Corruption of Power

by Brenda English

“You’re damned right it’s our story,” Rob told him, “but I had to drag Lester into Mack Thompson’s office and have a little hand-to-hand combat before he would believe it.”

  Mack Thompson is the managing editor, which means he spends a lot of time settling internecine wars among various sections of the paper, all of which have to vie with each other for a limited amount of space.

  “So both of you had better be balls-to-the-wall on this one,” Rob went on. “Forget anything else you’re working on short of an earthquake or World War Three. I want us right on top of this thing, and I don’t want to see any surprises when I pick up the Post. I used up a lot of chits on this, you guys, so don’t make me look bad.”

  “You tell that asshole Mark Lester that Sy couldn’t find his way around a police station even if his dick was in their lost and found,” I said hotly to Rob. Behind me, I heard Ken choke down a laugh.

  “McPhee,” Rob warned, giving me a hard look, “don’t make me sorry, either.”

  “You know you won’t be sorry,” I answered bravely, knowing Rob would have as much riding on this as Ken and I would. “You definitely won’t be sorry.”

  But as I went back to my desk to get my purse and go home, I wondered. This might be the biggest police story of the year; for me, it might be the biggest story ever. And already I had managed, without even knowing how I had done it, to piss off the man who would have all the information on the case. And then there was that other thing, that feeling of knowing him. I had ruled out any possibility that I did, but the feeling persisted—and had me thinking about Lansing in a way that didn’t come close to being professional. In reality, I was hoping even more than Rob was that he wouldn’t regret fighting to keep me on this story.

  Three

  Home, finally. A chance to stop for a little while—stop the running around, stop the verbal fencing, stop the effort to be two steps ahead of everyone around me, stop looking over my shoulder to see who was gaining on me.

  It always feels this way when I open the door to my apartment in Alexandria’s West End, known by the long-timers (i.e., anyone who has lived in the area for more than two years) as “Condo Canyon.” I live on the fourteenth floor of one of the neighborhood’s dozen or so high-rises, and my westward-facing balcony and living room windows give me a spectacular view not only of the sunset each day but also of the surrounding Northern Virginia foothills. Because I live there alone, walking through the door always feels like entering a refuge—no newsroom racket or bustle, no frantic pace.

  Once inside, I put my things on the small ebony Chinese chest that stands against the wall in what passes for a tiny foyer and walked across the living room to look out the windows at the world I had just left. At this height I could see the lights of homes and offices and high-rises for two or three miles. The constant humming swish of six lanes of traffic on I-395 reached me from three blocks away, and I could see the bright white headlights and softly glowing red taillights of cars moving rapidly in each direction. Immediately below me, a handful of cars circled the building’s parking lot, looking for parking spaces, and a man and a woman walked up toward the front door, arm in arm. All of it is part of a huge metropolis that sprawls out from the corridors of power in the District of Columbia, for at least forty miles in any direction—and a very long way from the small Georgia town where I grew up.

  With the night outside pressing against the windows like the backing on a mirror, I also could see myself, a thirty-four-year-old woman looking out at the world in bemusement. I studied the reflection in front of me. Somewhat tall. Five-eight, to be exact. A decent body (although no model), the result of nightly sessions on a ski machine and yoga lessons twice a week. Black hair that I usually wore in a thick French braid. A nice mouth, the bottom lip fuller than the top. Brown eyes, dark and large—and tired. Even in the dim reflection of the window, I could see that my eyes looked tired.

  Too many deaths to have to chase in one day, I thought. And an editor from page one who wants to take away my story.

  And don’t forget the handsome cop who doesn’t like you, my little voice added.

  “Shut up,” I told it. That little voice, which had made its opinions about my behavior known throughout most of my life, was my compass and my nemesis. It kept me sane and drove me crazy. It told me that I wasn’t so bad and that I wasn’t so good. Right now I didn’t want to hear it.

  I turned from the window and went to my small galley kitchen to find something to eat. From the freezer, I took a boring but convenient frozen dinner—sliced turkey, carrots, and green beans—and put it in the microwave to heat. While that mainstay of the overworked single professional was warming, I went down the short hall to the larger of the two bedrooms to change into a set of the gray sweat clothes I use for pajamas. I ducked into my bathroom long enough to clean the makeup off my face and then went back to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of Burgundy. To hell with white wines with fowl, I thought. I prefer a decent dry red just about anytime.

  The microwave dinged behind me as I put the wine bottle back on the counter. I took out my dinner, peeled off the cover, set the little plastic tray on a real plate, grabbed a knife and fork from the drawer, and took all of it and my glass of Burgundy out to the teak dining table that I had inherited from my mother. The table seats six and takes up most of the dining “area” off to the right of the living room. I pulled out two chairs, side by side, one for my butt, one for my feet, and sat down to eat and look out through the expanse of windows that continues from the living room across the dining area. Ordinarily, I would have put on some music or moved my portable TV from the kitchen counter to the table to watch a sitcom or the news. Not tonight, though. Tonight, I didn’t want to have to think at all.

  Which was, of course, exactly what I couldn’t stop doing. First I thought about Ann Kane and what could have happened to her. An accidental drug mix-up on her part? Deliberate on someone else’s part? What about the two men? The medical examiner said all the semen had been deposited at about the same time. This was a young woman who didn’t even have a boyfriend, according to coworkers and her boss. A twenty-nine-year-old woman from a devout Catholic family, who attended Mass regularly, who worked at a food kitchen for the homeless on weekends. How likely was she to have agreed to some sort of seamy interlude with two guys at once?

  From there my thoughts went on to Janet Taylor, another doer of good works. What in her life could possibly have called such a fate down on her? Everyone who knew her loved her. Was it a passing killer, who somehow went unnoticed in that swank neighborhood and who found Janet Taylor at home alone? Was it someone she knew or a stranger? Who on earth would have wanted her dead?

  And from Janet Taylor, it wasn’t very far to Noah Lansing. Why was I thinking about him again?

  Because he took an instant dislike to you, my voice said, and you took an instant like to him.

  Oh, no, are you back? Don’t you ever sleep?

  The voice went on: And you aren’t used to having people dislike you for no apparent reason. You work hard at ingratiating yourself so they’ll tell you what they know. People usually like you, at least at the beginning. Even Jack liked you at the beginning.

  Jack is Jack Brooks, my ex-husband, who still lives in Tallahassee. Our marriage had lasted two years, until he said he was tired of having a wife who spent all her time in the gutter and who was never home. Then he walked out and filed for divorce. What he was really tired of, I had told myself—and him, in one memorable argument—was my refusal to be his mother and to be at his beck and call all the time. I sure didn’t need to dredge up that pain right now.

  “Get lost,” I told my voice.

  No way, it answered. You know how you reacted to Detective Lansing. You’d like to get to know him. You think you do know him. And he wants nothing to do with you. He saw right through you, McPhee. Saw all the warts you try to cover up. And now you think he won’t like you no matter what you do. Or maybe you’re just afraid you’ll never g
et any information out of him.

  “Okay, that’s it,” I said loudly into the quiet room, throwing my fork down on the plate. I stood up and gathered the remains of my dinner, eaten mostly unconsciously. Back to the kitchen I went, tossing the disposable tray into the garbage and putting my glass, plate, and utensils into the sink. I was angry, at Noah Lansing for judging me so swiftly and finding me wanting, and at my voice for its efforts at what it called refusing to let me live in ignorance of my real feelings and motives. Yes, Lansing had been unfair. But it was more than that. I didn’t want him screwing up my story. Or disliking me.

  Way to go, McPhee, the voice chimed in. You met the guy this afternoon and already he doesn’t like you. And on top of that, you’ve got the hots for him and you haven’t even had a conversation with him. And you call yourself a grown-up!

  Disgusted, I turned off the lights and went to the bedroom, where I eyed the ski machine balefully, said screw it, and climbed under the covers.

  Thursday

  Four

  At seven o’clock the next morning, I was at the Massey Building on Chain Bridge Road, which houses the Fairfax County Police Department’s criminal investigations bureau. I had my no-regrets reporter persona firmly reaffixed and planned to try to get a moment alone with Noah Lansing. The police day shift begins at 7:00 A.M., and it can be tricky, particularly with investigators who often work well before or after their shift, to catch them before they get out on the road. And I was hoping, despite the wrong foot on which things had begun, to talk to Lansing without any other reporters around, not because I really thought he could or would tell me anything new at this point, but just to try to get a better reading of who he was and to establish some kind of rapport that would ensure access to him when I needed it. Of course, being able to look at him wouldn’t be unpleasant either.

  Lansing, it turned out, was working temporarily out of an office at the Great Falls Government Center’s police substation while some offices in the Massey Building were being renovated. That district government center also housed a satellite office for the Great Falls county supervisor, Hub Taylor. Well, that’s convenient anyway, I told myself as I went back out to my car to make the fifteen-minute drive to Great Falls.

  Jimmy Turner, the officer at the front duty desk, told me Lansing was in the morning briefing with the rest of the shift and would be done any minute. I knew better than to ask to wait in Lansing’s office. The detective would suspect the worst if he found me there alone and probably would blame Jimmy for letting me in. Instead I stood next to the door that led from the small glassed-in lobby into the rest of the station. The briefing room was down the hall to my right, and I would be able to see the cops as they came out to start their rounds.

  Two minutes later the door to the briefing room opened and uniformed officers spilled out into the hall, bringing their cups of coffee and their conversations with them. Eventually, Noah Lansing, accompanied by Bill Russell, whose office was in the Massey Building, brought up the rear, coming in my direction. As they approached I knocked on the glass door to get their attention. Seeing me, Bill walked up to the door and signaled to Jimmy that I was kosher, for today at least. A loud buzzer sounded, and Bill reached down to open the door for me.

  “Come on back, McPhee,” he said, his expression serious, but friendship lurking in his eyes. “I told Noah that if I knew you, you’d be here lying in wait for him at the crack of dawn. But he just couldn’t get away in time.”

  Noah Lansing just looked at me, not overtly hostile like the day before, but certainly not warming up to me. I saw no way around it but head-on.

  “Detective Lansing, could I have a few minutes before you leave?”

  Lansing flashed a look to Bill, who nodded, obviously having told Lansing that the quickest way to get rid of me with a minimum of fuss was to humor me, or at least to appear to. Lansing looked back at me, then turned to walk down the hall to the left. Not hearing an outright refusal, I chose to interpret this as an enthusiastic invitation to his office. I followed him quickly, hearing Bill chuckle to himself behind me. Him I ignored.

  Lansing led me into a tiny private office almost completely filled by a gray metal desk with a black vinyl swivel chair behind it, two guest chairs with oak arms and blue woven upholstery, a couple of tan four-drawer metal filing cabinets, a wooden coat tree with a black nylon raincoat hanging on it, and a small computer table against the back wall, on which sat a computer whose blank blue monitor screen showed only a small white cursor blinking in the top left corner. The office’s starkness and cramped size were relieved by a window, on the wall opposite the door, that looked out on a stretch of green grass and the police-cruiser parking lot. On the wall facing the desk was a large color photograph of a sailboat with a navy-blue hull and a very small boy standing on deck, waving to the camera.

  I stood in the doorway a moment, watching as Lansing removed his suit jacket, this one a deep heather blue with pinstripes, and stepped in front of the desk to hang it on the coat tree. I was noticing a trend here, I thought to myself. Lansing certainly seemed to be a sharper dresser than most of the plainclothes cops I had met. Of course, he did share one ugly piece of attire with all the others, the leather hip holster, his dark brown and well-worn and holding an ominous-looking automatic pistol. He moved behind the desk, with the easy grace of the physically fit, I noted, sat in the swivel chair, crossed his right ankle over his left knee, leaned back, and looked up at me with a neutral gaze.

  “Why thank you, I’d love to have a seat,” I said, closing the door on Bill, who had sat down in one of the gray metal chairs in the hall to look at some notes. I deposited myself in Lansing’s guest chair, bending to lay my purse at my feet, then put my notebook and pen in my lap, unopened but available should Detective Lansing decide to be forthcoming with hot tips. I looked up again to find him still studying me with the same steady, unrevealing look in his intense blue eyes. We watched each other in silence. I felt like a virus under a microscope. Finally, Lansing took pity on me or just got impatient.

  “What did you want to ask me, Ms. McPhee? I can’t believe you’re suddenly at a loss for words.”

  That pissed me off, but it kicked my brain, which seemed to keep going on vacation around this guy, back into gear.

  “Never,” I assured him, smiling. “I’d be out of business.”

  “Mmm,” he responded. I had a strong suspicion that the idea appealed to him.

  I plunged ahead.

  “Are you going to be questioning Hub Taylor further?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me when?”

  “Probably later today.”

  “Any autopsy results yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, when do you expect them? I’m sure the medical examiner has put a rush on them, considering who the victim was.”

  Lansing’s tone remained unchanged: cool, inflectionless. “I expect the first batch sometime today or tomorrow. Some of the blood work and toxicology reports will take longer.”

  “Any suspects or motives yet?”

  “I can’t tell you any more than I said yesterday.” It was clear that he hadn’t changed his mind about me since then, either.

  “Look,” I said, deciding to take a chance on honesty. “I really just wanted to introduce myself sort of formally and to say that I don’t want yesterday to give you the wrong idea about me. That was just the latest skirmish in some good-natured ribbing between Bill and me. Neither of us was serious.” I paused, waiting for a response.

  I got none, just the look.

  “Anyway,” I went on, less encouraged by the second, “what I am serious about is my job. I’m good at it, but to do it, I need information. The Janet Taylor murder is a big story. I… ah… what I’m trying to say is that I hope you’ll be up front with me. Tell me what you can tell me. If you can’t tell me something, just say so. But don’t bullshit me. And if you tell me something off the record, I promise you won’t see your name c
onnected with it in print.”

  His look was unwavering—and silent. I felt like an ass.

  Finally, Lansing blinked. I thought, So he’s not in a coma after all.

  “Ms. McPhee, I don’t give a damn whether you’re serious about your job or not,” he said. Yes, there definitely was life there, but it wasn’t a friendly form.

  “I just—” I began.

  “Can it,” he snapped. He uncrossed his leg and, with both feet now firmly on the floor, leaned forward, forearms on the desk, and laced his fingers—none of which wore a wedding ring, I noticed—together. His eyes had lost their neutral expression. They were definitely hostile again.

  “You want honesty? You’ve got it. I don’t like you, Ms. McPhee, and I don’t like what you do for a living. I have to go out there and deal with people getting killed, up close and personal, while you… well, you’re a voyeur. Even worse, you think all this is funny. I’ll give you information, but only when it isn’t going to jeopardize my investigation and only when I give it to the rest of the press. Don’t expect favors from me. You won’t get them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have real work to do so no one else gets killed, if I can prevent it. Good-bye, Ms. McPhee.”

  I snapped my jaw shut. It must have been hanging open during his entire outburst. I grabbed the notebook and pen out of my lap, picked my purse up off the floor, gathered what was left of my dignity, and marched to the door. Lansing might set off all my hormones, but the reporter in me was still in control when it came to having the last word. I stopped and turned toward him.

  “I don’t know what your problem is, Detective, but it isn’t nice to piss off the press. Sometimes we know things you’d like to know, too. But don’t worry, I’ll be back, so tell me what you know, or don’t tell me. But whatever you do, don’t lie to me. Oh, and a couple of other things. One, if you knew anything about me at all, you would know I don’t find anything about murder funny. And second my name isn’t Ms. It’s Sutton.”