Crime of Privilege: A Novel (41 page)

She wasn’t thinking Duke, whose color was blue, or Delaware, whose team nickname was
the Blue Hens.

“Thing is,” she said, “I know Ned went to college at Trinity and not Dartmouth, so
I figured the
D
must be for Jason’s prep school, and I took a chance and drove out there.” She pointed.
Nice, smooth underarms. “To Deerfield. In the western part of the state.”

I nodded. I knew where it was.

“I went to the school library, examined yearbooks from twenty years ago, around the
time a college classmate of Ned’s would have been there, and was rewarded with a picture
of Jason Stockover, a list of his school activities, and his home address in Cos Cob,
Connecticut.”

“And let me guess, that’s where you went next.”

“Yep.”

Sure, of course. Barbara Belbonnet doing my job better than me. Or maybe
for
me. I still wasn’t sure.

“I got there,” she said, “only to find the Stockovers no longer live at that address.
The family had some sort of falling out, the current owners said, and there was a
divorce. They couldn’t tell me where any of them went.”

“Do you think the school would have a—”

She was way ahead of me. “So I drove back to Deerfield and visited the alumni office.
They were so sorry, but they were not at liberty to give out addresses.” She lilted
the words “at liberty” as if she were imitating the Queen.

“But that didn’t stop you, I assume.”

“No,” she agreed, “it didn’t. I went back to the library, back to Jason’s yearbook.
I had the idea that maybe he was on the sailing team and I could find a picture of
the team, see if I recognized any of his teammates, people I could contact about him.
It was a long shot, I know, but there are only so many races in the northeast, and,
hey, I was at plenty of them.”

“Except you’re older.”

Barbara’s recitation came to a standstill. “I’m thirty-seven, George.”

“Oh.”

“You’re what, thirty-four? You think that’s such a big difference?”

“No.”

“You do, don’t you?” Her chin moved, her hand moved, her leg moved, the corner of
her mouth squeezed shut, and I realized that I had actually hurt her. It seemed like
such a small thing. I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell her that I hadn’t
really noticed a difference, that it was one of a thousand things I hadn’t noticed,
that I hadn’t noticed because my own life was so screwed up, such a mess, such a total
disappointment, that I wasn’t even aware of things that were right in front of me.

But Barbara was not waiting for my explanations. “Ned’s at least two years older than
I am,” she said. “Which means, since Jason was in his class, he’s about two years
older as well.”

“Thirty-nine,” I said unnecessarily.

Was there a wince? It was hard to tell in the midst of my own embarrassment.

“The only problem with my idea was that the school didn’t have a sailing team.”

I told myself there could have been a lot of reasons for her new tone of voice. She
could have been commenting on the incomprehensibility of a landlocked school not having
a sailing team.

“What I found instead,” she continued, “in the listing of activities beneath his yearbook
picture, was that Jason had been a member of the cross-country team, the Outdoor Club,
and the French Club. I asked the librarian about those things, not expecting they
were going to get me anywhere, except, it turns out, Monsieur Weber, the faculty member
responsible for the French Club, is still at the school.”

“Great. That’s great, Barbara.” I may have gone overboard in my enthusiasm.

“That wasn’t the end of my good luck, George. Monsieur Weber is still in touch with
Jason because, it turns out, Jason is actually living in France. In a
bastide
.” She got a shot in on me. “Do you know what a
bastide
is?”

I knew, but I didn’t tell her.

“It’s one of those fortified towns built during the Hundred Years’ War, when France
and England only fought when the soldiers weren’t needed in the fields.”

“Ah.”

“They’re all over the Bordeaux region, and what Monsieur Weber said was, the one where
Jason lives is the most beautiful
bastide
of all.”

A slow smile crept over her lips, enough to make me question whether my punishment
was over. It was a smile of promise, one that invited me to smile along with her.
“So,” she said, as I watched her lips part, her teeth sparkle, her tongue flash, “I
guess it’s no wonder that a guy like Jason Stockover would own a bed-and-breakfast
there. Don’t you think?”

MONFLANQUIN, FRANCE,
September 2008

C
ARTE BLANCHE TO
MONFLANQUIN
.

I still did not know about Barbara. My heart told me to believe everything she said.
My head told me I had to watch out, because she didn’t need me; if Josh David Powell
could employ a woman to stay married to me, the Gregorys could certainly insert a
woman into my office. I was clearly susceptible. The cost of doing something like
that meant nothing to these people. Years meant nothing. I certainly meant nothing,
except as a tool. A pawn.

A denizen of the fourth circle.

Get out of town, George. Go to France.

I didn’t go for any of the reasons she gave me. I went because I had Mitch’s $100,000
to spend. And because I had the time to do it. That is what I told myself.

I
FLEW INTO CHARLES DE GAULLE, TOOK A LONG AND EXPENSIVE
taxi ride into Paris, and boarded a train south to the city of Bour-deaux, where
I rented a Renault with a stick shift and drove east. It was a sunny day, the air
was warm enough to go without a jacket, and I was almost enjoying myself. I stopped
in Saint-Émilion for lunch and drank wine because I was in the heart of one of the
great grape-growing regions of the world and felt I should. The bottle I had was a
merlot from the Médoc region, and I was disappointed. Perhaps I ordered from the wrong
château, or the wrong vintage, or didn’t let it breathe sufficiently. Or maybe I just
was not sophisticated enough to appreciate what I was having, but I did not finish
the bottle.

From there on, however, the drive seemed even prettier and more interesting than it
had before.

I arrived at Monflanquin late in the day. “At” because one gets to the town well before
one gets into the town. It is a walled city built on top of a hill overlooking a broad
valley. I had to find the motor vehicle entrance and then wend my way around and around
until I got to the top, where there was a large open square flanked by homes and shops
and restaurants. For all that, it was surprisingly easy to find my destination on
a side street leading off the square, and, miracle of miracles, a place to park directly
in front of it.

My surprises only grew from there. The address Barbara had given
me was a gray stone building sharing common walls with the buildings on either side
of it and housing not just a bed-and-breakfast but a gift shop on the ground floor.
Inside the gift shop was a large man wearing an apron and shorts. The apron I could
accept. The exposed knees, shins, calves, and ankles were a shock. Then the man greeted
me and I realized he was not French but English, which made the sight a little less
shocking because it is a well-known fact that the English tend to do strange things
when they see the sun.

I must have been dressed peculiarly for the region as well, because the first thing
the bare-legged man did was greet me in my own language. He wanted to know how I was
doing.

I told him I was fine and that I was interested in renting a room for the evening.
He said that I appeared to be an acceptable lodger and it took me a moment to realize
he had made a joke. It took another moment after that to laugh.

Barbara Belbonnet had used her cell phone to take a picture of Jason Stockover’s photograph
in his yearbook. While more than twenty years had passed and the camera image of a
boy in sport coat and tie had not been ideal, this large man making jokes to me was
most definitely not the same person. The boy in the photo had dark wavy hair and rather
delicate features masked by an expression of smugness that promised cheer to those
he liked and misery to those he didn’t. This fellow in front of me not only had a
British accent but a bald head and a wide-open face. The accent could have been affected,
the hair lost, the smugness decimated by the realities of life beyond prep school,
but this man, clearly, had never had delicate features.

“All alone, are you?” He posed the question as if being alone was an exciting thing
to be.

I told him I was.

“Would you happen to have a passport?” he asked, getting out a hardcover register
book and opening it to a page that contained the day’s date and handwritten column
markers that read
nom, adresse
, and
nombre de passeport
. The way he asked, I had the impression that not everybody who stayed there did have
one. Or perhaps he was just being friendly. In any event, I handed mine over. He noted
where it had been
issued. “San Francisco!” he said with genuine enthusiasm. “I have had some adventures
there,
mon ami
, I can tell you that.”

“Yes,” I said, not wanting to know. “Actually, I’m from Boston.”

“Boston.” He was busy writing things down.

“Cape Cod, really.”

“You don’t say. Could I have the address, please?”

I gave it to him. He transcribed and then handed back the passport along with a key
attached to a heavy brass fob that would no doubt rip a hole in my pants pocket if
I tried walking the streets of Monflanquin with it. “Number four, just at the top
of the stairs behind you, two flights up. Need help with your luggage?”

“No, no. I’ve just one bag, and I can handle it.”

“
D’accord
, as the locals say.” He smiled.

I glanced around the shop. Knickknacks, mostly. Some framed vintage photographs and
some paintings that had probably hung on walls for years without being noticed until
their owners died and the estates were liquidated. But there was some fun stuff, too.
Carafes and wineglasses and boards with comical renderings of various aspects of life
in wine country. Posters and coasters and little figures made from pewter or blown
glass. Chess sets with medieval warriors carrying French and English flags. Postcards,
games, scarves, a display of tour books, and a rack of flamboyant sunglasses.

He saw me looking at the sunglasses. “Very Posh Spice, don’t you think?” And I had
to go through various mental synapses to realize he was referring to Victoria Beckham,
formerly of the Spice Girls. “Oh, yes, very much so,” I said, as if I knew what I
was talking about.

I turned to go to the door, to go out to the car for my bag.

“You know,” he said as my hand went to the handle, “my partner spent some time in
the Boston area. Back in the halcyon days of his youth. You’ll have to talk.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “I would like that very much.”

THE PARTNERS LIVED TOGETHER
on the second floor. The door to their apartment was open when I walked past with
my suitcase. A short
hallway led from that open door to a darkened sitting room, where a soccer game was
on television. I could not see who was watching it, but I assumed someone was. I put
down the suitcase and knocked.

“Hello,” I called.

There was movement. A figure appeared at the end of the hallway. A lean man, a little
less than six feet tall in bare feet, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. A man whose hair,
if not wavy, was at least still on his head.

“Yes?” he said. Like the man on the first floor, he did not bother with French.

“Are you the fellow from New England?” I asked.

He came forward, out of the darkness. It was the boy in the prep school yearbook,
two decades along. I felt a surge of elation and held out my hand even before he finished
telling me he was from Connecticut.

“Massachusetts,” I said.

He took my hand. I remember thinking it was not the shake of a sailor. “I went to
school in Massachusetts,” he said.

“Yes, I know.” I did not release my grip.

“Oh, did Toby tell you?” The inquiry was friendly enough. There was no subterfuge
to it. He did not even try to pull his hand away.

I said, “No. I know because I’ve come all the way here looking for you.”

“Me?” He smiled, as though I might be a talent scout.

“I’m George Becket, from the Cape and Islands district attorney’s office.”

The handshake, minimal before, now went as soft as pudding.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and the words came out partly in dejection, partly in alarm.
He tried to step back, but I would not let go of his hand. I wondered if he would
call for Toby. If the big man would come charging up the stairs. If I would end up
grappling with both of them, tumbling around the second floor. Georgie Becket, punching
his way across the Western Hemisphere. You see this scar? Tamarindo, Costa Rica. This
one? Monflanquin, France.

But Jason did not call for Toby and he did not keep up the struggle. He left his hand,
his arm, hanging in my grip as if I were a doctor taking his pulse. “What did I do?”
he said.

“If you want me to guess,” I told him, “I’d say you really didn’t do anything. But
there are those who would like me to think you did.”

He did not respond. He just looked at me with eyes that contained none of the confidence
of the youth in the yearbook photo.

“You are Jason Stockover, aren’t you?”

There was an instant when I did not know what he was going to say or what I was going
to do if he denied it, but then he nodded and I was so relieved I almost hugged him.
I opted for dropping his hand, which immediately went into his front pocket. Both
his hands went into both his front pockets. Because he was wearing jeans, and because
they were fairly tight, he got only his fingers in.