The Cutaway

by Christina Kovac

  She stared at me, dumbstruck. “Your lieutenant was wrong, or he lied for Michael,” she said finally. “On the night Brad was killed, Michael Ledger was in my car, getting a ride from the bridge to his house in upper northwest.”

  With the same sick feeling that came every time I thought of that night, I made myself remember the conversation with Brad, the promise to meet him at the diner, how I’d held open the door by the cashier stand and surveyed the patrons, looking for him. The neon clock above the counter read 9:07 when I heard the shots.

  After that, everything was a blur. I’d made it to the satellite truck in time to call in a script and prepare Heather for the live shot at the top of the eleven o’clock show. But I’d only just made it. Michael had been the holdup. He’d made me answer those questions.

  Attribute to me what those boys told you, except for the motorcycle, he’d said. We can’t have you reporting the motorcycle.

  I put my hand over my throat. “You recognized the motorcycle on the news?”

  “From the night I met Michael at the Dubliner. There was one like it, parked out front, bold as day. You couldn’t help but notice it. It was a big, flashy bike.”

  “A Triumph?”

  She nodded. “He mentioned it at the bar. Promised to give Evie a lift home, if she didn’t mind riding on the back of a motorcycle.”

  I wondered if she understood what she was suggesting about Michael Ledger, legendary detective, police official. One step at a time, I thought. “You drove up and down Chain Bridge Road and there was no car broken down, as he’d told you.”

  “No car.”

  “You spotted Michael Ledger coming out of the woods, alone?” I said, and when she nodded, I went on: “How did he behave when he got in your car?”

  “You know how he’s always flirty and chatty and quick with the crime stories? Not that night. It’s like his brain was somewhere else entirely.”

  Because he was thinking about what he’d just done? Dumped his motorcycle used in a homicide off of Chain Bridge Road? Hiding evidence for the killer?

  Was he the killer?

  The bridge was four or five miles from the crime scene. Given the lack of traffic in the late evening, it would have been easy to get to the bridge in fifteen minutes, max. The shooting occurred at 9:08. Paige picked Michael up sometime after nine thirty but before ten.

  Was I really thinking Michael Ledger was involved in the murder of Brad Hartnett?

  “You think he dumped his Triumph?”

  Her lip trembled. She bit it. “It sounds crazy, right?”

  I dug the burner phone from my satchel and brought up a satellite map of the bridge and held the screen out to her. “Show me where. Since it’s so close, I’ll swing by. Take a look.”

  “Now? It’s late.”

  I explained that lots of news happened late at night. If there was a piece of evidence dumped in a lonely place in the dark of the night, we had to get video of it. That’s what we did. But I also told her not to worry. I’d go alone, quickly, without her. She was a source and should go nowhere near evidence, and I’d protect her identity. What I didn’t say: no way would I let what happened to Brad Hartnett happen to her.

  “If I find a motorcycle, I’ll report it to the authorities as an anonymous tip.” Which wasn’t a lie. I’d promised Paige Linden anonymity from the beginning.

  She studied the map for some time, widening the screen and playing with the zoom, moving the map around in frustration. “I can’t say definitively from this view.”

  “Take your time.”

  She glanced up from the phone with a frown. “We should let the police handle this.”

  “Not until morning, please.” I begged her. If there was a motorcycle, I had to get a shot of it before the police impounded it inside the garage at Mobile Crime, where I’d never get a picture. Or, if my worst imaginings were even remotely true, that this was the police corruption Brad had hinted at, I had to get to it before they destroyed it as evidence or dumped it where it’d never be found.

  I took the burner phone from her and shoved it into my pocket and turned to the door to go.

  “You’re going out there, aren’t you?” she said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe if I drove out with you? I might recognize the spot if I see it.”

  It was a bad idea. I should have argued, but if I were to have a chance in hell of finding this bike? “It would make things easier,” I agreed reluctantly. “If you stay in the car. Out of sight.” And then I thought about it some more. “There’s a reason we protect witness identities, you know? It could be dangerous.”

  She laughed nervously. “Then we’d better go quickly, before I think better of it.”

  ————

  From the trunk of my car, I pulled out my video camera. It was the latest model Canon, a nifty little professional grade with a terrific lens. I replaced its batteries and those of my Maglite, too.

  We climbed into the car and started up the road under yellow lights that blinked over sleeping neighborhoods. My eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, but no one followed. The streets were empty.

  A game plan was playing out in my head: if I found a motorcycle, I’d shoot it before calling a real photographer—Nelson, if I could wake him. When Nelson arrived, he could keep an eye on the scene while I drove Paige home. After Paige was tucked safely away, I’d call the authorities, and Nelson could shoot police activity when they arrived. It was a good, workable plan. Best of all, it would get Paige back home in a hurry.

  I glanced over at her. She was staring ahead, her posture rigid and the muscles in her neck protruding. My Maglite was in her lap. She was fiddling with it anxiously, clicking it on and off. The clicks were setting off my nerves.

  “You’re going to run down my new batteries,” I said in a gentle voice.

  She flinched, glancing down as if only now noticing the flashlight, and said, “Oh, yeah,” with a sigh and turned it off again.

  We were on Canal Road now, following the river out of the city. I forgot how dark the night could be. Dark video was bad video. “Wish I had a light kit,” I muttered. “Even a floodlight would do.”

  She lifted the heavy Maglite. “I can help,” she said, pointing the flashlight outward like a sword, showing off the lean muscles of her strong arm, and if she could hold the light steady, it might even work.

  The car went silent again, except for Paige fidgeting on the leather seat.

  “Don’t worry.” I hoped to sound more convincing than I felt. “It’ll be fine.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE CHAIN BRIDGE was the smallest of the Potomac crossings, connecting upper Northwest DC to the tony Virginia suburbs. The bridge had a remote feeling, surrounded as it was by federal parkland and estates on the cliffs high above. Just beyond the bridge, Paige told me to slow down. “This is it,” she said, indicating a gap in the trees. “Where I picked Michael up.”

  I turned into a small, unpaved pullover lot that was surrounded by trees. There was no light of any kind. It was hard to figure out the lot’s purpose. A lover’s lane? A pullover for road crews? A surveillance hideaway for police? It was impossible to say. There were no nearby stores or restaurants or neighborhoods, nothing except the woods and the bridge and the river far below.

  “He was over there.” She was pointing toward the farthest corner of the lot, where the brush and tree limbs had taken over. Its darkness seemed impenetrable. On the opposite side closest to the bridge, a low wall made of stone kept cars from pitching over the cliff. I backed the car against the wall and aimed the headlights where Paige had pointed.

  We got out. It was spooky quiet.

  “Stay by the car,” I told her, taking the Maglite. With the camera slung across my shoulder, I walked through the high beams. There was no sign of any motorcycle, nothing being wheeled or dragged across the lot. Only an old fishing lure and crushed beer can. No sign of any vehicle at all, dammit.

  “You s
ure it was here?” I called back over my shoulder.

  From across the lot: “Yes,” she shouted.

  The trees were tall and thick, and the overgrown brambles formed a barrier in the gap between the trees that was impassable. I swung the flashlight like a searchlight and came across a good-sized break that tunneled deep into the woods. By the looks of the broken edges of the branches, a large animal had passed through—a bear, a buck, a man. No way to know without following the trail.

  But I didn’t like it. Anything could be back there. Anyone.

  “What’s wrong?” Paige said. She’d come up from behind me, startling me.

  I put my finger to my lips, listening for movement. There was the sound of the wind high in the trees, and that was all.

  She guided my hand holding the flashlight and whispered, “What’s that?” A piece of fabric fluttered on a branch. It was a narrow strip, black, maybe two inches long. She plucked it off the branch and handed it to me.

  It felt smooth, silky. A delicate texture from an article of expensive clothing, perhaps a scarf or the tail of a shirt, the lining of a coat, something like that.

  “What was Michael wearing?” I whispered.

  She struggled to remember. “We were in the car such a short time. A dark jacket, I think. Maybe leather. Yes, I think that’s right. It had that distinctive smell of leather.”

  The witness to Brad Hartnett’s murder, Darius, had said the shooter wore a trench coat. Black leather. Badass—

  “Like the one Samuel Jackson wore in Shaft?” I murmured.

  “Who?”

  Deep in the woods there was the shriek of an owl followed by the cry of its prey, disturbingly like the cry of an injured child. I shouldn’t be here. But then I chastised myself: that was an owl, not an omen. I was letting my imagination run wild, when I should be doing my job. Sometimes that job meant coming up on crime scenes at night and running through alleys and banging on lonely doors, never knowing who might be on the other side.

  But this was different. I was afraid of the dark woods, the way they closed you in, trapped you. The thought of going into those woods made me light-headed, yet I knew I was going to do it.

  “Are you scared?”

  “Go back to the car,” I said in a voice surprisingly steady. “You’re my source. I don’t know how to protect you here.”

  “You think I’m afraid of a bunch of trees? A herd of deer?”

  “No, Paige, but it’s not a good idea. Not for you.”

  “I’ll admit it. I was scared in the car, but not now. Now I want to know if he was hiding something.” She put out her hand. “Give me the flashlight.”

  She slipped her hand through the silk cord at the base of the Mag and slid sideways through the gap in the trees.

  “Paige, slow down.”

  But she was gone. I heard her stumbling around, and then there was silence. It was as if the woods had swallowed her up.

  “Goddamn it, wait!” I went in after her. Thorns and branches scratched me, catching my hair and clothing, and then I was through the brambles and in some kind of clearing. I could feel its openness, but it was too dark to tell its size. The fragrance of pine and moist earth and decayed leaves was strong.

  “Over here,” Paige said from some distance. A beam slid across the forest floor between us, lighting a path. “Watch your step,” she said.

  Beneath my foot, a downed branch cracked with what seemed the loudest sound in the world. Only a little farther, I told myself. Just a few more steps. I reached out and put my hand on Paige’s shoulder like a swimmer who’d gone too deep reaches for the pool wall.

  “What is this place?” I whispered.

  “Some kind of camp . . . look.” She swung the beam across the ground. There were remnants of an old fire and some crushed beer cans, their labels long worn away. The beam of light moved outward along the perimeter and then to the farthest edge of the clearing where it met the trees—and bounced across a flash of chrome.

  “Hold it,” I said excitedly.

  The light jerked back, and there it was, caught in the beam—a beautiful beast of a motorcycle. Muscular and dangerous looking and as thrillingly sexy as only bad can be. Even at rest it gave the appearance of heart-stopping speed.

  From my shoulder I slipped the camera and clicked the record button, and when the red light came on, crept up slowly on the bike, as if it were a mirage that might disappear with one wrong move.

  My palm ran along its cover that was as cool and smooth as glass. The windscreen was shaped aggressively. How well this bike suited its rider. I sorted through my memory that captured every piece of video I’d ever seen, even those I’d rather forget, and honed in on Michael’s photograph in the Washingtonian article.

  Under a gray sky. Squat white building in the background—police headquarters. Michael, bigger than life, astride his Triumph, hands resting comfortably—no, that wasn’t right—resting possessively on the handlebars. Seated so tall, proud—

  Something didn’t fit this motorcycle. What was it?

  I took a step back, setting down the camera. It was something about the handlebars. Something was . . . different.

  “What is it?” Paige said in a terrified whisper.

  It made no sense. This was the same make and model and color, the same bold Triumph written across the gas tank in exactly the same way. In every way, in fact, this bike matched the one in the photograph—every way, that is, except the angle of the handlebars . . .

  The answer was a punch to the heart. I spun around, looking for Paige. “We have to get out of here,” I said, breathlessly. “Back to the car.”

  She aimed the beam at my face, blinding me, and then suddenly the light went out. We were plunged into a darkness that felt alive with menace, that seemed to be breathing, and then I realized the sound was my own short, panicked gasps.

  I reached out to get my bearings. “Paige?”

  “I’m here,” she said quietly.

  She clicked the Mag on again, holding it to her side, pointing downward and creating a narrow circle of light on the forest floor. My eyes were already adjusting, and I glimpsed the faintest outline of her body.

  Tall and strong, narrow, thin-hipped—

  Bitch hips.

  The witness, Darius. What did he say? “Makes you look like you got bitch hips.”

  A woman’s hips.

  A woman—

  The world turned upside down, nightmarish, dazing me. The words tumbled out: “It was you?” No more than a whisper. “You killed Brad? Evelyn?”

  She came toward me slowly, and in the eerie shadows thrown by the bobbing flashlight, it was as if she were hunting . . . me. I told myself to run, but couldn’t. My legs had gone rubbery.

  “Give me your keys.” She spoke in a low monotone, a horror soundtrack of a voice. It had the effect of a siren going off. I scampered back until I bumped into the bike.

  “Don’t make me ask again,” she said.

  Suddenly she was in front of me. The Maglite flashed. I got a forearm up before her blow came crashing down on it. I stumbled but stayed on my feet.

  “Give me the fucking keys.”

  I yanked them from my hip pocket and tossed them wide of her. She went over and scooped them up. By then, I’d put the motorcycle between us.

  “Now the phone,” she said.

  I shook my head, near tears. My phone was my call for help. But she lifted the flashlight again, hefting it against her shoulder, threatening to hit me again. In the distance, that damn owl let out another shriek.

  “Give me your phone and I’ll let you go,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Like you hurt Evelyn?” I was circling the motorcycle, closer to the path out of the woods, closer—

  “What a fool, that Evie. She let herself be a pawn. It was a mistake to hurt a pawn. Like it’d be to hurt you.” She paused, and then: “What could I do? Bernadette’s out to destroy me.”

  “Bernadette Ryan?” Thi
s was about Evelyn—and now me—not her boss. Her fixating even here made her crazy as a shithouse rat. My mind went cold and sharp: she brought me here for one purpose, and that purpose was not to let me go. She was holding that Maglite as if she would beat me the same way she hit Evelyn before shoving her off the bridge.

  Fight or flight? She was bigger. That meant flight.

  I took another step, inching closer to the path, and reached into my pocket for the phone. There, alongside it, was a smooth handle.

  A pocketknife. It was Ben’s knife.

  My thumbnail slid along its edge, and the blade flicked open. The tip was sharp.

  Mother of God, I had a weapon.

  With the knife in my fist, I ran like hell, stumbling over downed branches and tree roots, and finally I got to the brambles and barreled through. My shoes hit gravel. But I could hear her gaining.

  From behind she tackled me, and I went down hard, slammed onto the ground, the wind knocked out. It was a nasty, graceless tussle, boots clattering, us rolling painfully on the gravel. I swiped at her with the knife. She jerked back with a grunt and swung the Maglite, smashing my forearm again, and I dropped the knife.

  And then she was on top of me, pinning me with the Maglite across the base of my throat.

  I can’t breathe. I’m going to die.

  The fury of it blackened my mind. I fought back, pushing up and up and up, all shaking adrenaline. The weight against my throat went away, as the Maglite arched up again, and I grabbed the knife. She swung the flashlight at the same time I lunged up to meet her—this time with the knife. I felt the give of skin beneath the blade and the warm wetness on my hand, just before the pain on the side of my head exploded. Everything went to black.

  When I came to, I found myself sitting on the gravel, blinking at the dots in my vision, trying hard to stay still. Movement made me queasy. I blinked again, and my eyes cleared, and I saw Paige. She lay near me, unconscious.

  I struggled to my feet and stumbled to the car before I remembered—no key. I reached into my pocket for my phone, and shards of glass scraped my fingertips. The screen was shattered. No phone service.