Part 42 (1/2)
I sat anyway.
The chief a.s.sistant grimaced. ”We're not going to bring you back on,” he said, speaking as if he had to rush in order to make sure the words all came out together. d.i.c.k was not good at this, being harsh, being direct. d.i.c.k would prefer to look at a jury in astonishment that some criminal could have acted the way he did.
After a moment of me regarding him in silence, he added, ”Too much baggage.”
”What kind of baggage are we talking about?”
”I could tell you it's the kind of baggage you acc.u.mulate when you're scheming to run against your boss, only I'm not going to say that.”
”I'm not scheming to run against anyone, d.i.c.k.”
”The Macs told us all about it, how you been talking with them, lining up their support.”
He looked pained, hurt.
”That's bulls.h.i.+t, d.i.c.k.”
He tossed his shoulders. He either didn't care or didn't believe me. ”Peter Martin called you today, didn't he?”
”All that time you kept quiet about the rape thing, George.” He moved his eyes away from mine. It could have been out of disgust with either one of us. ”Probably wouldn't look so good if it comes out that just before you were going to make your announcement you were present at the murder of the only guy in the world who knew the facts about that rape.”
”He wasn't the only guy in the world. Peter Martin was there. What Peter did was worse than what Jamie did.”
”And what Dr. Martin says, George, is that what you did was the worst of all.”
THE OFFER WAS FULL PAY UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR. I WAS SIMPLY to leave. I could go to Hawaii, Costa Rica, France, anywhere that it looked like I was continuing my investigation.
n.o.body would mention my involvement in Jamie's shooting or the Palm Beach rape. Six weeks from now, with Mitch safely reelected, he would prepare an excellent letter of recommendation, and by January I should have landed myself a new job, preferably quite far away.
There was no contract, nothing in writing. I was simply to tell d.i.c.k okay.
I told him.
It was hard to determine if he was disappointed.
I know we did not shake hands.
I CALLED BARBARA AND EXPLAINED WHAT WAS GOING ON. ONCE again, I asked for help.
This time, she said she couldn't do anything for me.
I reminded her what she had said that day on my patio about doing the right thing, and she agreed everybody should, but she had two kids and one of them had special needs. She had to put them first. I brought up what she had done already, going to Costa Rica, directing me to France, and she said yes, she had done all that, but that had been behind the scenes. Her position was different than mine. Her life was different. She couldn't afford to lose her job, she couldn't just leave the Cape, and she couldn't stay and be a pariah.
”My father,” she said, and didn't finish the rest of the sentence. Then she added the words ”My son,” and I was supposed to understand.
CAPE COD, October 2008.
BUZZY HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE THAT WAS SURPRISINGLY WELL attended, proving that all you had to do to get the attention of the news media, at least in the northeast, was mention the Gregorys. A notice had been blasted by email to more than one hundred newspapers, television and radio stations, networks, and news outlets. The notice said an important announcement was going to be made regarding the Cape & Islands district attorney and his investigation into the Gregory family's involvement in the 1999 murder of Heidi Telford.
Mitch White, when he got wind of it, immediately issued a denial that there was any new development in the investigation, which, he said, was not only ongoing but now spanned three continents. Mitch did not identify the three continents, but I gathered he was counting Costa Rica as being in South America.
His denial managed to make it onto the 6:00 p.m. news on all the major television stations in Boston and Providence. I was biased, but to me he did not sound convincing when he said he knew of no involvement of the Gregory family. And he looked worried.
BUZZY DELIVERED HIS ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE STEPS OF THE rear entrance to Town Hall, facing a broad expanse of lawn that extended all the way to Main Street, where anybody who happened to be walking could inquire why scores of people with cameras and recorders were bunching behind the old red-brick building.
Chief Cello DiMasi was there, standing to one side with half a dozen of his officers. But Buzzy had obtained a permit to hold a rally to announce his candidacy, and so the primary thing that seemed to have Cello fiddling with his thick black belt was whether Buzzy's email had created an event that exceeded the bounds of the permit. Clearly, he wasn't sure.
And because this had originally been billed as Buzzy's declaration of intent to run as a write-in candidate for district attorney, the inc.u.mbent could not very well line up with Cello, nor send him and his troops wading onto the lawn to disperse the crowd. There were too many cameras, too many of Buzzy's buddies from high school ready to start shouting about the First Amendment to the United States Const.i.tution.
So Mitch himself did not even go. He sent Reid and d.i.c.k instead. They stood next to Cello. And next to them stood Sean Murphy, holding a legal notepad and a pen.
At exactly the time he said the event would begin, the double doors at the top of the stairs opened and Buzzy somberly walked out of the building with a very conspicuous sheaf of papers under his left arm. Friends offered good-effort cheers from scattered spots on the lawn. Buzzy acknowledged them with a wave of his right hand. He strode to a portable lectern that had been set up for him. He tapped the microphone to make sure it was working. He said, ”h.e.l.lo.”
Those who knew him expected a joke, some lighthearted remark. But the closest Buzzy got to that was a half-smile as he announced, ”I'm Frederick Daizell, known to my friends and family as Buzzy, and I am running for district attorney as a write-in candidate.”
Friends and family put up another cheer and got a second wave of acknowledgment. But then Buzzy stopped even half-smiling.
”And the reason I am doing this very unusual thing, coming in at the last moment with no party backing and no official status as anything other than a citizen who happens to be an attorney, is that I have uncovered some very disturbing information about the inc.u.mbent, Mitch.e.l.l White, his relations.h.i.+p with the Gregory family, and the effect of that relations.h.i.+p on his office's investigation of the 1999 murder of twenty-year-old Heidi Telford of Hyannis.”
Some of the media people, the well-dressed men and women who were standing around with their cameramen, put down their coffees and bottled waters and started pointing fingers and issuing orders.
”To help me explain this,” Buzzy went on, ”I have asked Heidi's father, Bill Telford, to join me.”
With tufts of white hair blowing in the breeze, Mr. Telford laboriously mounted the stairs and took his place next to Buzzy, who put his arm around him.
”I'm Bill Telford,” the guest of honor said, squinting at the audience. ”Most of you who live around here know me. The way I go around asking questions, some no doubt wish you didn't.”
There were t.i.tters from those who understood what he meant, but they were short because n.o.body wanted to be disrespectful to a man who had lost his daughter.
”For nine and a half years I been going around asking these questions, trying to find out who saw Heidi last, where she went after she left our house on Memorial Day, 1999. I'm not senile. I'm not crazy. I been getting some answers, and I been steadily pa.s.sing them along to District Attorney White, only to find out what I been giving him has gone straight from his hands to the wastepaper basket.”
Bill's voice cranked up with indignation.
”I tell him, the very day she died Heidi met Peter Gregory Martin at the Bon Faire Market over there in Osterville. I tell him she went to a party down the street here, in the harbor, where the Gregory kids were after the Figawi race. I tell him the Gregorys had another party back at their house on Sea View Avenue that a bunch of people went to, and I give him names.”