Paul. Of course. McFetridge. She didn’t know I knew him. She had met me one time, across a table, in a brew pub, and she was surprised that hadn’t been revealed.
“We were roommates in college,” I explained.
She was listening, I’m sure, but she was also taking off her windbreaker, pulling it over her head, getting it caught in her hair. I had the briefest glimpse of her breasts poking through the cloth of her polo shirt, breasts the size of sparrows. Delicate little things.
“Fraternity brothers,” I gasped.
“Oh, at Cornell.”
“No. Penn.”
The slightest furrow appeared in her brow. I had the irrational fear that we might be talking about two different Paul McFetridges, and I quickly played my trump card. “He and I went down to Florida one time, hung out with your cousin Peter.”
“Oh, Petey. He’s such a big bear.”
With that, the image of Peter Gregory Martin looming over Kendrick Powell filled my mind. I stopped feeling so giddy.
“That’s what I used to call him,” she said, “Big Bear.” She was the one sounding giddy.
The waitress appeared next to us, pad in hand. “Good morning. My name is Maxine.” She looked at Cory with frank curiosity. “All the muffins are fresh this morning,” she told her, ignoring me. “Corn and bran are the best.” She said “cahn” for corn.
“I’ll just have coffee,” Cory said, handing back the menu without even glancing at poor Maxine. “Decaf.”
I ordered coffee and both the muffins Maxine had suggested.
“That it?” she wanted to know.
I nodded and she went away disappointed, apparently having been laboring under the impression that a Gregory and her companion would be issuing multiple orders for eggs Benedict, eggs Florentine, eggs with oysters and big chunks of lobster.
“So,” Cory said, smiling at me, just at me, only at me, “what is it you can tell me about Paul?”
“Well, no. I’ve lost him. That’s the thing.”
I stopped because Cory appeared confused. Her distinctive features molded to ask what “the thing” could possibly be.
“I tried reaching him through his mother,” I said. “I got the impression she hadn’t seen him in some time.”
I stopped again because Maxine was already back with the coffees, a pot in each hand. I waited until she had finished displaying her ambidexterity and meandered off. I watched as Cory filled her cup to the brim with cream, lifted the cup toward her mouth, and the mixture slopped onto the table. “Whoops. Umm. Ahh,” were some of the sounds she made before she put the cup back down.
“Mrs. McFetridge,” I said, feeling a little more uncertain about my love than I had a minute ago, “said he was off in Idaho somewhere, working as a river guide.”
“You’re kidding!” Cory said, thrusting her upper body forward, her voice soaring.
That movement, the jolt against the table, not only spilled more coffee but seemed to bring the general hubbub of the café to a halt. Cory, however, was oblivious.
“You know,” she said, “he always liked the outdoors, but …” Like Mrs. McFetridge, she did not want to appear too judgmental. “In a way, that kind of explains everything.”
“Explains what?” I said, purposely keeping my own voice low.
“Well, he hasn’t been around here since … I don’t know, years. And he used to come regularly. He used to do the Figawi race with us.”
“The one to Nantucket?”
“Yes, we do it every Memorial Day. At least one boat. Sometimes my uncle enters his boat, too, but Paul used to always be there and I bet we haven’t see him since—”
“Nineteen ninety-nine?” It was a guess, but not a wild one.
She moved her lips, counting to herself. “You know, it could have been. I really don’t know. It’s been a long time.” She took another somewhat sloppy sip of her coffee. “A river guide, huh?”
“I was just wondering if anything happened the last time he was here. I mean, I know he loved to come to the Cape and he loved the race and he was good friends with Peter.…” I ran out of reasons why I might be asking these questions and hoped she would pick it up from there.
She did. “Well, I’m six or seven years younger than those guys and I’m trying to figure out the last time I saw Paul, whether I was in college or at Putney.”
Our muffins arrived, my muffins, with appropriate fanfare. “Here’s your muffins,” said Maxine. One plate, two muffins, banged into the middle of the table. Cory absently picked the edge off the bran muffin and began to nibble at it.
“Didn’t you guys used to have parties at your house after the race?”
“Well, usually, yeah. There was always something going on.” She must have liked the bran muffin because she took another piece.
“And was there a party the last time he was here?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. The race back from the island is on Monday and there’s always a post-race party in Hyannis and then people tend to wander over to our house and stay the night, so, yeah, there could have been. But, see, 1999 was the year I graduated from Putney, and graduation was the week after Memorial Day, so I probably went right back to Vermont that day.…”
She was drifting off, so I gave her what I had, twisting it only a little. “Nineteen ninety-nine was the last time I heard from him. He said he was coming up here to race on The Paradox—”
“I don’t like that name,” she said. “I told Ned I wasn’t going to race on it anymore unless he changed it—”
I talked over her, tried to get back on point. “He told me Peter was going to crew and Jamie and you—”
“Peter? Well, that should be easy to figure out, because he hasn’t raced in years, either. Let me see, he was just like a first-year med student at Northwestern when he had that trouble down in Palm Beach and I know he was up here after that went away. So what is it? How many years is med school—four? So, 1996, ’97, ’98, ’99. Yeah. And after that he didn’t come anymore. He was an intern or whatever out in San Francisco and said he couldn’t get the time off. So if Paul was sailing with him, the last year it could have been was 1999.” She seemed pleased to have figured that out and ate more of my muffin.
I was pretty sure I was no longer in love. It wasn’t fair, I realized. She was answering my questions without guile or subterfuge, taking me at my word as to the reason for my interest. And yet something about the way her mind meandered, the way she bopped about in her seat when a thought occurred to her, the way bits of bran muffin stuck in her teeth—I wondered what it would be like waking up next to her in the morning. I wondered if she would be attractive at first light, if she would expect me to get up first, open the curtains, run the shower till it was hot, water the plants.
Cory drank more coffee and smiled at me. It was a genuine smile, a lovely smile. The bits of bran muffin had disappeared.
I said, “So Peter, I can understand. But I’m wondering if something could have happened that weekend that affected Paul.”
Was I being too direct, too obvious?
“Like what?” Cory said, still smiling.
“Look.” Emboldened by what I had gotten away with so far, I set off on a new lie. “That was the last time any of his old crowd heard from him, that weekend of the race. After that he seems to have taken off out west, almost as though he was trying to get away from everything in his old life. Sort of escape, maybe.”
She was still regarding me as if she and I were the only ones in the café, but the look of confusion had crept back into her eyes.
“So there was your cousin Ned, your cousin Peter, your cousin Jamie—”
“Jamie’s my brother.”
“Sorry.” Cory’s appeal took another slight tumble.
“Okay, the three of them, plus you, Paul, and a guy named Jason Stockover—”
“Who?” She blinked, thought about it, then sparked again. “Oh, Jason, I remember him. He was so cute. Okay, it wa
s my graduation year, because that was the last time he ever came and I had such a crush on him and then I never saw him again. So, okay, 1999 it was.”
“You know what happened to him? Know where he is?”
“No. Like I said, we never saw him again. He went to Deerfield or Dartmouth. One of those green schools, because he had a dark green baseball hat with a white D on it.” She finished, and there was a new clouding on her brow.
I had to ask what was wrong.
“You know, it’s kind of funny because we had such a good time. But you think about it and there were, what, six of us, and three of them never sailed again. I mean, like I said, Peter has an excuse, but our two friends, to just never hear from them after that …”
“Which is why I’m asking if something happened.”
And suddenly Cory Gregory was not having such a good time anymore. “George,” she said, not Georgie but George, “what is it you do? For a living, I mean.”
“I work with Barbara Belbonnet. I thought she told you.”
“You’re a district attorney?” She seemed shocked. Her hand went to the center of her chest.
“Assistant. I’m an assistant D.A., like Barbara.”
Now her hand started grabbing around her hip, both hands did, she was getting her windbreaker. I started to speak again and she stopped. “No, George. You seem like a really nice guy and all, and I’m sure you only want to get hold of your friend, but we have to be really careful who we talk to and what we talk about. So I thank you for the coffee, but I’m afraid this conversation is over.”
I reached across the table and saw the same ice coldness come over her that I had seen when Buzzy grabbed her in the British Beer Company. “Don’t,” she commanded. “I’m going to leave now and, I swear, if you so much as get out of your seat I’m going to press a button and a guy is going to come flying through that front door and it is not going to be pretty. Understand?”
I told her I did.
She stood up, did not put on the windbreaker, just tucked it under her arm. She started forward, hesitated in mid-step, said, “Thank you,” again and walked out of the café.
My date with Cory Gregory was at an end.
8.
CORY GREGORY WAS NOT THE FIRST WOMAN TO DITCH ME ON Cape Cod. Marion had left me with a three-bedroom house, a two-vehicle carport, and a third-of-an-acre yard.
The first time she came down the Cape I took her to the dunes at the National Seashore. I had gotten a fire permit, and we went to Marconi Beach and walked far away from the guarded area to a spot where we could lay out a blanket and have nobody within a hundred yards of us. As it grew dark, we dug a pit and filled it with driftwood. Then we spent hours huddled next to the flames while she told me all of her frustrations and I told her none of mine. Later, when ours was the only light on the beach and there was nothing else around us but millions of stars in the sky and the sound of waves crashing on the shore, we made love in the sand and she proclaimed it the most perfect moment of her life.
By the time she went back to Boston on the Sunday of that weekend she had determined to leave her big-city job with its preposterously large paychecks and seventy-hour workweeks and move in with me. She would apply to all the firms on the Cape; somebody would want her. Or she would get a job with a government office, like I did. Or she would just chuck the law altogether and open a tea shop. Wouldn’t that be great, never having to worry about billable hours again?
I did nothing to encourage or discourage her. I liked Marion. She was smart and funny and fun, and I had been lonely, especially during the winter months.
So I let her make her plans and tell all her friends, and I didn’t complain when she never gave her notice at work. I didn’t complain when we bought our house and she only came down on weekends. I didn’t even complain when she started skipping weekends.
9.
MUGGSY’S WAS NOT NEAR THE WATER AND WAS NOT ON ANY of the main roads that visitors used. It was in Marstons Mills, and you had to know where it was to find it. Either that or you had to stop for gas at the two pumps outside and notice that the shingled structure behind the pumps had a neon sign that said Eats in tubular cursive. Then, if you were so inclined, you were in for the best five-dollar breakfast you could find on the Cape.
The owner was the cook, and he didn’t seem to care if people ate or not. He had tattoos on his forearms, perpetually smudged glasses, an unkempt mustache that no doubt discouraged fastidious diners, and he ran the place more like a social club than a restaurant. He would come out from behind the counter and sit with the guys who came in regularly to drink coffee, eat coffee cake, joke about people who were not like them, and mock those who were like them over their golf games, fishing mishaps, and spending habits.
That same Saturday morning that I met with Cory Gregory, the guys with whom Muggsy was sitting consisted of not two but three Macs, and one police chief wearing civilian clothes. There was no waiting list for tables, as there had been at Break A’Day. In fact, there was nobody in the place but the cook and the four men, all gathered around one table.
I could hear them talking when I was in the parking lot, which was hard dirt and still contained potholes from the recent spring thaw. I could hear them laughing. I could hear three or four guys trying to get their smack across by shouting over the others. When I walked in, they all shut up.
“Morning,” I said, and got a couple of silent nods, none of which was from the chief. I stopped just inside the door and smiled at them. It seemed the best thing to do. The Mac I did not expect to see was an old guy named McCoppin, very tall, with a full head of snowy white hair that stood out because of his bright red V-neck sweater. I knew who he was because he had once been on the Board of Assessors. He did not know me and looked away so he would not have to talk to me. The other two Macs probably said my name, or something close to it, in a manner that indicated they had no reason to talk to a guy like me and I had no reason to be there in their little clubhouse. The chief folded his arms.
“You want something?” Muggsy said. Because he was the owner, he could have been asking if I wanted coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs with a side of ham. But it didn’t sound like that.
“I wanted to speak to the chief for a moment, if I could.” I pointed softly at Cello DiMasi, in case someone did not know who the chief was.
“It’s my day off, George. Can’t it wait till Monday?”
“Sure. But it’s only a quick question and I drove all the way over here to ask it.” I was still smiling.
McBeth pulled a rolled-up copy of The Herald out of his pocket and spread it out on the table. Everybody but the chief looked at it as if it was really important to see who won the lottery, which Boston city councilor was accused of which impropriety, and whether the Red Sox’s new shortstop was too sensitive to perform in Fenway Park.
“All right,” said the chief, “I’ll give you three minutes,” and then he led me outside, away from his friends, who had started debating whether the city councilor really had taken a bribe or was conducting his own investigation when he was videotaped stuffing cash into a computer bag.
He walked all the way to his city-issued SUV and leaned his back against the engine compartment. He folded his arms.
He said, “Yeah?”
I said, “Tell me if this list of names means anything to you: Ned Gregory, Jamie Gregory, Cory Gregory, Peter Gregory Martin, Jason Stockover, Paul McFetridge.”
“Sounds like the list Old Man Telford was peddling.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Gave it to Detective Landry.”
“What did he do with it?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
I nodded. The list had not been in the files, at least not that I had seen. I said, “Is he working today, by any chance?”
“Not today. Not any day.”
“How come?”
“Took early retirement. Moved to Hawaii.”
“Where?”
&nbs
p; The chief silently considered whether “Hawaii” was enough. It was very clear I annoyed him. Like Mitch White, however, he was unsure of my connections. He settled his internal debate with a shrug of his shoulders. “Not one of the famous islands. The other one.”
“Kauai?”
“That’s it.”
“When did that happen?”
“About six or seven years ago.”
“So the list wasn’t something Bill Telford just came up with recently.”
“Wasn’t recently, wasn’t right away, neither. It was just something Anything New came up with somewhere along the line. He was always trying to come up with something.”
“Did Detective Landry follow up on it?”
“I believe he did. Couple of people he couldn’t find. The ones he did talk to, they said there wasn’t any party at the Gregory house that night, and none of them had seen anyone matching Heidi Telford’s description.”
“And you believed them?”
“Me?” The chief laughed. “I didn’t have nothing to do with it. It was Detective Landry’s investigation, and if he didn’t feel there was anything to Bill’s latest theory, well, that was his call.” He pushed himself away from his vehicle. “Now, you done with me? Can I go back inside, talk to somebody I want to talk to?”
“One more thing. After Landry left, who took over the investigation?”
“Technically, that would be Detective Iacupucci. But, seriously, kid”—he paused in his departure long enough to poke me in the chest—“what’s to investigate?”
10.
CHUCK, CHUCK LARSON, WAS ON THE PHONE. “YOU SHOULDNA scared Cory like that, Georgie.” He sounded sadder than I had ever heard him.
“I didn’t scare her, or at least I didn’t mean to. I was just asking questions.”
“Yeah, but about what?”
“I was trying to locate McFetridge. You remember him.”
“You wanted to know where someone was, you shoulda come to me, Georgie. I can pretty much always help you with that. What did you want to find Paulie for?”
Crime of Privilege: A Novel Page 11