Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy Read Online Free PDF Page B

mean."
    "No. Just some vertical spaces between the
questions."
    "Even the simple ones, like MAIDEN NAME and
EDUCATION, that stuff?”
    "Yes."
    A frown. "Gonna make it more than a page."
    "That's okay."
    “ We get paid by the page here, typing and copying
both."
    "I understand."
    "I took a course in school, too, on
public-opinion polling? Lots of people, they won't fill out forms
longer than one page."
    “ I'll risk it."
    "Your call." She
walked toward a desktop computer, a third hank twisting around her
finger.
    * * *
    Carrying the duplicated questionnaires back to my
condo, I put them in a portfolio with some of my business cards. Then
I brought the portfolio and a camera down to my silver Prelude, the
last year of the original model, but still holding up pretty well.
The camera could be hidden nicely under an old newspaper on the
passenger's seat.
    Driving south out of the city, I refined my strategy.
A pretty simple one, actually. Olga Evorova wanted me to investigate
Andrew Dees as discreetly as possible, and that would require a
credible cover story. So, first stop, Hendrix Property Management in
Marshfield, to lay a little ground-work for the story: that I'd been
hired by an undisclosed condo complex to check out potential
management companies for it, Hendrix being on my "shopping
list." After Marshfield, I'd continue on to Plymouth Mills,
interviewing Dees and his neighbors at Plymouth Willows. Ostensibly
about Hendrix, but really using the questionnaires to profile
everybody's background equally, so Dees wouldn't suspect he alone was
my target.
    The more I thought about the cover story, the more I
liked it.
    It took me thirty minutes to reach the Route 128
split. Once on Route 3 toward Cape Cod, the traffic began to thin,
becoming downright manageable by the time I passed Weymouth. Another
nine miles and I saw the exit for Marshfield coming up. I took it,
the ramp dumping me eastbound on a two-lane highway with a third,
middle, lane meant as a temporary sanctuary for left-hand turns. It
was almost twelve, and rather than gamble on when the Hendrix folks
took lunch, I pulled into their parking lot before looking for food
myself.
    The building was beige brick and two stories tall,
the center section of an otherwise one-story strip mall with bakery,
florist, dog groomer, two dentists, and eight or ten others. The
sugary scent from the bakery's ovens made my stomach growl but
probably made the dentists happy. The signs over the doors were all
done in curlicue lettering on wooden plaques, rendering them hard to
read. Maybe that explained why the lot was only a third full, at
least half of those vehicles probably belonging to people working for
the businesses themselves.
    I left my car in one of the slots outside the dog
groomer and went up to a plaque with the Hendrix name on it. Opening
the door, I came into a small reception area with two leatherette
sling chairs flanking a coffee table, the magazines on it a bit
tattered. The indoor-outdoor carpeting was institutional green, the
paneling that stuff you can buy in three-foot sheets and glue to the
studs if a hammer isn't your favorite tool. The desk to the right of
the door was unoccupied, a bodice-ripper romance opened face down at
the halfway point of the paperback book. Other than a phone, pink
message pad, and some pencils, there wasn't much to see.
    Then an inner door opened, and a short woman with
thick calves came through it. About fifty, she wore a simple wool
dress that clung unflatteringly around the thighs. Her hair was
graying, probably naturally, since I didn't think anyone would use
salt-and-pepper dye on theirs. The face was alert but pleasant, like
a career bureaucrat who knows her way around the agency.
    "May I help you?"
    "Ms. Hendrix?"
    "Me . . . ? Oh, no." The pleasant face
treated me to a pleasant smile. "No, I'm Mrs. Jelks. Did you
want to see Mr. Hendrix?"
    "Please. My name's John Cuddy."
    "Will he know what this is in regard to?"
    Awkward, if