Sex, Lies, And Polygraphs

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There is one accusation, however, that places Condit in immediate legal jeopardy. It is Smith's contention that his representatives tried to persuade her to sign a false affidavit that he and she were not involved in a relationship. Condit has not disputed her contention that they had an affair but denies he pressured her to lie.

Whether or not he broke the law, Condit has hindered the investigation. That he first denied the affair--and that it took three interviews with police for him to admit his relationship with Levy--makes him look as if he were more concerned for his reputation than her life. Almost everything Condit did fueled suspicion that he wasn't being honest. On June 28, Condit's office gave ABC News a time line of his movements from April 28 to May 2, the five days surrounding Levy's disappearance. On May 1, the time line indicated, Condit was meeting with a reporter at a "neighborhood coffee shop" at 6:30 p.m. The problem with that account was that the reporter in question happened to work for ABC as well and told her bosses the meeting actually occurred the following day. Asked for an explanation of the discrepancy--and for what actually happened at 6:30 on May 1--Condit's office said the time line was only a draft and not complete.

An ABC News executive says ABC hasn't been able to find out whether the police got the same mistaken time line and, if so, whether it was corrected: "The police have never called [us] to check on this discrepancy."

The Condit team hopes its surprise announcement Friday that the Congressman has taken a polygraph administered by expert Barry D. Colvert, formerly with the FBI, would soothe critics. Condit, said his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had truthfully answered no to the only questions that mattered: Did he have anything to do with Levy's disappearance? Did he harm her or cause anyone else to? Does he know where she is? But neither police nor the Levys were satisfied. Assistant D.C. police chief Terrance Gainer dubbed the test "self-serving."

Condit did comply with other requests. Shortly before dawn on Wednesday, he allowed police to search his apartment for more than three hours. Condit and Lowell were present as officers took folders and bags into an unmarked police vehicle; several items were sent to the FBI crime lab so that flecks of undetermined substances could be analyzed. Police with cadaver dogs also began searching nearby abandoned houses.

That nearly all their leads should be taking investigators toward Condit's innermost life--to the point where the inside of his mouth was swabbed for his DNA--must be a peculiarly hellish torture for a man obsessed with guarding his secrets. The Hill newspaper quoted police sources as saying Condit had insisted that Levy not carry any identification when they were together--a detail that, if true, could have a connection to the fact that items such as credit cards, her driver's license and other personal articles were left behind in her apartment when she vanished. Then again, she may simply have been running a quick errand. And police, while discounting suicide, have not ruled out the possibility that she disappeared intentionally. They released computer-generated pictures of how Levy might look if she had changed her distinctive hairstyle or other features.

For all the precautions Condit is said to have taken, and despite the wholesome image he projected at home in Modesto, the Congressman's behavior has always been the subject of gossip among his legislative colleagues--first at the state capital, Sacramento, and later in Washington. "A flamboyant party boy who uses his prestige as an assemblyman to fuel a busy social life," California Journal had written in 1988. The pattern continued when he reached Congress. "His looks and clothes are so important to him," says a friend. "He so desperately wants to stay young."

Few in Washington knew much about his wife Carolyn, who had stayed behind in Modesto; many had the impression that she was a near invalid. But an acquaintance who has known Carolyn Condit for decades told TIME that despite some health problems, she is a vivacious woman. (She has often made appearances on the Modesto political circuit in her husband's stead.) "She was always out there," the acquaintance says. "Even if he wasn't there, she was there for him."

No one, however, was in evidence Friday afternoon at the Condit family's Modesto-area home, where an American flag hung from the front porch and the only message to passersby was a vividly colored sign: NO TRESPASSING. For Gary Condit, it's far too late to hope for that.