Death in the Garden City

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Contents

  Cover

  A selection of recent titles by Jeanne M. Dams from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  A selection of recent titles by Jeanne M. Dams from Severn House

  The Dorothy Martin mysteries

  A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

  THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

  THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES’S

  MURDER AT THE CASTLE

  SHADOWS OF DEATH

  DAY OF VENGEANCE

  THE GENTLE ART OF MURDER

  BLOOD WILL TELL

  SMILE AND BE A VILLAIN

  THE MISSING MASTERPIECE

  CRISIS AT THE CATHEDRAL

  A DAGGER BEFORE ME

  DEATH IN THE GARDEN CITY

  DEATH IN THE GARDEN CITY

  Jeanne M. Dams

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  First published in the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2019 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2019 by Jeanne M. Dams.

  The right of Jeanne M. Dams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8913-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-655-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0353-3 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is set in and around Victoria, British Columbia, Canada – affectionately referred to as The Garden City – and I owe a great debt to many kind people there. First of all, the book would never have been possible without the kindness of Barry and Moira Carlson. Moira and I met through email and became friends, and she and her husband then became my wonderful hosts for a delightful week in Victoria and environs. She is an artist and he a computer specialist – lovely people. They took me everywhere, made sure I saw everything, and answered hundreds of questions then and for weeks afterward via email. At the last, they were patient and gracious enough to read the manuscript and point out countless mistakes I made in dealing with Canadian English and with details of the Vancouver Island environment. Blessings be upon them!

  Staff Sergeant Craig Harper, a detective with the Victoria Police Department, has been of enormous help in sorting out for me the complications of policing in an area with multiple municipalities, sets of laws, and police forces.

  The guides who lead the walking tours of Victoria are delightful people who were patient with my many questions and would never, never act as my fictional one did.

  Finally, I am extremely grateful to my friend Teresa Betz for allowing me to use her name. Let the reader be assured that the only resemblance between the real Teresa and my fictional one is that both are very nice women.

  I hope that readers who are not fortunate enough to know Victoria and the rest of Vancouver Island will get an opportunity to visit. It is honestly as beautiful and charming as I have painted it. All the pleasant people in the book are drawn from life; the nasty ones were created in my own disordered mind.

  ONE

  The phone call woke me from a pleasant afternoon nap, a habit I’ve grown entirely too fond of in recent years. A terrible waste of time, but so delightful, especially on a warm May day with the scent of hyacinths and the cheerful songs of birds wafting in through the window. Anyway, a woman my age surely deserves some down time, right?

  I groped for the phone, knocked it off the bedside table, and finally managed to answer just as it stopped warbling.

  Drat. Now I needed my glasses to read the caller ID. Was it worth the trouble? If it was important they’d call back or leave a message.

  I lay back down and tried to recapture my dream, but I knew it was no use. Once I was awake, my brain started spinning, reminded me of all the things I should be doing. We needed groceries, especially cat food. Esmeralda trotted in at that exact moment – I swear she can read my mind – and jumped up, settling her solid bulk on my chest and reaching for my face with an insistent paw.

  Sighing, I sat up, dislodging Emmy, and reached again for the phone and my glasses.

  Oh. Judith Montcalm. Well, I couldn’t imagine why she’d be calling, but it would be nice to talk to her. We hadn’t had a lot of contact since very early in the year, when Alan and I had served as godparents at the christening of her son, who would one day be Sir Joseph Montcalm, Bart.

  Emmy had already started out the bedroom door, looking back to make sure I was following. I might, after all, have forgotten the way to the kitchen, where her empty food bowl was in urgent need of attention. As I went down the stairs, I clicked on the buttons that would return the call.

  ‘Judith? Dorothy, returning your call. Sorry I didn’t answer. I couldn’t get to the phone in time.’ No need to mention why.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry if I called at a bad time. You were probably napping, and quite right, too, on such a sleepy afternoon.’

  Judith got to know me very well during that brief visit to Suffolk, months ago.

  ‘Everything here is fine,’ she went on, ‘so don’t start worrying. Joseph is growing by leaps and bounds, and the girls are both doing well in school. Edwin’s away just now, doing something obscure with a start-up company in Tanganyika, of all places. No, the reason I called is a bit complicated.’

  I had been busy filling Emmy’s bowl, and then of course Samantha rushed in, speaking loudly in her Siamese voice, and I had to placate her, too, as well our beloved mutt Watson, who thought he deserved his share.

  ‘Sorry about the racket. The animals are demanding a meal. Their third today, if I’ve count
ed properly. Now! That’s done. Tell all.’

  ‘I’m a little embarrassed about it, but the fact is, I need your help, yours and Alan’s. Or actually, it’s my uncle who needs help, and I’ve terrible cheek even to ask, but he sounded so desperate, and I thought it would be just up your street, even though it’s so far away.’

  ‘What’s so far away?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t explained, have I? To tell the truth, I’m really quite worried about him. He lives in Victoria, and he’s deeply troubled, but … well, I’ll begin at the beginning.’

  I switched on the kettle, spooned some instant coffee into a cup, and prepared for a saga.

  ‘His name is John McKenzie, and he’s my mother’s brother. I remember him from way back when; we all lived near Toronto then, and used to get together for family occasions, holidays and birthdays and all that. He was my favourite uncle. Well, still is, for that matter. He joined the Mounties straight out of university, and loved being a policeman.’

  A picture of Nelson Eddy on a horse appeared in my mind. Handsome as all get-out, wearing a devastating uniform and singing to Jeannette MacDonald one of the silliest songs ever written. ‘Ooh, a Mountie! How exciting.’

  ‘Not really. They’re still called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but they don’t actually ride horses anymore, except for parades and things. And they don’t wear that gorgeous uniform much, either. They’re responsible for enforcing federal and national law throughout the country, and in a lot of the provinces they’re the main police force.’

  My vision faded. Shoot. Another illusion gone.

  ‘Anyway, when his wife, Aunt Margaret, died, Uncle John decided he wanted to move to a milder climate, and he was so lucky to find a good job in Victoria. That’s in British Columbia, you know.’

  ‘No. I’m afraid the things I know about Canada are terribly limited. I always was a dunce about geography. I know where Ontario is, and Quebec, and Prince Edward Island – that’s because of Anne of Green Gables, of course. But the rest …’ I waved a hand, foolishly, because Judith couldn’t see it.

  ‘Okay, BC is the westernmost province of Canada. It stretches all the way from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains, and from the continental US border up to Alaska. Victoria is in the south, on Vancouver Island, which is actually just a bit north of Seattle.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve heard of Vancouver,’ I said brightly.

  ‘That’s the city. And it’s not on Vancouver Island, just to confuse people. It’s on the mainland. The island, and the city of Victoria, are perfectly beautiful places, and they have an almost-perfect climate, warm and sunny most of the time, enough rain in winter to keep the reservoirs filled, almost no snow; it’s an ideal place to live. The standard of living is high, and there’s very little crime. It’s known as The Garden City, no less …’

  ‘Then … I’m afraid I don’t quite understand why your uncle is troubled. Does he have too little to do, the crime rate being what it is?’

  ‘No. It isn’t that. Anyway he’s been retired for a few years now. But of course he still keeps a finger on the pulse of the community, and that’s what’s bothering him. Something is badly wrong.’

  ‘But … I’m sorry, I’m not following you.’ I ran my fingers through my hair in another futile gesture. ‘Judith, just what is wrong?’

  ‘That’s just it. That’s the point. He doesn’t know. He can’t put a finger on it. Odd things have been happening, but they don’t make a pattern, and they don’t make sense.’

  ‘For instance?’

  ‘Well, some plants have been stolen. Some aconites from the Butchart Gardens, for a start. Do you know about the Butchart Gardens?’

  ‘Never heard of them, but that can wait. What else?’

  ‘No, but you need to know a little about the gardens. They’re huge, and really famous. Japanese tourists come all those thousands of miles to see the Japanese garden, and … well, anyway, they’re fabulous, with amazing collections of plants, and the thing is, they’re very well guarded. So the theft of plants is extremely unusual. The aconites aren’t particularly valuable though, so it isn’t a super big deal. But then the next thing, the next one Uncle John noticed, anyway, was somebody’s oleander, a prized specimen kept in a pot and brought inside for the winter. The whole bush, pot and all, just taken away in the middle of the night.’

  The coffee was beginning to take hold. ‘Aconite,’ I repeated. ‘Oleander. You said there wasn’t a pattern, but I’m seeing one here. You do know that those are two extremely poisonous plants.’

  ‘Yes, I knew that, and so does Uncle John, of course. But the thing is, the thefts happened months ago, and there haven’t been any cases of poisoning. No unexpected deaths of any kind. A few addicts overdosed on fentanyl, but sadly, that’s not unexpected.’

  ‘He’s sure of that? I mean, that they were ODs and not other sorts of poison.’

  ‘Believe me, he knows what an OD looks like. Fentanyl is a scourge, and Victoria is no more immune than anywhere else. But as for alkaloid poisonings, it’s a smallish community, Dorothy, and Uncle John has contacts all over the place. He would have heard if anyone had been given monkshood or oleander. Someone stole those plants and then … I don’t know, threw them away, I suppose. They don’t seem to have been planted anywhere. A few aconites in someone’s garden wouldn’t be noticed, perhaps, but a potted oleander?’

  ‘Taken to the States, maybe? Or no, I suppose customs officials check for plant material in someone’s car or luggage.’

  ‘They thought of that. The plants could have been boxed up and shipped to almost anywhere in the world, for that matter, not just the US – but why, when they can be bought at any nursery? Why steal them at all and then do nothing with them?’

  ‘Beats me. But surely it’s not all that serious, not enough to cause your uncle so much alarm.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s just the beginning. Then there began to be letter bombs.’

  ‘Good heavens! That’s altogether a different kettle of fish. That’s really serious! Was anyone killed?’ Surely not, I thought, or it would have made the news, even here. Canada was, after all, a Commonwealth country, and Mother England was interested in her welfare.

  ‘No one was killed. No one was even badly hurt. Because they weren’t really bombs at all. They were just fireworks rigged to go off when the letter was opened. They were sent to various offices: a lawyer, a doctor, and an IT firm. One man got a burn on his hand, and another one was nearly hit in the eye, but fortunately not quite. The envelopes were filled with some powder, too, and that had everyone excited for a while – but it was talcum powder. Just ordinary bath powder, with quite a nice scent, Uncle John said.’

  ‘Judith, that makes no sense at all!’

  ‘No. Just malicious mischief. Like the theft of the plants. Like the vandalism here and there – somebody’s mailbox battered, a porch light broken (hit by a brick), a toilet seat hoisted up onto Queen Victoria’s statue.

  ‘And there’s been damage to tents. Victoria has rather a large homeless population, and they’ve been living in tents in various parks. It’s created a good deal of ill feeling on both sides of the issue, the neighbours wanting them to go somewhere else, the tent-dwellers feeling bullied. They do, on the whole, try to keep their precarious communities clean and tidy, and when a lot of the tents were smeared with paint, and I’m afraid worse, the tensions escalated.’

  ‘I think I begin to see why your uncle is uneasy. Just general nastiness, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s what it looks like. But the police haven’t been able to come up with a single clue as to who might be doing all these things. You can see the problem. None of these incidents, by itself, is a serious crime. There’s been nothing that warrants a full-scale investigation. And the RCMP and the Victoria police are chronically understaffed, just like police forces all over. And yet the net effect of all this is to undermine the morale of the whole area. Greater Victoria has always been a peaceful, pleasant place. Oh, they h
ave their problems, like anywhere else, but on the whole everyone seems to rub along quite smoothly. But now …’

  Her voice trailed off, and I thought I could hear the hint of tears. ‘My dear girl! This means a great deal to you, doesn’t it?’

  A sniff. ‘Silly of me, isn’t it? I’ve only visited Victoria once, before the children were born. Edwin had business in Vancouver, and it kept on raining and raining, and someone said it almost never rained in Victoria in the summer. Something about a rain shadow and the mountains. I didn’t understand, but I hired a car and drove to Victoria. It took a long time, because a lot of it was by ferry, but I loved the trip, and I loved the island. It was all true. The sun shone and the air was warm and the gardens were beautiful and the people were friendly. I had a lovely time, even though I was by myself. So when Uncle John moved there, Edwin and I decided we’d take the children and visit, as soon as Joseph was a little older. It’s been a dream for us, and now it looks like turning into a nightmare.’ She sniffed again.

  I let the pause lengthen for a bit. ‘And you’re asking for our help, Alan’s and mine. What is it you want us to do?’

  ‘I feel most awfully brazen even to ask. But … well, it is a lovely place, and in spring and early summer I’m told it’s unbelievably beautiful, and of course we’d pay for everything …’

  She drifted off, and if I sighed, it was inwardly. ‘You’d like Alan and me to go to Victoria and see what we can find out.’

  ‘That’s it. Do you mind terribly?’

  ‘I’ll have to talk to Alan, of course. But no, I don’t mind your asking. Why would I? Isn’t that what friends are for? I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets home, and call you back. And Judith, try not to worry too much.’

  TWO

  It was a long trip. Edwin and Judith had insisted on paying for a business-class fare, so it was less uncomfortable than it might have been. And we broke the journey in Toronto, where Judith’s family gave us a warm welcome and put us up for the night. But international travel, with its attendant jet lag, is always exhausting, and the older I get, the more it seems to affect me. The last lap, Vancouver to Victoria, was in a very small plane indeed, and my tolerance for discomfort had been steadily diminishing. By the time we arrived at the tiny Victoria airport, I was ready for nothing but bed – and it was, in Victoria, early afternoon.