Breach of Honor

by Janice Cantore

  “All clear out here. Not a sign of anyone,” he said. “We’ll check the barn.”

  “10-4,” Clint said, then bit his bottom lip, frustration washing over him like acid, harsh and stinging.

  “Hey, Sarge, come in here,” Sapp called from the kitchen.

  Clint stomped into the kitchen.

  A half-eaten pizza was on the table, plus several cans of beer. One of the cans had been knocked over and there was a puddle of beer on the floor.

  “They were tipped,” Sapp said. “Probably left not long ago.” He pointed at the dog. “But you caught one desperado, heh?”

  The dog had stopped shaking. Clint nodded absentmindedly and knew Sapp was right about the bad guys being tipped. He also knew that neither of the Russians had gotten near a phone.

  That could only mean one thing. They had a traitorous leak.

  CHAPTER 34

  “You’re going to wear out a path,” Gretchen chided Leah as she paced the conference room.

  “Can’t help it. I feel antsy and it’s nice to have the room to pace.”

  They were waiting in an attorney-client room outside of the courtroom. Her second trial had started just after the forty-first month of her incarceration. It lasted a little over a week, and today it ended early in the morning session. After lunch, the jury had broken to deliberate. If they didn’t reach a verdict by 5 p.m., Leah would be sent back to a holding cell. Pacing served two purposes: it calmed her nerves and it stretched muscles that ached from sitting in court. She fully expected to be back in a holding cell at the end of the day. The jury in her first trial had taken four days to come to a verdict—it was anyone’s guess how long this jury would take.

  “I think we did fine,” Gretchen said. “I’m not worried.”

  Leah looked at her. Gretchen was the picture of peace. Why can’t I be that still? she wondered. Patting her hands together and continuing her pacing, Leah couldn’t shake the butterflies. It felt good to be moving.

  Gretchen’s cell phone buzzed with a text. She read it, then stood. “I’ll be right back. I promised a cable news outlet a brief interview. You’ll be okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Gretchen nodded and went to the door and knocked. The deputy on the other side opened it and let her out, and Leah was alone with her thoughts.

  With her attorney gone, she reflected on the quiet, real quiet. Prison was never, ever quiet. Here, compared to her cell, it was monastery quiet. Taking a deep breath, she was finally able to calm her nerves. She had done the best she could on the stand, and this time Gretchen had been a pit bull on her side, but the outcome was in God’s hands.

  She didn’t remember much of her first trial. Decimated by shock and grief, she’d assumed a mental fetal position and let things happen. Now she paid attention to every detail, often sketching her own rendering of the proceedings and the people. It helped to steady her nerves.

  Remembering her sketch pad, she pulled it out and opened to her current in work in progress. The subject taking shape under the pencil in her hand was the judge presiding over her new trial. A petite woman, she wore a formidable expression that during the entire trial never changed no matter which side she was dealing with. Leah prayed that meant the woman would treat both sides equally when it counted, and the trial proceedings had answered that prayer. She carefully filled in the outline of the woman’s face from memory, placing her on the bench, gavel in hand.

  Leah’s pencil sketching had come a long way in the nearly four years of her incarceration. The figures and scenes she drew now were clear, the faces human and recognizable, even lifelike. Donna had been over the moon with the drawing Leah had done for her. That couldn’t be said of the drawings in the first part of her sketchbook, when she’d begun to relearn the skill she’d honed in high school. She liked to think of the progression of her sketching as a visual representation of the progression of her soul, first blurry, ugly, and misshapen, then later clearer and more defined. The change didn’t happen overnight, either.

  At the moment, the activity helped center Leah. It was difficult not to be nervous and anxious even though the new trial was clearly necessary given what had happened during the first trial.

  Leah had to trust, a skill she was learning could be difficult to master. She knew in her heart that what she’d had to do was justified. Now she prayed this second jury saw the same thing.

  Leah hadn’t quite finished her sketch when the quiet was shattered by a commotion in the hallway outside the room she was in. She put the pad and pencil away and wondered what was happening. The clock said the jury had only been out two hours—was it possible they’d reached a verdict?

  She doubted that was what had happened. But what? She stood, tense.

  A few minutes later the door flew open and in burst Gretchen. “This is it, Leah. They reached a verdict. We’re being called back to the courtroom.”

  Leah felt her breath leave her. How was that possible? Not even a whole day of deliberation. Was this good or bad? Not having the strength to form the question, Leah grabbed her notebook and followed Gretchen out the door.

  Once seated, Leah looked around the packed courtroom and took in as much of the crowd as she could. One face was missing. Her dad had relayed Clint’s regrets, but Leah realized she’d been hoping something would change, and it surprised her how strong the disappointment was.

  The press area overflowed. Thankfully, the judge had denied the request that the proceeding be televised. It was bad enough that for a week the courtroom artist had been sketching Leah and everyone else involved. She thought the sketch of her resembled a short-haired gremlin and wished she could have given the news organizations her own work.

  Whether or not she prevailed in this second trial, everyone in the state now knew her face, and she wished that wasn’t the case. It was difficult having your image flashed across every cable news channel 24-7 because you’d shot and killed your husband, been convicted of murder, and now won a new trial. Listening to so-called experts debate her guilt or innocence was crazy making. A couple of times she wished she could call Nancy Grace and set the record straight but knew it would do no good. Everyone had an opinion.

  One unfortunate result of all the work her legal team put into finding a reason for the new trial was the discovery of Brad’s history of brutality. Leah had been shocked; she’d had no idea. Gretchen and her investigator, Jenna, had been meticulous in digging up hard evidence. They were able to prove Lieutenant Racer had been covering for Brad his entire career. The floodgates opened after Vicki Henderson’s firing was dismissed. When people saw that the Hangmen could be thwarted, lips started to loosen. Henderson’s case became a wedge that unlocked the evidence eventually leading to Leah being granted a new trial.

  There was one notable absence on the witness list. Arron Birch, the prosecutor who died in a car crash a year and a half ago, couldn’t answer allegations of withholding evidence, jury tampering, or just what it was he knew at the first trial. The crash had been ruled suicide. Leah found that hard to believe, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  Gretchen had plenty of other witnesses to call. Two retired officers came forward and gave testimony about the fabled good old boys network that protected cops like Brad, covering up bad behavior because he was a member of the Hangmen. They named names, confirming what Leah had thought: Chief Wilcox, Detective Patterson, and Lieutenant Racer were Hangmen. Wilcox and Patterson were reportedly on leave considering retirement. Terry Racer had been suspended pending a review.

  To date five people had come forward to say they had complained about Brad’s brutality and their complaints were ignored. Two of those complainants filed federal lawsuits against the department. Jenna found a pattern of abuse that internal affairs ignored when it concerned certain officers. There were two other officers besides Brad, but they had already retired and so far, none of their complainants had sued.

  This saddened Leah. As hurt as she was by Brad’s behavior, she’d l
ong ago forgiven him. And a part of her still loved the good Brad. Now, because Jenna had done a thorough job, his memory as a solid cop, a medal of valor recipient, would be destroyed. But she had to consider both sides. The first serious complaint against Brad to be buried had occurred a year before Leah met him. The inevitable what-if questions came to mind: What if he had been held accountable then? What might have been different?

  Like so many questions in her situation, these would never be answered.

  For this trial, besides the change of venue, Leah testified. During her testimony, one of the hardest questions asked of her was why she’d never filed a police report if Brad had been abusive.

  “Didn’t you attend hours of training on domestic violence? Didn’t you file many reports documenting the domestic violence in other households? Didn’t you know that if Brad was truly abusive, the activity would only escalate if you didn’t say something?”

  “Yes, I knew all those things. But it wasn’t that simple—”

  “Because the abuse didn’t happen—isn’t that right? You made up the story after the fact.”

  Gretchen’s objections stopped the line of questioning. Leah feared that couldn’t fully explain all that was going on in her head four years ago. She tried. Yes, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what abuse was, but that it could happen to her did not compute at the time. And Brad was one of the good guys; she’d looked up to him long before they were married. Even in spite of the slaps, the punches, and the arguments, she couldn’t reconcile her Brad, the hero, with a man who was an abuser. And because of her own pride, it was impossible to consider herself a victim.

  Leah wasn’t certain she’d gotten her point across. She’d taken the stand with Gretchen’s blessing and full support. It was important that this jury heard from her own lips just how scared she’d been that morning that Brad would kill her. When she finished, two of Brad’s cousins were ejected from the courtroom after yelling, “Liar!”

  Now, a week later, after only hours of deliberations, the jury had reached a verdict. Today there were hate stares aplenty sent her way from half the courtroom. That area was packed with Brad’s family and friends—those who had not already been removed for disrupting proceedings. Generally, a disruption was along the lines of someone screaming out that Leah was a murderer, a liar, or a name more profane.

  Brad’s parents, Blanche and Harden Draper, and his sister Ivy were front row every day. Harden had a permanent scowl, Blanche looked heavily medicated, while Ivy appeared to want to be anywhere else but court. Assorted family members and friends filled in the seats behind. They all vented their fury at Leah to any reporter who would listen.

  “Why do you insist on reading what they have to say?” Leah’s father had asked one day during the trial when he saw her with the newspaper. “They’re bitter and lashing out.”

  “They lost their son. He was their pride and joy.”

  “He was an abusive so-and-so.”

  “Dad, they’ll never believe that. He was their only son. I remember all the dinners at their house—to them he could never do any wrong.”

  “They want to make your life miserable.”

  “And they could have, four years ago. But I’m in a different place now. While I wish it hadn’t happened, I’ve made peace with the shooting. I feel sorry that the Drapers will never know peace.”

  Leah felt light-years removed from the woman she was the night she followed her husband and found him doing something she believed was illegal. As she thought back to that woman, she barely recognized her. Today, she did have supporters. Her father and Chaplain Darrel had been at the trial every day. Included along with her training officers, she saw a few of her teammates from her college basketball team. There were also women present from the battered women’s advocacy group that Gretchen represented, No Violence at Home.

  She glanced toward Chaplain Darrel. He gave a slight tilt of his head. Seeing him gave her strength, in the same way seeing her father did. Chaplain Darrel had helped her through the toughest time of her life.

  All the friendly faces couldn’t dim the sorrow she felt at not seeing the one face she really wanted to see. She’d hoped against hope he’d be there. They’d been corresponding for two years, and she believed she’d been reading his heart. He was a good man, a real man. His last letter told her about the opportunity for a new smuggling task force. He’d been lobbying to get a new one formed for at least a year. He was a sergeant now, and her heart was happy for him. He deserved the promotion. Leah knew he’d just not been able to take the time off right at the moment.

  He’d wanted to visit her in prison, and she’d stopped him. It surprised her how much she wanted to see him now. Technically she was still in custody, and if she lost this trial, she wouldn’t see the light of day for years. But Clint had become so real to her, so close to her, she’d wanted him here even if she was about to face defeat.

  Leah turned back to the front and banished all thought of defeat from her mind. The last time she appeared in court she’d been emotionally devastated by the fact that her husband was dead, and she’d killed him. Leah had been oblivious to the proceedings. She’d stayed in a shadow world for months until she met the prison chaplain. Now she was fully aware of everything going on around her and anxiously awaiting the end of this second trial and the verdict of the jury.

  The bailiff called for everyone to rise as the judge entered the courtroom. Leah stood and watched the men and women of the jury enter the court single file and take their seats. Several looked her way and smiled. A good sign?

  After they were seated, the judge called the court to order. She spoke to the jury, asked about the verdict, and reiterated the charges. Leah barely heard the legalese. Her heart was pounding so loud, she was certain everyone in court could hear. She knew all of this was out of her control, that ultimately God controlled the outcome, but nervous anticipation threatened to swallow Leah and she gripped the armrests tightly, knuckles turning white.

  Then, from what seemed like miles away, the jury foreman pronounced the verdict: “Not guilty of all charges. The defendant acted in self-defense.”

  Her side of the courtroom exploded into cheers.

  The other side exclaimed loudly in disbelief and was warned by the judge to calm down.

  Leah closed her eyes and offered a prayer of thanksgiving. To say she was relieved and happy would be an understatement. But a negative niggling thought plagued her: What next? After Brad’s death and the pain and bitterness that obviously still existed in his family, could she really live a normal life? Could she really go home again? Leah couldn’t answer those questions. But she knew she had to go home. Too many questions remained unanswered there. Especially after she considered how Larry Ripley had explained away that late-night mysterious meeting to the trial jury. Leah had paid particular attention to what Larry and Grant Holloway had to say on the stand.

  “Ms. Radcliff testified that she witnessed Brad Draper take what she believed was a payoff, in the early morning hours of August 6, while you and Richard Chambers watched. Is that what she saw?”

  “No, no, that’s not what she saw. I just picked up a rent payment, that’s all. Officer Draper and his partner merely stood by to make certain it all went well. The help of these officers was approved by their sergeant.”

  “Why did your renter pay in such a way and so early in the morning?”

  “Lots of my tenants pay in cash. I’m always working so nothing was strange for me.”

  Gretchen couldn’t shake Ripley. Holloway wasn’t as forceful as Ripley, but he repeated the same story. Leah had studied him closely. He resembled the man she’d seen that night. She couldn’t say positively one way or the other if he was the man and that bothered her, raising doubts in her mind.

  But one of the last things Ripley said erased some doubts for Leah.

  “Would his wife finding out about this ‘out of policy’ meeting, as you called it, cause Officer Draper to become so enraged tha
t he’d want to harm her?”

  “No, not Brad.”

  Initially, she’d believed that and been devastated that they’d fought over such a trivial matter. Now, after thinking about it for four years, none of it made sense, and she knew beyond any doubt Larry was lying.

  CHAPTER 35

  Clint didn’t get home until noon. He’d kept the pup with him, and when he got back to the station, one of the K-9 officers gave him some food and a kennel, then let Clint give the dog a quick bath where they bathed the working dogs. After being fed and washed, the dog curled up in a crate and went to sleep. Clint went inside the station to deal with the blow of a compromised operation.

  By the time he and his team had finished at the farm, their clock had run out and the Russians had to be booked. The men quickly lawyered up and were not talking in English or Russian.

  Still the operation in Sams Valley wasn’t a total bust. The barn revealed three truckloads more of marijuana, fentanyl from Mexico, and a collection of stolen goods, from guns and ammunition to cigarettes and assorted electronics. The smugglers might have been tipped off and fled, but they hadn’t had time to get rid of the goods. From what Clint had overheard and read when he arrested the two men, the farmhouse had been a sort of way station. Goods were separated and trucks assigned routes: north, east, and south.

  Anger built over the leak and the fact that they’d not caught anyone, and he vowed to catch the leaker. He needed sleep to clear his head before he could sit down and consider a list of suspects. For the moment he had to console himself with putting a financial dent in the operation. At least now they had a better idea of how the smugglers worked.

  Carrying the dog under one arm, he picked up his newspaper on the way to the front door and came up short when he read the headline: Former Police Officer Radcliff Not Guilty—Self-Defense.

  “Look at that,” he said to the pup. “This jury saw the truth, and I missed being there for the verdict.”