Little Boy Blues

by Mary Jane Maffini

  • • •

  I never thought I’d be excited to see Hull, but eighteen hours is a long time to spend in an enclosed space with Gussie. Especially when Timbits are involved. All four windows were down by the time we hit Alvin’s neighbourhood. We’d been pretty lucky with Stan’s Buick, and except for random Benson and Hedges ash, a collection of empty takeout containers, a few chips ground into the carpet, and a residual Gussie aroma that a good deodorizer should take care of, it was like new. I planned to leave the windows open in my garage until Stan got back from Scotland. Two weeks should do the trick. I hadn’t yet worked out how to handle the mega-kilometres racked up on the odometer without contravening the Criminal Code.

  We pulled onto Alvin’s street. Mrs. Parnell and I planned to join Alvin when he went into his apartment. Jimmy or not, we figured Alvin needed someone. And a dog, of course.

  One is always prepared for a shock entering Alvin’s home, but this was different. Even as the Buick purred towards Alvin’s building, it took us a minute to understand the scene.

  The building was gone. Nothing remained but a few blackened supports. We slid slowly by with our jaws hanging. The second floor where Alvin’s apartment had been had vanished. Maybe I only imagined the few sinister wisps of smoke.

  Mrs. P. turned the car around and inched back. Gussie whined to be let out. Mrs. Parnell and Alvin stared across at the smouldering building still surrounded by fluttering yellow tape, indicating a police line.

  No more toilet in the living room, no more fridge, no more grandmother’s tea set, no more talking art works. Nothing.

  “Eight families lived here,” Alvin whispered. “Eight families.”

  “Horrific,” Mrs. Parnell said. “And the smell.”

  “Yuck. That dog is going to blow,” I said, opening the door of the Buick. Gussie leaped out, gratefully.

  Alvin yelled, “Do you want my dog to get killed too?”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, as Gussie raced off. Alvin and I were out of the Buick in a second, chasing him or her down the middle of the road. Unsuccessfully. What a great game. Gussie turned around and headed back towards the car with the two of us in hot pursuit. Which is when we ran into the not-sonice policeman.

  Twenty-One

  Explain it again,Madame,” the cop said, his eyes flicking from Alvin’s bedraggled ponytail and lived-in leather jacket to Mrs. Parnell, who had emerged from the Buick in a swirl of smoke, and then back to me.

  How do you explain anything to do with the Ferguson family? Especially to one of those impossibly goodlooking Hull police officers who are always trying to issue a person speeding tickets for no good reason. I gave it my best shot. I told him about Jimmy. I described our trip from Sydney.

  “So you see, officer, we got out to chase the dog.”

  “And why were you parked outside of this building? Do you know anything about the fire?”

  “Once again, my colleague, Alvin Ferguson, lives here. We were delivering him home.

  “But the street was blocked off,Madame.”

  “I see that, but he lives here and when a street is blocked it is usually still accessible to residents.”

  “But he is not a resident, is he,Madame? There is nothing to reside in.”

  “True enough, but we didn’t know that when we drove in.”

  Alvin gripped the officer’s arm. “My brother might have been here. Have you heard anything about him?”

  “Do you mean your brother might have been responsible for this fire?”

  “Of course not, but he may have been hurt in it.”

  Or worse, I thought, meeting Mrs. Parnell’s eye.

  “Did he have a history with fires?” The officer showed a limpetlike tendency to stick with one bad idea.

  I interrupted. “Was anyone killed, officer? Surely we have the right to know.”

  “No, everyone escaped.”

  The three of us exhaled in relief.

  “When was the fire?”

  I could tell he didn’t want to tell me in case I tried to rig myself up with an alibi. I have a problem with Quebec cops. I believe the Code Napoléon goes to their heads. “I can find out easily enough.”

  “Last night.”

  “It looks like such a disaster, it’s hard to believe that anyone got out.”

  “Some of the residents woke up, and they managed to save each other. They knocked on all the doors and got everyone out.” His tone implied no such thing could happen on the Ontario side.

  “I gather you consider this deliberate devastation, young man.” Mrs. Parnell lifted her eyebrow to indicate she expected details.

  I translated. “You’ve got police tape all over. Was it arson?”

  He raised his shoulders, Frenchly. “You tell me,Mesdames.”

  • • •

  The smelly Buick was a problem but nothing compared to the fact that if Jimmy came looking for Alvin, he’d find a smouldering hole in the ground. Unless he had already been to the apartment, in which case, where was he now?

  “What is the best tactic, Ms. MacPhee?”

  “We can go home and shower. Alvin needs some rest. He’s had a terrible shock.”

  “I can’t rest. How can I rest when I don’t know where Jimmy is?”

  “You do have to rest, Alvin. This must be terrible for you. Even I can tell that. I’ll ask P. J. to find out where the residents are staying. He’s been a police reporter, he’ll know or he’ll know who knows. Then we can find out if anyone saw Jimmy here.”

  “Hardly anyone speaks English, Camilla. That’s why I picked this neighbourhood, I wanted to pick up French.”

  “Great. And did you pick up French?”

  “Some.”

  “How about you, Mrs. P.?”

  “I picked up a bit in France during the war.”

  “So you can work with Alvin on the interviews. I’ll get the names and locations of the people who were here, you check them out and find out if anyone saw Jimmy.”

  “Excellent. It will take me right back,” she said. “

  Au contraire, it better take us forward.” I like to have the last word.

  • • •

  I opened my door to a lonesome cat, a flourishing prickly cactus and 54 voice mail messages evenly divided: my sisters sputtering from Scotland, Leonard Mombourquette sputtering from the Ottawa Police Headquarters and P. J. sputtering about blues bands and times.

  Mrs. Parnell’s cat had already decided to let bygones be bygones and rubbed against my leg in a forgiving fashion. Of course, she hadn’t met Gussie yet. I called Mombourquette back and held the phone away from my ear when he answered.

  When I could get in a few words, I said, “No, as a matter of fact, I did not cause havoc for the Cape Breton Regional Police Force. What are you talking about, misrepresenting myself?... Well, maybe he did run away, as you put it, Leonard, but someone was stalking him, and a man who looked like him was murdered in Sydney. We figure mistaken identity...It’s not important who ‘we’ is, Leonard, the important thing is Jimmy is probably in the Ottawa area, and he’s in danger... Really? Well I’m glad you’re aware of that fact and, no, I don’t believe the police are idiots. For one thing, he’ll be running out of medication and for another, someone burned down the first place he’d be likely to visit... Alvin’s apartment building... No, I’m not making that up... It’s in Hull. That’s probably why you didn’t hear about it... Right to the ground... I don’t know if he was there, Leonard, but I’m going to find out. In the meantime, what information have you picked up?... Fine, be like that. The entire Ferguson family is on the way to Ottawa, and you are about to discover it was much easier dealing with me. But hey, your choice... Tell me, did Ray Deveau say I caused any problems in Sydney?... I am not a pain in the butt. Did he say that? Did he?”

  I hung up first. That’s always my preference.

  • • •

  P. J. came through in record time. He’d located every single one of Alvin’s neighbours. Most
of the residents of the burnt-out building were staying with relatives. He’d called with addresses for me before I was able to figure out if Gussie was better housed in Mrs. Parnell’s apartment with Lester and Pierre or in mine with her cat.

  “This information is for Alvin, right? You’ll be coming with me to Bluesfest tonight,” P. J. said.

  “I don’t see how I can with this stuff going on, P. J. Thanks for the info anyway.”

  His goodbye was swift and huffy. I didn’t get a chance to find out if he’d tracked down Honey Redmore.

  • • •

  No grass grew under Mrs. Parnell’s feet. Or Alvin’s. They were determined to hare around Hull interviewing fire survivors while I cleaned up my voice mail messages at Justice for Victims and tried to decide whether to wash my clothes or burn them.

  They blew back into the apartment shortly after I had intercepted Gussie, who had Mrs. Parnell’s cat cornered in the bathroom. Since I had been taking a shower at the time, the word intercept doesn’t capture the full moment.

  “Time for a drink to celebrate our reconnaissance, Ms. MacPhee.”

  Alvin said, “Poor Gussie, how come you’re all wet?”

  I thought a more appropriate question might be, poor Camilla, how come you’re all covered in the wet fur of two distinct species. I said, “So, what happened?”

  Mrs. Parnell splashed a bit of Harvey’s into a pair of glasses she’d brought from her own apartment.

  “Two bits of news.”

  I sighed. Sooner or later they’d tell me what the bits were. “Jimmy Ferguson was at Alvin’s place, and he told the landlord he was Alvin’s brother.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And the landlord let him into my apartment,” Alvin said. “

  Get away! That’s not even legal.”

  Alvin said, “My landlord’s a very kind man. A retired teacher. He could tell Jimmy needed some help. Good thing everyone’s not a lawyer.”

  “I’m not suggesting he shouldn’t have done something for Jimmy under the circumstances. It’s just that, oh never mind. So was Jimmy in a panic?”

  Mrs. Parnell said. “Un peu dérangé, according to the landlord. A bit upset, that’s all. But they were both dérangé in the extreme when they entered the apartment.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Ms. MacPhee, young Ferguson had been burgled.”

  The mind boggled. “A burglary? What did they steal? Alvin’s toilet? The plant in it? The pink fridge?”

  “Didn’t I tell you she’d say things like that, Violet?”

  “Let it go, dear boy. We don’t know what they took. The place had been ransacked. Young Ferguson’s statues had been broken.”

  “Papier mâché,” Alvin said.

  “Representing a substantial amount of work,” Mrs. Parnell said, inhaling with drama.

  “Reinforced with wire,” Alvin said.

  “An oeuvre,” Mrs. Parnell said.

  “If you say so. Anything else?”

  “Dresser drawers had been emptied, the contents strewn around.”

  “Underwear and socks,” Alvin said. “Does that make sense? Who would want to toss underwear and socks?”

  A good question. Particularly Alvin’s underwear and socks.

  “Maybe they wanted something else,” I said.

  “What would that be? I don’t own anything valuable, except the silver spoons, and my landlord didn’t know about them.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of spoons, Alvin. I was thinking of Jimmy’s postcards. You kept them in that dresser.”

  “But if someone was looking for Jimmy’s postcards, it would mean he knew about Jimmy, and he’d have to know where I lived.”

  “He or she would. Yes.”

  “Why would anybody want them?”

  “They might reveal what Jimmy wanted to do in Ottawa.”

  Alvin stared. “But it would have to be someone we know.”

  “You got it.”

  Mrs. Parnell was shocked enough to require another glass of sherry. “Certainly that is most disturbing, Ms. MacPhee.”

  “No kidding. But back to the situation in the apartment. What did the landlord do when he discovered the robbery?”

  “Nothing. I gather he and Jimmy cleaned things up. They couldn’t really communicate very well, because of the language thing. The landlord wanted to wait for me to decide whether to call the police or report it for the insurance. He thought it might be an art installation.”

  “Yes. I could see how he would.”

  “He didn’t even know I was away. But, good news, he took some videos of the damage to help me out.”

  “Great.”

  “It would have been great, but the videos were in his apartment. They were lost in the fire.”

  “So scratch that. Did your landlord know where Jimmy went afterwards?”

  “Jimmy was going to spend the night in the apartment and wait for me.” Alvin’s voice broke. “Jimmy didn’t know I had gone to Sydney.”

  Mrs. Parnell cast a worried look at Alvin, but he seemed to be holding up all right.

  “Did any of the residents see Jimmy around the time of the fire?” I said.

  “A couple of them. They banged on the doors of all the apartments, and they said they saw Jimmy run out into the street. He had a box with him.”

  “And then?”

  “And then apparently he ran away and fought off a couple of people who tried to help him, including my landlord.”

  “Do they have any idea where he went?”

  “No such luck.”

  “We’d better whisper this news into the furry grey ear of Leonard Mombourquette.”

  “And then, we must mobilize our forces to find young Jimmy before it’s too late.” Mrs. Parnell had another sherry to help her mobilization.

  “If only we had the postcards. Jimmy might have mentioned something useful,” Alvin said. “Maybe that’s what he had in the box.”

  “No. That’s a bit of good news. They’ve been sitting in my briefcase all along.”

  “And you never mentioned it?” Alvin’s eyes bugged out. First, I hadn’t wanted to trigger one of Alvin’s states. Then we were in transit. I was about to explain all this when it crossed my mind that I was the only person who had known where they were.

  • • •

  I only stepped back into my apartment to settle Gussie in and to check he or she couldn’t open the bedroom door and eat Mrs. Parnell’s cat. Or that Mrs. Parnell’s cat couldn’t open the door to the living room to slash Gussie’s nose.

  The phone was ringing when I got there. A few minutes later, despite the fact my sister was on the line from Scotland, I was glad I’d answered. I was a lot further ahead after talking to my father.

  “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Of course, I know them.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Lovely people, the Redmores. Protestant, of course.”

  “Oh, well, Daddy. You can’t have everything.”

  “They came from Ontario originally.”

  “Oh?”

  “The father’s dead now, of course.”

  “And Honey?” I preferred to avoid the route of dead fathers and any pre facto guilt that could induce.

  “Of course, she’s not dead, Camilla. She’s a young woman.”

  “I meant do you know where she lives?”

  “I don’t know why you didn’t look her up in the phone book. I tried to teach you self-reliance as a child.”

  “What?”

  “Self-reliance. When a person stands on their own feet and does things for themselves rather than asking others to wait on them.”

  “You mean look her up in the Ottawa phone book?”

  “Well, where else would you look her up? They all live in Ottawa now.”

  “All?”

  “The son and the daughter. I believe the mother winters in Florida. Those young people have done very well for themselves. The daughter works on Parl
iament Hill. Apparently she’s on the staff of the Minister of...let me think, what is that now. Well anyway, and the son is in the television business. I am sure the mother is very proud of them both.”

  “Minister of what?”

  “Absolutely no need to yell, Camilla. Did I not teach you manners as a child?”

  “Sorry, Daddy. Do you remember what minister she works for?”

  “Is that important?”

  “Yes.”

  “No memory of that. I’ve lost interest in politics. At my age, you know. I thought it was interesting that the son had won several important awards for investigative journalism.”

  “Really. That’s great, Daddy. But you don’t remember where Honey works?”

  “Who?”

  “The daughter.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t realize she lived in Ottawa. For some reason I expected Toronto or Vancouver, even Halifax. I’ll get her number.”

  “I will be glad to see you showing some self-reliance.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  Before I could hang up, my sister Edwina’s voice rang firmly into my ear. “Just once could you speak to Daddy without getting him all upset? We’re trying to enjoy our trip to Scotland, you know.”

  “You and me both,” I said.

  “Stan wants to know how the car is. I told him it was fine, and to stop being so overprotective.”

  Time to change that subject. I filled her in on Jimmy’s disappearance. I used the arrival of a fleet of Fergusons as a diversion. That brought out the general in her. Jimmy must be found. Alvin must be looked after. The Fergusons must be made comfortable at all costs. Think what they were going through, she said. They couldn’t be expected to stay in a hotel. As many as needed to could make themselves comfortable at her place, four bedrooms, would that do it? If not, put the overflow at Alexa’s and Donalda’s. I thought I heard Alexa squeak in the background, but she can fight her own battles. I had all their keys. I wanted to get the hell off the phone before Stan grabbed the receiver to ask about his baby blue Buick. And now I was running a hotel.