Buffalo Jump (9 page)

“How do
you
feel about what happened that day? Do you blame yourself?”

“Come on, Clint. I know I screwed up.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You my shrink all of a sudden?”

“Answer the damn question.”

“I feel like shit, okay?” My voice rose. “I cost MacAdam his livelihood and the use of his legs and for the rest of his life he’s gonna have to piss and shit in a goddamn bag. Does that answer your question, Doc?”

“Yes it does,” he said in a softer tone. “Yes it does.”

It was quiet in the office for a moment, except for the sound of my breathing. Good thing the door was closed: if Carol Dunn heard me talking to the boss like that, she’d bust in swinging a fire axe.

Clint said, “I needed to know.”

“Know what?”

“Whether you accept responsibility for what you did. What you learned from it. What you’ll do next time lives are on the line.”

“Believe me, Clint, I never intended to get shot and I definitely intend to avoid it in the future.”

He smiled at me. “I might have something for you later in the week. Nothing major, just a fraud case to get you back in the saddle. In the meantime, give Franny whatever he needs on the nursing home.”

“I’ll be standing by when he gets in,” I said. Which I hoped wouldn’t be for another hour at least.

T
here was nothing significant enough in the morning papers to warrant circulation so I was back in my car by a quarter to eight, hoping Jay Silver and family weren’t early risers. Traffic heading north from the downtown core was light and by eight I was parked outside the Silvers’ home on Richview Avenue, which ran parallel to Bathurst where it crossed the Glencedar Ravine. Richview wasn’t quite the heart of Forest Hill, with its mansions and gated lots, but the homes were large, verging on stately, mostly in neo-traditional styles. The cars parked along the street or on front-yard pads were late-model SUVs and minivans or high-end sedans.

The street was coming to life at this hour: people in business dress heading to work; joggers out for a run before the real heat started; kids going to camps or day care now that school was out; gardeners using nose-hair scissors to trim the hedges just so.

I called the office of Mitchell Weintraub, a cousin on my mother’s side who is a real estate agent. I could have called my mother for the same information, but with Jewish mothers, there are no short phone calls.

“Hey, cuz,” I said when he answered. “I wasn’t sure you’d be in this early.”

“With the market this hot? I’d sleep here if Cheryl let me.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Really great. We can feel the baby moving inside her now.”

“Mazel tov,
Mitch.”

“Thanks. I think the excitement of becoming a dad is finally starting to overtake the total panic.”

“That’s great.”

“Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call when you were in the hospital. We had just had the first ultrasound and we were in baby-brain world.”

“You can make it up to me now.”

“How?”

“Check out a house on Richview Avenue and tell me when it last sold and for how much.”

“Richview?” he said. “Business going that well?”

“It’s not for me, dopey.” I gave him Silver’s address.

“Two minutes,” he said.

The hold system on his phone kicked over to a radio station playing some soul diva swooping through “Have a Little Faith in Me,” adding trills around every other note and draining the song of all the power of John Hiatt’s original.

When Mitch came back on the line, he told me Jay and Laura Silver had bought the house just over a year ago for $1.15 million.

“Any record of them selling another property at the time?”

“Two more minutes.”

Which meant two more minutes of faux-soul: Michael Bolton’s version of “When a Man Loves a Woman.” More like “When a Man Rips a Kidney.”

“Okay,” Mitch said. “They sold a semi on Hillsdale at the same time, listed it at $649,000, got multiple offers, sold it for $689,000.”

And bought a new house worth almost half a million more.
Where did you get the money, Jay?

“Okay, Mitch. Thanks. Give my love to Cheryl.”

“We going to see you Sunday? You can give it to her yourself.”

“What’s Sunday?”

“Hello! The Rally for Israel at Earl Bales Park. You’re not going?”

Just what I needed. A stick to whack the hornet’s nest this morning’s dream had already stirred up. “I don’t know, Mitch. I have plans.”

“What plans? It’s two hours of your time. Come on, Jonah, Israel doesn’t have a friend in the world these days.”

“I’ll try.”

“In case you need incentive, Cheryl has a very nice friend coming with us—very nice. Just in case love for
ha-aretz
isn’t enough.”

Love for
ha-aretz,
for the land of Israel. It had never been enough.

Shortly after eight-fifteen, Jay Silver walked out of his house to the midnight-blue Lexus in his driveway. He wore a brown tweed jacket that looked too heavy for the heat. He put his briefcase on the rear left seat, then pulled off the jacket and hung it on a hook inside the door. His shirt showed damp spots under both arms. He put his hands on his hips and stood staring at his front door. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, folded his arms across his chest, then put his hands back on his hips.

“Are you coming or what!” he called.

“Just a minute,” a woman replied.

He paced back and forth, looking at the house, at his watch, at the house. “What’s taking so long!”

Laura Silver appeared in the doorway. She was what my mother would have called a Jewish Beauty, right before passing me her phone number: dark curls tumbling past her shoulders, a heart-shaped face with wide green eyes and a full mouth, her
body slender but not starved. She said. “I’m just putting sunscreen on Lucas and we’ll be out.”

“Putting on sunscreen takes this long?”

“You know how he squirms.”

“Who’s in charge?” Silver said. “You or him?”

“Don’t start, Jay.” She was keeping her voice level and even, non-threatening, like you would with a dog whose temper you weren’t sure of.

“Who’s starting? I’m just asking, are you in charge or is he? If you didn’t indulge him so goddamn much—”

“Jay!” There was steel in her voice now. “What is it with you these days? We are
not
late. We are in good time. Please don’t make a big deal out of it. I’d rather take one extra minute to get Lucas ready than upset him and have to deal with that for the rest of the day.”

“You’re spoiling him, can’t you see that? You’re letting him know that if he fusses about something he’ll get his way.”

“Like you’re doing now?”

That shut him up. Had I not been schooled in the art of unobtrusive surveillance, I would have stood up through my sunroof and cheered. But Silver wasn’t through. He walked briskly up the driveway and into the house. His voice was too muffled to make out words, but his tone was impossible to miss. A moment later, he came striding out, pulling Lucas by the hand. The boy seemed small for five. He wore a Blue Jays cap and a T-shirt with a drawing of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, holding hands and walking into a sunset. “Best friends,” it said. With his shorts and sandals, he looked for all the world like a little sabra, a native Israeli. Even at a distance I could see the boy’s lip trembling as he tried to fight back tears. Silver yanked the rear door open and hoisted Lucas into a car seat, then buckled him in as the boy’s face crumpled.

Jay Silver looked like he was going to slam the car door shut on his own son, but then the anger seemed to go out of
him and he just stood with his hand on the door frame, his head down. Laura Silver came down the walk with Lucas’s backpack, glared at Silver until he moved aside, then leaned into the car to calm her son. When order had been restored, she looked at her husband, her anger fading to concern. She spoke too softly for me to hear but Silver nodded. She patted his big upper arm, closed the side door and walked around to the driver’s side. He got in the passenger side. They backed out and, with me following, Laura took Bathurst north to Eglinton, then headed east on Eglinton. She handled herself reasonably well for a Torontonian. Didn’t run a single red light, mount any curbs, crash through a transit shelter or give anyone the finger.

The Med-E-Mart was one of half a dozen big-box retail stores in a power centre on Laird south of Eglinton. There was also a supermarket, a sporting goods store, an office supplies emporium, a hardware giant and a government liquor store. Jay got out at the curb in front of his store and leaned in to say something to Lucas, then held out his palm for a low five. He didn’t get one. After a long moment, he withdrew his hand and straightened with a look on his face that struggled between contrition and anger.

As his wife pulled away from the curb, I watched Jay Silver put on his heavy brown jacket, perhaps to cover the sweat stains on his shirt, and trudge into his place of business.

B
eacon’s business-services database showed that Jay Silver was the sole owner of Med-E-Mart. No partners to want him dead. It didn’t seem he had ever gone bankrupt or stiffed anyone. What could he have done to deserve the horrible death someone intended for him, this civilian in a clean white smock? Given someone the wrong medication? Diluted it, like the one who’d been caught in Kansas? Could someone have died because of a mistake he’d made?

“Hey, Jonah, quit breathing so goddamn loud.” I turned to see Franny cruising in at ten to ten, looking worse than he had the day before. “I got twenty guys in my head with jack-hammers going. You got something for a headache?”

Yesterday’s shirt had a few new wrinkles and a brownish stain just under the collar. His pompadour was at less than its majestic best. I said, “Sorry. Ask Jenn when she gets back.”

“My notes typed yet?”

“Been home yet?”

Franny winked. “What’s home, eh, but the place I lay my head?
Chalice,
I’d rather be where I can lay LaReine. That woman could crush coal between her thighs and turn out diamonds.”

“That would account for your headache.”

“Very funny. Listen, do me a favour.”

I handed Franny the transcript of his interview with Errol Boyko. “Another one, you mean.”

“Don’t worry, when you start getting cases again I’m gonna be there for you, you’ll see.”

“What now?”

He scribbled a note on a scratch pad, tore it off and handed it to me. “This is the lady from the ministry who recommended Meadowvale to Boyko.”

“Darlene Tunney.”

“Yeah, like the fighter. Ask her if they’ve been in trouble before.”

“I thought you were looking into that part.”

“I was going to, only I have a breakfast meeting.”

“Looking like that?”

“It’s with LaReine, she won’t care.”

“Franny, you just got in.”

“Exactly my point. Who’s had time for breakfast?”

Darlene Tunney answered her phone in a thin, nasal voice that carried that air of unfounded authority favoured by provincial bureaucrats.

“Ms. Tunney, this is Jonah Geller from Beacon Security. I’m looking for information about a nursing home in Ontario.”

“Have you tried our website? It has everything you need to help you choose the right home for your loved one.”

“I’m not looking to place anyone.”

“No?”

“We’ve been asked to look into the death of a resident at a nursing home called Meadowvale.”

“We?”

“Yes. Beacon Security.”

“By whom?”

“That’s confidential.”

“So are our files, I’m afraid.”

“But you’re familiar with Meadowvale?”

“I know the place.”

“Our client suspects a resident was mistreated in some way.”

“How?”

“Possibly deprived of her medication.”

“Intentionally?”

“Yes.”

“That’s an extraordinary allegation. Has he filed a complaint?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Well, I thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mister …”

“Geller. Jonah Geller.”

“And the name of your firm again?”

“Beacon Security.”

“Well, thank you again and I will forward a note immediately to our investigations unit.”

“Can you copy me on that?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Copy me on the memo. For our files.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t share that type of communications externally.”

“Can you at least tell me if any similar complaints about Meadowvale have been filed.”

“No.”

“No you can’t tell me, or no there haven’t been any?”

“No, I can’t tell you about any complaint unless it has been formally resolved.”

“So have any been resolved regarding Meadowvale in the past?”

“No. I was just looking at their file and I would have noted any infractions or substantiated complaints.”

“Why?”

“Why would I have noted them?”

“Why were you looking at the file?”

“Mr. Geller, this is an office of the government of Ontario, not some shoeshine stand where detectives pick up tips. If your client is prepared to file a complaint, we will look into it.”

“You said you were going to look into it anyway.”

“And I will. Good after—”

“A woman died,” I cut in.

“An elderly woman,” Tunney said. “In a nursing home. It happens every day. And when it does, the people who placed them there feel guilty. They look for someone to blame. Between you and me, I think your client is wasting your time.”

“It’s his time. He paid for it.”

“Well, it’s my time too, and we’re very busy here,” she said. “Everyone’s taking summer holidays and we’re severely understaffed.”

“Could you at least tell me why you recommend Meadowvale to clients?”

She sighed impatiently. “Meadowvale is one of many facilities I recommend, depending on the client’s needs. Now either file a complaint or don’t. Until then I have nothing else to say.”

Her voice was replaced by a dialtone. For warmth and humanity, it had her beat by a mile.