Invasion of Privacy

perhaps one or both of the elders suspected, the neighbors didn’t, and probably when you were able to be together at college, you must have thought, ‘Now we can live a little more’... what, Lana, ‘normally’?”
    Still just a stony look.
    “But then that darned roommate of yours. Did she come back to the dorm unexpectedly? I’m guessing it would have been something like that. And you couldn’t explain it away, not what she saw. So, you two had to kill her, but make it look like an accident, a fall. Tell me, Lana, was she the first?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Well, she’s the first I can identify, anyway. So you’re obviously distraught, or putting on a good act of it, and the next time you and the lover come home, the elders maybe have started sounding out the word, and they don’t like what it seems to spell. They confront the both of you, and a second ‘accident’ becomes necessary. Only you have the good sense to realize that another fall, especially two other falls, would look awfully peculiar, so this time it’s a fire, one that nearly takes you too, but for the heroism of your lover.”
    Stepanian’s cheeks flushed, almost as if the flames from that night were in front of her still. “Steven’s parents died—”
    “—in a fire that conveniently wiped out not just the elders, but also all kinds of family photos and potentially embarrassing other stuff that would show the idyllic lovers started life as brother and sister.”
    Her lower lip trembled. “You’re saying crazy things.”
    “I don’t think so, Lana. You and Steven sell the devastated house and lot to sympathetic neighbors, nice little bonus on top of the insurance policies. Combined, a nest egg for the new couple to start a ‘normal’ life in the East, about as far as one can get from Idaho . Big university here, nobody likely to pay much attention to a ‘married’ woman studying Spanish—a good choice of major, too, so she could pass as somebody with Latino roots. Then settling down afterwards, Steven with the more demanding job that might require a background investigation, you content with a simpler career of temping. Shallow maybe, but no risky credentials checks, either. The normal life of a normal couple, something that seems very important to both of you. No children, of course, given concerns of what a union of such close blood might produce. Tell me, Lana, which of you had the operation?”
    A flinch.
    “Even without kids, though, a couple could learn how to—’compensate,’ I think, was the word you used when we first talked. Dedicated School Committee for him, lower-profile condo trustee for her, plus some charity-begins-at-home stuff like helping Kira Elmendorf with her father. Your unit here may have lost a lot of its resale value, ‘trapping’ you at the Willows, but everyday life was so natural, so normal. Until the developer who built this place began to have financial problems.”
    “Yale Quentin committed suicide.”
    “Only by trying to save his little empire through looking into the backgrounds of his original purchasers, to show his bank what solid citizens they all were. Did Quentin come to you directly, or did he just nose around Steven at work?”
    No response.
    “Whichever. You and your husband decide old Yale has to go too, and the ‘scenic overlook’ provides a perfect setting. You probably held your breath for a while after his death, but when nobody kicked the sleeping dog, it was time to relax and get back to normal again. At least until Andrew Dees moved in next door.”
    “Andrew was nothing to us.”
    “But something of a mystery, nonetheless. A loner, the man ran his own business, yet didn’t try to be part of the community toward encouraging customers. He acquired a ladyfriend over the summer, which probably reassured Steven and you somewhat. Even though you were a little leery of Dees , you didn’t see how he was any threat to you, the way your roommate and your parents and even Yale Quentin had been. Then I came on the scene.”
    The lower lip trembled some more.
    “I showed up here with my ‘questionnaire,’ supposedly interested in how the Hendrix company managed Plymouth Willows but asking about things that couldn’t have much to do with the complex itself. Personal questions, even probing ones. I have to tell you, Lana, my little survey wasn’t designed to find out about you and Steven. It was just meant to give me cover for