The Cutaway

by Christina Kovac

  “Mr. Chase?” I said, breaking the silence. His head shot up. I told him who I was and what I did. He slapped a button on the control panel. The elevator lurched to a stop.

  “You’re a reporter?” he drawled.

  “A news producer, yes.”

  He stepped closer to me. It was intimidating, as it was meant to be. “You can’t follow someone onto private property without permission,” he said through his teeth. “I can have you arrested.”

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t,” I said. “Look, I’ve been trying to reach you all day and hadn’t meant to follow you up. Could we can go down and talk in the lobby—or on the street, wherever you like. I just need to ask you about Evelyn Carney.”

  He was studying me from beneath long lashes, the same way I was studying him. “Who gave you my name?” he demanded.

  “I saw you at the vigil in Georgetown. You were talking to Paige Linden about the investigation.”

  “There must have been fifty people at that vigil, and you’re here, questioning me? Why?”

  I was taken aback by how angry he was, and how quickly that anger had come. It seemed out of proportion to the question asked.

  “Wait, can we start again? I need a do-over.” I blew out a frustrated breath and held out my hand. He frowned down at it. I said, “My name is Virginia Knightly, and I’m working on the story of the missing person Evelyn Carney, who has been seen with you in a video—”

  “I don’t believe that,” he snapped.

  “A news video of remarks you made to a community group in Rock Creek Park last summer,” I said patiently. “And then I saw you again at her vigil. The press office said your office isn’t investigating the case, so I figured if your interest wasn’t professional, you must be friends with Evelyn or that you in some way care about her and the fact that she’s missing. I’m looking for people who will talk about her. I’m trying to find out about her. No one will tell me who she is.”

  And then I glanced over his shoulder and lost all train of thought. We were suspended a dozen or so flights up, and through the elevator’s glass walls I could see the spires of Georgetown University and the star-shaped lanterns that illuminated the Key Bridge and beyond those lights, nestled along the river was the Kennedy Center. It was just as Evelyn had described it.

  “It does look like a tidy shirt box,” I murmured, and then, still lost in the wonder of it: “Evelyn kept notes. She described the Kennedy Center as seen over the lights of Key Bridge. It was from this angle.” I turned my attention to him. “She was here, wasn’t she?”

  It was quick, his flare of panic, before he wiped his expression clean.

  “She came here to visit you?” I said, and when he seemed at a loss for words, I went on: “If I banged on your neighbors’ doors and showed a picture of Evelyn, they’d say they’d seen her here, wouldn’t they?”

  He hit the control panel again and we descended. At the lobby level the door opened, and he held the door for me. I dug into my satchel and pulled out a business card. “When you’re ready to talk,” I said, handing it to him.

  I got out of the elevator and made it a few steps when he called out. He was slumped against the open door, holding my card. He looked nothing like the cool and sophisticated golden boy in the glossy pictures of the local magazines. This guy looked like he’d been kicked in the gut.

  “When you’re given something so private, never intended for your eyes, you might consider why you were given that kind of access,” he said. “Ask yourself, what did your source want? How did she or he hope I’d appear? As we know, appearances are not truth. Take your Kennedy Center, for example. From this side of the river, sure, it might look like a shirt box, but it is, and always will be, the fucking Kennedy Center.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE DASHBOARD CLOCK in my car read 11:48, which meant, if I had any hope of catching up with Ben, my next stop would be one of the northwest bars featured in his nightlife. Ben’s philosophy boiled down to this: people were pack animals and it was unnatural for such animals to be alone. Above all, one must live according to one’s nature. Or some such bizarre reasoning. The result was Ben on a barstool after the show every night, talking and drinking and (if rumors were accurate) womanizing, each night a specific bar. Tonight was Friday. Friday meant Chadwicks.

  Chads, as we called it, was a basement bar filled with shift workers, mostly journalists, some cops and firefighters. From the platform above the hostess stand, I scanned its long crowded bar and faces in the mirror behind the bar. A couple rose from their barstools, and the crowd shifted like starlings on a wire, creating a path. At the end of the path was Ben.

  Nelson was there, too, sitting with his back to Ben, talking with a group of college-age women, probably from American U. But Ben seemed very much alone, his big shoulders hunched over his drink. In the mirror, he wore a sullen expression and his thick hair was a disheveled mess. When his dark eyes met mine, he scowled in a way that made the back of my teeth tingle, and don’t ask why a bad-tempered Ben wooed me. It was something I tried very hard to ignore, but never could.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Nelson greeted me with a sloppy hug. “You see our story tonight?” he yelled, as he always did when he drank a lot. The louder he yelled, the farther I wanted to be from him. He had a terrible habit of knocking into people when he got drunk.

  “Our generous producer, or whatever you are, should buy us a drink,” he said, ushering me to the bar.

  Ben put his palm over the longneck. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Sorry for missing your calls,” I told him. “I was—”

  “Yep. Okay. Forget it.”

  “He’s been cranky all night,” Nelson said, smiling crookedly. “Should’ve known it was you. Come on, Virginia. Dish it. What’d you do?”

  I lifted my hands, helplessly. “Can you tell me what we reported?”

  “You missed the live shot?” Ben said.

  Nelson let out a long, high-pitched whistle.

  “That’s why I’m asking.”

  “I should’ve figured you’d blow me off,” Ben said. “But never the story. When’s the last time you missed a live shot?”

  I sighed. It’d been a long day and all signs pointed to a longer night, and clearly self-medication was in order. I signaled the bartender and ordered a round, whether Ben would accept it or not. After that first wonderful bite of vodka, I asked again about the script.

  Ben leaned back against the bar, elbows on the glossy top and long legs sprawled like he owned the place. “You know, I don’t think I will tell you,” he said. “Not till you explain why you were ducking calls.”

  “I was working the story and lost track of time.”

  His eyebrow shot up as his mouth turned down. “Yeah, right. The woman who lives her life to the seconds.”

  The bar was noisy with people feeling no pain, but you never knew what sound traveled. I leaned in close with my hand on Ben’s shoulder and my lips close to his ear. “Tonight I talked to Ian Chase.”

  “The AUSA? In charge of the Homicide Section?”

  “The very same. And it was weird, let me tell you. First I’d seen him at Evelyn’s vigil, when allegedly his office isn’t working on her case. So I’m trying to figure out, if he’s got no business being there, why is he? And that video of Evelyn I’ve been tearing the station apart for? Well, I found it. Guess who’s in the head-on shot leading up to the audience reaction shot featuring Evelyn Carney? Yep, you guessed it, Ian Chase. Coincidence or something else, I wonder? So let me go talk to him. See what he says. Even the attempt to talk pissed him off to no end. Once he was over the surprise of me being there, don’t you think he’d answer simple questions? Nope. Not even why he was at the vigil.”

  Ben was gaping as if he’d been poleaxed.

  “What are you two whispering about?” Nelson shouted.

  “Over the phone you talked to him,” Ben said, “or what? How’d you talk?”

  “Isaiah found h
is address, so I staked out his apartment. Or condo, I guess. He probably owns it. He’s richer than God, I’m told.”

  “Who’s rich?” Nelson said.

  Ben blinked, as if just noticing Nelson. “I have to talk shop with Virginia. How about you treat those friends you abandoned to some drinks?”

  “You guys are always cutting me out,” Nelson whined. “Disrespecting me, like I’m not on the team. I’m as much—”

  “Put it on my tab,” Ben said.

  “Really? Well, all right then.”

  Nelson scampered off happily and I settled onto the stool he’d vacated. Ben turned to the bar, and we sat shoulder to shoulder, drinking quietly, sizing up each other’s moods in the mirror. He was in a strange one tonight.

  “All right,” he said. “Spill it.”

  I got him up to speed on the day’s events. When I got to the part about my talk with Professor Hartnett, Ben frowned, and then when I got to the stakeout at Ian’s, he frowned deeper. I pulled out my phone and showed him the video clip of Evelyn at the meeting in Rock Creek Park.

  “I could’ve used this video in my story tonight,” he complained.

  It would have been a scoop. He was right. “I don’t want to use video that I don’t understand yet.”

  “Come again?”

  “There’s a connection between Ian Chase and Evelyn Carney,” I said. “What the nature of it is, I’d prefer not to speculate. The video begs for that kind of speculation. When we put it on air, I want to say definitively what they are to each other. If I had the raw tape to show the progression of events at that meeting, or to see how they talked to each other, if they talked directly at any point . . .” My voice drifted off on a wistful note. “The conversation with Ian tonight? It was volatile. We couldn’t have been in the elevator for more than five minutes, and in that time he went from angry and paranoid to lonely and hurt. The whole gamut, which says to me he cares.”

  “Or that Ian Chase is playing you.”

  “I’m so easy to play?” I said, smiling ruefully.

  “You’re not, but you’ve got your blind spots. One is for girls in danger. Know why you do that?”

  “Nope,” I said, and it was true.

  “Just as well. Reckon you wouldn’t do it if you knew. Same vein, your blind spot for kicked dogs. Ian Chase takes one look at you and figures he can’t push you around without you pushing back, and harder. So he pretends to be hurt and alone.”

  I sipped at my drink, considering it. Over the top of my glass, I said, “Interesting theory. Why go to the trouble?”

  He put his head down, bent over the pocket knife he’d pulled from his jeans, and was now spinning like a compass on the bar top. The ivory handle was worn smooth, although I knew he kept a keen edge on the small blade that did little more in an office than open letters. Certainly it wasn’t much of a weapon. But the knife had been a gift from his father and he carried it with him always.

  “Tonight I reported that investigators believe there’s a romantic link between Evelyn Carney and the man who reported her missing,” he said, seemingly transfixed by the spin of his knife. “That call came in the day after she disappeared. Police aren’t calling this person a suspect because they haven’t determined if her disappearance is a crime, but he isn’t cooperating. He’s already gotten himself a big-money lawyer, and that lawyer won’t let him talk.”

  “Well, if that man is Ian, I can believe he’s romantically linked. There were some pretty strong emotions coming off of him.”

  “Textbook kicked dog,” Ben said cynically. Under his hand, the knife stilled. He scooped it up, and leaning back, slid the knife into his pocket. He put his elbows on the bar and regarded his beer thoughtfully. “He wants you feel sorry for him. Know why?” And before I could answer, he said: “He’s trying to prolong the moment before you take the next obvious step. When his name is reported. When the relationship becomes defined. And when it all goes down, don’t be surprised if it turns out he killed Evelyn Carney.” His lips thinned, and his dark eyes took on a hard look. “If true, that means the guy you ambushed all alone in an elevator is a murderer.”

  “Well, of course I considered that,” I said with impatience. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Nope, just reckless. Which leads me to what I’ve been sitting here all night itching to tell you.”

  Pinpricks of anxiety tickled my spine.

  “You made me unhappy today,” he said.

  Those words. You made me unhappy.

  “You agreed to partner up,” he went on. “You shook my hand and gave me your promise, and what’d you do first opportunity? You ditched me.”

  He picked up his beer, swinging the empty bottle as he talked, but I’d already tuned out. I was too busy chastising myself for teaming up in the first place. Temperamentally, we were a bad fit. What he called reckless, I considered resourceful fact finding. I had to follow the lead where it would take me, and frankly I was glad to have gone alone. There was no way I could have sneaked up on Ian with an anchor and crew.

  Besides, if I had evidence that Ian had hurt Evelyn, I’d have to question Ian before we reported it. Ben knew that. He was being emotional. It was better not to talk about it now, of course, since it could only make Ben unhappier. I got up from my barstool, ready to bolt.

  “Don’t even consider it,” he said calmly, sliding his bottle onto the bar. “My legs are longer and faster and it’d only embarrass the both of us.”

  I sat down again.

  “Now tell me why you’re upset,” he said, “when anybody can see I’m the injured party here.”

  “I don’t want to argue. Not with you. That’s why I don’t do this.”

  “This?”

  “Partner up. I’m no good at it.”

  “Know what I think? All that time you spent buttoned up in management is to blame here. But we’re only talking a few minor adjustments, and the first is the easiest. Ready?”

  He was no longer unhappy but frowning in a way that barely held back his grin.

  “Repeat after me,” he said. “I will keep Ben in the loop. Come on now.”

  “Try not to be so melodramatic, Ben.”

  “You can do it,” he teased. “You run an entire newsroom and all its people and you even handle, or mostly handle, pain-in-the ass divas like me. Surely you can learn a simple mantra.”

  “To be honest, it’s that—well, I’m just better at being alone, that’s all.”

  I’d meant working alone, not being alone. Jeez, that vodka had gone straight to my head. I signaled the bartender for another.

  “You think being alone’s the problem?” he said.

  “Mostly.”

  He shook his head slowly and he smiled. “Problem is this. You’re used to thinking you’re alone. I’ve been here the whole time.”

  When the bartender approached, Nelson sidled up to the bar and added some German beer I’d never heard of to our order. “Girls went to some party,” he explained to Ben. “Figured I’d hang with you.”

  “You can’t stand next to me and drink a Hefeweizen,” Ben told him, and then to the bartender: “Don’t let him have it. You know what he’ll do.”

  “The lemon adds zest,” Nelson whined.

  Ben cut him a sideways look. “How many times have I told you? Any beer you put fruit in is not a beer. It’s an affectation.”

  The bartender banged our order on the bar: my vodka, Ben’s longneck Bud, and Nelson’s Hefeweizen, cloudy gold in a tall delicate pilsner glass. Then he set out a saucer with two slices of the offending lemon. The bartender winked. “That enough fruit for you?”

  Nelson gave an impish look. He held the lemon aloft, pinching it between thumb and forefinger above the rim of the pilsner as he began a long, rambling story about shooting pictures for Ben at his family farm out west, a big snowstorm, ATVs in the backcountry, and some animal caught in a trap. I had a hard time following, worried as I was by his hand hovering close to the pilsner glass. He was going
to knock it over. I just knew it.

  “So we follow these tracks,” Nelson was saying, “and there’s this god-awful hollering in the distance. Beyond the tree line we find caught in a trap this—this—”

  He snapped his fingers to jog his memory, his hand barely clearing the beer glass.

  I pushed it away.

  “What’s that animal again?” he asked.

  Ben shifted uncomfortably. “How about enjoying your fruity drink in quiet?”

  Nelson snapped his finger again. “A bobcat, that’s it. So Ben swings his rifle off his shoulder and goes over to the trap. He starts banging on the trap with the rifle butt. Well, that cat goes wild, making these hair-raising yowling noises, and Ben’s all bent over, dodging claws while beating on the trap—” He gasped with laughter. “And the cat,” he wheezed, “the little cat—”

  “Little cat my ass,” Ben said. “That was full-grown mature wildcat. If you thought it was such a nice kitty, where the hell were you?”

  “Hiding behind your skirts, of course.” He laughed. “So Ben, he frees her, praise Jesus, but does she run off like a good cat? No, she makes one last lunge, and Ben, he’s screaming—like a—”

  “It dug its claws into my scalp.”

  “That little cat knocked big old Ben flat—on—his ass!” With that, he flung his arms outward, fist slamming into the pilsner glass that went rolling, fancy German beer pouring across the bar and dripping onto the coat of a woman behind him.

  The woman jumped up with a shriek and fled to the hostess stand.

  Ben and I were tossing white towels onto the bar to help the bartender clean up, while Nelson scrubbed his jaw, looking down at the mess as if he had no idea how such a disaster could have occurred. It was so typical. I told him to give the woman some dry-cleaning money. Naturally, he had no money. So I gave him my wallet, and Ben called him a cab.

  “Why do we love him?” I was serious. Sometimes I wondered.

  “Because he’s ours,” Ben said grimly.