High Chicago

CHAPTER 12

A handful of young people stood outside the entrance of the University of Toronto's Earth Sciences Building on Willcocks Street, engaging in the distinctly non-environmental practise of smoking.

"Any of you guys know Will Sterling?" I asked.

"Sure," said one of them, an Indo-Canadian girl with blonde streaks in her jet-black hair. "We're in the same chem lab."

"He's probably inside," another said. "He's usually in early."

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.