'But you're an investigator, so you must be investigating something.'
'Must be.'
'You could start with how he got that piece of land. I bid on that too, but somehow he walked away with all the marbles. Then there's all the variances they got from city council. Zoning, density, land use. How the OMB rubber-stamped everything despite concerns about the environmental impact.'
The OMB is the Ontario Municipal Board, the body that resolves land use and community planning issues when the parties involved can't come to an agreement.
'How'd he get his variances?' I asked.
'If I knew that,' Avrith said, 'I'd be doing the same damn thing. This business,' he sighed. 'Sometimes I think I'd be better off cleaning toilets with a toothbrush.'
'How well do you know Rob Cantor?'
'I've known him since he worked for his old man. You know his father, Morton?'
'No.'
'Christ, I've known him since he went by Mendy. It's a family business, right? Like a lot of these companies. Rob's grandfather, Abie, was a plumber, worked for a landlord that had buildings up and down Spadina. He saved up enough to buy his own building and when Mendy-sorry, Morton-was old enough to work for him, they bought more buildings. Never built any, just bought. Set up a property management company, and that's where Rob started out. Cleaning apartments. Painting when tenants moved out. Schlepping out the crap they left behind.'
'How did he get into development?'
'He's a smart kid, I'll give him that.'
'Kid?'
'Hey, to me he's a kid. I'm his father's vintage. Older even. I won't say how old, except to say too goddamn old for the way things are these days. Anyway, he went to school, got a degree in architecture. When his father retired, he took the company in a new direction. Sold off the old buildings and started putting up new ones. Cantor Property Management became Cantor Development. And now he's hooked up with Simon Birk and thinks the sun shines out of his ass. But I will tell you this. Something is going on with that project. I don't know what it is-and I got too many of my own problems to hire you if that's what you're looking for-but there is no way in hell he got that piece of land without paying someone off. In my humble opinion. Could have been a new addition on someone's house, a new deck at the cottage. Hell, I once got a councillor's vote by guaranteeing him a parking spot in his mistress's building. But proving it?' Avrith chuckled. 'That's another story. They never leave proof, these gonifs, they leave slime trails. Anyway, you're the investigator, so go find something. And when you do, I'll buy the party hats.'
'You have something against Rob Cantor?'
'He's competition, isn't he?' I surfed the Ontario Municipal Board website until I had grasped enough of the lingo regarding regulations, legislation and appeal process to call the office of the chairman, Mel Coren. I told his assistant I wanted information about the Birkshire Harbourview project.
'Are you one of the parties involved?' she asked.
'Not exactly.'
'Either you are or you are not.'
'Okay, not. I'd just like to ask Mr. Coren-'
'Mr. Coren cannot comment on hearings or decisions of the board,' she said. 'The legislation expressly forbids it.'
'Couldn't I-'
'No, you could not. Copies of all decisions are posted on our website. We recommend searching by case number. Do you have one?'
'No. I don't suppose you could-'
'No, I cannot.'
'Is there anyone else I can ask about the decision?'
'No, there is not.'
Boy, who saw that coming.
'The Board operates like the court system,' she said. 'Allowing staff members to paraphrase or interpret decisions creates a risk of distorting or confusing the original decision. Let ting the written decisions speak for themselves prevents ambiguity and confusion. Are you familiar with the phrase res ipsa loquitur?'
'No, I am not,' I said.
'It means 'the thing speaks for itself.''
'You certainly do,' I said. Jenn had reached one more of Maya's friends while I'd been getting frosted by the OMB.
'Her name's Stacy Manning,' she said, 'and she's known Maya since grade school.'
'And?'
'More of the same. Maya was the last person she thought would ever do it. She even said, and I quote, 'I'm more the type to kill myself, or at least threaten it.''
'For someone in drama school, Maya wasn't very dramatic. Did Stacy know anything about Will?'
'Never heard the name. Speaking of which…'
'Yes?'
'Where's his number?'
I passed it to her and she dialled it. 'Watch how the big girls do it.'
'Hello?' she said breathily. 'Is that Will? Oh… are you his roommate? Oh, hi there. He told me about you. What's your name again? Evan, that's right. Evan,' she said dreamily, 'when will he be in? Oh. Well, I wonder if you could do me a favour.'
Evan couldn't see how beautiful Jenn was, but her voice alone would have made me jump through flaming hoops. I half expected her to break into a chorus of 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President.'
'I met Will at a party the other night and he really wanted my phone number but I usually don't give it out to guys I don't know. You know how it is… So he wrote down his number and his name-oh, geez, I can't even read his last name. Sterling? That's funny, it looks like Steeling here. So will he be in later, you think? Oh. Okay. No, I'll try him again. Thanks, Evan. What? Oh, that's sweet. I hope to meet you too.'
My eyes had pretty much rolled to the back of my head by the time she hung up.
'Guys,' she said. 'They are so defenceless.' 'Let's hope Will is too,' I said. Now that we had his full name, I called the U of T's Environmental Studies Program.
'I'm trying to get in touch with a student named Will Sterling,' I told the man who answered.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'We can't give out a student's number.'
Okay. At least he'd confirmed Will was a student there. 'I'm supposed to meet him before his class tomorrow morning,' I said. 'Could you tell me what time it starts?'
I heard the rustling of paper… 'Enviro 1410,' he said. 'Starts at 9:30. You know where the Earth Sciences Building is?'
'Do tell,' I said. Jenn was looking at the list of phone calls Maya had made during the last week of her life. 'Between calls to her mom, her dad, her girlfriends and Will Sterling, I think we've accounted for all of them,' she said. 'Except this one.'
It was a 312 area code-not a local call. I dialled it, listened for a moment and hung up without saying a word.
'What?' Jenn asked.
'That,' I said, 'was the office of Simon Birk.'
CHAPTER 8
What are we doing wrong?' Jenn sighed.
We were scrolling through floor plans of the penthouse units of the Birkshire Harbourview website, logged in as prospective buyers. As if.
