"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.
"Those twelve-foot ceilings… those windows… those views. And that kitchen, my God, it's bigger than my whole top floor!"
"We're not doing anything wrong," I said. "We just don't aspire to that lifestyle."
She flashed me a look that was both contemptuous and somehow compassionate. "How little you know me," she said.
"Never mind, Ivana. Go to the part where the man himself speaks."
She clicked on a feed of a video Simon Birk had recorded the previous spring, when his partnership with Rob Cantor had first been announced. He stood at the top of a skeletal iron tower in Chicago, many storeys above the city, wind ruffling the hem of his overcoat.
"My name is Simon Birk," he told the camera. "And some of you may have heard of me." A grin at his own joke, his capped teeth white as virgin snow. "You've seen my name on some of the greatest buildings on the continent. You've stayed in my hotels, played in my casinos, eaten in my restaurants and danced the night away in my clubs. You may think of me as a man who builds towers like this one, Chicago's own Birkshire Millennium Skyline, scheduled to open next spring. But what I really build, my friends, are dreams."
The camera moved in closer. Birk was not a handsome man in any conventional sense. He had a bulbous nose, fleshy lips, bushy eyebrows, and a thick bony ridge hooding his pale blue eyes. Yet it was a face that commanded your attention.
"What are your dreams? That somewhere in your great city of Toronto, a city I love almost as much as my native Chicago, is a residence that reflects your desires, your aspirations, your success? Built by a man who spares nothing, cuts no corners, to bring you the very best in luxury living?"
"Think he's impressed by himself?" I said.
"I choose my projects carefully," Birk was saying. "And my partners even more so. So I'm delighted to be working with Toronto's finest developer, a man who shares my drive for perfection in every detail, Rob Cantor of Cantor Development. Together, we are creating an unforgettable domain where you'll be surrounded by the best of everything: Indonesian hardwood, granite countertops, travertine marble and stainless steel appliances. You'll know from the moment you visit this website-or even better, our model suite-that this is where you want to live."