Crime of Privilege: A Novel

  “Know where she lives?”

  Slowly the smile grew back. “You want to see her?”

  I suddenly felt like a lug, an oversized American with wet feet and sand all over his shorts. “Well,” I said, formulating excuses as I spoke, “I was just trying to figure out if I knew who her boyfriend was, if he was this guy I used to know named Jason Stockover. Back in the States.”

  Something was going on with this woman. Everything I said, every question I asked, was making her think thoughts that were not in keeping with mine. “You like her?” she said.

  “Who? Leanne?”

  She nodded once and waited for me to answer.

  “Yeah. She’s great.”

  “You like her hair?” The Dane touched her own hair, mimicked cutting it off.

  What was she telling me? That Leanne had just changed her appearance? That the strawberry blonde of Landry’s description had just become the nondescript brunette of Tamarindo?

  I told her I didn’t think one way or another about her hair. I just wanted to know where she lived.

  She pointed down the beach, away from town. “Get to the big rock. Go over it. Then one, two, three, maybe four houses. Look for the big table under the big tree.”

  “Maybe I should drive there.”

  “Is better to walk. No wachiman ask what you are doing.”

  “I’m just going to visit a friend.”

  “Of course.”

  “I could just go and ring the doorbell.”

  “Only thing is,” the Dane said, “it’s got a big”—she demonstrated, sliding a hand up and down in front of her face—“gate. It’s like a big door. You can’t just go in there from the street. The door has to open up.” She put the backs of her hands together and then drew them apart as if she was doing the breaststroke. “No. Better to go the beach.”

  4.

  I WAITED UNTIL WELL AFTER DARK.

  I had showered and shaved, dressed in a black polo shirt and olive-green cargo shorts, my darkest clothes, and followed the directions the Dane had given me.

  I didn’t have to go back through the lobby to do that, didn’t have to go past anyone. Just opened my door and walked straight down to the water. From there I was guided by moonlight. There was enough of a reflection to form a path on the water, and the path seemed to follow me as I made my way south to the end of the bay and over a huge rock that usurped the sand for one hundred feet or so and that had to be ascended and descended without help from anything other than the moon.

  And then I was on the other side, with no one else around, no other signs of human life, no sound except the water rolling into the shore. I passed one, two, three hulking houses, none of which showed any lights. Then, by moving slowly and peering closely, I found the big table on a little rise just slightly above the sand. It was positioned to provide a view over the water while sheltered by large branches from a Guanacaste tree. I climbed up to the table to look around.

  Again, the only sound was the water surging and receding.

  The house was at least one hundred and fifty feet away. Up slope. It was a very large house, and it came out toward the water in two wings, with a patio in between. Stairs led from the patio down to a swimming pool that was glowing blue-green from an underwater light. A path meandered from the pool to where I was. Both wings of the house were lit up. The path was not.

  I had no real plan. I mostly wanted to see what Jason Stockover looked like. I would see him and then I would find a way to confront him.

  I never got the chance.

  I had not even made it halfway up the path between the beach and the pool when something struck me across the shoulders so hard it drove me to my knees. Then a foot was delivered into my back, sending me sprawling into the dirt, and a huge body landed on top of me. It was all I could do to get my breath and all I could do to keep my head from being forced into a hood and then my arms were pulled together, something snapped over my wrists, the hood was cinched tight at my neck, and whatever sounds I made were those of a shocked and wounded animal.

  I WAS PUSHED and pulled up the path, up a flight of stairs and into the house. I couldn’t see and the best I could do was feel with my feet, try to guess where I was and where they were taking me. With my wrists cuffed behind my back, it was doing me no good to continue to struggle. I did anyhow. I shouted out my name and the fact that I was a district attorney. My captors went right on pushing and pulling.

  I tried digging in my heels, but it made no difference. I was shoved across a floor and then down a single step and onto a much rougher flat surface. I was delivered smack into the rear of an open-doored van, and when I ricocheted off the van’s bumper I was slammed in the back again so that my upper body catapulted forward and then someone grabbed both my legs and heaved me into the vehicle headfirst. The door slammed shut while I was still bouncing. I came to rest about the time the engine coughed to life. I started to get to my knees and the van surged forward. And nobody paid the slightest attention to the fact that I was being pitched from one side of the vehicle to the other.

  THE VAN TURNED LEFT. It turned right. I would remember this, I told myself. We flew over rough road, potholed road, and I repeatedly went up in the air and crashed down again. The bed of the van was made of thin steel, and it was ribbed, so there was no place to seek any kind of comfort, even in those rare moments when the nonexistent shock absorbers let me lie flat. We turned left.

  I told myself we were heading back to town. There should be lights, noise, something to indicate other people were around. As soon as we slowed I would start kicking the rear door. I would kick with both feet and someone would hear; someone would want to know what those sounds were.

  The transmission shifted. We picked up speed. I bounced more, flew higher in the air, came down harder. My focus became trying not to move so much. The transmission shifted again. The driver was not doing me any favors.

  We kept going. Only once did I get the sensation of light, but that was about twenty minutes into the drive, long after we should have passed through Tamarindo. And it was there for only a second. Something that streaked over my head. A single streetlight, perhaps. With no voices.

  We slowed, we downshifted, and then we sped up again. It occurred to me that these men could do anything they wanted with me. Who was to know? The Dane? And when would she know? Tomorrow? The next day? I had taken the room for two days. Would she do nothing until I failed to leave? How long would it take the people at the hotel to search my stuff? To see that I had an airplane ticket to fly to Boston by way of Houston on the day after tomorrow? To realize that I was really and truly missing? And who would realize it? The very woman who had sent me to the spot where I got mugged?

  I told myself I had to live in the moment, not think so much about what lay ahead. Bounce, recover, be grateful you’re still okay.

  It worked part of the time.

  5.

  ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES PASSED BEFORE WE LURCHED to a halt. I slid forward, banging into the back of the driver’s seat. I was sick from being tossed around. I ached. I tried to lie very still, as though somehow, if I was good, nothing bad would happen.

  The engine was shut off. I could hear chirping and peeping noises. Doors opened and closed. Footsteps sounded, one set much heavier than the other. The rear door was unlatched, hands seized one of my ankles and hauled me toward the opening. I tried kicking with the other foot. I hit someone, but it did me no good. I was pulled so hard I dropped at least three feet from the floor of the van to the ground. It was soft ground, but it still hurt when I hit. It still made me groan and stunned me enough that I couldn’t kick again before both my feet were grabbed and I was being pulled over rutted, uneven, rock-strewn dirt, and it was all I could do so my head would not hit all the things that were thumping against my back.

  I thought of things to say. I said none of them. What kept going through my mind was the idea that the farther they dragged me the worse it was for me. I could see nothing through t
he hood and what I could hear was mostly the sounds of my body bumping and scraping. And then my captors began to argue.

  The two men were going at it in a language that was not Spanish. One of them wrapped his arm around my chest and hoisted me to his hip as if I were a sack of potatoes. I tried to knee him in the back of his thigh and he rewarded me by flinging me away from him. I had the sensation of flying through the air and was certain I was being tossed off a cliff. The air surged out of my lungs and then almost immediately my shoulder hit something. My shoulder, my hip, my side. I had been thrown inside some sort of structure. I landed on my left side and slid across a wooden floor, but I did not slide too far because the planks of the floor were pitted and worn. Splinters stabbed into my arm and stung my leg. Once again I tried to keep my head up, my face away, and then I stopped moving.

  I told myself this was good.

  If they wanted to kill me they would not have brought me here, to a house, a cabin, a room, a shack. They would have just shot me and dumped me in the rain forest. Dumped me anywhere. Not here. Unless. Unless they were going to light the place on fire. Take the American to a cabin in the woods. Lock him in. Burn it to the ground. I wouldn’t even be able to find my way out.

  “Hey,” I shouted. “Hey!”

  Nobody cared.

  6.

  I TOLD MYSELF A LOT OF THINGS. GRACE UNDER PRESSURE. KEEP my breathing in control. Don’t say anything more. Don’t beg. What would it accomplish? These men obviously were just doing a job. Doing a job for someone. For Jason. Leanne. Peter Martin. All the people who got me here.

  I could hear cans being opened. I heard cracking and crunching sounds, the sounds of teeth biting into chips. A radio was turned on and I could hear music that was fast and jittery and was overlaid by a male’s voice singing happily, as though he and everyone who was listening were at a celebration.

  No one made any effort to speak to me. Not in English, Spanish, or the language I had heard them using.

  I wanted to tell them that I was not who they thought I was. That I was nobody. Nothing to anyone. Just a man trying to do another man a favor. A man who was not even my friend. I didn’t owe him anything. I just was trying to do … something. Something that meant something. But I didn’t have to do it. I could just go home. Say I couldn’t find anything. My boss would actually like that.

  Except my boss didn’t even know I was here.

  Nobody knew I was here.

  Okay. That was okay. It meant I could go home without anybody asking any questions. Go right back to prosecuting OUIs. I’m good at that. In fact, I’ve never lost a case. Never lost a case and never been promoted. And I’m perfectly happy, how about that? Take off my hood and I’ll show you. I’ll smile.

  But the hood stayed where it was, pressing into my nostrils every time I tried to inhale, sticking on my lips whenever I tried to breathe through my mouth. I thought if I could just get some water I would be all right. They wouldn’t even have to lift up my hood. They could just pour it over my head.

  And then I freaked at the idea of what they might pour over me and I said nothing.

  7.

  IT WAS HARD TO TELL HOW MUCH TIME PASSED. IT WAS POSSIBLE that I was becoming delirious. Or at least dehydrated. I heard a motor and was not sure it was a motor at all. But then I heard metal bouncing, heard the softer sounds of springs expanding and contracting, heard rubber tires slide to a halt.

  This is it, I told myself. This is where someone is going to do terrible things to me. I will be brave as much as I can, as long as I can.

  I heard footsteps. I heard the door open. I waited for the steps to quicken. I waited for a shot to my stomach, a blow to my head. I tensed my whole body, curved my shoulders, drew up my knees, did everything I could to make myself as small a target as possible.

  I heard voices. I could not hear who was speaking or what was being said, so I stayed curved and prayed silently as though somehow I could be made so small I would be overlooked.

  Something was scraped across the floor. A hand slid under my armpit and guided me to my feet. I was turned, repositioned, dropped onto a wooden stool.

  A voice close to my ear said, “Boss want to know, who you are?”

  Apparently Boss had not been listening when I was shouting in the house back in Tamarindo. Apparently my interrogator had not been, either.

  “My name is George Becket and I’m an assistant district attorney in Barnstable, Massachusetts.” I was pleased that I got that out. Pleased that I sounded calmer than I was.

  The person went behind me. I tried to keep him from doing that. I tried to turn. His arm went around my throat and I realized it was the big guy again. Every fiber of my body went rigid, but he merely held me while he ripped my wallet from my back pocket. Then he let go. Then he was gone, fat-padding his way back toward the door.

  He had left my passport, the one I had gotten in San Francisco for $200 and a claim of emergency, left it in the front pocket of my cargo shorts. I was absurdly grateful. I would need that when I was found. When my body was found.

  There was considerable whispering. Voices going back and forth.

  “Boss want to know what you do here.”

  I was not in a good position to lie. “I came to talk to Jason Stockover, to ask him questions about a party he attended many years ago.”

  There was more whispered conversation, just close enough for me to realize it was going on, just far enough away for me not to be able to distinguish any of it.

  My captor spoke up. “Why you ask Jason about this party?”

  Now I had to clear my throat, which was not good. I wanted to appear strong. At ease with a hood over my head, talking into the dark. “A young girl who was at the party died that night. I’m supposed to ask questions of everybody who was there.” I paused, sucked in air as best I could, then used my trump card. “The government sent me.”

  There were more whisperings.

  “Why you don’t ask someone else?”

  “I’m trying to ask everyone.”

  “You think Jason know how the girl die?”

  I had to choose my words carefully. Show I was just Good Old George, doing a job. Gets his information, moves on. “No. All I want him to do is tell me what other people were doing that night.”

  Whisperings again.

  Something may have gotten lost in the translation because the voice asked, “Why you don’t think Jason know?”

  Why I don’t think Jason know—how the girl died? That was the question I answered. “Jason was with a girl of his own that night.”

  It is possible the whispering was a little louder; more likely my hearing was better attuned. I still could not make out what was being said or who was saying it, but I was part of the rhythm now. The whispering would occur, the Tico would speak, I would answer, we would do it all over again.

  “Who? Who this girl Jason with?”

  “A beautiful girl named Leanne Sullivan.”

  The rhythm picked up. The stream of words flowed faster.

  “No Jason here.”

  “No reason for me to stay, then.”

  “Why you think he here?”

  “He was seen at a sailing race in Ensenada, talking to Peter Gregory Martin, the man who was with the girl who died that night. He told Peter this was where he was.”

  There was a long pause, then a long exchange.

  “Wha’chu know about Leanne Soolivan?”

  “Leanne Sullivan and a friend got invited to a party at the home of Senator Gregory. When they got to the Senator’s house, there wasn’t much going on, so Leanne and her friend went down the beach with two guys, one of whom was Jason. By the time they got back to the house there was nobody around, so Leanne and her friend left.”

  “It’s all?”

  “Leanne liked Jason. He liked her. They wanted to get together again after that, but the Gregorys didn’t want anybody talking about the girl who died. The Gregorys are very rich and very powerful people. To keep p
eople from talking they found out what each of them wanted most in life and gave it to them. Leanne wanted to move to Hawaii. They made it possible for her to do that. Then, when she’d done what she had to do there, she came here to be with Jason.”

  There was a quick movement, too quick to come from the fat guy. Somebody grabbed my hood and pushed it down hard on top of my head. There was a sudden swooshing noise next to my ear, and something gave way. I tried to jerk my head to one side, but the hand held me in place. And then the hood was ripped off and I was left staring face-to-face with Leanne from the restaurant, Leanne wearing shorts and flat shoes and a man’s dress shirt untucked and rolled up at the sleeves. Leanne with a vicious-looking knife in her hand.

  8.

  I BLINKED.

  “How did you know it was me?” she said.

  “I didn’t.” My eyes were on the knife. It was not the kind of knife that one brought to the dinner table, or even kept around the kitchen. It was very long, and its point was very sharp.

  “You just go around telling strangers I’m beautiful?”

  I moved my gaze and tried to focus on her face, tried to get past the bad haircut to the freckles, the brown eyes, the full lips, the teeth that were white and straight except where they gapped in dead center. “I thought you were Jason. I thought he’d agree.”

  The knife moved suddenly, as if she were going to thrust it into my eye. There wasn’t anything I could do but throw my head back, try to take the knife on the cheek, the shoulder, anyplace but the eye.

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  I had no response to that. I was feeling only relief that she had not actually stabbed me.

  But she was still bent forward, still poised to strike. “He’s got nothing to tell you.”

  He had nothing to tell me, he was hiding from me, and she was threatening my eyesight, if not my life. I slowly unclenched. I did it like a man balancing on a log, letting go of a branch, moving one millimeter at a time. “Heidi Telford was just a girl out for the night, Leanne. Just like Patty. Just like you.”