“Smug as hell, that one,” he said, shoving the last of the second donut into his mouth and talking through it. “Don’t know what you ever saw in him.”
“I never saw anything.”
He lifted his eyebrows at me, chewing all the while, and his eyes gleamed.
“Ben’s got plenty of sources willing to dish,” I said. “One of them dished. Nothing I can do about that.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. This is about me, remember?” He pulled his phone from its holder and turned it in his hand. “You gave me no warning. No explanation. All weekend, I kept checking my phone, perplexed. It’s got power. There’s no problem with the signal. I ask myself, why won’t she call?”
“I’m not checking in with you,” I told him. “You can’t make me do it.”
“Seriously—”
“That deal we made is absurd. I don’t need your approval to report what doesn’t come from you.”
He clasped his hand to his chest. “You lied to me,” he said, laughing. “You’ve become ruthless.”
“Yeah, and you’ve been holding back.” I took a sip of my coffee and considered the agreement. “Besides, I would’ve said anything to get that journal and you knew it.”
“No, I didn’t. You used to be the most annoyingly honest person I’d ever met.”
“You can relax,” I said. “I have no intention of annoying you with the truth anymore.”
He laughed again. “As long as you remember I’m the source and you need me. I expect to be courted. You have to court me.”
All this talk was curious. Sure, I needed him, but it was becoming increasingly obvious he needed something from me, too. What that was specifically, I’d have to figure out.
“Why’d you hold back on Ian?” I said. “You think he’s responsible for Evelyn’s disappearance?”
He finished the last of his coffee, blinking at me lazily, making me wait. “Couldn’t say one way or the other,” he said finally. “Got himself a lawyer who’s not letting him talk. Until he explains himself, he stays on the short list.”
“Of suspects?”
“Persons of interest. Remember, no evidence—”
“Of a crime, yeah, yeah,” I finished. “So talk to me about this short list. Who else is on it? Peter Carney?”
His whole demeanor changed. He talked admiringly about Peter’s heroics overseas, his multiple tours in Afghanistan and other exotic places Michael refused to name. He also noted Peter’s apparent worry for his wife and helpfulness with investigators, how Peter gave permission for the police to search the Carney home and car. Most important, he said, Peter’s alibi checked out.
“Now, there might have been some marital problems,” he went on. “Fairly typical for a married couple that spends so much time apart, I hear, and when you factor in the stresses of war? Not just this physical stuff. There’s psychological trauma, too.”
He was talking as if Peter was his victim. What’s more, he or his investigators seemed to be viewing Evelyn’s disappearance through Peter’s eyes, and it was Peter’s take that was driving the narrative. Understandable as a starting point, given Peter’s willingness to talk, but maybe not the whole story or even the real story.
“You sympathize with Peter?”
His face screwed up, as if he’d tasted something bitter. “Hard not to. Poor guy’s off getting his ass shot at while his wife’s running around DC having her little sexual adventure.”
Ah, there it was. “Her sexual adventure?”
“With Ian, certainly,” he said, thumbing the handle of his coffee cup. “What we don’t know, are there other men? You know, there’s a reason sometimes these women go missing.”
My blood went hot. These women.
He shrugged. “Evelyn Carney got around. All I’m saying.”
It was almost laughable—almost. I mean, this was Michael talking—Michael Ledger, who was shockingly promiscuous. Of course, he would say he was just doing what fellas did, while women got around, and if sometimes these women went missing?
Through my teeth, I said: “And how about him?”
“Who?”
“Peter. The husband. Did he indulge in extramarital relationships? Anything that might have caused Evelyn to get gone?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Meaning, your investigators haven’t checked, have they?”
He waved his hand in dismissal, and my temper whipped dangerously again, even as I understood that anger was a waste of time. Michael’s attitude about sex when a woman’s body was the crime scene was so commonly held among investigators that I shouldn’t bother fighting it, except for this: Evelyn Carney depended on Michael’s good will. If he thought she “got around” and was unworthy of his precious time, he might stop looking for her, and her case would fall to the bottom of his tragically long list of cold cases.
I also knew there was no use pointing out the flaws in his worldview that was already baked in. Without a word, I got up and ordered a coffee to go. He followed me out of the café and up Wisconsin Avenue.
“You mad at me?” he said.
“Nope.”
“You’re acting like it.”
I cut him a sideways look.
“Well, if you’re not mad, take me to that big-shot dinner at the Hinkley Hilton tomorrow night,” he said.
The White House Correspondents Dinner had been on my calendar, and every year I got two tickets, but this year I’d forgotten about it, which was pretty remarkable. It was the black-tie event for TV folk. At the Hilton, you could walk a red carpet, wear beautiful clothes, get drunk on the cheap, and rub elbows with celebrities, the real ones from Hollywood. I wasn’t into celebrities, but they attracted the Big Fish, the holders of information, and that was the objective of the game. You invite a Big Fish, and they allow you access to their information, quid pro quo—although I’d long since grown weary of that game and in recent years went with Ben instead.
Now Michael, my own hooked Big Fish, was talking about being invited by some crime reporter who’d had the prudence to invite him. “But I’d ditch him in a heartbeat if I could go with a beautiful, ruthless woman.”
“Yeah, all right, I’ll take you.”
“Try not to sound so excited about it,” he said in a dry voice. He stopped at the corner that turned toward my station. “So tonight? Got any plans to go back across the river?”
That was Michael-speak for Arlington, where Ian Chase lived. “What time you talking?”
“If you get there before sundown, you’ll be good. Techs will go in with the blue lights, search for blood, that sort of thing. Maybe you get yourself some pretty pictures.”
Now that was worth the dinner ticket—and more. “How’d you get the warrant?”
“Ian’s attorney gave permission.”
“The attorney that wouldn’t let Ian talk?” I said with suspicion. “He’s letting your investigators search Ian’s home? Why?”
“Because, my love, our fine AUSA is trying to finagle his way off my list.” His smile was long and thin like the blade of a knife. “Trust me, that list is nowhere you’d want to find yourself.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HERE’S THE PROBLEM . . .
Nelson and Ben hovered over me, one on each side of my desk. I pointed to the computer monitor that showed an aerial view of Ian Chase’s neighborhood. Google Earth was a wonder that allowed you to consider stakeout locations without ever leaving the office.
“The investigators will most likely go through the front,” I said, and clicked on the street view of the glass condo. The entrance was as impressive as I remembered.
Nelson whistled. “Check out his crib,” he said with awe. “Know what that building needs, though? Hip Asian guy. Lend it some of my cool.”
“Sure, you’re what it needs,” Ben said. “But what it requires? Lots of money.”
Nelson scratched his chin. “More than my artist salary, you think?”
“Can we drool over the real
estate later?” I said, tapping my stylus to the monitor. “So here’s the first camera’s position, staked out at the front door. We’ll need a second camera for the garage entrance. The big question: how to get video of Ian’s apartment on the fourteenth floor. If I’m calculating correctly, this is his unit—the penthouse on the northeast corner.”
“Dude’s got river views,” Nelson said, whistling again. He pushed back the brim of his ball cap and scratched his scalp as he thought about it. “You need me to get interior video of the police searching an apartment fourteen floors above the street?”
“Even if you can only get the reflection of the blue lights off the windows,” I told him. We’d gotten this kind of video plenty of times by shooting through the window—child’s play for Nelson, really—but never in a location so high up. This required more ingenuity. “It’s a shot we may never use. Hopefully, Evelyn Carney will turn up safe and sound. But if Ian Chase did something to her, I need the picture to write to. How do we make it happen?”
“Get me in a helicopter, and I’ll get your shot,” Nelson said.
Ben said, “A boy can dream.”
“Yeah, restricted air space this close to the District,” I said, and then to Nelson, the biggest gossip I knew: “Did I mention? No one can know we’re shooting video. An F-16 escorting a news chopper out of airspace might attract some attention.”
We were quiet for a moment, staring at the monitor, when Ben pointed to the part of the map that showed parkland across the street from the condo. “What if we put a microwave truck in this lot for the park?” he said to Nelson. “We could use the camera on top of the mast?”
It wasn’t my favorite option. The truck was big and obvious, with our station ID painted on its side. When the mast went up, it created a lot of noise. The video from the mast camera was always shaky and blurry, borderline unusable.
Nelson did a quick calculation using his fingers. “Yeah, no. If the dude’s penthouse is on the fourteenth floor, it’s at least a hundred twenty feet up. Mast is maybe a little over sixty feet, max. It won’t get the shot.” He gazed at me, his lips pursed. “If you got in the building before, why not again? I could get you up to speed on a camera, something hidden—”
“Not an option,” Ben said, folding his arms across his chest. “She no longer has the element of surprise, it’s not legal, and Mellay won’t have her back. Last thing I feel like doing is the two-step with a bunch of corporate lawyers. Or bailing her ass out of the Arlington County Jail.”
Some girls got all mushy from flowers and jewelry and professions of eternal love. I got warm and fuzzy when Ben talked about bailing me out. It meant we were ourselves again, a team.
“What’s the farthest point from which you can get usable video?” I asked Nelson, noticing no one had mentioned my idea yet.
“Baby has a seventeen-to-one ratio,” Nelson said proudly. “She’s got the most amazing lens.”
“Baby?”
Ben rolled his eyes. “He named his new camera. Don’t ask.”
“All right, dumb it down for me,” I said. “On this map, where does Baby have to set up for a shot that’s worthy of her?”
“If she’s on tripod or otherwise steady, she can shoot from three hundred feet away and the video would look like she’s fifteen away. At that distance, you won’t see wrinkles on a face, but you see the face.” He bent over the monitor. On the map, his finger circled a radius around the condominium. “That means she can handle anything within this area, if this map’s scale is right. The closer to the condo the better, obviously.”
“What about this building here?” I pointed with the stylus. “The one with the parking garage?”
“Hell yeah,” Nelson said. “Get me on that roof, Baby gets your shot. What is it?”
I grinned. “A hotel.”
————
There’d been no small rooms on the top floor of the Marriott, only a corner suite at a budget-busting rate that would’ve flagged Mellay had I charged it to my corporate account. But it was the perfect location for the stakeout. I booked the suite with my personal charge card.
My satchel was packed and I was ready to go when Mellay stopped by my office.
“Got a minute?”
I cursed inwardly. “Sure.”
“Isaiah just told me about your father’s illness,” he said, crossing the room to me. “I wanted to make sure you got the time you needed. You need anything, you have only to ask.”
My brow creased. He was being nice to me. I scarcely knew how to take it. “Thank you,” I said.
“You look flustered. Maybe you came back too soon.”
“Just feeling a little pressed for time.”
He squinted at me through his glasses. “Oh yeah? Working on something for the show?”
“I . . . no. Well, no, not for tonight’s show.” I felt my face getting red. “Just a tip that maybe needs checking out. Not sure yet.”
He went silent, strolling around my office. At the bookshelf, his fingertips strummed the spine of my books, stopping at Ulysses, and tapped the book twice. “Girl with this many books is looking for something,” he said, turning back to me. “Can’t say I understand you, but I know this: it’s not smart to hide things from your boss.”
“If anything pans out, I’ll call you.”
And I planned to. I really did.
————
Inside the hotel suite, Nelson set up his camera at the window. Over the tree line, we could see into Ian Chase’s apartment. Its windows were floor to ceiling and had no curtains or blinds to obstruct our view. The interior space was lit up.
Nelson was gawking through the camera’s viewfinder. “This Ian Chase guy is living my dream,” he said, stepping aside. “Take a look.”
I could see the main room, a stunningly elegant and open space. Abstract paintings hung above wainscot, and minimalist furniture scattered around what appeared to be an Adams mantel. A gourmet kitchen with high-end appliances ran the length of the far wall.
“No way the techs keep those curtains open,” Nelson said. “We can’t be this lucky.
“Your camera stays on that window until investigators leave, okay? If there’s even the hint of blue light, I want it.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “Never in my life have I missed the money shot.”
When the sun went behind the trees, it grew cold by the open window. A westerly breeze swept in. I went into the sitting room and made a pot of coffee and slid on my jacket before pacing with restless excitement. Finally, my cell phone rang. Ben told me the techs had just gone in through the lobby.
“Your photographer got video?”
“Parking and unloading equipment. Two detectives accompanied them. I checked the video. It’s good stuff.”
I hurried back to the bedroom where Nelson was bent over the camera again. His slender frame was taut with an alertness that said something was going on in the apartment. I stepped away from his blind side, softly, so as not to startle him. “Police inside?”
He grunted.
There was nothing to do except stand there, watching Nelson shoot whatever the hell he was seeing. Finally, he straightened from the camera and stretched his back, grinning. “We’re getting freaking everything,” he said. “Take a look.”
In the foreground, a technician worked over a small table in front of a window, holding a book by its binding and shaking it out. Another was working over a kitchen sink. I couldn’t see what he was doing.
From behind me, Nelson was saying: “I got to hand it to you, Virginia. This is serious access. You got some kind of pull with that source of yours.”
It made me nervous. Ian Chase was a well-regarded, politically connected federal prosecutor. “I thought Ian was one of them,” I murmured.
Nelson snorted. “Guess not. They’re hanging their boy out to dry, for real.”
————
Later that evening, I parked my car in a spot at the end of the street, the last remain
ing space, and grabbed the Maglite from beneath my seat. Under a sky bright with stars, I walked toward the darkness that was my house. I’d forgotten to leave lights on again.
The trees behind the streetlamps threw weird shadows across the porch. The largest shadow in the corner moved. It appeared to be a man rising from the Adirondack chair I kept chained to the railing. I pointed the Maglite at him. It was Peter Carney.
He lumbered across creaky slats and down the steps to meet me on the walkway. His clumsy movements made me wonder if he’d been drinking. “I got your messages earlier,” he said, talking as if it were perfectly normal to be waiting for a near stranger outside her house late at night. “Would you like to talk now?”
“You should have called before dropping by,” I said warily.
“Yes, of course. You’re right.” His short hair stood on end, and he was looking everywhere except at me, surveying the dark corners of my yard and the line of cars along the curb to the end of the street, where music played faintly. “I just started walking. I wasn’t thinking about where I was going. Next thing I knew, I was here.”
“You walked all the way from the Hill?”
“It’s easier to walk at night,” he said. “There’s not as much color. Over there—where I was in Afghanistan—everything is muted. All that rock and dirt and concrete, it changes the light, spreads it out, and then I come home, and all the bright color gives me headaches. Today it was bad.”
He was shivering, despite the temperate air. I didn’t like him being here, but it felt unkind to send him away.
“You want something warm to drink?” I said. “Or I could grab you a blanket?”
“Huh, look at that,” he said, holding out his hand, watching it shake. On his ring finger was a wedding band. When he looked up again, he said: “Detective Miller let me pick up Evie’s Volvo today. I wanted to tell you that. You know Detective Miller?”
“Not personally. He’s the lead detective on the case.”
“He said the guy who reported Evie missing was some prosecutor she was seeing when I was overseas. She never told me his name, just that she was in love. Now this detective tells me she’s not with him, either. It’s so confusing.”
The Cutaway Page 12