With everyone on high alert, Leah made it through her shift and the extra hours operating on pure adrenaline. It was her Friday, and though the suspect had not yet been captured by the time she was EOW, she was told she would have her normal days off. Brad was still on duty, working with the state team. His uncle Dave was a trooper with the Oregon State Police, so Leah wasn’t surprised. By the end of her shift she was too tired to be angry with him anymore, but there was a niggling question in her mind about what he’d been doing and why he’d had his phone off.
Leah woke up around four in the afternoon to an empty house and saw no indication that Brad had been home. Still tired, she napped on and off in front of the television before going back to bed in the early evening. The manhunt for the shooter moved north as it was believed his destination was somewhere in Washington State.
It was after two in the morning when Brad came home. The door being slammed open and the light flipped on woke Leah.
“What?” She squinted and turned toward Brad. Before her eyes fully focused, he was on her, his weight pinning her to the bed.
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
Wide-awake now, Leah saw the fury in his eyes as he squeezed her wrists so tight she feared they’d snap.
“What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“The attitude! How dare you talk to me like that on the phone.” He squeezed her torso with his knees, pressing in. It got hard to breathe.
“I only—”
“No excuses! Never do that again. I’m the one in control here, not you. Don’t forget it.” He moved both of her wrists to one hand and slid off of her, rolling her to her side. As he got off the bed, he smacked her on the backside hard with his open hand, then let her go. “I mean it.”
He stalked out of the room, and seconds later a stunned Leah heard the front door slam. Fighting angry, humiliated tears, she sat up, her pride and her rump smarting from the smack and her wrists aching. She stayed on the edge of the bed trying to process what just happened.
This is it, she thought. I can’t stay here. I can’t put up with this. Holding her wrists, bent over, resting her forehead on her knees, Leah crossed a line in her mind. Brad is abusive.
She had to say it; she had to tell someone. The image of Alex Porter’s shattered face floated in her mind’s eye.
The front door opened, and she looked up, afraid now he was coming back. Before she could stand, he was in the bedroom doorway.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.” In two steps he reached her and swept her up into his arms, whispering over and over that he was sorry, kissing her neck, telling her he loved her and that it would be all right.
Leah wept on his shoulder as the resolve to tell someone faded. He loved her; he was sorry; things would be okay.
Brad was gentle and kind throughout the night, being the man Leah remembered marrying. Nothing in his touch suggested abuse. As for the spanking incident, he was stressed about the dead trooper—that was how Leah justified it.
“Justice served,” Brad announced the next morning when he brought the paper in, his demeanor upbeat. “Dirtbag got what he deserved.”
Leah saw the headline. The suspected cop killer had died at the Canadian border. He’d tried to drive through barricades and gone down in a hail of gunfire.
Brad called in to the station commander, and when he disconnected, he said, “There’s still a lot of questions about this.” He tapped the paper. “I have to go to work. Seems there was a boatload of synthetic fentanyl in his truck they think came from China.”
“Do you know how long you’ll be?”
He shook his head. “Nope. You know most of the junk we get here in the valley comes from Mexico. We have to find out how he got Chinese product up here.”
He left to shower and change. Leah sipped her coffee, resigned to the fact that life would be busy at work until all the questions about the trooper’s murder were answered satisfactorily.
The next two weeks were hectic. Brad was in and out, mostly out, as he was tied up with federal authorities investigating the smuggler. Work was tense as the law enforcement community struggled to cope with the loss of one of their own and to prepare for his funeral. Leah ignored the tension in her own heart about her marriage. Brad is just a man who feels things deeply, she told herself over and over. But no matter how many times she said it, it did nothing to quell the anxiety churning in her gut.
CHAPTER 4
“Look, I told you I’m sorry. What else do you want?”
Leah stiffened, frozen with the fear of Brad getting angry again.
“You always say you’re sorry and it happens again.” She fought to control her shaking voice. The bedroom incident had stayed with her for days, and she’d teetered on the brink of coming forward and telling someone what had happened. In the end she decided to give her husband a chance to go for counseling. A formal charge of domestic violence would get him suspended at least and fired at most.
“We have a funeral to go to and you bring this up now?”
“It’s been bugging me—”
“It’s the job.” He threw his hands up and she flinched. “When I’m under stress, just don’t push it. A cop is dead! It could have been one of the guys I work with. What do you expect? I’m sorry will have to be enough.”
“Maybe we should get some counseling—”
“For what?” He glared. “Our business is our business. Have you said anything to anyone?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing. We’re fine. Chief Wilcox, Lieutenant Racer, Sergeant Forman—they won’t believe anything different.”
He finished polishing his boots with an angry flourish and Leah backed down. Maybe this was the wrong time to bring up counseling. That the trooper’s death had exacerbated the tensions in her relationship with Brad was an understatement. He’d been tense and surly for days.
Every fiber of her being told her something had to change. What—and how to bring that change about—eluded her.
At the moment, she needed to finish readying her uniform for the funeral. Her boots were already shined, so she polished her badge, then grabbed her dress uniform and went out to the car to wait for Brad.
The trooper’s funeral was in a few hours. Butterflies batted about in her stomach. Was it because of the funeral or because of Brad? When he came out to the car, his expression was hard, unyielding, and the ride to the station quiet, tense, leaving Leah wondering if she’d ever feel normal again.
Once in the locker room with other women and away from Brad’s dark mood, she felt some balance return. Leah had seen funerals for police officers on TV, but this was the first one she would attend in person. Dress uniforms were the order of the day, and all the women helped one another be certain they looked their best before leaving the locker room.
When Leah stepped into the parking lot, the sight of all the uniformed officers, shoes shined and badges sparkling, took her breath away. She swallowed the lump rising in her throat and quickly found Brad and his partner, Richard Chambers, standing by a black-and-white.
A large church in Eagle Point off of Highway 62 was the venue for the service. The plan was for the officers to caravan to the church in their police vehicles. Table Rock PD would team up with Medford, Central Point, Talent, Ashland, Grants Pass, and the Jackson County Sheriff.
Leah didn’t trust herself to speak, so she simply nodded to Richard.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” Brad said, moving around to the driver’s side. “Babe, let Richard take shotgun. He’s too tall to sit in the back.”
Leah didn’t mind sitting in the back. Brad had just started the engine when another officer stepped up and asked if there was room. Brad said sure, but Leah could tell he was irritated. She saw why when Clint Tanner climbed in and sat next to her. Brad hated having to interact with people he didn’t think were fit for his circle.
“Leah,” Tanner said as he fastened his seat belt, “how are you holding up?�
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“As well as can be expected,” Leah managed to say. She’d wanted to ride alone but decided she didn’t mind having Tanner join them. Maybe his being there would make Brad mind his p’s and q’s. Still, she felt no need to talk, and except for Brad and Richard speaking in low tones, the drive to the church was quiet, even peaceful.
Once at the church, officers from each department formed up together. All around were somber faces. Grief was as heavy in the air as a wet winter fog. The service itself was heart-wrenching as the trooper’s parents and his young, pregnant wife paid him heartfelt tribute. Leah couldn’t stop the tears and she didn’t try. Brad wasn’t pleased; Leah could tell by his expression. Tears were weak—she knew that was his opinion. His go-to emotion was anger.
After the service, officers milled about in the parking lot. The trooper had been cremated and no graveside service planned. Leah spoke to one or two officers, then searched for Brad and Richard, wanting to be home and away from all the grief of this horrible, no-good, bad day. As she looked, she walked slowly toward the black-and-white, feeling tired and wrung out after all the tears. She caught sight of Richard first. He was off to the side of the church, Brad with him. She almost walked over to them but saw that Brad was having a heated discussion with his uncle Dave. She stopped, too exhausted to deal with her husband’s mercurial moods at the moment. Let him vent at Uncle Dave.
“Have you heard anything about Alex Porter?”
Leah jumped. She’d been watching Brad and hadn’t heard Tanner walk up.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Oh, it’s just been a hard morning.”
“Yes, it has.” He followed her gaze and she looked away.
“I haven’t heard anything, no.” The name brought the battered face into Leah’s mind. The last thing she’d heard was that Alex was in a drug-induced coma.
“I’ve kept her in my prayers,” Tanner said. “I think it would be nice to see a miracle.”
Leah nodded and was about to ask him more, but Brad was coming. His expression said he was not in the mood for small talk. The ride back to the station was tense, and as soon as they got home, Brad left again without saying where he was going. Leah went to bed, closing her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. She hadn’t prayed in years, and she found herself wondering if God would listen to anything she did pray.
CHAPTER 5
A few days after the trooper’s funeral, Alex Porter died. Leah received a note from homicide in her mailbox at work telling her. It had been touch and go with the girl—she’d had extensive damage to her face, but there was a bleed on her brain and that was what killed her. She never regained consciousness. Carlos Porter’s arraignment for murder was scheduled in a couple of days.
Though the note brought Leah close to tears, she fought them. It was just another call, she told herself. Alex had never even spoken to her. Leah thought of Michael and Lavinia. They’d be crushed.
She needed to compose herself before squad meeting, guessing that her emotions were so close to the surface because of Brad. He’d been in and out, and they hadn’t had much time together while he worked with the feds on the smuggling case. When they discovered that the smuggled fentanyl had likely arrived through the port of San Francisco, the feds released all local law enforcement, and the investigation headed south to California. With the shooting suspect dead, the trooper buried, and the investigation out of Brad’s hands, Leah hoped the stress on Brad would ease and she’d be able to connect with him.
She was wrong. In the few days since she’d asked about counseling, the day of the funeral, Leah had barely seen her husband. His demeanor whiplashed between pleasant and contrite to surly and threatening, and he always had an excuse to be somewhere else—usually helping Larry and Duke with something or other.
She’d kept quiet and let the resentment build. Now she was fairly simmering with anger of her own. The note about Alex dying merely popped the cork. This wasn’t an entirely new thing; Brad did spend a lot of time with friends where Leah was not included.
Leah had friends, but Becky Blanchard, Duke’s sister, was the only one Brad approved of, so she was the only friend Leah saw regularly, usually for lunch. She was a stay-at-home mom with a two-year-old. Leah liked Becky. Married to Grady, a deputy sheriff, she understood law enforcement. Becky had wanted to be a cop instead of married to one, she confided in Leah once, but a congenital defect in her back made it impossible to pass the physical requirements. “I just live it through Grady,” she’d said once.
Becky was the only person Leah could or would confide in.
“Lately, this thing with Larry is taking up all of Brad’s free time, and that is odd. It kindles all of my suspicious cop instincts,” she’d explained to Becky over lunch one day. “He and Larry are up to something, and it doesn’t have anything to do with a faulty well.”
“What do you think he could be up to?” Becky asked.
“I don’t know. It just bugs me.” She stopped short of saying that Duke was also included. Becky worshiped her brother, and Leah knew she’d get defensive. They’d survived a horribly abusive childhood, and Becky considered herself his protector, kind of like a mama bear. No one could ever talk bad about Duke to Becky.
“Maybe it’s something political. Rumor has it Larry has higher aspirations.”
“Brad’s never been concerned with politics. I just don’t trust Larry.” Leah had picked at her salad. She and Becky were close, yet there was one big secret in her life she was loath to share with anyone—even Becky. Even thinking about the last time Brad hit her made the heat of shame rise in her face, and Leah gulped her iced tea, hoping Becky didn’t notice.
“If I were you, Leah, I wouldn’t worry about Larry.”
“Huh?” Leah looked Becky in the eye. “What do you mean?”
“Brad’s the leader; he’s always the leader. Yeah, Larry’s a weasel, but Brad is the head honcho no matter what. I think you know that at heart.”
Leah continued to replay the conversation as she dressed for work. Some part of her did know that Becky’s assessment was true, but she ignored that part. It was easy to hate Larry and easier to blame him.
Monday night her and Brad’s shifts overlapped. Sometimes, on quiet nights, they’d meet for coffee. Since the manhunt for the cop killer was over and the trooper had been laid to rest, Leah hoped she and Brad could do that tonight. By the time she logged on to her car computer, it was close to 11 p.m. Brad had been at work since 3:30 p.m. She immediately checked unit status, looking for where Brad and his partner, Richard Chambers, were. They showed out for investigation outside the city limits, not far, but over the line. It was an area close to the interstate, and it made sense considering what had happened to the trooper.
Leah pulled out of the station lot and drove to an empty strip mall parking lot in the center of her beat to park and think. Brad and Richard had been out for investigation for over thirty minutes. If they were a regular patrol unit, dispatch would be checking on their well-being. But with the task force, they could be out there all night if they wished. SAT had a lot of leeway; they worked citywide and were not confined to a beat.
Sergeant Erik Forman was the supervisor for SAT. Some supervisor, Leah thought. Forman logged on and disappeared every night. He was a disgrace to the uniform to her way of thinking. Brad liked him, of course, because Forman let him do whatever he wanted.
The department talked about putting GPS monitoring in all patrol cars so dispatch would always know exactly where the units were, but that hadn’t happened yet, so Brad could say he was anywhere, really. She thought about texting him, but if he was involved in something, she didn’t want to interrupt. Besides he could type anything in a text.
She double-checked everyone who was logged on the system, but no one else was out with Brad and Richard. In fact, even though the sky was bright with a three-quarter moon, it was a quiet night, not much was going on anywhere that she could see, and radio traffic was sporad
ic. It would be risky for her to leave the city boundary, especially if she got a call. And she could drive right into a major operation.
Leah decided it was worth the risk and took the chance, heading out of the city to where Brad said he was. He might be angry, but she was angry as well, and tired of being ignored. The word abused echoed in her mind, but she pushed it away, shaking her head in an effort to erase it like you would a drawing on an Etch A Sketch.
She reached the spot Brad had given as his location, and he wasn’t there. True, the intersection he’d indicated could just be a general area, but he still should be close. She cruised the area slowly. Nothing was going on within blocks. The only person she saw out was Netta, a local homeless woman.
Frustrated, Leah stopped and grabbed one of the extra water bottles she always carried with her in the summertime. She got out of the car. “Hey, Netta, how are you doing tonight?”
Netta gave her a vacant stare and then managed a smile. “Fair to middlin’. Righty all right.” She nodded.
Leah handed her the water. “Hot day today. Here’s some water.”
Netta squirreled the bottle away in her volumes of clothes. Body odor, sweat, dirt, and urine formed an aroma around Netta as solid as a shield. Leah felt sorry for the woman; she survived on the streets and resisted all help. Leah thought she was probably smarter and more aware than she let on, so she tried to help in small ways.
Leah climbed back into her car and pondered her next move. Brad was nowhere to be found. A knot formed in her stomach. Where was he? An affair? Leah had heard stories about cops years ago taking advantage of quiet nights to visit girlfriends. In the good old boys club of the day, cops covered for each other for good behavior and bad. Rumor was that mistresses were a matter of course back in the day when women were not allowed on patrol.
Breach of Honor Page 3
