Crime of Privilege: A Novel (28 page)

He was expecting a reaction to his line, his little joke, and was going to keep looking
until he got one. But then he started to topple over.

I opened the door just as he caught himself and yelled at me to stop. “I used to shoot
fucks like you,” he said, pointing a shaky finger in my direction.

I told him I didn’t want to hear that. I was just there to learn about Leanne Sullivan.

“So you know,” he said, as if we had not just been discussing her. And then he busied
himself holding on to the counter again. He appeared
to be riding waves. “Cutest angel you ever seen. But inside? Inside she’s the fucking
devil.” His voice took off again, soaring until the last syllable was almost deafening.

“Why don’t you come out here with me, Howie?” I figured that was the safer alternative
to me going inside. There were fewer things he could throw if he were outdoors. More
room for me to maneuver. “We’ll sit like we did the other day.”

“Fine,” he said. “And then I’m gonna bust your head open.”

“Fine,” I agreed. “And bring me a beer when you come, will you?”

He said fine to that, too.

I waited until he came out and negotiated a position in one of the broken lounge chairs
before I sat down myself. He did not have Sams this time. Sams were probably too expensive
for the type of binge he was on. He was holding two cans of Miller and I had to pry
one from his hand.

“You know what the worst part is?” he asked, just as if our conversation had not been
interrupted. “Worst part is it makes me feel so fuckin’ old. I never felt so old in
my life.”

“How old’s Leanne?”

“Leanne’s …” He tried to count. “Thirty-three, maybe. But it started before that.
Started like when she was thirty, or gonna be thirty. I think that’s when she felt
she was old. She was old and I was older. She used to like it I was older. She used
to like it I was a big-shot detective.”

“You met her on the investigation?”

“Yeah.”

“Who told you about her?”

“The fat girl.”

“Patty? Patty Afantakis?”

“Yeah.” He managed to get the top of his can open. It was a struggle. It nearly cost
him his seat in the chaise longue.

“How did you find Patty?”

“I was a local cop. You think I’m stupid?” This was not a question to be ignored or
sloughed off.

“No,” I said, and Howard grumped his acceptance.

“I knew about the post-race thingamajig. The girl walks into town,
makes sense she’s Goin’ there, right? But she brings a change of clothes. You know
what I’m sayin’? Why’s she do that? You can wear anything you fuckin’ want to that
party. Some people, you know what? They wear costumes.” He elongated his face, emphasizing
the strangeness of the world in which we live. Then he negotiated the beer can to
his mouth.

I drank from my own can and waited for him to get back on track.

“So she’s got a change of clothes, means she’s expectin’ to go someplace. I can’t
find she got a boyfriend, so I’m castin’ around. Know what I mean?”

It was tiresome to keep reassuring him, but we were getting somewhere and it did not
require much more from me than a nod or a single word of affirmation.

“Who’s at the party? Who’s at the party she might know is gonna be at the party? Huh?”
He drank. “Huh?”

I tried to move things along. “The Gregorys.”

I got rewarded with one finger raised from the hand holding the beer can. “There you
go. They’re the obvious ones. So I go check ’em out. No reason other than that. Go
to the house, talk to the gatekeeper. The security guard, whatever. He’s just a kid.
Knows somebody, so he gets the job. Black kid. Nice kid.”

Howard had gotten distracted. I had to bring him back. “What did you learn?”

“What did I learn? I goes, ‘Was there a party here the other night?’ I’m talkin’ about
a party after the party. Black kid goes, ‘There wasn’t a party, but there was people
here.’ This is early in the investigation, so nobody even knows I’m lookin’ at the
Gregorys. Why not answer the question? Nobody’s told him not to. I mean, all I’m lookin’
for is where did Heidi Telford go? Is it possible she ended up here?”

“And what did he tell you?”

“He gets out this list. Like I said, nobody’s tellin’ him shut up, don’t talk to the
cops. I think all anybody cares about at this point is don’t let nobody know Ned’s
rammin’ the babysitter.”

Once again, Howard Landry stretched his face in a show of amazement.

“Except you didn’t know that at the time, did you?”

The face-stretching ended. “No. I didn’t know nothin’ except here’s something I might
as well go check out. The black kid goes, ‘Here’s the people was here.’ Blah, blah,
blah, and the fat girl.”

“Patty Afantakis.”

“Yeah, got her name and car registration, both. But there was no party. And he don’t
remember seein’ Heidi. Don’t mean she wasn’t there because, look, the Gregory kids
are drivin’ in and out and they don’t keep a record of that. She coulda been in one
of their cars. I mean, this isn’t like Stalag Thirteen or anything. The kids wanna
bring friends in, nobody asks who they are. They’re friends, right?”

I didn’t get the Stalag reference, but I told him right.

“So that’s all I got. Wait, no.” He had to take a long drink before he could continue.
“There were a couple of guys had cars, but they had been there all weekend. The only
car come in and out that night was the fat girl’s.”

“Patty’s.”

“Yeah. So I get the number and I track her down.”

“But you didn’t report this anywhere.”

“Nah. Because all I’m doin’ at this point now is I’m castin’ pearls before swine.”

“What?”

“It’s a sayin’. It’s like … I don’t know, maybe I got the wrong one. I’m just castin’
about. I’m just fishin’, that’s all I’m doin’. Maybe I wanted a trip up to Boston.
What time of year was it?”

“Heidi was killed the end of May.”

“Right. So maybe I wanted to go to a game. The team any good that year? Probably not.
They sucked until ’04. Anyhow, I goes up there, I talk to Patty. At this point, you
know, she’s another one got no reason not to talk to me. Well, she’s got a reason,
it turns out, but she’s willin’ to tell me some stuff. Yeah, her and her friend went
to the Gregorys’ that night. They met these guys, the guys with the cars I was tellin’
you about. Met ’em at the after-race party, and the guys told them there was another
party at the Gregorys’. So they go there and there wasn’t no party, so they left.
That’s what she tells me. Just to be sure, I get her friend’s name, because I can
tell, like, this Patty’s holdin’ back. Holdin’ something back.”

“So you went to see her friend and the friend turns out to be Leanne Sullivan.”

“Best-lookin’ girl you ever seen. Got this red-blond hair, goes all the way down to
her waist. Little freckles on her nose. Body that won’t quit.” He sighed, probably
inadvertently, then started up again. “And she tells me the truth. Her and Patty met
these guys, went to the Gregorys’, had sex with them on the beach, went back up the
house. Just comes right out and admits it. She says there were other people there,
all kinds of commotion, she says. Couple of the Gregory boys were having a fight with
each other, but the guys the girls was with kinda whisked them outta there before
she could learn what that was all about. I show her the picture of Heidi and she can’t
remember one way or another whether she seen her.”

Howard’s beer was gone. He looked at the can regretfully. I gave my own can to him
and he gurgled it for me.

“Thing was,” he said when he was done, which took about two seconds, “thing that was
different was that Leanne was still in touch with the guy she was with.”

“Mr. La-de-da.”

“Yeah, him.” Howard crushed the can. “I mean, it wasn’t him wanted them to leave after
the beach thing. He knew a good thing when he seen it. It was the other guy, wanted
to get rid of the fat girl. So Leanne gives La-de-da her phone number and the fucker
calls her. Wants her to go down to New York to visit him.”

“I thought he lived in Connecticut.”

“She tells me New York,” Howard said, “and I tell her, next time he calls, I’d like
to talk to him.”

He stopped then. He looked at the crushed can and dropped it on the grass next to
his chair.

“And did you?” I prodded. “Talk to him, I mean.”

“Well, first I go back to the Gregorys’, start askin’ questions for real, because
now I know there been at least a couple people at their place that night Heidi Telford
gets killed.”

“Who did you ask?”

“I asked whoever was there, okay? The one with the babysitter, definitely him. And
one other.”

“Could it have been Peter Martin?” I was surprised that my heart raced when I said
the name.

“That little shit.”

“Peter’s a big guy.”

“He’s still a little shit. Mr. La-de-da’s friend, Mr. Ha-ha-ha.”

“He laughed at you?”

“Fuckin’ wise guy. Thinks he’s a fuckin’ duke or something just because he’s a fuckin’
Gregory.”

“But you didn’t put anything in the file about talking to him.”

“Okay, here’s the thing. Ned, that’s the guy with the babysitter, he admits to what
he was doing. Asks me to keep it quiet unless I really have to use it. Obvious reasons,
he says.”

“And you agreed?”

“Well, I talked to the chief. And the chief talked to Mr. Fuckhead, and everybody
said all right, keep it quiet unless you need it. And then, like, nothing else came
up so it went like,
pfft
, under the door.”

“Who’s Mr. Fuckhead?”

“The other guy there.” Howard closed one eye to help him concentrate. He put both
arms on the arms of the lounge chair to ride out some particularly bumpy waves. “The
real D.A., Mr. White.”

All right. So both Mitch and the chief at least knew the lead investigator was talking
to the Gregorys. And both had to know there was nothing in the file about such talks.
Pfft
, as Howard had just said.

“So was this when you stopped writing everything down?”

“Pretty much.”

“Because nobody wanted to get the Gregorys in trouble.”

“That wasn’t really the order. It was more like, don’t put anything in writing unless
you really got something.”

“And you didn’t.”

Howard thought about it. At least that is what I assumed he was doing, because he
was quiet for a long time. “Here was the thing,” he said at last. “By this time, we’re
like weeks afterward, you know? I’d talked to everybody I could. And there still wasn’t
anything tyin’ Heidi Telford to the Gregorys, which is why, I’m guessing, nobody wants
to mess up Ned.”

“Who did you talk to besides Ned and Peter?”

“I don’t know. The girls, I talked to the girls.”

“How about Jason Stockover? Ever get hold of him?”

“Leanne never gave me his number.”

“You were staying in touch with her?”

“Yeah. I was. I mean, it was supposed to be about the case.”

“Only you started having an affair.”

“I …”

“With a witness.”

“… yeah.”

“Were you married?”

“Yeah.” Howard’s mind was drifting and I had a good idea where it was going.

“And you decided to take off together for Hawaii?”

“It wasn’t like that. Look, we both knew it wasn’t a good thing to do and she told
me she was gonna put an end to it, get away as far as she could.”

“And she had enough money to do that?”

“All I know is she did it. Moved to fuckin’ Hawaii.”

“And you followed.”

“Not right away.”

“But you stayed in touch.”

“What she told me was”—his sad face re-formed into an expression that could have passed
for pride—“I should come over and see her.”

I nodded encouragingly, but he wasn’t looking.

“I mean, it wasn’t like things were Goin’ so good between me and my wife. And the
kids, they were outta the house by this time, so this was like, wow, I can go to Hawaii,
say it’s part of an investigation.”

“The chief gave you permission to do that?”

“I told DiMasi I was Goin’ on vacation. Told my wife I was Goin’ on an investigation.
Fucked up, I know. But that’s what I did.”

“And you came here.”

“Nope. Went to Maui, because that’s where she was. Had a great time. Time of my life,
as a matter of fact. And I’m lookin’ around, I’m lookin’ at the fishin’ boats in Lahaina
Harbor, and I’m thinkin’ this’d be
the perfect life.” He stared out at the water in front of us. There were no fishing
boats there. Just rough waves and water that stretched on forever.

“I mean,” he said, “I had a boat back on the Cape. Wasn’t licensed to do fishing charters
or nothing, but I was pretty damn good at it, and I figured if you can fish off the
Cape you can fish anywhere, so I start lookin’ into it. Gotta get a master’s license,
get some time on the water out here, take a course, take a test, but I can do all
that because, what the hell, my retirement’s comin’ up if I want it. See how everything
was coming together?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Only problem was, Maui’s pretty developed by this time. Not exactly in need of any
more mainlanders coming over and cutting into the existing guys’ operations. I tell
all this to Leanne and then I end up Goin’ home without doin’ nothing. Next thing
I know, she’s callin’ me on the phone, tellin’ me all about Kauai, how it’s just perfect
for what I want to do, how she’s gone over and checked it out already, and I’m thinking,
You’re doin’ that for me?” Even telling the story this many years later, Howard Landry
still seemed overwhelmed by the wonder of it all. “I’m thinkin’,” he said, “I’m in
fuckin’ love.”

“Information I have, Howie, is she bought you the boat.”

“Bought me the boat.” The man’s face went back to looking worn and weathered. He made
a spitting sound through his teeth. “Got me to leave everything I had, move here,
and then, boom, all of a sudden it’s Nine-Eleven and there’s no more tourists. Nobody
wants to get on a plane anymore, and I’m out on the water, tryin’ to catch fish, and
this girl I’m livin’ with is stayin’ on shore, runnin’ around with a crowd half my
age. God knows what she’s doin’, because she ain’t working, that’s for sure. Then
one day she just takes off and I’m stuck with the boat, stuck on this fuckin’ island,
stuck with my thumb up my ass.”