by Anne Emery
Mr. Fraser started poking fun at Morag, calling her a psychic, and he said they should call in a reporter from that crazy newspaper, the National Enquirer, and have a séance and bring some dead person back into the room. Please, please, please, I said to myself, hoping she would do it. It would be scary, but still. It would be worth it for us to see or hear a ghost. Imagine telling the kids back home about that when school started again. She didn’t really do it, but she had a pretend séance. She made us all hold hands around the table, and she put on this fake-scary voice. “I see somebody. I can barely make him out. Wait, wait. It’s old Alastair Fraser!” She looked across at Mr. Fraser; she meant it was his dad in the spirit world. “How do I know you are his daddy? What? Does he?” Morag looked at Mr. Fraser over the tops of her glasses. She looked as if she was trying to see behind him. “No, Alastair, I can’t do that. This is a respectable house. There are wee bairns present. I can’t ask him if he has a birthmark in the shape of a sheep air a thòn.” A birthmark on his arse!
Morag went on again about Mr. Fraser, letting on that his father’s ghost was talking. “Did he? No! All right, I’d better tell her. I’ll wait till I’m alone with her to break the bad news.” She shook her head and made a fake-sad face at his wife. “You may never feel the same way about him again.” And it went on like that, her pretending that the ghost was telling embarrassing secrets about Mr. Fraser, and him pretending to be worried. They all had a great laugh, and so did John Rory and I. Morag ended it by saying, “Ach, Alastair, I’d better let you go. You’ve got a long climb back down to where you’re abiding now.”
We all ate the fettuccine and then butterscotch pie for dessert. It was the best I ever tasted, and Morag had made it all by herself in the house! They all had glasses of wine and Scotch. I had nothing to drink myself. Better that way. When we were getting up from the table, Mr. Fraser said, “If you’re such a wise woman, Morag, tell me some good news, something I can look forward to in my old age.”
“You can start fixing up that little house you have at the tag end of your land out there in Inverness.”
“I said good news, not a whole lot of work for me to do on a place that nobody is ever going to rent!”
“It’ll be a lovely place for Barbara and the triplets till Johnny finds a job here on the island.”
Mrs. Fraser’s jaw fell open, and she stared at Morag. Then she said, “Morag! How did you know that? Nobody does. I hadn’t even told him yet that he’s going to be a grandfather three times over.” She pointed to her husband. “Barbara wants to wait to make sure everything’s all right with the pregnancy before she makes her announcement.”
“Everything’s fine. Three healthy wee babes on their way.”
They both gawked at Morag, then they said their goodbyes and were kind of babbling when they went out the door.
Morag invited John Rory to stay overnight with us, but he said no thanks because his mum was coming to get him and take him home to Ben Eoin. So I went to the little bedroom next to Morag’s where I always slept. I liked my bed there, which had metal curlicues at the head and the foot of it. Rot iron, she said it’s called, maybe because of the holes in it, but they’re just part of the design, so I don’t know why they call it that. Anyway, I had two drawers in the dresser for my own clothes. I fell asleep but I woke up in the middle of the night because I had to pee. I got up and looked out my window. The moon was full and bright, but a cloud passed over it, and all I could see was the glow from behind the cloud. There was an old bent tree in the yard, and it looked as if every living leaf had been stripped off it. While I was staring at it, all of a sudden I saw a pair of yellow eyes fixed right on me from beside the old tree. Whatever it was, it never blinked. Just kept its eyes on me. It gave me the shivers. I turned away from the window so I could tiptoe down the hall into the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake Morag up. Her door was open a crack, so I was as quiet as a mouse going by. After I finished and washed my hands, I started to tiptoe back to my room.
It was then that I heard Morag’s voice. I turned towards her door, figuring she must have said something to me. Just before I touched the door to go in, though, I heard her again, and I peeked in through the crack. She was standing at the window in a long white nightgown. And she had something in her hand. Both hands. The lumps of coal! The pieces of coal that John Rory had brought back to the house. He forgot to take them when he left. She was staring out the window, and her face was lit up for a few seconds by the moon. Then the clouds must have covered the moon again because her face was in shadow. I was — it took a minute for me to think of the word — spellbound. I stood there watching her and did not want to go back to my room.
She started speaking again. “Be gone! There is nothing for you here. I know what you are, what you were. And I can divine exactly what you want. You want to take her with you. But she cannot be with you, not where you are. You have no right to be in this world. Go! Go back to hell where you belong!”
Her voice was ragged; it was so frightening that I must have jumped in my place, because she turned from the window and stood looking towards the partly open door. With me behind it. Was I going to be in trouble for spying and listening in? I was stuck in my place; I couldn’t move. Old Morag turned her terrifying eyes on me. She didn’t seem to recognize me. She started talking in Gaelic. I couldn’t understand what she said, except a few words: dead, world, fog, dark. But I wanted to know. I had to know. “What were you saying, Greatgran Morag?”
She switched to English, and her voice sounded tired, ancient. “It is not natural for the dead to return to this world. But return they do. The veil between this world and the other is gossamer thin, a wavering curtain of fog and darkness. They should not pierce that veil and come among us. But they are unsettled, those who return. Beware of summoning what you cannot understand.” Then she went back to the Gaelic and mumbled some more words. All I made out was “Saor sinn o’n olc,” which meant “Deliver us from evil,” and a feeling of icy coldness started at the base of my spine and travelled out to the tips of my fingers. Evil. She sank down into her bed and fell back on her pillow. Her eyes closed and she said no more.
I walked back to my room, shaking. I looked out the window but the moon was gone, hidden by the clouds. I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling. I didn’t dare close my eyes. Was there something evil amongst us? Did she mean that an evil spirit had come into the world to take Bonnie? How could that be?
Chapter VI
Monty
Sometimes you hear something that makes you drop your head and bang it on your desk. Or, in this case, the breakfast table at Catherine and Alec MacNeil’s. That something was the front page of the Monday, August 8, 1994, Cape Breton Post.
Father of Missing Girl “Fed Up,”
Vows to Go It Alone
Collie F. MacDonald, father of 12-year-old Bonnie MacDonald, says he is at the end of his rope. “I know some people who would like to see me there. Swinging for this. Well, I am fed up with people looking at me, and the Mounties questioning me, as if I had something to do with it. I didn’t. I am innocent. And I am fed up with there being no progress in the search for my daughter. I’m not doing a bit of good sitting on my a— waiting for somebody else to return my child to me. I know the RCMP are doing their jobs, questioning family members and anyone else who knows Bonnie, looking for some clue that will put them on the right track. I understand that. But they’re not getting anywhere with their investigation. I am Bonnie’s father, and I am going to take that responsibility seriously and start looking for her myself.” Asked what he intends to do, Mr. MacDonald said he is going to question “every living, breathing person” in the village of Kinlochiel and search every inch of ground in the village and surrounding area. “And if anybody wants to help me, be at Saint Margaret’s Church, Kinlochiel, at 9:00 a.m., Tuesday, August 9.”
Mr. MacDonald says he won’t be surprised if the RCMP frown upon his plan. �
��I don’t expect them to like it. They’ll say I’m interfering with their investigation. Well, I haven’t heard eff-all results coming out of their investigation, so I’d say, unfortunately, there’s nothing to interfere with. The time comes when a man has to take responsibility for his family. That’s what I’m about to do.”
A spokesman for the RCMP offered no comment on Mr. MacDonald’s statement.
Maura walked in and went to the fridge, pulled out a jug of orange juice, and poured herself a glass. “Are you going to join up, Monty?”
“You’ve read it, then.”
“Don’t have to. I heard about it last night.”
“You knew about this?”
“Yeah, Sharon called me. But I figured I’d let you enjoy a good night’s sleep. Which you wouldn’t have if you’d heard this just before turning in.”
“Jesus Christ. He’s going to screw everything up.”
“The only way he’s going to screw anything up is if there actually is something to be screwed up. If there is someone around here who . . . who took Bonnie, or did something to her. If he just questions a whole lot of local people who are innocent and who know nothing, well, then, no harm done.”
“Somebody did this, Maura, and now he’s going to see Collie coming. He’ll either hit the road or come up with a story about how he knows nothing and is sorry he can’t be of any help.”
“Well, the police haven’t found this guy, if he’s here.”
“So Collie’s going to do a better job of it? Nothing good can come of this. Nobody is going to tell him anything useful. And a whole pack of amateur gumshoes tramping over a crime scene, if there is a crime scene, will destroy any case against the guy if and when he is located.”
“He’s not the only one.”
“Not the only one, what?”
“To send out a search party.”
“What do you mean? Who else is taking matters into his own hands?”
“Dad.”
“Your father! What’s he up to?”
“He’s organizing the miners.”
“He’s been organizing the miners for decades now, the old commie rabble-rouser.”
“Dad!” she called, “Monty called you a commie. He says he’s going to turn you in.”
“Oh, aye? Him and what army?” Alec demanded to know as he walked into the room. He spoke in a strong Cape Breton brogue.
“There are troops massing on the outskirts of town even as we speak,” I told him.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
He was right. Glace Bay was a big union town and no wonder. In 1922 in response to a slump in the market for coal, the British Empire Steel Corporation cut the miners’ wages by a third. The miners, accordingly, cut their production. A series of strikes followed. And, yes, army troops were deployed to Cape Breton “in aid of the civil power.” BESCO owned the miners’ houses and could evict their families at will. Everything people needed had to be bought on credit from the company store. As well as owning the stores, the houses, the coal, and the water supply, the company also had its own police force. When the conflict continued into 1925, the company store cut off credit, forcing families to go hungry. Some were near starvation. In June of that year, BESCO cut off the water and power supply to the town of New Waterford, including its hospital. When the people marched to the power plant to turn on the electricity again, company police charged into the crowd, beating people and eventually opening fire. That’s when William Davis was shot and killed. Maura’s father arrived from Scotland in the midst of all this as a child of five. The die was cast. Alec the Trotskyite MacNeil grew up to be one of the best-known radicals on the Cape Breton labour scene.
Now, here in the kitchen, Alec was white haired and was stooped over from his years bending his height to fit into the mine shafts. But his soul was still unbowed.
“What are you going to do, Alec?”
“I’ve called out the miners. Fellows in the choir.” That would be the Men of the Deeps, an excellent choir made up of coal miners. They performed wearing their helmets. They had recorded “Working Man” and several other songs with Rita MacNeil. “The cops have questioned the locals and searched the woods and the fields and some of the coastline. But now we’re seeing strange sights in cellars. Teddy bears in a hidden distillery, and Bonsai McCurdy’s young fellow in the basement of an abandoned shop with things belonging to Bonnie. So we’re going to search some of the other abandoned cellars around here. My men are more likely than the cops to know where these places are.”
Couldn’t disagree with that. “Good.”
The old fellow gave us a nod and left the kitchen.
His daughter said, “I kind of hope Dad and his fellow travellers find the culprit hiding under the earth. If so, he ain’t gonna bother nobody no more.”
“They’d make quick work of him, for sure. Send him to hell via one of the old coal seams under the ocean.”
“So, about Collie’s plan, are you in?”
“Are you serious?”
“What am I going to do? Not join in the search for my little cousin? Spurn the family’s efforts to find her?”
“You’re a lawyer, MacNeil. You know better than this.”
“You’re a member of this family, Collins. You know better than to try and stop us.”
I heaved myself up from the table with a sigh. “Let’s go talk to him.”
“Probably won’t be able to get near him. People will be gathering around him for their marching orders.”
“We’re going to talk to him. Come on.”
There were a couple of dozen cars and at least sixty people gathered outside the white wooden church of Saint Margaret of Scotland when we got there. They weren’t kitted out with magnifying glasses or side arms. They weren’t there to play the role of cop or amateur detective; they were there to help a distraught father who was desperate to find even the smallest scrap of information about his missing child. I understood that. And I knew I would be exactly the same way if I were in his shoes. But I also felt a responsibility to advise him of the pitfalls of his plan; I would feel remiss if I stood by and said nothing.
As soon as he caught sight of me, he knew why I was there. “Monty. Save it. I’m going to do this, and all the lawyerly advice in the world isn’t going to stop me.”
“I know. But will you give me five minutes anyway, Collie?”
“Wasting your time, Monty, wasting your time. But come on inside. Come in, Maura. Everybody!” he called out, and the people stopped chatting and waited on his word. “I’ll be out in a few minutes, and I’ll assign everybody a list of people to interview. Hold on.” With that, he walked up the steps of the church, and we followed him inside. It was a miniature version of the neo-Gothic style of church, with vaulted ceilings, beautiful stained glass windows, and an elaborate high altar under a rose window. Collie turned to face us and waited.
“Collie, you know what I’m going to say.”
“Yeah. We’re not going to find anything. The bad guy isn’t talking, and nobody else knows anything. And we’re going to stomp all over any clues that are out there and not even realize it.”
“Then why go ahead?”
“Because nothing else has worked! Because I am her father, which people seem to forget.”
“Nobody forgets that, Collie.”
“Oh yeah? I’ve seen write-ups in the papers from away that describe Bonnie as the daughter of Sharon and Andy.”
“Well, everybody on the island of Cape Breton and in the entire province of Nova Scotia knows you are Bonnie’s dad.”
“You’re right about that. I’ve had calls from all over the island and even the mainland from people who are coming to help. How about you?”
Maura and I looked at each other. We both knew it was a doomed plan, but what were we going to do, sit by and let all the other pe
ople who loved Bonnie do the work?
But I couldn’t let it go without a lawyerly dissertation. Because I knew what I was talking about. “Collie, if you do find something, if someone picks something up off the ground, that evidence instantly becomes useless. Because a defence lawyer like me will point out that it was tampered with, that the continuity between it being in place and being in the possession of the police has been broken, and therefore anything could have been done to alter it. It could just have been invented by a well-meaning person wanting to do the right thing. And if you find someone who could be a suspect, his rights —”
“Monty,” he said, “what are you talking about? You think I give a fuck about this guy’s rights?”
“You will if at the end of his trial he gets off on what the layman calls ‘a technicality,’ because his Charter rights have been breached or the evidence is tainted and inadmissible, and the guy walks.”
Collie looked at me with something akin to pity. “Do you really believe that if I find this guy, he’s going to trial?”
He had me there. I was thinking like a lawyer. I was not thinking like a father, not thinking the way I would if it were Normie missing. If anyone hurt a hair on her head, there would be no trial. There would be no defendant. There would be nothing left of the guy to drag into the courthouse. “Then it will be you on trial, Collie.”
“Not a jury in this province would convict me. Remember Antigonish.”
I remembered very well. It was the case we had talked about at the recent wedding in Glace Bay. A jury in Antigonish had refused to convict a man accused of murdering three men. There were legal issues in the case, but many people I knew there interpreted the jury’s decision as a finding that the three had terrorized the man for years and now had their just reward.
Against my professional judgment, but with family harmony in the forefront of my mind, I followed Collie outside and joined the search. Even in the few minutes we had been inside the church, more people had arrived.