Crime of Privilege

The triumvirate were still in the office when I arrived: Mitch in his short-sleeved shirt, Dick with his belly hanging over his belt, Reid with his steel-gray eyeglasses. None of them was concerned with my physical or mental well-being. But they very much wanted to hear what I had to say. I did what I had tried and failed to do in New York, laid out the entire case against Jamie, laid it out painstakingly, starting in Palm Beach. Dick showed shock. Mitch looked uncomfortable. Reid was impassive.

“According to New York,” Reid said when I was done, “they contacted Mr. Powell in Delaware and he claims not only to have never employed a Roland Andrews but never to have heard of him. NYPD says they have searched databases for the entire country and can come up with no one by that name who fits your description.” He picked up a piece of paper, what appeared to be a faxed letter. “They tell me,” he said, holding it by its corner, letting it swing back and forth between us, “there is no record of a Roland Andrews ever serving in the Special Forces.”

“Check the fingerprints on the gun,” I urged. “Andrews had to have served in some branch of the armed forces. There ought to be a match somewhere.”

“There were no prints on the gun,” Reid said. He did not act surprised or even disappointed.

“We think,” said Dick O’Co

When I didn’t say anything, he went further. “Big collapse on Wall Street yesterday. A lot of angry people out there. People who lost everything.”

I looked at the others. Reid appeared to be nodding, although with such economy of movement it was hard to tell. Mitch was neither speaking nor moving. He was just staring.

2

.

IT WAS DECIDED I WOULD TAKE A LEAVE OF ABSENCE, WITH PAY. There would be no explanation and, I was told, if I was smart I wouldn’t offer one myself. “Let the New York cops continue their investigation,” said Reid. “They haven’t disclosed your identity in any way. Leave it at that. The alternative, you know, the alternative is they parade you in front of the bimbo, let her identify you.”

When I pointed out that it had been my job to find the killer of Heidi Telford and that I had done just that, Dick O’Co

He shrugged helplessly. “Which means, all we’ve got is you.”

“And,” added Reid, “you’re tainted.”

3

.

IWENT HOME AND I WAITED. I WASN’T SURE FOR WHAT.

Every day I listened to the radio: the local Cape stations, WBZ in Boston, NPR. The airwaves were filled with talk about the economic crisis. Every day I read The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Cape Cod Times. There were articles about Jamie’s death, about the funeral, about his family. There continued to be speculation about the co

Every day I got out my bike and rode as far as I could, for as long as I could.

I HAD A CALL from Barbara. She wanted to know how I was doing.

She also wanted to tell me that with my office door closed and locked, there were rumors flying around the office about where I was and what was happening to me. Sean Murphy, she said, was telling people it was not just a coincidence that I had disappeared on the very day Jamie Gregory was shot.

I hung up with Barbara and immediately called Dick O’Co

THE RESULTS OF the autopsy were released. It turned out Darra Lane had done me an enormous favor. In her press conference, in her stories to the police, on television and in magazines, she had insisted that a man in a suit had shot Jamie Gregory from just a couple of feet away. The autopsy confirmed that Jamie had been shot from a distance, at least twenty-five feet, said the coroner, who commented that it was a rather remarkable feat of marksmanship for a nine-millimeter pistol. The shooter must have been well trained, he said.

I waited for a call from Dick. It didn’t come. I tried calling him. He wasn’t available. His secretary said he would call me back. He didn’t.

I placed three more calls: one to Dick, one to Reid, one to Mitch. Nobody took them.

4

.

IRODE MY BIKE ALL THE WAY TO PROVINCETOWN. I HAD NOT MEANT to go that far. I had ridden the Rail Trail, taken the Chatham route, then continued on through Orleans until I got to the roundabout that marked the transition from Mid-Cape to Lower Cape. I could have gone one hundred eighty degrees around the rotary, then on to Rock Harbor, where I could have stopped and looked at the fishing boats, maybe bought a lobster roll at a place called Cap’t Cass on the edge of the Harbor parking lot, then gotten back on the Brewster leg of the Rail Trail and returned to my car in De

It was almost dark when I got to the end of the continent. I wasn’t going to be able to ride back. I didn’t have a light, didn’t even have a windbreaker, and it was getting cold. I booked a room at a motel at the far end of town, out on a jetty, the very edge of the world.

IT WAS FOGGY WHEN I got up in the morning, and still cold. I had walked partway along Commercial Street the night before, looking for something to eat. I had gotten some catcalls from men who had enjoyed my spandex outfit, and now I was going to have to make the walk again if I wanted to buy something warm to wear for the long ride back.

I reminded myself that the catcallers were unlikely to be out first thing in the morning and left the dankness of the room to begin my trek. I had walked for no more than thirty seconds when a black vehicle that looked like a giant Jeep began blinking its lights. The clouds were at ground level and all around me. I could hear foghorns out on the water, and I could not see one hundred feet in any direction, but I could see those flashing headlights. I stopped, thinking it might be police or a national park ranger, somebody warning me it was dangerous to be trying to navigate on foot when visibility was this poor. Maybe warning me it was dangerous to walk through town dressed the way I was.