Invasion of Privacy

lines next to the questions?”
    “Lines?” I said.
    “Yeah, like for the people to write on. Their answers, I 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 groundwork 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 Hend rix folks took lunch, I pulled into their parking lot before looking for food myself.
    The building was beige brick and two stories tall, the Renter 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 polite. “I’m here about a condominium that’s seeking new management.”
    The smile seemed to waver. “Certainly. Please have a seat, and I’ll see if he’s available.”
    I thought, “Like you hadn’t just left him alone in there,” but kept it to myself.
    She disappeared through the same