'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
