and put the phone away, signalled the waitress for more coffee. She came over and topped up my cup. Cobb looked up just long enough to shake his head.
“Your friend is a generous tipper,” said the waitress, whose name tag indicated her name was Betty.
Cobb looked up again. “Really?”
“That surprise you?” Betty asked.
“No, I guess not,” Cobb said.
I shrugged to show I didn’t have an opinion, and Betty headed off in the direction of a table of elderly women who, judging from their loud and never-ending laughter, were having a quite wonderful time.
Cobb read for another minute or two, folded the paper, and handed it back to me. “I like it. I’m not sure it will net us any results, but I can’t see a downside.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to a couple of editors I know, see what we can get going on it.”
“You adding a tip line?”
“What?”
“A number people can call. You going to put contact information in there?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I thought I’d put in our cell numbers.”
Cobb shook his head. “Correction. Your cell number. This stuff usually nets a couple hundred crackpot calls for every legitimate tip. I’d get yourself a disposable phone just for this. That way, you can throw the damn thing away if you’re overwhelmed with idiots.”
“Disposable phone it is.”
“And I think we should maybe divide up the chase a little bit,” Cobb said. “You’re the music guy. How about you tackle that side? Former agents, club owners, other musicians, anybody you think might be useful — realizing, of course, that a lot of those people may have passed on or could be damn hard to find.”
“That’s stuff I can do while I’m tending Kennedy’s surveillance stuff. I mean, he has a job, so obviously he isn’t sitting at the monitors twenty-four seven. I’m sure if I need to leave to talk to people face to face, I can do that and then check the tapes later to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
Cobb nodded. “He works in a couple of parks or something, isn’t that what he told us?”
“Grounds maintenance. Works a few hours a day to bring in some money.”
Cobb nodded, then rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Okay, you concentrate on the music; I’ll work the other side — family, friends, cops who might have been part of the investigation — anyone I can find. Let’s talk again in a couple of days.”
“Here’s something else.” I pulled out a second piece of paper, this one with the lyrics of the song Monica Brill had received in the mail, and passed them to Cobb. “In your spare time maybe you can take a look, see if there’s anything there that might point us in the right direction … or any direction at all.”
“Thanks.” He glanced down at the lyrics, and then looked back up at me. “You see anything in them?”
I shook my head. “I read them so many times, I’ve pretty well got the thing memorized. But I’m not seeing anything that jumps off the page and says ‘Yeah, better check this out.’”
“I’ll look them over tonight. Maybe have the family take a peek too. They’re probably smarter than me on this kind of stuff.”
“Not a bad idea.” I nodded. “I’m having Jill and Kyla do the same thing.”
“When will the story hit the paper?”
I shrugged. “Newsrooms have been gutted in recent years. A lot of my former contacts are gone. But there are still a few people around that I can talk to. I should be able to get something happening in the next few days.”
Cobb started making moves like he was leaving, then stopped and looked at me. “You sure you’re okay with going to Kennedy’s place tonight?”
“You think I shouldn’t be?”
“Hard to say. Like I said, he seemed pretty with it this morning, but I keep reminding myself that this is a guy who jumped you in a back alley and threatened to kill you.”
“I think if he wanted me dead, I’d already be dead.”
“Probably right. I think the story about his wife is legit. But once he leaves the house for the airport tonight, you call me.” He stood up.
“Will do. And thanks for the concern.”
I expected a joking reply but got a slight nod as I stood and joined him in the walk to the door of the restaurant. On the street, Cobb said again, “I’ll be waiting for your call tonight.”
“Got it,” I said, watching as he headed off in the direction of his Jeep Cherokee.
Before I climbed into the Accord, I pulled out my phone and keyed in Jill’s number.
“Hey, handsome,” came her throaty voice seconds later.
“How’s the woman I love?”
“Better now. How’s your day?”
“Interesting. What have you guys got on later? I’d kind of like to get together, fill you in on some stuff.”
“Well, my daughter attends school, as do a lot of nine-year-olds, and I’m hunched over books and calculators like Ebenezer Scrooge in the counting house.”
“I doubt Scrooge had a calculator.”
“Good point. So much for my literary allusions. Anyway, why don’t you come for dinner? Or do we need to talk sooner?”
“Dinner’s great. How about I pick up Chinese?”
“Sounds good. Just make sure it’s not all deep fried.”
“Check. How is Kyla?”
“Pretty good. Scale of one to ten, I’d say seven.”
“I’d prefer a nine.”
“Me too, but compared to what we went through in the summer, we’re doing pretty well.”
There had been a few weeks that summer that had been damned stressful until the doctors determined what was causing the intense intestinal issues that had knocked a tough kid flat on her back. We were eventually informed about Kyla’s Crohn’s disease and that lifestyle changes would be necessary to help her cope with the illness. Kyla was the strongest of the three of us and had made it clear that she would tolerate no feeling-sorry-for-Kyla behaviours from anyone. And with that as our mission statement, we were all doing okay.
“Okay, lots of veggies it is. See you around six. Love you, babe.”
“I love you too. I’ve got wine, so we’re good on that score.”
“Perfect. See you then.”
I rang off and decided to grab my computer out of the car and get a little work done. I needed some kind of a gateway into the life and times of Ellie Foster. Cobb had mentioned agents, club owners, musicians. That was a good starting place.
I spent the next few hours drinking coffee in the Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters on 4th Street and googling everything I could think of that might open a door to the coffee house music scene of the sixties. And finally, at around 3:30, I had my first positive result.
There was a book about Le Hibou, the folk club in Ottawa Ellie Foster had played a few weeks before her Depression gig. I found excerpts of the book online and they were interesting, but the part I thought might be helpful was the list of people — performers, owners, staff, and volunteers — who were part of the history of the club at that time. I googled several of the names and found what appeared to be something fairly current relating to a guy who’d been the assistant manager at the time of Ellie’s disappearance, a guy named Armand Beauclaire.