Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy Page 2

  "I have some idea——"

  He pulled the cigar out of his mouth and gestured with it. "I called this guy I know over in the Transportation Department—those guys you can reach by phone, account of nobody ever makes calls about safety, you know?—and he told me that pedestrian deaths dropped from over thirty to just eleven in four years."

  "Impressive."

  "Impressive? What, are you kidding me? That eleven was something like forty percent of the total motor-vehicle fatalities in the entire city for the year. Which puts us just behind New York. Can you imagine that? We're killing our pedestrians at almost the same rate as the Big App1e."

  "Mo, I'm not sure your figures support—"

  "Plus, after that drop to 'only' eleven, the toll jumped back near twenty last year. I'm telling you, John, it's like open season out there." Mo laughed silently. "The kind of thing Freddie would've liked to hear."

  "I don't get you, Mo."

  He looked up at me, waving the cigar impatiently. "Freddie was an undertaker, didn't you know that?"

  "I guess not."

  "He had some great experiences in that line of work too, more than you'd think. I remember a couple of times I had to cover the funerals of people laid out at his home—pols mostly, hacks all—and Freddie'd take me aside, ask with that undertaker's dirge if I could use them in one of my columns."

  "Use what, Mo?”

  "His experiences, what do you think? You got to pay closer attention, John."

  "Sorry, Mo."

  "I mean, it's like you're losing the whole thread of the conversation here."

  "Won't happen again."

  Mo shuffled through the mess on his desk till he came up with a war-memorial lighter the size of a softball. He flicked it three times, no results. Then he examined it more closely, the thing no more than six inches from his eyes.

  "Bastards!"

  "What's the matter, Mo?"

  "The ASNs. They stole my wick again."

  "The who?"

  "Not 'who,' John, 'what.' My wick, the little thing in there, lets the flame come out. What college did you go to, anyway?"

  "Ho1y Cross, Mo. But-"

  "And you don't know what a wick is? The priests didn't have candles in the chapels there and all?"

  "They had candles. What I meant was, who are the 'Ay-Ess-Ens'?"

  "The initials, of course. The Anti-Smoking Nazis."

  "First I've heard of them, Mo."

  "They steamrolled some kind of 'secondhand smoke' policy through the powers that be, and now we're supposed to go outside every time we want to light up."

  “That's becoming pretty typical of—"

  "Only I won't go along with it, so they sneak in here and steal my wick." He hefted the lighter for me to appreciate. "You have any idea how hard it is to replace one, an antique like this is?"

  "None."

  Mo shook his head. "And to think my favorite was the one about this paper."

  “Your favorite?"

  He fixed me with a baleful eye. "My favorite of the experiences that Freddie told me about in his funeral home."

  "Oh.”

  "You gonna be all right now?"

  "Just a momentary lapse, Mo."

  "I hope so." He put down the lighter and stuck the dead cigar back in his mouth. "Freddie had some great ones, like the time this lifelong rival of the decedent comes into the viewing room, walks up to the corpse, and spits in his face. Spits in it. Or this other time, a nickel-and-dime loanshark comes in, pays his respects to the surviving family, then goes to the prayer rail. Only instead of kneeling down, the shark leans in and grabs the corpse by the lapels—grabs him, John—and starts banging the decedent's head against the side of the coffin, yelling, 'You deadbeat, where's my five hundred? Where is it?' "

  I didn't see where the newspaper fit in, but I wasn't about to ask.

  Mo took a deep breath. "But my favorite, all time—all world—was this widow, comes up to Freddie straight from the hospital to make the arrangements for her husband, and she says to him, 'Freddie, my Gerry spent every blessed night of his life sitting on one of our kitchen chairs, reading the Herald'—it wasn't the 'Herald' for all those years, John, but you get the picture—and Freddie says to her, 'There, there,' or something like that, and she says back, 'No, Freddie, you don't understand. That's the way I want Gerry laid out, sitting on one of our chairs at the front of your viewing room here, his legs crossed and the Herald open in his hands." Freddie tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't budge, so he swallowed kind of hard and the next evening, there was Gerry, like any other night, in one of those chairs, upright and edifying himself with the day's well-recounted news."

  "A lovely image, Mo."

  "I think so. In fact, it's kind of lifted my spirits some too. Now, what brings you here?"

  "I'd like to run a few names through your computer, see if anything useful pops up."

  "Sure thing." Mo reached for his telephone. "I'll get one of the ASNs to help you out—keep their fingers on the keyboard and away from other people's harmless vices."

  The young man who appeared at the door a few minutes later led me back through a rabbit warren of cubicles to his own, more a library study carrel than an office like Mo's. I gave him "Olga Evorova" first, and he typed her name after some sort of search command. The screen showed two articles that referred to her participation in deals underwritten by Harborside Bank as well as a couple of "Executives in the News" blurbs, one with photo, announcing her promotions within the bank. My client appeared to be who she claimed to be, a nice reassurance.

  The young guy did another search, for "Andrew Dees."

  I was disappointed but not surprised when the computer came up empty.

  * * *

  I got back to my office in time to gather the afternoon mail from the floor under the horizontal, flap-covered slot in my door and open most of the envelopes before the phone rang.

  Cradling the receiver against my ear, I said, "John Cuddy."

  "Mr. Cuddy, this is Olga Evorova."

  "Yes, Ms. Evorova."

  "I have for you the name of the company which manages the Plymouth Willows condominiums."

  "That was fast."

  "I told my friend, Claude, about hiring you. She thinks it was a good idea. Claude then telephoned a banker she knows on the South Shore, and he obtained the name and address of the company for me."

  "So Mr. Dees wouldn't be tipped off."

  "Exactly, yes. The name of the company is Hendrix Property Management." Evorova gave me an address in Marshfield, a few towns north of Plymouth Mills. "Is there anything more you need?"

  "Not just now. I'll contact you if I've made any progress."

  "Thank you so much."

  * * *

  Nancy Meagher had suggested I meet her that night for dinner and "something different," as she described it, which was her way of saying she'd be driving and taking care of the tab. After locking my office and going downstairs, I crossed Tremont Street and walked north, politely dodging hordes of office workers. The gainfully employed formed a high tide swelling toward the Park Street subway stop, washing away clutches of bewildered people in vacation clothes, cameras around their necks and folded maps in their hands, trying in vain to find that trolley ticket stand. I passed the Old Granary burial ground on the left and King's Chapel on the right, turning at One Center Plaza for an escalator to the Pemberton Square level.

  The still-called "New Courthouse" was attached to the "Old Courthouse" in the thirties, surviving a terrorist bombing of the probation department in the seventies and the failure of most major internal systems like electricity and plumbing through the eighties and nineties. The scaffolding now rising up the exterior walls had something to do with waterproofing, the building creaking and therefore leaking at every joint and seam. They're about to break ground on a new site, the budgetary crunch on the old structure so severe the judges have been reduced to bringing their own light bulbs and toilet paper from home.
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  I cleared the sheriff's metal detectors inside the revolving door on the first floor and took the elevator to six for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office. I was making small talk with the two blazered security men at the half-moon desk out front when Nancy emerged from the labyrinth in back.

  She wore full battle gear: pale gray suit, white blouse with a small ruffle and faint blue piping, no tie, and only sensible heels. The crow-black hair just brushed her shoulders, framing the bright Irish face with widely spaced eyes and batwings of freckles crossing the nose. Then she smiled, and I felt my heart do the same little jig it had the first time I'd seen her, arguing in an arraignment session a year and a half before.

  Nancy said, "Not carrying?"

  I smiled back at her, tapping the hollow over my right hip. "They're very conscientious downstairs." I gestured toward her arms, themselves empty except for a compact leather handbag. "And you?"

  "Meaning the conspicuous absence of my briefcase?"

  "That's what I meant."

  "I have an attempted murder starting tomorrow, but the remaining pretrial motions and impaneling the jury will kill the whole day. So, tonight, no work for a change."

  "Just 'something different'."

  "That's right. Come on."

  We stayed quiet in the elevator, Nancy slipping her arm into mine once we were outside again. A mime wearing chalky makeup and a black costume trudged toward us, parodying the walk of the tired commuter in front of him. Nancy said, "Never liked mimes."

  "Leave me speechless too."

  We walked to her car, a red Honda Civic, and she began driving, the traffic worse than ever because of the "Big Dig."

  Nancy said, "You think they'll ever finish it?"

  "Not in our lifetimes."

  The Big Dig was what Boston called the attempt to drop the elevated "Central Artery" (which separates downtown from the waterfront) and to add a third harbor tunnel to Logan Airport. The project, thanks to something the late Tip O'Neill worked out with then-President Ron, began as a two-billion-dollar effort; I'd stopped reading about the cost overruns when they'd hit $10 billion the prior summer. The demolition and reconstruction already had transformed rush "hour" into a 6:00 AM. to 10:00 P.M. phenomenon, and the predictions were for round-the-clock problems and helicopter shuttles as the city slouched toward the new millennium.

  When Nancy swung into the North End, I said, "We're not headed for Harvard Square."

  "You know anybody who'd drive to the Square when the Red Line's almost door-to-door by subway?"

  "Only you."

  A measured pause. "I did that just once, and I'll never do it again."

  "Glad to hear it. So, where then?"

  "Be patient, John. Enjoy the scenery."

  I looked out the window. Pile drivers, cement dust, and tarring crews. "No wonder we're knee-deep in tourists this time of year."

  "You've just become blind to the city's charms."

  The Civic crossed the Charlestown Bridge by North Station and another construction site, this one for the new Boston Garden, the stonework crowding one of the ramps not so far changed by the Dig. On the other side of the bridge, Nancy turned left and then right onto the Monsignor McGrath Highway before turning left again for Cambridge Street.

  I said, "Busman's holiday."

  "What?"

  "We're going to the Middlesex Courthouse."

  "Negative."

  Continuing west on Cambridge Street, we passed the Middlesex County jail and court building. A mile or so later, Nancy parked across from a bright stucco restaurant. The sign read CASA PORTUGAL. "I hope I know what this means."

  "Only the beginning."

  " 'Only just the start,' " I sang softly.

  Nancy canted her head. She's a lot younger than I am, and sometimes it shows.

  "Old Chicago tune, Nance."

  "Chicago being a band?"

  I cleared my throat. "Right."

  We crossed the street and stepped up into the restaurant, a cozy, low-ceilinged room that seats maybe forty people. The tables are small and comfortably separated, the walls covered with colorful frescoes of what I've always taken to be Portugal. The former owner sometimes had guitar players and singers perform in front of the fireplace, but the establishment was always more restaurant than cabaret, and the music was too much sound. His successor has members of his own family waiting on tables, the place pretty successful since it's changed hands only once in the twenty-some years I've been going there.

  The current owner welcomed us at the door and provided escort to the candlelit table for two in the window looking onto Cambridge Street. We opened the big menus, but really only for something to do, since we always have the same entrees there: the marinated pork cubes for Nancy, the veal marsala for me, both accompanied by the house's kale soup, homemade bread, and Portuguese french fries, the last like thick, deep-fried potato chips. Nancy asked me to pick a wine. After the owner left us, I said, "You were kidding, right?"

  "Kidding about what'?"

  "About not recognizing the name of the band."

  A smile tweaked the corners of her mouth. "I don't know what you mean, John."

  "Nance, everybody's heard of Chicago. I mean, they had a dozen hits in the—"

  "John, John, I was kidding, all right? What's got you so touchy?"

  The owner arrived with our wine, a dry red called Imperial Dao. Sampling it, I approved, and he poured for both of us before leaving with our meal orders.

  Nancy looked at me over her wineglass.

  I said, "I'm not touchy."

  "Is it age or aging or what?"

  I told her about Mo and Freddie Norton.

  She nodded. "And my kidding around just reminded you of the . . . differences between the generations?"

  "I sometimes have trouble following Mo's train of thought, Nance, maybe because he's so much older than I am. And I guess I don't like to think that people close to me are having the same trouble with what I say."

  Nancy took a polite sip. "We're not."

  "Thanks."

  "Most of the time."

  “Drink your wine."

  The bread and the kale soup arrived, nearly constituting a meal in themselves.

  Between spoonfuls, Nancy said, "So, how was your day?"

  "Interesting, I think."

  "You don't know if it was interesting or not?"

  Nancy and I have developed an uneasy truce about my obligations as a private investigator to keep client matters confidential and her obligations as an assistant DA to prosecute crimes, but I didn't see any problem with an abstract I outline. "A woman came to see me. She wants a confidential investigation of her boyfriend-cum-fiancé."

  "To see if he's on the 1evel," Nancy said, very matter-of-factly.

  I looked at her. "Yes. That doesn't surprise you?"

  "These days? Uh-uh. One of the other prosecutors was dating this professor at her old college—somebody she met again going back for a reunion?—and they became intimate. Of course she took precautions, but when the relationship became more serious, she asked one of the state troopers attached to our office to just check him out. And guess what?"

  "The professor was married."

  "No." .

  "Not really a professor?"

  "He'd been her teacher, John."

  "Okay, I give up."

  "Be a little more imaginative?

  I'm slow about some things. "Bisexual?"

  A nod before another sip. "Kind of chilling, huh?"

  I had some of my wine. "You ever have me 'checked out'?"

  "Yes, but not that far."

  "How come?"

  A self-satisfied smile. "You'd been on the shelf a while."

  "And out of circulation means safe?"

  "John, you just have a feeling about some people, you know?"

  An image of Olga Evorova came into my head, her shy blushing showing her love but not stemming her concerns about the man she wanted me to investigate. I didn't env
y my client that feeling.

  "John?"

  "Sorry."

  The entrées arrived in hand-turned pottery bowls, hot and fragrant and just spicy enough on the tongue. And, as always, too much food.

  When we finished, I said, "Doggie bags?"

  Nancy shook her head. "Leftovers wouldn't keep where we're going." Checking her watch, she brought out the wallet from her handbag. "And we should be going."

  * * *

  As we arrived in Davis Square, I said, "The Somerville Theatre."

  "The same." After parking a block away, Nancy bought us tickets at a window on the side of the building. A small line accumulated behind us as she got her change and the stubs, handing me one. When we got to the front of the theater, the marquee read: SCOTTISH FIDDLE RALLY. I looked from it to Nancy. "A coming attraction, right?"

  “Wrong. Come on."

  On the right side of the lobby was an old-fashioned counter for popcorn and soda and the usual overpriced cavity-creators in brightly colored boxes. On the left side were tables displaying cassette tapes and compact discs with names on them I didn't recognize. As we reached the doorways leading to the seating, a teenaged girl in a tartan skirt handed us yellow programs.

  I said, "The Boston Scottish Fiddle Club."

  "Yes.”

  "Nance, we're Irish."

  "The cross-pollination will be good for you."

  I dipped through the program. "They've got fifteen, twenty entries on this. 'Reels' and 'airs' and 'marches.' "

  "So we'll get our money's worth."

  "We'll be here till dawn, too."

  "A friend of mine saw this last year and said it was terrific. Let's find our seats."

  Inside the theater proper, the orchestra level sloped down toward the stage, somebody having impromptu-marked the chairs with letters and numbers on taped pieces of cardboard. We got to our row, the red velvet cushions flat and worn as I sat down. The two couples behind us were comparing culinary experiences from ocean cruises.

  After ten minutes of their small talk, I whispered to Nancy, "This is what siege warfare must have been like." She was about to reply—something cutting, from the cast of her lips—when the lights went down over the seats and came up on the stage, showing twenty or so fiddlers, sitting concert-style on chairs with music stands, other instruments like guitar, cello, and piano sprinkled in their midst. The music started immediately, reminding me at first of the soundtrack to a John Ford western. Then the playing stopped for a few minutes, the director introducing the club and its purposes to us before bringing on four teenaged girls from Cape Breton, one of them our program aide, I thought. They step-danced through a loud, lively song—not a "march," but the theater too dark to read whether it was a "reel" or an "air." About midway through their performance, I found myself tapping my foot on the floor.