“No idea.”
Fox had lunch with his father a few hours before he was murdered, Kennicott thought. And the family didn’t know where the elder Fox was now.
“Have you spoken to Karl this afternoon?”
“No. How could I?”
“Did he call?”
“Call? Of course not. All those gamma rays.”
“I’m sorry?” Kennicott said.
“Cellular phones. Gamma rays. Surely you know about that.”
Kennicott smiled. “I see. What kind of car does Karl drive?”
“We don’t own a car. The average vehicle emits ninety-five hundred grams of carbon dioxide for every one hundred kilometers.”
Families. You never knew what they would be like. Their son was a high-profile condo developer with a Rolls-Royce and a chauffeur, and his parents didn’t believe in cellphones or cars.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” he said. “Did Karl take the train?”
“Officer Kenni . . .”
“Kennicott.”
“A train ride still has a carbon footprint. He’s on his bike. It’s only forty kilometers each way from our house to downtown.”
“Do you know which route he took?”
“He takes many different routes, depending on his mood. With luck, he’ll be here when you arrive. Please don’t speed, that just adds to the emissions.”
He promised to drive at the speed limit and hung up.
Kennicott had learned never to allow first impressions to cloud his judgment of people. Often, when their whole world was thrown off kilter by a crime such as murder or a fatal injury to a loved one, they hyperfocused on the small things in their control.
He had to get up to Kleinberg fast. He ran out to College Street and got there just as Darvesh pulled the squad car up to the sidewalk. He jumped in and Darvesh handed him a thick folder. Kennicott dug right into it. There was a handwritten note on the first page. Darvesh had found Fox’s chauffeur, who said she’d dropped him off in a school parking lot on Spadina Avenue north of College at 2:15 p.m. and not seen him after that. The rest was a collection of magazine and newspaper articles about the flamboyant and controversial young developer.
“I’ve started a list of suspects,” Darvesh said, hitting the gas and blasting his siren to cut through the rush-hour traffic.
“Give me the Reader’s Digest version,” Kennicott said, as he leafed through the file.
“Fox had more enemies than I have friends. And I’m Punjabi. We live for our friends.”
“Give me the top five.”
“In no particular order, there’s Carol Archer, an angry ex-girlfriend who’s been ranting about him over social media ever since the story broke on a blog two weeks ago that he was engaged to another woman. Last week he got a peace bond to force her to stop contacting him and to stay five hundred meters away from him.”
“And his fiancée?”
“Anita Nakamura. High school teacher. Apparently one hundred eighty degrees different from his usual supermodel girlfriends.”
“We have to notify her after we talk to Fox’s family.”
“She already knows. She’s in Japan, returning tomorrow. She’s freaking out on her Facebook page.”
“Oh no.” Kennicott looked through the papers and saw Nakamura’s Facebook profile picture. She was smiling at the camera while Fox was kissing her cheek and making bunny ears above her head.
“George Braithwaite is Fox’s former business partner,” Darvesh said. The traffic heading south on Spadina was bad, and he was doing a good job of making his way through it. “Guy’s suing Fox for a hundred million dollars and telling anyone who will listen that Fox stole his company. I printed out some newspaper articles about it.”
Kennicott read through the headlines.
“Then there’s Fox’s ex-financier, Charlie Hicks, who claimed Fox was late on a twenty-million-dollar loan repayment for stage one of Fox Harbour. It’s an enormous project he was planning to build on the waterfront just west of Parliament Street. He’s leveraged all the assets in his condo empire as collateral for the loan.”
“What motive would he have to kill Fox?” Kennicott asked.
“Charlie is a she, one of the top private equity bankers in the country, calls Fox a ‘build-a-holic’ who can’t stop building condos. With him gone, she can avoid a long legal battle to recover her money before he squanders it on a project that she thinks is spinning out of control.”
They got to the Gardiner Expressway, and Darvesh cranked up the siren to full volume.
“Keep to the speed limit,” Kennicott told him.
“Don’t we have to get there as fast as we can?”
“We do. But at the speed limit.”
A promise was a promise, and he wanted to be able to look Ms. Fox right in the eye and tell her they had not sped. It was important to do everything he could to gain the confidence of the victim’s family.
Darvesh switched the siren off.
“What else have you got for me?” Kennicott asked.
“Drugs. Rumours swirled for years that Fox was a heavy cocaine user. Maybe he owed a dealer. I’ll get a subpoena for his bank records.”
“Doesn’t sound as if he had a lot of friends.”
“True. A number of condo boards are suing him for supposedly shoddy work on his buildings. Gary Edwards is a retired computer programmer who seems to have taken this on as his personal cause.”
“That’s four.”
“Then there’s Cassandra Amberlight, the lawyer who led today’s protest march. They very publicly hate each other. She’s got a history of unstable behaviour and both her ex-spouses, one male and one female, have had her arrested for assault. Both times, she beat the charges.”
“She was at the protest march. Let’s get the video from all of those TV stations that were parked on the street. See what time she got there. Find out if she has an alibi.”
“Already on it. The footage will be delivered to Homicide by the time we get back.”
“Well done,” Kennicott said. He looked out the window at the vast suburbs they were passing through. There was one more person to add to the list of suspects. One of the last people to see Livingston Fox alive.
Karl, Fox’s father.
15
Greene emerged from police headquarters a few minutes after five. The sidewalks were packed with people enjoying the great weather. Long, languid June evenings such as this were one of the joys of living in Toronto, and compensation for the dark, cold winter evenings past and yet to come.
It was about a forty-five-minute walk to his house. He needed the time to think, to replay in his head all that had happened from when Bassante tipped over the beer bottle until Greene had come upon the body in the shed.
He wended his way through the downtown office towers, then strolled along Dundas Street West. Ten years earlier it had been lined with hardware stores, used furniture places, and cheap appliance shops. Now there were yoga studios, cafes, restaurants, clothing boutiques, and fruit and vegetable markets. He passed four condo developments under construction, each with a building crane hovering overhead, before he turned onto his street.
The street followed the course of a stream that had been dammed up and paved over decades ago but was still discernible in the shape of the land. It was a cul-de-sac and his home was at the end, elevated high above his neighbours. A long set of switchback stairways led to his door.
He was beyond tired. He sat on one of the chairs on his front porch. The lilac overhanging the railing was in full bloom. Its sweet fragrance scented the air.
After living alone for years, it had taken him surprisingly little time to grow accustomed to his unexpected new role as a father to a twenty-year-old. One of the things he liked the most was sharing his house with her. Now when he came home and she wasn’t there, it felt empty in ways it never had before. He was happy to sit outside and wait until Alison showed up instead of going inside alone.
Over the
last few months, he’d grown closer to her. But it was slow progress. She was understandably cautious around him. The long, cold winter had been hard, and the challenge of starting school and trying to make new friends had been difficult. In the last month or two she’d seemed to take a step back from him, and he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to her.
The good news was that she was close with Greene’s father, and he’d given Greene his usual sage advice. Mostly he preached patience.
“Give her time,” he’d said a few weeks earlier, one morning when she’d already left for school and his father was over at the house working on her room in the basement. “She’s lost everything—her family, her country, her home.”
Just as he had, Greene thought. He didn’t need to say so out loud.
“You have to be like that big maple tree in the front yard of my house,” his father said. “Solid in the wind. She needs to know you are there. That’s all that matters. She’ll reach out for you when she’s ready.”
Greene looked down his street. The sun was still hanging well above the horizon. It was still hot and the air was still heavy with humidity. Any minute now he’d see Alison walking toward him.
His phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. He had been half expecting this call.
“Good afternoon, Ted,” he said.
“Sounds as if you’ve had quite a day, Ari.”
“The first half was pretty normal. What can I do for you?”
Ted was Ted DiPaulo, the criminal lawyer who had defended Greene at his murder trial. He was one of the few people Greene had contacted when he came back to Toronto. Over the last few months, DiPaulo had frequently asked Greene for advice about a case, always on an informal basis. Greene refused to take any money, but DiPaulo insisted on paying him a hundred dollars for each case—the same amount DiPaulo took when he defended Greene, so that Ari was officially on retainer.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” DiPaulo said. “Cassandra Amberlight, the lawyer who organized today’s protest. She’s been my client for a number of years.”
Greene got up and started to pace across his porch. “When?”
“The sooner the better.”
“Where?”
“I thought it might be best to avoid my office.”
It was unspoken, but DiPaulo was experienced enough to know that if the police were looking for Amberlight, they’d stake out his office and try to catch her coming or going.
“I just got home,” Greene said.
“Good. We’re in my car. Less than ten minutes away.”
No rest for the weary, Greene thought. “See you soon.”
He hung up and looked over the porch railing. Alison was coming up his street. She saw Greene and waved.
He pulled down the lowest lilac branch, snapped off a deep purple blossom, and waved back at his daughter.
16
Almost every article written about Fox that Kennicott read, as Darvesh drove up the highway at exactly the speed limit, talked about the contemporary design of his buildings. A huge fan of Bauhaus architecture, he loved minimalist design and discreet signage on his buildings. He was quoted over and over saying how much he hated clutter.
It wasn’t hard to see where his distaste of overwrought signage came from, Kennicott thought, when he saw the heart-shaped highway sign announcing the Foxhole Wellness Centre. It was hand-painted, with white doves flying above and pink flowers sprouting behind the letters. Farther along, a second hand-painted sign featured a woman in a white robe seated cross-legged and pointing to the driveway. The words “Turn Right and Relax” were printed underneath.
A long gravel road, which wound through a large perennial garden, led to a mauve-coloured converted farmhouse. A sign pointing to the parking lot was shaped like a cloud. It said, “Peacefully park your troubles this way.”
Wind chimes hung above the paisley-decorated front door, tinkling in the breeze. Here, a sign shaped like a hand said, “Welcome to Foxhole. Please push the bell. Peace.”
Kennicott rang the bell and heard a loud singsong chime inside. They waited. No one came.
“Should I knock?” Darvesh asked.
“Sure.”
Kennicott turned and surveyed the grounds as Darvesh rapped on the door. There were no other cars in the parking lot. On closer inspection, the gardens, which had seemed lush from the car, looked weedy and untended.
The door opened.
“Gentlemen, welcome.” Kate Fox stood in front of them. Kennicott recognized her from Darvesh’s printout of the staff page on the centre’s website. She was taller than she’d appeared in the photo. Almost his height at six foot one, she wore a flowing dress and sandals. Her long grey hair, tied in a tight braid, hung over one shoulder and across her chest. She held out her hand. Kennicott shook it. Her skin was soft. She seemed very composed.
“Ms. Fox. I’m Daniel Kennicott. This is my colleague Detective Kamil Darvesh.”
She stared at them, then dropped Kennicott’s hand and turned to Darvesh. “Hello,” she said, shaking his hand. “Please come in.”
They followed her along a narrow hallway to a bright, spacious room at the back of the house. There were two sofas in the corner, and a woman was seated on the one farthest from the door. Kennicott recognized Fox’s older sister from her photo. Her face was red and swollen from crying.
“Gloria,” Kate Fox said. “These are the police officers I told you were coming.”
“Then it’s true, isn’t it?” Gloria asked.
Kennicott walked up to her, bent down to put himself at eye level and spoke. “I’m sorry. Yes, it is true. Someone has killed your brother.”
She squeezed her lips so tight that her mouth seemed to collapse on itself. She began to shake and wail. It was a deep guttural sound. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Her mother sat down beside her.
Darvesh looked frozen. It was his first time encountering a family who’d just received such devastating news. Kennicott sat on the second sofa and gestured for Darvesh to join him.
Fox’s sister, not his mother, was the most upset, Kennicott thought. It was difficult to watch someone in such pain. He looked away. Outside the bay window, another set of the wind chimes rang in the breeze.
“Detective,” Mrs. Fox said. “Please tell us exactly what happened to Livingston.”
She had remarkably dark eyes, which contrasted sharply with her pale skin and grey hair.
“Your son’s body was found late this afternoon at the Kensington Gate building site,” he said.
No reaction.
Gloria was curled into herself, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth like a child. “No, no, no,” she kept repeating, whispering now.
“The police and ambulance arrived within minutes of the 911 call,” Kennicott said. “Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do. A full autopsy will be performed later this evening. I wish I had more to say, but that is all I can tell you right now.”
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Fox said. “What happened?”
“I know how difficult this is,” Kennicott said.
“This is ridiculous. You just said it’s murder. You’re the police.”
“I understand it’s frustrating, believe me. We are working flat out on this investigation.”
“What about that horrible picture on the Internet? Who took that?”
“We don’t know yet, but we’re determined to find out. That should never have happened.”
He looked over at Darvesh. It was good experience for him to see how challenging these initial meetings with the victim’s family could be.
The back door of the house slammed, and everyone looked up. Karl Fox stomped into the room.
He was a small man, probably six inches shorter than his wife. He held a battered bicycle helmet in one hand, a pair of frayed bike panniers in the other. The bottoms of his pant legs were crimped to his legs by bicycle clips.
“Kate, what is happening?” he asked his wife. �
�Why is there a police car in the lot?” He turned to Kennicott and Darvesh. “Who are these men?”
Kennicott rose. “Mr. Fox, my name is Detective Daniel Kennicott. I’m afraid I have some terrible news about your son.”
“Livingston?” He looked genuinely surprised. “What nonsense is he up to now?”
“I’m a homicide detective,” Kennicott said.
“Homicide?” Karl looked over at his wife and daughter, seeing for the first time the grief in his daughter’s face. He spun back to Kennicott.
“What? What happened?”
“I’m afraid that your son has been killed.”
“Killed? Livingston? That’s impossible. I just had lunch with him.”
17
God, it feels good to be home, Alison thought as she climbed the steep staircase to Ari’s house. After the chaos of the afternoon, it was a huge relief to come back here. Until a few months ago she’d never seen a dead body. And now. First her mother, then Livingston Fox. It was too much. Way too much. And she was so hot.
Ari looked tired. Maybe it was time to finally give him a hug. After all, he was her father, and in her head she was starting to think of him as Dad.
“Are you okay?” she asked, standing close to him.
“Bad day. I was the one who found the body.”
“You were? That’s horrible.” This made everything even worse.
He gave her the lilac blossom that was in his hand. “A present for you,” he said.
She wrapped her fingers around his hand and held it while she brought the flower to her nose. “It smells heavenly,” she said. “Today must have been awful for you.”
“I was a homicide detective for many years, but you never get used to it.”
She let go of his hand as she took the flower from him, keeping it in front of her. “I don’t know how you did it.”
“I like to think I helped a lot of people.”
“I’m sure you did. Do you miss it?”
He smiled. “Miss being a detective? Not for one minute,” he said.
Had he hesitated for a moment, or was that her imagination?
“When I heard someone had been killed at the building site, I was worried.”
Heart of the City Page 6