The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 - Jeffrey Toobin [43]
“I called Jocelyn to tell her what happened,” Cook remembers. “And she was like, ‘Ohhh, you called the police? Umm, well, I have your debit card here…. It’s the same color as mine…. I must have accidentally used yours, and I guess our PIN numbers are the same!’” (Cook filed a police report but then let the matter drop.)
The incident didn’t seem to bother Jocelyn. She was disengaging from campus anyhow, once again shucking her old life for a better one. She and Ed were always flying off somewhere—London, Montreal, Florida, Hawaii—and posting the proof online. At home she and Ed were attending black-tie events, appearing in Philadelphia magazine’s society pages, laughing and cuddling, Jocelyn’s black bra peeking from under her leopard-print dress. They became fixtures at the hookah bar Byblos, where Jocelyn would come in wearing a bustier and a miniskirt, then spend the night getting hammered, dancing on tables and vamping it up with a hookah pipe between her lips—all while photographing herself and Ed, who’d be nibbling on her neck.
Other criminals might have made themselves inconspicuous, but for Jocelyn and Ed, conspicuousness was the point. The high life didn’t mean squat unless people were watching, envying, validating them. They went about their glamorous lives as if there was nothing else to life, nothing beyond the acquisition and flaunting of goods—and in that they were true believers.
In July 2007, they took a long weekend at Turks and Caicos’ ritzy Regent Palms resort and made spectacles of themselves. “Especially her,” says a patron. “She worked it.” Sunning by the infinity pool in matching red bathing suits, while hotel staff fluffed their towels and misted them with water, Ed and Jocelyn were in their element: Ed chatted with other guests about his favorite Philly restaurants while Jocelyn basked silently behind silver aviators, looking utterly content.
“Take our picture?” Jocelyn asked a couple lounging beside them. Ed and Jocelyn stood at the pool’s edge, wrapping their arms around each other, and smiled.
OCCASIONALLY, reality intruded in unpleasant ways—like when Ed brought Jocelyn home to meet his parents. Jocelyn barely masked her distaste for their home and provincial sensibilities. At a gathering of family and friends, Jocelyn refused to play their board games, choosing instead to sit at Ed’s elbow, sipping wine while everyone else drank soda, her blouse undone a few buttons too many, her face arranged in a careful, lipsticked smile. “She made us feel like she was the outsider watching us do our silly things,” remembers Ed’s friend Danielle Newton. “It was uncomfortable.”
Back at home, the couple also had the minor inconvenience of shoehorning their “real” lives into their jet-set schedules. Jocelyn had now declared a major in international studies, telling people she hoped to become a U.N. ambassador. Decked out in fur and stiletto boots, Jocelyn continued attending her classes, where she dominated the discussion in her assertive, know-it-all tone. But she showed so much promise, in fact, that a professor helped place her on a panel discussion on the Penn campus about globalization—where she sat near special guest Prince Charles.
“Hi, my name is Jocelyn Kirsch,” she introduced herself, as the crowd and Britain’s future heir to the throne looked on. “I’m originally from Vilna, Lithuania.” She went on to speak eloquently about the way globalization is stratifying societies around the world.
Ed, on the other hand, wasn’t faring so well. His boss had taken one look at Ed’s tan, after the couple’s return from Turks and Caicos, realized the “sick days” had been bogus, and fired him. All the things Ed had worked for had fallen apart, leaving nothing but the sham.
Ed told few people about his unemployed status. Instead, he and Jocelyn kept up appearances, going harder than ever. Jocelyn planned a birthday party for Ed, reserving a table for ten at Tinto, one of the most exclusive restaurants in town; afterward, they were going to vacation in Morocco. They had enough cash to get by