Breach of Honor

by Janice Cantore

  “How can I help?” he asked, glancing at the medical activity going on around the victim.

  “I just got a sketch of what happened,” Leah told him. “I don’t know where the suspect went. See if any of these people can help.”

  He nodded. Leah’s attention went back to Lavinia. She and her husband had their heads together. They were praying.

  Leah cleared her throat to get their attention. “Do you know Carlos’s full name?”

  Lavinia blew her nose. “He’s Porter too, but they’re separated.”

  Michael snorted and Leah turned toward him.

  “That no-’count. Alex has tried to get rid of him. She stays in that apartment yonder.” He pointed to an apartment across the courtyard. The door was open, and all the lights were on. “He just shows up once in a while, for money, you know?”

  “Are there any children?”

  Michael shook his head.

  “Any guns or other weapons that you know of?”

  Again, a headshake.

  The medics had the victim loaded up ready to transport.

  “How’s she doing?” Leah asked.

  One medic’s expression told her more than words could. Leah felt sick to her stomach.

  “Can we go to the hospital with her?” Lavinia asked. “I’ll call her mother.”

  “If you wish. I’ll be there as soon as I sort things out here.”

  The couple left and Leah located Tanner. He was talking to some animated people who must have witnessed the fight. They pointed this way and that, obviously affected by what they had seen. She waited a beat for him to finish.

  “Tanner, let’s check out the apartment.”

  He nodded and followed her. “Guy’s full name is Carlos Porter, around twenty-six years old. He’s the estranged husband. Has a possible address in West Table Rock, but no one here saw which direction he ran.”

  “So he doesn’t live here,” Leah said, half to herself. She couldn’t concentrate, kept seeing the victim’s face in her mind’s eye.

  When they reached the apartment’s open door, she stopped. Obviously a fight had taken place. What sparse furniture was in the room was broken or torn. Just inside the door, on the floor, Leah saw something bloody. As she looked closer, she realized she was looking at a hard-plastic model horse, a realistic scale model with pointed ears and a long tail. All of the legs were broken off, and that stopped her cold. This was what he’d beaten Alex with. Carlos most likely reached for the most convenient weapon. And it was probably a piece of a broken leg that Alex had clenched in her fist. Anger welled up inside Leah and she clenched her own fists, shoulder aching where Brad had squeezed it a few hours ago hard enough to leave a bruise.

  Tanner stepped around her and inside the apartment first. Frowning, he asked, “Do you hear water running?”

  Leah tore her eyes away from the horse. They’d need to collect it as evidence, but she did hear water running.

  “Bathroom’s in the back.” They started toward the rear of the apartment.

  Tanner reached the door first and lurched inside. “It’s the guy!” he said, alarm in his voice.

  Leah followed him in and saw the reason for his quick reaction. A male subject was in the tub, head slumped on his chest, eyes closed. Water ran down the drain—blood-tinged water. He’d cut his wrists.

  Tanner shoved the shower curtain out of the way and grabbed the guy’s shoulders. He fit the description of Carlos Porter.

  “Get some towels,” Tanner said as he struggled with the deadweight. There was scant room in the tight space for Leah to move in and help.

  She pulled a towel from the sink as Tanner draped the limp body across the bathroom floor.

  “Here, take this,” she said. “Is he breathing?”

  “Barely.” Tanner felt for a pulse at the neck, then took the towel. He wrapped it around one wrist, then checked the other. “Weak pulse. He cut the wrong way; bleeding is slowing.”

  Leah saw that. Keying her mike, she explained the situation and asked for a second ambulance. She opened the small cupboard under the sink and found another towel. This one she wrapped around the man’s other wrist. The bleeding looked to have stopped, but she applied pressure anyway.

  Squinting as sweat ran down her face, burning her eyes, Leah raised her arm and wiped the side of her face with her shoulder sleeve, a dull ache reminding her of her injury. Because of the warm night it was very humid in the tight space. She leaned over Carlos and Tanner to turn off the faucet, watching the last of the pink water disappear.

  “What a coward,” Tanner said.

  “What?” Leah jerked around to face him. Who was he calling a coward?

  “This guy. Any man who hits a woman is a coward. And he didn’t have the guts to deal with the consequences of his actions.”

  Leah considered that as they waited for the paramedics. Coward. She agreed with him. But there was a disconnect. Her husband could never be called a coward. He was a cop—a good one. Yet he’d smacked her more than a few times in the last two years.

  Was this her future? What she’d seen in the courtyard? Broken and beaten by Brad after he grabbed for the closest weapon?

  No, she told herself. My situation is entirely different. Brad was sorry. It was an accident. It’s not the same thing.

  At the station, as they filed their reports at the end of the shift, Leah was thankful that Tanner was low-key. He simply did his work, no useless chatter. He filed the evidence and the part of the report about finding Carlos in the tub. When they’d left the hospital, Alex was hanging on by a thread while Carlos was stable. Michael and Lavinia were still there, trying to comfort the girl, who was now comatose. Leah appreciated the couple and told them so. People not family were seldom so warm and caring.

  Since there was a chance Alex might die, they’d handled the call like an attempted murder. Homicide investigators had been called out, and they did their own investigation at the scene. As a result, Clint and Leah had been on the call for the whole night.

  Leah didn’t believe Carlos meant to kill himself. Yes, he’d lost a lot of blood, but the cuts were shallow and across the veins, so the bleeding was easy to stop. She believed he did it for sympathy—after all, that’s what a coward would do.

  As she finished the last bit of the paperwork, she looked up at Tanner across the room. Her tired mind wandered, and she considered what she knew about him. He wasn’t one of Brad’s friends; therefore he wasn’t in her social circle. She’d never heard any criticism of his work, just knew that he had the nickname Saint Tanner because he didn’t drink, not even a beer after work. Brad always said you couldn’t trust a guy who was a teetotaler. Leah didn’t completely agree with that adage and at times thought Brad drank altogether too much. He blamed it on the job. She had the same job and couldn’t keep up with him.

  Saint Tanner wasn’t a bad nickname; some guys had worse. Like Marvin Sapp. His was Pinky because of his complexion—any exertion caused his face to turn bright pink. Leah thought Saint was much better than Pinky.

  Tanner was older than she was, but not by much. He had dark-brown hair with a hint of red, but she doubted he’d be called a redhead. His eyes were a pale color, almost green but more hazel, really.

  He was handsome, she decided, in an understated way. Strong jaw, classic features, well-built. She did know that he played on the department basketball team. Though she herself had played ball in college, she’d never watched a department game. Brad hated basketball, liked to say the only real sport for men was football.

  Tanner wore a neatly trimmed mustache, and right now there was dark stubble on his chin. She noticed that he had a long, light scar running from his right eyebrow down the side of his face toward his ear. She wondered about that.

  She didn’t know if he was married or not. He wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t mean anything; Brad never wore one.

  Tanner looked up and caught her staring at him. She looked away, knowing that she was blushing and u
nable to stop it.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  Leah sighed. “I’m tired. It’s hard to focus.”

  He grunted and looked at his watch. “Well, we’re EOW an hour ago. Why don’t you go home. I’ll finish up.”

  She met his steady gaze. He still looked as if he could work another shift without any effort. Her phone buzzed with a text. It was Brad.

  Coming home? I miss you. He added several hearts and flowers. There. He was sorry. He’d never meant what happened earlier.

  “Thanks, Clint, I appreciate that. You won’t be long?”

  “Nah, almost done.”

  Leah nodded and headed for the locker room. On the way she passed the wall where all the medal of valor recipients had their pictures hanging. Brad’s was there. He’d dived in and pulled a drowning woman and her two children out of the Rogue River two winters ago, earning the medal.

  He was no coward, Leah told herself. And she was no victim.

  CHAPTER 2

  Clint watched Radcliff until she was out of sight. Since he’d been working detectives and special assignments for the last three years and only recently transferred to patrol, this was the first time he’d worked a call with her, but he’d recognized Leah Radcliff from a different venue.

  He smiled as a memory surfaced. Years ago, long before she became a cop, Leah Radcliff had been an all-American basketball player for Oregon State. Her play on the court had impressed him. He’d been a senior at OSU when, as a sophomore point guard, Leah was named MVP. The school newspaper had dubbed her “Mighty Mite.” She was always the shortest, but back then her stats were consistently stellar. He’d often read her described as “quick-thinking and agile.” Now she was a solid cop with a great reputation, but he could tell her mind was not on the job tonight.

  He chewed on the top of his pen, powered down the laptop, and tried to return his thoughts to the call. But all he could think about was Leah. To him she was strikingly pretty. Black hair and brown, almond-shaped eyes, sturdy build . . . She moved like an athlete; there was no frilly pretense about her. Her long hair was often pulled away from her face. Surprisingly feminine, even petite-looking in the uniform, vest, and gun belt, Radcliff avoided looking bulky like everyone else did with the accoutrements they had to wear nowadays.

  He’d never had the courage to approach her while at college, though he’d seen her often on campus and thought about asking her out. He could feel his face redden as he recalled the crush he’d had on her back then. He knew that her major was business and not for the first time wondered why she eventually chose law enforcement as a career . . . and what she saw in a guy like Brad Draper. But then, she wasn’t the only one who saw something in Draper that Clint couldn’t see.

  Clint leaned back and stretched before smoothing his mustache with a thumb and index finger. Draper was one of the few guys Clint had met in his life that he disliked immediately. He knew the man was a local legend. A star linebacker for the Oregon Ducks, quick and strong but too small to go pro. Awarded the medal of valor. From a family that had a history of public service—dad a retired cop, an uncle on his father’s side also a cop, another uncle on his mother’s side a firefighter. All in all, Draper’s parents were wealthy, well-known, and pillars of the community.

  But Clint couldn’t get on the bandwagon. He’d worked around Draper and didn’t like his manner or his tactics. There must be something there, though, for a smart beauty like Radcliff to have married him. Is love truly blind? Clint hoped that he was wrong and that Draper was a good and faithful husband.

  Leah’s joy at seeing the contrite text from Brad was short-lived. As she drove home, the sun made her squint, and she realized she’d left her sunglasses at work. Two vehicles in the driveway turned the squint into a frown and made anger flood her veins like 100 proof caffeine. One belonged to Larry Ripley and the other to Duke Gill, two of Brad’s best friends. And Leah didn’t like either one of them.

  Duke Gill worked for Brad’s father, Harden Draper, who had business interests all over the valley. Duke was a kind of Johnny-on-the-spot, doing whatever needed to be done. Since he was the brother of her best friend, Becky, Leah tried to like him, but something about him rubbed her the wrong way. He encouraged Brad’s baser traits, she thought, always egging him on for one more shot of whatever they were drinking.

  The same was true for Larry Ripley, only more so. He was Brad’s oldest friend; they’d grown up together. He’d been the best man at their wedding. And Leah could say that she hated him. A high-powered attorney—ambulance chaser to Leah’s way of thinking—he was, in her opinion, oily and not to be trusted. He’d just been elected to the city council and she doubted that was a good thing for the city. Ripley was a bad influence on Brad, always only concerned about himself, nothing else.

  Brad worked swing shift, so his EOW was 2:30 a.m. He usually got to bed around four and slept till about eleven. He should be in bed, text to her notwithstanding. That the guys were here now, at 9:30 a.m., meant they’d cut short Brad’s sleep. She was certain Larry was the instigator here.

  She’d learned to bite her tongue about the man, because it would only start a fight. And right now, the last thing she wanted was a fight.

  Brad came out of the house to meet her before she reached the door, dressed and ready for the day, energy drink in hand. He smiled the smile that always melted her heart. She loved his dimples. He was Hollywood handsome, rugged and so very sexy. A cross between Brad Pitt and Jason Statham. A fleeting thought crossed her mind: He was the exact opposite of quiet Clint Tanner. Brad was outgoing, always the life of the party. If something was going to get started, it was Brad who started it. That quality had attracted Leah to him. Though now, nearly two years into their marriage, she often found it exhausting.

  “Hey, babe, rough night?” He wrapped Leah in a tight one-armed hug while Larry seemed to slink out of the house. Duke shot her a grin, bordering on a leer, signature toothpick hanging out of his mouth, and climbed into his truck.

  Brad didn’t give her a chance to answer. “I got you some flowers. They’re in the bedroom.” Pulling back, he rubbed the side of her face with his thumb. “Hey. Duke has an emergency with his well. We got to go help him.”

  “Now? I was hoping we could talk,” Leah said even as Brad was moving away from her and toward Larry.

  “We will, I promise, when I get home.” With that, he turned toward Larry’s truck, he and Larry hopped in, and they were gone, Duke behind them.

  Leah slowly walked into the house. She felt sticky from the heat and work, tired and beaten. Her heart hurt as she thought of Alex Porter and the broken plastic horse.

  She and Brad had a plaque in the entryway: This is a divided household with a picture of a duck on one side and a beaver on the other. A joke because they were from rival schools, Leah from Oregon State and Brad, the University of Oregon.

  But right now, it wasn’t a joke or a laughing matter. Leah felt as divided as if she’d been physically cut in half. She shed her clothes, hopped in the shower, and cried, glad the water washed away the evidence of tears instantly, much like water had washed away Carlos Porter’s blood.

  CHAPTER 3

  Leah struggled to wake up as her phone buzzed. It seemed to buzz more insistently with each second.

  Grappling with it as she sat up and squinted, she saw a police dispatch number, and fear immediately jolted her awake. Something’s happened to Brad. Just as quickly she remembered he wasn’t at work now. The phone told her it was 12:30 p.m. She’d been asleep for less than three hours.

  She answered the call. The dispatcher spoke without greeting or preamble, normally calm voice clipped and tense.

  “There’s been a shooting, a state trooper on the I-5 just north of Grants Pass. Everyone is being called in early. Can you notify Brad?”

  Wide-awake now, Leah answered, “Yeah, I’ll call him.”

  “Tell him he’s to report to the command post at exit 61. You need to come to the st
ation.”

  The call ended and Leah stared at the phone. In her tenure at the PD she’d not dealt with an officer shot in the line of duty this close to home. And the dispatcher hadn’t given his condition. She called Brad and got his voice mail, which was full.

  “Huh.” She blew out a breath as she switched to texting. Brad should already know about the shooting, she thought. He got alerts on his phone all the time. Leah had turned her alerts off, not needing to know what was going on when she wasn’t working. She typed 911 and then hit Send, hoping he’d call her back.

  Leah got dressed, waiting for her phone to chime. After throwing water on her face, she smoothed out the tangles in her hair, then paced her room for a minute before putting on her boots. She was halfway to the door when her phone finally indicated Brad had responded to her message.

  Yes?

  Furious, she bit back a curse. Where was he? Why was his voice mail full? What was going on? Pounding on the phone, she typed back, Trooper shot. All ordered in early. Call me.

  Her phone rang almost instantaneously.

  “I had my phone off,” he said as soon as she answered. “What’s going on?”

  “Dispatch called. A state trooper was shot on the I-5 outside of Grants Pass. They want you at the command post at exit 61.”

  “How’s the trooper?”

  “Didn’t say.”

  “And you didn’t ask? Never mind. I’ll head straight there, got stuff in my car. Don’t cop such an attitude when you call me.” He disconnected.

  Leah almost threw her phone across the room. Instead, she hurried off to work, hoping against hope that the trooper was all right.

  The trooper’s injuries were fatal. On the way into the station, Leah heard a radio news report that he’d died on scene. He was a young guy, two years on the force. She’d never met him. He’d pulled over a truck he suspected of carrying contraband and been gunned down as he exited his vehicle. The suspect was in the wind. Now she knew why they wanted Brad at the scene. He worked a special unit, SAT, smuggler apprehension team. His expertise was needed, she was sure.