Little Boy Blues (17 page)

“Okay, show us.”

I hadn’t noticed the line that had formed behind us, but an in-charge looking guy had and walked over. “Problem?”

“No. They want to know where Jimmy Ferguson was standing when he was in here the other night?”

“He was here?”

“Yeah.”

“Nobody told me.”

“Jeez, I feel like shit.”

“Do what you have to,” the supervisor said. “I’ll take care of your line.”

Buddy with the blue hair showed us where Jimmy had been standing. “He asked me if
X-Men
was in when I went by him. I showed him where it would be if it was in, and he went to pick it up. Gussie was with him too.” Gussie’s tail drummed on the floor.

“You’re right,” I said. “They couldn’t see him from over here.”

“Yeah.”

“And while you were walking out, something spooked him, and he ran by you.”

“Yeah.”

“Was anyone else in the aisle?”

He closed his eyes. “No,” he said, after a minute.

“Between Jimmy and the front?”

Again with the eyes closed. “No. And I didn’t pass anyone.”

“He couldn’t see over these racks to the counter or the next aisle.”

“I guess not. No, you really can’t, eh. Jimmy’s about my height.”

“But he could see outside.”

The three of us stared through the window at the street.

“Yeah.”

Alvin said, “So he might have seen someone that frightened him.”

I turned to Alvin. “But if someone spooked him, he wouldn’t run towards them.”

Alvin rubbed his upper lip. “You have to know Jimmy. He doesn’t always do the logical thing.”

“But the video store was full of people. Surely someone would have helped him. He could have phoned Vince or your mother.”

Alvin put his hand on my arm. “You might have done that, Camilla. Or I might have. But Jimmy could panic. If he panicked, he’d run. It wouldn’t have to make sense.”

I turned to our blue-haired buddy. “Did you notice anyone outside?”

“Jeez. I don’t know. I noticed Jimmy, because that was kind
of unusual, you know. But I saw some ladies outside. I don’t remember anyone in particular. Sorry, I wish I had.”

“It’s okay,” Alvin said. “You helped a lot.”

“Did he make a phone call?”

“Not while I was around.”

“Thanks for your help. We have to let the police know what you saw. They’ll talk to you too. And listen, let us know if you think of anyone else you saw or remember anyone who was walking by. They might have seen which way Jimmy went, even if they didn’t realize it was him.”

“Okay. I’ll call you, Allie.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Listen, it’s probably not important, but I saw which way he ran.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. He ran down that way.”

• • •

“Now we are going to think like Jimmy. You know him better than anyone in the world, Alvin,” I said as we headed down Charlotte Street in the direction our blue-haired friend had pointed.

“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.”

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 watching 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.”