by Myrna Dey
March 8, 1910
Dear Sisters and Brother,
It is with great joy I announce the birth of twin daughters Sara and Janet on February 16. They are a blessing to our family. Roland wept when he saw them and wanted to call one Jane, but I agreed to Janet. Llewyllyn says they were the best gift ever for his 10th birthday four days ago. He loves them dearly and holds one while I feed the other. So far Sara seems more spirited than Janet. Janet sleeps a lot and gives me a chance to do housework and even a little sewing.
I am sorry to hear of Gilbert’s illness. The mine takes the health or the lives of its workers one way or another, whether through accident, lung disease, or alcohol. I am glad to hear Evan and Gwynyth and Gilbert’s children have all moved to Cardiff to seek their fortunes.
Margaret is not too old to find happiness in a second marriage at 42, if she is worried as you say. Please pass along my best wishes for the upcoming wedding. I will send a gift as soon as I have the time and strength to take in more sewing. I will buy something special at the Hudson’s Bay Company in Nanaimo.
If Roland did not see Tommy at the mine I would not know anything of our older brother. Lizzie keeps him to herself and her family. We hear even less of Gomer in Victoria.
Catherine, your letters are precious to me, even when I do not often reply.
Your loving sister Jane
This letter inspired a peculiar combination of possessiveness and awe. It was the first mention of a person I actually knew. To think of my Sara bringing the same joy as a baby to someone I didn’t know caused an unexpected twinge of envy. Did Jane know Sara better than I did? I felt strangely left out of the magic moment between these two women, or one woman and two babies, one of whom was my grandmother. I visualized Janet as Janetta, calm and practical.
Gradually the power of the letter became greater than my petty jealousy. How could I feel left out of a scene in which I did not even figure? It was merely a piece of brittle paper I held in my hands, though not so merely when I considered the timeline and contents. The part about Roland Hughes weeping and wanting to name the baby after his wife grabbed me, both for Jane’s sake and because it was the first favourable mention of my great-grandfather.
Just then, a nurse poked her head in the door. I refocused sufficiently to tell her I was okay before picking up Jane Hughes’ last letter.
March 4, 1915
Dear Sisters,
I am sorry to hear about our brother Gilbert’s passing.
At least he does not have to suffer any more. Please pass along my condolences to Constance who took care of him so well through good times and bad. I am glad she will be moving to Cardiff closer to her children.
At such times I must give thanks for my strong constitution. It would never do for me to be sick and fortunately, other than hay fever and catarrh I seldom am.
Today is Llewyllyn’s fifteenth birthday. He would not have a cake but his sisters cried until I made one. He has become quiet and moody in the last two years. He says he will lie about his age to join the army so he can get away from home and out of Extension. He would rather die in battle than work in the mine. Many younger boys already work there and I do not know how much longer I can fight for him to stay in school. His grades are poor and I can only bring in so much from sewing to feed an extra man in the house. He is tall like Father.
The girls are very sweet. I am enclosing a picture taken of them at Christmas in a studio. Roland had four prints made and we will save one for each of them. Sara has the floppy bow. She can never keep still, even in the picture. I love them beyond measure.
Thank you Cassie for sharing my letters with Margaret. I do not have the address of our sister Mrs. Lewis Prosser. There are now five of Mama’s children left. I wonder if my beloved daughters will ever meet my beloved sisters. That would be my fondest dream.
Now to bed for I am very tired.
xxxxxxxxx Your loving sister Jane xxxxxxxxx
The kisses brought a lump to my throat. Cassie was back with Jane. If this was the end of my great-grandmother’s story as recorded in her own hand, at least it concluded on a happier note. It was coincidence enough that I had two of the prints, but how did one of them end up in Willow Point? Maybe Gail would turn up some clues.
I set the letters in the drawer of the night table and lay my head on the pillow, whispering, “Now to bed for I am very tired.”
WARREN WRIGHT. I could not get him off my mind. I checked Dad’s phone book, but there were too many “W Wright”s to consider. I’m not sure what I was looking for, because I certainly didn’t intend to call him. Maybe an address, so I could drive through his area and look the other way, as Gail and I had done with crushes in high school. Using memory of files, I came up empty. I ran through ten years of arrests without any clues. I hoped he wasn’t a naked transvestite whose face I didn’t bother to notice.
Dad, of course, was spoiling me. I hadn’t even made a cup of tea for myself. Having two to cook for brought out skills he didn’t know he had. The kitchen was one more domain where Mom triumphed, so neither of us had ever had a chance to experiment — at least that’s my story. He made spaghetti, omelettes, breaded pork chops, and stirfries, using packaged precut vegetables. I warned him Wendy’s might go bankrupt as a result. With no escapes and all my needs taken care of, I had no alternative but to open the history books.
I had called Barnwell after the shooting; he was kind enough to relay notes and the final assignment by e-mail. I’d had my big plaster cast replaced with a lighter air cast — two hard plastic shells joined by Velcro straps — and although I still couldn’t put any pressure on my leg, it was occasionally good exercise to hop down the stairs to the computer in the basement. When I looked at the list of essay subjects, the choice became easy: The influence of the Mackies on coal mining on Vancouver Island, focussing on Wellington, Nanaimo, Extension, or Cumberland. At the word Extension I felt for the first time in my life like the kid in the classroom who knows the answer. Would I be able to show off my letters in footnotes?
The index in my three texts led to whole sections on Extension, much to my surprise. The town was described by eyewitnesses as “the devil’s gully,” “a most undesirable place,” and as one English writer from London put it, “All you see around you are a bunch of stumps and rocks and shacks; it’s like the end of the world.” The name came about, I learned, because it was an extension of the Wellington coal seam. Its accidental discovery was propitious because the Wellington pits were almost depleted and ready to close. William Mackie and his sons could not believe their good luck when Henry “Butcher” Hargraves reported finding a fallen tree with coal clinging to its roots on the southern slope of Mount Benson in the Chase River area.
Chase River? “…a rich seam of coal that was discovered not far from our property.”
The seam was located on land belonging to a Negro pioneer, Louis Strong, who had established an orchard on the property and was not interested in selling. The 1975 publication date of the article accounted for the politically incorrect adjective. My grandmother’s letter came to mind: “A Negro gentleman who lives in a cabin not far from us. He has an orchard…is a kind, hardworking man.”
I read further. Not long after the seam was unearthed, the eighty-four-year-old body of Louis Strong was found dead at the foot of a bluff. February 1895.
Wasn’t 1895 the mystery year for Jane Owens? Blood poisoning, marriage, baby, one of her customers died. She did not say how, but then she did not reveal much in that letter.
“This is too much,” I said to my father, bent over his Sissipuss drawings. He hummed his interest without looking up.
I explained my suspicions about Louis Strong being Jane’s gentleman customer.
“Did you check the other books?”
“Not yet. But you’re a history teacher — have you heard of him?”
“Sorry. Poor fellow must have fallen through the cracks of my curriculum.”
I could see he did not wa
nt to lift his eyes from the brushful of red paint he was carefully distributing within the black outline of a ball. I picked up the second textbook and went straight to Louis Strong at the back. There he was again.
The circumstances surrounding Louis Strong’s death were, in fact, suspicious. That his fall from the cliff was far from his cabin through terrain the old man knew well was questioned by his family. His body was found three days after Henry “Butch” Hargraves last saw him, claiming they had been hunting together; Hargraves invited him to stay for tea in his cabin, but it was dark and Strong wanted to get home to prepare for the arrival of his son Maynard. They were to go hunting again the next day, and when he did not appear, Hargraves checked on him, only to find the cabin empty and the fire cold. This was two days before the body was found. Furthermore, the man who discovered the corpse while walking his dog maintained it had not been at the foot of the bluff the day before.
Strong’s son Maynard hired a detective and eventually found enough on Henry Hargraves to arrest him. An autopsy showed the remains in Strong’s stomach were three days old, and the injuries — a single concussion to the head and a broken ankle but no bruises — were inconsistent with a fall from a high cliff. In the preliminary hearing, the Crown also relied on a bundle of clothes found a few feet away from the path to Hargraves’ cabin. It argued that Strong was taking his laundry to be washed when he was struck down by Hargraves. Combined with this evidence, Mackie’s announcement of a new mining development in the same area, as well as a sudden financial windfall for Hargraves, seemed enough for an indictment.
But there were not enough credible witnesses and no trial. According to the family, two men who had told Maynard Strong they had incriminating information died under mysterious circumstances: one drowned and the other was murdered on his way to Nanaimo. With no proven tie to Hargraves for the murder, he was free to enjoy his new wealth.
Something close to an electric shock passed through me. Laundry bundle? Was Louis Strong on his way to my great-grandmother’s house when he was murdered?
What a cold case this was. I had watched defence lawyers do snow jobs on witnesses for the prosecution, but on the other hand, I had taken enough testimony to know that people really could believe something, and their imagination would provide the details. From experience, I knew I should not make assumptions without knowing all the evidence, but at the moment I was gagging on the injustice handed down to an old black man and his family for a fortune in coal. Jane had dropped several hints about worries on her customer’s behalf. She also mentioned that he had two sons — a young one she had met and an older one on his way home from prospecting for gold. That might have been Maynard.
This personal link with history gave me the sense of having discovered penicillin or something else big and accidental. I couldn’t be sure Louis Strong was the man Jane referred to, but if so, what a revelation. And yet, what was the revelation? That my great-grandmother might have known someone referred to in a history book? She does not offer clues to the crime, the statute of limitations long past anyway. I looked over at Dad drawing, oblivious to my excitement. It was the kind of moment I would never have understood if someone tried to describe it — just as I didn’t understand shoulder pain before this. I felt like a spark igniting two files, unconnected until I found them.
Dad finally looked up. “Learning lots?”
“Lots.”
“Maybe I should think about supper.” He got up and stretched.
“I can help.”
“Sit while you can. Someday you might be feeding me in a wheelchair.”
“Hope I learn to cook by then.”
“It’s an easy meal tonight. Fish and chips.”
Dad took a box from the freezer and spread the contents on a cookie sheet. He was more attentive now as I explained the coincidence of the laundry packet in the murder case of Louis Strong. What a thrill to have cracked the case with my star witness, Jane Owens. It would mean at least a round of drinks at the Shark Club. But I was ahead of myself. The dropped laundry did not implicate Jane.
As I was talking, Dad quietly put place mats, cutlery, and napkins on two TV tables, his in front of the Queen Anne chair, and mine in front of the couch. I swung my outstretched leg ninety degrees toward the little TV nestled on the shelves of the book-lined passage. As usual, the steaming plates of food arrived on the place mats just as the Jeopardy! theme started. Half an hour later, Dad stood with our empty dishes in his hand, waiting for the final clue. Tonight’s was: “These people established a kingdom around the city of Pamplona in the 700s.” None of the three contestants knew it, but Dad was right: “Who are the Basques?”
With another victory to his credit, he returned to his drawings on his island kingdom of dining table and I swung my leg around again, raising it carefully onto my island kingdom of couch. At that moment, the portable phone rang from between the cushions.
“Say goodbye to your uniform,” said Sukhi.
“I’m suspended for negligence?”
“Don’t you check your e-mail? You’ve been transferred to Serious Crimes.”
My insides swooshed. I hadn’t been downstairs at the computer today. “They must want to keep me off the streets to prevent further damage. What about you?”
“Me too.”
An upward swoosh. “When do we start?”
“First of December.”
“I’ll be giving up thirty pounds of belt and this miserable cast at about the same time.”
“And no more heavy boots. You’ll need weights on your knees to keep you from lifting off.”
We discussed the other changes in a plainclothes unit. No more four day on/four day off blocks, eliminating the deadly night shift. Instead we would work a regular Monday-to-Thursday ten-hour day shift, but we would be on call. IHIT — the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team — took over homicides in the lower mainland, but abductions, hostages, and any other serious crimes were ours, and it could mean working 24/7 for as long as it took to close them, weekend or not. We would also have the satisfaction of seeing a charge through to a conviction rather than attending a new file every half hour. He said there had been a major shuffle: Dave to Burglary, Emile to Fraud, and Jake had heard a rumour he’d made it to Special O, a surveillance assistance team that provides reports on a target to a requesting agency like IHIT, or any detachment.
I must have sighed, because Sukhi said emphatically, “Change is good.” Then he remembered his other bit of news. “You might be interested to know that Ray will be prosecuting the case of the boys who shot you. Probably not for a while.”
Downward swoosh. The thought of sitting in the courtroom as Ray’s client was appalling. “No sweat.”
Sukhi concluded the conversation with reports of his wife’s high marks and, as usual, left me laughing from a call he had made that morning. I knew the place, a few doors down from Wanda and Terry. A woman had climbed into a basement window of the house next door to sneak up on her neighbour, a young widow she believed was in bed with her husband. Unfortunately, the window wasn’t big enough and she got stuck halfway through. The neighbour, alone in the house and apparently innocent, heard her hollering and charged her with trespassing.
I shared Sukhi’s news with Dad; he put down his brush and listened carefully. He was pleased with the prospect of plainclothes for me.
“Just about every cop killing has been someone in uniform. You need look no further than your foot to be aware of the dangers of patrolling.”
I hadn’t given my injured foot a thought during the conversation with Sukhi. When I did, it felt surprisingly stronger, lighter, no more throbbing. Strong enough to drive to the detachment. And before moving to a different unit, I would have to sort through my files to see what should be taken and what left behind. No personal motives.
OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, APRIL 28, 2002, SQUIRES BAR AND GRILL, BURNABY.
WARREN EDWARD WRIGHT, BORN DECEMBER 17, 1975
RESIDENCE: #642 1804
DAVIE STREET
OCCUPATION: STUDENT/CAB DRIVER
That’s all CPIC gave me, so I went into the file. Warren WRIGHT was arrested for interfering with the arrest of his friend Tim LEWCHUK for disturbing the peace on the premises of Squires Bar and Grill, Burnaby. Upon consultation with arresting officer Cst. Arabella DRYVYNSYDES, charges against WRIGHT were stayed by Crown Counsel.
The only case I hadn’t thought of. Now I remembered the scene well, except that the Warren Wright I arrested bore no resemblance to the one in the hospital other than height. He had shoulder-length wavy hair, a beard, and he wasn’t wearing a dressing gown. Maybe I blotted the file out because I had not felt right about it at the time and still didn’t.
A call had come in from a female patron about disorderly conduct at the bar. I had a new recruit with me, a strong young farm boy from Saskatchewan fresh out of Depot. I was in teaching mode, which meant I had to pretend to know what I was doing. Tim Lewchuk was drunk, and at the sight of us, he became more rowdy. He began shouting across the room at his ex-girlfriend, realizing she was the one who had made the call. He picked up a chair and proceeded to bash the wall with it, at which point my recruit and I attempted to restrain him. At the same time, Warren Wright stepped forward and tried to stop us. He’d also had too much to drink and said sloppily, “I’ll take him home. He’s upset, please give him a chance.”
In playing the human shield, he ended up pushing me down to the floor. I knew it was an accident because his was the first hand to help me up. But by then, other patrons had surrounded us, some gasping, one laughing, one calling, “Officer down.”