Little Boy Blues

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “Well done, Ms. MacPhee. You have covered a lot of territory.”

  “Yes, in every sense.”

  “I have less to report,” she said, “but I think you will find it interesting, all the same.”

  “Indeed,” Donald Donnie said.

  “You found out something? Where?”

  “Right here, Ms. MacPhee. Another piece of the puzzle.”

  “That’s true enough, isn’t it, Dad?”

  “I waited until young Ferguson was asleep in case he was troubled by it.”

  “Troubled by what?” I sometimes wish Miss Manners would permit one to scream “get to the point.”

  “Something else Donald Donnie mentioned about Jimmy’s accident.” Mrs. Parnell blew a pair of triumphant smoke rings.

  “And that was?”

  “Why don’t you tell it, Donald Donnie?”

  “I’ll tell it,” Loretta said. “Violet thinks it might explain Allie’s reactions.”

  “Tell it soon,” I said.

  “What Violet got excited about is what we remember.”

  “Although, indeed, it was a long time ago,” Donald Donnie said.

  “Sixteen years. I remember like it was yesterday, whether you do or not, Dad.”

  I cleared my throat.

  Loretta said, “You’re getting a bit of a cold there, Camilla. Anyway, Allie came running up the hill, hollering for help and, of course, as you know, no one came out except Tracy, who couldn’t have been more than nine. What could she do?”

  “Here’s the part,” Mrs. Parnell said.

  “And he was screaming and crying that the big boys were after Jimmy.”

  “The big boys? What big boys?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “And when you got down to the park, did you see any boys?”

  Donald Donnie’s voice cracked. “All I saw was little Jimmy’s face down in the dirty water. I didn’t even look for boys. I gave him mouth-to-mouth, and Mum called for the ambulance.”

  “What about afterwards? What did Alvin say then?”

  “Well, that’s it, he never said a thing, did he, Dad?”

  “Indeed he didn’t. Jimmy was in intensive care for a long time. We knew he had brain damage, and the doctors believed he would die. Allie took to his bed. When they questioned him, he couldn’t remember a damn thing.”

  “Of course, you told the police this at the time? Or did they ask?”

  “Indeed, we told them. I don’t think they believed a word. We didn’t see any boys. Allie didn’t remember anything. No one else was around.”

  “And the Fergusons?”

  “They were too busy blaming Allie and absolving themselves. They thought he said it to get himself off the hook for leaving his little brother, right, Dad?”

  I said, “Well, it’s probably not connected with Jimmy’s disappearance, but if it’s true, it sure explains a lot about Alvin’s reactions.”

  “Right you are, Ms. MacPhee. It’s typical of these boys to forget some terrible event and then suffer from flashbacks.”

  “It might be even worse for Alvin if some other children caused Jimmy’s brain injury. But if we know for sure, we can help him deal with it.”

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. P. said. “Perhaps.”

  At that point I woke up Gussie, and we hiked back to the Fergusons’ and the pink ruffled room next to Vince. None of the small pack of Fergusons I encountered inquired about Alvin. They had no word on Jimmy, and at the end of day four that was very bad news.

  • • •

  It was hard to believe the next morning that I’d had any sleep. My dreams were full of tearing metal, body impacts, videos and vile smelling French fries.

  When I opened my eyes, I realized it wasn’t the fries. I gave Gussie a push off the bed and crawled out to face the day. Even a shower and shampoo didn’t seem to make much difference.

  Alvin and Mrs. P. had already arrived from next door for breakfast. Alvin looked daisy fresh as he bustled about in the kitchen. Mrs. Parnell was also full of pep. Gussie had preceded me to the kitchen by a full fifteen minutes and wolfed the last serving of French toast. I muscled my way to the coffee pot. Mrs. Parnell had news.

  “Father Blaise is in Ottawa? You’re kidding me,” I said.

  Mrs. Parnell shrugged. “He’s attending a conference at St. Paul’s University. Loretta and Donald Donnie checked their sources. Father Blaise is on the program and couldn’t cancel out. He’ll be in Ottawa for a week. That’s the best I can come up with. Apparently he was not at all happy to go. He wanted to stay with the Fergusons.”

  “Well, well, well. Maybe you can find out how to reach him.”

  “I’m on it, Ms. MacPhee. I’ll give St. Paul’s a call and see how you can contact him.”

  “Ready to roll, Camilla?” Alvin said.

  • • •

  We were back downtown before Gussie knew we were gone.

  Alvin said. “The shifts probably change for holidays. We should check with everyone who works at the video store to see if anyone remembers who else was in the shop when Jimmy was hiding. If Jimmy ran out and ran down the street, it would be because either the person had left, or was in the video store.”

  “Or maybe the person walked off in the opposite direction. Or was no longer in view. Or maybe Jimmy panicked.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know something, Alvin, let’s pick this stuff off in the order of likelihood. My money’s on someone being in the video shop.”

  Too bad no one in the video store remembered anything. We decided to wait for the next shift. Our blue-haired buddy wasn’t working that morning.

  I said, “Okay, let’s keep going anyway. The second most likely scenario is the person walked in the opposite direction. No?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Let’s retrace where Jimmy might have gone.”

  “We know he ran down Charlotte Street.”

  When we reached the corner by Fuzzy’s, deserted in the daytime, we had three choices. Four if you counted retracing our steps. Alvin couldn’t imagine Jimmy doing that.

  “Okay, be Jimmy for a minute, Alvin, where would you go?”

  Alvin pursed his lips. “Not down Townsend that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jimmy was scared of a big German Shepherd that used to live on that block. He wouldn’t go past the house.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Look, you told me to be Jimmy. I’m being Jimmy. I’m afraid of the dog that used to live in that house. Accept it.”

  “Right. Narrows the field. Let’s try out the remaining two.”

  “He was seen on the boardwalk.”

  “But he was seen on the boardwalk in the evening. If you were Jimmy, would you stay on the boardwalk all that time?”

  Alvin thought for a minute. “No, someone would have seen him.”

  “And he used to hide if he was scared.”

  “He couldn’t hide on the boardwalk. So where would he hide?”

  “Okay, Alvin, let’s keep walking down Charlotte Street toward the park and keep thinking like Jimmy. Maybe he was trying to get home.”

  “Jimmy wasn’t crazy about this route either.”

  “Why not?”

  “Who knows? But he’d never walk all the way to the end.”

  We were already part way. “So what would he do? Hide?”

  “Maybe. Behind someone’s house perhaps. In a garage.”

  “What?”

  We stared at each other. Could Jimmy Ferguson be stuck in someone’s garage for more than four days? Accidentally locked in by someone who’d left town?

  “If Violet were here, she’d suggest a military strategy,” Alvin said.

  “Good thinking. Let’s split up. You take this side, and I’ll take the other.”

  Alvin said, “No. We’re working well together. One of us might notice something the other one didn’t.”

  “Deal.” We agreed to start again at the top
of the street and to knock on every door. If someone was home, we’d explain we were looking for Jimmy and ask if we could search the back yard, garage and basement. We’d ask if they had seen Jimmy on Canada Day. If no one was home, we decided to overlook the finer points of the law in terms of trespassing.

  • • •

  “Stop looking so down, Alvin.”

  “We’ve been at it for an hour, we’re coming up empty and we’re halfway down the street.”

  “We have to keep slogging. We don’t have anything more effective to do.”

  “I could be out combing the woods with everyone else.”

  “Go do it, Alvin, if it makes you happy. I’ll keep on here.”

  Alvin stood, staring at his feet.

  “Go ahead. If you really think you have more chance to find Jimmy in the woods, that’s where you should be.”

  “You don’t have to shout. I thought you might manage a pep talk.”

  “You want a pep talk? Here it is. Move your butt.”

  Five backyards, four garages, two sheds and a pergola later, I felt I needed a pep talk myself.

  Alvin said. “Jimmy would never go further on this street. Something about it bothered him.”

  “Fine, we’ll finish and try the other direction.”

  Alvin said, “You know something? I’m being Jimmy. I run down here in a panic and then, I think, hey wait, this is that part of the street, and then I think of whatever scared me in the first place about that area, and this makes me panic more.”

  “So we give a little extra attention to this part of the street.”

  We were in front of a large brown house with an old-fashioned covered veranda. Alvin rang the doorbell, and I checked the mailbox. I rifled through several pieces of mail, plus flyers from Sobey’s and Atlantic Superstore. “Looks like the Smith family has been away for a couple of days, Alvin.” A broom, some flower pots and a few gardening tools in a little carrying basket lay on the veranda. Alvin kept ringing, and I stepped to the end of the veranda to check if there was another path to the backyard. By the edge of the veranda, wrinkled and curled, lay an X-Men comic.

  “Bingo, Alvin,” I said. “Time to call the cops.”

  “Hey, Camilla, we don’t have to. They’re already here.”

  “That’s great.” I bustled down to the sidewalk. “Officer? Could you come around here? What? Wait a minute. Why the hell should I put my hands on top of the car?”

  “Lord thundering Jesus,” Alvin said.

  There might be worse outcomes than ending up in the holding tank in Cape Breton Regional Police Force’s Central Division, but I was hard pressed to imagine them. Plus that goddam fingerprint ink is hell to get off.

  • • •

  Ray Deveau was in his usual good humour as he entered the interview room, where I was fuming. He had Alvin with him. He said, “I can’t wait to hear your explanation.”

  “Apparently doing the job the police should have done.” With any other cop that would have been a strategic error.

  Ray Deveau threw back his head and laughed. “We don’t usually get involved in breaking and entering. They must have different methods on the Mainland.”

  “Very funny. You know we weren’t breaking and entering.”

  “Neighbours saw you going in and out of garages and slinking about in backyards. We must have had half a dozen 911 calls.”

  “Do I look like I can slink?”

  “Under the right circumstance, I’m betting you could.”

  “Be serious.”

  Alvin said, “Are you blushing, Camilla?”

  “No, but I think I might be having a stroke.”

  Ray Deveau laughed harder. Finally he wiped his eyes. “It’s hard for us not to charge you, considering the number of laws you violated.”

  Alvin sniffed. He hates getting arrested.

  I said, “Go right ahead and charge. It will make good reading. Lets see: Heartbroken brother of missing boy, tired of police incompetence, finds trail and gets arrested in police cover-up.”

  “Just kidding,” he said. “What trail?”

  “It will all come out in court.”

  “Don’t get huffy. If you found something, we’d better get on it.”

  Alvin blurted it out. “We found the X-Men comic Jimmy had with him the day he disappeared. On the veranda where we got arrested. We told those cops who we were and what we were doing. They wouldn’t listen. It’s still there.”

  “If it’s any consolation, those guys are never gonna make detectives. I’ll keep you informed about what happens.”

  “Better bring us with you. And a scene of the crime tech. Plus you’ll need Thomas’s fingerprints. I imagine you already have Jimmy’s.”

  “It’s a great break. We’ll get a search warrant for the property. As a lawyer, I imagine you know about that irritating due process stuff.”

  Turned out Ray Deveau’s good nature did not extend to inviting us to join the investigation. However, he did have us sent home in a squad car, which was easy on the feet.

  • • •

  Loretta and Donald Donnie were overjoyed to be asked about the Smiths. As a bonus, I got some pretzels for breakfast and a Joe Louis for lunch.

  “Loretta will check out the street, won’t you, Mum?”

  “You need a cover,” Mrs. Parnell said, her eyes gleaming. “You don’t want to give away our position.”

  “Don’t you worry, I’ve got a cover all right, don’t I, Dad?.”

  Loretta flipped through the phonebook and began making calls. She was working her way through everyone who lived on the street, asking for donations for something she called the Find Jimmy Ferguson Fund. All the conversations went something like this: “That’ll be grand. Donald Donnie will be right along to pick that up, dear, as soon as his arthritis is a bit better. Isn’t it a shame about that poor boy? Awful. Awful. Awful. I heard the police have been asking everyone if they saw anything unusual on Canada Day. Donald Donnie thinks they figure it was a kidnapping. What? Today? I can’t believe it. A man and a woman. Did they? A ponytail? Dangerous? Really?”

  Alvin let out a bleat.

  “But what about the day in question, dear? Did you see anything then? No? No sign of Jimmy? Of course, you’d tell the police. No, no, I don’t think you’re dumber than a cow’s arse. Sometimes, we see things we don’t know are important. No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

  Five calls later and she hit the jackpot. “The Smiths are out of town, all right. But they’re only in Ingonish. We’re on to them.”

  It took another three calls to track down the very same Smiths at their cabin in Ingonish Beach. Loretta had refined her tactic.

  “My God, girl,” she said, when Mrs. Smith finally came to the phone. “The police are all over your place.” We couldn’t really make out the squeaks and squawks. “It has to do with that Jimmy Ferguson being missing... God, yes he is. Since Canada Day. Did you not hear about that? It’s been all over the radio and television... Well, you heard it now. Yes, it is awful. But listen, the police want to talk to you... Because, his comic book was found on your front porch. They’re getting a search warrant. They’ll have a scene of the crime officer in your garden and everything. They’ll go through your dresser drawers. They’ll dig up your garden... Well, dear, no one’s accusing you. When did you leave town?... Oh, not until Monday... I don’t mean anything by that... He went missing on Sunday, Canada Day. They’ll want to know if you saw him hiding out in your area. Maybe in your backyard... Go on! Did he?... Was he?... No! And you saw this?... You’re right. That is very strange... What? At your door now. Ask them to wait. I want to hear about the...”

  Loretta slammed down the phone. “Well, if that’s not the living end. She hung up because the Mounties were banging on the door. Isn’t that something, Dad?”

  Eighteen

  Alvin’s long, fishlike fingers twitched near Loretta’s neck.

  “We need to know what Mrs. Smith said.” I did not say cut
the dramatic bullshit, which took some self-control on my part.

  “Well, if it’s so important, why aren’t you willing to wait and hear the story?” By now, Loretta was definitely in sulk mode.

  “Everyone would relish your story, Loretta,” Mrs. Parnell said. “But it is urgent. Give them the bare bones of it, and you can repeat it, adding all the rich detail, later. While young Ferguson and Ms. MacPhee are investigating, you can call your friend back and find out what the police wanted. I am certain she’ll be delighted to tell you.” Loretta glowed.

  “So,” I said. “What happened?”

  “She saw him. In her backyard. He seemed to be playing a game with a woman, then Jimmy careened into the roses. Destroyed her prize Peace rose bush and God knows what else.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes. She said the woman shouted she was sorry, and she’d pay for any damage to the flowers, but she had to get Jimmy home fast. Then Jimmy broke right through the cedar hedge and took off, and the woman took off after him. Mrs. Smith was planning to call your mother when she got back from Ingonish and tell her to replace the rose bush.”

  “Did Jimmy say anything?”

  “She said no, but he was crying, and now she’ll never forgive herself. I mean, it was only a frigging rose bush.”

  We stared at Loretta.

  Alvin said, “What woman would have been chasing Jimmy to take him home?”

  • • •

  Mrs. Parnell took charge of the next phase. Unlike me and Alvin, she commanded respect from the Fergusons. Mrs. Ferguson, Frances Ann and Tracy were stunned. None of them had gone to find Jimmy, much less chased him through a garden, trampling a rose bush before bursting through a cedar fence.

  “Chased him? Do you think we’re crazy?” Frances Ann said.

  “No one would chase Jimmy. He would panic even if one of us chased him.” Tracy had tears in her eyes.

  “Imagine, then,” Mrs. Parnell said, “what would Jimmy do if someone else was chasing him?”

  Mrs. Ferguson gripped her throat. “He could have another seizure. Oh, holy mother of God.”