Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (21 page)

"What stuff?"

"Well, when you came to pick me up, you saw all
the scaffolding they have against the building?"

"Yes?"

"They've been renovating, but they put some kind
of waterproofing chemical on the outside last June, and when the
fumes seeped into the rooms, everybody started feeling sick."

"Sick how?"

"Oh, nausea, dizziness"—Nancy gestured at
her face—“itchy eyes, even migraines?

"And that's the problem?”

"Yes," unconvincingly.

"Nance?"

"What?"

"The fumes have been there since June, and
they're only getting to you in October?"

"They affect different people differently. And
different parts of the courthouse at different times."

I just stared at her.

She said, "The Clerk's office got the worst of
it at first, and they closed the whole building four days in August
while a vent system was being installed. Even the people just using
the Social Law Library felt it."

I stared some more.

"The Appeals Court is way up on fifteen, John,
and three of the judges had to be moved off-site—they're doing 
their business now from Middlesex and even Concord District Court via
personal computers and fax machines."

"Nancy."

Now she stared at me.

I said, "Making it longer doesn't make it
better."

"Doesn't make what better?"

"Your story about the fumes."

Her expression hardened.

I ignored it. "Now, what's really going on?"

Her face turned harder still, then cracked in a way
I'd seen only once before. When she'd had to kill someone trying to
kill me.

"Oh, John . . ." She brought her face down
to her hands, and began to shudder. "Jesus Mary, I didn't want
this."

In one motion, I shifted over to the couch and closed
my arms around her. All the muscles felt clenched, and she began
rocking, like her stomach hurt.

"Nance?" I lowered my voice to a whisper.
"Nance, please tell me. Whatever it is."

She kept rocking and began crying. I stroked her back
with my right hand, deeply, almost like a massage. Nancy lifted her
face a notch, glancing at me rather than turning. "I saw my
doctor, and she . . . examined my breast, and she said I ought to go
for a . . . tissue sample."

I felt a little part of me die inside. "When are
you scheduled?"

Now Nancy turned toward me. "It's already
happened. The doctor sent me immediately, this morning right after
the examination."

"And?"

"It'll be a while before we have any results.
She told me she'd try to get the lab to rush it, but then . . ."
A weak smile as Nancy looked away. "I guess she probably says
that to all the women she treats, because we'd all want to know as
soon as possible."

"What else did the doctor say?"

"Oh, she was very good, John, very reassuring.
She asked me if there was any history of breast . . . of it in my
family, and I said no. But, Jesus, back then, I'm not sure I would
have known if one of my aunts ever had something like that. I mean,
nobody talked about it, and my mom sure never mentioned anything
before she died."

I didn't want to interrupt.

"And then the doctor asked me when I first
noticed the lump myself, and I had to tell her, I wasn't sure."
Nancy turned to me. "And she tried, John, she really tried not
to let the look show on her face, the look I try not to show the cops
when I know they've been procedurally stupid in handling a suspect,
and the officer involved begins to realize he or she may have blown
the case."

"Nance-”

"The doctor told me that given my age, it's
probably just a cyst, like I said when you found it. But I could tell
she was doing the same thing I do with the cops, trying to restore
their confidence about testifying—hell, about being cops, about
doing their job, when they have screwed up royally. And then she said
even if there was a problem, it might be just cancer in situ, not
cancer per se."

"What's the difference?"

"The way she described it, cancer in situ is
kind of precancerous."

I said, "Which would be . . . good, right?"

"Not exactly." Nancy looked down at her
hands, moving one then the other, as though she were weighing things
in them. "The traditional treatment for that is mastectomy."

I tried not to react. "What else did the doctor
say?"

“
She wanted to make me feel better about not having
. . . examined myself, that the lump was probably growing there for
years before I would have felt it by self-examination. But I could
tell she was just saying that, the way I talk to the cops."

Nancy's voice grew deeper, slower. "And then I
went down to where they take the biopsy—the tissue sample,
John—with this . . ." She faltered. "And after it was
over, I had to get dressed again and go back to the office and back
to the trial and back in front of the jury, in my nice suit and
two-inch heels. Because that's what the jury expects every female
lawyer to wear, John, high heels, at least if she's still . . . I was
going to say attractive, but . . ."

Nancy dropped her face again into her hands. I said,
"Is that why you wouldn't return my calls?"

She looked up. "What?"

"Is the tissue sample and all the reason why you
wouldn't tell me what was going on?"

A deep breath. "Partly. But mostly it was . . ."
Nancy searched my eyes, curling her lips like someone without their
false teeth in. "John, I know what you went through with Beth."

“
Nance—"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to sound that way.
What I meant was, I knew that you'd been through all this once, and
what it did to you, and I couldn't, I just couldn't tell you that it
might be starting all over again with—"

"Nancy, stop."

She did.

I said, "I don't know much about breast cancer,
but I l did learn something about how you deal with the risk of
cancer in general. You notice what might be a problem, like we did on
Tuesday night, and you get tested, like you I did this morning. And
then you have to wait for the results."

A tentative nod.

I brought my hand up to her cheek, tracing my
fingertips down toward her chin. "And the person who loves you
does the wait with you."

She closed her eyes, the tears starting again,
following after my lingers. "John, you don't understand. They
took this needle, and they had to stick it in—"

"Can I see?"

Nancy opened her eyes.

I said, "Can I see where they did this?"

She shook her head. "Not yet, I'm not . . .
ready."

Okay. "Then how about if I touch but don't
look?"

l Another weak smile. "Give me your hand."

I let her take the left one, as though she were a
palm reader, about to predict my fortune.

Nancy brought my index and middle fingers toward her,
then beneath the robe but outside the turtleneck, before stopping
short. "It's still very tender under the bandage."

"I understand."

"It really hurt, even to have my bra on over
it."

This time I just nodded.

Nancy brought me in contact, I could feel the bandage
as she flinched.

"Sorry," she said, giving my hand back and
shaking her head. "It didn't hurt when you touched it, I was
just afraid it would."

"Tell you what, then."

"What?"

"How about if I go to the kitchen and get that
Alasdair Fraser tape and put it on? Then we might have some wine and
kind of cuddle up here until you fall asleep."

Nancy swiped at her tears, once with the forehand,
then with the back. "I think that would be the bestest couple of
hours I've had in two days."

"It's going to be more than a couple of hours,
Nance."

I took both of her hands in mine. "It's going to
be all night, every night."

"What comes after . . . 'bestest'?"

We both laughed, but as I stood and walked toward the
kitchen, I heard the faint rustling sound of tissues being tom from
their box. And I tried to close the door in my heart on what I
remembered from years before, with the only other woman I'd ever
loved.
 

=15=

While Nancy was in the bathroom the next morning, I
picked up the phone to check with my answering service. No message
from Olga Evorova, but “Mr. Zuppone" had called twice, the
service operator telling me she thought somebody was yelling at him
in the background and did that sound right? When I tried my telephone
tape at the condo, another, or the same, two messages from Primo.
Nothing from Evorova. Again. Same when I called her at work
(voice-mail) and at home (answering machine). After Nancy and I had a
quiet breakfast, talking around the things we'd talked through the
night before, she left for work. Killing time until I figured the
bank would be functioning, I took the Scottish fiddle album from the
cassette player. The music had carried just the right "normality"
echo for us on Nancy's couch, and now reading the quaint titles of
the pieces somehow seemed doubly reassuring.

At 9:00 A.M., I slipped the cassette into my jacket
pocket and tried my client again at the bank. Her very formal
secretary said Ms. Evorova was in conference and could not be
disturbed. When I asked for a transfer to Claude Loiselle, I drew a
very brusque male secretary who said Ms. Loiselle was in conference
and could not be disturbed as well. When I asked the second secretary
if Ms. Loiselle was in conference with Ms. Evorova, I got a firm "I'm
not at liberty to say."

That's when I hung up. Whenever you're waiting for
something, including test results, it's a good idea to do something
else. Nancy had her trial, I had Evorova. If I could see her.

But first, a visit with
someone I didn't have to look for.

* * *

The breeze blowing down her hillside toward the
harbor was warm, that Indian Summer tease still in the air. Carrying
the dozen tulips wrapped in clear plastic, I walked the rows of
stones until I reached hers, the engraving somehow looking less sharp
now, the freeze-thaw of winters rounding the letters of ELIZABETH
MARY DEVLIN CUDDY to the point they truly seemed only a memory.

John, I wasn't. . . expecting you.

"It's been a while, Beth." I went to one
knee, laying the flowers diagonally on the grave. "Mrs. Feeney
had only a couple of roses, but these just arrived."

Tulips in October?

"She said they were from France."

Well, it's her business, she ought to know.

Which was Beth's way of giving me an opening to talk
about my business, if I was ready. Instead, I looked at the harbor.
The low sun slanted off the dark chop, creating a latticework
pattern, the barges and fishing boats and sloops appearing to stand
still as the water flashed around them.

John—

"Nancy's afraid she might have cancer," the
last word not coming out quite right.

A pause.
What kind?

"Breast."

Has she had tests?

"Yes. We're waiting to hear from her doctor."

Another pause.
And in the
meantime?

"I guess I was hoping for some advice."

John, I don't think I learned anything back then
that you didn't learn with me.

I nodded.

So maybe you ought to think about what you already
know.

"How do you mean?”

Remember the first time with us, when we were
waiting for my test results?

"I try not to, actually."

A third pause.
You brought me
a single rose, still closed up like a bud. It pointed to the future.

I cleared my throat. "It didn't point very far."

That wasn't the rose's fault. And it helped.

I nodded some more.

John?

"What?"

Have you ever brought Nancy flowers?

I couldn't recall an occasion when I had, not one.

Why not?

"It was something I did with you, for you. And
nobody else."

John, Nancy is the somebody else now. And she has
been, for more than a while.

Nodding one last time, I
took in the sun and the water and all the stones around Beth before
moving back to the car. Starting the engine, I thought, Mrs. Feeney's
going to believe I'm getting senile.

* * *

I left the Prelude, and a rose for Nancy, in an
illegal space under the still-elevated Central Artery and walked
three blocks to the financial district. The Harborside Bank had its
offices in a building the board of directors would like you to think
they'd hewn themselves from pink, virgin granite. The floors in the
lobby were pink too, but marble, a security/information counter
curving like a scimitar in front of three banks of elevators, each
serving a different twenty floors of the structure. The security
guard pointed toward the last group of them, telling me to get off at
fifty-four to see Ms. Evorova.