High Chicago

CHAPTER 20

Will Sterling's place was the main floor of a small semi at the southern end of Markham Street in the Portuguese enclave known as Little Azores. A realtor might have tried to get away with calling it South Annex but only someone dim enough to believe a realtor would have fallen for it. The house was more than tired-looking; it was spent. The grey porch sagged like an old couch and groaned under my feet as I stepped up to the door. The front eavestrough hung like a broken limb that hadn't been set. Recycling bins overflowed with pizza boxes and old NOW magazines and empty two-litre pop bottles. The sharp stink of cat spray filled the air.

The doorbell was taped over with a note that said Knock Loud. I did. First with my knuckles, then with my car keys.

No one answered. I checked my watch. It was five-thirty. Will had said he'd be home by four-five at the latest. I used my cell to call his number but it went straight to voice mail. I peered through the front windows and saw lights on and a TV flickering in one corner. There were textbooks open on a coffee table facing the TV, with a pen and highlighter next to them.

I walked down the drive between the house and its neighbour to a side door that I figured would lead up to the kitchen and down to the basement. I knocked several times; no one answered there either. That left the back door. I walked through an unkempt yard, the grass long and matted and covered by rotting leaves. A small concrete patio was breaking up, having heaved through many a frost and thaw since it was first laid. I climbed three steps to a wooden porch that held a barbecue pitted with rust and peered through the kitchen door. All the lights were on. The counters were covered with fast-food wrappers and plates caked with old food. The sink was piled high with glasses. I could see two slices of bread in a toaster and a peanut butter jar next to it, its lid off, a knife planted in it like a flag.

Someone was home. They just weren't answering.

Had Will changed his mind about talking to me? Or had someone changed it for him?

I tried the kitchen door. It was locked but didn't feel too sturdy. What the hell: I'd already broken into Rob Cantor's house-might as well make it a double-header. I picked up a piece of broken patio stone and smashed a pane in the kitchen door. I reached in carefully and felt for the lock.

Damn it. A deadbolt that could be opened only by a key. I felt around the door jamb around eye level. Sometimes people left a key there on a nail in case they had to get out fast. Nothing. I took a step back: in for a penny, in for a pound. I tensed my core muscles and kicked the door handle. It broke away from the strike plate and swung open. I moved into the kitchen and closed the door behind me.

"Will?"

No answer.

There was no one in the kitchen. No one in the dining room, which had been turned into a makeshift bedroom. No one in the front room where the TV was tuned to Much Music. A video by Arcade Fire was playing with the sound off. There was no one in the bathroom.

That left one more room on the ground floor, a bedroom at the back next to the kitchen. I eased the door open and found Will Sterling at the foot of his bed with a pillow over his face. The pillow was stained with blood. At the centre of the bloodstain was a black hole. Bloody feathers fanned out around his head like a headdress.

I felt his neck. It was cold but not icy and moved easily enough. Rigor mortis had not yet set in. He'd been dead less than an hour or two. I looked at his body, a cold black rage building inside me. Three dead now. Three obstacles removed. I wanted to go back out the rear of Will's house, race down to Rob Cantor's plush office, pull him out of his padded leather chair and dangle him out a window over Queen Street.

All the drawers had been pulled out of Will's dresser, all his clothes thrown out of his closet and his school papers strewn everywhere. If there was anything to find, whoever had killed him had probably found it. I prowled around anyway, without knowing what I was looking for. I was about to leave when I noticed the white stains on his pant legs: this morning, I had figured they were paint or plaster, but there was no sign that any work was being done in the flat. I looked closer.

It was bird shit. Gobs of it, with feathers stuck to it-feathers that didn't match the ones from the pillow that had been put over his face.

I backed out of the room to the kitchen, where I used Will's phone to call Katherine Hollinger's office.

"Jonah," she said, "I keep telling you I'll call you when I'm ready."

"This isn't personal," I said.

"What then?"

"Business."

"About Glenn?"

"No."

"Then it'll have to wait," she said. "I've got a murder to clear."

"Got time for one more?"