Lament for Bonnie

by Anne Emery

  “Sometimes, but not very often. Not that night.”

  “Did you go to sleep right after the party?”

  “Yes, I was tired.”

  “Where do you keep your car keys?”

  “In an old dish full of keys and other things on the cedar chest when you come in.” She pointed to the entranceway to the house.

  “Who tends to borrow your car on those rare occasions?”

  “Well, the girls don’t like it. Sharon and Kirsty. They keep telling me to get rid of it and get something smaller and newer. So they never use it. Robbie calls it the HMCS Destroyer; he wouldn’t be seen in it to save his life. Collie used to borrow it once in a while, when, you know, he was with Sharon. He likes old cars.”

  “Has he used it lately? Or any time shortly before Bonnie’s disappearance?”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t know. I can’t think straight. This is unbelievable. I haven’t really got my mind around what happened to Bonnie, and now they think I had something to do with it!”

  “I know, and I’m sorry I have to add to the pain for you, Ginny. But I have to ask these questions in order to help you.” And prepare you for what is to come. “Now, about your son in Ontario.” Her hands were trembling again, and she clasped them together in her lap. “You told the police about a death certificate.”

  “Yes.” She heaved herself up and left the room. I heard some shuffling and banging, a drawer being closed, and then she was back. She handed me an old stained envelope with no writing on it. Inside was a piece of paper, yellowish-brown with age. “Certificate of Death” was in elaborate script at the top of the form. Other information was typed in, including Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Etobicoke, and the name of the priest, Father A. Bertoni. The details were written in by hand: the name of the deceased, Lyle James Drummond (Drummond was Ginny’s maiden name); cause of death, pneumonia; date of death, March 27, 1956; age, seven years; burial, March 30. It was signed by Father Bertoni.

  “Is Lyle buried in the churchyard?”

  She shook her head. Why not, I wondered, then remembered that those times were not kind to the children of unmarried mothers. “Illegitimate” children, as they were considered to be. But surely they were not denied a Christian burial. I would have to look into it, ask Brennan.

  Ginny spoke up then. “I buried him, Father Bertoni and I did, on the grounds of the house I was renting in Etobicoke. God only knows what became of that place with Toronto sprawling all over the surrounding areas.”

  “Why would you bury him there, Ginny?”

  “I . . . I wanted him close to me.”

  Ginny had tried to make a plausible narrative of her son’s illness, death, and burial. But I would never be able to forget how she looked while being questioned by Sergeant Maguire. What was the real story about Lyle Drummond’s death? Was there a death certificate registered with the Province of Ontario, or just this one with the name of her parish church typed in? And what had prompted the Mounties to look into it now?

  And, I asked myself as I pulled out of Ginny MacDonald’s driveway with one last look at her house, why was there a teddy bear dressed in a T-shirt showing Elvis Presley with Ed Sullivan in the background in a bootlegger’s cellar on the outskirts of Kinlochiel? Elvis’s first appearances on the Sullivan show were in 1956.

  Chapter IX

  Normie

  We had so much fun the time we played baseball that me and my cousins started talking about another sports day. Well, sports afternoon anyway. And the parents got in on it, and they helped us organize it. This time it was soccer, and it was going to be at the school’s soccer field. Andy Campbell is a teacher there and he arranged for the school to be open, so we could go in and pee. I heard two of the parents saying the tournament would maybe lift our spirits, which it probably would, except that Bonnie would not be forgotten for a minute because she loved playing the game. I said to John Rory, “I bet she was good at it.”

  He kind of laughed and said, “Not really. But she was a good sport, and everybody liked playing with her. I was reffing one of the girls’ games once, and she said to me, ‘If my feet are good at step dancing, how come they’re no good at kicking a ball and scoring?’

  “I said, ‘Your step dancing gets you on the world stage. Don’t worry if your soccer playing doesn’t get you beyond the boundaries of Cape Breton Island.’”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She tried to kick the ball at me, but she missed. I think she did it on purpose. Nobody could have missed that close up. Anyway, we both had a good laugh over it. She wasn’t the least bit sensitive about her shortfalls on the soccer pitch.”

  John Rory knew nearly everybody’s phone number, so he got hold of the people he knew. And I made posters — well, they were only regular paper size, but I did lots of colouring and fancy lettering on them — and I went all around Kinlochiel on “my” bike and stuck them on posts and shop windows. None of the people who owned the shops complained about them.

  Now everybody was at the field. It was a nice warm day, a bit cloudy, but no rain in sight. Daddy got called away and couldn’t come. I think it had something to do with the investigation, but nobody told me what had happened. Mum said she was driving to Kinlochiel to visit Aunt Ginny and she would come to the tournament later in the afternoon. Father Burke was there, though, in shorts and a T-shirt like everybody else; he was one of the referees. He had run some Gaelic football games at our school in Halifax, but he knew the regular game as well.

  Another familiar face was there, too. Jeff McCurdy. And there was really good news about Jeff. We all heard it. He saved a Mountie’s life! Pierre Maguire. Somebody had seen Sergeant Maguire hobbling around on crutches with a cast on his leg. But he was still working. And everybody in town knew that Jeff had been in the police car and, after it crashed, he could have escaped. But he didn’t. He went for help for the Mountie. And we heard something else, too. He was not going to be charged with breaking into Collie MacDonald’s house. The police dropped the charges. So everybody wanted to be nice to Jeff. People didn’t go up and hug him or anything like that! He would probably be embarrassed. But everybody treated him like a normal person. Which he mostly is, even though he comes from a rough family background.

  And this time he had a little girl with him. It’s mean to say this, but she looked tough, even though she was only about the same age as me. Eleven. Her hair was in big puffy curls, and she had a big sore on her lip, with scabs on it. You just knew that if she ever kissed anybody, they’d catch it. But even in spite of that, she had on a T-shirt that said, “Kiss me. I’m fabulous!” Why would her mum or dad buy her a shirt like that? The girl must have nagged for it, and the mum gave in. But even though she was kind of scary, I didn’t want her to feel left out, so I got John Rory and went over and said hi to Jeff and asked her what her name was. She didn’t tell me her name, but she looked at John Rory and said to me, “Is that your boyfriend?” I nearly died!

  Jeff said, “He’s her cousin. This is Normie and John Rory. Tell them your name.” But she just giggled at John Rory and didn’t say anything, so Jeff said, “Her name is Crystal. She’s my sister.”

  John Rory said, “Excuse me, I have to go and get the balls so we can get started.” And Crystal giggled again and stood up on her tiptoes and whispered something in his ear, and he looked at her as if she was crazy. He didn’t answer whatever she said, just turned and left. And then I felt sorry for her, because she seemed sad, as if John Rory had hurt her feelings. She looked at me and opened her mouth as if she wanted to ask me something, but changed her mind and took off. She started to follow John Rory, but she stopped before she got to him. She just walked to the side of the field and sat down by herself.

  Jeff was watching her. Then he turned to me and said, “Is your dad here?”

  “No, he got stuck doing something.”

  “Oh.” And he l
ooked disappointed.

  “How come you’re asking about him?”

  “He’s a lawyer, right?”

  “Yes.” Then I said, “Are you in trouble?” And as soon as I said it, I wanted to kick myself. I didn’t mean to be nosy, or make him feel bad. “I mean, not in bad trouble. I know you saved the Mountie. I just . . .” Then I shut up because I didn’t have anything to say that made sense.

  But Jeff said, “No, I’m not in trouble. I just wanted to ask him something.”

  “Oh, well, when I see him tonight, I can ask him to call you on the phone.”

  “No, no, that’s okay. Never mind.” He looked over where the people were starting to organize the first match. There were about thirty kids and some grownups helping out. “Are you going to play?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “You should. Did you ever play before?”

  “Sure, here at the school. How about you?”

  “We play Gaelic football at our school in Halifax sometimes.”

  “Oh, yeah? We never did that here.”

  “Well, we did it because Father Burke is from Ireland and that’s what he played when he was little, and he missed it when he moved away from home. That’s him over there.” I pointed him out to Jeff.

  “Right. You in the first match?”

  “No, but it’s going to start in a few minutes.”

  I walked over, and he came after me, and we went to the sidelines of the field where a bunch of lawn chairs and benches had been set up. We sat down beside John Rory. It was the little kids who were playing first, then it would be kids around my age, then the big kids like John Rory and Jeff. The games were going to be for sixty minutes, not ninety, and there would be a break at half-time. The first match got underway and it was the way little kids always play. They all gather and run in clumps around the ball wherever it goes. You are supposed to play your own position, not run wildly in a pack around the ball, but that’s what they always do. Father Burke was laughing but not in a nasty way. The kids were so sweet. There was a huge score when it was over. Big soccer tournaments, like the World Cup, have scores like one–nil or two–one. The score here was twenty-three to twenty.

  “Lax refereeing,” John Rory said. “A lot of those players should have been carded.”

  “That little guy there, who got pushed,” Jeff said, pointing to a cute little boy about five years old, “should have taken a dive. Milked it for all it was worth.”

  They kept joking about the game. I looked across to the other side of the field, where Jeff’s sister, Crystal, was twirling around and then pretending to sing into a microphone. Every time she did something, she looked at Father Burke to see if he was watching her. Then she went over to him when he was standing there and bumped into him. Then I don’t know what she did, but he leaped back and looked down at her as if she had done something unbelievable. I didn’t see what it was. But he moved back from her and he must have given her quite a look because she started crying and screaming, and she took off running. Jeff saw this and bolted from his chair and went after her.

  It was my turn to play then, and my team had Louise and Danuta and Laurie and other kids I knew, and it was really fun. I got a goal early on.

  When it was half-time, we all sat down to rest and have a drink and gobble up some orange slices somebody’s mum had brought. I looked across the field, and there was Father Burke sitting on the grass with Jeff and his sister. She was crying, and Jeff had his arm around her and kept hugging her. Father Burke looked at me and then got up and came over. “Come with me for a sec, Normie.”

  “Okay.” I stood up and followed him away from the soccer pitch, out into the schoolyard where there was nobody else.

  “Is your mum coming to the tournament?”

  “Yes, she said she was going to Aunt Ginny’s and would be here after that.”

  He thought this over and then said, “Could you do something for me?”

  “Sure!”

  “Could you go into the school and find a phone, and then call her and ask her to come now?”

  I started to ask why, and then I thought from the serious look on his face that maybe I shouldn’t ask. “I’ll go right now.”

  “Thank you, angel. Reassure her that nobody’s been hurt or anything, but that I could use her help.”

  I ran to the school and went inside. I called Aunt Ginny’s number, and Ginny answered. She said hello as if she didn’t want to hear from anyone; she sounded as if there was something wrong. Her voice was shaky and not as friendly as it always is. But I asked for Mum, and Ginny called her to the phone. I told Mum that we were all fine and having a great time, but that Father Burke said he needed her help. She didn’t even ask why, just said she’d be right there.

  She got there within a very few minutes, and I ran to meet her. I took her over to where Father Burke was with Jeff and Crystal. Crystal wasn’t being a show-off anymore. Her eyes were all red and, when she looked up at Mum, I don’t think I ever saw sadder eyes in my whole life. Father Burke looked at me and then at Mum, and I knew what he meant. I was not supposed to listen in. As much as I wanted to know what was going on, I knew I wasn’t supposed to, so I started to walk away. All I heard before I was out of range was Jeff saying, “They’re still my parents. I couldn’t rat them out to the police. But she has to be —” And that was all I could make out. Whatever it was, it was something bad. When I returned to my seat on the other side of the field, I saw Jeff give Crystal a hug and a pat on her head. And Crystal then turned to Mum, and Mum bent down and talked to her. Suddenly, Crystal reached up and latched onto Mum and clung to her. Held onto her for dear life. Mum put her arms around her and carried her away just like that. They went to the car and drove away.

  We finished our match, and my team lost seven–four, but that was okay. It was fun and all through it, when people made a spectacular play or had a free kick, they’d say, “This one’s for Bonnie!” The big kids played after that. Jeff didn’t say a word about whatever happened with his sister. He scored two goals against John Rory in the match, and they shook hands afterwards.

  Monty

  With the matriarch of the Clan Donnie MacDonalds under suspicion, it was time for me to start gathering some serious information about the family. Best place to start was my wife, Maura MacNeil. Her parents, Alec and Catherine, were out, so we had the house to ourselves. I said to her, “After all my years in the criminal courts, nothing should surprise me. But I cannot bring myself to believe that Ginny had anything to do with the disappearance of her granddaughter.”

  “Nobody believes it. But I’m willing to bet somebody will pretend to believe it and start a whispering campaign.”

  “Who will be doing that?”

  “I don’t know. Same people who started all the rumours that have been plaguing the band. None of the Clan Donnie people are the type to tell vicious stories about each other, or about anyone else for that matter. I don’t know anyone else in or around the family who would behave like that, either. But somebody was doing it.”

  “Why did I never hear a word about these problems before this trip?”

  “Am I wearing a sandwich board emblazoned with the name National Tattler? This isn’t the sort of crap I would repeat to anyone, even you. Even if we hadn’t been living for several years in separate houses.”

  I hardly needed reminding of that.

  “But now, with things so far out of control, you have to know what you’re dealing with.”

  “So, what the hell is going on?”

  “It was never like this before. These are wonderful people. It’s only been during the last few years that all this crap came to the surface.”

  “So, what changed? What accounts for all this venom being spewed around?”

  “I can’t say. I just know that all of a sudden things started to fall
apart.”

  “Was there a new person on the scene? Someone dogging the band, or some wicked stepmother who came into the picture? Someone targeting the family for some reason?”

  “I never thought of it that way; I mean as a sudden development or the actions of a specific person.”

  “All right, let’s look back. Not right now, but could you think it all over, make note of anything that comes to mind?”

  “Knowing how large and sprawling our family is, I’d need to do a chart!” I gave her look that said Please do a chart. “Well, at least it’s just the MacDonalds. There wasn’t any dirt swirling around the MacNeils.”

  “Good, that will narrow it down.”

  “Ha. We’re still talking about a diagram that would fill an entire wall of one of Master Campbell’s executive homes with cathedral ceilings. But I’m happy to do it if I can help Aunt Ginny in any way.”

  “Now to more immediate concerns.” I made sure I had my wife’s complete attention. “What can you tell me about Ginny’s child who died back in the 1950s?”

  Maura stared at me. I waited. Finally, she said, “What on earth does that have to do with anything?”

  “The Mounties seem to think it does. They sprang it on her when she gave her statement to them after waiving her right to a lawyer.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Yeah, so that’s what we’re faced with now. All of a sudden, Maguire went from the last sighting of Bonnie to ‘How did your little boy die?’ Poor Ginny aged an eternity right in front of my eyes.”

  “No wonder! Well, you know she had the child when she lived in Toronto. She was still in her teens. She had been given a chance to study voice up there and sing in the Toronto Light Opera Association, which performed the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Then she got pregnant and started to raise the child on her own. Lyle was his name. The poor little fellow died when he was six or seven, and shortly after that Ginny came home to Cape Breton to start all over. She met Stewart MacDonald, and they had Sharon and the other kids, and things were great for her. But, as you heard from Sharon that night when it came up, Ginny never got over it. Wouldn’t let the band memorialize little Lyle in a song.”