Crime of Privilege: A Novel

by Walter Walker

  “He ran off with one of the people he was investigating in connection with the Telford murder, one of the people who was at the Gregorys’ that night, a young woman named Leanne Sullivan. That’s who got him to take early retirement, move to Hawaii.”

  I was standing in front of Mitch’s desk. Nobody had asked me to sit. Now nobody asked me anything at all. I stuck a hand in my pocket and continued.

  “Then she dumped him,” I said. “Went off to Costa Rica to join up with another one of the people who was at the Gregorys’ when Heidi Telford died. Howard took to the bottle after that.”

  The ruling triumvirate of the Cape & Islands district attorney’s office did not seem pleased by what I was telling them. Even Dick stopped smiling, although he looked as though he might take up the effort again if given even the slightest reason to do so.

  “Who was this other person, the one in Costa Rica?” Reid wanted to know.

  “Jason Stockover.”

  “Do you think he had something to do with Heidi Telford’s death?”

  “I think everyone who was at the Gregorys’ place that night had something to do with Heidi’s death.”

  Now the senior staff all looked at one another. It began with Mitch cutting a glance Reid’s way. Dick looked at Mitch, saw where he was looking, and looked that way, too. Reid, who had gray eyeglasses to match his iron-gray hair, stayed stoic as long as he could and then slid his eyes to Mitch without moving his lenses.

  “You mentioned nine years,” Reid said, speaking to me. “People have been working on this case all that time and you’ve been messing around with it for how long? Three months? Most of it without authority. And now, what, you’re ready to solve it?”

  “Didn’t say that.”

  Reid didn’t like the way I spoke back. His mouth locked up. Then Dick asked kindly, “What did you say, George?”

  “I said there have been a lot of people doing strange things since Heidi Telford’s death.”

  It was hard to tell who was making the little growling noises. Maybe it was me.

  “What I have discovered in my four months, Reid,” I said, correcting him, “is that not only was Heidi Telford at the Senator’s home that night, but so were Jason Stockover; Leanne Sullivan; a guy named Paul McFetridge; a girl named Patty Afantakis, who was a friend of Leanne Sullivan’s; and three of the Gregory kids, Ned, Jamie, and Peter Martin.”

  Mitch spoke up for the first time. “You know some of those people, don’t you, George?”

  I turned my attention back to him, looking at him directly, seeing how far he wanted to go in front of his colleagues. “I know Peter. Jamie a little bit. McFetridge was my college roommate.”

  What I was admitting was not lost on the deputies.

  “And you think,” Dick said, leaning toward me as far as his stomach would allow, trying to divert me from Mitch, “that all these people were involved in Heidi’s murder?”

  “No.”

  Relief showed on Dick’s porcine face. He thought we were ready now to end the discussion, get on to something more pleasant.

  “But I do think, one way or another, they were all involved in hiding the fact that she was there.”

  The smile faded. Dick sat back, defeated.

  “Landry, too?” Reid asked.

  “Don’t know,” I answered. “The information I’ve gotten so far is that Ned headed him off, told him the big secret they were hiding had to do with the au pair. Asked him, in that very Gregory way, if he couldn’t keep it quiet unless he absolutely had to let it out.” I stopped then. I cut myself off before I related the fact that Mitch had been part of the decision to keep it quiet. Mr. Fuckhead, as Landry had called him.

  Maybe Reid didn’t know about Mr. Fuckhead, because he went right ahead and asked, “So Landry agreed? Is that what you’re telling us?”

  I nodded. “And he was rewarded with retirement in paradise with the luscious Leanne.”

  Dick tried to sum it up. He did it by moving his hand around in the air. “You’re saying that the people who were at the Senator’s house that night know how Heidi Telford died, but they threw Detective Landry off the track, and that somehow this Leanne Sullivan was, what, the bait they used?”

  “You got it, Dick.”

  What Dick got was a lot of jiggles in his jowls as he mulled that one over. “But,” he said, and then he said the word a few more times, “you’re not claiming that they killed her? The Gregorys, I mean.”

  I gathered a line was being drawn, at least in Dick’s mind.

  Mitch spoke before I could respond. “The Gregory compound is within walking distance of where Heidi Telford was found,” he said. “Not advisable to walk there in the dark, and it’s probably especially not advisable if you’re an attractive girl in a sexy dress.”

  I was about to argue that it wasn’t all that sexy a dress when I remembered that Heidi had not been wearing a bra. Just like Mitch’s wife had not been wearing a bra. The thought distracted me, made me miss something Mitch was saying. I had to ask him to repeat it.

  My boss looked annoyed. “I said, I understand you may have learned something else the Gregory boys had to hide. Something about how she may have gotten out of the house.”

  Yes, of course, Mitch. You mean what your wife told me about them pushing Heidi through the side gate because she wouldn’t put out for them?

  “It seems,” I said, looking directly at the district attorney so that he would know I was at least partially answering him, “that most of the people who were at the Senator’s house that night paired up: Jason and Leanne, McFetridge and Patty, Ned and the au pair. That left Heidi, Peter, and Jamie.”

  Mitch White waited for me to get to what he wanted.

  “The autopsy showed Heidi had not been sexually molested.” That was Dick, still trying to ride to everyone’s rescue.

  “And maybe,” I said, “that’s the key. Two guys, one girl.”

  No one picked up on it.

  “Peter Martin, that guy’s a doctor now,” Dick said, no doubt giving me one more sign of where this conversation should go.

  “And the other one, Jamie, he’s some big-time Wall Street guy now, isn’t he?” This was Reid’s line. Then his brow clouded. “Bundles up people’s debts or something, then sells them to other investors, something like that.”

  “I heard he’s making a fortune,” said Dick.

  And still nobody responded directly to the prospect I had put in front of them. Finally, however, Mitch sat forward. He actually wheeled his chair to his desk and dropped his forearms on the big ink blotter, a signal that he was about to take a new approach. “Look, George,” he said, “you’ve done good work. But most of what you’re telling us, we knew all along. Not the part about how Landry ended up in Hawaii, but, yes, we had information about Heidi being at the house. The Gregorys have been candid with us. And you’re right, they behaved badly.”

  I didn’t say they behaved badly, you craven piece of shit. That was something Stephanie had said.

  “The kids were drunk and they were feeling their oats and this townie girl willingly came to their house looking for a good time—”

  Townie, that’s a good one, Mitch.

  “And then she wouldn’t play their little game, hide the salami or whatever—”

  Oooh, another good one, Mitch. You must have been listening to a book-on-tape of colloquial expressions.

  “So, yes, they did something they shouldn’t have done. Kicked her out in the middle of the night. Told her to get home any way she could.” Mitch brought his hands together and then opened them until they were shoulder-width apart, the universal sign of resignation, of what-can-you-do? “She was never seen again. They put her in a position of danger, and they feel terrible.”

  Who, I wondered, was talking now? The words were coming out of the district attorney’s mouth, but who had put them there?

  “Let me get this straight, Mitch. You knew Heidi was at the Gregorys’ and you never told her parents?�
�

  Mitch did the hand movement again, closing them and opening them, although he did not spread them so wide this time. “Who knows what Bill would do with it?”

  Like go to the newspapers? I did not say it out loud.

  “Thing was, it wasn’t leading us anywhere,” Reid said. “All right, you make the Gregorys look bad, but it doesn’t get us any closer to the killer. Takes us further away, in fact. There was a whole mile along Sea View Ave. that the killer had to pick her up. Another quarter-mile along that pitch-dark street runs next to the golf course.”

  “West Street, which is really dark,” agreed Dick.

  “Which meant she probably would not have gone down it on her own,” I said.

  “No,” said Reid, “she was probably picked up on Sea View and taken there. We figure once she saw where he was going, she”—he paused long enough to make his own little hand gesture—“jumped out of the car and tried to run away. The killer chased her, hit her with what he had.”

  “Reid, there was no blood on the ground, remember?”

  He was ready for that. “We know she wasn’t killed where they found her. She had grass stains on her knees and clearly had been dragged under the trees, hide her a little bit.”

  “If she was killed somewhere else on the golf course, don’t you think somebody would have found the blood?”

  “Didn’t have to be the golf course,” Dick piped up. “There’s plenty of shoreline along there. Take her to the parking lot at Dowses Beach. It’s just down the road, around the corner. She sees what’s happening, jumps out. He chases her to the water.” Now he demonstrated, clasping his hands and raising both arms over his right shoulder. “Hits her there, it all gets washed away.”

  “There’s nothing in the autopsy report about sand on her feet, Dick.”

  The office’s brain trust went silent. At least a quarter of a minute passed before Reid shook his head and said, “It’s one of the things … no, it’s the thing that’s made this case so damned difficult. We just don’t know anything other than where she ended up.”

  “Hey, guys, she was hit with a golf club. A guy driving around looking for pickups isn’t likely to have a golf club in his car, is he?”

  “Why not?” asked Mitch.

  “Could have had it in his trunk,” Reid said.

  “Or maybe,” I said, taking my hand out of my pocket, stepping a half-step forward and bringing it down so the tip of my index finger hit the surface of the desk, “she was visiting a house famous for its sporting family, a house that was in all likelihood filled with golf clubs, and maybe she angered someone in that house who picked up the first weapon available and hit her with it and then said, ‘My golly, she’s dead, whatever am I going to do with her now?’ And maybe his cousin said, ‘Well, she was hit with a golf club, let’s leave her on a golf course.’ ” I thumped the desk again. “By fucking golly.”

  There was silence again, and again it was Reid who broke it. “We don’t know she was hit with a golf club.”

  The three men were staring at me and I wondered if this was the end of the interview. The interrogation. Whatever it was. And since I was now certain I was about to be fired, I pushed. “Tell me, Reid, Mitch, anybody who has an answer, was there ever a subpoena issued to search the Gregory houses? Even one of their houses? Ever any attempt to check their golf clubs, see if there was any blood or tissue on any of them? See if any was even missing?”

  People in my position were not supposed to talk to people in their positions that way. The moment sizzled, then faded.

  “You done?” Reid asked.

  I nodded. I didn’t put much effort into it.

  “Like we said earlier, the Gregorys have been very candid. They’ve also been very cooperative. Let Detective Landry in their home without a search warrant. Let him look at anything he wanted. You say he got thrown off the track and maybe he did. But after he was off the case, someone else was on it—”

  “Pooch,” Dick interrupted.

  “Detective Iacupucci, that’s right,” Reid agreed. “They gave him free rein, too. Talk to any family member he wants. Look at whatever he wants. The only thing they asked him, the only thing they’ve ever asked any of us, is not to report anything that just gratuitously embarrasses them. If it’s important in the murder investigation, fine. But otherwise, please don’t just say something that’s going to end up on Fox News, being blabbed about endlessly by Rush Limbaugh. And we’ve tried to hold up our end of the bargain, George.”

  “Until I came along, is that what you’re saying?”

  “We’re not saying you’ve done anything wrong, George,” Dick told me. His expression was very sincere.

  “Like Mitch said, the Gregory family feels terrible about this.” Reid tried to sit up even straighter than he had been, which was probably not possible. “They’ve offered to do what they could for the family, offered a scholarship to the other daughter—what’s her name?”

  “Stacey,” said Mitch.

  “Arranged for her to get into UMass, even though she didn’t have the grades.”

  “That’s our alma mater,” said Dick, sliding his hand back and forth between himself and Reid.

  “It was all done as a civic gesture,” said Reid. “She didn’t want to go. But I’m telling you this to show how the Gregorys have let it be known that anything they can do to help the family, they will.”

  “As a civic gesture,” Dick repeated.

  “Concerned members of the community,” Mitch elaborated.

  “Puts us in a difficult position,” Reid said. “I mean, if we have something on them, they have to face the law the same as anyone else. But if we don’t have any direct evidence, if we have only a suspicion, or a rumor, or a funny feeling, well then we need to be careful, don’t we?”

  “More careful with them than others,” I said, goading him.

  “I don’t have to tell you that, George.” And then Reid went on just as if he had not waved a personal flag of any sort at me. “Take Ned. Why, Ned’s running that nonprofit that provides heating oil for free to seniors and indigents. Peter’s treating, what’s he treating, AIDS patients out in San Francisco. Jamie’s handling a lot of serious money for a lot of important people whose philanthropy keeps Cape Cod going. We don’t want to be unmindful of all that.”

  The word hypocrisy was just being rolled into a sentence in my mind when Mitch shocked me with a word of his own, one that changed the whole tenor of the meeting.

  “Except—”

  My mouth was open, but I gave him the chance to finish.

  “None of us wants to be involved in the cover-up of a murder.”

  My mouth stayed open. Only my eyes moved.

  “You’ve done a good job, George,” said Reid. “We’re all very impressed.”

  “Shown a lot of initiative,” said Dick.

  “We’d like to reward that,” said Reid.

  I remained on guard. But I at least closed my mouth.

  “If you really think,” he continued, “that one of the Gregory boys … Peter, Jamie, Ned … killed that girl, then we want you to pursue it. We’ve told you all the reasons we don’t think it’s one of them, but, Lord knows, we haven’t solved the murder doing it our way. So this is what we propose.” He looked to his left. “Mitch, want to tell him?”

  “We’re going to put you in charge of the case. We’ve already told Chief DiMasi, told him to give you complete cooperation. We’ve also decided tentatively to budget one hundred thousand dollars for the investigation. Whether you use it to go to Costa Rica, find these people you’re talking about—who was it?”

  I made no attempt to help him out. I left that to Dick. “Leanne Sullivan and Jason Stockover.”

  “Whatever,” said Mitch. “It’s entirely up to you, but we’re giving you a chance to run your theory to ground.”

  “You want me to go to Costa Rica?”

  “If you think it will provide us some answers.”

  “Because you don�
��t want anybody to say you’re not following up on my leads, is that it?”

  Mitch went a little whiter than he usually was. Which put him about the color of snow.

  “Try not to be nasty, son,” cautioned Reid Cunningham.

  “We thought you’d be grateful,” Dick O’Connor said, his head slowly rotating in disbelief.

  It took a while for anyone to speak again.

  “We’re moving you up to an office next to mine,” Reid said. There was reluctance in his voice, as though, now that I had spoken, he, for one, might change his mind. “You’ll be under my direct supervision, but I don’t plan to stand in your way. The only governor on this whole thing, and this is something you have to accept—”

  He waited, letting me absorb the importance of this provision, perhaps trying to decide if he should even bother going through with it. “… is that there’s to be no publicity. Not until you’ve really got something, and not until you’ve cleared it with me. Understand?”

  I don’t recall agreeing. I just recall standing with my hand still on Mitch’s desk.

  “One more thing,” Dick added. “You’ll need an assistant. We assume you’d like Barbara Belbonnet.”

  This time I was the one who shocked them.

  4.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE MOVING UPSTAIRS?” BARBARA was not even pretending to be happy for me.

  “They’ve got a project they want me to work on.”

  “Let me get this straight.” She rose from her chair and stared at me over her computer screen. She did not look particularly alluring. Of course, she had not known I was coming back today. “Ten days ago you went off to Hawaii because some people planted an idea in your head that Mitch tried to cover up the Telford murder in order to protect the Gregorys.”

  I dumped all the contents of one of my desk drawers into a cardboard box without trying to sort things out.

  “And you didn’t want to see the Gregorys get away with that kind of thing anymore, wasn’t that it?”

  I was surprised to see how many pennies came out of that drawer. Pennies mixed with business cards, pencils, rulers, receipts, unused tax forms, explanations by insurance companies as to why they were denying benefits.