The Dead of False Creek Read online

  The Dead of

  False Creek

  A JOURNAL THROUGH TIME MYSTERY

  SARAH M STEPHEN

  Copyright © 2021 by Sarah M Stephen

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by copyright law.

  WZE Press

  Vancouver, BC

  https://wzepress.ca

  Edited by Janet Fretter

  Proofed by Shelley Hudson

  Cover design by ebooklaunch.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  The Dead of False Creek / by Sarah M Stephen

  ISBN: 978-1-7778330-1-5 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-7778330-0-8 (digital)

  ISBN: 978-1-7778330-2-2 (large print)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  A Note about Language

  Chapter 1: Jack (1897)

  Chapter 2: Riley Finch (2017)

  Chapter 3: Jack

  Chapter 4: Riley

  Chapter 5: Riley

  Chapter 6: Jack

  Chapter 7: Riley

  Chapter 8: Jack

  Chapter 9: Riley

  Chapter 10: Jack

  Chapter 11: Jack

  Chapter 12: Riley

  Chapter 13: Jack

  Chapter 14: Jack

  Chapter 15: Riley

  Chapter 16: Riley

  Chapter 17: Jack

  Chapter 18: Riley

  Chapter 19: Jack

  Chapter 20: Riley

  Chapter 21: Jack

  Chapter 22: Riley

  Chapter 23: Jack

  Chapter 24: Riley

  Chapter 25: Jack

  Chapter 26: Riley

  Chapter 27: Jack

  Chapter 28: Riley

  Chapter 29: Jack

  Chapter 30: Jack

  Chapter 31: Riley

  Chapter 32: Jack

  Chapter 33: Riley

  Chapter 34: Jack

  Chapter 35: Jack

  Chapter 36: Jack

  Chapter 37: Riley

  Chapter 38: Jack

  Read More

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Series Information

  To my husband. Thank you for believing in me.

  A Note about Language

  THIS BOOK IS SET IN Canada and written in Canadian English (which is very similar to British English). If you’re unfamiliar with the differ­ences, we use our instead of or in “colour,” “favour,” or “neighbour” and double the l in “travelled.”

  Chapter 1: Jack (1897)

  DETECTIVE JACK WINSTON stood outside the law offices of Huntington and Shipley. People moved around him, hoofbeats and grating wheels announced a passing carriage, but he fixed his focus on the building’s entrance, willing the missing man to emerge. Deep in his pocket, his fingers found the rock his brother Ellis had given him fifteen years earlier. The cool, smooth surface warmed at his touch and he relaxed. Maybe today would be the day.

  *

  INSIDE THE TWO-STOREY building that housed the Vancouver Constabu­lary and Courthouse, Winston sifted through the pages of Hunting­ton’s file. Nothing sparked any fresh ideas. From his pocket, he fished out the key for the small drawer on his desk, his fingers glancing the stone. The lock released with a soft click. A rustle of fabric made Winston look up to catch his new constable, Thomas Miller, adjusting a button on his uniform. Miller smoothed the front of his deep blue jacket and cleared his throat.

  “Sir? Mrs. Huntington is here?”

  “Are you asking or telling me?” Winston grimaced at his misplaced frustration. Walter Huntington’s disappearance was hardly the fault of the earnest young officer standing before him, and Winston could not fault Huntington’s mother for her daily visits to the station. He pictured the deepening lines that creased the woman’s face. No, his inability to provide her an update was his own failing.

  Winston re-locked the drawer and returned the key to his pocket. “Please tell her I am—” Winston looked down. “I will see her now.”

  “I could tell her you’ve learned nothing new, sir.”

  “No. I am finished here.” Winston patted the file on his desk. “But you are correct; there is no news today. Still, speaking to family mem­bers and loved ones is part of our job.”

  Winston rose and took a moment to smooth his moustache. He made his way to the front of the station, where Mrs. Huntington stood holding a long, narrow box. From a distance, her blouse ap­peared to be light blue to complement the deeper blue of her jacket and skirt, though as he drew closer, Winston saw that the colour was the effect of fine stripes. Her hat bore an intricate display of silk flow­ers in the same blue as the jacket.

  He stepped past the desk where Constable Miller had begun sort­ing a small pile of papers. Despite being assigned to assist Winston, with only twelve officers on the force, Miller still had to spend time at the desk near the station entrance most days. “Mrs. Huntington.” Winston stretched out his hand, instantly dropping it to his side when she narrowed her eyes. A flash of hot embarrassment flooded him.

  “Mr. Winston.” By now, after weeks of daily visits, she must have known she should address him as Detective Winston, but he said nothing; correcting her would only cause her mouth and nose to crin­kle more.

  “I have little news for you, Mrs. Huntington.”

  She sniffed. “I, however, have news for you.”

  What more could she possibly have to share? And why hadn’t she shared it earlier? Winston exhaled and squared his shoulders. “Thank you, madam.”

  “Before he disappeared, my Walter ordered a pair of gloves from Sharp’s.” Winston followed her eyes to the duty desk, where Miller busied himself reviewing the paper stack. Mrs. Huntington placed the box on the desk’s raised counter and opened the clasp of the small purse hanging at her wrist. She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed the corner of her dry eye, actions Winston had observed as her dance each time they’d met. Without dropping her gaze, she returned the handkerchief to her purse.

  “Where have the gloves been all these weeks?”

  “I sent my maid to Sharp’s yesterday to determine whether I want to look at a delivery of silks—I do not—and Mr. Sharp sent a message asking if I wanted him to sell the gloves to someone else.”

  “And your decision?”

  Mrs. Huntington pointed at the box. “I collected them myself yes­terday afternoon. My son will want them when he returns.”

  On an earlier visit to the station, the woman had declared Hun­tington had slipped away on a boat travelling north, though she ex­pected the police to continue searching for him in the city, just in case. Winston understood a man’s desire to seek adventure—or at least dis­tance from his difficult mother—though if he had ordered the gloves to arrive after he left, it suggested his sudden departure was not planned.

  “May I see the gloves, Mrs. Huntington?” Winston asked out of courtesy rather than necessity.

  “I brought them to show you.”

  Winston pulled the box closer and eased the lid off to reveal a layer of crisp white cotton. He resisted the urge to run his finger along the embroidered pattern stitched into the top of the gloves. “Who were these for?”

  “Mr. Sharp didn’t say.” She extended her arm and wiggled her fin­gers. “I doubt they are for me; they are too large for my hands.” Winston frowned a warning at Miller, who masked his snort with a cough and covered his smile with his hand. Confidence was admira­ble, but hers was misplaced. She had wealth and status, but not the small hands she claimed to possess.

  “Indeed.” Winston stifled the smile that tweaked his own lips. “Was he—”

  “As I’ve told you before, Walter was not stepping out with anyone, Mr. Winston.” She closed her eyes a moment and he waited for her to continue. “I rather think he fancied the daughter of a gentleman who works for the railway.”

  The Huntington household staff likely knew more about this re­lationship and whether the daughter was indeed the intended recipi­ent of the gloves. Winston pulled a small notebook from his breast pocket and made a note. Walter Huntington wouldn’t be the first young man to pursue a woman his mother thought unsuitable. “I will speak with Mr. Sharp, Mrs. Huntington. Thank you for coming to share this information.” He escorted the missing man’s mother to the main entrance, nodding again at Miller as he returned to his desk.

  Why had she waited so long to tell him about her son’s romantic interest? Had she only just learned of it, like the gloves?

  Men keep secrets when they want to chart their own course. Like Ellis. What private diversions had he kept from their parents in the months leading to his disappearance? Winston pulled the rock from his pocket and set it on his desk. The afternoon on the shore of Lake Ontario came back to him, a family picnic on one of the small islands near Toronto’s waterfront during Jack’s school break. Though time had faded the memory, sensations and fragments were still fresh—the colour of his mother’s dress, a blue that seemed to have been pulled from the cloudless sky; the sharp chill of the water lapping around his feet, making him squeal; Ellis, beside him, skipping stones.

  He had a vague memory of
George, his youngest brother, being there too, at first. But he’d gone off somewhere with a cluster of boys his age.

  Jack had persevered and, with Ellis’s help, had managed to get two skips out of a stone. Ellis whooped and gave him an encouraging clap on his shoulder. The warmth of the memory brought a smile. He’d spent the rest of the afternoon searching for the perfect stone to give to Ellis. Finally, he found it and ran to the family’s spot under a tree to present it to his brother. Ellis had turned it over, grinning his approval, then placed it back in Jack’s palm, wrapping his small fingers around it. “Keep it for next time.”

  Ellis disappeared the following week.

  Winston rubbed at his temples, summoning focus. He returned the rock to his pocket and unlocked the desk drawer, removing his journal to capture a few thoughts from the conversation.

  May 10 ’97

  I expected Mrs. Huntington for her daily visit, and she didn’t disappoint. She remains optimistic her son will re­turn. Such faith is admirable. Would that I prove her correct, though the gloves she had with her are a stronger signal his departure was unplanned. As more time passes since Huntington’s disappearance, the less confident I am I will find him.

  Chapter 2: Riley Finch (2017)

  RILEY FINCH STOOD ALONE in a windowless room, surrounded by long-neglected files. Dust and cool air tickled the back of her throat as she swept her gaze down rows of stacked boxes. She knew the papers wait­ing within them were a mess. But Riley was undaunted by the task of organizing and scanning the pages. Instead, she relished the energy she felt as the Vancouver History Museum’s newest archivist. She had the opportunity to give forgotten tales another life.

  She moved deeper into the rows, running her finger through thick­ening layers of dust as she walked, stopping before a pile of boxes lean­ing against the back wall. She sighed; the bottom box had crumpled from the weight of the others in the stack. Rescuing these documents was a good place to start the day.

  Riley’s gloved fingers tingled in anticipation as she reached for the top box on the pile. Many found the work tedious, but these were her first weeks as a full-time researcher. She was lowest in the pecking or­der and expected the less popular tasks. She didn’t mind them, espe­cially when they allowed her to explore old documents.

  “Let’s see what we can do with you,” she said as she set the box on a trolley. A wheel protested as she navigated crowded aisles toward a work counter near the front of the archive room. Here she would scan and catalogue the documents. “Whose stories are you waiting to tell?” Riley patted the box.

  Her boss, Claire Cale, had asked Riley to look out for interesting records to include in the upcoming exhibit on policing in the city’s early years. Perhaps the box’s contents contained information about someone like the con man Claire had mentioned: he’d harnessed late nineteenth-century citizens’ eagerness to develop new neighbour­hoods by selling the same properties—which he did not own—to multiple buyers.

  Riley removed the lid, shivering as she set it down. She stood still, letting the spirits of the people named within the files and books settle with the dust. The box was among several discovered during prepara­tions to move the police force into a larger building. She tutted at the thought of the new apartment tower—sold by a modern-day con man—that would soon replace the old headquarters.

  Pages and folders fluttered against Riley’s fingertips as she ran her gloved hand inside the box. She paused at the spine of the first book, tugging at its corner to stand it in place. The inventory, created by someone long ago, listed two books for this box, yet it contained three. She sighed. Maybe the inventory wouldn’t be as reliable as she’d hoped.

  Riley eased the books from the box. The smooth, blank cover of the one that caught her eye shone beside the dull, cracked leather of the others. She flipped the book over, inspecting the spine, finding it free of the cracks she liked to trace with her finger, as though mapping a book’s journey to her. She brought it to her nose and inhaled deeply, setting it down to do the same with another book. She picked up the first book and sniffed again.

  Different eras.

  Forgotten by the person who moved them to the museum? The nameplate on the first page identified the book as belonging to Jack M. Winston, 1897. Heart rate quickening, she closed the book, reopened it. The script looked consistent with the period. Was some­one playing a prank on the new archivist? Her colleagues could mimic the detail with little effort.

  As she thumbed through the first pages of what appeared to be a journal, the spidery script reminded her of the first handwriting from another era that she had seen as a girl. While playing in the basement, she had searched through an old suitcase near the dress-up trunk to see if it held any more of her grandmother’s old hats. It didn’t. But tucked within it were postcards her great-grandfather had sent home during the First World War. The delicately embroidered floral designs on the front of the cards and the faded script on the back begged to be displayed. After a week, Riley’s mother had finally agreed to let her arrange the cards. That first experience with caring for old documents fuelled her passion for connecting to history.

  Riley returned her focus to the book in front of her, rubbing the corner of a page between her thumb and index finger. The gloves dulled her fingertips; she checked she was alone and removed one. She closed her eyes and rubbed the corner again, then replaced the glove. The paper within the book was new, not brittle with age.

  Whoever had played this prank spent considerable time preparing it, but why? Riley looked at her watch. With two hours before she and Claire were to meet, she could spare a few minutes before returning to cataloguing. She pulled a high stool from behind the counter and sat, resting the journal on her lap.

  April 3 ’97

  Without doubt, today was the most frustrating one in several weeks. A man has vanished. Each question I ask yields two more. He is from a prominent local family, so I am under pressure to find him, not the least from his mother, who misses her son. And yet I am working with no one to help me as I search for him, and for answers.

  She skimmed several pages of observations about this case and other crimes in the city—mostly thefts and fights—stopping at the short, final entry.

  Continued from May 10 ’97

  The chief has agreed to give me a constable to aid in my efforts to find H.

  Hadn’t there been a station logbook in a box she’d already sorted? Riley opened the database she’d been building to document her work. There, in box eighteen. Constabulary Logbook 1897.

  She retrieved the box from the shelf and set it on the floor. As she pulled out the logbook, she welcomed its dusty scent, stronger because of its contrast to the journal she’d just found. The logbook’s yellowing pages contained rows of entries detailing each request for police ser­vices the station received. She found two entries for the first of April—a report of pickpockets operating on Water Street, a few blocks from the police station, and a reference to Mrs. Huntington, of Vancouver’s West End, reporting her son’s disappearance.

  Riley moved down the page. Mrs. Huntington—update appeared on several lines, each time with Winston’s name in the “assigned” col­umn. Riley glanced behind her, though she knew she was alone. How long had her pranksters spent on this? How had they left the dust un­disturbed when they’d added the journal to the box?

  Back at the work desk, she set the journal in front of her, running her hand down the unblemished spine. If the journal wasn’t a prank, the personal writings of one of the force’s early detectives could add personality to Claire’s exhibit. She removed her gloves, dug out a pen­cil from beneath her ponytail elastic, and reached for a small notepad. She paused, then pushed it away again; though she preferred taking notes by hand, Claire had been clear about wanting everything logged in the computer system. Riley slid the pencil back into her hair.

  After she finished cataloguing and scanning the remaining docu­ments from the box, she placed them in a new one on the trolley, leaving the journal out. She pushed the trolley through the archive’s centre aisle, glancing down each row of cabinets and shelves as she passed. When she reached the final row of mobile shelves, she tugged the crank, confirming that the last person in the archive had locked it. De­spite her many hours spent in archives, mobile shelves still terrified her; she tried to spend as little time as possible between them. She couldn’t set aside the urban legend about a squished archivist.