Crime Of Privilege: A Novel Part 7

Mr. Telford shook his head. "The way that dress was, it didn't make sense. We're back to the part that's hard for me to talk about, Mr. Becket, but it was like, you'd have to peel the dress down from the top, take off the bra, and then pull the dress back up, you know, to get it the way it was when they found her."

I flashed back to Kendrick, to what I had tried to do when I was dressing her.

When I focused again on Mr. Telford, he had both hands on the bar, his fingers folded tightly together. "Look, maybe this is just something that only a parent can feel. But that dress is the clue. The dress and the bra."

"You're saying she put on a dress because she was going someplace she didn't want you to know about. It was a conservative dress, which tells you she thought she was going someplace nice. And she took off her bra because she didn't want whoever she was going to see to think she was too conservative."

"She was twenty years old, Mr. Becket. I see my other daughter, she thinks she's gettin' dressed up when she puts on a denim skirt."

"I'm just trying to make sure I understand the clue you're talking about, Mr. Telford."

"Yeah, you're understanding, all right. More than Mitch White. I give him the photo, tell him the same thing I'm telling you. Ask, 'Who would she do all that for, Mr. White?' He just stares at me."

"And you were trying to tell him she'd do that for the Gregorys."

"Well, they fit the bill perfectly, don't they? And here's one more bit of information for you. That was Memorial Day weekend when it happened. What goes on around here on Memorial Day weekend? That race over to Nantucket. The one they call the Figawi. Who sails in the race? Well, the Gregorys do. Some of 'em, anyhow. And what happens at the end of the race? Parties. Parties on Nantucket, parties here. You're an attractive girl like my daughter, you run into a Gregory, he invites you to a party, you're gonna be sorely tempted, don't you think? Even if your parents wouldn't approve?"

I stared at my drink, wondering if I should finish it off or ask the next question, the one that could get me in a whole lot of trouble. I did both. "I don't suppose you found out which Gregorys were in town that weekend?"

"Their boat's called The Paradox. I found out who was registered as the crew. Six people. Five of 'em guys."

There was no exit now. "You want to tell me who?"

"Ned Gregory was the captain. It was his boat. Crew was Jamie Gregory, girl was Cory Gregory, there was a boy named Jason Stockover, another one named Paul McFetridge, and then there was Peter Gregory Martin."

My Manhattan surged back up from my stomach, got caught in my throat, didn't seem to want to go back down again.

"You know him? Peter Martin? He was the one who was accused of rape down in Florida that time. They never proved anything, but people said the only reason he wasn't prosecuted was because he was a Gregory."

My skin was burning, my chest was constricted, and yet my whole body was so cold I began to shake. I gripped my empty gla.s.s around the stem and held it tight just so the old man could not see my hand rattling.

"I took the names, I give them to Mitch White, give them to Detective Landry. What happens? They go, 'Hmm, hmm. We'll look into it, Mr. Telford.' Never hear anything more. So I do my own work. Start going to Bon Faire on a regular basis. Get to know the Ross girls; they get to know me. They know about Heidi, of course. They ask me what's going on. They're interested, and I can tell they're concerned because, like I said, they're good people. And finally one day I'm in the store alone with Rachel and I ask her, that last day she remembers Heidi being in there, was Peter Martin there, too? And she tells me the truth. She tells me he was."

"Same time?" I surprise myself by getting the words out. They seemed to have escaped through a corner of my mouth.

"Well, she's a little evasive there, but I can tell they were. See, what you gotta understand is that Rachel knows Peter. She probably knows the whole family, but, well, she's a little chunky, so she's probably not on their radar. Anyhow, she's already told the police she can't remember anything else, but now here she is admitting Peter was in the store. And what she's really doing, Mr. Becket, is she's being honest with me while still being loyal to them."

"You told all this to-"

"Yep." Bill Telford drew a five-dollar bill from his wallet. "And now I'm telling you." He slid the bill under his coffee cup, inclined his head in the direction of John the bartender, and said, "That ought to smooth his feathers a little bit." Then he got to his feet, looked up at the television screen, where the Bruins were getting shut out, and said, "Those three guys they got in the trade for Thornton are about as worthless as hazelnuts."

THAT THIRD-YEAR STUDENT WHO HAD SAVED US FROM BEING busted was named Tiel. I never saw his name spelled out, but I a.s.sumed it was T-i-e-l. His father did not live in Old Town and was not deputy attorney general of the United States. There was no Baldwin case, either-at least none that held what Tiel had claimed.

He and Marion had wanted to celebrate what they had managed to pull off. I just wanted to go home. After much protesting, they dropped me at my apartment and continued on to Marion's place, where Tiel proceeded to spend the night with my date.

Marion liked the fact that I wasn't bothered about Tiel sleeping with her. She thought it meant I was kinky. And I thought that was why she called me when she moved to Boston.

She was working for a well-known firm and hating every minute of it. She had heard I was on the Cape and wanted to know if she could come down for the weekend.

Sure, I said. Come on down.

Within a year we were married.

"YES, GEORGE?"

Mitch White seemed put out that I was coming to see him a second time.

I took the seat I wasn't offered and told him that I had looked through the Telford files.

"Make any great discoveries?"

The district attorney almost smiled. At least that is what I think was going on beneath his twitching mustache.

"Only that none of the stuff was there that Bill Telford claims to have turned over."

"What stuff? A picture of his daughter in the dress? Is that what you're talking about?"

"He said he gave it to you."

"Which is why I took it. But Detective Landry and those guys, they already had pictures."

"So what did you do with it?"

"Hey-why are you talking to me like that?" Mitch White's eyes flashed behind his gla.s.ses in a way that was meant to remind me of who he was.

"Just ... the picture was part of a point Mr. Telford was trying to prove."

"What point?" He put his hands under his pectorals and cupped them there. Then he stared.

I looked around Mitch White's office rather than look at the spectacle he was making of himself. I wondered how a man like him could make me feel like such a loser.

The district attorney's hands flew up in the air, extending over his head, compelling me to look back at him. "C'mon, George," he said. "After nine years, that's all he's got? And you think that's good enough for me to what? Convene a grand jury? I'd be the laughingstock of the community."

I didn't tell him he already was. I just said, "Well, I got the impression Mr. Telford had to build up a lot of good faith with the girl in the store, the one who finally told him about Peter Martin being there."

"What, did the girl get jilted by the Gregorys? Is that what's behind this? She couldn't remember before, but now she does?"

"I don't know, Mitch. I'm only asking because Mr. Telford says he's supplied various items to the investigation, and from what I can tell, the files haven't even been opened in years."

"You know what the first thing he wanted us to do was? See who bought golf clubs. Medical examiner says the girl must have gotten hit by a golf club. Okay, n.o.body has any reason to argue with that. So Bill Telford thinks it's a good idea for us to canva.s.s the Cape, get a list of everyone who bought a single club in the thirty days after Heidi's death." Mitch White flung himself around in his chair in agitation. "What, we go to every golf course, Sears, Walmart?"

"We don't have a Walmart."

"Yeah, well, you know what I'm saying. I tell him we can't do it, don't have the manpower. So he comes up with these lists. Says if you're gonna use a club to make the wound Heidi had, it can only be one of these clubs. I forget ... three, four, five irons, I think he figures. Flat heads. Then he says okay, if the person knows about the Wianno course, it's only going to be a nice club, a Ping or something. Then he says, and he's not going to be buying it at a Sears or a Kmart. That's the other place I was trying to think of. So all right, we indulge him. Detective Landry goes to the shops at all the golf courses, private and public, in about a ten-mile radius. And that's a lot, believe me. We come up with a couple of doctors, some university chancellor, the travel editor of The New York Times-"

"Any Gregorys?"

Mitch White stopped talking and went back to staring. After about ten seconds, he seemed to have a revelation. His forehead tilted back, his chin, what there was of it, lifted up. "No," he said. "No, George. There was no evidence of any Gregory buying any golf club that we were able to find."

His expression had lost the agitation, the sense of annoyance, he had shown before.

"So when Bill Telford goes around saying he's handed in all this stuff, the only thing he's really talking about is a picture of his daughter in a blue dress with a red belt, red sandals?"

"That's right, George." It was clear now: Mitch White thought I was putting him through some kind of exercise.

"What about a list of the people on the Gregorys' boat in the Figawi race that year-did he give you that?"

"Oh, yes. He gave us the list." He pumped his head in a show of a.s.surance.

"What did you do with it?"

"It's around somewhere."

"Did you contact any of them? The people on the list, I mean?"

And just that quickly Mitch wasn't sure about the rules of the exercise anymore. If I was asking these questions on behalf of his friends and mine, why didn't I already know whether he had contacted them? He rolled his chair back from his desk, extended his legs out in front of him, put his elbows on the arms of the chair, and folded his hands about chest high as he stared that question at me.

I tried to look back as innocently as I could.

After maybe thirty seconds Mitch began speaking in measured terms. "Look, I'm sorry for Bill Telford and his family, I really am. I'm sorry for all the victims and their families on the Cape and Islands. I hope I can bring the perpetrators of their misery to justice. I hope I can do that every time. But I can't go off on every wild-goose chase every one of them wants me to go on. Bill, he didn't have much for us in the beginning. Didn't understand how his daughter could be dressed like she was. Didn't understand how she could have ended up in Osterville when she was walking into Hyannis. Gave us names and phone numbers of everyone she knew, told us all the places she might have liked to have gone. Even dug out old credit card receipts to show where she'd gone in the past. Police did the best they could and they came up with nothing. They searched for her bag, the clothes she was wearing when she left home, the weapon that was used. Nothing. Unfortunately, crime on the Cape didn't stop with this murder and we've had to deal with other things, too. So, simple fact of the matter is, it became time to move on."

It was unclear whether Mitch was trying to convince me or was rehearsing for someone else. Either way, I was listening dutifully. Seeing that, he opened his hands and flared them, an indication of hopelessness.

"We didn't close the case, but we're tapped out. Something comes up that's viable, fine, we'll look into it. We don't like having a citizen's murder go unsolved. It doesn't look good for us; it doesn't look good for the Cape in general."

Mitch sat up straight, pulled his chair back to the desk so he could make sure that all our attention was focused on each other, that it was just him and me, talking in our private tunnel. "Bill wants to do his own investigation; we're not going to stop him, as long as he doesn't break the law himself. Okay, Bill, let us know if you come up with anything. Years go by. He's out there. He's in here. He's over at the police station. He's got nothing. At some point he comes up with this Gregory theory. Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned! Good G.o.d Gertie! The Gregorys-what a concept! I mean, you know every bit as well as I do, George-"

Here, he paused.

"-the Gregorys are fair game wherever they go. It's the downside of being who they are. So now we've got this poor old guy, can't come up with anything else, so he fastens on them? Gets some poor clerk in a grocery store, nine years ago thought the world was going to be at her feet, now here she is, fifty pounds of brownies later, realizes she's not going anywhere, least of all to a Gregory wedding, and suddenly she remembers something? You know what I'm saying?"

I didn't tell him.

"Okay, well, let's a.s.sume that her sudden restoration of memory is one hundred percent accurate. What have we got? Heidi Telford, young, beautiful, and maybe just becoming aware of her own sensuality, talks to a kid from a famous family, then a couple of hours later sneaks out of the house. Mr. Telford puts it all together and decides she had to be going to a party at the famous family compound. Teases the boys with her b.o.o.bies hanging out-he's not saying that, but you know that's what he means, all that bra talk and stuff. They want the b.o.o.bies, she doesn't give them up, they hit her over the head with a golf club and kill her. You like that story, George? Like it in terms of buying it? Think anybody would? The Gregory boys can get any t.i.tties they want. They don't have to go hitting people over the head. They're done with some girl for whatever reason, they just call a cab, send her packing. h.e.l.l, the worst of them would just open the side gate, tell her to walk home."

He laughed. A little heh, heh. It was a typical Mitch White laugh, with no real humor behind it. He thought this was the kind of thing guys thought was funny. When I didn't laugh, he stopped.

"So you see, George," he said, wiping his mouth uneasily, "I wasn't going to inflict an investigation on them. Certainly not on the basis of what Telford came up with."

I wondered if looking at Mitch White was like looking in a mirror. If that was what made me hate him as much as I did.

I WENT FOR A RIDE. I GOT MY BIKE OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT spring, pumped up the tires, oiled the brakes and the Derailleur, and loaded it onto the rack on the back of my old Saab. I drove east on the Mid-Cape Highway to Exit 9A and turned south. In half a mile I was at the Rail Trail.

This time of year there were hardly any vehicles in the parking lot, and within minutes I had the bike off the rack, my helmet secured, my shoes locked into the pedals, and I was cruising the smooth pavement that covered what had once been a railroad corridor. This was not a hard ride. In fact, it would be difficult to find an easier one, but I could go twenty-two miles to Wellfleet, turn around and ride back, and feel I had a pretty good workout.

I cruised past river swamps, cranberry bogs, an abandoned lumber mill, ponds that would soon be teeming with swimmers and small sailboats. I rode faster and faster because there was virtually n.o.body else on the trail: an inline skater, a woman with a dog, a man with some sort of baby carriage affixed behind his bike.

It was good, I told myself, to be doing something other than thinking. And then I realized that was exactly what I was doing. But I wasn't brooding. No. I was doing something positive. Yes. That's what I was doing. I was preparing myself for something in the future. The Pan-Ma.s.s Challenge, 110 miles from Sturbridge to the Cape Cod Ca.n.a.l the first Sat.u.r.day in August. Preparing meant going forward, and that was good. Go forward, George. That's good. That's good. Keep pumping. Get in shape. Raise money. Children's cancer fund. The Jimmy Fund. Pump your legs, raise money. Forget old man Telford and the Gregorys and Mitch White and your lost wife and anybody else you can think of forgetting.

Except I wasn't really raising money, was I? I was contributing it. I had pledged $2,500 back in January, the minimum for the one-day ride that I was planning to do. Riders were supposed to get sponsors, send out solicitation letters, hit up friends and relatives, but I hadn't done that. I didn't have anybody I thought I could ask. Try my colleagues at work, maybe; make things awkward for everyone, those who gave and those who didn't. The guy in the bas.e.m.e.nt wants me to give him a hundred bucks. Look out for George, he's asking people for money.

How much would I raise? Whatever. It wasn't worth it. If I was going to pay $2,000 of my own money, I might as well pay $2,500. Pump, George, pump.

I was beginning to tire as I reached Nickerson State Park. Drop down. Pa.s.s through the tunnel beneath Route 6A, go back uphill and head toward Orleans Center. It wasn't much of a hill. I pushed myself harder. Go faster, George. What are you saving yourself for?

Guy my age ought to have friends he could call on. I had dozens of friends in college. A whole fraternity full of friends.

And I hadn't seen a single one of them in twelve years.

I STILL HAD THE TELEPHONE NUMBER OF THE APARTMENT IN New York City.

When I called, a woman made the word "h.e.l.lo" last about three seconds.

I told her who I was and she made the silence last even longer.

I told her that I was Paul's roommate at Penn.