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.