Invasion of Privacy

briefcase, coming out with the rose I’d brought her Friday night.
    “It’s halfway open now,” I said.
    She extended it toward me. “And it looks like we’ll get to see it—and many more—open all the way.”
    I felt a great sloughing deep inside my chest. “The test results.”
    Another nod. “Benign.”
    “Jesus, Nance.” I stood and came around the table.
    She got up as well, and we hugged long and hard for a good twenty seconds.
    Into my neck, Nancy said, “What will Jason think?”
    “No jokes for a minute, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    We broke the hug and sat back in our chairs. A gentle breeze riffled the napkin, but the day’s sunshine was still on it.
    “You picked a good place and a better night, Nance.” I watched two tourists photographing the John Hancock Tower diagonally across from us, the parallelogram skyscraper of aquamarine glass that rises sixty-some stories like an improbable special effect to dominate every long view in Back Bay.
    Nancy caught my look. “It’s gone from eyesore to icon in what, twenty years?”
    I turned back to her. “That’s pretty deep.”
    “I’ve been thinking deep thoughts lately.”
    “How about we postpone them till another day?”
    “That sounds awfully tempting, John Francis Cuddy.” With no indication he’d seen us hugging, Jason brought the Caesar salad, and at some point the entrees, and at some point after that two slices of key lime pie with shredded coconut on top and a dollop of raspberry sauce to either side. It was one of those meals you eat one bite at a time, chewing thoughtfully and actually having an engaging, roving conversation that has nothing to do with work and everything to do with life.
    Then the check arrived and Nancy paid it just as the air temperature dropped at least ten degrees. Only a cold front coming through, now not an omen of anything, and I draped my suit jacket over her shoulders for the six-block walk back to my place.

23

    A t the office that next Tuesday morning, there was a message with my answering service to call Claude Loiselle. I did, but the brusque Craig told me she was at a meeting outside the bank and would call back when she could. After hanging up, I didn’t bother to try Primo Zuppone because he was supposed to be “in the trees” again for another surveillance of the cluster at Plymouth Willows, though I couldn’t tell him what I hoped he’d see. I was about to lose my thoughts in some old paperwork when five envelopes slid through my mail slot and onto the floor.
    Picking them up, I saw that one was from Boston University .
    Three sheets were folded inside. The first page was a BU transcript for Lana Stepanian, the second a form explaining what the grades on the transcript meant. The third sheet was a puzzler, though: an earlier, abbreviated transcript from the University of Idaho , in a town named Moscow , showing that Lana Stepanian had spent a full year there before transferring to BU, where she received her degree, a bachelor’s in Spanish.
    I put the pages down, then pulled my Plymouth Willows questionnaire file to check Stepanian’s form. I’d noted only Boston University for her, husband Steven having the University of Idaho connection. Lana had been vague about his hometown and generally reluctant to discuss a lot of their background, but I was sure that she’d told me they met at a party while she was attending BU. Yet the Idaho transcript showed her as Lana Stepanian, not Lopez, with a mailing address in Cedar Bend, Idaho, not Solvang , California , the hometown she’d given me.
    My telephone rang. “John Cuddy.”
    “Claude Loiselle.”
    “Back from the meeting already?”
    “No. I told Craig to call me on the cellular if he heard from you. But I am a little pressed for time right now.”
    “Understood. Have you been checking on Olga’s ATM activity?”
    “Every few hours. No transactions.” Her voice became hopeful. “Anything from your end?”
    Without identifying Primo, I rapidly summarized what he’d seen at Plymouth Willows, then mentioned Stepanian’s school records.
    Now Loiselle sounded disappointed. “None of that’s much help, is it?”
    “No, but these transcript discrepancies are the only things I’ve found that I can’t explain.”
    “So what are you going to do about them?”
    I told her what I wanted to do.
    “You can’t just call for that?” she said.
    “Remember Olga getting me that check of hers that Andrew Dees endorsed?”
    “Because