Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  She closed her eyes, let out a breath. "Look, if all this is some kind of scheme to collect on Yale's old debts—"

  "—it's not—"

  "—let me tell you, the estate's been bled dry already, okay? This isn't even my place. I just work here."

  "Since you left the airline."

  A steady "Yes."

  "I didn't come in to dun you for money, Edie. I'd just like to ask a few questions about your husband and Plymouth Willows."

  "And if I don't feel like answering them?"

  "Then I go talk to other people, but I'd rather get the truth."

  "The truth." Bitter, almost a laugh.

  I said, "Your version of it, anyway."

  Edie slapped the damp towel on the bar like a judge would a gavel. "Yeah, well, my version won't take too long. Yale had big dreams and a big Cadillac Coupe de Ville to carry them around in. He thought he had the touch after developing a couple of dinky subdivisions further inland, so he tried his hand—and all our money—on a condo complex that was, get this, 'Virtually oceanfront, Honey'."

  "And things didn't work out."

  "Work out? Plymouth Willows sank like a stone. Oh, Yale kept telling me, 'It's not a recession, Honey. Just a bump in the road, our road to riches.' " Another almost laugh. "Only one problem: it was a recession. Hell, it was a depression, and poor Yale kept trying to shovel sand against the tide he should have seen was coming at him."

  "There were a lot of people with shovels back then, and most of them didn't see it coming, either."

  "Yeah, I know." The bitterness left her voice. "And to give Yale credit where credit's due, he protected me all right."

  " 'Protected' you?"

  "We kept a little house in one of those earlier developments, took title in my name only, then did a homestead exemption on it. You know what that is?"

  A very quiet "Yes, I do," from me.

  "Well, when the walls came tumbling down around Plymouth Willows, the house was where we could have stayed, nice and warm, to ride out the storm.”

  "But you didn't?"

  A labored sigh. "I thought we were. Only Yale got obsessed with saving his equity in the condo complex—which was crazy, all the prices had fallen so far, there was no equity left. That didn't stop my husband, though. No sir, he kept trying to show the mortgage lenders he was going to come out of it, prove to them his already existing buyers were solid people."

  "How?"

  A wave of the hand, which came to rest on the towel, kneading it a little. "Yale 'investigated' them, in his own half-assed way. He couldn't afford a real private investigator—hell, by this time, even his lawyer had bailed out on him—so Yale went to talk with the people already in the complex, get them to vouch for him."

  I remembered Norman Elmendorf telling me that Quentin had asked about him at the Brockton paper. "And?"

  "And I guess Yale wasn't getting what he needed. Cooperation, I mean, or enough people with the juice to convince his lenders. So, instead of weathering the storm in our safe little house, the man who dreamed big got behind the wheel of his Coupe de Ville and drove it off that scenic overlook south of town."

  Elmendorf had told me that too. "Suicide."

  A slight change in the tenor of Edie's voice. "That's the way it looked."

  I stopped. "Meaning you weren't persuaded?"

  "Meaning the lenders weren't about to kill Yale when they or the FDIC could just foreclose on him, the way they ended up doing anyway. And he sure didn't accidentally go over the cliff and down onto the rocks."

  I pictured the bluff in my head; Edie sounded right about that part. "And so the incident was written off as a suicide?"

  "Hey, look, what was I supposed to do, huh? Tell me, please. Yale owed over a million dollars, and if I tried to contest what the cops thought happened, who would it help?" Again the bitterness faded. "Besides, Yale was all up-and-down those last few days."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Like manic depressive. He'd be down in the dumps, then figure he had something that might help him, then take another nosedive when the something didn't pan out. The cops told me it sure sounded suicidal in their book."

  And you couldn't really blame them. Enough people who lost everything when their own "Massachusetts Miracle" burst certainly took that way out of the problem. I hadn't touched the Harpoon, and I didn't want to.

  "What do I owe you?"

  The almost-laugh. "On the house. I always like to comp a guy comes in, makes me feel like shit all over again."

  Yanking the towel off the bar top, Edie Quentin strode back into the kitchen.

  * * *

  Driving to Plymouth Willows, I tried to see a connection between Yale Quentin's "suicide" four years earlier and what Primo had told me about Kira Elmendorf and Jamey Robinette. But while the Elmendorfs had lived there before Quentin's death, the Robinettes hadn't moved into the complex until just two years ago.

  Going up the front driveway, I parked near the tennis courts and walked to Paulie Fogerty's door. He opened it soon after my knock.

  “Where's your camera?"

  "Didn't bring it today, Paulie."

  Fogerty stood in his doorway.

  "Can I come in a minute?" I said.

  A blink and a nod. "Oh, sure."

  He left and bustled toward the bedroom again, coming back with what looked like the same chair for me. I sat down while Paulie aimed the remote at his VCR, the screen showing Bugs Bunny about to get the best of Yosemite Sam before dissolving to royal blue. Then Fogerty went to his recliner and flopped into it.

  I said, "I'd like to ask you a few more questions, Paulie."

  Blink and nod. "Sure."

  "You work around the complex pretty much every day, right?"

  "Right. I'm the super. I work for Mr. Hend'ix."

  "Have you seen Mr. Dees?"

  "Sure. He lives in unit . . . uh, 42."

  "I mean, have you seen him lately?"

  “Lately?"

  A test. "Today, for example?

  Fogerty just blinked. "No."

  "Yesterday, maybe?"

  Blink. "I don't know. He has a store too. In town."

  "Right. I've been there, Paulie. How about the day before yesterday?"

  "Before yesterday?"

  "Yes, Saturday."

  Blink. "I don't know."

  Okay. "Have you seen anybody else around his unit?"

  "Just his friends."

  "His friends?"

  "Yes. Two men."

  "Can you describe them?"

  Blink and nod. "Like you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "They were big, like you."

  "When was this?"

  "I don't know."

  Probably Kourmanos and Braverman on Friday, when they were going in to babysit Dees' place. "Paulie, have you seen anything unusual around there?"

  "Where?"

  "Mr. Dees' unit."

  "No. Summer's over, so the grass isn't so good. And the leaves, they blow everywhere, no matter what I do." Fogerty pointed toward the rake hanging from a wall hook. "But it's okay."

  "What's okay?"

  "The leaves. I'll get them tomorrow. I work for Mr. Hend'ix." Paulie Fogerty beamed the hang-jaw smile at me. "I'm the super."

  * * *

  Leaving the Prelude by the tennis courts, I walked to the cluster Primo Zuppone had been watching for me that day. I put my ear against the door of the Elmendorfs' unit. Hearing nothing, I knocked softly.

  The door opened, Kira standing behind it in black denim shirt and almost-matching jeans, no shoes or socks. Another change of clothes since she'd visited Jamey Robinette earlier. "Oh, hi."

  "Hi, Kira. Can I come in?"

  "Yeah, but my dad's, like, asleep, and I kind of hoped I wouldn't have to wake him up."

  "That's okay. It's you I wanted to talk to."

  A shadow passed over her eyes, then, "Why not, I'm sure not doing anything."

  We walked into the living room, stil
l awash in magazines. Kira pushed a poker hand of them onto the floor so I could have a chair.

  She took the old print couch across from me, her left leg folded under her rump. "So, what's the question of the day?"

  "Andrew Dees seems to be missing."

  "Missing? You mean, like, gone or something?"

  "Yes. Have you seen him recently?"

  Kira seemed to think about it. For the first time, if she wasn't a great actress. "No, I haven't, but then, I don't get out much."

  "Just with Jude, for lunch."

  "Right."

  "When Mrs. Stepanian comes over to keep an eye on your father."

  A funny look. "Right."

  "Or when Jamey Robinette blares his music."

  Kira's eyes widened before she could control them. "He doesn't do that often, but it really, like, bothers my dad, so—"

  "You call him, and he turns it down."

  She seemed to relax a little. "Right."

  "But then you can't go out the back door, even though that would be more private, because the deck's right under your father's bedroom window and he'd hear you. So you make up some excuse and slip out the front."

  The widening of the eyes again. "Look, I don't know what—"

  “Wearing a T-shirt and shorts today, with one red sock, one blue."

  It seemed an effort to keep her voice down, but after a glance toward the loft, Kira managed. "You've been spying on me. Why?"

  "Kira, I'm not spying on you. I just need some information, and I'd prefer not to use things I've found out along the way unless it's necessary."

  "Blackmail?" She said the word almost as a laugh, so much like Edie Quentin that I noticed it. "You're trying to blackmail somebody who's almost homeless?"

  "No blackmail, just information. What do you know about Mr. Dees?"

  "Nothing." Kira could tell I wasn't buying. "Honest, nothing but what I told you last time."

  "When you were next door with Jamey, did you ever hear anything?"

  "From Mr. Dees' unit, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "Never. Jamey and I . . . we, like, have to see each other when his mom's not around. She's real strict with him, and my dad—huh, he found out and . . ."

  Kira stopped, seeming to realize she might be giving me more leverage than I already had.

  I lowered my voice. "Kira, I'm just trying to find Mr. Dees. That's all I care about."

  The funny look. "I thought you were here for some other condo place?"

  "This is something different. Has Jamey ever said anything to you about Dees?"

  "No."

  I watched her.

  A shake of the head, the rings through the ear clinking. "Honest, Jamey's never said a word about Mr. Dees."

  "So Mr. Dees doesn't know about you and Jamey?"

  "About . . . ? No. No, Mr. Dees is at his copy shop during the day, and he couldn't know."

  “How about your father?"

  "I already told you, he doesn't know, either."

  "I talked with some people about him."

  "About my dad, now?"

  "Yes. His war record, for example."

  Kira nearly laughed again, suddenly seeming relieved. "God, why didn't you just ask me?"

  "He wasn't hurt in the Gulf."

  "No."

  "He wasn't even over there, was he?"

  "No, of course not. That's just something he, like, made up, although he's said it so many times now, he might just believe it himself."

  "It's important to his pride."

  "Mr. Cuddy, it's important to him to have something. Originally, it was my mother and his job, but he lost both of them. Then it was this place, which pretty soon is going to be gone too. That'll leave him with his bottle and me, probably in that order."

  Kira stopped again. "No, I'm sorry, that's wrong. My dad really does love me more than the bourbon, I think. But he got it into his head that something from Desert Storm instead of the booze makes him shaky and gives him those ucky blotches, and that's all there is to it."

  "But what if somebody else found out about that?"

  "You already did."

  "I mean somebody from the complex. What if Andrew Dees found out your father's stories about being in the war were just that, stories?"

  Kira ran a hand randomly through her platinum hair. "I don't get you."

  "What if Dees confronted your father with that, threatened to expose him for—"

  This time Kira did laugh, clamping a hand over her mouth to stop the sound from carrying up to the loft. Past her fingers, she said, "Mr. Cuddy, everybody, like, knows about my dad not being in the Gulf."

  "They do?"

  "Sure." She dropped her hand into her lap. "Oh, Mrs. Stepanian, she goes along with him on it, and Jamey's mom does too, the little she ever sees him. But they all know it's just so much bullshit." A look to the second floor that could break your heart. "No, the only one my dad's fooling is himself."

  After leaving Kira, I walked down to the Stepanians' end unit and pressed the button at the jamb. It would be professional to actually hear Lana Stepanian confirm what I'd just been told about Norman Elmendorf, but I wasn't really sorry when no one answered the bonging sound inside the condo. Kira's version of "everybody-knows-about-my-dad" had convinced me.

  I left Plymouth Willows in the fading daylight, feeling more frustrated than ever. At the "scenic overlook," I pulled into the empty parking lot and got out of the car. Moving to the edge, I stared down at the rocks where Yale Quentin's Cadillac must have landed. Plunging nose first, the bumper would've smashed through the grille, the engine and steering colunm violating the front seat, crushing anybody . . .

  Shaking my head, I said quietly, "Olga, Olga. Where are you?"

  Then I shook my head some more.

  * * *

  "Does this mean we have something to celebrate?"

  Nancy didn't answer as we moved through the entrance to Skipjack's, a great seafood place in the huge New England Life building. The restaurant's only a few years old, the decor aggressively Art Deco. But somehow it's welcoming too, and if I could figure out why, I'd be in a different business.

  At the reception podium, Nancy shifted her briefcase from shoulder to hand and asked the hostess if they were serving outside. After a nod, the hostess asked us to follow her through the indoor dining area to the patio at the corner of Clarendon and St. James Street. The tables here were black iron and the chairs white resin, set off from the rest of the sidewalk by a black curlicue fence.

  A young waiter with what they used to call a Madison Avenue haircut materialized immediately, introducing himself and asking if we'd like to start with a drink. Nancy set her briefcase on the cement next to her chair and ordered a bottle of Murphy Goode fumé blanc.

  "Would you folks like to hear tonight's specials?"

  "After you bring the wine," said Nancy, and he was off and running.

  I reached across the table for her hand, having to go only halfway to find it. "Same question?"

  "Something to celebrate? In a manner of speaking. The attempted murder trial pleaded out this morning?

  "Based on your side of the case alone?”

  "Plus the defendant's attorney persuading him that his version of the incident was just not going to the top of the flagpole."

  "The trial the only good news?"

  The waiter appeared with our wine. He opened the bottle and poured Nancy a taste. She approved it and he gave each of us a half-glass before reciting the specials in duly elaborate fashion. We decided to split a Caesar salad, anchovies on the side for me. Nancy chose the Swordfish "Skipjack's Style" and a baked potato, while I ordered the Hawaiian Moonfish special with barbecued french fries."

  As he left us, Nancy raised her glass. "To a great waiter."

  "I can ask around, see if he's unattached."

  The Loni Anderson smile. "I'll bet you don't even remember his name."

  "You're right, and they always put so much effort into saying tha
t at the beginning."

  Nancy touched her glass against mine. "To Jason."

  "You remembered?

  She managed to nod and sip, all in one fluid motion. Jason brought us a bread basket, the contents wrapped in a napkin. The napkin was still warm, and the contents turned out to be rolls, spiced up something like focaccia. After Jason moved away, I said, “So, do I finally get a real answer to my question?"

  Nancy dipped into her briefcase, coming out with the rose I'd brought her Friday night.

  "It's halfway open now," I said.

  She extended it toward me. "And it looks like we'll get to see it—and many more—open all the way."

  I felt a great sloughing deep inside my chest. "The test results."

  Another nod. "Benign."

  "Jesus, Nance." I stood and came around the table.

  She got up as well, and we hugged long and hard for a good twenty seconds.

  Into my neck, Nancy said, "What will Jason think?"

  "No jokes for a minute, okay?"

  "Okay."

  We broke the hug and sat back in our chairs. A gentle breeze riffled the napkin, but the day's sunshine was still on it.

  "You picked a good place and a better night, Nance."

  I watched two tourists photographing the John Hancock Tower diagonally across from us, the parallelogram skyscraper of aquamarine glass that rises sixty-some stories like an improbable special effect to dominate every long view in Back Bay.

  Nancy caught my look. "It's gone from eyesore to icon in what, twenty years?"

  I turned back to her. "That's pretty deep."

  "I've been thinking deep thoughts lately."

  "How about we postpone them till another day?"

  "That sounds awfully tempting, John Francis Cuddy."

  With no indication he'd seen us hugging, Jason brought the Caesar salad, and at some point the entrees, and at some point after that two slices of key lime pie with shredded coconut on top and a dollop of raspberry sauce to either side. It was one of those meals you eat one bite at a time, chewing thoughtfully and actually having an engaging, roving conversation that has nothing to do with work and everything to do with life.

  Then the check arrived and Nancy paid it just as the air temperature dropped at least ten degrees. Only a cold front coming through, now not an omen of anything, and I draped my suit jacket over her shoulders for the six-block walk back to my place.