KERRI'S WAR (Volume 3 of The King Trilogy)

CHAPTER 12

Toronto, Wednesday. 3:00 P.M.

The memorial service for Peter Monteith was held at Grace Church on the Hill, a stately old grey stone edifice on Lonsdale Road in the upscale Forest Hills area of the city. Cool damp weather was in sync with the mood of all who attended.

Mike, Karen and Kerri King, all dressed in black and seated on the aisle close to the rear of the congregation, watched in sadness as Peter's widow, also in black, head down and covered with a black hat and veil, was escorted to the front row by her son Steve. Under the veil and black dress was an extremely attractive woman, Alberta's candidate for Miss Canada in her early twenties. From the day she agreed to marry him, Peter Monteith had considered himself unworthy.

Thirty-five years of age, born and raised in Thornhill, a Toronto suburb, Steve was the eldest of three sons of Peter and Helen Monteith. Much of his happy life was spent as the son of upper middle class parents. That status changed when his father became president of Seismic Oil, one of the most successful oil and gas exploration companies in the world. Armed with a degree in civil engineering from the university of Toronto and an M.B.A. from The University of Western Ontario, Steve accepted a lucrative job offer as construction manager with Paracon S.A., a very large and well respected international construction company. Following years of interesting, but less than satisfying work in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Korea, and Vietnam, he lost interest. It hit him like a thunderbolt. He saw a world going to hell in a hand basket, awash in debt, pollution, and corruption. To the surprise of his employers and everyone who knew him, he resigned, packed his bags, and spent the following two years circling the globe, searching for answers, attempting to understand his disenchantment. Escaping the claws of glitz, hype, dishonesty, and insincerity was only part of the equation, the part he knew. What he didn't know was where he belonged. The experience was therapeutic, instilling in him a deep and abiding passion for solitude, obscurity and tranquility.

He returned to Canada in 1996, bought a modest lakeside home near Port Carling, Ontario, and started his own construction company: Monteith Homes. He was singularly blessed with striking good looks, intelligence, and the physique of a decathlete. He was everyone's favorite to make it anywhere he wanted to go. There were girls in his life, but until he met Christine, none had made the cut. Until then, he had been too busy to commit to a deeper relationship. Sure, marriage and kids had always been within his contemplation, but that would be later. Aside from work, his only other passion was coaching. With ruthless precision he carved sufficient time from his business schedule to coach boys baseball, soccer and hockey teams in his beloved Port Carling.

Still holding his mother's arm, he helped her lower herself into a seat beside Christine Stewart. Thirty-two years of age and very attractive, Christine, a brunette with a smile qualifying for an orthodontist's dream, personified the cream of Toronto's elite. Born with a platinum spoon in her mouth, she had been chauffeured to and from Branksome Hall, a Toronto private school for the daughters of wealth, from K to thirteen. Following a full ticket, summer long holiday in Europe, she was flown, first class, to Wellesley for an undergraduate degree. She returned to Toronto in 1995 carrying a law degree from Harvard. A very competitive and ambitious woman, she was now working obscene hours and fighting to become a full partner in Anderson, McPherson and White, one of the city's most prestigious law firms. To enhance her status, she hurried to join the the clubs only wealth could afford, and would accept. She had rejected too many marriage offers to count.

Sitting beside Christine was Jamie Stewart, her father. With mansions in Toronto, Florida, and Muskoka, he came into wealth the old fashioned way: he inherited it. Helen Stewart, her mother and fugitive from Jamie's outrageous lifestyle, lived in luxurious exile in the south of France with nothing but bad memories and a generous settlement. Christine's late grandfather, also a Torontonian, had spearheaded the family wealth. He had a very large interest in the Canadian Copper Company when it made a gigantic copper/nickel discovery near Sudbury, Ontario. The company was renamed INCO, or International Nickel Company, in 1903. In 1928 it became a Dow component. He held, and the rest became history. His wife, Jamie's mother, passed away in 1967, two years after her husband's death. With the passing of his parents, obscene wealth had accrued to Jamie, their only child.