had a telltale Cape Breton tartan design, a piper, or a panoramic shot of some part of the Cabot Trail. Lobster shots figured prominently. Some of the lobsters wore tams at jaunty angles. Others played bagpipes or lounged on beach chairs or were winning big at the casino. No accounting for taste.
I riffled through the postcards, which contained innocuous messages, written in uneven letters. I kept hunting. It would be just like Alvin to hide his documents behind a partly-dressed lobster.
Nothing turned up. I tucked the postcards back in the drawer.
I was hot and bothered by the time I located Alvin’s brown and gold Quebec medical insurance card along with his other IDin the inside pocket of that damned leather jacket. Alvin looked like a deranged raven in the photo.
I grabbed theID, some underwear and socks in electrifying shades, a number of blackT-shirts, the blue-striped pyjamas, the toothbrush and Crest and stuffed them all into his kitbag. I decided to take the leather jacket in case it got cold in Sydney. I added a few basic art supplies, watercolour pencils and a notebook, to keep his mind occupied on the trip down East.
I hesitated as I walked by The Stinker. Then I headed back into the bedroom, where I made Alvin’s bed. While straightening the sheets, I found one of his missing earrings. The others turned up under the bed. Alvin must have been spinning like a bad stock.
I had a clear conscience by the time I locked the apartment door and slung the kit-bag over my shoulder. On the way out I noticed the row of mailboxes in the front foyer. A small key on Alvin’s key chain opened his mail slot.
The mailbox contained the usual pizza delivery ads, an art magazine and a postcard of a lobster playing the fiddle. I turned the postcard over and found the same uneven letters and the same large unformed cursive signature. James Ferguson. Alvin would be happy to get it. I tucked the postcard into my purse. And that made me think again about the rest of the postcards in the drawer. Obviously they 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.
