Burying the Lede

by Joseph LeValley

  “Can I get you something?”

  Lisa’s father was trying hard to smile and keep the mood light. Tony admired and appreciated him for it.

  “That would be nice. I have to admit I’m a little dry.”

  Without another word, Freed led the way to the great room at the back of the house. The room had vaulted ceilings, a wall of glass windows overlooking a deck and pond on the left, and a huge fireplace at the back. It reminded Tony of the lodge at the nearby Boy Scout camp.

  Freed went to the refrigerator behind the bar. There were a few glasses around, but it was obvious to Tony that the cars hadn’t been here for a party.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Freed said, “I had a few guests here tonight.”

  “Yes, I saw the cars leaving,” said Tony, purposely setting his curiosity aside.

  Freed offered, “Just a few of the party faithful planning some final campaign strategy for our friends in the statehouse. Everyone’s nervous and pulling out all the stops now that the election is less than a month away. Unfortunately, they’re also pulling out the money, my money in too many cases.”

  Tony hated the thought of Freed’s money supporting the governor’s campaign, especially in light of what they were about to discuss. He couldn’t believe Freed would support anyone he knew to be a criminal. How would Lisa’s dad react? Disbelief? Anger?

  Suddenly Freed was in front of Tony, smiling and handing him his favorite, a diet Dr. Pepper. Tony instantly remembered that Lisa had kept some here just for him. Her dad probably would be glad to be rid of it. Freed mixed a scotch and water for himself and smiled again, “I don’t like to drink when we’re talking money, so I hope you won’t mind if I have one now.” He sank into a deep leather chair and motioned toward the couch in the middle of the room. As Tony sat on the edge, elbows on his knees, Freed lifted his glass and spoke into it, “But I doubt you’re here to talk about politics…or money. So what can I do for you tonight?” Then before Tony could respond, Freed added quietly but intensely, “If you’re here to profess your love for Lisa or, God forbid, confess something to me, just be aware you don’t have to do it for my sake. I know how she felt about you, and I’m glad she had a chance to be that happy during the final months of her life.”

  Freed’s last word caught in his throat and Tony could see his eyes glisten and his knuckles turning white as they gripped the glass. Suddenly Tony realized Freed was as tired, heartbroken, and angry as Tony.

  “Mr. Freed…Nate, you are amazingly kind to say that to me and I can tell you honestly that I did love your daughter. The only regret I have to confess is that I never told her how I felt.” Saying it out loud sent a shiver through Tony. He repeated it through a sob, “I never told her I loved her. How could I be such an ass?”

  Freed spoke firmly in a manner that commanded Tony to look up. “Forget about all that. Lisa knew. She never doubted it from the first night you two were together. You can’t agonize about not telling her in words. You told her in plenty of other ways.”

  Then, more quietly, but still staring into Tony’s eyes, he said, “Besides, let me assure you, I told Lisa I loved her nearly every day for twenty-six years, and it doesn’t help ease the pain one bit.” Suddenly Freed threw his glass into the fireplace hearth where it shattered. Tony jerked in surprise but stayed in his seat.

  The two men stared at each other, both looking red-eyed and defeated. Tony knew he had to get to the point before he broke down altogether and lost his courage. Freed started to speak, “Well, that was rather embarrassing…”

  “Thank you again, sir, for sharing. I have to tell you, I wish with all my heart that I was here to reminisce about Lisa,” Tony sensed he now had Freed’s undivided attention. “Sadly, in a way, I guess I am here to talk about politics.”

  “Well, don’t be mysterious about it, Tony. I think you know me well enough to know I like to hear it straight. What’s this about?” He leaned back in his chair and gripped the arms.

  “Yes sir,” Tony took a big swig of soda and set the bottle on the glass table in front of him. Looking directly into Freed’s eyes, he said, “I came to tell you a story.” Freed’s eyes narrowed and looked hard at Tony, who quickly said, “It’s a story I believe to be true and have some evidence to prove but, perhaps, don’t have the courage to write.”

  “And what’s this story about?”

  “Well, sir, it’s about Lisa. I think I know what happened to her.”

  “You think you know?” Freed sat up straight and leaned forward in the chair.

  “Yes sir. I don’t have all the evidence to prove what I’m about to tell you, but I have enough to be confident in my own mind regarding what happened. If you’ll hear me out, I’m guessing you’ll agree with me. But I want to warn you, you’re not going to like where this leads.”

  “Tony,” Freed said, “I do want to hear everything. I think you may be the only person who understands just how much I want to know what happened to my baby. But before you continue, do you mind if I ask why you’re telling me? I know you have friends in law enforcement. If you know something they don’t, shouldn’t you be talking to them?”

  “Actually, sir, I’m not sure who my friends are anymore, and I’m talking to you for three reasons. First, I’m not sure who I can trust; secondly, I know how much Lisa loved you, so I can only guess at how much you must have loved her; and third, I need your advice.”

  Freed closed his eyes and spoke carefully. “Okay. You talk and I’ll listen. And then I’ll do whatever I can for you.”

  So Tony talked. He started at the beginning with his concerns about the trial, his deep-seated belief in the innocence of Ralph Wells, and his role in discovering the truth. Freed, of course, knew all of this but, despite his desperate desire to get to the heart of the matter, he allowed Tony to continue.

  “It’s fun to be right, I’ll grant you that,” Tony said, shaking his head. “God help me, I felt like a hero when I wrote the story about Wells’ rightful release from prison and exposing the ‘true’ evil-doers. But despite that, I knew something still wasn’t right.”

  Freed finally broke his silence. “Like what, Tony?”

  “There were lots of things,” Tony felt his face redden. “I know that sounds silly but think about it. Wells went free, which is what I believed was right from the beginning. And Rod Nelson was shamed into what I’m willing to bet will be political Siberia for the next twenty years, which should have made me ecstatic because I saw firsthand what an egocentric ass he was. But something still wasn’t right and as I thought about it, I remembered what Lisa had told me.”

  “Lisa…?”

  “Yes. When I was trying to sort out the truth about the double homicide from the beginning, Lisa always told me to look for the person who benefitted. She would say, ‘Find the person who gains the most and that’s your prime suspect.’ Sounds simple enough, but who gained from these murders? Wells does jail time he doesn’t deserve, Denny Peters is dead, and Nelson is washed up. Therefore, no suspect. I found myself smiling at her naivety.

  “I wanted so much to be able to hold her and laugh and say, ‘Silly girl. In this case the only person who benefited was your friend, the governor.’ And then it hit me.” Tony paused as Freed leaned forward, taut, and unblinking. “Dear God in Heaven it suddenly was clear what had happened.”

  “Are you saying the governor, our Governor Roskins, was somehow involved in this? I’m sorry, Tony, but you’ve lost me.”

  Tony wasn’t surprised. He was surprised at how unconvincing Lisa’s father sounded. This just added another brick to the wall as Nathan Freed’s tone made it obvious that he, who knew the governor so well, had no trouble believing the governor could be involved. Freed’s face got red and his hands began an almost imperceptible quiver. Tony could see Freed knew the governor capable of exactly what Tony was about to describe.

  “For the sake of getting to the point, sir, let me skip the details about evidence I have and simply tell you what hap
pened. I know it sounds outrageous, but hear me out. It started two years ago. Governor Roskins learned Rod Nelson was going to make a run for governor. He and his political hacks decided somehow that Nelson, as a popular attorney general, was a real threat and they resolved to end his political ambitions. The best way to do that was to give Nelson enough rope to hang himself. So, the governor needed Nelson to make a colossal public mistake, and the best way to ensure that was to hand him a sensational criminal trial that he was certain to get wrong.”

  “So,” Freed spoke in a whisper, as though he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs, “the governor has two innocent people killed, frames an innocent man for the crime, waits for Nelson to pounce, which he had every right to assume he would, and then exposes the bungle, shaming Nelson right before the election.”

  “Bingo,” Tony said, sounding far more somber than the word implied. Very quietly, he added, “And of course the governor didn’t expose it directly. With the help of the DCI, I did. Which means if you buy my theory, I have to accept that I’ve been manipulated throughout this mess. The same probably is true of others, although one of the problems I have is that the written description of this horrendous crime, which I have on a thumb drive in my pocket right now, doesn’t make it clear who’s on the governor’s payroll and who is an innocent dupe like me.”

  “Such as Rich Davis, you mean,” Freed said.

  “Exactly,” Tony said. “It was Rich Davis who called me to the Wells arrest scene, which made sure I saw Wells’ face when he was arrested, which is what planted the original seed of doubt in my mind. It was Rich Davis who called me to the scene of Peters’ suicide…to make sure I made a huge and immediate story out of the fact Wells was likely innocent. Then, last night, it was Rich Davis parked outside my house, watching me, he said, on orders from his boss.”

  “Well, Tony, I have no facts to help you sort out the demon-versus-dupe issue. I hardly know Davis. But the little I know about him tells me he’s a good man. I’d be surprised if he’s involved beyond taking orders.”

  “I desperately want to agree with you, but the worst part is, I told Rich yesterday that I was going to take a bike ride down to the river this morning.”

  “Uh, sorry, Tony. You’ve lost me again.”

  “This morning when I rode out onto the bike bridge across the river, someone took a shot at me from the woods. My brains would be splattered all over the bridge railing if I hadn’t bent down to grab my coffee.”

  Freed looked stunned.

  Tony continued, “I’ve never been so scared, or so lucky. But worst of all, I can’t get around the fact Rich was the only person who could have set that up. Well, Rich or his partner, I suppose; but they’re both DCI. Now you understand why I need advice on how to proceed.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that, Tony, except that I’m glad you’re okay. And I still find it hard to believe Rich Davis or another DCI agent would arrange for the cold-blooded murder of anyone, let alone a friend. Is it possible it was a stray bullet from a hunter or some sick stranger trying to scare the cyclist on the bridge?”

  “Anything is possible, I suppose. But it seems far more likely, in light of everything else that’s happened, that this was a legitimate attempt on my life. Jesus, what a mess.”

  Freed sat quietly for a few moments. “I’m sorry to sound so self-serving, but I still want to hear how Lisa fits into this nightmare. And I want to understand if Peters did indeed kill the Ennis couple in the first place.”

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure about that. It looks like Lyle McCabe cooked up this whole scheme. The plan he outlined for the governor is in the document I mentioned that’s on the thumb drive in my pocket. McCabe and the governor apparently had used Peters for years to do various dirty jobs as needed. McCabe suggested him as someone they could hire to kill two people. They knew Peters to be someone who wouldn’t give it a second thought. I’m guessing the original crime all happened pretty much the way it was described in the suicide note except, of course, Peters didn’t give a rip about Anne Ennis. He was just a hired gun.”

  Freed seemed content to listen, so Tony kept going, “In addition to using Wells’ gun and jacket, Peters used money supplied by McCabe to bribe Francie Wells to testify against her brother. Based on what I observed in Viscount…oh, you may not know I saw Peters and Francie together in the bar there. Anyway, I’m guessing Peters kept some kind of relationship going with her, either to ensure her silence or keep an eye on her, or both. The young girl waking up and seeing the man in the jacket was also part of the plan. If the girls hadn’t awakened on their own, Peters was instructed to make sure he did something to wake them up.”

  “So then,” Freed said, “when they wanted to expose the Wells conviction as a, quote, ‘travesty,’ they had to reveal Peters as the real killer. That meant they had to kill him too and make it look like a suicide so they wouldn’t have to worry about him telling the truth about the original crime.”

  “Once again, sir, you’ve nailed it. Believe it or not, all of that was planned in advance. They just failed to mention that last part to their hired hit man.”

  “And Lisa?” Freed’s voice suddenly dropped to a near whisper.

  “Well, Lisa clearly wasn’t part of the original plan, because it’s not spelled out anywhere. I can only speculate, but once I found out Lisa was the source of this document…” Tony patted his pocket, “it all suddenly made sense.”

  “Tell me what you mean when you say Lisa was the source.” Freed stood up and walked to the windows which covered one entire wall of the cathedral-ceilinged great room. He stared out into the dark as Tony shifted his position on the couch and continued.

  “Molly Parks gave me this flash drive right after she showed me its contents late this afternoon. She said the file, which spells out in detail what the governor and McCabe were planning to do, was in a folder on her computer desktop. Molly said she didn’t put it there. She believes Lisa found the file while working at party headquarters and copied the file to Molly’s machine.

  “Probably that was the same night…the night Lisa died. You’ll recall Lisa had been working at the party headquarters as a volunteer. She called me at the Crier wanting to talk. She was very upset. She wanted to meet. She even talked in riddles as if she was worried someone was listening. She was frightened…Despite all that, I didn’t go to her right away. I took care of my needs first. I was late. I didn’t know…” Suddenly Tony was crying and Freed was standing by his side.

  “Tony.” His voice was firm, even as his hands shook more obviously. “This was not your fault. Now that you’re learning the whole truth it should be more obvious than ever that you did not kill Lisa. If you had shown up immediately, they just would have waited and killed her later, or maybe would have killed you both.”

  “In any case,” Tony stuttered through his tears, “I have to believe she found this incredibly damning document while working that night and fled from the offices in a panic. McCabe was there. It would have been an easy thing for him to know or suspect what had happened and to call in the hired gun.”

  It looked as though Freed might speak, but Tony held up his hand, “Sorry, but one more thing. As I was desperately trying to revive Lisa that night at Harvey’s farm…guess who arrived first at the scene? Yes sir, Deputy Sheriff Denny Peters. I never thought about it at the time, but obviously he was nearby because he had just left there. He had been at the scene just moments before where…where he had just forced her to sit in her car while the exhaust fumes killed her. No one knows this, but we have found the tubing that Peters used to gas Lisa in her car.” More tears flowed and Tony nearly wailed, “I actually saw his car headed the other way on the gravel as I arrived there.”

  Tony saw the anguish on Freed’s face and quickly said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t need to share that. I didn’t come here to hurt you further.”

  “No. I want to know everything.”

  “Well then,” Tony took a deep breath, “k
now this. I’m speculating, but I have to believe McCabe would have made sure he had the governor’s approval before doing something so drastic. He knew about the governor’s relationship with you and Lisa, so he would have felt compelled to get permission to…” Tony couldn’t bring himself to say it again.

  Freed turned from the windows and stared at Tony, then suddenly strode back to the bar. Sounding like he was trying to put up a brave front, he said, “Well, Tony, you’re right. You’ve put all the pieces together and it makes perfect sense. Now we need to figure out what to do next. I need another drink, and I think it’s time you let me put something stronger in that soda you’re drinking.”

  Quickly, Freed was back with a bottle of Scotch in his hand. As he came up beside Tony, the bottle suddenly jerked forward and Tony’s head exploded in pain. He fell onto the glass table and rolled onto the floor as everything went black.

  Chapter 27

  Tony’s consciousness crept out of a very dark place. He slowly opened his eyes. It was still dark. He blinked to make sure his eyes were open. It was pitch black. It was cold. The pain in his head was excruciating. He instinctively reached up to rub it…and realized he couldn’t. As his consciousness grew so did his panic. He was on his side, in a fetal position. He tried to move. No. Something was…Suddenly he was wide awake and, just as suddenly, he was in more pain than he realized a person could feel. His head throbbed, but so did his legs and his shoulder and…

  He tried to move again. Shit! His ribs. It hurt to breathe. When he did, the smell was not pleasant. Oil? Charcoal? No… rubber. He could smell rubber, like when he had changed the blown tire on his SUV. He continued to squirm and take stock of all his senses, and then it was obvious. He was in the trunk of a car. A car that wasn’t moving. There was no road noise; no sound of an engine; no sound of any kind, in fact, except Tony’s labored breathing through his nose. His mouth was sealed. Duct tape? Probably. His hands were secured behind his back and…Tony grunted…yes. His feet were pulled back and affixed to whatever was secured around his hands. Rope? Wire? He didn’t think it was either.