High Chicago jg-1

by Howard Shrier

  I had my hand on the door when the girl said, "Wait a sec. That's him coming up behind you."

  I turned to see a tall, lanky fellow in black cargo pants and a long black coat kicking his way through fallen leaves, head bobbing to music playing through an iPod. He wore a watch cap over long sandy hair and beat-up black Converse high-tops. The bottoms of his pant legs were stained white with what looked like paint or plaster.

  I walked down to meet him before he could get to the door. "Will?"

  He didn't hear me and started to move around me. I put my hand on his arm. He flinched, a startled look in his eyes. I could see the question form in his mind-Do I know you? — as he pulled out his earbuds.

  "I need to talk to you a sec."

  "What about?" He had a prominent Roman nose and a slight growth of beard on his chin.

  "About Maya Cantor."

  He stepped back from me and folded his arms across his chest. "What about her, man?"

  "How she died."

  "Who are you?"

  I told him.

  "An investigator?" he said. "For who, her father? I've got nothing to say to you."

  He tried to brush past me but I planted myself in his way. "I'm not working for her father, Will."

  "No? Then who?"

  "For her mother. Marilyn Cantor."

  "What for?"

  "She wants to know why Maya killed herself. But to be honest, Will, I don't think she did."

  "No?"

  "No. And I doubt you do either."

  "Why?"

  "You got her email that night."

  "So?"

  "I think someone killed her."

  "Like who?"

  "I don't know yet. Why'd you ask if I was working for her father?"

  "Because of who he is and what he does."

  "Which is what?"

  "Fucking lie, for one thing. Screw up the environment and lie about it."

  "How do you know?"

  "It's what I do, man. Soil testing and analysis. Environmental policy. Land use. Everything we study here, that man contravenes. Taking land that could all be parks, marinas, wetlands and building fucking condos for the rich and famous."

  "She said in her email to you that she was going to try to find something out at her dad's the night she died. Do you know what?"

  "You know anything about PCBs?" he asked.

  "Will?" a voice behind me said.

  He looked past me and said, "Oh, hi, Professor Jenks."

  A trim man in his fifties was standing at the entrance to the building. "I'm late for my own class," he said. "And if you're behind me, what does that make you?"

  "Even later," Will said. "Look, man," he said to me. "I gotta run."

  "Can we talk later?"

  "Got a pen?"

  I took out a notebook and pen and he dictated his phone number, which we already had, and an address on Markham Street. "I have some lab work to do, but I should be home by four, five at the latest, and then I'll be in all night. You come by, and I'll give you a lesson in environmental degradation."

  He followed his professor into the building. The last of the smokers followed them in.

  CHAPTER 13

  Forest Hill is one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Toronto. The homes are large, the lots huge, the trees dominating, and yet most lawns had nary a leaf on them. They had all been raked, blown, swept and gathered into biodegradable paper bags lined up at the curb for pickup. The larger the lawn, the more bags there were, like rows of tackling dummies bracing for impact.

  Rob Cantor's home wasn't the biggest on his block of Dunvegan Road, but it still was in the $2-million to $3-million range. A grey stone chateau on a fifty-foot lot, with a Japanese maple still hanging onto scarlet leaves, its trunk circled by wilted hostas that had given it up for the year. A massive Infiniti SUV was parked in the driveway, handy in case the new Mrs. Cantor had to transport a cord of firewood or seed for the south forty.

  Nina Cantor was the only person left to talk to about the night Maya died, about the fight she'd had with her father. I walked up the flagstone path and used a wrought-iron knocker set in the mouth of a stone lion's head.

  No one answered.

  I put my ear to the door and heard the loud thump of a bass track that seemed to be coming from the rear of the house. I walked around the back, where the lawn sloped at least a hundred feet to a cedar gazebo. The house was built on a grade: below ground level at the rear was a set of French doors that led to a finished basement. I knocked on the door. Nothing. The music was louder here, the repetitive techno track so loud the glass was vibrating.

  I put my ear to the glass and heard a woman scream, "No!"

  "Come on!" a man's voice called gruffly.

  "No," she cried. "Don't make me!"

  "Do it!" he said. "Just do it, you spoiled bitch!"

  I slammed my elbow against a glass pane in the French door and reached in through the broken glass to turn the lock. The doors opened onto a sunken family room, with leather couches and recliners grouped around a floor-to-ceiling entertainment centre. The screams had come from somewhere behind this room. I stood and listened and then heard her cry out again, "I can't! I can't do it!"

  I raced across the room and through an open archway into a large bedroom set up as a home gym. A treadmill, a stair-climber, a heavy bag and a man straddling a woman who lay on her back on a weight bench, red-faced, struggling to press free weights up in her gloved hands while the man urged her on. "Come on," he said. "Two more!"

  "Get off me, you big shithead," she cursed.

  She saw me then and dropped the weights so fast the man had to hop away to avoid getting a toe mashed.

  "Who the fuck are you?" she said.

  Jonah Geller to the rescue.

  The man turned too. About my height but a lot heavier. Built-up pecs and delts that gave him the classic V-shape. Bulging biceps and triceps. Fists curled at his sides.

  "I'm sorry," I said to the woman. "I heard you scream and I thought…"

  "You thought what?" she smirked, getting up off the bench. "That Perry was having his way with me? Not too likely, I'm afraid. Anyway, you didn't answer my question."

  "My name is Jonah Geller."

  "And you were lurking outside why?"

  "I wanted to speak to you about your stepdaughter."

  "My step-oh, Maya, you mean? Sorry, I never exactly thought of her that way. What about her?"

  "Could we talk privately?"

  "Maya's not really my favourite subject," she said.

  "Why don't you take off?" Perry said. "The lady still has work to do."

  I ignored him. "I just need a few minutes, Ms. Cantor."

  "What are you, her lover? I didn't think she had time for men."

  "I'm an investigator."

  "Working for who?"

  "Maya's mother."

  "Marilyn? Another not-so-favourite person. So do I bill her for the broken window or you?"

  "Tell him to split, Nina," Perry said. "You don't want your muscles to stiffen up."

  "Maybe I want to see his stiffen up," she said. "He's kind of cute, you have to admit."

  She was a wearing a form-fitting, canary-yellow tank top over spandex pants. She put her hands on her hips, cocked one hip and thrust her chest out. Her figure was nothing short of magnificent, possibly even natural. But she did nothing for me. If eyes are the window of the soul, hers would have been papered over with signs saying Room for Rent.

  "Come on. On your way," Perry said. As he came toward me, he slammed his fist into the heavy bag, sending it into a wide circle. Maybe I should have cringed with terror or wet myself. But hitting a bag is a lot easier than hitting a trained fighter who is getting more annoyed by the minute.

  "Call him off, Nina," I said.

  "You've got to be kidding," she grinned.

  I sighed and waited for Perry to throw a punch. I didn't want to disable the guy for doing what he thought he ought to be doing, if indeed a thought
had flitted through his head. He put up his hands and tried a left jab, which I blocked easily, then a right cross, which I slipped. While he was thinking about his next move, I slapped him across the face.

  "Back off," I told him. "No reason for you to get hurt."

  "You bitch," he said. "I'm gonna tear you ap-"

  I slapped him again. Both his cheeks were flaming red. He came after me again. I blocked everything he threw and kept slapping him.

  "Don't you ever close a fist?" Nina complained.

  "Call him off," I said again.

  "Why? Maybe you'll train me from now on."

  Someone should have trained her a long time ago, in the art of human decency. Or at least keeping her yap shut.

  Perry tried to kick me in the groin. This I took personally. I shifted to sidekick position and stomped his shin as it rose toward me. He howled in pain and dropped to the floor, clutching his leg.

  "That could have been your knee," I said. "You'd be looking at total reconstruction."

  "Oh my God," he moaned. "You fucking asshole, you."

  "You're welcome," I said. "Now please go away and let me and the lady talk."

  He looked at Nina, who shook her head and grabbed a towel that was hanging on the handlebars of the treadmill and threw it at him. "Go on, Perry," she said. "Dry your eyes and beat it."

  He pulled himself up and gave me his best death stare. Not quite Dave Stewart in his Oakland prime, but not half bad.

  "Wait here," she said to me.

  She helped Perry gather up his things and escorted him out the French doors. I heard him say something to her; I heard her laugh at him in response. I guess she had no salt to rub in his wounds. "So you're an investigator?" Nina said. "Got a gun?"

  "We don't carry guns," I said. I still had a Beretta Cougar hidden in my apartment-a present from Dante Ryan-but hadn't so much as looked at it since last summer's crisis had ended.

  "And what exactly are you investigating?"

  "Why Maya Cantor died."

  "Isn't it kind of obvious? She threw herself off a twelfth-storey balcony."

  "Why she did it, then."

  "And you're asking me? What, did you run out of other people?"

  "Kind of."

  "I barely knew the girl," Nina said. "She didn't come around much. I got the feeling she didn't approve of me. Go figure."

  "She was here the night she died."

  "Yeah, Rob invited her and Andrew for dinner. Not exactly Brad and Angelina as company goes, but they were his kids so I went along."

  "I heard there was a disagreement."

  "From who, Marilyn?"

  "Yes."

  "The first Mrs. Cantor," she said, twirling a permed blonde curl around her index finger. "You can see why he got tired of her. I mean, besides her age. Rob might be older than me but he's young at heart. She's, like, fifty at least and looks it."

  Personally, I had found Marilyn to be an engaging, naturally attractive woman. Nina was admirable in the way thoroughbreds are, with a glossy mane and highly toned muscles, but she had all the class of a hyena tearing at a carcass.

  "About that night…"

  "Look," she said. "Maya could be very-what's the word I'm looking for-judgmental. She had a way of letting you know what you were doing was all wrong. Me, for instance. I threw a wine bottle into the trash instead of the recycling bin and she goes over and takes it out of the trash and puts it in the bin. Okay, so maybe I should be more conscientious about that stuff, but really, in the end, it's one fucking bottle. Who gives a shit, right? No, she has to put on the big show. Never says a word to me even, just plucks it out of here and puts it into there. Disapproval all the way."

  "Why was she mad at Rob? Was it something to do with the Harbourview project?"

  "Why would she be mad about that?" "Because of its impact on the environment." Nina rolled her eyes and drained her sparkling water. "It is so easy for some people to get all worked up about their causes. Their big issues. It makes me laugh, I swear. Where did she think she'd be without Rob's money? You think Maya paid for her apartment or her car or her trips down south with her friends at March Break? If it wasn't for Rob's new building, or his other buildings for that matter, she'd have been living at home and getting around on the TTC. Buying clothes at Honest Ed's."

  "But that is what they argued about?" "I couldn't tell you. I wasn't in the room at the time." "Andrew said you were. In the den, I believe." "What is this, Clue? Nina in the den with a candlestick? Yeah, we had a few words. I told you, she didn't like me. She was still pissed off that Rob left Marilyn. Christ, you'd think she'd have gotten over it already. She wasn't a little girl, you know. She was a grown-up woman, barely ten years difference between her and me. As for what she and Rob fought about, I couldn't tell you. I wasn't there."

  "Where were you?"

  "In the kitchen," she said with a lazy smirk. "Taking the wine bottle out of the recycling and putting it back in the trash."

  CHAPTER 14

  What is it about men that causes them to lose their minds at mid-life? How could Rob Cantor ditch an intelligent, down-to-earth woman-not to mention the mother of his children-for someone like Nina, who had all the depth of a pie plate? Why hadn't he simply gone out and bought a Porsche or a vintage Stratocaster or gotten a tattoo?

  Mind you, my uncle Phil-my late father's youngest brother-bought a Miata convertible for his fiftieth birthday and had it all of three weeks before he drove it into the back of a dump truck on Major Mackenzie Boulevard. Three surgeries and nearly a dozen skin grafts later, he was back behind the wheel of a sedan, where he belonged.

  I was thinking about this as I walked up the path beside the house-how a man must feel when he realizes the lines on his face are only going to get deeper, that his muscle tone, sex drive and hairline are only going to diminish-when I heard footsteps coming up fast behind me. I turned just in time to duck the swipe of a garden spade swung at my head by Nina's trainer. The sharp edge of the spade struck the wall of the house, sending bits of mortar flying.

  "Think you can push me around?" Perry snarled. His cheeks were still red from the slaps I'd dealt him. He hefted the spade and advanced on me. "Think you can fucking embarrass me?"

  "I already did, Perry."

  "Fucking smartass. Let's see how smart you talk without any teeth in your head."

  He drew the spade back and swung it at my head like a right-handed batter. The backswing gave me time to move in on him, my head down, my right hand up to protect my face. The wooden shaft of the shovel hit the meaty part of my left arm, up along the bicep. On impact, I wrapped my right arm around his, trapping the spade, spun backwards and delivered a left elbow strike to his chin. As his head snapped back, I spun again and followed up with a knee to his gut, doubling him over. I slammed my elbow down onto his neck and he dropped to the ground.

  "I think I just embarrassed you again," I said. He didn't answer, apart from a moan and a dribble of spit from his lips. I pitched the spade into a bed of ground cover and walked to my car, rubbing my upper arm. I'd have a whale of a bruise there, but it beat getting my head stove in. That would have been embarrassing. I had picked up a Clarion on the way back to the office and was reading it while pressing an ice pack on my arm. The only tabloid in town, the Clarion generally had the best coverage of murders and other crimes. According to the story, Martin Glenn had not been killed in the alley where his body had been found. Lead investigator Katherine Hollinger was quoted as saying the killing had taken place "at a crime scene yet to be determined" and his body dumped in the alley post-mortem. Also quoted was the local city councillor, who said the real crime was that gay men were still targeted by homophobes.

  Only the last quote in the story was of real interest to me: Martin Glenn's long-time companion, who told the Clarion he was in a "state of absolute shock that someone would harm Martin… I don't know how I'm going to make it without him."

  His name was Eric Fisk.

  I was looking up
Fisk's number when my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and debated whether to answer it or not. I lost the debate around the third ring.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" my brother yelled.

  Daniel is almost three years older than me and has the Pope beat six ways to Sunday when it comes to infallibility. Or so he thinks.

  I said, "I'm fine, thanks for asking. And you?"

  "I'm not kidding, Jonah. I passed along a simple job because I felt sorry for you and you turn it into a goddamn mess."

  "Why would you feel sorry for me?"

  "Because you're getting nowhere in life."

  "According to you."

  "And Mom."

  "She said that to you?"

  "Never mind what she said. This isn't about her."

  "You brought her up."

  "Will you just listen for once? Rob Cantor just called and he is furious-furious, Jonah. What the hell were you doing at his house?"

  "Talking to his wife."

  "And beating the hell out of their personal trainer."

  "I was defending myself, Daniel."

  "Whatever. I can't believe you're screwing up the one case I sent you-"

  "Who says I'm screwing it up?"

  "Rob does."

  "I'm not working for Rob."

  "Rob, Marilyn, it's the same thing."

  "Not since he dumped her."

  "Look, I referred Marilyn to you because I felt sorry for her."

  "I thought you felt sorry for me."

  "Cut it out! Her daughter killed herself and she needed some kind of closure. That's it."

  "She didn't kill herself, Daniel."

  "What!"

  "Maya Cantor did not kill herself."

  "Says who?"

  "Says me."

  "Her parents say she did. The police say she did. The goddamn coroner says she did."

  "I don't care what anyone says. She did not jump off her balcony."

  "This is so typical of you, Jonah. You take something straightforward and twist it around until it's totally out of whack. No wonder your boss fired you."

  "He didn't fire me."

  "Well, I am."

  "You are what?"

  "Firing you. You're done with this."