Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (29 page)

Robinette said, "Mr. Cuddy—"

"You'd rather have Dees be gone than have it get
out that somebody under your protection was discovered and killed,
because potential witnesses might be less than confident about your
program in the future."

Hendrix smirked, which bothered me, but Robinette
couldn't see him as she spoke. "Mr. Cuddy, the cooperating
witness program is just an option that witness has. If he or she
decides to leave the program, there is not much we can do about it."

"In other words, it's a free country."

Hendrix said, "Exactly."

I looked over to him. "Wrong note, Boycie."

The glare.

I said, "Your smiling just now when I said you
guys were worried about other witnesses finding out. You shouldn't
have found that funny, unless I was a little off the mark."

Hendrix just stared now.

I said, "What am I missing?"

Robinette turned for the door. "I do not see any
purpose in going further with this."

To her back I said, "No, I wasn't being specific
enough, was I? You've been at Plymouth Willows for two years, yet
'Andrew Dees' moved in just over a year ago. Hendrix has this
management cover for longer than that, and here in Marshfield,
instead of down in Plymouth Mills. Why?"

Hendrix and Kourmanos looked quickly toward
Robinette's profile. Braverman shuffled his feet behind me, the first
thing he'd done for a while.

Leaning back in my chair, I said, "Bet I know
why."

Robinette turned around. "All right, let us in
on it."

"Plymouth Willows was a complex in trouble. Lana
Stepanian told me that. Some of the people were pioneers, and others
came later, but when the developer went belly up, a real estate trust
bailed out the operation, kept it viable. The 'C.W. Realty Trust,'
only Stepanian didn't know much about the trust itself because the
documents are confidential. The initials stand for 'Cooperating
Witness,' don't they?"

Going green around the gills again, Hendrix started
to say something, but Robinette held up her hand, and he swallowed
his comment instead.

I said, "When the developer of the complex had
problems, the FDIC had to step in. There's an auction of properties,
and your outfit—another federal agency, but one that needs
'housing,' so to speak—raises its hand as the C.W. Realty Trust and
buys up all the distressed units you want. At Plymouth Willows, and
given Boycie's operation here, probably elsewhere in the area as
well. It's perfect, really. You send your witnesses, one each, to
East Jibib or North Moosejaw, somebody has to babysit them one each
as well, or at least drive a few hours to drop in and take their
temperatures from time to time. Instead, Ms. Robinette can watch over
a whole bunch at Plymouth Willows, and her counterparts the others
elsewhere on the South Shore, while Mr. Hendrix sits in his
management office here and oversees everything efficiently. The
oversight includes hiring superintendents like Paulie Fogerty,
somebody who'll do a fine job of maintaining the grounds but probably
not ask awkward questions about the residents. By having the
witnesses 'buy' their hideouts, they're more encouraged to stay in
them, not walk away from any equity they might have built up. You
even had Dees file a homestead exemption on his unit to protect that
equity from future creditors. Tell me, Boycie, is that how I could
find the other protected witnesses, just by cross-referencing the
complexes you manage and the registry of deeds for any homestead
exemptions over the last few years?"

Hendrix looked worse than green. Robinette's eyes
were shooting lightning bolts at me.

I said, "But for all that to work, somebody like
Dees can't know that other people at Plymouth Willows are in the
program too. And that probably means he can't know that you're a
watcher, am I right?"

Robinette said, "I really wish you had not stuck
your nose into this, Mr. Cuddy."

"Ms. Robinette, I don't give one of your 'rat's'
asses about what you wish. You answer my next question, though, and
I'll be out of your hair and not share my thoughts with anybody
else."

She didn't like the situation any more than Hendrix
had earlier. "What is your question?"

I'd been remembering how vague Lana Stepanian had
seemed about her husband's hometown, Norman Elmendorf the same about
his duty station in the Gulf War. "Is either of the Stepanians
in the program?"

Robinette took a moment to say, "No. They bought
at Plymouth Willows before we established there.”

"Is the same true for the Elmendorfs?"

"You already had your next question, Mr. Cuddy."

"Be generous, Ms. Robinette."

It took an effort, but she said, "They are not
in the program, either."

"Thank you. Now, this last one's a toss-up
question for any team member who wants to take it. What the hell has
happened to my client?"

Nobody answered.

"Al1 right, I think I believe you." I stood
up slowly.

"Where's my gun?"

Kourmanos handed me the Chiefs Special and its
bullets separately.

Without reloading, I put the revolver back in the
holster.

"How about a lift from somebody back to my car
at Plymouth Willows?"

Robinette almost smiled.
"I am going that way myself."

* * *

We'd been riding for maybe five of the twenty minutes
to Plymouth Mills when Tangela Robinette said, "This goes in a
report, lots of people could be hurt."

"My client may already be hurt."

“
Self-inflicted wound."

I looked at her. "That's pretty harsh, don't you
think?"

A glance to me, then, like Primo Zuppone, she checked
all the mirrors before speaking. "If your client believes in
love, she does not hire a private investigator, and you never disturb
the hornets' nest."

"Ms. Robinette, my client told me she was crazy
about Andrew Dees, told me by word and body language both. She's an
intelligent, aware businesswoman. What was she supposed to do, ignore
that her lover seems to have been dropped as an adult from a
spaceship?"

Robinette started to say something, then deflected
herself. "What are you going to do about your client?"

"Try to find her. Or at least, find out what
happened to her."

"You think she is with Dees?"

"On the level?"

"Yes."

"I'm afraid to think."

Robinette glanced over again. "I do not
understand."

"You've been part of the marshals' program long
enough to have had some contact with the mob by now?"

"Some," she said dryly.

"You ever know them to be subtle about the body
of a guy who flipped on them?"

A moment before, "No."

"They make a statement, some splashy kind of
taboo warning to others who might be so inclined."

Some steel came into Robinette's voice again. "We
pronounce it 'voodoo,' Mr. Cuddy."

"Don't get you."

"I am Haitian. You think I missed your 'taboo'
comment?"

"I hadn't thought of it that way."

A third glance.

Looking toward her, I said, "Truly. I was
picturing some old movie, the skull on a stake at the entrance to the
valley. 'Walk no farther'."

" 'Said the savage black native to the civilized
white explorer'."

"If that's the way you want to take it."

Another moment before she said, "I am sorry. You
really were not trying to be insulting, were you?"

"No, I wasn't."

We passed through Plymouth Mills, the sidewalks
downtown as quiet as if someone had rolled them up. Just before the
bridge, I turned to Robinette. "Straight answer to a straight
question?"

"Try it and see."

"You people really don't know whether my client
and this Dees guy hit the silk together, do you?”

"Straight answer: we really do not. And you were
right back there at Boyce's place. We almost do not care. Our job is
to protect the people in the program. As far as we know, Andrew Dees
left it voluntarily, there being no evidence the other way."

"Before they slugged me a couple of hours ago,
Braverman and Kourmanos went through his unit?"

"Yes. Not forensically, of course, but a
thorough search. Some gaps in the closet where clothes would have
hung, and in the bureau, for socks, underwear. No suitcase when I am
sure he had at least one. No wallet, no checkbook."

"You talk to the neighbors?"

"On what grounds? That another neighbor, named
Andrew Dees, who I had little to do with, might not have been around
for a day or so?"

Staying sidesaddle, facing Robinette, I said,
"There're still a few things I don't understand."

"Probably always will be."

"First off, Hendrix is an idiot."

"No comment."

"Why do you put up with him?"

A glance, away from the road but not quite to me. "He
is my superior."

"That's not how it played back in the
interrogation room."

"What do you mean?"

"Everybody—including Hendrix himself—took
their cues from you."

A smile. "We did run a check on you. Military
Police, correct?"

"For a time."

"And overseas. Back then, did you ever notice
how some superior officers yield to others when things are going into
the toilet?"

I saw her point. "Yet, Hendrix still outranks
you."

The smile flew away. "There are statistics on
women serving in the federal law enforcement agencies, Mr. Cuddy. We
have been 'allowed' to be field agents for over twenty years now, but
the FBI is less than ten percent female, ATF less than live percent.
And the Secret Service? Worse than that."

"How about the U.S. Marshals?"

"No comment."

I shifted a little on the seat. "Second thing
bothering me, I don't see you going off to a school concert with
Jamey if you thought a cooperating witness you were watching was in
any kind of jeopardy."

Robinette didn't say anything.

"I also don't see Chief Braverman up in Vermont
failing to get word to his relative on your team that this private
investigator who visited Plymouth Willows, ostensibly to talk about
Hendrix Management, was at Dees' alma mater the next day, obviously
tracing the background of the witness himself and not how well
Boycie's company ran your condo complex."

"We already talked about this back in that
room."

"Yeah, and you nicely brought me off the subject
once I said I was sure Braverman and Kourmanos weren't trailing me.
But that leaves us with a dilemma, don't you think?"

No response, not even a glance.

"The dilemma," I said, "is this. If
you got left out of the loop by Hendrix regarding my trip to Vermont,
then I can see you going off to the concert with Jamey. But I can't
see Boycie not keeping an eye on Dees, using Braverman or Kourmanos
or both."

If Robinette didn't have to move the steering wheel,
you'd have thought her a statue.

"And that says to me that Hendrix made a bad
call, a decision to have Kourmanos and Braverman try to find and
follow me last night."

Robinette spoke very precisely. "They went to
your office, assuming that you would come back there from Vermont.
Then, when you did not, they went to your apartment, but your car was
nowhere in the lot."

Which meant the marshals didn't know about Primo
Zuppone picking me up at my condo building on Thursday night and
taking me to the airport to welcome the Milwaukee contingent.
Kourmanos and Braverman would have missed me at Fairfield Street,
because by the time they got there, I was already over at Nancy's,
and they would have been back in Plymouth Willows by the time Primo
brought Ianella and Cocozzo to my office earlier on Friday.

Which also meant that nobody from the marshals'
service was watching Andrew Dees on Thursday night. And therefore
they couldn't know what happened with or to him after Norman
Elmendorf and the Stepanians heard him arguing with a woman in his
condo and Steven Stepanian saw him loading luggage into Olga
Evorova's orange Porsche.

I turned back toward the dashboard as we came up the
front driveway to the complex and headed for my car. Reaching it,
Robinette stopped, leaving her engine running.

Looking out the windshield, she said, "I am
hoping you meant what you said at Boyce's tonight."

"About?"

"About keeping whatever we have going here at
the Willows to yourself."

"You can count on it. I don't want to see
anybody else get killed."

"You do not know Dees and your client are dead.
In fact, you argued against it."