Lament for Bonnie Read online

  But back at the house that night, the topic of conversation was my missing cousin.

  “Where’s wee Bonnie then?” Morag asked Robbie.

  “You can’t think Andy had anything to do with the child’s disappearance!”

  All she did was look at him with those spooky black eyes.

  I slunk away then, before they remembered I was listening in.

  Monty

  I was at Collie MacDonald’s house, with its view of the rusted-out heavy water plant, because the Mounties had been by to question Collie about the disappearance of his daughter, Bonnie. No one had seen her since she attended a family party in Kinlochiel, a village of around thirteen hundred people on the south side of the east bay of the Bras d’Or Lakes, about twenty-five miles from Glace Bay. Cape Breton is normally outside my patch, and I was starting a three-week vacation from the law, but nothing about this situation was normal. This house on the hill used to be Collie and Sharon’s home before she up and left him for Andy Campbell and moved back to her old hometown of Kinlochiel. I’d spent time with Collie, gone drinking with him, on previous visits to Glace Bay with Maura, but I’d never been told why he and Sharon split up. My wife is not a gossip. Which is just as well given our own years of marital strife, now mercifully resolved. Collie was a steelworker, but he had been laid off from the plant in Sydney and now worked construction whenever there was a project on the go. Nothing going on now by the look of things. He had taken as little care of his own person as he had of the house. He met me at the door unshaven, his wavy black hair uncombed, pouches under his watery blue eyes, and his green plaid shirt missing two buttons. His beige corduroy pants were too large, as if he had lost weight. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. And perhaps he hadn’t. It had been two weeks since his daughter disappeared.

  “I didn’t even see her that night!”

  “What night?”

  “What do you think, Monty? The night she vanished. But the Mounties were here, and they acted as if I had something to do with it!”

  They could hardly have done otherwise, but I didn’t say so to Collie. Stranger abductions are rare. When something happens to a child, it is usually a family member or the mother’s boyfriend or someone else close to the family who is responsible. All I said was, “Let’s have a seat, and you can tell me about it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” But he stood there as if he didn’t know what to do.

  I brushed past him and went into the living room. There was a lounge chair with the mechanism busted, so the footrest was on the floor. There were plates of congealed food on the floor and on the tables, and several cases of empty bottles to complete the scene. The room reeked of stale beer and smoke; a cigarette burned in an ashtray on one arm of the broken chair. There was a glass of whisky on the other.

  I pushed a plate and some newspapers off the chesterfield and sat down. Collie threw himself into the lounge chair, knocking the ashtray to the floor. He ground the cigarette out in the carpet and managed to grab his glass without losing a drop.

  “All right, Collie. What happened?”

  “They asked where I was that night. Friday, the fifteenth of July.”

  “Right. And what did you tell them?”

  “Here.”

  “You were home.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Anybody with you?”

  “No.”

  The old home-alone alibi, with nobody to vouch for it.

  “All right, then what did they ask?”

  “Asked if I’d seen anyone, or anyone had seen me, and of course I said no. I was just here.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Nothing. Just having a few drinks. When was the last time I’d seen Bonnie? The day before she disappeared.” Collie’s right hand shook, and he put his glass on the table.

  “Then they asked whether I was sure I hadn’t been with her that night. I fucking blew up at them. My little girl is missing, and they think the whole thing slipped my mind? That the night is not imprinted on my memory like the worst nightmare of my past and future life? I told them again I didn’t see her. If I’d been with her, she’d be safe and sound with me, not out there somewhere, or . . .” His voice cracked, and he covered his face with his hand.

  I gave him a few moments and then asked, “What else did they say?”

  “They asked if I’d been by MacLellan’s video store lately. I figured they wanted to know what videos I’d rented. Lord Thunderin’ Jesus, who cares? I didn’t even remember if I had any. I told them to look around and I pointed to the VCR. They pawed through my collection but they didn’t seem too interested and they didn’t say anything more about it. They left and told me they’d be in touch if they had any more questions.”

  “You can be sure they will.”

  I had also received a call from Andy Campbell. The fact that the Mounties had turned up on Collie MacDonald’s doorstep to question him might suggest that they had zeroed in on Collie, for reasons they would of course not reveal, as a suspect in his daughter’s disappearance. But the child’s stepfather had been questioned as well, for the same reasons the father had: the nature of these crimes, if a crime had been committed, led the police naturally to family members first of all. They were the first to be suspected, and with good reason. The annals are filled with crimes committed by family members against one another.

  This was my job, to defend clients accused of committing crimes. Whether they were guilty, as they almost always were, or innocent, my job was the same. I went at it with the same dedication, the same skill. So I answered Andy’s call just as I had Collie’s. They were family, or at least extended family, through my marriage to Maura. But Bonnie was family, too. I could not imagine being in the position of representing a family member charged with abducting or hurting or, God forbid, killing little Bonnie MacDonald. In a situation like that, I would have to know what I never otherwise expect to know of any client: that he was innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. No, a higher standard in a case like that: innocent beyond any shadow of a doubt. If not, I would refuse to represent him. I only hoped I would be able to restrain myself from putting my hands around his throat and throttling the life out of him. But I had no reason to think, at least at this point, that Collie MacDonald or Andy Campbell had had anything to do with the disappearance of the little girl. And I wasn’t worried yet about any conflict of interest arising out of talking to both of them.

  Andy had offered to come to Glace Bay to meet me. But I was restless and edgy after talking to Collie and hearing the whispered anxieties about Bonnie at Maura’s parents’ place, so I welcomed the chance to get out on the road. I told Andy I’d see him at the Dirk bar in Kinlochiel at eight thirty that Friday evening. It’s only about a forty-minute drive from Glace Bay.

  Cape Breton looks like Scotland, from the towering rugged coastline to the interior with its shining lakes so similar to the Scottish lochs with low green hills rising around them. I was driving along one of those lochs now, Lake Bras d’Or. The village of Kinlochiel is on the shore of the lake. Portree Road is the main street, which runs along the shoreline, with shops and businesses on both sides of the street, including the post office, liquor store, grocery store, fish market, bank, craft shop, the Dirk and another bar, a couple of restaurants, and the volunteer fire station. Other businesses are located on the side streets off Portree. There is a video shop, a music store, a bakery, and other services. The streetscapes are pleasant to look at because most of the businesses converted existing wooden houses and buildings instead of tearing them down and replacing them with cheap, featureless structures. The land rises gently above the water, so the village has a terraced appearance when viewed from the lakeside. The spire of Saint Margaret of Scotland church is a focal point, with the elementary school and sports field beside it, and the square tower of Saint Andrew’s United complementing it on the other side of town. The
re are several blocks of well-kept two-storey houses and a few newer bungalows, with plenty of trees and flower gardens.

  Andy Campbell was in the Dirk bar ahead of me and rose to shake my hand. Life had been kinder to Andy than it had been to Collie. Sharon MacDonald’s second husband was a man in his mid-forties, rugged and handsome with thick, prematurely white hair and dark eyebrows, a combination often seen on people of Scottish extraction. He wore a tan sports jacket and a white shirt open at the neck; he looked relaxed and untroubled, as if he had just come back from a holiday. And in fact he was on holiday, at least from his regular work as a schoolteacher, although he taught music in the summers. And he was a member of the Clan Donnie band. His Cape Breton accent, which sounded like a mix of Scottish and Irish, was more lilting than Collie MacDonald’s.

  “Monty, ciamar a tha thu?”

  “Glè mhath, Andy.”

  “Thanks for driving all the way here to meet me.”

  “It’s a beautiful drive. I only hope I can be of some use.” I sat down at the table. “So, the Mounties stopped in.”

  “They came and asked me all kinds of horrible questions about Bonnie. I felt like pounding the face off them. But I know they’re doing their jobs, trying to find out what happened. But Jesus, I won’t repeat all they said. They must meet some sick, twisted fucks in their work. I don’t envy them if this is the shit they have to trawl through. Anyway, they also wanted to know when I’d last seen her, where I was the night she disappeared, and all that. What should I be doing here, Monty?”

  The answer to that depended on whether he was guilty of something or not. What I said was, “The first thing I tell my clients is not to say anything, at all, to the police.”

  “Yeah, but those are guilty clients, right?”

  “It applies to the innocent and to the guilty. You never know what information the police have and are keeping back. Something you say, which sounds innocent to you, may fit in with something else they know and seal your fate. The most basic example would be the guy who absolutely denies being anywhere near the scene of the crime. Then the police turn up a footprint that matches his. The guy may have had a legitimate reason for being there at some other time, but the police aren’t going to give that much credence after he’s set himself up with the initial lie. He should have kept his mouth shut.”

  Andy signalled to the waiter and we each ordered a beer. We made small talk about the local music scene until we were served, and Andy brought up the subject of the big Celtic music concert that I knew was planned for Glace Bay in mid-August. Clan Donnie and other bands were slated to take part. Nobody knew what to do now, given the situation with Bonnie. After the waiter had brought our beer, we each took a long drink and returned to the subject of the girl’s disappearance.

  “So, what did happen that night, Andy?”

  “We were all partying, kids and parents and cousins and friends, everybody. There was a big wingding at Red Archie Drummond’s place, and we were going back and forth between his house and Mary Reid’s.”

  “How much distance between the two houses?”

  “Red Archie’s is behind Mary’s on the same block but a few houses down, if you know what I mean, behind and over a few doors. You can get from one to the other through the backyard, if you don’t mind stepping over a little fence and maybe getting your shoes muddy, or you can walk to the corner of the street and go part way around the block and along that way.” Two different routes for people to take in the dark.

  “So some of you would be at the party at Red Archie’s, others at Mary’s, over the course of the night.”

  “And going back and forth between them.”

  “If you didn’t see somebody at one house, you’d just assume he or she had gone around the block to the other place.”

  “Right.”

  “And you wouldn’t notice right away that someone was missing.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What was Bonnie doing that night?”

  “Giggling with her cousins, reciting foolish poems, playing games, running around the yard, just kid stuff.”

  “Tell me about your evening.”

  “I was back and forth like everybody else. A racket started up at Mary’s — you know, a ceilidh. My fiddle was in the car, so I got it and played for a while with Robbie and Kirsty.” Sharon’s brother and sister in the band. “There was a group of people playing Bish over at Archie’s.” Tarabish, pronounced “tarbish,” a card game popular in Cape Breton. “So I headed over there and played for a bit, Archie and I against a couple of other fellows. Jesus, we used to have some great games of Bish when I was at X.” Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. “We played in the basement of Mockler Hall. Entry fee was a two-four of beer. It was winning team take all, so the stakes were high! Anyway, I played a few hands at Archie’s. There was music going on there, too, on CD. Some of the crowd were dancing.”

  “All right, so there was live music at Mary’s, and cards and CDs playing at Red Archie’s. How late did this go on?”

  “Not late at all, as a matter of fact, because several of the kids had hockey early next morning. Summer hockey camp in Sydney.” You know you’re Canadian when you get up at the crack of dawn in July to play hockey. “Anyway, the party started early, at suppertime. We all had supper at Mary’s, then people began going back and forth. An early party, early morning ahead. So we packed ’er in, or at least Sharon and I did, sometime before eleven, with the two younger kids. We said goodnight . . .” It was the first time Andy appeared rattled. He started again. “We said goodnight to Bonnie because she was staying over at Red Archie’s with her cousin, Louise. Well, you know Louise, Archie’s daughter. We told Bonnie to call us in the morning if she wanted to be picked up. Jesus.” Andy’s eyes filled with tears and he looked away. “This is the stuff that makes you want to go to the Seal Island Bridge and take a flying leap. All we had to do was bring Bonnie home with us, and this wouldn’t have . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Andy. I have no idea what to say to you, or to Sharon.”

  “I know, Monty, I know.”

  “So you and Sharon went home together.”

  “Right.”

  “And the Mounties obviously asked you whether you stayed home.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then he said, “Well, I dropped Sharon at the house to put Heather and Jockie to bed, then went out to pick up a couple of things. I told the cops that.”

  “You went out to a store?”

  “The Irving. They have a convenience store there now. I wanted to get some mix and some nuts, couple of things for the morning as well.”

  “The Mounties would have checked that out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What else did they ask?”

  “They wanted to know if I’d been by the video shop, or the other stores on Highland Avenue. Maybe they thought I had some rentals that were overdue, and they were going to hold me for that till they could come up with some evidence that linked me to Bonnie’s disappearance!”

  “Did they explain why they were asking about the movie place?”

  “No, I just got up and went over to my VCR. I did have a couple of rentals from the fellow in town, MacLellan. His video store. The cops picked them up and looked at them. I wondered later if they thought I’d been renting dirty movies, about young girls or something. But Vern MacLellan doesn’t carry anything like that in his shop. And I wouldn’t be watching that kind of crap anyway.”

  “Right. Now, I imagine they asked you whether Bonnie had been unhappy lately.”

  “Oh, yeah. Would she have run away from home?”

  Silence then, until I asked, “Would she?”

  “If anything was bothering her, she sure as hell hadn’t told me.”

  “Would she have told Sharon?”

  “Sure she would have. Sharon and Bonnie w
ere like that.” He crossed two fingers together.

  I didn’t want to make things any worse for him by pointing out that there might have been something the child would not have told her mother. Some secret among her friends or something else she might not have wanted her mother to know. Or that her mother would not have wanted to hear.

  RCMP Sergeant Pierre Maguire

  I knew Dougald MacDougald didn’t like this, and I understood why. He is a Cape Breton Scotsman. A redhead, a piper. He grew up in Sydney Mines, son of an auto mechanic, and he knew all these guys, drank with them, played music with them. Last thing he wanted to do was question and maybe arrest one of them for the abduction and possible murder of one of the children of the clan. The members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrol most of the island, except for Sydney and the other urban centres of industrial Cape Breton, which are served by municipal police. We don’t do Louisbourg either, but I wish we did; it’s a fortress that was built by the French in 1713, destroyed by the English, and reconstructed again in recent times. I took my wife and kids there, and they wanted to move in. We all did. But anyway, even in those towns, we share policing duties with the local force. One of our detachments is located in Sydney, and our members there serve communities like Kinlochiel along the Bras d’Or Lakes. Dougald is a uniformed constable in the Sydney detachment.

  Nobody believed Bonnie Clan Donnie MacDonald was a runaway. The case was more serious than that, so it came to us in GIS, the general investigation section, and that’s how Dougald ended up shedding his uniform for plain clothes and working with me. I’ve known him since I transferred here; he knows the territory and the locals, and on several occasions he’s been seconded to GIS to assist with a case. Dougald and Constable Maxim Belenko had responded to the initial call from Sharon MacDonald that her daughter was missing. Constables MacDougald and Belenko then conducted the first round of questioning. Some people we questioned again, once GIS became involved.