Invasion of Privacy

remember you.”
    “And you’re Fi, right?” I grinned at her. “Short for Filomena.”
    “You upset Andrew very much.”
    “Not intentionally. I think you’ll remember that too.” Filomena didn’t reply.
    I said, “I’d really like to speak with him.”
    “He’s not here.”
    I looked down to the telephone she’d used on my first visit. No buttons were lit. “Any idea how I can reach him?”
    Filomena chewed on the inside of her cheek. “What’s going on?”
    “Like I told Mr. Dees the last—”
    “I mean, what’s really going on?” in a rising voice. “You upset Andrew more than I’ve ever seen, and he stayed that way until …“
    “Until when, Fi?”
    More chewing on the cheek. “I wish I knew whether to trust you.”
    “I don’t know what I can say to persuade you. Trust is something you feel. Or don’t feel.”
    Finally the gracious smile. “You remind me of my husband, a little.”
    “The one from the service, that you met in the Philippines .”
    Filomena nodded. “He says I’m crazy, but Andrew’s been so nice to me for so long, I can’t just leave the place closed up.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I haven’t seen Andrew since noontime yesterday. I had to ferry the kids around early this morning, but when I got here, instead of relieving him, it didn’t look as though the place had been opened up yet.” She gestured in different directions. “The cash register, the answering machine, even the lights.”
    “Any messages on the machine?”
    “Just a couple of the regulars, asking if we could do rush orders or special jobs—the usual, you know? But then the same thing today—follow-up calls, like Andrew hadn’t been here yesterday afternoon? And a couple other customers stopped in during the last few hours, asking if he was sick or something because they came by earlier and we looked closed up.”
    “You tried calling him?”
    “At home, you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    “I tried, but no answer.” Filomena gestured again, this time hopelessly.
    “Tell you what,” I said. “How about if I take a rim over to Plymouth Willows, see if I can get anything from his neighbors?”
    The gracious smile. “Thanks.”
    “And by the way, I don’t think you’re crazy.”
    “Huh?”
    “For trying to help Mr. Dees here.”
    The smile got a little braver. “I’ll tell my husband.”

    Heading south on Main Street, I crossed over the bridge, making the first right after the scenic overlook on the left. The sign Paulie Fogerty had been replacing now hung from its post at the front driveway for Plymouth Willows, and I turned into it.
    Cruising the access road, I checked the clusters of town-houses in each leaf of the shamrock circuit. No brown Corolla hatchback, no orange Porsche 911.1 did pass Fogerty near the tennis courts, still wearing the faded green maintenance outfit. He was on his hands and knees, carefully weeding around a lightpole. The rest of the grounds looked as good as they had two days earlier.
    Parking in front of the yellow-trimmed cluster, I went up the path to the townhouse second from the end and pushed the buzzer over DEES . I heard the “bong” inside, but nobody came to the door. I tried again. Still nothing.
    I considered the possibility of slipping around back and forcing the sliding glass door, but I didn’t want to surprise a neighbor lounging on his or her rear deck in the late afternoon sunshine. I also thought I might get a little more mileage from my cover story, maybe enough to find out when the last time was that anybody had seen Andrew Dees.

    “Yes?”
    The man standing behind the opened door of the last unit on the left was Steven Stepanian, who looked even more like his wife in real life than he had in the photo she’d shown me. Tall and lanky, he wore gray slacks and a conservative tie with a short-sleeved dress shirt that revealed long, hairy forearms.
    “Mr. Stepanian, my name’s John Cuddy. I spoke with your wife on Wednesday?”
    A brooding expression, and I remembered thinking from the portrait that he might not smile much. “Well, she’s upstairs getting dressed. We’re due at a school committee meeting shortly.”
    “This won’t take long, and maybe you can help me.” Stepanian seemed to weigh something, then said, “All right, but just a few minutes.”
    He let me in, then closed the front door and moved to the living room. “Dear?”
    A muted voice from the second level. “Almost ready,