Westboro might seem like an unlikely place for a disappearance.
The tree-lined streets are quiet, the houses picture-perfect, and, on most days, the biggest mystery might be finding a parking spot along Richmond Road. But somewhere behind that peaceful façade, a man named Raymond has vanished.
A few kilometres away at Tunney’s Pasture, a police officer and his granddaughter have a mystery of their own to solve at Statistics Canada. Across the city, there is more trouble along the Rideau Canal, at Lansdowne Park and even at the Tulip Festival.
Thankfully, it’s all fiction.
The imagined crimes are among 23 stories included in A Capital Mystery Volume 2, a new anthology that once again hands Ottawa over to local mystery writers and lets them do their worst.
The book is the follow-up to A Capital Mystery, which was released last fall and brought together 21 Ottawa writers who transformed familiar neighbourhoods, landmarks and institutions into settings for fictional crime.
Mike Martin, co-editor of both volumes, said the response to the first book made a sequel an easy case to solve.
“I think what’s different about this particular book is that there were more new authors,” Martin told KT. “The other thing I would say is that the last time the stories were more spread out, some more suburban and rural Ottawa. This time, more of the stories are set in what I would call the downtown core.”
That includes Parliament Hill, the ByWard Market and Rideau Canal. Organizers are hoping to create a map showing readers where the stories take place and are also planning a mystery walk with Susan Johnson, who leads historical walking tours in Ottawa.
The walk would take readers to the settings of four or five stories in downtown, allowing them to see the fictional crime scenes for themselves.
“Ottawa itself has a dichotomy, which is this quiet, staid civil service town, you know, and nothing happens. And that’s not true,” he said. “As we all know, anybody who lives here knows that’s not true, but that’s the image.”
Something sinister in Westboro
For local author Jennifer Jorgensen, the mystery begins inside a suburban Westboro home.
Her contribution moves between the past and present and centres on Louisa, whose husband, Raymond, has been missing for more than a week. As she waits for answers, the disappearance brings back memories of the last time police came to her home.
Jorgensen lives in Barrhaven, but Westboro was not chosen at random. Her husband spent part of his childhood in the neighbourhood, and a recent drive past his former home gave her an idea.
“I thought, what a quaint little picture-perfect community this looks like,” she said. “And then I was percolating a story in my head about something. And I thought, it’s always the perfect, picture-perfect, unassuming places that have the deepest, darkest undertones and secrets to draw out of. So I thought it’s a perfect place to set my story.”
The inspiration for the story itself came from a considerably more mundane activity: organizing her house after both of her children left for university.
Jorgensen said the process got her thinking about the idea that everything has its place — not only around the house but in life — and about the need to reassess where things belong from time to time.
That became an overarching theme for Louisa’s story and the mystery surrounding her husband’s disappearance.
Jorgensen has been writing in one form or another since childhood. Growing up in British Columbia, she entered a writing contest at a local children’s bookstore when she was about 10. She didn’t win, but received an honourable mention.
After moving to Ottawa and having children, she continued writing whenever she could and eventually joined a writers’ group. That led her to Capital Crime Writers, where she has been a member for about 12 years.
She later placed third in the organization’s Audrey Jessup Short Story Contest.
From statistics to storytelling
A few kilometres east of Westboro, another mystery unfolds in a place Andrew Kohut knows particularly well.
Kohut spent 34 years working at Statistics Canada, much of it at Tunney’s Pasture. After retiring a few years ago, he started writing short stories for fun. His wife came across the call for submissions and encouraged him to submit one.
There was just one problem: after a career spent working with numbers, Kohut wanted to write fiction about something entirely different.
“I’d had enough working with numbers. I wanted to write stories,” he said. “But they say you should write about what you know. So I set my story at Statistics Canada.”
His contribution begins when someone calls the police with a complaint for investigation by the federal agency.
The officer dispatched to the call has an unusual partner in tow: his granddaughter, whom he is looking after for the day. Together, the unlikely crime-solving duo set about cracking the mystery.
Kohut had always enjoyed writing, dating back to high school, but chose what he considered a more practical path when he went to university.
That eventually led to Statistics Canada, where he worked on surveys in a variety of fields for more than three decades. Writing remained in the background through letters and poems, but there was little time for stories.
Kohut has since had another story and several micro-stories published and has won prizes through Capital Crime Writers. But he has no plans to turn his retirement hobby into a second career.
“I’m going to keep writing because I enjoy doing it, but I am retired, so I’m not going to make this a career or anything,” he said. “I do it for fun, and I share it with people, friends and family and stuff, and they seem to enjoy them. They say they do.”
A Capital Mystery Volume 2 is on sale now.