Crime of Privilege: A Novel (42 page)

“What do you want?”

“To talk. To ask you some questions. To get some answers.”

He looked wistfully back into his apartment, no doubt wishing he had never come out.
“About?”

“You know what it’s about, Jason. It’s about the night a young girl named Heidi Telford
went to the Gregorys’ compound on Cape Cod to visit Peter Martin and ended up dead.”

I spoke brutally on purpose, letting Jason know there was no escape.

He made an attempt anyway. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Let me help you, then. You sailed the Figawi race. You partied in Hyannis. You and
Paul McFetridge picked up two girls and brought them back to the Gregorys. Once you
got there you took them out to the beach—”

He glanced quickly down the stairs. From below came a deep voice. “I know all about
your sordid past, Jason. Don’t hold anything back on my account.”

Jason looked at me as if it was really my opinion that concerned him. I tried to make
sure my expression did not change one iota.

“You want to come in and have a glass of wine?” he asked.

S
ANCERRE. A PECULIAR CHOICE FOR A MAN LIVING IN BORDEAUX
, since it was my understanding that it came from the Loire Valley, but it was chilled
and it tasted good and so I was grateful.

“Ned and I were just friends,” he began. “We had been in Saint Anthony’s Hall at Trinity
together, and of course everyone knew who he was. Thing that was so amazing about
Ned was that he never put on airs. I mean, certainly Saint A’s was the elite fraternity
at school, had its own part of the campus and everything, but Ned was friends with
everyone. In the spring, just before exams every year, he’d have the whole frat up
to his house for a party, and we had the run of the place. That’s where he learned
I’d been sailing all my life on Long Island Sound, and so he invited me to join in
the Figawi race. After we graduated, I became sort of a regular. I was single, living
in New York, it was a fun thing to do.” He shrugged. He couldn’t help it. Being single,
living in New York. Fun things happened. They followed him around.

Jason sat on the very edge of the couch, bent forward at the waist, giving himself
quick access to his glass whenever he put it down on the marble table that separated
us.

“I got to know the family pretty well, even the Senator, who was incredibly nice.
Thing was, nobody ever asked what you were doing there or acted like you didn’t belong.
Sometimes they didn’t even ask
who you were. And the Senator’s house, the main house, it was like this seaside mansion
where you could do whatever you want. The chairs, the couches, the dining room table,
there wasn’t anyplace where you felt you couldn’t sit down in a bathing suit. And
I don’t want to say it was chaos or anything, but there were always people running
around, going in and out, so, yeah, basically it was an exciting place to be.”

It seemed important to him that I understand that.

“Can you tell me about meeting those girls? Leanne and Patty.”

Jason drank more wine. He finished his glass and poured again. “I might have been
mixed up about my sexuality in those days,” he said.

I didn’t think it was necessary for me to comment.

“I mean, you’re hanging around with the Gregorys, so there’s a lot of macho stuff
going on. And we’d had this race and we’re feeling pretty good and we’re at the big
post-race thingamajig in Hyannis and this girl starts hitting on me. She probably
wasn’t the kind of girl I would have chosen back in the day when I was into that kind
of stuff, but she was good-enough-looking and, basically, she was doing all the work.”

Once again, he seemed to be trying to explain things that were of no consequence to
me. What did I care how he happened to be picked up by Leanne Sullivan? I asked him
about McFetridge.

“Paul was just there. It was like, we were in a tent at this big table, and I think
people recognized the Gregorys. Well, I’m sure they did. And I remember there was
a whole crowd of guys around Cory, and I think she got a little freaked out and wanted
to leave, and Ned, well, he wanted to get back to the house anyway, so he and Cory
took off. And all of a sudden it was just Paul and me and I’ve got this redhead all
over me and she’s got a friend, kind of short and dark, I remember, and Paul said
we should bring them back to the Gregorys’ and have a party there.”

Jason stared into his wine and thought about it, and then told me what he didn’t think.
“I don’t think Paul had any particular interest in the other girl, but she was there,
you know?”

“What was Peter Martin doing?”

“I don’t know.”

It was hard to believe a man staring so intently into his glass. It was even harder
when he emptied the glass in one gulp and then almost immediately filled it again.

“Jason,” I said, “this is the part where you get to save your own life, your own future.
I know Peter met Heidi Telford at the Bon Faire Market that evening and I know she
ended up at the Gregory compound later that night. I have to assume they got together
at the post-race party in Hyannis during the time in between.”

Jason shook his head.

I made things a little more difficult for him. “Heidi Telford was a wholesome-looking
blonde girl with big breasts, wearing a blue dress with red rosettes.”

Jason looked to see if I had anything more to keep him from saying he didn’t remember.

“She was just twenty years old, Jason.”

He stopped looking.

“She came into the tent where you were sitting at the big table.” I was guessing now,
playing his reactions. Even the smallest sign of acquiescence kept me going. “Peter
saw her and jumped up.” Peter had excellent manners. At least in public. “It was only
you and Paul McFetridge and Peter left from your group and now that Heidi was there
you all had girls, so you took them home.”

“Jamie.”

“What?”

“Jamie Gregory was there.”

I had forgotten about Jamie. “Did he pick up a girl?”

Jason took his time answering. He placed his fingers on the base of his wineglass
and then began moving the glass around in small circles, swirling the wine itself
before he took another sip. Letting the wine go all the way down his throat before
he answered. “No,” he said.

No. But he had mentioned Jamie’s name. There was something he wanted me to know.

“Did that cause a problem, Jason?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Then let me make things as clear as I can. Nine years have gone by, and as long as
nobody talked, as long as nobody acknowledged Heidi
was at the Gregorys’, everyone could just deny knowing anything about her death. Only
now the story has cracked. You’re keeping a secret that not everyone else is keeping,
Jason. At this point, I know she was there. I know she got hit over the head with
a golf club and never made it home that night. And I know one more thing, Jason, and
this is the biggest thing of all. I know the Gregorys will not take the blame, no
matter what.”

I saw the color seep out of his face.

“First, they say it didn’t happen. If they have to, they go the next step and say
if it did happen it wasn’t one of their people. Not the family, not the friends, not
the hangers-on. Which one were you, Jason? Being a friend of Ned’s and all, coming
up once a year to go sailing. What do you think happens when they have to go to the
step after that, Jason? Who do you think gets sacrificed?”

Jason’s gaze suddenly went someplace behind me. His features twisted in surprise,
alarm, possibly fear. I pictured big Toby standing in the doorway in his apron and
shorts. I pictured him with a weapon in his hand: a cane, a hammer, a cricket bat.
I debated whether I would look and decided nothing good would come of even acknowledging
he was there.

“It’s not going to be one of the family, Jason, you know that. Which just leaves you,
the two girls, and Paul McFetridge. They can’t blame it on the two girls, that just
wouldn’t make sense. And between you and McFetridge, well, you’re the one who’s in
hiding.”

“I’m not in hiding.”

“The Gregorys would certainly like people to think you are.”

Jason glanced past me again.

“If he’s supposed to be in hiding,” a deep voice asked, “how is it that you managed
to find him?”

I had to answer this time, but I still did not look. “I’ve been searching for months.
There are other people who supposedly have been searching for years. I believe, like
me, they got misdirected.”

A silent message passed between the housemates.

“The misdirection isn’t quite so beneficial to you as you might think,” I told Jason.
I was looking directly at him, compelling him to look at me. “What the Gregorys are
doing is making us think you’ve
run away. Let me ask you this. What would you expect to happen when we’re led to believe
you’re someplace you’re really not?”

Jason lifted one hand and wiped his mouth. “Where do they say I am?”

“Costa Rica.”

“I’ve never even been there.”

“Pretty clever, then.”

Jason must have gotten some sort of sign from Toby, some sort of affirmation, because
he said, “What is it you want from me?”

“Tell me what happened to Heidi Telford.”

“I don’t really know anything, because I was—”

“On the beach.”

Eyes to Toby. Eyes back to me. “I never so much as talked with her. So I don’t see
how I could possibly have anything to say, even if I were put on the witness stand.”

I said nothing and Jason emptied his third glass of wine. He picked up the bottle
and studied it. Then he looked at my glass with apprehension before pouring himself
a fourth.

There was a big sigh behind me. Toby proceeded to walk past us, past me, through the
room in which we were sitting and into the kitchen.

I was slouched in an armchair. I was holding my glass in both hands, holding it by
the bowl because I wasn’t really interested in the Sancerre and didn’t care if it
got warm.

“All I remember,” Jason said, “is that she came with us when we left. She was sitting
in the front seat of Jamie’s Jeep while Pete and Paul and I were jammed in the back.”
He squeezed his shoulders together, demonstrating.

“And the girls?”

“Had their own car. Met us there.”

“But there was no party, is that right?”

Jason drank. “Sometimes it was really kind of hard to say whether there was or not.”
He seemed to be thinking about what he had just said. “I mean, the music was blasting
out the windows and people were going in and out doors and the closest person to being
in charge was
Ned, who didn’t give a damn what anybody else was doing.” He glanced at me, did it
quickly before going back to his wine.

“Because he was with the au pair,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows as if the fact another person had been present gave him new
hope. Another possible suspect.

Ah, yes, I felt like saying. And her motive would be what? Jealousy? But I only asked
if he was aware what Ned was doing.

Jason took a roundabout way of answering. “We get to the house and Paul and I wait
for the girls to arrive, and when they do we take them inside. We’re walking around,
showing them various things—you know the way you do—and we get to the kitchen and
there’s Ned. He’s got his hair slicked back and he’s bare-chested beneath this silk
robe he’s got on, and he’s getting champagne out of the refrigerator.”

Toby returned then, carrying another bottle of Sancerre and a glass for himself, both
of which he carefully set down on the coffee table before dropping into an armchair
of his own. “Do go on, Jason,” he said.

But he didn’t. I had to get him talking again.

“And you knew his wife wasn’t around.”

“She was up in Boston. Some charitable function.”

“So the answer is yes, you did know what he was doing.”

“It was pretty obvious. I mean, it wasn’t just the champagne. He had the silver ice
bucket, two glasses, and he’s just standing there, like ‘Oh, oh.’ ”

“Was anything said?”

“Yeah. Paul said to the girls, ‘Hey, want to go see the beach?’ Which meant: Let’s
get the hell out of here.”

“So you did that, went down the beach.”

“Yeah.” He drank and held out his glass to Toby, who sighed loudly but got up to pour.
“That’s really all I remember.”

“Except you came back to the house eventually.”

“We were down the beach for a while. It was obvious what Paul was intending to do.”

Toby said, “Emmm,” but he was pouring when he said it and maybe he was commenting
on something else.

The question as to what Jason himself intended hung over the marble coffee table.

He ran his fingers up and down the stem of his newly filled glass. “I mean, Leanne
was willing enough, and the other two were pounding away and making all sorts of squishy
noises, but she and I, well, we just sort of cuddled together. And that was all okay,
but then, when they finally got done, Paul and the other girl, well, Paul wanted to
switch partners and that was something I really didn’t want to do, so I acted all,
‘No, I really like Leanne, I’m really serious about her.’ ”

“And that’s when you brought her back to the house.”

“Yeah. All of us went back, because, like, with or without the switch, Paul was done
with his.”

“And what did you see when you got there, Jason?”

He looked at his glass as if it had betrayed him.

“Was Heidi Telford still there, Jason?”

He looked at Toby for help.

I figured it was enough. “And what was she doing?” I asked.

“She was trying to break up a fight between Pete and Jamie.”

“A real fight?”

“It was real enough. They were pushing, shoving, slamming each other into walls. And
there wasn’t much she could do other than yell at them to stop.”

“And you know what they were fighting about?”

Toby and Jason locked eyes. We were sitting in a triangle, with Toby’s and my chairs
pointed at Jason on the couch. But suddenly there was no room for me. I had to turn
and look at the big guy myself.