Lament for Bonnie

by Anne Emery

  “We’ll need all your contact information. You’ll be called as a witness when we get whoever killed the one and only eyewitness to the abduction of Bonnie MacDonald.”

  Monty

  Woke up this morning. That’s the opening line of many a blues song. And I woke up Wednesday morning with the blues. Before I even reached full consciousness, I knew there was something unpleasant looming over me. And then I had it: I knew I needed more information about Ginny Drummond MacDonald and the death of her child. And the best place to start was right here in the home of her sister, my wife’s mother, Catherine Drummond MacNeil.

  Maura was up and out already. She often took Dominic for a walk in the morning. Good. That would afford me the opportunity to talk to Catherine behind Maura’s back. I would answer for the consequences, if there were any consequences, later. So I got up, had a quick shower, got dressed, and went down to the kitchen. Catherine and Alec were there having the coffee, toast with brown sugar, and porridge that they ate every morning of their lives. They greeted me, and I got a cup of coffee. I made some toast and small talk until the moment came to strike.

  I sat down at the table and addressed my mother-in-law. “Catherine, I’d rather be talking about anything else under the sun, and so would you. But, under the circumstances, I have to know.” She eyed me without moving. “Is there anything you can tell me that would explain why the Mounties are asking Ginny about the death of her little boy?”

  “What?” It was nearly a shout. “When were they talking to Ginny?”

  So, Ginny had not confided in her sister about the interrogation at RCMP headquarters. Was that significant in itself? This was going to derail my plan here; I had no choice now but to fill Catherine in on what had happened to Ginny the day after the concert. Catherine was distraught. And outraged.

  “They had the gall to question my sister about the disappearance of her granddaughter? As if she would hurt Bonnie! And then they brought Lyle’s death into it? Why on earth would they . . . ?”

  “That’s what I have to figure out. Was there anything about his death that, well, could account for their interest?”

  “No, of course not! He died of pneumonia. And Ginny was heartbroken and moved back home shortly afterwards.”

  “What about the child’s father? I guess he wasn’t in the picture.”

  “No, he abandoned her as soon as she told him she was pregnant. Cold-hearted bastard that he was.”

  “You knew him?”

  “No, thank God. But she told me about him. We used to write letters to each other, Ginny and I, when she was in Toronto. She wrote to me about this fella, Warren. He was in the music business, a record executive. Or so he said. That was pretty exotic to people like us, back in the 1940s. He was a prince at first. Aren’t they all?”

  “So you’re saying I was a prince, Catherine?” her husband asked.

  “You? You wanted to foment a revolution and overthrow every prince on the planet. Alec the Trotskyite MacNeil! Anyway, about this flaming arsehole my sister was going with in Toronto . . . He had heard her sing, and he told her he was going to try and get her a recording contract. But it would cost money. Well, she didn’t fall for that part of it. Must have been the Scot in her! He was a charmer in spite of that, and she really was quite taken with him. She wrote to me about how handsome he was, and how he’d travelled all over the United States meeting recording artists, and how he always wanted to be with her. It wasn’t long, though, before he showed his true colours. He was extremely jealous and suspicious of her, called her at all hours to check up on her, tried to control which friends she saw. But he would disappear for weeks on end himself and then come back as if nothing had happened. If she asked him about his behaviour, he’d rant and roar at her. Who did she think she was to question an important man like him? She wouldn’t admit this to me, but I know he turned violent near the end of things. A friend of ours was visiting in Toronto and looked her up, and she said Ginny had bruising and a cut on her face. Ginny made up a story, but our friend didn’t buy it. And when Ginny found out she was pregnant, it took her weeks to work up the nerve to tell him. Afraid of him, obviously. But he merely said, ‘That’s your problem,’ and dropped out of sight. She never heard from him again.”

  “Well rid of him, from the sound of things,” I said.

  “Yes, there was something seriously wrong with him.”

  “That would explain a lot about the kid himself.” That was Alec.

  I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “Alec, for Jesus’ sake . . .” said Catherine.

  “Well? You remember what the wee fucker was like.”

  “He was just a little boy!”

  “Remember what you said when . . . what was that little rat the kids had for a pet?”

  “It was a hamster, Alec, not a rat!”

  “All the same to me. Anyway, the creature was found dead with its head nearly taken off. And you said that little hell-raiser — Lyle, you meant — probably killed it!”

  “Alec! I never seriously thought he . . . Lyle was just a child. It was a cat that got at that hamster.”

  “Maybe so, but the point is you thought to make a joke about it, about Ginny’s young fella, and you knew the rest of us would get the humour.”

  “Don’t say that. Lyle, the poor wee mite, was thrown into a big family Christmas here in Cape Breton with dozens of strangers around him, when he was used to a quiet apartment in Toronto, just him and his mother. No wonder he acted out a bit. Ginny loved him. She was devastated when he got sick and died.”

  Pierre

  On Wednesday, after looking into the conditions of Randy Gouthro’s probation, I had Monty Collins in the passenger seat of my car.

  “What is it, Pierre?”

  “Do you know someone called Sabrina Fay-Waddams?”

  I could see him tense up at the question. “Yes, I do. What has she done to bring the RCMP to my door?”

  “How do you know her?”

  But Collins was cagey, like lawyers everywhere. “I don’t know her well. Why are you asking?”

  “Have you been conducting an investigation into the disappearance of Bonnie MacDonald?”

  “Not an investigation. I don’t have the resources of the RCMP. But, being a family member, I’ve been asking around. No surprise there. If I had found anything, you’d have been the first to know.”

  “Unless it was about a client.”

  “None of my clients would be involved in this.”

  “Perhaps I should have said unless one of your family members became a client.”

  “What’s this about Sabrina, Pierre?”

  “We just took a statement from her.”

  Collins went absolutely still. Was there something in particular he was afraid she might reveal? All he said was, “Oh?”

  “Yeah, she told somebody she has been working with you on your investigation.”

  The look on his face! I’m sure he keeps a poker face in court, but it was unhappy surprise I was seeing in him now. “Sabrina Fay-Waddams is not now, and never has been, working with me on anything. Let alone on any kind of investigation.”

  “So, why would she say that, do you suppose?”

  “I have no idea how her mind works, Pierre. But she is not on the same channel you and I are on. She comes to my gigs, when I’m playing with my blues band. She’s been hanging around our shows for two years or so now.”

  “A groupie, you mean.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’d . . .”

  “You’re too much of a gentleman to call her names. I get it.”

  “She says she’s writing a book, about music in this province.”

  “Right.”

  “Yeah, so this is why, or at least this is the ostensible reason why, she comes to all our gigs.”

  “But not the real re
ason.”

  “Possibly not.”

  “Does your wife know about her?”

  “That makes it sound as if there is something my wife should know. And there isn’t. I’ve never been alone with Sabrina. I’ve never given her any encouragement. I’ve never seen her anywhere except at the bars where we play. But I haven’t told Maura. We have recently reconciled after a long separation. Things are great with her and the kids, and I want to keep it that way. If you’ve ever heard my wife tear a strip off someone . . . My pal Burke says she has a tongue in her head that could slit the hull of a freighter. And I have no desire to be slit, sliced, and diced, or have any body parts busted, when I haven’t laid a hand on Sabrina Fay-Waddams, if that is her real name.”

  “Okay, I believe you.”

  “Then what is this about? Has she made an accusation of some sort? Has something happened to her?”

  “You’re aware a man was murdered. Well, you and the family were questioned briefly about it, whether any of you had noticed him.”

  “Right. Nobody knew anything.” His eyes got wider then. “Jesus Christ. What has this conversation got to do with the killing?”

  “The victim’s name was Randall Gouthro. Randy. Madame Fay-Waddams had a conversation with Gouthro the night before he was killed.”

  “What?”

  “He was at the Bayview Hotel, in the bar, at the same time you were all there after the concert.”

  “Who is he? What was he doing there?”

  “He came to see you.”

  “Me? I never saw him. Or, at least, I don’t remember seeing him. Didn’t recognize him from the photo in the paper.”

  “He never got to you. How do they call that in English, a gatekeeper? Your gatekeeper, Sabrina, intercepted him and assured him that she would set up a meeting between the two of you. Well, the three of you.”

  “No!”

  “And that’s when the information would come out.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of any meeting.”

  “Which is a pity. Because whatever evidence he had about Bonnie MacDonald in a car heading out on the highway will never be known.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Pierre. Don’t tell me that. This was a witness, and she had the gall to . . . Christ almighty!”

  Oh, I felt sorry for Monty Collins en ce moment-là. He was in shock. He’s a good guy. I knew he was on the level about this groupie Sabrina. And now he was hearing that there was information about Bonnie that was supposed to go to him, and this bimbo had fucked it up completely.

  “Why was he coming to me with his information, and not you guys? Past trouble with the law?”

  “Yeah, he was known to us. Nothing too over the top, but he was taken out of circulation a couple of times. This summer he was on parole. Wherever he saw Bonnie in the car, I’m guessing he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be or was with somebody he wasn’t supposed to associate with, and he was afraid we’d violate him if he fessed up. Back to jail for breaching his conditions. So, when he came to the decision to tell what he saw, he headed for you. And got her.”

  “Fuck. Did he say anything to her at all?”

  “He saw a girl who looked like Bonnie in an old car with someone who appeared to be a man at the wheel, heading out to ‘the highway.’”

  “My God.”

  “What did the man look like? Her answer? Ché pas.”

  “Eh?”

  “I dunno. Je ne sais pas. She didn’t know. What highway, where? I dunno. What did the car look like? She knew nothing about cars, but that was okay because he would describe the car in detail when he got together with Monty. If only, if only the guy had made it to a skilled interrogator such as yourself, or me. One of us would have probed for the details of what he saw. But it didn’t happen. A missed chance, never to come around again.”

  We were both silent for a long time. Then Monty said, so quietly I could hardly hear him, “And Gouthro was stabbed to death the night after this conversation.”

  “Yeah.”

  “By someone who knew he had this information? By someone at the Bayview that night?”

  I shrugged at him, then said, “Nobody who was at the Bayview admitted to knowing who he was or paying any attention to him. So. Either that’s true, or somebody is lying. Take your pick.”

  Monty

  I never thought the long painful saga of my marriage to Maura would become a police matter. Now that both of us had forsaken all others, and I had accepted little Dominic as our son and moved back into the house on Dresden Row, I didn’t want anything to threaten the family peace.

  So if ever there was a reason for me to get out of town, the Sabrina fiasco was it. How fortunate that there was another, more legitimate, reason for me to be a thousand miles away from the dead witness and the groupie who had scotched things so horribly in the Bonnie MacDonald investigation.

  The other reason didn’t arise out of good news either, though. It was about Ginny MacDonald. Her story about the burial of her son didn’t survive a one-day investigation by the police in Toronto. The cops managed to track down Father Bertoni, the priest who had authored the death certificate for Lyle Drummond. He confirmed Ginny’s claim that she and the priest had buried the child, but when the police tried to pin him down about the location, he became evasive, and his memory was suddenly unreliable. The property had been bulldozed decades ago and was now a shopping mall. The land was not a graveyard, at least not officially, so there were no precautions taken when the lot was developed, and nobody was on the lookout for bones under the earth.

  We still didn’t know what got the police onto the story of Ginny and her young son. But it would not stretch the imagination to conclude that, in the midst of all the grief and turmoil and speculation about Bonnie MacDonald, somebody had raised long-buried questions about an earlier child in the family who had come to grief.

  I wanted to know more. I wanted something that was going to clear Ginny of any suspicion in relation to Bonnie and to her dead son. And I wanted a priest along to soften up Father Bertoni. I also wanted company in the stadium watching the Toronto Argonauts play the Edmonton Eskimos. I ordered two tickets. I told myself that I needed a pleasant distraction and that my friend Burke, who had played football for Fordham University, had never seen a Canadian Football League game. Therefore I was being generous and thoughtful as well. So off we flew to Toronto. I would leave Father Bertoni to the tender mercies of Father Burke. If the man was going to open up at all, it would be to a fellow priest unencumbered by a nosy lawyer hovering in the background.

  We enjoyed the football. Toronto won. We rehashed the game with some other guys over glasses of draft beer at the venerable Monarch Tavern. Then the conversation turned to baseball. Two of the fellows in the bar had been fortunate enough to score season tickets for the Toronto Blue Jays after the Jays won the World Series two years in a row in 1992 and ’93. Now the Major League players were on strike; they had walked out a week ago, and who knew when or if the season would resume? Our two new acquaintances were steamed.

  But Father Burke and I had more immediate concerns. The priest’s inquiries of the church authorities in Toronto were rewarded with the current address of Father Aldo Bertoni at an inner city shelter for people with addictions.

  The mystery about Ginny MacDonald only deepened after Father Bertoni gave Father Burke a few minutes of his time.

  “I had no trouble finding him,” Burke said to me over a pitcher of draft. “He’s still going full tilt at the age of sixty-six.”

  “Just a couple of years older than Ginny.”

  “Yeah. It sounded as if he had fond memories of her, or sympathetic memories at least.”

  “Did he ask why you were asking?”

  “Didn’t have to. The peelers had been there before me.”

  “Right. What was his reaction to that, the visit from the po
lice?”

  “He said they were way off course if they thought Ginny Drummond MacDonald would do anything wrong.”

  “Now, or then?”

  “Ever, according to Aldo’s testimony.”

  “So, he was her parish priest when she lived here, or outside the city.”

  “Yes, she was a regular Mass goer. Toronto Light Opera Association on Saturday nights, early Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows on Sunday mornings. He said she had a magnificent voice; she should have been in real opera, not the light version.”

  “He used to go and hear her.”

  “Maybe so. And she sang once in a while at Mass.”

  “Did he know her well enough to have any information about the father of the child? You have to wonder if the guy is still around somewhere.”

  “I asked, and Aldo just shook his head.”

  “Had he known her before she got pregnant, or when did he meet her?”

  “It sounds as if she began attending his church as soon as she arrived in Ontario. Somebody at the opera company arranged for her to live in this house out in the sticks, somebody’s father’s old place, whatever the deal was. I think she was sort of a house sitter and paid minimal rent. Anyway, she attended Our Lady of Sorrows. Sounds as if there weren’t a lot of Catholic churches in the area at the time. There are a few more now.” Burke took a long, satisfying drink of his draft. “The area developed into a suburb, and Aldo lost interest. Wanted to work with people who needed him, so he set up an outreach program for addicts and former prison inmates here in downtown Toronto.”

  “Sounds like a good fellow.”

  “Yes, he is. I asked him about the burial, and he was cagey about that. ‘Ginny must have told you,’ he said. I countered with ‘Can you tell me?’ But all he said was, ‘Out in the country. I would never be able to find it again. It’s all a suburb now. Shopping centres and service stations.’”

  “A mysterious death, and a body that cannot be made available for examination. Not that there would be much left at this point.”