Lament for Bonnie

by Anne Emery

  “That’s great!” I said.

  “You should start producing those for sale, Collie,” said Dougald.

  “Do you think?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Now, for Heather, I did owls. She loves owls. See along here. Owls on a branch with their big staring eyes, and then with their wings spread and their talons out. I asked her if that would scare her at night. She’s only little, eh? She’s nine. But she loves it. So does Jockie. Half the nights they’re here, he crawls into this bed with Heather. So I’ll have to do something in his room, too. The girls want me to . . .” I could see tears spring into his eyes. He turned away and made a show of looking at something out the window.

  I gave him a moment and then asked him, “What do they want, Collie?”

  “They want me to paint murals on the inside of their canopies. Painted ceilings kind of thing.”

  “Like Michelangelo.”

  “Let’s not set the bar too high here. But I started on a design before . . .”

  “Can we see it?”

  “Sure. They’re in the living room, the sketches.”

  “Okay, we’ll see them on our way out.”

  I looked around the girls’ bedroom. There were two white painted bureaus, and the drawers were open on both of them. A pair of jeans with a plaid flannel lining hung out of the bottom drawer of one of them.

  There was no sign of damage, no vandalism.

  “Before you ask, I don’t know if anything’s missing from the drawers. I don’t root through my daughters’ things. Girl stuff. Who knows? Things were pulled out of place in the closet, too. It doesn’t look any emptier than it did before, but I can’t say for sure nothing’s been removed.” The closet held jackets and shoes, other clothing, colouring books, crayons, teddy bears, and other toys. “Most of their belongings are over at her place. Sharon’s. My room, there’s nothing gone, but he threw stuff around in there, too.” He led us into his room, which had an unmade double bed, a bureau, an overflowing laundry basket, and clothes lying across the bed and on the floor. “The guy tore the blanket and the top sheet off. Maybe some pervert. Who the fuck knows these days? He went through all my dresser drawers, my desk, and closet, but didn’t take anything that I can see.”

  “And you have no idea who might have done this?”

  “If I had an idea, I’d have had the guy tied up and wrapped in a nice red bow all ready for you guys to take away.”

  “Anybody been giving you a rough time lately?”

  “You mean besides kidnapping my daughter and leaving no clue about where she is?”

  “Anybody being nasty to you about that? About Bonnie’s disappearance?”

  Collie seemed suddenly unable to speak. He just shook his head no and looked away.

  “All right, Collie, we’ll look into it,” I assured him. “Let us know if you think of anything else. Or if anything else happens. Can we see the ceilings for the beds?”

  We followed him into the living room. There was a desk at one end of the room, and he pulled out the large centre drawer. He had big blue pages covered with fluffy clouds and snowy owls on one. The second had little fat angels playing fiddles and harmonicas, bagpipes, and a pair of spoons.

  “I’m going to do Jockie’s ceiling, too. Stars and rockets and stuff like that.”

  Dougald looked at the sketches and then at Collie MacDonald. “You spend your days doing heavy labour for whoever has work available, and you could be doing this?”

  “I don’t think I could make a living doing this, Dougald.”

  “Never know till you try. Do it as a side line in your spare time. Ahem.”

  “My drinking time, you mean.”

  “If the shoe fits. But, really, you could do a few pieces and put them in some of the shops. Bet you they’d sell. Something to think about.”

  “Mmm.”

  We stood at the door. “Take care of yourself, for Christ’s sake,” Dougald said. “Jesus, Collie, don’t let the booze undo you, especially with everything else that’s happened. You need your wits about you. You need your strength.”

  He nodded and held the door for us as we walked out. We did a house to house but didn’t learn anything useful. Collie’s place is the last one on the street, so it certainly was possible that somebody could break in without being seen. Everyone we talked to expressed support for Collie, although a couple of the people joked that we should ticket him for his unsightly premises.

  When we got into our car, Dougald said, “I’d like to think that a man who would put that much loving care into a project for his daughters would not hurt them.”

  “I’d like to think that, too. I’d also like to think the angels are up in heaven playing ‘Les Jolies Filles d’Acadie’ on the fiddle.”

  “You think they’re not?”

  “It’s all Scottish jigs and reels up there now.”

  “Let’s hope they haven’t been recently joined by a little step-dancing angel from Kinlochiel, Cape Breton.”

  Monty

  It was blues night again at Iggie’s. We had a good crowd and we wailed through some of our party pieces, from “Born for Bad Luck” to “Hoochie Coochie Man,” and then we took a break. I stayed in the stage area, which wasn’t really a stage, just an area cleared of tables, where we set up our gear and played. I had noticed our fan from Halifax, Sabrina, in the crowd, but I pretended I hadn’t seen her. I didn’t want to go out among the tables and have to make conversation with her, which was unfortunate, because I wanted to make conversation with other people in the tavern. Anyway, I stayed back and enjoyed my beer. I saw Charlie Trenholm making his way back to the stage, exchanging a few words and laughs with people in the crowd. He stopped at an empty table to pick up some papers. It was where Sabrina had been sitting. She must have gone for a pit stop. Charlie flipped through the pages, raised his eyebrows, and muttered “Fuck!” and then made a bee-line for me. “She’s got it bad, bro.”

  “Back to work, Trenholm. We’ve got blues to wail here.”

  “We got the blues? Nothing compared to what she’s got. Listen to this. ‘Imagine a woman. We’ll call her Sara. Imagine a man. We’ll call him Maurice. They are apart. Two solitudes. And yet, and yet . . . she never feels alone. Because she hears his words. The lyrics to his songs, words so simple and yet so ripe with meaning. She hears him across the impossible divide. Across society’s great taboos. Across the tables and beer-covered floor of a shabby bar. And so she meets his soul across the chasm of their destinies. I hear you, she cries silently. The musician has the soul of a poet. I know this to be true because I, a woman alone, speak to the world as a poet.’”

  Jesus. “Put it back, Trenholm, before she comes out. Those are her private papers.”

  “Private? She left them face up on a table in a jam-packed bar. And she wants to publish this stuff!” He flipped ahead a few pages. “Listen to this! ‘Who was it who said, “Far from the maddening crowd?”’ Who was it, Collins?”

  “Nobody. Thomas Hardy said ‘madding crowd.’”

  “Spoken from the soul of a poet.”

  “It was a novel.”

  He ignored that. “We all know who she’s pining for, don’t we, Collins? We all know who she’s gazing at when we sing ‘Chains and Things.’ Don’t even want to think what effect it has on her when you belt out ‘I Want to Make Love to You.’”

  “Fuck off.”

  “She knows, even better than we do, who the lyrics are meant for and what they really mean, you old blue-eyed heartbreaker.”

  “Pòg mo thòn, Trenholm.”

  But he had become an avid reader. “Here, now, she writes something about musicians being at the mercy of ‘ravenous beasts.’ She goes on about performers feeling threatened by the audience, strangers, jealous second-raters. Beasts! Christ, what kind of a mind would come up with that? This is under
the heading ‘The musician as vulnerable.’ Shouldn’t that be ‘is vulnerable’? I don’t feel vulnerable, do you, Collins? Then it’s ‘Who will put things right? Who will save the music-maker from the madness?’ Fuck. I don’t even want to think about how her mind works.”

  “Put it back before she comes out and sees you with it. Have a beer, and play some blues.”

  “All right, all right.” He replaced the papers on Sabrina’s table and got back to his drums. It was a few more minutes before she emerged from the back of the bar, cheeks freshly blushed, hair combed to perfection.

  We did our next set, which included “Chains and Things” because, well, because we like to do it. Same with “Can I Go Home With You.” But I skipped “I Want to Make Love to You.” As the evening went on, more and more people arrived, and there was standing room only. A guy and girl joined Sabrina at her table, and she dragged her chair around for a better view of the band. Brennan Burke came in, ordered a draft, and stood at the crowded bar. I announced that the next song, Memphis Slim’s “Lord Have Mercy on Me,” was for my good buddy Brennan, and he raised his glass to us in salute. After the song was over, and the applause had subsided, I saw Sabrina get up and go over to Brennan at the bar. She had her back to me, so all I could see was his face angled down towards her. Every once in a while, she would clutch his arm and laugh uproariously at whatever he was saying and look over at me on the stage. At other times, I saw him peering down at her as if he could not quite comprehend what she was saying. I didn’t want to think about what that might be.

  The evening was a success, the crowd appreciative. Brennan helped us pack up our gear, and we were in high spirits when we walked out into the street. Sabrina waylaid me just as I was about to join the others for the walk to the next bar on the evening’s agenda. “You outdid yourself tonight, Monty. There was just something about your voice . . . Maybe it’s the irony of, you know, what has happened . . .”

  I didn’t know what she meant, so I didn’t reply.

  “Little Bonnie being kidnapped, I mean. It must be so difficult for you. And, well, for your other family here. What’s your wife’s name? Mary?”

  “Maura.”

  “Right.” She gave me a sad smile and a squeeze of the arm. “You’re a good soldier, Monty.”

  Eh?

  “If you ever want to talk, I’m staying out at Dominion Beach. Bed and breakfast. Here’s the phone number.” She had it ready to go, on a piece of paper, and pressed it into my hand.

  “Well, I . . .”

  “I know, Monty, I understand. Bye for now.”

  And she was off. I turned to see Brennan Burke’s eyes on me. I couldn’t read his expression. But later, when we had glasses of draft in front of us in the Pithead Beverage Room, he filled me in on his evening. “You’re in the divil’s fix with that one trailing after you.”

  “Tell me about it. I can’t believe she’s here in Cape Breton.”

  “All I wanted to do was get pleasantly gilled and listen to the tunes. And I had that one at me all night. Your name was invoked quite frequently. I won’t tell you all the things she told me not to tell you.”

  “Good of you.”

  “No, I won’t tell you because it was obvious that she wanted me to pass along all these tidbits about how brilliant she was at this or that, how soulful, how in tune she is with something or other . . . I don’t know what she was on about. It was a load of bollocks from the alpha to the omega.”

  “Say no more.”

  He raised his glass, and we enjoyed a drink in peace and quiet.

  Pierre

  You didn’t have to be Hercule Poirot or his Anglo counterpart Sherlock Holmes — you didn’t even have to be Pierre Maguire working overtime and charging it to the Government of Canada — to find the guy who broke into Collie MacDonald’s house. All it took was a bit of chitchat around the detachment and, two days after we talked to Collie, Constable Maxim Belenko told us he and another member had stopped one of the local vauriens, who was stumbling along the street drunk like a skunk, and Maxim noticed he had cuts on his arms and legs. When they asked what happened to him, he told them he had been out cutting brush. They gave him a warning about underage drinking and drove him home. Jeff McCurdy was fifteen years old and had already joined the ranks of those who are “known to police.” A young offender on his way to being a career offender if he didn’t change his ways. The cuts were too deep to have come from a few thorns out in the fields. So now we had a known quantity walking around with his arms and legs all cut up. Dougald and I paid Jeff a visit at home in Kinlochiel.

  The kid was tall and skinny and would have been kind of good-looking if not for the “fuck you” expression he had on his face every time I laid eyes on him. His dark brown hair was too long, and one of his eyes had a black bruise around it; somebody had clocked him and left the mark.

  His mother was standing beside him at the entrance to the brown and beige pre-fab house on the outskirts of the village. She had the same colouring as her boy but had a twitchy look about her. Just when I thought she looked like the type that would jump at the slightest noise, she did. Looked as if somebody had jolted her with a two-hundred-twenty-volt bare wire. It was her husband coming up behind her and hollering, “What’s he done now?” Jeff’s old man was known to us, too. He was known as Bonsai McCurdy ever since he’d tried to start a business teaching martial arts years ago. He called it “Bonsai” because he’d got his words mixed up. He must have meant the war cry the Japanese used to yell that sounded something like bonsai but wasn’t. Or maybe he meant “Samurai.” When a guy at his local tavern tried to tell him the difference, Bonsai busted the guy’s nose. Apparently he didn’t believe the guy, because he was still known as Bonsai and there hadn’t been any more casualties, as far as we knew, as a result of the name. Seems he still thought he was right. The business was a bust, too. Nobody showed up. All the kids were shit scared of him. That was the story, anyway. Big and muscular but running to fat, Bonsai McCurdy had buzzed blond hair and a banged-up nose. He looked like a pro wrestler whose best days were long past him, but he still hadn’t given up the dream.

  Standing off to the side was an unhealthy-looking little blond girl of around ten or eleven wearing a dirty white two-piece bathing suit and a pair of high-heeled shoes several sizes too big. When she saw me and Dougald watching her, she gave us a smile that was more than a bit creepy, then she turned on the heels and looked back over her shoulder as if she wanted to make sure she still had our attention. Good thing my wife Solange wasn’t there to make a comment on how some people raise their children.

  Her father noticed her then and bellowed, “This isn’t about you! Get back in the house and stay there!”

  The smile froze on her face. She didn’t look at any of us again, just faded back towards the house, went inside, and closed the door.

  “Canada’s Finest on the job,” Bonsai McCurdy said to me and Dougald. “How much do they pay you bozos? Whatever it is, it’s too much. You don’t need the Royal Canadian Mounted to figure out this little shit is behind whatever happened whatever night it happened.”

  “Honey, for heaven’s sake!” his wife protested. “Jeffrey was here with me every night. So whatever it was, he didn’t do it! Your own son, and you tell the police —”

  “They don’t need me to tell them nothin’. What did he do this time?”

  I felt like telling him the kid had been a hero, had jumped in Lac Bras d’Or to save a toddler from drowning, or rescued Minou the kitten out of a tree. But there had not been any heroics and probably never would be at this address.

  Bonsai started up again. “What are you guys doing about the MacDonald one? Kid missing in a one-horse town like this, and you can’t find her? Can’t even find a clue about who done it?”

  I recited the party line. “We are doing everything we can to find Miss MacDonald, and we are following sever
al leads. Like everyone else, we are hoping this will soon be behind us, and she will be home safe with her family.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” McCurdy père said, “about her coming back safe and sound. Doesn’t happen.”

  “What makes you think that?” I asked him.

  “Ever read the news, Maguire? Ever look through the police files when you’re sitting around headquarters slamming back the coffee and stuffing your face with doughnuts? How many times do you hear of a kid missing and then she just turns up home and says everything’s okey-dokey fine. Pass the sugar.”

  “You sound pretty sure, Mr. McCurdy.”

  “Some psycho took her. End of story.”

  “You don’t sound as if you give a shit.”

  “Nothing I can do about it. It’s a horrible thing to happen. Happens all the time.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Pretty bad when it starts happening here.”

  Now this pair was the audience as we told Jeff McCurdy we wanted to take him to the detachment and question him about the break-in. He had the right to have a parent with him, and we told him that, but we held off on all the other formalities until we got him to Sydney. The mother came along, and I was glad it was her and not Jeff’s old man, though it didn’t take long before I’d had my fill of her mindless, nervous jabbering during the drive. She even broke into giggles at times; what’s with that? McCurdy didn’t say a word to us or to the babbling mother. It was a relief to get to the detachment and start the process. There is a big long form to comply with when giving a young suspect his rights, and we went through it line by line. You have the right to have a lawyer present. Do you understand that right? Yes, he understood and didn’t want counsel present. If ever it was me being questioned by our guys, I wouldn’t say bonjour or au revoir without having a lawyer in the room. It always comes as a surprise to me — a pleasant surprise for a cop — that so many people are willing to brazen it out without the assistance of a lawyer. They always think they can handle us all on their own. A young person also has the right to have a parent present. Did McCurdy understand that right? Yes. There’s lots of times when young guys don’t want Maman et Papa to hear what they’ve been up to. Which was the case here. “I don’t need anybody holding my hand.” At the end of all the rigmarole, we asked him if he wanted to make a statement and told him he was under no obligation to do so. He agreed to talk to us.