Read Online Crime of Privilege: A Novel by Walter Walker - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Walter Walker
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almost entirely of photographs, pictures of a blonde
girl in a sleeveless summer dress sprawled on her stomach under a maple tree just
to the side of a meticulously groomed fairway; close-ups of the back of her head,
looking not so much crushed as carved open like a melon; close-ups of her face after
she had been rolled onto her back, her eyes closed, her features expressionless, somehow
unreal, as if she were not a person at all but a model of one. There were scores of
shots from the autopsy, including about a dozen of her naked body lying on a metal
table, but I chose not to look at them. I was interested mostly in the way she appeared
on the golf course.
The dress was of no particular quality that I could discern. It was blue, patterned
with what appeared to be little red roselike figures. She wore no shoes and of course
no stockings. The photos at the scene did not show whether she was wearing underwear,
but in the second box there was a sealed clear plastic bag with a pair of pink-and-white
striped bikini briefs. The autopsy report, also in the other box, said she was wearing
the briefs but no bra. I went back and looked at the pictures of her lying supine
on the coroner’s table. It was hard to tell from that position, but she did not appear
to be a woman who could regularly go braless without attracting considerable attention.
I did not need to speculate about her legs. Her knees, just below the kneecaps, showed
grass stains.
A good-looking girl, twenty years old, had either been on her knees voluntarily or
had been dragged across a lawn. I studied the pictures yet again. There were none
of the golf course itself. It was depicted only as the location of the body. One shot
was taken from the road, looking through one set of trees, across the fairway to a
thicker copse where Heidi’s body lay. Another was taken from just beyond the first
set of trees, on the fairway side, showing about one hundred feet of grass. Another
was taken at fifty feet from the body, yet another at twenty-five, and then several
at ten feet. I could not tell from any of them if there was a drag path.
I had to assume there wasn’t. Surely, if there was evidence that she had been dragged,
the police would have recorded it.
What the photos did show was that there had been plenty of foot traffic in the dew-laden
grass. I pulled out the police report and read that at 5:45 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26,
1999, a groundskeeper named Rinaldo DaSilva had discovered the body on the sixteenth
fairway. He had been driving a golf cart pulling a fantail rake behind it when he
had first noticed what he described as “a pile of blue.” He had thought, for some
reason, that it was a pool cover that had blown onto the course from somebody’s home
and so he had not gone to it right away. When he did realize what it was, he panicked.
He got out of his cart and ran to her side but did not touch her, thinking that it
would be wrong, inappropriate, something he shouldn’t do. Instead, he stood over,
shouting down to her, “Lady! Lady, are you all right? Lady, wake up!” Then he ran
to the street, thinking he might see somebody, some friend of hers, somebody who could
help him. He admitted he was not thinking very clearly.
He ran back to her, forced himself to kneel down, to part her hair. He had seen that
her hair and neck and back of her dress were bloody, but he hadn’t seen where the
blood had come from until he separated the tangle of hair and saw what he thought
was her brain. Then, he said, he fell over, fell backward onto his hands and did a
crab-walk to try to get away from her. He thought he went about fifteen feet before
he collapsed. Then he got to his feet and ran to the street again, shouting for help
as loud as he could.
A man named Lowell Prentice came out of his house in his bathrobe, demanding to know
what was going on. Rinaldo DaSilva pointed to the trees.
girl in a sleeveless summer dress sprawled on her stomach under a maple tree just
to the side of a meticulously groomed fairway; close-ups of the back of her head,
looking not so much crushed as carved open like a melon; close-ups of her face after
she had been rolled onto her back, her eyes closed, her features expressionless, somehow
unreal, as if she were not a person at all but a model of one. There were scores of
shots from the autopsy, including about a dozen of her naked body lying on a metal
table, but I chose not to look at them. I was interested mostly in the way she appeared
on the golf course.
The dress was of no particular quality that I could discern. It was blue, patterned
with what appeared to be little red roselike figures. She wore no shoes and of course
no stockings. The photos at the scene did not show whether she was wearing underwear,
but in the second box there was a sealed clear plastic bag with a pair of pink-and-white
striped bikini briefs. The autopsy report, also in the other box, said she was wearing
the briefs but no bra. I went back and looked at the pictures of her lying supine
on the coroner’s table. It was hard to tell from that position, but she did not appear
to be a woman who could regularly go braless without attracting considerable attention.
I did not need to speculate about her legs. Her knees, just below the kneecaps, showed
grass stains.
A good-looking girl, twenty years old, had either been on her knees voluntarily or
had been dragged across a lawn. I studied the pictures yet again. There were none
of the golf course itself. It was depicted only as the location of the body. One shot
was taken from the road, looking through one set of trees, across the fairway to a
thicker copse where Heidi’s body lay. Another was taken from just beyond the first
set of trees, on the fairway side, showing about one hundred feet of grass. Another
was taken at fifty feet from the body, yet another at twenty-five, and then several
at ten feet. I could not tell from any of them if there was a drag path.
I had to assume there wasn’t. Surely, if there was evidence that she had been dragged,
the police would have recorded it.
What the photos did show was that there had been plenty of foot traffic in the dew-laden
grass. I pulled out the police report and read that at 5:45 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26,
1999, a groundskeeper named Rinaldo DaSilva had discovered the body on the sixteenth
fairway. He had been driving a golf cart pulling a fantail rake behind it when he
had first noticed what he described as “a pile of blue.” He had thought, for some
reason, that it was a pool cover that had blown onto the course from somebody’s home
and so he had not gone to it right away. When he did realize what it was, he panicked.
He got out of his cart and ran to her side but did not touch her, thinking that it
would be wrong, inappropriate, something he shouldn’t do. Instead, he stood over,
shouting down to her, “Lady! Lady, are you all right? Lady, wake up!” Then he ran
to the street, thinking he might see somebody, some friend of hers, somebody who could
help him. He admitted he was not thinking very clearly.
He ran back to her, forced himself to kneel down, to part her hair. He had seen that
her hair and neck and back of her dress were bloody, but he hadn’t seen where the
blood had come from until he separated the tangle of hair and saw what he thought
was her brain. Then, he said, he fell over, fell backward onto his hands and did a
crab-walk to try to get away from her. He thought he went about fifteen feet before
he collapsed. Then he got to his feet and ran to the street again, shouting for help
as loud as he could.
A man named Lowell Prentice came out of his house in his bathrobe, demanding to know
what was going on. Rinaldo DaSilva pointed to the trees.
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