Invasion of Privacy

this management cover for longer than that, and here in Marshfield , instead of down in Plymouth Mills. Why?” Hendrix and Kourmanos looked quickly toward Robinette’s profile. Braverman shuffled his feet behind me, the first thing he’d done for a while.
    Leaning back in my chair, I said, “Bet I know why.” Robinette turned around. “All right, let us in on it.”
    “Plymouth Willows was a complex in trouble. Lana Stepanian told me that. Some of the people were pioneers, and others came later, but when the developer went belly up, a real estate trust bailed out the operation, kept it viable. The ‘C.W. Realty Trust,’ only Stepanian didn’t know much about the trust itself because the documents are confidential. The initials stand for ‘Cooperating Witness,’ don’t they?”
    Going green around the gills again, Hendrix started to say something, but Robinette held up her hand, and he swallowed his comment instead.
    I said, “When the developer of the complex had problems, the FDIC had to step in. There’s an auction of properties, and your outfit—another federal agency, but one that needs ‘housing,’ so to speak— raises its hand as the C.W. Realty Trust and buys up all the distressed units you want. At Plymouth Willows, and given Boycie’s operation here, probably elsewhere in the area as well. It’s perfect, really. You send your witnesses, one each, to East Jibib or North Moosejaw, somebody has to babysit them one each as well, or at least drive a few hours to drop in and take their temperatures from time to time. Instead, Ms. Robinette can watch over a whole bunch at Plymouth Willows, and her counterparts the others elsewhere on the South Shore , while Mr. Hendrix sits in his management office here and oversees everything efficiently. The oversight in-eludes hiring superintendents like Paulie Fogerty, somebody who’ll do a fine job of maintaining the grounds but probably not ask awkward questions about the residents. By having the witnesses ‘buy’ their hideouts, they’re more encouraged to stay in them, not walk away from any equity they might have built up. You even had Dees file a homestead exemption on his unit to protect that equity from future creditors. Tell me, Boycie, is that how I could find the other protected witnesses, just by cross-referencing the complexes you manage and the registry of deeds for any homestead exemptions over the last few years?”
    Hendrix looked worse than green. Robinette’s eyes were shooting lightning bolts at me.
    I said, “But for all that to work, somebody like Dees can’t know that other people at Plymouth Willows are in the program too. And that probably means he can’t know that you’re a watcher, am I right?”
    Robinette said, “I really wish you had not stuck your nose into this, Mr. Cuddy.”
    “Ms. Robinette, I don’t give one of your ‘rat’s’ asses about what you wish. You answer my next question, though, and I’ll be out of your hair and not share my thoughts with anybody else.”
    She didn’t like the situation any more than Hendrix had earlier. “What is your question?”
    I’d been remembering how vague Lana Stepanian had seemed about her husband’s hometown, Norman Elmendorf the same about his duty station in the Gulf War. “Is either of the Stepanians in the program?”
    Robinette took a moment to say, “No. They bought at Plymouth Willows before we established there.”
    “Is the same true for the Elmendorfs?”
    “You already had your next question, Mr. Cuddy.”
    “Be generous, Ms. Robinette.”
    It took an effort, but she said, “They are not in the program, either.”
    “Thank you. Now, this last one’s a toss-up question for any team member who wants to take it. What the hell has happened to my client?”
    Nobody answered.
    “All right, I think I believe you.” I stood up slowly. “Where’s my gun?”
    Kourmanos handed me the Chief’s Special and its bullets separately.
    Without reloading, I put the revolver back in the holster. “How about a lift from somebody back to my car at Plymouth Willows?”
    Robinette almost smiled. “I am going that way myself.”

    We’d been riding for maybe five of the twenty minutes to Plymouth Mills when Tángela Robinette said, “This goes in a report, lots of people could be hurt.”
    “My client may already be hurt.”
    “Self-inflicted wound.”
    I looked at her. “That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think?” A glance to me, then, like Primo Zuppone,