From July 18 to 20, Bruce and I attended the Pemberton Music Festival where I ran into this crowd of young men in Tom Sellick masks.
I would say attending my first music festival ever was like being at a three-day-long birthday party for an eight-year-old, complete with toys, a water slide, a ball pit, face painting, fun costumes, bubble wands and lots and lots of beachwear - except everyone was in their twenties.
Also, it was very loud.
Sparky's Funtime Summertime Murder Mystery
Chapter Twelve
Sparky here. This is Chapter Twelve of my story about how Gerry Ringbold met his untimely end. The story starts here.
Two other people I know from working at the Gardens have helped me piece together Gerry Ringbold's likely fate.
Well, one of these people I really only know of as opposed to know personally. Cornwall Dubbins - who everyone calls "Dubs" - is the Chief Arborist for the Thompson Gardens. He used to work for the city in the Parks Department but joined the Thompson Garden staff about a year before the grand opening.
Dubs is in early middle age, tall, skinny and looks like he’ll carry a full head of hair with him to his grave. He is crazy about trees and he loves the Thompson Gardens. So maybe I don't need to tell you that the person Dubs hated most in the world was Gerry Ringbold.
The feeling was mutual. Dubs' six-figure salary was a matter of public record so of course Gerry took aim and fired repeatedly. But there was more to Gerry's animus than just the money. He put motions forward at Council demanding Dubs' resignation. One of these motions alleged, with no facts as usual, that Dubs was running a drug business out of the Thompson Gardens, supporting the habit of all the low life scum Gerry saw everywhere he looked.
Bob Harrison, the reporter who followed Gerry obsessively, wondered if Dubs would sue Ringbold for libel, but Dubs just kept his head down. The Foundation for its part sent a letter to Council pointing to its solid record of support for local programs helping neighbourhood people get off drugs.
The day after Gerry's corpse was found, the rumour mill said Dubs was the prime suspect. Jennifer of course said she knew someone who saw Dubs kill Gerry. Later she said she was standing by the gardener's shed when it happened and she heard Dubs kill Gerry.
In the world outside of rumour and falsehood, the police did ask Dubs and just about every other Garden employee to answer some questions, but Dubs was never a person of interest.
His alibi was his girlfriend, Carol. They were miles away from the Gardens on June 21 2013.
Carol was also my friend. She worked at the Gardens and always stopped by to chat with me just before she went home for the day. She's the other person has helped me piece together Gerry's fate.
Carol's about ten years older than me. She manages the crew that takes care of the wild variety of plants in the palm house. She has degrees in forestry and plant biology. She first learned about the Gardens when she led for a private sector consultant the project to assess the impacts on indigenous plants of the construction of the public washroom.
"That was a pretty pointless project, but I really liked the Gardens, so I applied for a job" she said. "There aren't too many places around here where you can hang around all day with hundred year old palm trees."
Carol was the one who told me about how grass lawns will transition to more diverse and hardy mixtures if left untended. She also knew lots about all the other things growing in the Gardens. I asked her once about some strange-looking trees. They were forty feet high, had shaggy red bark, a very straight trunk and weird, feathery leaves.
Carol said right away that they were dawn redwoods -Metasequoia glyptostroboides - an ancient species -- older than the giant red sequoias in California -- that originated in Szechuan province in China. The Thompson Gardens redwoods, Carol said, were a gift from the People’s Republic of China arranged about twenty years ago through the local Chinese community to celebrate the city’s one hundred and fiftieth birthday.
It was none of my business who Carol was dating, but one day, about a week or two before Gerry's death, I saw her and Dubs kiss in parting just before she came into the washroom.
She seemed pretty happy, so I asked her about it. She smiled and asked me how my day was going. I read her what I'd managed to transcribe of Marriba's screed that day:
In the car culture, normal people live in the suburbs. Rich normals live in the suburbs built fifty to seventy years ago within five kilometres of the downtown core and with big trees on the lot. Normals who are not rich live in the far suburbs, the ones built in the last ten to thirty years (or months) fifty kilometres from downtown with sick little saplings on the lawn and the lines still showing in the turf where they laid the sod. People move to the suburbs so they can procreate and spend the next twenty years driving their kids to dance class and hockey games. People who live in the suburbs are all the same and have the same conversations. They talk about where they have driven recently, what they have bought that day or where they have driven their children to buy something that day.
Carol and Dubs accounted for their whereabouts on the night Gerry died to the satisfaction of the local police. From what I know now, they could have had a hand in Gerry's demise without being anywhere near the scene. And if anyone knows where that cute little gardening truck with the balloon tires went, it's them.
You can read Chapter Thirteen here.
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