Crime Of Privilege: A Novel Part 6

Both cops were silent.

"My father argued it," the third-year said. "He is now United States deputy attorney general."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n what your daddy does," said the cop. But it was clear that he did.

"Oh, I concur with that sentiment exactly, Officer. I only mention it because he lives right here in Old Town, and if you will allow me to, I can call him and have him here within just a few minutes so he can give you not only the cite to People v. Baldwin, but he can bring the published opinion, show you where-"

"You're already interfering with our official duties," the cop said. But lights were going on in the homes lining both sides of the street, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the cop swinging his head from one lighted house to another. This was not what he had antic.i.p.ated. He knew even better than we did that anyone could be living in Old Town: Supreme Court justices, cabinet officers, elected officials. It was that kind of place.

The cop got off me altogether, pus.h.i.+ng down with his hand on my shoulder harder than was necessary as he stood up. I stayed where I was and waited to see what would happen next.

"With your permission, Officer," the third-year student said, "I would like to have one of my colleagues attend to Ms. Bettinelli, who appears to be in some danger. My colleague is an Army medic who served in Bosnia." He pointed to a rather dazed-looking fellow with short hair. "And if you would prefer not to have him approach her, then we really should call the EMTs. In fact"-he pulled out a cell phone-"I can do that right now, if you wish."

Roy hesitated. From my position on the ground, the left side of my face in the dirt, what I saw was a pack of drunken law students. Roy must have seen it differently. He said, "You got a medic, send him over."

The dazed guy lurched forward in a relatively straight line, dropped down onto one knee, gently turned Marion's head, and then used his thumb and forefinger to apply pressure to the sides of her mouth to force it open. I was lying right next to him. I didn't see anything but teeth. "There's signs of vomitus," he announced gravely. "She's got to get to a hospital."

"That's where I was taking her," I called out in a sudden wash of inspiration.

"Oh, gosh," said the third-year, and everyone was quiet for a moment as if contemplating the dangerous possibilities of this traffic stop.

"She still has a pulse," shouted the erstwhile medic as if he had done something miraculous to discover it.

"Cyrus," ordered the cop in charge, "see if there's vomit."

Cyrus, who had made it back to the patrol car, returned to Marion, reconnoitered a position where he could get down on his hands and knees and move his head between hers and mine, got down so low his head was on the gra.s.s and his hat fell off, and tried to peer into her mouth. His picture got taken in that posture, too.

"Oh, G.o.d, Cyrus," said the other cop, "sit her up, would you?"

Cyrus and the student each took Marion under the shoulder and twisted her and rolled her until they could hold her torso in some semblance of a right angle to her legs. There was no sign of vomit on her lips, her chin, her sweater, at least none that I could detect. There was, nevertheless, a round of murmurs from the gathering of students. It grew stronger until the cop, perhaps thinking that none of this was going to be worth the effort of filling out forms and making court appearances, not to mention responding to media and department inquiries, gave up. "All right," he said without bothering to look himself, "I'll accept what you're saying. Go. Take her to the hospital. But," he added, straightening up and kicking me with the side of his foot, "this one's not driving."

"No problem," said the intrepid third-year, and within seconds I was bundled, pushed, and folded into the backseat of the Audi, my legs behind the driver's seat, my hips behind the pa.s.senger's seat. The cop leaned in the car then and looked directly into my face as if intent on remembering it. "I understand you got some powerful friends, boy." He waited a beat. "I just want you to know you got some powell-ful enemies, too."

Did he say "Powell-ful"? Did I really hear him say that? I could not be sure, but before I could formulate the question he was gone and the other students were loading Marion into the front seat like a large sack of cement, and then the third-year himself got behind the wheel, strapped himself in, made sure Marion was strapped in, called "Thank you" to the cops and "Bye" to his friends, and wheeled onto the street.

We went a block and a half to Was.h.i.+ngton and turned right, heading for the Parkway. I was too stunned to say anything, and then I noticed our driver trying to catch my eye in the rearview mirror. "How did I do?" he asked.

"Fantastic," I said. I was about to express admiration, grat.i.tude, wonder at what had just taken place, when he derailed me with a laugh and a quick glance into the seat next to him.

I knew it was coming the instant before it happened. There was a movement, then a tumble of dark hair, then one dancing eye peering around the curve of the seat back. "And how did I do?" said Marion.

I LEFT GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON IN MAY AND NEVER RETURNED. I TRANSFERRED to a school in Boston. I had hoped to get into Boston College, but even with a strong letter of recommendation from the Senator, I wasn't able to overcome the D I had gotten in civil procedure.

The school to which I went was fine, and while it may not have had the same prestige as GW, it allowed me the freedom not to fret quite so much about who was watching me, grading me, pulling me over in the middle of the night. Two years later, I graduated, sat for the bar, hung around my mother's house in New Jersey awaiting the results, and when I was sworn in as an attorney I got a call from Chuck, Chuck Larson, telling me to apply to the Cape & Islands district attorney for a job.

CAPE COD, April 2008.

"ANYTHING NEW?"

"You know, Mr. Telford," I said as I watched him climb onto the long-legged chair next to mine, "if you don't stop coming here, I'm going to have to."

I wanted him to know I was not joking. "I like this restaurant, I like sitting at the bar, I like having John mix me a Manhattan. I like, most of all, that I'm not working when I'm here."

Bill Telford kept his eyes on the television as he completed his personal seating arrangement. The Bruins were on, game seven of the first round of the playoffs, and while Mr. Telford dutifully watched, he didn't say anything pithy or knowledgeable, the way a real hockey fan might.

John asked him what he wanted, and he said he would like a nice cup of coffee. This got barely a grunt out of John.

I turned back to my meal, steak tips over rice.

"I didn't hear anything from you," he said.

"I didn't have anything to report."

"I heard you went to see the chief."

I dropped my fork, let it clang against the crockery. The two of us sat there staring at ten men slapping a disk up and down the ice, pausing in their pursuit only long enough to slam one another into the boards and occasionally grab one another by the sweater.

"None of my stuff was there, was it?"

"Mr. Telford, you obviously don't need me. You know everything already."

He got his coffee, turned the mug so that the handle was to the right, and poured in a fair amount of sugar. "Just wanted to confirm it."

"So I was, what, an experiment? A mine canary? If you've got friends in the police department, why don't you just ask one of them if anything's going into the files?"

Mr. Telford stirred his sugar into his coffee, being careful not to let his spoon crack against the sides of his mug. "I wanted you to see for yourself."

"Why?" But I knew I was asking a question to which I probably did not want the answer.

"Because, Mr. Becket, you're a decent guy and my last hope."

He fixed me with his blue-gray eyes and let them linger, even when I looked away. Perhaps he realized a commercial was on the television screen and there was nothing else to capture my attention. I tried focusing on my food, which did not seem as appetizing as it had a few minutes earlier. I decided I was, indeed, going to find a new place for dinner. Maybe I would even start cooking at home. Get microwave meals, sit by myself in front of the television, eat off a tray table.

"Mr. Telford, I'm just someone doing a job, that's all. I've got no pull in the office, no say. I sit in a little dungeon in the bas.e.m.e.nt and I do what I'm told, okay? So if you think I'm your best hope, you might as well forget it."

"You talked Mitch White into letting you look at the file."

"Honest to G.o.d, Mr. Telford, you're so much more on top of things than I am, why don't you just use all these other resources you have, go about your business, and leave me alone?"

Did I say that too loud? Is that why John looked up at me from down the bar?

But Mr. Telford was unperturbed. "My resources," he said, "as you call 'em, are mostly people like me, support people who lived here all their lives doing the jobs that allow other folks to come down and have a good time for a few weeks every year. I want to get a plumber to my place seven o'clock in the morning, I can do that. I want to plant a cactus in my yard, I got no doubt I can get somebody to look the other way. But that only gets me so far. It doesn't get me into the files."

"Both the district attorney and the chief of police know who you are. They know the case isn't solved and the file is still open."

"Sure. They see me coming, they smile and say, 'Hi, Bill,' 'Sure thing, Bill,' 'Get right on it, Bill.' Then they never do anything." He sipped from his mug, put it back on the bar. "Which you just proved."

I tried to go back to watching the game, but he stayed where he was, his head hanging slightly, holding on to the mug handle like a tired swimmer. I finished my drink, pushed my plate forward, signaled to John that I was ready to go.

"I don't know what's been Goin' on in your life, Mr. Becket," he said suddenly. "But I'm willing to bet something has."

"Yeah, the Bruins are getting the c.r.a.p kicked out of them, the Celtics lost last night, and I'm glad baseball is under way so the Red Sox can prove that winning last year's champions.h.i.+p was a total fluke."

"Guy like you," he said, "young, good-looking, talented, you clearly could be doing something more than sitting in the bas.e.m.e.nt of some backwater prosecutor's office."

I thanked him for his observation and he nodded as though my thanks were genuine.

John sidled over. "You done with that meal, Counselor? You want a doggy bag or anything?" I shook my head and made a little check mark in the air. He cut his eyes to Mr. Telford, indicating he knew exactly why I wasn't eating, why I couldn't enjoy my drink and the game in solitude. Guy comes in, orders a coffee, ruins everything for everyone. All that was expressed in one side glance.

Mr. Telford waited until John went back to the kitchen with my plate before he spoke again. "You know, it's funny. My Heidi wanted to do so much with her life and didn't get the chance, and here you are, you got the opportunity to do wonderful things, and what do you do instead? Sit around watching other guys play games on television."

I grimaced. Kept my mouth shut. The guy had lost his daughter.

"Do that much longer," he said, "you won't have any other options. Maybe you could take up fis.h.i.+ng. Stand out on the jetty every night with all those guys, got nothing else to do."

"Look, Mr. Telford, I'm sorry for your loss. I really am. But that doesn't give you the right to track me down, try to make me do what you want by insulting me."

"Why do you suppose none of the tips I been giving Mitch are in the police file? Why do you suppose they never followed up on any of 'em?"

"Maybe it's because the stuff you're giving them isn't really helpful."

"The stuff I'm giving them is about the Gregorys."

That was the moment when I could have left. Should have left. John had emerged from the kitchen and was at the cash register at the end of the bar, totaling me up. I could have gotten off my chair and walked down to where he was, given him my money, gotten out of the restaurant without another word pa.s.sing between Mr. Telford and me. But that is not what I did. Instead, I looked around.

There was an overweight couple a few seats down the bar in the opposite direction from the cash register. Behind us, there was a table occupied by a family and the parents were making a fair amount of noise telling their two kids to sit, be still, stop kicking, eat their french fries.

I looked back at Mr. Telford. His head may have been hanging low, but his eyes were piercing right through me, almost daring me to leave. Go ahead, George, get up and go. Go join Mitch White and Cello DiMasi in whatever circle of h.e.l.l is reserved for those who choose not to do the right thing, who cover up for people who really don't give a d.a.m.n about them.

John appeared in front of me, a slip of paper in his hand. I ordered another Manhattan. John got a funny look on his face, but he took the paper back and went to do what I asked.

"All right, Mr. Telford, tell me what it is you think you've discovered."

"Let me start by asking you something," he said.

He made me look at him. The blue-gray eyes, I saw now, had dark rings around the irises.

"You're a lifeguard," he said, "working Dowses Beach here in Osterville, and you want to grab something on your way home to Hyannis, a snack or whatever. Where you likely to stop?"

How would I know? I wasn't a lifeguard. Except there was really only one way to go from Dowses to Hyannis. Leave the beach parking lot, take East Bay Road to Main. Turn east.

He pointed in that direction. "It's just down the street." We were on Main. "Next corner, really."

I made him tell me.

"The Bon Faire Market."

I knew it, of course. An upscale grocery that had once been a house. Either that or it was so old that it had been built in a day when markets were made to look like houses. If you wanted French cheeses, sculpted cuts of meat, jams that cost nine bucks a jar, fruits and vegetables that looked like works of art, Bon Faire was the place to go.

"Owned by the Ross family," Mr. Telford said. "Nice people, but they know their clientele. You can't blame 'em. They're not going to push the most famous family on the Cape out their doors by talking about them."

My drink came, and with it my revised check. It felt like a secret message: Get out of here, George. Drink up and go before the crazy old man ties you to his car and drags you b.u.mp, b.u.mp, b.u.mp through all the torturous streets and potholed lanes of our precious little seaside community.

"They got fresh-baked cookies, those flavored waters, little energy bars, you name it. So the police check and, sure enough, one of the Ross family girls-Rachel, her name is-had a memory of Heidi going in there on her last day. Thing is, she can't remember anything else." Bill Telford raised his mug to his lips and took a sip. He made a face, which I a.s.sumed was because the coffee was not to his liking. But then he said, "You probably want to know why that's important, Heidi being in there. Well, it's one of those things that only her mother and me would know about, and it took us a long time to put it together."

"You think she met one of the Gregorys in the store."

"Well, by G.o.d, it didn't take you long."

He seemed more put out than appreciative.

"Look," he said, "the Gregorys come down here in the summer, come down from their fancy schools, and they get any girl they want. My daughter and all her friends knew that. Still, it was kind of a thing for them. Good that one of the Gregory boys. .h.i.t on you-bad if you went along with it. Because, you know, the locals knew these kids weren't interested in them in the long run. So we just had a little restriction in our house, same as a lot of other families around here. You can go out, you can date, you don't allow yourself to get picked up by a Gregory." He wanted me to tell him I understood.

What I was tempted to say was that I knew full well what the Gregorys did with pretty girls. What I actually said was, "Because you felt they were only interested in one thing and you didn't want your daughter to be known as one of the girls who gave them that thing."

"It's true," he said indignantly, as if I was arguing with him.

But I wasn't arguing. I was thinking of Kendrick Powell lying on her back, her leg on top of the couch back, while Peter leered over her, his c.o.c.k in his hand. Except I hadn't seen his c.o.c.k, had I? I had seen the red candle, I had seen his fingers, I had seen Jamie's finger disappearing inside her. I s.h.i.+vered and drank quickly to try to hide it.

"This is how we put it together, my wife and me." Mr. Telford wiped his mouth as if smoothing the path for what he was about to say. "That dress Heidi was wearing, it was an Ann Taylor dress. Paid more for it than she ever did for any of her other clothes. It was probably a style she picked up at school, quality without looking too s.e.xy, you know what I mean?"

I didn't know if I did or not. I had not looked at the dress that closely, not thought about it that deeply, didn't know too much about dresses in the first place. My wife, when we were married, kept most of her dresses at her apartment in Boston.

"Thing is," Mr. Telford went on, "what was she doing wearing that dress? Like I told you, it wasn't what she was wearing when she left the house. Second thing, okay, we found some pictures of her when she had worn it before. It had a red belt. Or at least she wore it with a red belt. And red sandals. Accessories, my wife calls them. Both the sandals and the belt are missing. They weren't in the house and the cops never found them. So it makes sense they were in that bag she was carrying when we last saw her. All of it: the dress folded up, the red belt, the red sandals. And she obviously changed someplace outside the house. Question is, why would she?"

It was his turn to look around, look at the fat couple, at the rambunctious kids behind us, at a new group of post-middle-aged, none-too-fit folks who had just come in and taken a table in front of the fireplace. Then he leaned in closer. "This is the part I'm not real comfortable talking about, Mr. Becket. But my daughter was what you call 'well endowed.' You know what I'm saying?"

It was important to him that I understand there was nothing salacious about what he was telling me. It was just a fact to be recognized. Recognized and reckoned with.

I nodded.

"When they found her, she didn't seem to have been s.e.xually molested, but she wasn't wearing a bra. Okay, we look at the pictures, the pictures of when she was wearing the dress before, and she was definitely wearing a bra then. The other thing is, the cloth of the dress, it's good, st.u.r.dy cloth. It's not like you're going to be able to see all the way through it."

"Just enough to see that she's well endowed and not wearing a bra."

He sat back, embarra.s.sed. But this, apparently, was his point.

"Maybe whoever killed her took off the bra."