“Except my family.”
“Including your family. I think that’s part of it.”
“What are you talking about, Camilla?”
“We’ll discuss that later. Right now, we’re running out of time, so we’d better hop to it. What would Jimmy do if he was in the video store, and he saw someone he was afraid of?”
“He’d hide.”
“Okay, so let’s assume whoever Jimmy saw was out on the street.”
“Right.”
“Let’s assume it’s who and not what.”
“Okay.”
I had to admit I missed the old Alvin. For all he could piss you off, he was always thinking straight and usually a jump ahead.
“Work with me, Alvin.”
“Poor Jimmy,” Alvin said.
“Forget the poor Jimmy crap, Alvin. All your affection for Jimmy interferes with your ability to figure out what could have happened to him. We have to use our brains. Dump the emotion.”
“I’ll try.”
“Think. Would he really run out into the same street where the person he was afraid of was? It doesn’t make sense.”
Alvin hesitated. “Maybe. If he panicked. If he was terrified.”
“Remember, forget the emotion, Alvin.”
“Right. No, he probably wouldn’t have.”
“Good. That probably means one of two situations.”
“I get you. Either the person was no longer in sight or he might have been in the video store.”
• • •
Buddy blue-hair seemed reconciled to seeing us again. Maybe he thought it was bad dream.
“I noticed Jimmy because he was crouched between me and the back room, and I passed him twice and he asked me about the video. And I guess because he was looking a bit weird.”
“And you didn’t notice anyone else in the shop at the time?”
“No one in particular.”
“But you didn’t tell the police you’d seen Jimmy in here acting strangely?”
He shuffled. “I feel shitty about that now. I didn’t think much about it at the time. It kind of firmed up when you were asking me about him and where he was and who could see him.”
“But you knew Jimmy was missing, and you knew you had seen him.”
“Well, yeah, but this was hours before he was last seen. I never even thought to call the cops. I heard on the radio people saw him at Fuzzy’s. Fuzzy’s doesn’t open until it starts to get dark.”
He had a point. “And you’re sure you saw him before six.”
“Don’t mind her,” Alvin said. “She’s from away.”
“Cool. And the time is one thing I’m sure of. I was in a hurry to meet my girlfriend. She gets pissed off if I’m late.”
“Thanks,” Alvin said.
“Hey, Allie, like I said, everyone’s sorry about Jimmy.”
Sixteen
I called Ray Deveau on my cellphone. Of course, I had to leave a message after the beep. “He’ll probably be really steamed about our theory of the person being in the video store. A lot of extra work interviewing the staff again. But our role is to stir things up, get things moving. Right, Alvin? Now where were we?”
Alvin said, “Déjà vu, all over again.”
“You know what? I can’t remember the last time we ate,” I said.
“You ate lunch. At one-thirty.”
“My point exactly. About eight hours ago, and since then we’ve been legging it all over town. Let’s hit Fuzzy’s.”
“I can’t eat lately,” Alvin said.
“Fine, you can watch. Don’t look at me that way. We might pick up some info for the price of an order of fries. I hear they’re worth their weight in gold anyway.”
The tantalizing fry fragrance filled the air as we joined the line-up. Alvin seemed to know everyone. Although this was Sydney, and people would be chatting, whether they knew each other or not. Total strangers talked to me, too.
I worked up and down the line asking if anyone had seen Jimmy Ferguson on Canada Day. After ten minutes of working the crowd, we had nothing but sympathy. Then Alvin got lucky talking to a couple of kids with baseball caps and baggy jeans. “We told the cops, eh. We saw him.”
“You guys here a lot?”
“Pretty much in the summer.”
“What time did you see him?” I asked, horning in.
“It’s okay,” Alvin said. “She’s with me.”
“Seriously?” the first kid said, giving me a look.
“Close to nine, we figured,” the second kid said. “That’s what we told the cops. Just getting dark. Couldn’t have been much later.”
The first kid said, “He’ll turn up.”
The second kid said, “Gotta.”
“Was he alone?” I asked.
“Yeah. But, like, there were lots of people around.”
“Was he talking to anyone?”
“Just hi and that.”
“Did he look scared?”
“I thought he was excited. He kept looking around. Maybe he was scared.”
Alvin said, “But he got some fries?”
“Oh yeah, he got fries.”
I said, “We’re trying to figure out if he made a phone call. We’re not sure where he would have gone to make it.”
“Hey, that’s easy. He made a call from this girl’s cellphone.” Alvin said, “What girl?”
“We saw him talking to her for a minute. And then she passed him the phone, and he made this call.”
“Did you know her?”
“She was, like, a tourist.”
“From the States,” the other one said.
“How do you know?”
“We talked to her later. She said she was from Georgia.”
“She knew Jimmy?”
“Nah, he just used her phone.”
“Is she staying in town?”
“She was with her old man. They were driving to Louisbourg the next day and then back to the States.”
“You don’t think he was afraid of her?”
“No man, she was one hot babe.”
“What did Jimmy do after he used the phone?”
“He headed that way with his fries.”
Alvin jerked his head. “Behind the fire station?”
“Yeah, that’s where he went. Over that way. In a hurry.”
“Thanks, guys. That’s a big help.”
“Any time, eh. We told the cops.”
I said, “Did you tell the police about the girl from Georgia and the cellphone?” They shook their heads. “Let me guess,” I said. “They didn’t ask.”
By this time, we’d reached the head of the line and ordered. The guy in the chip wagon remembered seeing Jimmy, but not when, not where and not anything unusual about him.
“Did he come from the same direction he usually did?”
“The cops asked me that. I looked up, and he was at the window.”
“And?”
“If you were planning on asking me if he left the way he usually did, I can’t answer that either. I didn’t even see him leave.” He wiped his forehead, “Sure wish I had. Maybe it could have helped.”
If the Fergusons (except for Alvin) could eat non-stop every day, why couldn’t I have a bit extra in the course of my duty? I took the largest size fries and went back to tracing Jimmy’s movements. I hoped that Ray Deveau could make out the new message I left about the tourist from Georgia and the cellphone, since my mouth was full.
Alvin was standing on the steps of the United Baptist Church on the corner of Charlotte and Townsend, where a small group of people were enjoying their fries. I joined him and looked around.
“This is different,” he said.
“You mean eating fries on the church step. Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Jimmy always sat here to eat his fries. Unless he was with Ma and Vince. They didn’t think you should eat on church steps, even Protestants.”
I munched a couple of fries before I said, “Maybe he was wat
ching out for someone. Or something he was afraid of. We can already figure out he made the call to Brandon from here saying he was afraid.”
Alvin said. “You know what it was? He got some fries because he would have been ravenous by then, and he was missing the barbecue. He had seen someone that scared him, so he didn’t want to take his usual route.”
I didn’t say anything, because I had another mouth full of fries. I tried to make a face to indicate interest.
“That’s it, Camilla. Jimmy was hiding. He just came out to get food.”
I swallowed my chip. “Hiding? He really wasn’t too well hidden. Everyone could see him, and he ate his chips in front of people.”
Alvin said, “You must realize by now Jimmy didn’t think like other people. Something would trigger a fear, and he’d be gone. But you could always see his shoes sticking out from under the bed or his shadow behind the shower curtain. Or whatever.”
“Right.”
“Maybe he thought he was safe in the crowd near Fuzzy’s. If he didn’t spot whoever spooked him, he might figure he couldn’t be seen either. And most likely that person wasn’t around right then. From his point of view, it would make sense.”
“Good point, Alvin. What would his point of view have been? Quite a long time had elapsed between running out of the video store and showing up here. Was he being cautious? He approached a stranger to make a call, so he couldn’t have been too panicked.”
“A girl, though,” he said. “He was never afraid of girls.”
“What about if...” But my voice was drowned out in a screech of brakes. A beat-up Chevy Nova shuddered to a halt about six inches inside a crosswalk. A sweet little lady gave the driver the finger. She added a few speculations about his parentage.
“Great vocabulary,” Alvin said, admiringly.
I said nothing. My mind had shot into overdrive.
“Don’t be such a prude, Camilla. She could have been killed.”
“That’s it, Alvin.”
“What?”
“Wasn’t that hit and run right here? Near Fuzzy’s? Canada Day?”
“I didn’t hear about any hit and run.”
“It was in the papers. And Thomas’s grandmother mentioned it. But now I’m wondering. What are the chances in a town this size, same day, same corner, a fatal hit and run and a missing kid?”
“You mean Jimmy might have seen something?”
“Exactly. What would he have done if he had?”
“It would depend. You never could tell with Jimmy. He might have told someone what he saw. He might hide.”
“What’s the longest he ever hid?”
“You mean, you think he might still be hiding?” A flash of hope lit up Alvin’s face.
“Could be. He’d be really traumatized by something like that. Especially if he was already frightened.”
“He might be alive.” Behind the cat’s-eye glasses, Alvin’s eyes shone.
“We have to believe that.”
“But he can’t be in Sydney. Someone would have seen him.”
“Maybe so, but let’s try to figure out if he could have seen something, and then work on what might have happened next.”
Alvin said. “This is the only hope we’ve had. Maybe he got out of town.”
“Maybe.” I headed back toward the chip wagon.
“That accident that happened last week,” I said to a guy in line, “did you hear about it?”
“This corner? It can be a freakin’ zoo.”
“I’m talking about the hit and run. I think you only had one of those. A tourist, I think.”
From way down the line a voice piped up. “We saw the whole thing. That poor guy lost his face. Goddam idiot driving.”
“I saw it too,” someone else said.
“Me too.”
“Yeah, young guy, minding his own business. Bad way to die.”
Before long I had confirmation. It tied in with what I’d read in the library earlier. Alvin slumped against the telephone pole, paler than death. “You heard them, Camilla. It was a young guy.”
“What? Driving the car? Can Jimmy drive?”
“I don’t mean that. Camilla. What if it was Jimmy that got hit?”
I stared at him. “That’s crazy. Snap out of it, Alvin. And don’t go slumping and humming either. Jimmy needs you conscious and thinking clearly.”
“It could have been him.”
I took the plunge and asked around. “Did anyone notice what the victim was wearing?”
“Jeans and aT-shirt.”
“And a baseball cap.”
“That’s what Jimmy had on. But who identified the victim as a tourist?” Alvin was hyperventilating by this time.
“Half the world is dressed like that. I’m dressed liked that, except for the cap.”
“It could have been him. Vince didn’t go to the cops until after ten. Maybe they’d already got the wrong name, and they didn’t even think about Jimmy.”
“Let’s not indulge in egregious speculations, Alvin. We can talk to the cops and find out what happened.”
Alvin is not a fan of talking to the cops. Even so, he said, “Yeah. You’re right.”
“I’ll call Ray Deveau and tell him it’s an emergency. I hate breaking in new police officers.”
Ray Deveau picked up the phone at his desk. Life is full of surprises.
• • •
Deveau didn’t yell at us when we met him at the police station. Turned out when the investigating was over for the day, the paperwork began. It was starting to tell on him, judging by the bags under his pale blue eyes. “You’ve been busy,” he said with a ghost of a smile.
“Alvin wants to ask some questions about his brother’s disappearance.”
Ray Deveau glanced over at Alvin, who was leaning against the wall, looking limper than usual. “You all right, Alvin?”
“What do you think? His brother’s missing. He’s upset.”
“Tell him, Camilla. About the hit and run.”
“Alvin wants to know how you established the victim of the hit and run was an unknown tourist and not Jimmy.”
Deveau ran his hands through his pale hair. “Oh, boy,” he said.
“Save it. This is a legitimate question.”
“We confirmed his identity without question. You want to sit down, Alvin?”
“Because,” I said, with remarkable reasonableness, “when this man was hit, Jimmy was seen in the same vicinity. When you identified the victim, you didn’t know Jimmy was missing. No one is blaming you, Sergeant.”
He chuckled. “Well, that’s good. But I can assure you both, Jimmy was not the victim.”
“Are you one hundred per cent certain?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know? He was a tourist. A stranger.”
“The victim’s name was Greg Hornyk. He was a young teacher from New Brunswick here on his honeymoon. Day two.”
“How can you be sure since no one knew him?”
“His wife knew him.”
“His wife?”
“She identified the body.”
“They said his face was destroyed by the impact.”
“She was standing right beside him. She witnessed the accident. She saw the whole thing happen.”
“Oh. But why didn’t you have the name earlier?”
“She had to be restrained after the hit and run. She collapsed and hit her head, on top of everything else. The boys hauled her off to the hospital. It was a while before we could make any sense out of her. Then we needed to contact family members.”
“They didn’t haveID?” This was Alvin.
“As a matter of fact, they didn’t. They’d left their valuables back at the hotel desk and their room keys too. They took a few dollars and went for a stroll on the boardwalk to see the Canada Day stuff. Then they decided to get fries. The girl at the hotel desk told them about Fuzzy’s. She feels terrible now.”
“Wrong place, wrong time,” I said.
Ray Deveau said, “It was a tragedy, Alvin, but it wasn’t Jimmy.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Alvin walked ahead of me, loping towards the front door of the station. I turned back to say something to Deveau.
He beat me to the punch. “You two look beat. I’m leaving now. You need a lift?”
“Sure, if you take dogs too.”
“Can’t do much to my car.”
His Taurus was cluttered with kids’ toys, paper and a stack of stuff from the dry cleaners, which I managed to keep Gussie from lying on.
As we pulled onto Crescent Street, Deveau said, “Mrs. Hornyk is still pretty distraught. She’s gone back to New Brunswick, but she’s in a bad way.”
“I’ve been in that situation.”
“Right, I gave Lennie a call. He mentioned that,” he said. “I know what it’s like to lose somebody. So we both realize it’s not a good idea to get in touch with her unless it’s absolutely necessary. That right?”
“No need now,” I said.
“Good.”
“By the way, speaking of leaving town, did your guys talk to Reefer Keefer?”
“He’s skipped. Must have been right after you left. Thanks for that tip, though. Reefer’s not swift enough to stay lost for long. But if you’re suggesting him for the hit and run, he doesn’t match the description of the driver.”
“Reefer?” Alvin snorted. “Way too mellow.”
“Get some sleep,” Deveau said, as we climbed out of the car.
“You too,” Alvin said.
I said, “You told us the hit and run driver didn’t look like Reefer. Does that mean you got a good description? I haven’t heard one.”
“We sure did. And we’re on it. Just a matter of time, step by step.”
“If you say so,” I said.
Seventeen
We were not permitted to drag our weary butts to bed without bringing Mrs. Parnell, Donald Donnie and Loretta up to date on everything that had happened. That seemed to take as long in the retelling as it had in real time. Maybe I rambled a tad because of the generous pair of rum and cokes Donald Donnie pressed on me. Whatever, there’s something about having a small, intense crowd hang on your every word.
Alvin had already crashed. Ditto Gussie.
When I had finished the litany of events, the phone call to Brandon, Reefer’s departure, Jimmy’s peculiar behaviour in the video store and later at Fuzzy’s and the odd coincidence of the hit and run, Mrs. Parnell leaned back.
Little Boy Blues Page 14