Little Boy Blues. Mary Jane Maffini
were from Jimmy Ferguson. Surely Alvin and his family would want them, no matter what.
I hiked back up to the apartment, unlocked the door, raced to the bedroom and scooped out the postcards. It was obvious from their careful storage that they meant a lot to Alvin, so I thought it better not to squish them into the kit bag. I held on to them until I got back to the car and slipped them into my briefcase. I’d give them to him when the time was right.
• • •
My next stop was back in Ottawa on Elgin Street again, Ottawa Police Services Headquarters. I made my way to the second floor, Criminal Investigation Division. The guy at the desk knew me as Conn McCracken’s sister-in-law. Things had greatly improved since the previous year, when every cop on the force had been on my case, and I’d even been tossed out of the building.
This time I waved my way through and headed over to Major Crimes.
“You want me to buzz Lennie?”
I smiled. “I’ll surprise him.”
When I stuck my head in the door, Mombourquette raised his pointy nose, sniffed and narrowed his eyes. He knew when he was trapped.
“Hey, Leonard,” I grinned. “Cat got your tail?”
“Not a good time.”
“I’m here now, and we both want me to go away soon.”
“We sure do.”
“Did you get my message?”
“All of them, in fact.”
“Only two. Don’t exaggerate, Leonard.”
“Here’s the deal. I’ve got a cousin on the Cape Breton force. I made a call. So he gave this information to me. All right?”
“Sure, Leonard.”
“He did not give the information to you. Understand?”
“Fine.”
“Okay, Jimmy Ferguson has diminished capacity. You probably know that. He has never been away from home. He has serious medical problems, including petit mal seizures resulting from a brain injury. The family does not believe he can look after himself. He has simply disappeared.”
“Yesterday.”
“He never came home. They’ve checked the bus station and the airport, even though it’s highly unlikely he could manage to get himself a ticket.”
“Maybe they underestimate him.” I could relate to that.
“You want to let me finish? Or you know everything already?”
“Okay, okay, keep going.”
“They’ve got a media call out. He was seen by a number of neighbours making his usual rounds from one friend to another. Nothing out of the ordinary. He was also seen on the boardwalk overlooking the harbour, although he’s not supposed to be there. No one has seen him since.”
“Maybe he became disoriented and got lost,” I said.
Mombourquette shook his head. “I suggested that. My cousin set me straight. Apparently everyone knew this boy. It’s a close-knit community. The radio stations have been making announcements. Plenty of appeals to the public. They’ve searched the parks. Everywhere.”
“Okay,” I said.
“But Jimmy Ferguson has vanished off the face of the earth.”
“Right next to the harbour,” I said.
“That’s it. That’s the big worry.”
“Could he swim?”
“Wouldn’t matter if he had a seizure near the edge of the water. You can’t swim if you’re unconscious.”
“What the hell are you doing to find out if that’s what happened, Leonard?”
Six
Stop yelling at me.”
I stared. “I’m not yelling at you, Leonard.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to, and I apologize. Now where were we?”
“We were in Sydney.”
“What’s the name of your cousin on the Sydney force again?”
“Let me repeat. I don’t want you calling up my contacts on other forces and giving them a hard time.”
“I’d never do something like that.” I couldn’t help smiling, because Mombourquette was wearing a soft grey summer shirt and pants, and his whiskers twitched.
“You do things like that all the time.”
“Not this time. I have no intention of badgering anyone, but my father will ask me, and you know what Cape Bretoners are like about getting the names of peoples’ relatives. He’s eighty years old. Can’t you humour him?”
“Your father’s in Scotland. How stupid do you think I am?”
I really hated to let that one slip by. “He’s bound to call me, Leonard.”
“I can’t stand this.”
“There’s a way to make it stop.”
“Okay, my cousin’s name is Ray Deveau.”
“Thank you. Now was that so hard?”
“He’s the nicest guy in the world, and I don’t want you bugging him. Understand?”
Mombourquette’s cousin? Nicest guy in the world? Hardly. “Perfectly. What exactly did he say? Is Alvin overreacting?”
“They’re convinced something serious happened to the kid. I told you, it’s not such a big place, and a lot of people saw Jimmy before he disappeared. He’s kind of a fixture. Anyway, people would call the police or try to help if he was in trouble.”
“Maybe he got himself outside of Sydney. to of the other nearby towns. You sure they’ve looked everywhere for him?”
“What kind of idiot question is that? They’re competent police officers. They don’t need you to tell them how to do their jobs.”
“All right, I’m sorry. It’s an emotional kind of issue.”
“So do you want to know what Ray Deveau thinks?”
“Of course I want to know.”
“It’s been over twenty-four hours. So one of two things. They figure if he’s in the area, he’s dead.”
“But it’s summer. He could survive outside.”
Mombourquette reached over and touched my arm.
“It was eight degrees Celsius in Sydney overnight. Anyway, this boy won’t survive long on his own, no matter where.”
“But...”
“Like you said, it’s not good to disappear next to a harbour.”
“Yeah, but you said the place was full of people. Tourists and musicians and all that. Wouldn’t they notice him?”
“I haven’t been back since they built this boardwalk, but Ray told me there’s a section at the end where a person could drown unseen.”
“Did they send down divers?”
“Of course they sent down frigging divers. What is the matter with you? And they worked with the Coast Guard.”
“Why don’t you want me to speak to this Deveau guy?”
“I’ve been a cop for twenty-five years. I’ve been a detective working major crimes for twelve. Ray’s been on the