Crime of Privilege

“Don’t you?”

The seated man stuck out his hand. In it was my card. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said with just a trace of menace in his voice, “you don’t got an appointment, you can’t see none of the guests. You wa

I wanted to point out the quality of my suit, my tie, even my Bally shoes, but it was not going to get me anywhere. I thanked the man at the desk and said I would be back.

He didn’t seem to care. Neither did the guys in the bandleaders’ garb.

I HAD A PHOTOGRAPH. It was on the Christmas card. It was the Christmas card. A family shot of a mom and dad and what appeared to be twin girls, all of them lying on their stomachs facing the camera, all of them laughing, all of them quite handsome. From what the black-and-white picture showed, Lexi had dark hair, a dark brow, and a slightly rounded face. Only her face, shoulders, and one arm were shown in the picture, and it was not possible to tell how tall she was, but she appeared to be well proportioned. It would, I realized, be best if she came out of the building lying down, the way she was in the picture. Barring that, I would have to watch for a dark-haired, dark-browed, well-built woman in her mid-twenties.

Fair enough, except I had no place to stand at 88th and Park with my Christmas card picture in my hand. The apartment building was on the southwest corner of the intersection, and I particularly did not want to loiter there because one of the doormen had come to the entrance to hold his hands in front of his crotch while he stared at me. I went through a quarter of an hour pretending to make cell phone calls while I waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

I crossed 88th and looked back. I crossed Park and looked back. I had no place to sit on that side of the street, either. There was not even a shop I could go in. I went south across 88th and west across Park, and this time I had a little bit of luck because the doorman was no longer at the entrance. I did the circuit again. My feet were begi

AT 3:00 in the afternoon she emerged from the building. At least I had reason to believe it was her. A dark-haired woman wearing a dark blue sweat suit, white trainers, and a Yankees hat, pushing a double baby stroller. She came out the door, turned left, went to the corner of 88th and turned left again in the direction of Central Park. I caught up with her when she stopped at the traffic light at Madison.

“Hello, Lexi.”

I got no hello in return. She stared at me, tightened her grip on the handle of her carriage, and looked impatiently at the light.

“My name’s George Becket. I’m from the Cape and Islands district attorney’s office in Massachusetts. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

The light turned and she flat-out ran across the intersection. On the other side of Madison she pushed the stroller up onto the sidewalk, looked over her shoulder at me walking after her, and kept on ru

I stayed back a block and watched her run all the way to the sidewalk on the far side of Fifth Avenue, turn north, and keep going. I crossed 88th, mingled with the crowd in front of the Guggenheim Museum and kept my eye on her as she ran to 90th, turned left, and entered Central Park. Then I ran, too: a guy in a suit sprinting along Fifth Avenue.

Enter Central Park at 90th and you come to a road, and on the other side of the road is the reservoir surrounded by a fence and a ru

THERE WAS A CHILDREN’S playground just south of the Metropolitan Museum. She wasn’t there. No one was. I kept following the path until I got to a second playground below 75th Street. That was where I found her, sitting on a park bench in an area where young mothers and older na

I walked up and stood in front of them, halfway between them.

“Lexi,” I said, “can I just show you my identification?”

She was already getting to her feet.

“Here,” I said quickly, “I’ll hand it to your friend here.”

Lexi hesitated just enough for me to get my D.A.’s card and my driver’s license into the other woman’s hands. The woman looked startled, as though I had just handed her a melting ice-cream cone.

“Read them out loud,” I urged.

The woman held up the license, stared at the photo, and said, “All right. It says you’re George Becket. And this other one says you’re an assistant district attorney.” She glanced at Lexi, as though she might not be the person she had assumed her to be, sitting on a park bench with adorable little twins. Not if an assistant D.A. was trying to talk to her. “You want to see?”

“I don’t care about his ID,” Lexi said. But she didn’t flee.

“Look,” I told her. “I’m going to stay back here, behind this crack in the pavement. What is that, about seven or eight feet away? I won’t move in front of it unless you give me permission, okay?”

The other woman did not want my cards in her hand. She was waving them at me. I saw that with my peripheral vision, saw her put them down on the bench next to her, saw her start to stand.

“Please,” I said, holding out my hand toward her, “just for a second.”

Lexi was looking back toward Fifth Avenue, no doubt making escape calculations.

“I just need to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?” she said, her head still turned.

“The night of May twenty-fifth, 1999.”

“Nineteen ninety-nine? I was only eight— Oh, God.” Her eyes sought out mine. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

With that, the woman next to her was gone, racing away with her stroller at arms’ length in front of her.

“Lexi,” I said gently, “I can subpoena you.”

“And I,” she snapped, “can make your life miserable. My father happens to be a very rich man, Mr. Becket. You have no idea what he can do to you.”

“Oh, I think I have an excellent idea what a very rich man can do, Lexi. Especially when his children are involved. I hope this won’t come to that.”

“You should be afraid, you junior shoeshiner.”

It was not an insult I had heard before, but I got its meaning. I also understood she could say it because her anger was as great as her fear.

“I should be afraid. Ned Gregory should be afraid. But most of all, Peter Gregory Martin should be afraid. Don’t you think?”

At the mention of the Gregory names, Lexi’s chin shot up, as though questioning who I was even to mention them. The stroller began moving in and out twice as rapidly as before. “Seriously, do you have any idea who you’re talking about?”

“I’m talking about what happened to Heidi Telford, and I’m almost there, Lexi. I am this close.” I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “I have been practically all over the world, and I know who was at the party that night. I know where Ned was and where his wife wasn’t. I know about the fight between Peter and his cousin Jamie. I know what Peter did to her.”