The Burying Ground

by Janet Kellough

  “Dr. Lewis! How lovely to see you!” she said.

  He nodded to her. “And you.” He glanced at the wagon’s load. There were three coffins stacked in the bed, jammed up against a large steamer trunk. “On your way to a funeral?”

  “Oh,” she said, with a wave of her hand, “my mother’s family, you know. We’d quite lost track of them until we heard the Burying Ground was closing. I’ve purchased them a nice shady plot at the Necropolis.”

  “Excellent plan.”

  “Thank you, Luke.”

  “Pure self-interest.”

  “No,” she said, “providing the names was self-interest. Offering the means of removal was an act of kindness.”

  Luke glanced over to where his father and Spicer were standing, and was relieved to see that they were too far away to overhear the conversation. “I‘ve been the recipient of great kindnesses myself,” he said. “My benefactors would also claim self-interest, I suppose, but they were kind nonetheless. You’re welcome.”

  The driver shifted in his seat impatiently, drawing Luke’s attention. There was something in the way he held the reins that seemed familiar. And then Luke realized that it was Perry, dressed up to look like a particularly slovenly carter. Lavinia had evidently exerted one last little bit of pressure and enlisted Perry to help her move the coffins. She didn’t seem to find it odd that Perry had yet to speak to him. She must have been told that he and Luke had fallen out.

  “You know, it’s almost too bad I’m not staying in Toronto,” Lavinia went on. “You’re a fascinating man, Dr. Lewis. I would like to have known you better.”

  “And if that were the case, I would be running as fast as I could in the opposite direction,” Luke said.

  She smiled. “Just tell me one thing before I go, never to be seen again in this fair city. How did you know about my husband? You hadn’t been here for more than a few weeks, and yet you already knew all about him.”

  Luke hadn’t expected to see Lavinia Van Hansel again, and he certainly hadn’t considered telling her about the night in the cabinetmaker’s yard. Even though there was little danger in her knowing now, a part of him was still reluctant to give up the secret. Except that Perry was sitting there beside her. If he told Lavinia, Perry couldn’t help but hear. Maybe it would make a difference, maybe it wouldn’t. But it was probably the only opportunity Luke would ever have to explain himself.

  “I was there the night your husband was shot,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. Cherub saw you in the graveyard.”

  “No, not that time. The first time.”

  She looked at him with astonishment and then she began to laugh, a deep chuckle that lit up her face and washed away the lines.

  “You were there?” she said, looking at him with delight. “Oh my goodness, what are the chances? Tell me what happened. He wouldn’t ever say. Was it you who shot him?”

  “No, it wasn’t me, but I was there. My father and I were trying to track down the family of an Irish emigrant girl whose parents died of fever. The trail led us to Toronto, where we discovered that the girl had been tricked into entering a brothel by people who worked for Hands. In the process of finding her, we also discovered that your husband was involved in any number of discreditable activities. There was the embezzlement of the liquor rations, the coffin-stuffing. And he raped a girl. As soon as she had a chance and a gun she took a shot at him.”

  “What happened to the girl afterward? Or do I want to know?”

  “She got away. With our help. As far as I know she’s in the States somewhere with the love of her life.”

  “Good for her,” Lavinia said. “I’m glad.”

  Perry sat with his head down, his hat still covering his face. He hadn’t moved, but Luke knew he was listening, could feel him listening.

  “There’s more,” Luke said. He wanted to make sure that Perry understood exactly what the stakes had been. “My father wrote a letter to Anthony Hawke and told him everything we knew. That’s the reason Hawke suspected your husband.”

  Perry’s ludicrous hat tilted up just a bit as he shifted his head to hear.

  “Your father is the older gentleman over there with the Keeper?” Lavinia asked. “He must be. You look just like him. And he’s here in Yorkville as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s no wonder you went skulking out the garden door as soon as you saw Phillip at the house that night. You and your father would have been in a very precarious position if he had realized who you were. He never liked being crossed.”

  “I’d heard that.”

  “I don’t know why you didn’t tell me this before.” And then she laughed at her own foolish words. “Well, yes, I do know. I’d have made your life miserable, wouldn’t I?”

  “Yes, you would have,” Luke agreed.

  “I’m only sorry the girl wasn’t a better shot. It might have saved us all a great deal of trouble.” She smiled down at him. “But it’s all turned out as well as it could have, I suppose. I owe you, Luke Lewis.”

  “Just make sure you actually deliver these bodies. Otherwise the Keeper will be in a state.”

  “He’s already made that perfectly clear.” She frowned and shook her head. “Odd little man. Well, good luck, Dr. Lewis.”

  Perry had still not said a word.

  Luke watched as the wagon rumbled away. He’d tried. That was all he could do. And then, just as the wagon turned the corner onto Tollgate Road, Perry suddenly ripped the shapeless hat off his head and looked back at him. He gave no sign, made no gesture, but for Luke, for now, it was enough.

  He waited until the wagon was out of sight, then he continued walking across the Burying Ground to where Morgan and Thaddeus were standing beside a gaping hole. Spicer looked dreadful. He was sweaty and begrimed, his thin hair plastered against his head.

  “Morgan’s been digging for hours,” Thaddeus said. “There’s been five coffins moved already. Two yesterday and three just now.”

  “Are you sure your Dr. Christie knows what he’s talking about?” Morgan asked, his forehead furrowed with worry. “It’s only been a few weeks since they sent the letters out to the families and all these bodies have gone already.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Luke said. “I expect it’s just an initial rush. The families who want to look after their loved ones would come right away, as soon as they were contacted. I think you’ll see the response fall off dramatically after this, and then nothing will happen for a long time.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Luke said firmly.

  Thaddeus shot a questioning glance at him, so Luke changed the subject quickly. “I hope you weren’t doing any of the digging.”

  “No, I merely supervised. My old joints are serving me well right now, but I won’t ask that much of them. I saw you talking with Mrs. Biddulph. Is she the same family as your friend?”

  “Mrs. Biddulph?” Luke said, and then he realized what Lavinia had done. She’d not only recruited Perry to play carter, she’d had him arrange the removals. The name Biddulph would carry weight with the Board of Trustees. They wouldn’t think twice about granting permission to move so many graves at once, not if it was a Biddulph who was asking. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Biddulph. A distant relative, I believe.”

  “So where are you off to now?” Thaddeus asked.

  “I’ve seen my patients for the day. I was just heading home.”

  “We’re about to badger Sally for a cup of tea. And I promised the children I’d read them another chapter from The Travels of Marco Polo. Would you care to join us?”

  “I’d love a cup of tea,” Luke said. “But I should point out that it’s not fair. The only things you would ever allow us to read when we were children were Bible stories.”

  “That’s true enough,” Thaddeus admitted as they began walking toward the cottage. “I don’t know why I was such an old stick-in-the-mud.” Then he grinned at his son. “Never mind. I’m mak
ing up for lost time.”

  Acknowledgements

  The Toronto Strangers’ Burying Ground was located on the northwest corner of Yonge Street and what later became known as Bloor Street — now some of the most expensive real estate in Canada. In 1855, the government of the United Province of Canada finally gave the cemetery’s board of trustees permission to close it and sell the property, provided that all 6,685 graves were removed to other cemeteries. However, because no families could be contacted on behalf of approximately three thousand of the people who had been buried there, it wasn’t until 1874 that all of the graves were finally moved to the Toronto Necropolis and Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

  I am indebted to Jamie Bradburn, whose excellent article “Historicist: In Potter’s Field” (Torontoist, October 29, 2011, St. Joseph Media) first drew my attention to the Strangers’ Burying Ground, and to Hamish Copley’s website, The Drummer’s Revenge: LGBT History and Politics in Canada, which offered insight into attitudes toward homosexuality in mid-nineteenth-century Canada and detailed the story of Alexander Wood.

  Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin by John Ralston Saul, part of the Extraordinary Canadians series (Penguin Group Canada, 2010), provided an account of the Montreal riots and the burning of the Parliament building; and Black History in Early Toronto, by Daniel G. Hill (Polyphony, Summer 1984: 28–30, Multicultural History Society of Ontario), described Toronto’s black community in the 1850s.

  Background material was drawn from “Body-Snatching in Ontario,” by Royce MacGillivray: tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/17619/2/body%20snatching%20Ontario%20CBMH.pdf; Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King by Charlotte Gray (Penguin Books Canada, 1997); The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project (McGill University); Derek Hayes’s Historical Atlas of Toronto (Douglas & McIntyre, 2008); the website Lost River Walks, Toronto Green Community and Toronto Field Naturalists; A Light on Medical Practice in 19th Century Canada: The Medical Manuscripts of Dr. John Mackieson of Charlottetown, by David A.E. Shephard, MB (Canadian Medical Association Journal 1998: 159: 253–57); Lucian: The History of Orestes and Pylades from Amores (2nd Century A.D.), translated by W.J. Baylis; Toronto Called Back, by Conyngham Crawford Taylor, printed for the author by William Briggs, Toronto, 1886; and the website for Niagara Apothecary: A Pharmacy Museum in Historic Niagara-on-the-Lake.

  Many thanks to Matti Kopamees for locating books in the midst of chaos; to my agent, Robert Lecker, for his excellent advice; to my editor at Dundurn, Allison Hirst; and, as always, to Rob Kellough for his fortitude, but not for suggesting that Thaddeus be given the line “Luke, I am your father.”

  More Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries by Janet Kellough

  On the Head of a Pin

  Thaddeus Lewis, an itinerant “saddlebag” preacher, still mourns the mysterious death of his daughter Sarah as he rides to his new posting in Prince Edward County. When another girl in the area dies in a similar way, he realizes that the circumstances point to murder. But in the turmoil following the 1837 Rebellion, he can’t get anyone to listen. Convinced there is a serial killer loose in Upper Canada, Lewis alone must track the culprit across a colony convulsed by dissension, invasion, and fear.

  Sowing Poison

  After many years, Nathan Elliott returns to Wellington, Ontario, to be at his dying father’s side. Within a few days of his return, he is reported missing, and no trace of him can be found. Shortly after, Nathan’s wife arrives in the village. Claiming that she can contact the dead, she begins to hold séances for the villagers. Thaddeus Lewis, a Methodist circuit rider, is outraged, and his ethical objections propel him on a journey to uncover the truth about the Elliotts. Religious conflict and political dissension all play a part in this tale set in 1844 Upper Canada.

  47 Sorrows

  When the bloated corpse of a man dressed in women’s clothing washes up on the shore of Lake Ontario, a small scrap of green ribbon is found on the body. The year is 1847, and 100,000 Irish emigrants have fled to Canada to escape starvation in their homeland. But the emigrants bring with them the dreaded “ship’s fever,” and soon the ports are overflowing with the sick and dying. Itinerant preacher Thaddeus Lewis’s son Luke, an aspiring doctor, volunteers in the fever sheds in Kingston. When he finds a green ribbon on the lifeless body of a patient, he is intrigued by the strange coincidence. Young Luke enlists his father’s help to uncover the mystery, a tale of enmity that began back in Ireland.

  Copyright © Janet Kellough, 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Editor: Allison Hirst

  Design: Laura Boyle

  Cover Design: Laura Boyle

  Front Cover Image: © Shutterstock/Suppakij1017

  Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Kellough, Janet

  The burying ground : a Thaddeus Lewis mystery / Janet Kellough.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4597-2470-9 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4597-2471-6 (pdf).-- ISBN 978-1-4597-2472-3 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8621.E558B87 2015 C813’.6 C2014-907097- C2014-907098-5

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