The Cutaway

by Christina Kovac

  He held up a huge fist, playfully. “Well, you tell Miss Thing she’s in serious trouble with old Leroy. Getting herself beat up in somebody else’s gym. Sparring with somebody who don’t know what he’s doing.”

  There were lots of gyms in town, I reasoned. She’d spoken of this gym, when she’d meant another. But the mix-up was troubling. Paige Linden was my best source, central to our reporting of Evelyn’s story. What else had I misunderstood?

  “So how do you know Paige’s father?” I said.

  ————

  I left the gym in a hurry and drove home to put in another call to Paige. Her voice mail picked up again: “I’m out of the office until Friday. If you need immediate assistance, call my secretary—”

  Well, I’d have to find her, that’s all. She had to explain why she misled me. Of course, everybody misled the press. Many flat-out lied. We called it spin, to be polite about it, because what else could you do? You couldn’t go around calling people liars. Nobody would talk to you if you did.

  Why mislead me with information as innocuous as how she grew up? She led me to believe she was a social peer of Ian Chase, born into comfortable affluence with a family name that opened doors to the law and politics. I’d asked for none of it.

  She told me she’d mentored Evelyn, taught her how to behave in a professional setting, how to dress and wear her hair and tone down her makeup. She’d even nixed Evelyn’s shoes. All of which seemed oddly controlling, narcissistic, now that I thought about it. Had she tried to turn Evelyn into a mini-Paige? Or had none of it happened? Had it all been a lie, too?

  If Leroy was to be believed, Paige Linden grew up in a much less stable environment than Evelyn. Paige’s father had served with Leroy as a mechanic in the Coast Guard, and had been discharged after another “dustup” with the local police. Leroy described Paige’s father as a man who liked to drink, and when drunk, liked to fight, sometimes with the police. After his discharge, Paige’s family had bounced from place to place, struggling to make ends meet.

  Paige had told me Ian Chase struck her during sex. Last night, Ian said he’d never struck any woman, ever, and I found him credible—which was a very serious problem. Much of my reporting had relied on Paige’s narrative. If Paige Linden was a liar, then that reporting was in trouble. I was in trouble.

  I went to the freezer and pulled out a bottle of Absolut and poured it. I carried the glass to the kitchen table and sat down to rethink what we’d reported. Across the table were the pictures I’d collected. That first missing person poster of Evelyn, her face a dark mask with those creepy eyes. The wedding photograph of Peter dancing with Evelyn. The cutaway shot of Evelyn gazing ardently at Ian Chase.

  In an outer ring, the other photographs: Ian at the podium. Paige’s law firm portrait. Professor Hartnett from the George Washington University website, which was the picture we’d been using on our air. Surveillance from the gift shop in Georgetown: the frame of Evelyn at the crosswalk to the bridge, another of the motorcycle and rider, its detail lost in the distance.

  A photograph of Michael belonged next to Paige’s, since the information he gave me echoed hers. No, not an echo. More like a duet of alternating calls, him then her: Michael leaking Ian’s alleged violence with his lovers, Paige confirming. Did those allegations come from Paige? Or had he asked Paige to lie for him?

  At the Dubliner today, Michael had admitted running into Evelyn on the Hill, once when Paige had been with her. At the time, his reference to Paige slipped by me, but now I wondered, what was Paige to Michael? An acquaintance? A friend? An informant?

  I turned on my laptop and ran searches of Michael Ledger and Paige Linden together, looking for intersections or signs of relationship or connections to people they might know, but found no direct links.

  There was a wonderful photograph of Michael from a Washingtonian feature, several years old now. The article profiled Michael’s pursuit of a killer over the Canadian border and into the wilds of the Northwest Territories, where Michael pulled his suspect from a remote shack near the Arctic Circle. Glancing at the article, you’d never know Michael had worked with a task force made up of Canadian authorities and federal agents. No, this feature story read like Jack London fiction: Michael the hero who fought man and nature and won. Its photo gallery seemed more like a promotion for a feature film, with the last picture showing off the rugged good looks of a younger, and airbrushed, Michael Ledger, relaxed in a black leather jacket, his dark hair ruffled against a cantankerous DC sky.

  He was astride a motorcycle.

  I blinked, unable to believe what I was seeing. The make was written boldly in silver letters across the gas tank, the same make that Lil’ Bit had described seeing on the Key Bridge with Evelyn.

  One of them monster bikes, Lil’ Bit had said. Loud as the devil himself.

  Michael had a Triumph.

  Next to the computer screen, I held up the surveillance photo of the rider turning onto Key Bridge. The photo was shot from too great a distance, but I could make out its basic shape, which appeared similar.

  There must be hundreds of motorcycles like it in the District, I reminded myself. This particular article was nearly four years old. If Michael had once owned this Triumph, he may have sold it by now. There could be any number of explanations.

  On the burner phone, I texted Isaiah for a list of all vehicles registered to Michael’s name and address and any other residents of that address. Anything owned within the last five years.

  Isaiah called back immediately, sputtering: “As in Commander Ledger? MPD? What the hell am I looking for?”

  “A motorcycle.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK news had gone to commercial break when Paige Linden returned my call. I didn’t want to talk on the phone. I wanted to watch Paige’s face when she explained why she lied to me. “Can you meet first thing tomorrow?” I said. “Earlier the better.”

  She put me on hold while she checked her calendar. It seemed her morning was booked solid. “Why not now?” she said. “I just got back from out of town, and I’m all revved up. Sleep’s not happening anytime soon.”

  I went to the front windows and peeked through the gap in the curtains. The clunker was parked in front of my house again. It was impossible to tell if anyone was in the car. I stepped back, saying, “I need a few minutes to get ready.” Not to mention the time needed to ditch the clunker.

  “I’ll be awake.” She gave me her address.

  I went through my house and flicked off every light as I would when turning in for the evening. The last room to go dark was my bedroom. I sat on the bed and waited for what felt like forever but was probably only fifteen minutes or so. I shoved the burner phone into my jacket pocket and felt my way through the dark hallway and down the stairs to the back door. The alley was clear. A couple of dogs barked as I sprinted to the car half a block away. If my ride was being watched, there was nothing to do.

  But no one followed. Not that I could tell anyway.

  ————

  Paige Linden answered her door, dressed in all black, a gritty column of boots and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. Her ash blond hair was a windblown mess, and she was giving off an odd vibe I couldn’t pinpoint. Was this Paige being “revved up?” Nervous? Excited? Whatever it was, she nearly pulsed with it.

  We stood in her foyer. I explained that Ian Chase was no longer a person of interest in Evelyn’s homicide. The whole theory had fallen apart, and federal investigators were now involved, pursuing another angle entirely. I paused, waiting for her reaction. She merely watched me, silently, without expression.

  “The old theory relied on a rumor of Ian’s violence with sexual partners,” I reminded her. “Allegations that you confirmed.”

  “No,” she said, evenly. “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t what?”

  “I confirmed no such thing.”

  “Yes,” I said emphatically. “You did.”

  “I
told you Ian hit me once. I do not allow myself to be hit.”

  “You said you’d dated Ian Chase long ago but that he was rough in bed, and you broke up with him when he hit you near your eye. That was your exact quote. Where you said he hit you, by the way, is the same area where Evelyn was struck, a detail left out of our reporting. Something only the police and the medical examiner know. Did someone in the police department ask you to tell me that?”

  She held my stare. Her pupils were enlarged, giving her eyes a strange, vacant look, and I had no idea what she was thinking.

  “Ian denied hitting any woman ever,” I said.

  “What do you expect him to say? What do men like him say?” She was growing angry and trying hard not to show it. It would be bad to anger her before I got answers. She might kick me out.

  I blew out a breath. “Okay, let me start over. Maybe we’re getting caught up in the language. When Ian hit you, it was during a sexual encounter, right? So maybe what you called hitting was what he thought of as role play?”

  “Look, you asked me a question I didn’t want to answer,” she said with scorn. “But I trusted you weren’t one of those sellouts forever questioning the integrity of a woman but never the man.” She came closer, moving like an athlete does, strong and graceful, until she was towering over me. “Even if I prove he hurt me, there’s always another hoop, isn’t there? If I didn’t want it, why didn’t I do something? As if recourse existed, especially against a law-enforcement official. So instead of giving an answer you won’t believe anyway, maybe I should ask—why are you selling me out?”

  I felt my face flush but wouldn’t let her unsettle me. “I met your friend Leroy at his gym. He said he’s known you since you were a child. His depiction of your childhood was very different than what you’d offered up—information I never asked you for.”

  “You asked Leroy about Dad?” she said almost wistfully.

  “So that’s another inconsistency. Have you been lying to me, Paige?”

  She inclined her head, staring at me for a long moment.

  “Don’t you understand?” I said angrily. “I can’t use any of your information if you lie to me. I hate lies.”

  “That’s not what you hate.”

  “Oh yes, more than anything, lies are precisely what I hate.”

  “What you hate,” she said, “is that you understand that particular lie too well. Yes, I lied about where I came from, because I’m ashamed of it—in that very same way you’re ashamed of your old life.”

  My jaw clenched shut. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  “What you also understand? How that shame pushes us to succeed, to take control over our life, even when it drags at us. Strange gift, isn’t it?” Her voice dropped and took on a musical sound that was lulling. “First day I met you, I recognized how alike we are. It was in what you said about the investigators, how you question everything. It’s even in the way you move.”

  “The way . . . I move?” I said, feeling my face go hot again.

  “Your watchfulness. The way you look over your shoulder. You expect everyone to deceive you, don’t you? Even the people who care.” She paused, and nodding, said, “But I was glad to see you felt better after visiting your father.”

  Through my teeth, I managed: “How the hell . . . do you know . . . about that?”

  “I called last weekend about the story,” she said. “Your office told me you’d gone out of town for a family emergency. I was concerned. After everything you’ve done for Evelyn, for the help you gave me at the vigil, the least I could do is ask if you needed anything.”

  We were caught in a stare down. Her eyes were calm and clear. I was anything but. My temper whipped viciously against a vague awareness that I was probably overreacting.

  You expect everyone to deceive you, even people who care.

  About that, at least, she was right.

  “Listen, I don’t talk about certain things,” I said. “It’s not because I’m ashamed or have an issue with authority. I don’t discuss those things because they’re mine.”

  She took a quick step back. A hurt look crossed her face. “I hadn’t meant to upset you. I invited you here to tell you about—well, it really doesn’t matter now. You don’t trust me, and I get it, believe me.” She went to the door. “Maybe you should go.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Her hands went up in a defensive position. “That I saw your news tonight. Whatever. It’s not something we should discuss now.”

  I eyed her suspiciously. “What about my news?”

  “There was a motorcycle in the story about Evelyn,” she said, sighing. “I wanted to run it past you, before I called the police. I have an idea where it could be.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THE VODKA I’D drunk earlier must’ve made me slow, almost stupid. My head was damn near spinning. “You recognized the motorcycle in the surveillance photo?” I sputtered. Talk about burying the lead. “Where is it?”

  She glanced away with that hurt look again. “You won’t believe me.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t trust me,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t trust you, either.”

  It was the way she said it—maybe I shouldn’t trust you—as if she wanted to, or needed to. As if she had no one else, which is why she’d called me.

  I apologized for quarreling with her, for thinking the worst, and for making judgments before giving her a chance to explain.

  She hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “Please tell me.”

  She began with a vague story about the District, how its people were crowded too close together, tangled by the same roots. Take Michael and Ian and Evelyn, she said. Turns out they’d run into each other far more often than Michael had led me to believe. It could be like that in a city so small, especially in that smaller federal center around the courts and the Hill.

  During the time Paige had dated Ian, she’d heard tell of his longstanding animosity for Michael Ledger, who Ian called an upstart who never saw a line he wouldn’t cross. Paige took Ian’s word for it. She’d heard of Michael’s exploits and seen him around, but had avoided him until last summer.

  After a big win at court, she treated Evelyn to a drink at the Dubliner. Michael approached them at the bar, introducing himself to Paige. Could he buy Paige and her friend a drink? He was more charming than Ian had described. He told funny tales and was particularly attentive to Evelyn. It was an enjoyable evening, but it was also a work night. Paige drank a glass of wine and then left Evelyn with Michael and headed home. After that, she saw Michael from time to time, and always he went out of his way to say hello.

  Last Monday, he called her office, asking if Paige knew where Evelyn might be. “He told me someone had reported Evie missing,” she said. “He was looking into it personally. I knew she’d missed work without calling in, but nothing more. He asked that if anything came to mind, could I be in touch?”

  “And did you reach out?”

  “Sure,” she said. “He’s the head of Criminal Investigations concerned about Evie. And it seemed to me at the time, a nice enough man. I called him with even the silliest rumors, just as he asked. We talked often. I came to like him a lot more than I’d expected. When I started hearing things about my firm, I wanted to tell him, but wasn’t quite sure if I trusted him enough.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “The kind you can’t report, okay?” she said.

  It was funny the way she said it. For a moment, she sounded so like Michael, and then she began telling me about auditors seen upstairs in Bernadette’s suite of offices. A well-regarded private eye had been hired. There was talk of misuse of funds, money stolen, but nobody knew for sure. Bernadette Ryan wasn’t talking.

  “You told Michael the rumors?”

  “Well, yes—but not immediately.” Her hand sifted through her hair nervously. “It was a difficult decision. What if auditors had nothing to do with Evie’s death? Tellin
g a police official about rumor of a financial crime is pretty much the same as making a report. Nobody wants law enforcement nosing around the books. And this is my firm, which I have an ownership stake in, where all my money is tied up. Then again, I also have an obligation to Evie. Should I have waited for the firm to finish its due diligence?”

  “You told him?”

  “On the drive home from a late night at the office, I thought, the hell with it. I was tired of the indecision and called Michael from the car. His cell phone signal was going in and out, but I understood that he was having car problems, and was stranded near the Chain Bridge, which is literally minutes from here.” She gestured to the ground on which we stood. “So I drove out to help him, but he wasn’t there.”

  “Where was he?”

  “I drove up and down Chain Bridge Road several times. No Michael. No broken-down car. Finally, I figured I heard him wrong, blamed it on the bad cell phone signal, and headed back to the city. That’s when I saw him, stepping out of the woods.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “No idea. But he was not happy to see me, I can tell you that. He took the ride, grudgingly, as if he were doing me some favor. He was quiet the whole ride. When I told him about the auditors and private eye, he said, great, we’ll look into it. Totally blew me off.”

  I tried to see it but couldn’t. Not any of it. Michael was not a woodsy guy, and why would he hang out there at night? “You said it was late, right? Can you break down the tick-tock for me?”

  “Between around nine thirty, maybe close to ten, on Wednesday—”

  “Wednesday?”

  “Yeah, I get stuck late at work every Wednesday night. That’s when we do the conference call with our partners on the West Coast.”

  Wednesday was the night Brad Hartnett was killed. “You must be mistaken,” I said. “Michael was at headquarters that night, not the woods. The lieutenant told me to wait at the scene for Michael. He said Michael was coming from downtown.”