Too close to home

by Rick Blechta

Imagine if you will the following plot for a novel.

An older man, legally blind and living alone, goes out for his usual evening walk. A large storm is coming but he doesn’t know this. He never returns from that walk. Since he lives alone and often turned down the ringer on his phone, those calling him aren’t aware anything is wrong.

Some weeks later, a woman arrives at his apartment for an appointment and the man doesn’t answer his door. She can hear the phone ringing inside when she tries to call. She gets the super to open the door. The man’s wallet is still there, and checking further, she discovers his debit card, something he preferred instead of cash because of his blindness, hasn’t been used in nearly a month.

She reports her friend missing. Due to the large storm the night the man went out for his walk, the police had already searched a nearby river and discovered no bodies. A month later, no sign of the missing has been found.

Sounds like a good beginning for a crime fiction novel, doesn’t it? The story is not fiction, however. It happened…to a musican I have worked with. Scott Cushnie has been a well-regarded Toronto musician for many years. He played with a lot of musical greats during his storied career: Robbie Robertson, Aerosmith and many more.

(Here’s an initial news report on his disappearance)

I met Scott in the late ‘70s when I was hired to play additional keyboards for him on a TV show. I’d seen Scott perform in a club a few times and was always impressed with his musicianship. He played the best boogie-woogie piano I ever heard. It was a joy to make music with him and the show, played live, was a great experience and very enjoyable. Over the intervening years, I saw him once or twice, but we sort of lost contact since I wasn’t performing at all at that time.

And then I read this horrible story in the newspaper. I contacted another good friend who had also played on the TV show — and who had kept better in contact with Scott — and he hadn’t heard anything.

We waited, but nothing was heard of our friend.

Then, last week, another article appeared and the story became even more bizarre and upsetting.

If I were writing a novel, I’d probably work in this information around chapter five.

But I’m not writing a novel. This is the story of someone I knew and respected. I can’t help feeling exceptionally guilty that I’m thinking of what was likely the death of someone I knew as good fodder for how I make my living. But as the second article above says, given Scott’s sense of humour, he’d find being the inspiration for a mystery novel quite funny.

That doesn’t give me a lot of comfort, however.

So now Scott’s many friends and fans wait for the results of an exhumation.