by Anne Emery
“I know what you’re saying.”
Chapter VIII
Pierre
The tropical storm broke my leg, got Jeff McCurdy off the hook for criminal charges, and delayed Mrs. Irene Cook’s return home from Newfoundland. I was wishing I had requested permission to fly over to St. John’s to question her. But, enfin, she was home.
I was glad to get away from the detachment. Ever since we posted the reward, we’d been flooded with calls from cranks and kooks and people with nothing to do with their time, and I don’t mean locals. Calls were coming in from all over North America. Couple of heavy breathers, a Yank who offered to bring up a heavily armed vigilante group, a few who said they’d give us the scoop after we forked over the fifty grand, and of course the usual psychics and the inevitable tip-off about a soi-disant Satanic cult. We were still waiting for a call with real information. Of course I wondered, and not for the first time in my career, what kind of a person would have good reason to suspect someone of hurting a child and not call us until there was money in it.
So I was happy to get up on my crutches and go see Mrs. Cook. She lived in a blue-shingled two-storey house on Inverness Road, which intersects with Highland Avenue, where MacLellan Video is located. Dougald and I remembered her son saying she was going deaf, so we raised our volume several decibels and asked her what she knew about the night Bonnie disappeared.
She responded at the same volume. She commiserated with me about my injury and then got on to the subject of Bonnie. “I didn’t hear about what happened until Richard called me after he came back here from Newfoundland. He called and told me. I was floored when I got the news. A dear little girl like that. Bonnie Clan Donnie! Who would want to hurt her? I can’t begin to imagine.”
“Yes, we all feel that way, Mrs. Cook, and that’s why we need any help, any bit of information, people can give us. Do you remember anything about that night?”
“Well, I didn’t see Bonnie. And I didn’t see anyone creeping around out there. I did see a car, but so what? That may not be helpful to you. Why wouldn’t there be a car going up the street?”
“Tell us about the car.”
I knew what the next line was going to be, and it came on cue. “I don’t know much about cars, so what kind it was, I couldn’t tell you. Well, I’d know a Cadillac from a Volkswagen, but . . .”
“No, we understand that. Just do your best.”
“It was old.” We waited. “I don’t mean dirty and banged-up. I mean it was an older model car. Not a Model T or anything, not an antique, but something definitely out of date. And it was a dark colour. I’m thinking now it was brown. It honked the horn or, well, the driver did, and squealed the brakes. I looked out and it was passing by a streetlight, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of it. But I wasn’t paying it any mind, you know, because there was no reason to. At least as far as I knew that night.”
“Was there another car out there, or someone crossing the street? You say the guy blew his horn.”
“I didn’t see anybody else. Could have been a cat or something crossing the road, and the guy honked and tried to avoid it.”
Must have been a reflexive action on the driver’s part, if it was the kidnapper. You wouldn’t want to make a noise when you’re trying to hide a stolen kid in your car. He must have been a nervous wreck after doing that. If it was the guy. But there was no real reason to believe that just because a car was out there that night, near the video shop, it had to be the perp.
I returned my attention to our witness. “Very good.”
“Eh?”
“Very good. So, we have an older model car, brown, here on Inverness Road that night. Any idea of the time?”
“I think it was just before I put my book down. I always go to bed at nine thirty because I can’t keep my eyes open any later than that. Then, most nights, I’m wide awake again at eleven. After all these years, you’d think I’d learn! Anyway, when that happens, I pick up a book and read until I’m sleepy again. That night, I heard the noise and looked out my window. It would have been around twenty to or quarter to twelve. But I have to say again that I see cars on the street all the time, and there may be no significance to it at all.”
“Still. It’s something we can check out.”
“Eh?”
“It’s something we can check out!” I shouted at her. I felt as if I had bells clanging in my head from all this hollering. “What about the size of the car?”
“It was one of those great big ones. My husband used to call them big boats. Before they started making the cars smaller, more compact.”
“An American type of car, would you say?”
“Oh, yes, not a Japanese car. Or a fancy German type. No, it was one of the big American cars. You’d see them all the time a few years ago.”
“Any chance you could draw a picture for us?”
“Oh, I’ve never been able to draw. I was pathetic in school when it came to art class.”
“Me too. But why don’t you give it a try.”
Irene got up and found a pad of paper and a pencil and sat tapping the pencil against her teeth while she contemplated the empty white sheet in front of her. Then she got to work, tentatively at first, and then with more confidence. When she had completed the outline, she shaded the picture in to darken it. The car was long and rectangular, the back and front ends squared off. I realized she had drawn a Ford product, from the 1970s. Specifically, an LTD.
“Oh no,” Irene said as she looked at what she had drawn. “I’ve been wasting your time. Now that I see it in front of me here, I know this isn’t a strange car at all. I’ve seen it around here before.”
So had we. As soon as we had cleared the place, Dougald and I looked at each other. We both knew the car.
If this information proved reliable, little old Mrs. Cook here might just become the recipient of the fifty-thousand-dollar reward. Under the circumstances, I wondered how she’d feel about accepting it.
“It’s impossible,” Dougald said.
“Nothing is impossible when it comes to human behaviour.”
“Yeah, well, we’re going to let human behaviour enjoy a break. We’re going to wait till after the concert.”
Normie
The MacDonald family decided to go ahead and be a part of the big concert at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay, and all the people involved in it said it would be dedicated to Bonnie. And because everybody was going to be in town for the big event, we rented rooms in a fancy hotel called the Bayview, where all the aunts and uncles and cousins would go to sleep after the show. Sharon and the rest of them used to think it would be wrong to get up on stage with the other musicians and sing and have a good time with Bonnie missing. It would look as if they didn’t care, as if their life could just go on without her. But it wasn’t that. Sharon said she knew Bonnie was still alive, out there somewhere. And this concert with a whole bunch of Bonnie’s favourite songs would be a message to her. But that didn’t mean it was easy for Clan Donnie to get in the right mood for the show, to get their “game faces” on. I knew because I was there with Mum and Dad and Father Burke, and Sharon and Andy Campbell and Aunt Ginny and the rest of them. And Sharon was crying, and her hands were shaking, and she kept saying, “I can’t do it. I can’t go through with it.” And the others were trying to look brave and talk her into it. They said, “She’ll want you to keep singing, Sharon. This is what she would want.” And Sharon snapped back, “People always say that. ‘This is what she would have wanted.’ They say it about someone who’s dead. As if they knew the person’s wishes. As if the person would want them all to be living it up and not giving them another thought! I hope I never hear that expression again!” And she sank down into her chair and covered her face with her hands. I started crying myself, and I felt guilty for even being there, seeing her like that.
But they talked to her some more. Ian and Robbie sa
id they understood what she meant, but there were good reasons to do the show. The TV cameras were going to be there, and the family had pictures of Bonnie that they were going to show, so if anyone saw her they could phone in. And the music, and all her favourite songs, would be on the radio, on the news, and Bonnie would know, wherever she was, that the concert was for her. So many people bought tickets that the theatre was full and they set up a video screen outside for the overflow crowd. Everyone knew, and Bonnie would, too, that her family was calling out to her, telling her in music how much they loved her. And then Sharon got up and hugged Andy and Mum and Dad and said, “Let’s get out there.”
Andy gave her a big kiss and said, “We’re gonna drive ’er. Let’s go!”
Holy Jeeze! What a great, great concert! Andy acted as the master of ceremonies. He said, “We all know why we’re here. We’re here for a good old Cape Breton racket. Let’s make such a holy commotion that Bonnie will hear us and know we love her. This is our cry to heaven for Bonnie!” And everybody went wild and clapped and shouted “Yesss!” and Andy stepped back and swiped his hand across his eyes and bowed to the audience.
I looked around at all the people and who did I see but Lee sitting with Nancy. Lee was clapping for Andy and giving him a great big smile, even after what happened at Nancy’s house. She saw me looking and made a face. It looked like the kind of face you’d make if you were saying, “I don’t know what to do about this!” I knew what she should do, and I felt like going right over there and saying in her ear, “Break up with him and find somebody who is nice to you all the time, not just some of the time!” But she might think I was being too bossy. And she probably wouldn’t want to tell him off and “cause a scene” on the big night. I could understand that; it would be really hard to stay mad about anything when such wonderful music was being played.
Other fiddlers and singers were on first, and then it was Clan Donnie’s turn. Sharon started out playing the bodhrán, then she sat down and played a gigantic harp. Robbie played the pipes for a couple of pieces, then the accordion, and then the guitar. Andy was on the fiddle and then the piano and the tin whistle. They took turns singing. And every beat of the music was going right through me and down to my feet, and they wouldn’t stay still. People clapped and sang along, and some got up in the aisles and did a step dance. There was an old lady dancing and then a young guy my brother Tommy’s age, and then a girl got up. She had on a really fancy dress with coloured thread woven into it. And she had big dark eyes and long black curly hair that bounced up and down as she danced. Wow, did she ever look cool! It made me want to get up, too, even though I was only in jeans and my curls are short. And red. And I had my glasses on, and I was afraid they would go up and down on my face and I’d look foolish. So I was shy about getting up. But if I could dump my glasses on Mum and jump up really quick . . . Then Mum herself gave me a nudge; she knew what I was thinking. And I said to myself, Go for it! And I got up and whipped off my glasses and dropped them in Mum’s lap, and I danced, and then some other girls and a boy my own age joined in. We all ended up in front of the stage, and the people were cheering for us as much as for the band.
There was great music all through the concert. They did “Cape Breton Lullaby,” which is a beautiful song with a haunting kind of beginning with the pipes, and then Robbie got up as a lone piper and played the piece he wrote, and he told everybody the name of it, “Lament for Bonnie.” After that, there was an announcement that the Rankins, who were away on tour, had phoned the theatre to tell everybody they would be singing for Bonnie at their show that night. And then there was a video played, a recording from a concert last year with the Barra MacNeils. They are really good, so I always want to brag that our MacNeils are related to them. It’s a very distant relation, but still. We watched their video of “My Heart’s in the Highlands” and then Lucy singing “Darling Be Home Soon.” You can imagine how much the crowd loved it.
Then nobody could believe it: Rita MacNeil herself, one of the most famous singers in Cape Breton, someone with her own TV show, appeared as a surprise guest, and my grandfather Alec and the Men of the Deeps were with her, with the lights on their miners’ helmets shining. And they sang Rita’s beautiful song about people coming home to Cape Breton. It’s called “Home I’ll Be.”
And you kept your arms wide open
To let your children know
Wherever there is distance
The heart is always home
You’re as soulful as a choir
You’re as ancient as the hills
I caress you, oh, Cape Breton, in my dreams
And home I’ll be
Home I’ll be
Banish thoughts of leaving
Home I’ll be
Even the men, like Daddy and Father Burke, had tears in their eyes. People stood and clapped forever after that. Then the concert finished with another famous song about how things would get better in Cape Breton, through Cape Breton’s own children. It’s called “Rise Again.” People were all on their feet and stayed standing as if it was the national anthem.
The crowd went crazy when it ended. They whooped and roared and shouted “Yesss!” for ages after the music was over. And you realized why Cape Bretoners, even if they have to leave and go away to work, never want to stay away from their homeland. Who would? I decided right then and there that I would be in a band myself in the summers in Cape Breton. And Bonnie would be in it with me when she came home.
We all gathered together at the back of the theatre because we were going to the Bayview Hotel. The kids were going to have treats in one of the rooms, and the grownups were going to the hotel’s bar to have a drink. Or two or three! So we all got together, ready to leave. When we turned around to go out of the theatre, we saw four Mounties standing at the back. Two were in regular clothes, Pierre and Dougald, and two had uniforms on. They were watching everyone in the crowd as they walked out of the hall.
Monty
It was a magnificent and heart-wrenching evening at the Savoy. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when it came to its soaring climax. Everyone remotely related to the MacDonalds and the Drummonds was in attendance, even the ex-spouses. Master Campbell was there with her daughter, Nancy, and Nancy’s boyfriend, Lee; you had to give credit to Master after the show. She congratulated Andy on a fine performance and wished him well. Collie MacDonald had the children, Heather and Jockie, with him, and he gave Sharon a quick hug and a kiss when it was over. Everyone agreed to meet at the Bayview Hotel for drinks.
The RCMP were on hand, eyeing everyone as they filed out of the theatre, the room still ringing with Leon Dubinsky’s great Cape Breton anthem “Rise Again.” I thought at the time the police were doing what they do at victims’ funerals: turn up and look for anyone who seems out of place, anyone who behaves oddly. Just in case the old saw is in operation: the “killer” couldn’t stay away. There may have been an element of that in their presence last night. But that was not their primary goal. No, there was someone they wanted to see. I guess they couldn’t bring themselves to grab the person in public and take the shine off the concert.
The morning after the show, I thought I was losing my mind. It was bad enough that I was seriously hungover from the post-concert drinking binge in the bar of the Bayview Hotel. The bar was packed and you could barely get your elbow up to drink. But, as always, we rose to the occasion. Now, on the painful morning after, I got the news. After two decades in the criminal courts, I thought I had seen and heard it all. But of course we’ve never seen and heard it all. There is always going to be something that will blast you into stunned incomprehension. On the morning of August 15, I got word that Ginny MacDonald, grandmother of Bonnie and mother of the Clan Donnie MacDonalds, was being questioned as a suspect in connection with the abduction and disappearance of her granddaughter.
The phone rang that morning at Catherine and Alec’s. I answered it, and I could n
ot make out a word that was being said. There was a faint, tremulous voice, and there was sobbing, and I nearly hung up. Then a man’s voice came on, and it was Dougald MacDougald, the Mountie, telling me he had Ginny at the RCMP detachment in Sydney, and that she had asked for me.
I had had plenty of opportunity to fret over what I would do if one of the men in my wife’s extended family got charged in connection with the missing child. If I thought the guy had had anything remotely to do with it, if I suspected he had hurt Bonnie in any way, I would not have given him two minutes of my time. Unless I got him in a dark alley. But Ginny? The child’s grandmother? Iconic figure on the island of Cape Breton, mother of the band? The loving matriarch for whom many a fiddle tune and pibroch had been written by her talented children over the years? Could I turn down Ginny MacDonald? Did I think she was guilty of abducting or harming her grandchild? The answer was no.
What in the hell was going on? First, suspicion fell on Collie and on Andy. There was Collie’s resentment and drinking, and the night out on the land with Bonnie on the ground. There was the suggestive note about Andy found in the little friend’s knapsack. There was a young fellow named Jeff McCurdy, whom Bonnie had been meeting, apparently secretly. This Jeff had broken into Collie’s house. Bonnie’s house, when she stayed with her father. Now the Mounties thought there was evidence of some kind against Ginny. Were bits of evidence popping up like jack-in-the-boxes, each time pointing in a different direction? The Mounties were not stupid; they were not incompetent. So what accounted for them being all over the place in terms of who their suspects were? Of course it often worked like that. As the investigation went on, more and more information came to light, and it often shifted the focus from one suspect to another. But in this case . . . I am not given to flights of fancy or fits of paranoia, not a ready subscriber to conspiracy theories. But there was something about this case, something that almost made me think it was being orchestrated behind the scenes. That there was an operating mind out there, directing events and manipulating the players from an unseen control centre. Directing suspicion at one person, then lifting his hand and pointing at another. Yeah right. Old Monty had better get a grip before he lost it completely and started insisting to the police that his new client was the victim of an evil genius hiding behind a curtain at the back of the stage. I shook off the feeling.
