Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  He gestured toward another black leatherette sling chair that seemed to be pining for its twins outside. I took it.

  Easing himself back down, Hendrix said, "Mrs. Jelks tells me you're interested in our help?"

  Only slightly confused. "Perhaps, I'm representing a condominium complex that's considering a change in its management company."

  "Representing?" A judicious look. "You're an attorney, then?"

  "No." I handed him a business card.

  After reading it, Hendrix snapped it down on his desk-top as though he were dealing blackjack. "Private investigator." He looked at the card a while longer, then to me, more judiciously. A careful one, Mr. Hendrix. "Go on."

  "The board of trustees has asked me to inquire for them, since they obviously wouldn't want their current company to be . . . offended."

  "Obviously. Which complex is it?"

  I just smiled.

  His smile was judicious, too. "And naturally the complex involved therefore wishes to remain anonymous."

  "Naturally."

  "I'm not sure where that leaves us, Mr. Cuddy."

  "Maybe if I could have some brochures for my clients to review?"

  A measured nod, then a very methodical search through a desk drawer, more as though Hendrix were buying time than hunting for something. Which made me realize something else: I hadn't seen any brochures in the reception area, not even a holder for business cards. If you were a management company, and potential clients were waiting to see you, wouldn't you at least want them to have—

  "Here we go," passing a glossy piece of paper over to me. A grainy, black-and-white photo showed a couple , standing in front of a six-paneled door, beaming at the lens. Their hair styles and clothes looked out-of-date, and given the cropping at the borders, the picture could have been taken anywhere. Just skimming the brochure's widely spaced paragraphs of text, I found two obvious typos.

  "How long have you been in business'?" I said.

  "At this location, only five years."

  The photo looked older. "And how long have you been in the profession, yourself?"

  "Around ten."

  "That should be about right for my clients."

  Hendrix frowned. "Can you tell me how big their complex is?"

  "Let's just say over fifty units."

  "And how far from Marshfield?"

  "Oh, within fifteen miles."

  I was intentionally dangling the bait, and Hendrix seemed intentionally not to take it, making no effort to sell me on his company.

  "Wel1," he said finally, the tone still mellow, "that certainly sounds like it's in our ballpark. Unfortunately, though, we're pretty heavily booked at the moment."

  "You are."

  "Yes. A lot of our clients prefer a more hands-on but low-key approach to property management, especially in this economy. We're not expensive, and that matters, so we tend to hold the complexes we attract."

  I wanted to keep this going, find out why he was now trying to gently discourage new business. "That's good."

  Hendrix just watched me.

  I said, "You see, that's why the complex hired a private investigator instead of a lawyer. I'm cheaper, and a lot more 'hands-on.' "

  Another measured nod.

  "Wel1, I guess that brings us to references? I gestured toward the brochure drawer. "And maybe a sample contract?"

  Hendrix used his feet to rock just a little in the swivel chair. "We don't really have a 'sample contract,' Mr. Cuddy."

  "Not even a form you use as a model?"

  "I kind of negotiate each one individually."

  "On behalf of the corporation."

  "Corporation?"

  "Your management company here."

  The rocking stopped. I was setting off a lot of bells for him, and I couldn't see why.

  He said, “I'm a sole proprietorship."

  "Ah. 'Boyce Hendrix, doing business as' . . . ?”

  "Hendrix Property Management Company."

  I gave it a beat. "In addition to you and Mrs. Jelks, how many employees do you have?"

  "Some resident supers."

  "Superintendents?"

  "That's right."

  Hoping to hear "Plymouth Willows," I went back to an earlier request. "Maybe just the references, then."

  "The references?

  "Yes. Other complexes you currently manage, so my clients can get a sense of how they might be treated."

  "Tell you what," said Hendrix, coming forward in the chair, his voice steady but his feet planted for standing.

  "Why don't you take our brochure there with you back to your clients? They like what they see, we can go on to those other things."

  I held the brochure in my palm, making a weighing motion with my hand. "Kind of skimpy, compared to the competition?

  Hendrix rose, flexing his shoulders back. "Each management company has its own personality, Mr. Cuddy." The mellow tone still. "I think you've gotten a pretty good sense of ours. Let your clients decide, huh?"

  As I went out through the reception area, Mrs. Jelks nodded pleasantly to me over the romance novel.

  =4=

  Back in the Prelude, I drove east, almost to the ocean. I couldn't see why Boyce Hendrix hadn't really pitched for "my" complex's business. Also, a little enthusiasm on his part would have been nice toward greasing the skids for my cover story at Plymouth Willows itself.

  Nice, but not essential, I hoped.

  Turning south, I followed the narrow, twisting roads that used to be the only routes between Boston and the summer communities. I passed a forlorn shopping mall and at least a dozen condominium developments, mostly weathered shingle, trying hard for the quaint island look of Nantucket but coming up just a bit cramped and sad. After about twenty minutes, I reached the outskirts of Plymouth Mills.

  At first glance, the town center seemed picturesque, its buildings extending five or six blocks in each direction from a four-way intersection. The architectural style alternated between clapboard and red brick, the clapboard mostly white with black or green shutters, the brick sandblasted at some point after the dingy mills it covered had closed down. The retail stores were more likely to be called "shoppes" than the places in the strip mall back in Marshfield, with some specializing entirely in woven baskets or stuffed animals or wine and cheese. Look a little closer, though, and you could see the peeling paint and missing bricks, the cracked sidewalks and unfixed potholes. Since the demise of the "Massachusetts Miracle," most of the state had gone from recession to depression, despite the optimism in the newspapers, and Plymouth Mills, like the towns to the north, seemed not to have been spared. Even the Porsche dealership struck me as dreary.

  The police station came up just after the dealership, which I'm sure made the Porsche people sleep better at night. The department occupied one of the brick buildings, and ordinarily I'd have stopped in, letting the desk officers know I'd be working the town they were paid to serve and protect. However, I didn't want to risk my license by extending the cover story about nonexistent condo clients to the local uniforms.

  Just before the intersection, the photocopy shop appeared on the right, but from the low lighting inside, it wasn't open. I'd intended to ask about Dees first at Plymouth Willows anyway, but why wouldn't an independent businessman have his place up and running by noontime? Beyond the crossroads was The Tides, where Olga Evorova told me she'd first met Dees. Pretty hungry by now, I had to have lunch somewhere, and I found a parking space next to it.

  The interior of The Tides was pretty generic: an oblong pub bar in the back, burled walnut veneer on both the walls and the booths against them. Benches for the booths stood high, with brass coat hooks screwed into the wood and cream-colored Formica covering the tables. Paint-by-numbers beach prints were framed and almost centered under brass wall sconces. The midday-meal crowd seemed mostly retirees lounging in the booths and people who drank their lunches lounging at the bar, which wasn't tended just now.

  I took a stool across
from a booth that held the only teenagers in the place, a pair of girls wearing the kinds of outfits, hairdos, and jewelry you'd find on the cover of a science fiction magazine. The Tides was quiet enough that I could hear their conversation, even though they weren't trying to project.

  One had purple hair, purple rouge, and purple lipstick, her yellow-and-green-striped sweatshirt torn at the shoulder, the matching athletic pants torn at the knee. "God, it is such a bummer about your dad."

  The second girl—metallic platinum with dark roots but dressed in a long-sleeved black T-shirt, ankle-length black skirt, and black combat boots—pushed the remains of a garden salad around on her plate. "Hey, like tell me about it, awright?"

  "But it's just so wicked unfair, Kira. I mean, you are seventeen years young, you know? This is supposed to be the most awesome time of your life."

  "So. I'm gonna have to wait a while."

  "But all the school you're missing—"

  Putting down her fork, Kira said, "Look, Jude, I have to get back, and you got class in like ten minutes."

  "Awright. Where's our check?"

  A brunette waitress in a frilly white blouse and pink stirrup pants came out from what I guessed to be the kitchen, Jude paying cash for both meals. As the girls left, the waitress moved behind the bar. Oyster and clam shells were sticking up from a bed of crushed ice garnished with some lemon wedges and parsley sprigs. She smiled at me from the far side of thirty. "What'll you have?"

  The nametag on the blouse read "Edie." Glancing toward the booths, I said, "Double duty?"

  A shrug, but she kept the smile shining, maybe because it was her best feature. "Used to do it on the airplanes, I can do it here. Drink?"

  I nodded at the draft pulls. "Harpoon."

  "You got it."

  Edie sidled over to the freezer and pulled out a ten-ounce mug with frost coating its sides. Curling her lower lip under her front teeth, she concentrated on drawing the ale, reminding me of a kindergarten kid with finger paint. After topping the mug, then spilling some off and topping it again, she brought the drink over to me, first slapping a napkin down on the wood.

  "Menu, or would you like something from the raw bar?"

  I looked toward the bed of ice. "They fresh?"

  "Hey, they're not just fresh, they're still alive in there. That's what makes it so hard to shuck them." She picked up a short, sturdy knife. "When I stick this in, they're still holding on to the insides of the shell. If they were dead, the shells'd be open, like you see on the beach by the tideline."

  "And since they're still alive in there . . ."

  "I'm really breaking their grip by cutting their heads off at the neck."

  "Glad I asked."

  Edie laughed. "So, the raw bar's out?"

  "For today, anyway. How are your burgers?"

  "Dead. Definitely dead."

  "Medium, then. No fries, green salad."

  "Watching your weight?"

  I decided to establish a little more of my cover story.

  "Have a long afternoon ahead of me."

  "This town, all the afternoons are 1ong."

  Given the inflection, I thought Edie might be floating an invitation. Liking the way she did it, I still didn't want to mislead her. "I'm checking out how a management company runs one of the condos around here."

  "Checking out?"

  "I'm a private investigator."

  "No kidding?"

  "Here's my identification?

  Edie unfolded the little leather holder, her lip under the front teeth again, reading the laminated card before handing it back to me. "Which complex you interested in?"

  "Plymouth Willows."

  The remains of Edie's smile froze. "Don't know much about how that's going."

  "You don't."

  "No. I live the other way."

  One of the retirees motioned for another round, and Edie moved stiffly to fill his glass before taking my food order to the kitchen. It was a while before she came back out, busying herself rearranging shells on the bed of ice that had looked fine as they were.

  I said, "How about just directions, then?"

  Edie kept her eyes on the ice. "Directions?"

  "To Plymouth Willows."

  She spoke mechanically, toward the shells. "We're on Main Street here. Take Main south to the little bridge over the river. About a mile after the bridge, just past the . . ."

  Something was giving her trouble. "Just past the bluff on the left, you'll hang a right and go down maybe another mile and a half to the Willows sign on your left."

  "Sounds easy enough."

  "You miss the turn and keep going straight, you'll get to the gore."

  "What's the gore?"

  "It's a blip on the survey maps that . . . somebody did for all the development down here in the eighties. The gore's like a bog with swampy water around it."

  Another customer called out her name. To me, Edie said, "Sorry, but I'm going to be kind of busy here." She didn't sound sorry.

  I nursed the ale, and Edie circulated, studiously avoiding my end of the bar until a lighted bell chimed above the liquor bottles, causing her to go back into the kitchen and reappear with a hamburger plate.

  As she set it in front of me, I lowered my voice. "Did I push the wrong button or something?"

  "No," a little too quickly. "I'm just busy, like I said."

  "You wouldn't happen to know anybody who lives at Plymouth Willows, would you?"

  Edie looked up, guarded. "You mean, like for you to talk to?"

  "Yes."

  "Maybe Andy Dees. He runs the photocopy up the street."

  Perfect. "Thanks, I'll try him."

  I thought she wanted to say something else, but another customer got her attention, and I finished my drink and meal without speaking to her again.

  * * *

  The southern tip of downtown ended at the bridge Edie mentioned, which aroed over a dry riverbed and a stagnant harbor. Fishing and lobster boats were beached at peculiar angles on the sandbars by the low tide. No one was on the docks, and I had the feeling that the boats hadn't been anywhere recently, even when the water level was more cooperative.

  I drove over the bridge and south another mile or so, the road curving left to create a "scenic overlook." I pulled the Prelude into the small parking area but left the engine running. Getting out and walking to the railing, I looked down a bluff perhaps forty feet high onto rocks the size of Buicks. Given the tide, most of the rocks were exposed, scumlines around their middles. There was a freshening sea breeze, the smell of salt heavy and bracing in the air. A couple of long-haul barges were sloughing toward Boston, but no pleasure craft, motor or sail, despite the nice weather.

  Back in the car, I left the lot and continued south. Taking the next right, I measured off two miles before realizing I must have missed the Plymouth Willows sign that should have been on my left. I came instead to the “gore," as Edie had called it, a deep swamp surrounded by cattails and reeds, the road hooking left over an old wooden bridge spanning it. There were tire tracks at the edge of the mocha water, cars probably parking there at night as boys with new driver's licenses tried to practice their manhood on girls like the pair back at The Tides. Following the road left and over the bridge, I wasn't sorry to see the gore fade in the rearview mirror.

  The macadam rose to climb a bowl-like hill, and I entered Plymouth Willows from what was functionally its back door, near the tennis courts (nets up) and pool (water drained). The hill I'd climbed provided a postcard backdrop to the complex, the trees mostly hardwoods, here and there a pine or two. A small prefab house sat between the courts and the pool, but otherwise Plymouth Willows seemed to be laid out like a giant shamrock. The roads were looping cul-de-sacs with clusters of townhouse units distributed around each leaf of the shamrock. I counted four townhouses per cluster, four clusters per leaf. Symmetry uber alles.

  The architecture was all gray, weathered shingles, striving also for that Nantucket motif. The only vari
ations were the color of the doors and window trim, which went from red to yellow to blue to white, depending on which cluster in the leaf you were passing. I drove around all the cul-de-sacs, spotting the address Olga Evorova had given me in one of the yellow-trimmed clusters with a nice view of the opposite hillside. There were only a few ornamental willows on the grounds, but everything looked well kept, shrubbery trimmed and grass mowed. While I realized Hendrix Management should most likely be thanked for that, what struck me was how few of the units seemed to be occupied. There were no garages, yet only a handful of cars. Most people might be at work, but many windows had no drapes or curtains in them. And no FOR SALE signs on the front lawns, either.

  Then, driving back toward unit number 42, I caught a break.

  A man came out the townhouse's front door, juggling a box and some paperwork as he pulled the knob closed behind him. He roughly tit the description my client had given me, and the burden of the box and paperwork slowed his walk down the path to a crawl.

  Pulling over and reaching under the newspaper on the passenger's seat, I retrieved my camera. I'm not a terrific photographer, and the man I took for Andrew Dees was some distance away, but with a Pentax K-frame long lens I can do simple, candid stuff well enough. I rolled down my window, the air much warmer again now that I was a few miles from the ocean.

  Dees showed clearly through the viewfinder: dark hair and prominent brow, straight nose and strong chin. I snapped off three head-and-shoulders portraits before he reached his car, a brown Toyota Corolla hatchback. Dees lifted the hatch, dropping the box and paperwork inside, then closed it and walked to the driver's door. He turned once in my direction, and I got a fourth shot of him before he climbed behind the wheel and drove off toward the front of the complex.

  I was leaning down to slide the camera back under the newspaper when a male voice next to my window said, "You like to take pixtures?"

  If the voice had been normal, I probably would have jumped. But it was squeaky and shy, and somehow it didn't startle me, despite being so close by. I looked up into the sort of face we'd have casually called "retarded" when I was growing up, the compressed features and crimped ears and hanging jaw of a Down's syndrome child.