Lion's Head Revisited

by Jeffrey Round

  “Are you Marjorie?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She looked at him uncertainly. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Dan Sharp. I’m a private investigator.”

  She gave him a shrewd look. “About the missing boy, Jeremy, I suppose?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I doubt I can tell you anything, but ask me whatever you like.”

  Dan shook his head. “No, I wasn’t going to ask you anything. I’ve just had a visit with Sarah.”

  “The police were already here.”

  “Yes, I know.” Dan hesitated.

  “What is it?”

  “I just wondered if you knew that Sarah is getting high while pregnant.”

  For a second, Dan thought he detected a smirk on Marjorie’s face.

  “She’s not.”

  “She’s definitely high,” Dan said.

  Her expression softened. “No, I meant she’s not pregnant. She uses a pillow to make it look as though she is.” She gave a rueful little smile. “But yes, she very likely is high. That’s a given, sad to say.”

  She opened the door and disappeared inside.

  He found himself near Beautique, the high-priced aesthetics shop on Avenue Road where Donny worked. After the usual tussle with traffic, cursing under his breath at drivers who passed on the right or didn’t use their indicators, Dan found a parking spot then crossed the thoroughfare on foot, dodging SUVs and luxury vehicles.

  He entered the wide glass doors, his eyes roaming over the shelves. Lotions and potions were the store’s specialties. Top-of-the-line, non-invasive skin-tightening services that rejuvenated the faces and sex lives of bored housewives, overpaid CEOs, and on-camera newscasters. An alert young man looked up from the counter, his bright red hair standing painfully erect. On seeing Dan, his expression hovered between welcoming and wary. The store seldom catered to a rough-and-tumble crowd who looked more like construction workers than high-powered executives, but every now and then a movie star with an addled expression came in and demanded top-quality treatment.

  “Hi, there. I’m Chad.”

  “Hi, Chad. I’m Dan. I’m here to see Donny,” Dan said to relieve him of his worried look.

  “Ah, yes! You’re the friend,” he said, adding the final word in an ominous undertone. “I’ve heard all about you.”

  “Not half, I’m sure.”

  Chad held up a pinky and picked up the phone. “One moment!”

  A minute later, Donny came from behind a heavy door at the back of the shop.

  “Good timing?” Dan asked.

  “Depends what you’re trying to time. I’m just on a quick break.”

  “Nothing in particular, just thought I’d make contact with planet Earth and see how the working stiffs are doing.”

  “Big meeting with clients this afternoon. Revolutionary new fragrances coming out that are going to shake the world order, bringing peace and enlightenment to all. The usual.”

  “Sounds daunting, but I applaud the effort. And how is the charming Prabin these days?”

  “Good. We’re both good. Working to the bone, though. Quite busy.”

  For a second, Dan wondered if Donny was trying to head him off at the pass, making excuses before he could even say what he’d come to ask.

  “Not too busy, I hope.”

  Dan thought back to the carefree days when they were both single men with a penchant for listening to jazz late into the night, even after Dan won his battle to stop drinking, a win Donny had approved of when it occurred.

  Donny’s expression indicated his thoughts were otherwise. “You know. He’s … busy.”

  “Okay, well. I was just wondering if the two of you would like to come over for dinner tomorrow. Nick’s been trying out some new dishes. He makes a killer beef Provençal.”

  The pause was telling.

  “I’ll have to check with Prabin. He’s usually exhausted come the weekend.”

  They stood there staring at one another before Dan broke the silence. “Why do I get the feeling you’re avoiding me?”

  At least Donny made an effort to look surprised. “I don’t know.”

  “It seems a while since we saw you.”

  “We saw you two weeks ago at Larry’s birthday party.”

  “Yeah, well, that was hardly quality time spent between the four of us. And come to think of it, you barely spoke. Prabin did all the talking.”

  “I wasn’t feeling well that night.”

  It was the kind of evasive answer he was used to hearing from clients. Not the sort of thing Dan wanted to hear from a friend.

  “What is it about Nick that you don’t like?”

  Donny pressed a hand to his chest, dignity asserting itself. “It’s not that I don’t like him —”

  “No? What is it then?”

  He shook his head, as though the answer were obvious to everyone but Dan. “It’s just that I don’t like cops in general. Hello. Racism? Carding? I don’t trust them.”

  “You haven’t given him a chance,” Dan said. “He’s not just any cop. He happens to be the cop I’m dating. And he’s not like that. I’ve never known you to be so unreasonable about anything.”

  Donny tried a half smile. “Maybe I’m afraid I’ll like him.”

  “Would it be so awful if you did?”

  “It remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Dan said. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  He took care to smile at Chad as he left, not to add to the growing state of his reputation.

  SIX

  Tilt

  DAN SAT IN HIS CAR, trying to calculate how much time he had before downtown traffic became totally unbearable. An hour at most, by the looks of it. While the city’s driving stats might not be the worst on the planet, Dan was willing to bet they were damn close. He pulled out his cell and dialed the number.

  “Dennis Braithwaite?”

  “Yes, hello.” The voice was friendly. Everybody’s favourite investment banker.

  “My name is Dan Sharp. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired by Janice Bentham to look into the disappearance of her son, Jeremy.”

  Caution crept in. “I see.”

  “Do you have time to talk to me, either now or sometime soon?”

  “Well … I suppose.” The voice was hesitant but not reluctant. “Does this really concern me? I mean, it’s sad that he’s missing, but I doubt I could tell you anything.”

  “Possibly not, but you might be able to throw some light on the situation that Jeremy’s parents haven’t been able to so far.”

  “Okay. I guess. Do you know where my office is?”

  Half an hour later they were sitting across from one another in Dennis’s office on the thirty-first floor of the Toronto Dominion Tower. The afternoon sun struck at precise angles, illuminating the gold-tinted windows of the Royal Bank Plaza across the way, sending flares in all directions. Dan was reminded of Sarah Nealon’s sun-catcher.

  In person, Dennis Braithwaite was corporate success personified. Hair coiffed, clothes immaculate, handshake perfected. His solid frame showed that he spent plenty of time at the gym. Dan tried to picture him with the petite Janice: his status quo crewcut and tan with her tattoos and piercing. They must have seemed an odd mix. But then it hadn’t lasted.

  On his desk, a photo showed him accepting a plaque for Employee of the Year. His smile told the viewer just how proud he was of the designation. It was flanked by photos of Dennis and Janice together. In one, he laughingly held up a rod with a dappled fish dangling from the end of the line as Janice looked on in amusement. In the other, the pair relaxed side by side in twin Muskoka chairs. They appeared happy, placing the shot prior to Jeremy’s birth, Dan presumed. A final frame showed Dennis behind the wheel of a grey Porsche, his face obscured by sunglasses as he grinned and gave someone the thumbs-up sign through the window. A key chain with a Porsche tag lay on his desk, casually tossed beside a pen holde
r.

  Judging from the photographs he seemed to be a man of many moods, all of them smiley. Currently, however, Dennis’s facial expression had just undergone a change from smiley to uncertain when Dan told him about the ransom request.

  “Well, that’s a game-changer,” he said, tapping a pencil against his laptop. “To put it mildly.”

  “I understand you were asked to add Jeremy to your insurance policy as his legally adoptive father, but you declined.”

  Dennis’s eyes shifted to the view outside where a window washer dangled precariously on a narrow ledge on the building directly across the way. He leaned over to reach one last corner of the window.

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Is there another?”

  Dennis turned back to Dan and regarded him for a moment before he spoke.

  “There certainly is. My wife tried to con me into thinking that Jeremy was my kid. That’s definitely something she neglected to tell me.”

  “You didn’t know about Eli Gestner?” Dan asked, feeling a little surprised himself.

  “No, I didn’t. But then my wife is a natural-born liar.” Dennis shrugged. “Janice and I split when the kid was born. Naturally, I assumed it was my kid, but later when I learned about the illness, it didn’t make sense. Nothing like that runs in my family.”

  “By illness, I assume you mean Jeremy’s autism?”

  “Yeah — that little detail. It’s genetic, right?”

  “Only partially, as I understand it.”

  “Whatever. She tried to convince me to have him covered through my company health insurance. Said I had to take some responsibility, blah, blah, blah. But I was suspicious, you know? So I did a bit of checking around and found out he wasn’t mine.”

  “How did you feel about that?” Dan asked.

  Dennis eyed him blankly. “How would you feel? I’d barely talked to her in three years and she suddenly shows up asking for favours.”

  Across the way, the window washer walked from one end of the platform to the other. Dan felt his stomach clutch as the bucket of cleaning fluid shifted uneasily with each step he took.

  “You didn’t keep in touch with her after you separated?”

  He thought of Ked and how he’d anxiously awaited news from Kendra while she went off to California to stay with an aunt during the final months of her pregnancy to keep it from her family.

  Dennis shook his head. “She made it clear she didn’t want to stay in touch when we split.”

  “But if you thought he was your son … ?”

  “He wasn’t, but even if he had been she made it clear she was taking him with her. It was her little experiment. I never really wanted to be a father anyway.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Anyway, up to that point I still thought he was my son, but when Janice told me he was autistic, I knew he wasn’t mine. Not to mention the curly, black hair. I mean, Janice and I are both blond.” He shrugged. “He’s cute as hell, but that kid does not look like me.”

  “So that’s how you discovered he was Eli Gestner’s son?”

  A frown creased his brow. “Hey — Eli’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong. And I’m glad the kid has a father to turn to. But the deception hurt, I have to say.”

  Dan’s eyebrows rose. “Not to mention how you got stiffed for the fertility clinic payments.”

  Dennis shrugged. “That was the least of it. What I objected to was that she lied to me about my son.” He shook his head sadly. “Or the kid who was not my son, as it turned out. My insurance would have covered him if he was, but since he wasn’t mine I wouldn’t take the chance of lying to my insurance company on top of everything else.”

  “Is Jeremy’s treatment expensive?” Dan said.

  “From what Janice tells me, yeah, it’s extremely expensive. Schooling, treatment, medication. It’s a good chunk, all told. Probably twice as much as I paid the fertility clinic. But if you’re thinking I’m a heartless bastard who wouldn’t help out a sick kid, I’m not. I’m just a bit of a prick when someone lies to me again and again. Especially when it’s my wife.”

  “It must have hurt when she went off with another woman.”

  “Right — Ashley. Don’t get me started. Sure, it was a kick in the head. But I’m over it now.” Dennis shrugged. Water off a duck’s back. “We weren’t that well suited to one another anyway. Me, a lower-class boy climbing the corporate ladder in any way he could, and her, the spoiled little rich girl.”

  Dan glanced at the photos. “But you still keep her picture on your desk.”

  Dennis shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well … I just brought those back out a while ago. I hadn’t really looked at them till recently.”

  The window cleaner spat over the edge of his platform and looked down.

  “Janice mentioned she had a difficult relationship with her mother,” Dan ventured.

  “Huh!” Dennis smirked. “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “I understand she thinks her mother may help with the ransom money.”

  “Her mother? Well, good luck with that. She’s a piece of work. And pretty ruthless, too. I never had a problem with her, but then I gave her what she wanted: a front for her disreputable daughter. When Janice was with me, Clarice didn’t have a thing to worry about. I may have come from nothing, but I dress up pretty well. I made Janice look respectable. When she left me for a woman, well … the old lady went nuts. At first she suggested I was to blame, but then I wised her up about how lesbians don’t need or want men. I honestly think Janice knew what she was before she married me. I mean, I knew what I was. Didn’t you?”

  “Not at first, but it didn’t take me long to figure it out.”

  “Exactly. I mean, if you’re lying to yourself about something as basic as that, what other lies are you capable of telling yourself or anybody else?”

  “True enough,” Dan said. “Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against Janice or anyone with a reason to believe that Jeremy might make a good target for kidnapping?”

  Dennis gave him a blank look. “Not a clue. Why should I? I mean, it’s not as though we stay in constant touch. I don’t even know who her friends are, to tell the truth.”

  “Do you know anything about the nanny she fired recently?”

  He shook his head.

  “How about the surrogate? Do you know much about her?”

  “No, not a thing. Really. I wasn’t even consulted. She took it for granted that I would accept whatever she did and pay up when it came time to shell out.” Dennis sat forward and clasped his hands together like a man about to make his best offer. “My wife’s life is a mystery to me. I barely know who she is anymore. That’s God’s honest truth.”

  Dan nodded. “By the way, would you mind telling me where you were on the weekend? Specifically, where you were Saturday evening, July twenty-eighth, going into Sunday morning of the twenty-ninth.”

  “Why?” Dennis sat back and gave him a hard stare. “Am I a suspect?”

  Dan shrugged. “Just eliminating the possibilities. I’m sure the police will get in touch sooner or later to ask the same thing.”

  “Yeah, they already did.” He smiled, but his expression remained grim. “I worked on Saturday afternoon. I had a bit of catching up to do. Afterward I headed over to the gym, probably got there around seven. My routine takes me a couple of hours. I’m pretty devoted to it.”

  “I can see,” Dan said. “That kind of a build takes constant work.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Dennis smiled. “You work out?”

  “Yes, but not as intensively as you. I’ve got a son at home. He requires a different kind of attention.”

  “Right. Fatherhood. Don’t remind me.” Dennis rolled his eyes. “Anyway, it’s Mega-Fitness on Queen near Victoria. I checked in at the desk with my membership card. I was also chatting up another member at some point. She gave me her number. She’ll remember me.”

  “Her name?”

  “Soledad Somebody. Shouldn�
�t be hard to find. I can ask when I see her again.” He laughed. “If I see her again. People come and go around that place.”

  “What about Sunday? What did you do then?”

  Outside, the window washer cinched his belt and released the rope to lower the platform. Dan felt a sickening lurch as the winch slipped and everything tilted precariously. The man looked around in surprise, as though someone had tried to trick him by rocking his platform.

  “I got high,” Dennis said with a smile. “Sunday’s my chill day. You gonna report that to the police?”

  The washer examined his rig minutely but showed no fear. He picked at the knot that had resulted in the slippage. Suddenly everything resumed its original position and he started in on the next window, waving to someone inside. Dan gave a sigh of relief. There had to be better ways to make a living. Despite the drawbacks, he was glad to be a private investigator.

  “No,” he said, turning back to Dennis. “I won’t report it. That’s your business. But Jeremy went missing sometime overnight on Saturday. It’s just a three-hour drive from here.”

  “A little less if you drive fast.” Dennis’s smile persisted. “Anyway, I don’t know why the fuck they didn’t just stay at the cottage.”

  “What cottage?” Dan asked.

  “Mine. The one at Lion’s Head. Didn’t Janice tell you about it?”

  “I don’t think she mentioned it, no.”

  Dennis picked up the photo of himself and Janice in the Muskoka chairs and held it out for Dan to see.

  “We used to spend all our weekends up there in the summer. She texted to ask about using it that weekend.” He shrugged. “I said sure. I mean, why spend the night in the woods when you can sleep indoors, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then again, if I’d known Ashley was going to be there I would never have offered. I mean, she stole Janice from me. In fact, she did her best to tear us apart. It was like a non-stop campaign once she started. And it worked.”

  “Maybe if you’d been a better husband it wouldn’t have.”

  Dennis set the frame back on his desk and looked at Dan. “Is there anything else I can enlighten you about?”