Crime of Privilege

“Did to who?” she said, her voice dripping with scorn.

“To Heidi.” I was bending forward at the waist, trying to keep my promise to stay behind the crack in the pavement, trying to speak so just she could hear. “Heidi Telford.”

“You think Peter did something to her?”

“I know he did.”

“Peter, the AIDS doctor? That’s what you’re saying?”

“It is, Lexi.”

“Hah.” She laughed a single sharp note, its meaning clear: You, George Becket, are an idiot.

“I know he saw her at the Bon Faire Market. I know they met up at the post-race party in Hya

“I am so out of here,” she said, and this time she did get to her feet. She was already moving when I said, “She was just a young girl, not much older than you were that night. She was young and pretty, like you, and filled with promise, like you, and she was somebody’s daughter, Lexi.”

But not Lexi’s daughter. She was getting into full stride and I had no choice but to follow. “Her parents were waiting for her, Lexi. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? They were just a couple of miles away and she never made it back to them. They could have been there in ten minutes to pick her up if she needed a ride, and instead the next thing they heard was that their child had been tossed onto a golf course like a bag of trash.”

She kept going, her hands white on the handlebar, her feet a blur.

I was moving as fast as she, trying to keep my feet close to the pavement so I did not appear to be ru

“You obviously don’t.” She spoke as we were going up an incline. She was in better condition than I was. She was not breathing half as hard.

“I do, Lexi. I’ve found Paul McFetridge, Jason Stockover, the two girls they brought to the compound that night—”

Lexi braked. She did it so suddenly her kids began to cry and I nearly banged into her from behind. “If you knew so goddamned much, you wouldn’t need me, would you?” she said.

“Look,” I told her, holding my hands wide to show that the near contact had been a mistake, “I know what you’re concerned about. The thing is, if you don’t talk to me, it’s all going to come out. If your husband and his family don’t know already, they will. If your own family doesn’t know, it will. And since it’s the Gregorys, you can be sure they will not let Ned take the blame for having an affair with his babysitter. They will fight back, somehow, some way. And it will be in Star magazine, and Us and People, and it will be on the celebrity television shows, and men and women you never have seen before will be all over you wherever you go. Microphones in your face, taking pictures of your babies, disturbing your neighbors to the point where you might not even be able to stay in your building.”

“Screw you,” Lexi said. Her face was twisted. But she wasn’t moving.

“The only way you can keep that from happening is to help me present a case behind the scenes that is so strong they won’t fight us. We’ll be able to arrange a plea bargain for Peter Martin. He no doubt deserves first-degree murder, but he’ll probably get a deal for second-or even manslaughter. And the most important thing will be that there will be some justice for Heidi Telford and some closure for her family.”

I tried to speak with concern, care, reasonableness, even anguish. But I needn’t have wasted my energy.

“You obviously don’t know shit, Mr. Becket, and I, for one, am not going to help you. Okay? Now leave me alone before I start to scream.”

“Lexi,” I pleaded, “Lexi, I do—”

She was about fifteen yards up the path when she turned her head and shouted, “If you think it was Peter, then you clearly don’t. You schmuck.”

I watched until she disappeared and then I went back to the playground. My driver’s license and district attorney ID had disappeared as well.

2

.

ICALLED BARBARA’S CELL PHONE.

“I’m in New York.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to need some help.”

“What kind of help?” Barbara had not hesitated before. Why now?

“An address, to start with.”

“If I can, I will.” Barbara, my collaborator, coming through again.

“And I’ll need one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You to go there, to the address I want you to give me.”

“Depends on where it is, doesn’t it? I mean, I’ve got the kids—”

“It’s here. In New York.”

“When?”

“Tonight. Tomorrow night. When can you do it?”

“Oh, God. I don’t know, George. I’ve only been back to work a few days.”

“Please, Barbara.” I took a deep breath. I forced myself to say it. “I need you.”

3

.

THE TOWNHOUSE AT THE END OF MORTON STREET WAS MADE OF red brick. Smooth red brick, neatly mortared. A brief walkway led in from the sidewalk to half a dozen concrete steps that rose to a small landing at the base of the front door, which was painted a glossy black and had brass fixtures. The face of the house was protected by a tiny yard filled with ivy plants and fenced off by curling wrought iron that matched the door in color and gloss.

It was dark when I rang the bell. It grew darker while I waited.

Out on the sidewalk, at the base of the railing, a figure in a soiled and ripped synthetic fur coat and a crushed felt hat sat down, hunched over, contemplated the gutter.

I rang again. And waited some more. I knew someone was inside. I could see the lights on the second and third floors. I could hear music.

I once again was wearing the Zegna suit and the red tie because it was all I had brought to New York. I had stayed at The Benjamin in Midtown, and the hotel had done a good job of getting my white shirt laundered, my socks and underwear cleaned—and for pretty much the same price I would have paid to buy them new.

I was about to ring a third time when the door was flung open.

The man who stood there had the long, straight hair that so many of those in his bloodline had, but he was short, like his sister Cory. Lexi Trotter had an army of men in uniform protecting her door; Jamie Gregory not only opened his door himself, but he had come down two or three flights to do it. Come in his blue button-down shirt, his cream-colored slacks, his Gucci shoes with no socks. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

He recognized me.

And that empowered me.

“Heh, heh,” I said. An expression of power.

“It’s not a good day for me,” he said, as if maybe I could come back another time to accuse him of murder.

“You got that right,” I told him.

In Jamie Gregory’s hand was a cocktail glass with a gold rim around its top. The liquor in the glass was floating several solid ice cubes. He dropped his eyes to the cubes and shook them a bit as if they, like me, were not doing what he wanted. “Maybe we could take this up later,” he said.

Something about this encounter was wrong. I asked him why he thought I was there.

“You’re the guy ru

I recognized the music that was playing. Aerosmith. “Dream On.” Any guy my age would recognize it. There was an energy to it, a sense of frenzy that suited the moment.

“No,” I said. “I’m the guy from Palm Beach.”

“Of course you are. From the party at my family’s home.”