I had decided already that going on was just a waste of time; the investigation was over and Genevieve had surmounted her problem. Besides, I had other work to do. Crime waits for no one.
Strangely, I had completely forgotten about the picture. Perhaps it was repression, something along the line that Dr. Ruryk had described. But the moment I held it up to the light I knew I would take it home.
At the present moment it's over there, sitting on my en-larger. I feel a little queasy but I know I'll blow it up. My life has been reduced to mental masochism.
Can you hear me. Father? Are you out there listening?
You remember that day you spanked me cause I lipped off our neighbor? How angry I got at you? I told you you were no good 'cause you couldn't hold a job.
Well. Father, I'm sorry. Believe me. I wish I'd never said that.
I've atoned a million times since, hoping you were listening.
I killed you. didn't I? It was what I said that day that made you get that job?
If it weren't for me you'd never have been on that plane to Toronto, would you?
I'm so sorry. Dad. 'Cause now I'm lost too.
I guess we're both a couple of fools. Me with my obsession. You with your booze.
I feel pathetic, Father. Can you somehow forgive me? Believe me I'm doing penance.
Watch me blow it up!
There, it's done.
I put the negative into the carrier of my condenser enlarger. I checked the easel illumination and made an exposure. Now the picture of the head is a hundred times normal size.
Look at it with me, Father. I don't want to be alone.
I wish you could turn the cover over like you did before.
God, how a negative gives tone separation. It's not like a Polaroid. Look at her face, at the rictus of terror frozen into her muscles. Look at her skin stretched tight and gray and the bulge of her rolled up eyes. Look at her hair, how black it is, all matted in hanks and strands. Look at her mouth open to scream, look at her swollen tongue. Look at the way her nostrils have flared to let out the trickles of blood. And look at how shreds of skin from her neck curl around the pole like snakes.
Hey, wait a minute. That's new. The pole's in a bucket of sand. All of the other pictures ended part way down the stick.
Yes, now I can see what the killer has done.
The Headhunter returns with his trophy and puts it down on the ground. He shovels a pail full of sand and carries it and the head inside. Once there he places the bucket in front of a pinned-up sheet. A pole is stuck into the sand, and the head is rammed down onto the pole. Then he snaps the picture.
Do you think he tried to buy more Polaroid film, saw the trap and therefore changed to an undeveloped negative''
What a joke—his psychosis and my neurosis ending up the same.
Is this all your death is to my conscious mind. Father: a miserable severed human head stuck in a bucket of sand?
And, Dad—there in that bucket—what are those leaves mixed in with the sand?
Fall leaves.
I found a botanist out working in the VanDusen Gardens at 37th and Oak. He was digging over by Olga Jancic's marble, Metamorphosis. As I showed him the enlarged, cut-out portion of the bucket of sand and leaves I asked: "Are those from a maple tree?"
He put on a pair of glasses and looked, and then said: "Why yes, they are."
"How many maple trees do you think there are in the Lower Mainland?"
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "A hundred thousand, I guess." He looked at the photo again, pointing to two of the leaves. "Those are acer macrophyllum. We call it a Big Leaf Maple. The leaf has a classic deep lobe and is native to Western North America."
I nodded and thanked him for his time. Then as I turned to leave he added: "Of course you won't find the other type growing anywhere around here. They're from a Sycamore Maple or acer pseudoplatanus. That type of tree is native to Europe and Western Asia."
"Come again?" I said.
"These leaves here in the bucket, mixed in with the other ones." He took the photo back from me. "You see how they're smaller than the Big Leaf, about half to three-quarters the size? They're not as deeply lobed, either. They don't grow around here."
I blinked and I guess my look made him think again.
"Well, not around these parts," the botanist said, "unless one of them's been transplanted."
I knocked on the door and waited.
After a while I heard this sound like a scurrying mouse in the attic. Then the door opened a crack with the burglar chain still fastened. All I could see was one twinkling eye at about belt buckle level. "Yes?" a brittle voice asked.
"Good morning, ma'am," I said. "I'd like to speak to Mrs. Elvira Franklen." "My name's Al Flood, ma'am," I said, and flashed her my shield.
The dwarf suddenly opened her twinkling eye very wide (at least she looked dwarf-height to me) and gasped: "You've come about the library book, haven't you? I told them I'd return it. It's not that long overdue."
"No ma'am," I said, "I'm not here for a library book. I was told at VanDusen Gardens that I'd find Mrs. Franklen . . ."
"Miss Franklen," she corrected.
"Sorry . . . Miss Franklen here. I'm a detective with Major Crimes down at the VPD."
"A detective!" the woman exclaimed, agitated, then she surprised me and swung the door open wide. "Oh do come in. Detective Flood. Do come in!"
Elvira Franklen reminded me of that little swamp creature in one of those Lucas Star Wars films. She was under five feet tall, a pudgy wrinkled little old lady with white hair and bulgy blue eyes that were alight with mischief. I would bet ten dollars that she'd seen seventy-five. She wore this frumpy wool suit and had a brooch fastened at her throat.
"May I see your shield again?" she asked as I was ushered in through the door.
"Of course, ma'am," I said. I gave her the case with my tin pinned next to the ID card.
"It says here your name is Almore Flood," she said, looking up sharply. "A person should use their full name, my mother used to say. That's why you're given it."
"Yes, ma'am. But people continually equate mine with that rabbit Bugs Bunny."
Elvira Franklen smiled. "Just like Meyer Meyer," she said. "You'd think people would learn."
"I don't understand."
"Meyer Meyer, Detective Flood. The 87th Precinct. Surely they make you read those books when you're in police school?"
"Ma'am?"
"Did anyone ever tell you that you talk like Jack Webb?" She lowered her voice several octaves and growled, "Just the facts, ma'am."
She was putting me on. This time I smiled.
"Do you remember at the end of Dragnet how there used to be that sweaty hand stamp out the letters 'Mark VII' with a heavy hammer. Did you know that was Jack Webb's hand ' I like an actor, don't you, who does his own stunts ? Would you like some tea?"
"Thank you. Yes, I would."
"Darjeeling or Poonakandy? Queen Elizabeth drinks Poonakandy. That should be good enough for us."
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "It sounds like that decides it."
Down a dark hallway she led me, all rich oiled woods and Royal Doulton figurines. She ushered me into a living room to wait while she put the kettle on to boil. That wait was like being in a museum. For there were shelves and these tiny antique tables everywhere around me. On one of the tables she had out on display every Royal Coronation mug since the days of Queen Victoria. China was displayed on another surrounded by photographs of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Prince William had a wee table of his own. The furniture in the room looked so old and delicate that I was afraid to sit down for fear of breaking it. But the pictures hanging on the walls were the best part of all. I counted fifty-two of them. Detective writers. Each of the photos was autographed and set in a silver frame.
I heard the clink of china and turned to find Elvira Franklen wheeling in a tea trolley. There were two fragile teacups, a silver pot smothered beneath a crocheted cosy,
a cream and sugar set, two spoons, two knives and enough plates of scones and crumpets and muffins and Eccles cakes and pastries to feed the entire British Falkland Islands Expedition.
"I see you're looking at the pictures?"
"Yes," I said. "Quite an illustrious company."
She smiled and the movement made her face crack into a hundred pieces.
"The one of Conan Doyle of course is my favorite. He signed it for me personally just before his death. Will that be one lump or two, Detective Almore Flood?"
"One, thank you," I said.
She poured me out a cup of tea then offered me the fattening feast spread out on the trolley. I took an Eccles cake. As I munched it Agatha Christie watched me from one of the walls.
"Well now tell me, Detective. What brings you to my door?"
"I was hoping, ma'am, that you might help me catch a killer."
I'm sure if the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe had walked into the room she would not have been more surprised. Or any more pleased. in fact.
"Me?" she said, sitting bolt upright and putting down her
tea.
"Miss Franklen," I said, lowering my voice so Raymond Chandler could barely overhear, "we have had a body dug up and dumped in our jurisdiction. This body was covered with dirt and leaves and wrapped in a sheet of plastic. The leaves are of two types of maple. One type is called a Big Leaf ..."
"That's an acer macrophyllum,"she whispered, leaning forward in her chair.
"Yes, which is native to British Columbia. The other, however, is not. It is a Sycamore Maple, or acer pseudo-platanus,which grows in Eurasia. Now if we could ..."
"... if we could find some place where both trees grow," Miss Franklen continued, "then we might be able to find out where the body was originally buried. And maybe killed as well."
"Precisely," I said.
"Well," Miss Franklen said abruptly, "I think we'd better get started. No time like the present, my mother used to say." And with that she sprang to her feet and beckoned me to follow.
We went down a hall that led toward the back of her Edwardian house, and I found myself looking out at what in spring would be a most magnificent garden. Even though it was late November there was color here and there, a brown or red or yellow leaf clinging to one of the trees the pastel shades of Nature's paintbrush splashed within many a greenhouse. At the end of the L-shaped corridor we came to another door. She swung it open.
I was stunned by the number of books. There were probably several thousand more volumes than in the Library of Congress. All of them hardcover.
"I do reviews," Miss Franklen said, "for several publications. You don't read mysteries, I gather."
"Cops don't read detective stories, ma'am," I said. "They read science fiction."
Elvira Franklen crossed the room to yet another door. She pushed it open and disappeared.
We were now in a somewhat smaller chamber, but just as overwhelming. And I thought I was obsessed! For here then-were pamphlets and magazines everywhere in stacks around the floor. Tables were spread with sheafs of faded and yellowed newspaper clippings. There were cubbyhole shelves crammed full to overflowing with curled mimeographed sheets and thousands of newsletters. All around there were large-paged books of pressed flowers and leaves preserved between pieces of ironed wax paper. Otherwise vacant patches of wall space were covered with numerous framed certificates.
"I've been President of eighteen different horticultural societies," Miss Franklen said. "You take the desk by the window," she said. "I'll take the one over here."
"But this could take years!"
"Shame on you," Miss Franklen said, wagging her finger at me. "And you a detective."
And so we set to work.
December
Cold turkey, from that moment on I managed to quit my smoking. There were rules in this house and that was one of them.
But even more amazing was this woman's capacity for work. She literally left me exhausted. The first day we spent six hours going through her clippings.
By the time I arrived after shift the next day she had covered over seven hundred publications. Having finished with The Arborist—June 1931 to September 1952—she had moved on to The Horticulturalist's Digest starting in 1923.
For ten days straight we worked.
By the second week in December I managed to wangle a few days off and we really covered ground (no pun intended). On one of those nights Elvira suggested that I sleep at the house. "Then we can get a real early start tomorrow," she said.
"Won't the neighbors talk?" I asked, giving her a wink.
"It wouldn't be the first time," the old woman replied.
So I stayed.
That night before retiring we had Horlicks and Peek Frean biscuits. When I settled into the guest room I found this book laid out on the table. It was Ten Plus Qne by Ed McBain, and I tell you that guy missed his calling.
Instead of being a writer, he should have been a cop.
You would have liked her, Mom: I felt like I'd been adopted.
We worked for seven days straight, at one point spending six hours in the same room and never speaking a word.
That night I had to work graveyard shift and when I showed my face at her door next day she looked at me sadly and shook her head. She told me to take a day off. That she could hold the fort. But I refused.
That afternoon we were sitting in her sanctuary as I was reading about the Arborist's Convention held in Stanley Park in 1917, when suddenly Elvira Franklen literally leaped out of her chair. I thought she was having a stroke. "Oh, my Goodness Gracious!" she squealed.
Do people really get that excited?I wondered, as I watched my Lovable Dwarf wave a mimeographed paper in the air.
"I found it!" she exclaimed—and my God my heart skipped a beat.
In a streak I crossed the room.
Then Elvira smoothed the page out on her desk and pointed to an article in the July 1955 issue of Pacific Planter. This is what it said:
READY FOR WAR. BUT HOPING FOR PEACE
Maple trees flourish today above Mr. Albert Stone's bomb shelter. Mr. Stone acquired his property at a public auction of land confiscated from the Japanese during the Second World War—and this he says accounts for its fertility. "The place used to be a truck farm before the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor," Mr. Stone informed this columnist. Mr. Stone is quite a character.
We stood today in his garden fronting on the mighty sweep of the South Arm of the Fraser River. This writer asked him why he had planted a maple garden above his recently completed atomic bomb fallout shelter. "Is that not a strange juxtaposition?" your astonished reporter asked.
"Not at all," Mr. Stone countered. "When the Commies send their nukes and The Big Hot One is on, this is one old man who's going to be ready. But until then me and my wife's memory will sit in our front garden."
And that, gentle readers, is what brought your columnist out here today. For among the varied saplings of acer macrophyllum stands the only Sycamore Maple so far planted in Western Canada. It is a hardy little plant and certainly worth the drive on a Sunday afternoon It is perhaps the only acer pseudoplatanus that you might ever see.
"My wife was from the Ukraine. God rest her soul.
She brought that seedling to the West—it was her
Freedom Tree. Well when she died ..."
I stopped reading and skimmed through the rest. When I found the address of Stone's garden I took out my book and made a note.
Then I leaned over to Miss Elvira Franklen and kissed her on the cheek.
The maple trees beyond the fence grew wild in the overgrown garden.
And this was one fence that did not look inviting. Perhaps Mr. Albert Stone just got fed up with all those Pacific Planter readers scampering about his garden, but whatever the reason, someone had certainly done a number. A very paranoid number, indeed. For the fence was a wire-mesh barrier that ran across the front of the land and back down both sides to the river. The spikes that stuck
up skyward would rip your balls to shreds. Not of course that anyone would really want to enter. For the only structure visible on the land was a Quonset hut made of corrugated iron, the roof of which had long since rusted, seeping streaks of orange down its metal sides.
I decided to approach from the water, so I drove by without stopping. Besides, there was no gate.
Steveston is just a small sea-breeze community sitting serenely on the dykes of the Fraser where the marshes of Lulu Island slip quietly into the sea.
A sign in the local hardware store window said:Small boat for rent. Enquire within. The store was Filled with boiler plugs, blocks and tackle, ship's barometers and lamps, blue yacht braid, anchors, any-sized corks and Greek fishermen's hats. The man behind the counter was mending a ripped fish net. A notice above the counter read: People who believe the dead never come back to life should be here at quitting time.'
"Help you, mate?" the man asked.
"I'd like to rent your boat."
Ten minutes later I set sail heading west toward the sea. Out beyond Steveston Island to my left was the South Arm of the Fraser. I could just make out its choppy waters through a sparse string of trees. There was a shack on the island that looked like an outhouse with smoke curling out of its ceiling.
Birds were everywhere. Out on the end of a rotting pier and fishing in the water sat a very old man. He waved at me.
At 2:53 I passed Garry Point and rounded the west end of Steveston Island to double back up the river.
The slough had seen better days.
It branched off the river to the left like a small indent of water snaking off into a field. On either side of its entrance stood a shanty and a houseboat. Up the slough I could make out a row of rundown buildings, some of them made with tarpaper siding, others constructed from split shiplap lumber or old shingle slates, all of them looking as if deserted a long, long time ago.
At 3:09 I sailed into the slough and found the back of the Quonset hut.
The land fell off to the water, ending in a small sandy beach strewn with maple leaves which had once wafted down on the wind. The hut itself sat like a hat on top of a concrete bunker. The bunker was only visible when you came in from the rear. A rickety wooden staircase descended down the backside of the concrete until it ended at a plank and piling pier that jutted out over the slough. That bunker looked as though it could withstand full-scale nuclear attack.
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