Read Online Invasion of Privacy by Jeremiah Healy - Free Book Online

it’s really easy to prepare and serve meals without being cut off from conversation with Steven in the living room.” She pointed to one door. “Closet.” And another.
    “Half-bath.”
    Then Stepanian led me farther back. “This is the rear deck. I was reading when you rang the bell.”
    Or bong. The deck was wood-planked, about fifteen feet square with a low railing around its perimeter. I could see two webbed lounge chairs, a white resin table between them and a kettle grill with barbecue utensils off to the side. On one of the chairs lay a hardcover Joyce Carol Oates, a bookmark stuck near the end of it.
    Stepanian gestured again. “Every unit has a deck like this, though where the kitchen is kind of dictates which side the sliding glass doors will be on.” My guide turned and took an extra step to pass well away from me. “The second floor is the master bedroom and the guest bedroom.”
    I followed her up the stairs. The catwalk was wider than it appeared from below, though the Stepanians had left it bare except for the carpeting. She opened the door closest to the top of the staircase.
    “Master bedroom.” Big and rectangular, a sloping ceiling toward the back wall. “That door’s the master bath, the other a walk-in closet.” Stepanian came out past me, taking that extra wide step again. At the indentation, she said, “Second bath, and”—beyond to the other door on the catwalk—“guest bedroom, though we use it as a study.” Smaller, square, filled with desktop computer stuff and some peripheral gadgetry. Like the first floor, there wasn’t so much as a knickknack out of place.
    I gave her the extra margin this time as she came out and went down the stairs and around to the kitchen. “This door leads to the basement. Just workspace for Steven and the utility closet.”
    “Washer-dryer?“
    “And the rest of the ‘guts,’ like heating, air-conditioning, and so on.”
    Stepanian brought me back to the living room. “Please, sit down and be comfortable.”
    I took one of the plushy easy chairs, thinking as I sank into its cushions that “plushy” wasn’t quite generous enough. The thing nearly swallowed me, as though there were room for another person underneath the cushions. Stepanian seemed unable to take advantage of her own hospitality, instead perching on the edge of the matching sofa like a seventh-grader attending her first coed dance.
    I unzipped the portfolio and handed a questionnaire to her, putting another on top of the portfolio as a writing surface.
    The clouded look again. “What’s this?”
    “I want to be able to have a consistent interview with each person I visit in each complex, so I figured my working from a form and writing on it would make more sense. That copy’s so you can see what the questions will be, and maybe save us both some time in answering the earlier ones. If you notice anything on there that troubles you, please let me know.”
    She scanned the questionnaire.
    I said, “Okay?”
    Her eyes came up from the paper. “I suppose so.”
    “FULL NAME?”
    “Lana L. Stepanian.”
    “HOMETOWN?”
    “Do you really need that?”
    Stepanian was proving to be good dress rehearsal for using the questionnaire on Andrew Dees. “My clients thought it would help them to judge how people from different parts of the country might view their condo management company.”
    I wasn’t completely convinced myself, but Stepanian said, “ Solvang , California .”
    “Can you spell that for me?”
    “S-O-L-V-A-N-G. It means ‘sunny field’ in Danish.”
    “You’re from Denmark ?”
    A small smile, showing me the smaller teeth. “No. Mexican-American. Solvang is northeast of Santa Barbara .”
    “MAIDEN NAME?”
    “Lopez, with a Z.”
    “EDUCATION?”
    “ Boston University .”
    “SPOUSE?”
    She glanced down at the form. “Steven, as I said. With a V, not a P-H.”
    “And his HOMETOWN?”
    A pause, as though these details seemed increasingly strange to her.