get nightmares, starting to spend way too much time in the bars with other cops.

  I wanted to get my wife, Solange, and our kids away from all that, and I wanted to give them a dad who could relax at home, have a few laughs, take them away to the lakes or the seaside for the holidays without being interrupted by late-night calls from work. I managed to get a couple of weeks off in the early fall one year. We drove down to Moncton and visited all my family there. And we decided, since we had the time, to add an extra little road trip to our vacation. Somewhere we had never been before. I had heard people rave about the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton. So, on a whim — and it was rare as hell that I ever got to act on a whim — we decided to pack up the car and drive to Cape Breton. We spent our first night in Baddeck. Stayed in a hotel overlooking the Bras D’Or Lakes. Deep blue water, white sails gliding by. It was heaven. We got wind of the fact that there was a ceilidh that night in a church hall, and we decided to go. The kids were in their teens by then, and they weren’t all that keen.

  “What kind of music is it going to be?”

  “There are other kinds of music besides Guns N’ Roses. This will be fiddles and . . .”

  “Câline!” That was my son, Jean-Louis.

  His mother told him to watch his language, and we were all going to the ceilidh, point.

  They loved it! We all did. Oh, yeah, they slunk along the walls of the hall at first, but the music got to them. Their heads were bobbing, feet were tapping; they got into it. You couldn’t help it. Jean-Louis fell in love with a beautiful girl who was playing the mandolin. My daughter, Ghislaine, had her eye on a young guy playing the fiddle. He would have been around sixteen, and he was accompanied by a woman in her fifties pounding away at the piano. A little boy and girl got up to step dance and were joined by an old fellow who must have been seventy and two young women. And that, right there, was the best thing about the whole night: people of all ages mixing with each other. There wasn’t a separate contingent of bored youth off by themselves, giving the cold eye to the older folks or the little children. Nobody was too good to mix with anybody else. And my kids saw that; they understood it. They were shy at first, then they got into the party spirit. They took the opportunity to practise their English and chat with the locals. When the organizers finally shut things down at the end of the night, my kids made us promise we would come to Baddeck again.

  The icing on the gâteau was when we drove around the Cabot Trail with its spectacular coastline and stunning ocean views and stopped at something called the Lone Shieling. That was a little house with rough stone walls and a thatched roof; the information at the park said it was like the places used by shepherds in Scotland. They tell me here that the Cape Breton Highlands are very much like the Scottish Highlands. Imagine what it was like for all those Scots when they got off the boat here and found the exact same kind of place they had left. Anyway, we really liked that place, the park and the little house, but best of all was what happened there. A bus pulled up, and a bunch of young guys and girls got out. They were students at Saint F.X. University in Antigonish. That’s Saint Francis Xavier. But you knew that, right? Did you ever see the initials F.X. stand for anything else? Anyway, these students were on a trip with a couple of their professors, a man and a woman, in the Celtic Studies program. The man was a young priest; you could see his collar over the neckline of the Saint F.X. hooded sweatshirt. He pointed to a couple of very broad tree stumps. It was obvious that two huge trees had recently been cut down, and he said something to the others about that. Or so I assumed; I couldn’t understand a word he said. Gaelic, as I realized later. Anyway, next thing we knew, the priest and one of the young fellows each hopped up on a tree stump and started step dancing! One of the girls pulled a tin whistle out of her pocket and gave them some music, and the two fellows danced away, and everybody clapped in rhythm, and they were all having the time of their lives. Right out of the blue. That did it for me. I put in for a transfer the next week when I got back to Montreal.

  I got posted to Cape Breton a year later. Oh, I knew there would be crime. It’s everywhere. But I was expecting minor crime, and that’s what they mostly have on this island. The occasional murder, yes, but it’s rare. And the usual violent assaults that happen all over. Drug crime more and more now, drinking and driving, property crime. They keep us busy. We don’t sit around in people’s kitchens listening to the pipes and fiddles all day and night. But this? There I was in 1994 trying to follow the animal tracks of some savage beast who had snatched a child. Or some decent-seeming, fun-loving citizen who was able to mask the beast he really was. Not what I signed up for. But I should not have been surprised. I wouldn’t dare bring this up with any of the other members of the force here. They’d look at me and say, “What did you expect?” Evil knows no boundaries.

  Chapter III

  Monty

  The last thing I would choose to do in the heat of summer is put on a suit and tie, but I always bring one; I must always think I’m going to end up in court somewhere. As it turned out there was a wedding to attend, and I was able to make myself presentable. Maura and I had not been on the invitation list originally, and that was not a slight against us; it was just that she had not seen her old law school classmate, Pierluigi di Matteo, for years until this visit home to Cape Breton. Pierluigi had been widowed a few years back, and he was now about to marry a fellow member of the Cape Breton bar, Fiona Carmichael. He specialized in civil litigation, and she practised corporate law. There were the inevitable jokes about a merger and an acquisition. Multiple acquisitions in fact; the bride had two children, the groom four.

  We had bumped into Pierluigi and Fiona in Sydney, and they immediately invited us to the wedding. We had another friend with us when we saw them, and they extended the invitation to him as well. That’s just the way things work here in Nova Scotia. The friend was Father Brennan Burke, who had virtually become part of the family since he arrived in Halifax a
few years back. And he had been with us in Cape Breton before. This summer there was a series of retreats for priests in various parts of the province, and it didn’t take much persuading before he chose the one in Cape Breton. That way he could combine prayer and reflection with a bit of partying with the rest of us. Nobody said he had to retreat entirely from the outside world.

  Anyway, on the evening of Monday, August 1, we were all decked out in our wedding finery, me in my suit, Brennan in a dark blue sports jacket and borrowed tie, and Maura in a silvery blue dress that set off her grey eyes to great advantage. She had her silver-streaked brown hair in an updo and looked quite fetching. I caught an appreciative glance directed her way by Brennan, but he stopped short of a wolf whistle.

  Saint Anne’s was a modern red brick church with a pyramid-shaped roof and steeple. It had been built a few years ago after the earlier church burned down. The wedding Mass was brief and dignified, with the couple’s six children playing various roles in the ceremony. The boys wore little navy suits and ties, the girls bright yellow dresses. One of Maura’s cousins was the soloist. She did a lovely job of the Bach/Gounod “Ave Maria,” the Scottish love song “Fhir a’ Bhàta,” and “Recondita Armonia” from the Puccini opera Tosca. The singing was good enough to prompt a compliment from Brennan, who knows what is what when it comes to music.

  “Of course she’s good,” said Maura. “She studied with Sister Saint Mary of the Angels from North Sydney. Sister even tried to help me to sing, God love her. She’ll never get that time back again!”

  “Her good works and patience will land her in a place where time is immeasurable,” Brennan assured her.

  The reception was held in the parish hall. Silverware and crystal glasses sparkled on the white table cloths, and on each table stood a vase of purple heather. We were seated at a table with a judge I knew from my time at Nova Scotia Legal Aid; she had been a Legal Aid lawyer before her appointment to the bench. Another barrister at the table, a well-known defence lawyer from Halifax, had recently won an acquittal for a man accused of a triple murder. The Crown appealed and a new trial was ordered. The defence appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, and the acquittal was restored. So we all offered our congratulations. This was not to celebrate a killer getting off, mind you, but to give credit for a job well done. As lawyers we were aware of the legal issues that accounted for the various rulings. The layman had a more earthy view of the matter, that being simply that the victims “needed killing.” There was something in that. The accused man had been tormented and abused by three nasty neighbours for years. Finally, he snapped. Everybody in the community knew the situation, and jurors are drawn from the community.

  Also at the table was Doctor Grace MacLean, a heart surgeon who grew up in nearby Reserve Mines, studied medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, then did her residency in cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, lived in that city for several years, and then came back home to practise her specialty. “There were so many broken hearts here in Cape Breton when she left,” said her husband, Jerry Goldberg, “that she had to come back to mend them.”

  “You do your bit to mend the broken, too, now, Jerry,” she said.

  “Somehow, fixing a cracked pelvic bone doesn’t have the same cachet as giving someone a second chance at life with a triple bypass operation!”

  “Oh, I’d want that pelvis work done,” I said, “and I’d be grateful.”

  “True,” said Grace, “but his other line of work brings pure joy along with it. Jerry has started a business importing chocolate from Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy.”

  “Where’s your shop, Jerry, and what time do you open?” Maura asked.

  “Charlotte Street in Sydney. Usually open at nine, but there’s an emergency buzzer.”

  “I can appreciate that. See you there.”

  “Jerry also makes his own wine.”

  “Not as good as the chocolate,” he acknowledged.

  “Still. Medicinal in its own way.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment. They’ve got better hooch than mine on the table here this evening. A fine elixir.” He pointed to the bottles of Italian Pinot Grigio and Chianti on the table.

  “Will this do the job for you, Father?” Maura asked Brennan Burke with phoney solicitousness. “Or should we order stronger medicine for you? He’s been known —” she turned to the doctors to give her report “— to make the claim that self-administering a shot of Jameson whiskey with his pint of Guinness keeps his blood thin and his heart in prime condition. A folk remedy from his homeland in Ireland, I believe. Is there anything to that, Doctors? Or should we be concerned?”

  Grace peered at Brennan and said, “He appears to be a healthy male in his late forties, maybe early fifties, with no obvious signs of disease. So perhaps what he has been ingesting has had no negative effect on his clinical presentation.”

  When everyone had scoffed down the lobster, salmon, scallops, salad, and roast potatoes and depleted the supply of wine, a dance band began setting up. The musicians were in suits and ties and had all the instruments for music from the big band era of decades before, though they were only in their twenties. Brennan and I got up and joined the line at the bar. We returned to the table with glasses of Irish whiskey, Scotch whisky, and beer.

  We all made small talk and enjoyed our drinks until we heard “Bay b’ys on the floor!” from a self-appointed MC. The band opened with a beautiful waltz they said they’d heard from Rawlins Cross, called “The Wedding Gift.” The Bay boys and girls waited for the bride and groom to start things off, then they all took to the floor and started the dance.

  “Good evening, Doctor MacLean. Doctor Goldberg.” We all turned to see a guy in his mid-twenties, handsome with blond hair and light brown, almost amber-coloured, eyes, togged out in an expensive-looking suit and silk tie. He was with Nancy Campbell, daughter of Andy Campbell from his first marriage. Nancy greeted us and introduced us to her boyfriend, whose name was Lee Kaulbeck.

  Doctors MacLean and Goldberg greeted the young couple, and then got up to join the first set of dancers on the floor. Nancy and Lee sat in their seats.

  “Can I get something for you, honey?” Lee asked Nancy.

  “Not right now, but you go ahead.”

  “Nah, I don’t need anything. It’s enough to drink in the beauty of your face.” He leaned over and planted a quick kiss on her lips.

  “Hope it will always be this way,” Nancy said to us with a smile. “Hope when I get old and wrinkly he won’t turn away from me and make a beeline for the liquor cabinet.”

  “Won’t happen, my love,” he avowed, kissing her again.

  “Sweet couple, aren’t they?” Nancy said to Maura, with a nod to the bride and groom on the dance floor. Fiona had accessorized her cream-coloured wedding suit by pulling a pair of blue and green Carmichael tartan trews — snug pants that fit like tights — on under it. Not to be outdone, Pierluigi had donned a wide-crowned black hat of the sort seen in Renaissance Italian portraits. Nancy said, admiring them, “It’s never too late to find happiness.”

  “Maybe there’s still hope for me!” my loyal wife exclaimed. Barbs directed my way were, let us say, a family tradition.

  “Amazing woman,” Lee Kaulbeck said, referring to Grace MacLean. “One of the top surgeons in all of Canada.”

  The rest of us nodded in acknowledgement.

  “You’re a nurse at the hospital, I understand, Nancy. Do you work with Doctor MacLean?” I asked her.

  “Sometimes.”

  “I probably work with Grace more than Nancy does,” said Lee. “We get a lot of cardiac emergencies with the ambulance, and paramedics have to be highly trained in relation to MIs and CVAs.”

  “What are those?” Brennan asked.

  “Oh, right. Myocardial infarctions and cerebrovascular accidents. Heart attacks and strokes in l
ayman’s language. Lots of times Grace — Doctor MacLean — has relied on me to give her vital information about the patient at the scene before admission to hospital. And of course Jeff Goldberg is a well-respected orthopod.”

  Nancy patted him on the arm and said to us, “Lee is very devoted to his work.”

  He looked a little miffed. “You know you’re in union territory when they tell you you work too hard.”

  “Whoa!” exclaimed Maura, daughter of a rabble-rousing member of the United Mine Workers of America.

  “But maybe you’re right, Nance. I’ll slack off, let the bank take my car back, and I’ll come to pick you up in a banged-up old heap with the muffler hanging off it!”

  “Him and his cars,” Nancy said, with affection. “I never know what new model he’s going to be in when he picks me up. And he’s always dressed better than me, too! I tell him he should be modelling the latest men’s fashions for GQ. But of course it’s wonderful that you work so hard, Lee.” She turned to us and said, “He plans on going to medical school someday.”

  “Not just ‘someday.’ Sooner rather than later. I have some academic credits to catch up on. Didn’t finish my undergrad because I didn’t have the patience for a lot of the bullshit that goes on in the ivory tower world. Who gives these guys PhD degrees in all these airy-fairy subjects? I prefer to live in the real world, and I get lots and lots of exposure to the real world driving the ambulance and seeing the blood and guts of human life. Excuse my language.”

  “Where are you from, Lee?” Maura asked.

  “Halifax.”

  “What brings you to Cape Breton?”

  He turned to Nancy and took her hand. “An old girlfriend came to Sydney to the university. I followed her here, but it didn’t work out. Between me and her. Worked out great in the end, though, because I met Nancy. Meant to be.” He lifted her hand and kissed it.