Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (39 page)

"Thanks.”

I drove southeast, saw the shell of a filling station
with the pump as described, and shortly thereafter a left. No sign,
but I took it.

In the growing darkness, it was hard to make out
numbers, but one soul kept a light on above the doorway of 97, so at
least I knew which side of the street to watch. After a few more
internally lit houses and a vacant lot, I saw 125 and pulled over.
Backing up slowly, I tried to find a number on the home before the
lot. It looked like 117. Which would make the empty space 121, the
address on Lana Stepanian's application and transcript. Not great
news.

Leaving the sedan, I walked up the path to the
house—more a bungalow, really—before the lot. A dog started
barking, and I was almost at the porch steps when my eyes focused
well enough to be sure I'd seen correctly from the car. The numerals
next to the screened door were 1-1-7, no question.

A man's silhouette appeared behind the screen, his
head turning to hush the dog, who stood down to a low, throaty growl.
"Whatever you're selling, we don't need it."

"I'm not selling anything, but I would
appreciate talking with you."

"About what?"

"The vacant lot. Number 121, right?"

"Not for sale."

I moved up to the door, the dog going from the low
growl to a woofing. "I'm not interested in buying, either."

The man, maybe sixty-five or so, with sharp features,
hushed the dog again. "What's your business, then?"

"My name's John Cuddy. I was looking for some
people named Stepanian."

"Oh." He shook
his head, slowly and sadly. "Well, that's too bad. Maybe you'd
best come in, sit a while."

* * *

He'd shaken my hand as Vern Whitt, then bade me take
a chair that wasn't covered by dog hair. In better light, Whitt's own
hair was still sandy, but it didn't change my impression of his age
at the door. He wore a chamois shirt, faded and patched, over
corduroy pants and old hiking boots. His wiry body gave off that
faint, musty odor of a man who doesn't have a woman reminding him to
change his shirt every day. The dog by his side was a mutt, the
German shepherd in him trying hard to push past three or four other
bloodlines.

Whitt said, "Beer?"

"Please."

The living room was small and fitted with a woodstove
that took some kind of pellets stored in a nearby aluminum feed bin,
a big scoop stuck in the center of the pellet mound. The furniture
was sturdy but old, wedding photos from the same vintage on top of
the television and copycat Remington prints covering the walls. The
prints depicted cavalry mounted on chestnuts and roans being ambushed
by war-painted Indians on Appaloosa horses.

Whitt came back with two cans of Hamm's beer, the dog
trailing closely. Giving me one of the cans, my host sat in the
opposite chair, the dog now slumping over the front of his boots.

"Thanks, Mr. Whitt."

"Vern, please. We're both well past being
young."

"Then John, too."

"Al1 right, John, what brings you after the
Stepanians?"

Whitt might be warming up, but the sharp features
discouraged lying. "I'm looking into a disappearance in Boston.
I thought talking to the Stepanians might help."

"Boston." Another slow, sad shake. "I'm
afraid you've come a long way for naught."

“
How do you mean, Vern?"

He sipped his beer. “Nibur and Ellen, they're gone
to g1ory.”

I stopped with the Hamm's halfway to my mouth.

"Dead?"

"Killed by the fire that destroyed their place."
Whitt gestured with his can toward the empty lot. “Next door."

"When?"

"When. Let's see, it was about seven—no, my
Katie was still alive," the beer toward the wedding photos, "so
it's at least ten years ago, maybe eleven. Yes, eleven." He
looked at me. "I lost Katie to a heart attack."

"I'm sorry."

Whitt nudged his dog with the toe of a boot. "We
got Chief Joseph here the year before she died. Katie named him after
the Nez Perce chief who stood off all those cavalry so 1ong." He
gestured toward the prints this time. "Admired that Indian,
Katie did—she always liked it when I said that. 'Katie did,' made
her think of a cricket sound, summer things." He coughed.
"Anyway, Katie named the pup after Chief Joseph, and when she
died, he just followed me around everywhere, like he'd lost track of
her and didn't want the same to happen with me."

Whitt looked toward the wedding shots again. "Don't
think I'm going senile, but somehow the years since she's been gone
kind of, I don't know, run together."

I took a little beer. "You said the fire was
eleven years ago?"

Back to me. "What? Oh, right. Tragedy. Katie was
better friends with Nibur and Ellen than I was, being off working all
the time. But they were fine people, and when the flames took them,
well, we had some money set aside, and Katie said, 'Wouldn't it make
sense to buy their lot rather than see somebody else build on it?' So
we did."

The slow, sad shake. "Hit the daughter real
hard, especially after what happened to her roommate up at the
university."

"The daughter?"

"Yes. She wasn't up there a year I don't
believe, when her roommate died."

I leaned forward. "Died how, Vern?"

"In a fall. Terrible thing. Broken neck, I think
it was."

"Do you remember the roommate's name?"

"No. No, I don't, but it was the brother who
found her."

"The roommate's brother?"

"No. Lana's. Steven was up there too. His senior
year, if I'm remembering the spread right."

I stared at Whitt. "Steven Stepanian is Lana's
brother?"

"And devoted to her, he was. Always taking her
places, even when they were in their early teens, then him coming
home from the university when he was up there and she was still in
high school down here. A nicer pair of youngsters you couldn't have
wanted. Katie and me weren't able to have kids, but I'll tell you
something. I can't imagine being prouder of my own than I was of
them, handling all that tragedy piled one on top of the other."

My voice sounded hollow to me as I said, "Handled
it how, Vern?"

"Well, at Nibur and Ellen's funeral, big brother
looked crushed every time he was alone, but by his sister's side, he
stood tall, arm around her shoulders or holding her hand, just being
strong for her and their parents' sake."

"The children weren't hurt in the fire, then."

"No. I was working the night shift—twelve to
eight for Republic over in Clarkston—but Katie told me all about it
when I got home. She had the good sense to spray the garden hose on
the side of our place nearest them. By the time the fire engines
arrived, the flames next door were shooting a hundred feet in the
air. Started in the kitchen, they figured afterwards, right below the
parents' bedroom. Steven got himself and his sister out in time, but
the parents—well, I guess that was God's plan."

"God's plan?"

"Sparing the younger generation. Letting the
children live while taking Nibur and Ellen."

"And this happened after Lana's roommate died."

A strange look from Whitt. "Yes, like I told
you. Then Katie and I made the offer to Lana and Steven, and you
could tell they were relieved by it."

"Relieved."

"I told them I'd take care of the demolition and
the carting, so they needn't have any worse dreams about the place
than the fire'd already caused. I didn't say that last part out loud,
of course, but Katie did to me." A small smile. " 'Katie
did'—there I go again."

"Vern, what happened after that?"

“
After we bought, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Well, like I said, Katie passed on pretty
suddenly, and that left me—"

"I'm sorry. I meant, what happened with the
Stepanian children."

Whitt scratched his head, which stirred Chief Joseph
some, and his owner reached down and scratched the dog's head too. "I
heard they used the money from the estate to move back east."

"You mean the money you paid for the land?"

"And the insurance on the house, since they
didn't rebuild. I believe Katie also told me once that Nibur and
Ellen had some life insurance on themselves. It'd make sense."

"What would?"

"Well, having the beneficiaries be the children
if the mother and father both died together, right?"

After the parents stumbled
on what they might have suspected themselves but refused to believe,
would have wanted not to believe. The existence of the relationship
that got their daughter's roommate killed in the first place.

* * *

I drove back to Moscow and found the Best Western
University Inn on a main road near its intersection with a street
named "War Bonnet." I checked in and asked the desk clerk
if the restaurant was still serving. He looked at his watch and said
politely that it was, but I might want to hurry.

Inside, I ordered the prime rib, but I don't remember
much else about the meal or the wine I had with it. I do remember
thinking about the Stepanians of Plymouth Willows. How much they
resembled each other in appearance and mannerisms. How determinedly
“normal" Lana projected herself to be the first time we met,
not wanting to seem like a "gossip" about other people's
personal lives. How her answers to my questionnaire were off just
enough to finesse me, including mentioning the developer's bankruptcy
but not his "suicide" or his "background checks"
on the original purchasers. How carefully both Stepanians acted that
second time, telling me only a little bit about the argument coming
from the unit of the man they knew as Andrew Dees. But not nearly
everything about what they must have heard said by the man and the
woman arguing with him. Nor what Lana and Steven might have feared
threatened their "normal" existence, and what they might
have done about it.

After dinner, the polite clerk at the front desk
hailed me. "Mr. Cuddy, did you get one of these?"

A printed, mustard-colored card. "What is it?"
I said. "Just a little survey we do. Don't worry, you can read
it in your room. Have a good evening, now."

My room turned out to be only a few doors down the
corridor. Once inside, I took off my watch, realizing how late it was
back in Boston. I tried Nancy's number, anyway. Her answering machine
clicked on immediately, giving me a chance to leave a message.

"Just calling from Idaho to say I love you."

When she didn't pick up, I hung up. After showering,
I was trying to decide whether to postpone bed long enough to let my
hair dry when I noticed the mustard-colored thing I'd laid on the
night table.
 
It was a WARM &
FUZZY CARD, the management wanting me to share any "great guest
moment" a member of the hotel "team" had created
during my stay. A nice touch from awfully nice people, but the way
things had gone so far in Big Sky Country, I didn't expect to be
completing it.
 

=24=

Outside the United terminal at Logan, Primo Zuppone
said, "Cuddy, you look like shit warmed over."

"Thanks. How about some music?"

He checked all the mirrors of his rented Lincoln as
we moved onto the loop road. "I'm not into music right now, you
don't mind. I'm more into survival. Where the fuck you been?"

"Studying the effects of jet lag."

"What?"

As we took the back way toward the tunnel, and
eventually the city, I told Zuppone about the trip to Idaho and what
I'd discovered.

"You're saying that Ozzie and Harriet turn out
to be . . ." Primo shook his head, as though he were trying to
clear it. "So, it's them?"

"Probably."

"What's with 'probably'? We gotta know for sure,
right?"

"Right."

"Well, how do we do that?"

"I've had seven hours
in the air to think about it."

* * *

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Stepanian?"

"Yes?"

"This is John Cuddy. I interviewed you and your
husband at Plymouth Willows regarding Hendrix Management?"

"Oh. Oh, yes."

"I was wondering if the two of you would be home
tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yes. I have some information that you might
like to hear before anyone else does."

"Information? What kind of—"

"Let's say seven-thirty at your place?"

"I don't know if Steven can—"

"See you then."

I hung up the pay phone outside the grocery store in
East Boston. Thankfully, too, given how much colder the air had
gotten in just the thirty-some hours I'd been away. From the driver's
window of the Lincoln, Primo said, "We set?"