Ellis returns to the interrogation room with a thin file containing glossy photographs. “Crime scene shots,” he says. “And a few witness statements. I might have forgotten to give every copy to the feds.”
I recoil as he drops the file down on the table and a few photographs spill out. I’m not really in the mood to see photos of Diana’s crushed face and body. “Anything from the witness statements?” I ask.
“Not much.” Ellis shakes his head. “Except that the first people to attend to the victim were also the first ones to leave.”
I think back before I realize he’s talking, in part, about me.
“Two women got to her first,” Ellis recites from memory. “They were parked in some kind of a blue compact car by the building. They apparently reached her, and it seemed like they were checking her vitals, that kind of thing. But they got in their car and left before the ambulance arrived.”
I remember the first part of that, the two women getting out of the car. What happened to them afterward I have no idea.
Ellis looks squarely at me. “Then there was a man who was talking with some people across the street about his motorcycle. He was second to reach the victim. After a few minutes, he staggered back into the street and puked his guts out. Then he jumped on his motorcycle and left before the authorities arrived.” Ellis shrugs his shoulders. “Any idea who rides a 2009 Triumph America with…let me see…” He looks down at some notes and then back up at me. “Metzeler ME80 tires?”
“No—880s,” I say, correcting him.
“Right. ME880s.” He smirks at me.
“Apparently those witnesses knew their motorcycles,” I say.
“So did the guy who owned the bike. They said he was a real nice guy. Real friendly.”
“Handsome, too,” I add.
“Yeah, they said he looked like…Skeet…Ulrich, whoever that is.”
I let that wash over me. This is, to say the least, an unwelcome development. Skeet Ulrich? Diana said I looked like Johnny Depp. I mean, I loved Skeet in the original
Scream
and thought they should have kept him on that new
Law & Order
series, but Depp was Donnie freakin’ Brasco, for God’s sake. In one week I go from Johnny Depp to Skeet Ulrich? What’s next—Ralph Macchio?
“I had nothing to do with her death,” I say. “But yeah, I was there. I already told you that before you showed me the witness statement.”
“So you did, so you did.” Ellis shrugs. “Well, maybe if the CIA hadn’t ordered me and my colleagues to back off this investigation, I might sit you down for questioning. But seeing as how I’ve been taken off the case and all…”
Ellis is a good egg. Like a moth to a flame, my eyes move back down toward the photos of Diana lying crushed and broken. I can’t look. I can’t
not
look. A photo from above; her auburn hair, which she’d colored only a month earlier, cascading across her face. Her left leg askew, the long, smooth limb, her fashionable suede leather low-heeled shoe perfectly set on her foot, ironically enough, though I imagine she would be glad to know she died in a decent pair—
I step backward, my pulse suddenly surging with adrenaline.
“I know it’s hard,” says Ellis. “You must have cared about her.”
I manage to nod and mumble something incoherent as I excuse myself and head back out to the parking lot. Yeah, I cared about Diana.
Or maybe I shouldn’t use the past tense. Maybe I should use the present tense.
Because Diana has a butterfly tattoo above her left ankle, and the dead woman in that photo doesn’t.
I leave the police station with a growing set of facts spread out all over the desk of my brain, but in no discernible order, no logic. Think, Ben. Ultimately, everything is a link in a chain. I just have to put them together.
I hop on my Triumph and spot a car across the street from the Second District parking lot, two guys inside a dark Chevy sedan looking my way. Can’t tell if they’re Chinese or not, but I suppose the Chinese are capable of having Caucasians in their employ, right? I mean, why would I assume that Chinese only hire Chinese? Maybe they’ll get that albino guy from
The
Firm
—
They start their car up just as I kick the Triumph to life. Coincidence? I don’t believe in them.
Is it just a coincidence, Ben? Did your fingerprints just leap onto that gun?
I should call Father.
We’ll call your father, Ben. For now, you’re coming with us. We’re taking you into custody. You’ll be provided a lawyer and a guardian ad litem and you probably won’t be able to live with your dad for a very long time.
Unless, Ben, you want to explain to me what happened.
The Chevy backs up to get out of its parking space and bumps a Toyota compact in the process as I maneuver my bike out of its spot, not sure of where I’m headed—
The compact. The two women in the blue compact car who reached Diana—or whoever it was who fell from her balcony—before I did. They took off before the police and ambulance arrived, Ellis said.
I tear out of the parking lot, suddenly sure of where I’m headed.
I turn onto Wisconsin Avenue, passing a bar that used to be the Alliance Tavern, where Ellis and I once got drunk on cheap whiskey. I don’t see the Chevy behind me, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t following me. Traffic is pretty thick, for some reason. I take a quick right onto M Street and then I get on Route 29 going south, crossing into Virginia. The rush of air, the best thing about this bike, provides me some measure of relief, but there is a permanent tremble coursing through me now, and the only antidote I can think of is speed, speed, speed, but I’m back on main roadways until I hit Jefferson Davis Highway and I floor it, topping ninety, and then I’m thinking of Jefferson Starship and all the other names they used,
We built this city on rock and roll
,
and I almost throw up in my mouth—
Within thirty minutes, I’m at the Delta ticket counter at Reagan Airport. I use my corporate credit card, not a personal one, and just book the flight there, not a return, knowing that a last-minute, one-way flight is sure to subject me to the most stringent of security checks, but I don’t care anymore. Maybe that’s my problem—I’m too afraid, afraid of dying. Maybe if I’m more reckless, if I’m fearless, like James Bond or something, a cool smile in the face of mortal danger, I’ll be okay. That new James Bond guy is freakin’ awesome. I try for a cool smile, but it doesn’t work.
Turns out I missed the last flight of the evening. So I’ll sleep in the terminal tonight.
And tomorrow morning, I’ll be on the first plane to Madison, Wisconsin.
The Hotchkiss family is home at just after ten in the morning. Home and intoxicated, at least the missus. But I’m sure as hell not going to blame them. As far as they know, they’ve lost both their children in the space of a week.
Before I knock on their door, I read and reread on my smartphone everything the media had on the death of Diana’s brother, Randy. The theme is familiar: Randy Hotchkiss, distraught over the death of his sister, committed suicide by jumping off the roof of Van Hise Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus. No sign of foul play. No pending criminal investigation. Case closed. Yeah, right.
The parents don’t really remember me from Diana’s visitation, and they aren’t thrilled about my being a reporter, but I assure them that I’m not here on the record. When they allow me in, it feels more like a function of their exhaustion than their willingness to speak with me.
Their home is an old Victorian with a dated living room lined with color photographs of their children and black-and-white shots of their ancestors. The whole room has a musty smell overlaid by the smell of burned coffee—not that either of the Hotchkisses appear to have been drinking it this morning.
Bonnie’s eyes are bloodshot and aimless, looking through the fog of grief and alcohol. George is more alert, but he’s clearly suffering as well. Each of them snaps to attention, though, when I tell them a story that every parent who has lost a child longs to hear: somehow, miraculously, their child didn’t really die.
“Is this…some kind of a cruel joke?” George asks.
“I didn’t come all this way to joke, Mr. Hotchkiss. I saw the photos. Diana had that tattoo above her ankle.”
“Then why aren’t the police here, asking us about that? You’re the only one who noticed the missing tattoo?”
“I don’t think the DC police had time to notice something like that,” I answer. “The feds swooped in right away and took over the investigation. Before the local cops could do much of anything, the whole case was snatched from them.”
Bonnie shakes her head. “What does all of this even mean?”
I open my hands. “I—I guess I’m not sure. Diana was involved in something. What it was I don’t know. Was she part of something, or did she discover something—I don’t know. All I know is that the person who fell from that balcony wasn’t her.”
George slowly turns to Bonnie. Each of them is incredulous—I can hardly blame them—but hope is a powerful fuel for suspension of disbelief.
“And you say—the people who found her—”
“The two women in the compact car, right. I think they were plants. They were supposed to be there. They made
sure
they were the first ones there. I think they covered her hair over her face. I mean, you could hardly see her face to begin with. It was nighttime, there was poor lighting, and anyway she’d fallen face-first, so—forgive me, I know that’s graphic, but it’s not like I could really identify her, anyway.”
“But they made sure,” says George.
“They made sure. Her hair was covering her face by the time I got there. It was Diana’s clothes, it was her shoes—the woman was made to look like her, no doubt. But whoever did this missed that detail about her tattoo.”
Bonnie shakes her head. Tears have formed but they haven’t fallen. This is, in the end, potential good news to them, however mind-blowing it may be.
“Did you know that Diana dyed her hair dark a month before this happened?”
“No,” Bonnie says.
I nod. “Thinking about it now, I bet she probably dyed her hair to match the hair of whoever it was who fell from that balcony.”
“You’re saying Diana helped
murder
some girl?” George asks. “Is that what—”
“No, sir. I doubt she knew about it. But the truth is, I don’t know. Listen, Mr. and Mrs. Hotchkiss. I know this is crazy. I do. But there’s an easy way to figure this out.”
They both look at me. It’s a fairly obvious conclusion, but their brains aren’t fully functioning at the moment.
“Demand that the federal government release her body,” I say.
I’m back at Dane County Regional Airport within two hours. I’m not sure how I left things with the Hotchkiss family. There’s no manual on how to react when someone tells you, hey, guess what, your daughter might not be dead after all. And if I’m wrong, then I’ve performed just about the cruelest act that could be inflicted on a grieving parent—giving false hope.
I won’t board the return flight for another hour, so I stroll along the brown-and-gold tiled floors, checking out the Wisconsin Marketplace and briefly considering an Aaron Rodgers jersey, because c’mon, how cool is that guy, even with the mustache, and then I head to the men’s room closest to my gate.
One overweight guy passes me on the way out and one of the bathroom stalls is occupied. I use the urinal, then wash up, making the mistake of looking in the mirror. What stares back at me is a pair of dark, deep-set eyes and a pale, ghoulish face. Not my best day, clearly. Maybe I
do
look like Skeet Ulrich. If I played a cop on TV, I’d want to be one of those hardened, wisecracking veterans who bitches about his ex-wives and delivers the punch line after they find the body.
Looks like he lost an argument with a switchblade.
Well, I guess I won’t be having spaghetti for dinner tonight.
Something like that—
Two things happen at once: the door of the bathroom stall kicks open behind me just as someone enters the bathroom to my right. Two men, one black and one white, both of them big and serious, both of them wearing dark suits and white shirts, converge on me simultaneously. I throw an elbow behind me and connect with some part of the white guy’s face. It feels like I hit some meat and bone, so it probably hurt. If I had any talent for this kind of thing, I would follow up with a forward kick at the black guy coming directly at me.
But I don’t. I’m off balance from the elbow toss, and the front guy has both hands on my sport coat before I can say
ambush
. He pushes me up against the wall, right next to the hand dryer, while the white guy recovers from my elbow.
“Take it easy, take it easy,” I say.
He thrusts a knee into my groin and I double over.
Pain
is a word you can look up in the dictionary, but you don’t know what it means until someone drills you in the balls. And this guy knew how to throw that knee. He got the frank
and
the beans.
Franks and beans! Franks and beans!
The white guy grabs me by the hair and stands me up straight again. My hands go south, primitive instinct to protect what’s left of the family jewels, while I try to catch my breath.
“This is your last warning, Benjamin,” says the black guy, fixing his tie in the mirror. “Stop asking questions about Diana Hotchkiss.”
The mention of her name shakes me awake, reminds me why I’m doing this. “I’m not afraid of Jonathan Liu,” I manage to say.
“Jonathan Liu?” The black guy chuckles, then looks in the mirror at his partner, who has a bloody face. “There’s a lot you don’t know about Jonathan Liu, Benjamin.”
From behind, the white guy delivers the next blow, a sharp punch to my kidney, and I crumple to the ground. Searing pain shoots from my groin and back and head, synapses firing in all directions. My vision goes spotty and I struggle to remain conscious. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to urinate again.
The black guy squats down next to me. “You’re going to go back to DC and you’re going to call the Hotchkiss family. You’re going to tell them you’ve made a big mistake, and you’re very sorry, but you’re sure that Diana is dead and you won’t be bothering them again.”
These guys know everything we said to each other. Whoever they are, their resources are unlimited.
“And…why…would I do…that?” I manage.
“Because if you don’t, Benjamin, they’re both going to die.” The man stands again, his polished wingtips inches from my nose. “Don’t you see the pattern, Ben? Everyone you try to talk to ends up dead. It’s like you’re pulling the trigger yourself.”
Speaking of pulling the trigger. They’ve kneed me in the balls and sucker punched me. But compared to the things that have happened over the last week, that’s like a peck on the cheek.
Point being, they aren’t here to kill me. These aren’t the same guys with automatic weapons who tore up my cabin.
So who are they?
I try to move, but the pain kicks up with the faintest of motions. I’m curled up in a fetal position on a skanky bathroom floor. At least I don’t have any question about whether I’ll be able to urinate again. A warm stain has spread across my pants.
“I’m not…” I start, but it’s hard to even speak, and anyway they’ve left. It’s just me, myself, and I in the bathroom.
“I’m not going…to stop,” I say.