Breach of Honor

by Janice Cantore

  She hadn’t returned since the night of the shooting. Staying in the home was untenable for a lot of reasons, one big one being that it was right down the road from Brad’s parents.

  Leah had told her father she didn’t care about the house, but he thought she should fight to keep it, that it should be hers by marriage. “You earned it by putting up with that man. I sure wish you’d’ve told me what was going on.”

  “It was his house, Dad. I know his parents will go after me in civil court no matter what. They’ll get the house one way or another, and I just don’t want to fight this battle now.”

  Reluctantly he agreed. It would be enough to just retrieve her things. Brad’s house had been a bare bachelor pad when she moved in. Since she liked oak furniture and had nice stuff, he’d let her redecorate.

  “The truck’s here,” her dad was saying now, “and I’ve got help lined up.” Leah’s nice stuff included some heavy furniture, which was why they needed muscle. “I know you don’t want to go to that house, but you have to tell us what’s yours. That nasty lawyer for the other side will be there.”

  She closed her eyes. Rachel Clyburn. Nasty was the word but spurned also fit. Brad had broken up with Rachel when he began dating Leah. She’d then moved to Portland to practice law. But every time she came to Table Rock, she’d make a point to see Brad in some capacity.

  There was enough orneriness in Leah to muster up the strength to get dressed. Rachel couldn’t win this.

  “All right, Dad. Give me five to shower and change my clothes.” It took all of her strength to do just that. The only saving grace was that her father waited with a mug of steaming coffee for her when she left her room.

  There in the driveway stood Clint Tanner and a couple of men from church.

  On edge and instantly defensive, in spite of all the help Tanner had been to her, Leah said, “Wouldn’t think you’d want to be seen with me. This might just ruin all your career aspirations.”

  Tanner shrugged. “All I’ve ever wanted to be is a good beat cop. If that’s all I ever am, I’m fine with that.”

  “You’re a good man,” her father said. “A good man. I’m amazed that we went to the same church for years; too bad it took a crisis for us to meet.”

  “I’m the crisis,” Leah mumbled under her breath before climbing into the truck with her dad. Tanner drove the U-Haul. The other men followed in their own car.

  They rode in silence and Leah knew her father kept glancing her way. Pull it together, she told herself.

  “I’ll be okay, Dad. I promise. Rachel will be as mean as a snake; it’s her nature.”

  “Don’t worry about her. Just tell us what needs to go, and we’ll get it done.” He patted her shoulder.

  Leah said nothing.

  She felt as though life after the shooting was one insult after another. It still stunned her that she’d had to shoot Brad. How on earth did it come to that?

  As they neared her home, her mind switched to the here and now. Leah braced herself for a confrontation with Rachel. They’d never liked one another. Thankfully, when she and her dad arrived, the only people present were Ivy, Brad’s twin sister, and a Jackson County deputy sheriff, “to keep the peace,” he said. He, Clint, and her father worked out the ground rules. Leah watched from the truck. She realized Ivy had a list of items that were not to be removed. That was fine. Leah didn’t want anything that belonged to Brad.

  Ivy’s eyes shot daggers at Leah, but she said nothing. The sound of another vehicle pulling up caught Leah’s attention. Maybe Rachel would appear after all. But it wasn’t Clyburn; it was Larry Ripley. Anger sparked inside and Leah got out of the truck.

  Larry cast her a glance but stepped up to Ivy. “Hey, Ivy, now that the police seal on the door is cut, before she gets inside, Brad had something that belonged to me. Can I go in there and get it first?”

  The deputy answered. “Why don’t you tell me what it is, and I’ll get it for you.”

  “I don’t know exactly where he put it. I’ll have to look for it.” He appealed to Ivy. Leah knew that Ivy didn’t like Ripley any more than she did.

  “What is it?” Ivy asked.

  “Just a gym bag.”

  Ivy snorted. “Yeah, right. You’re not going to rifle through my brother’s things to find a stupid gym bag.”

  “Ivy, Brad was my best friend. I only want what’s mine.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, no. The estate is in probate. Besides, you’re a snake. I never understood Brad being your friend. You’re not getting anywhere near his house.”

  Leah almost smiled. Larry started to argue, but the deputy cut him off.

  “Sir, you have your answer. I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “This is crazy! I want my property back.”

  Clint stepped forward to where the deputy stood, as if to provide support, Leah thought, somewhat perplexed. Ripley was close to hysterical.

  “I want my brother back,” Ivy retorted. “Guess we both lose.”

  Ripley jerked back as if slapped. Leah watched as he regained control, wondering all the while what was so important about a gym bag.

  He held up both hands as a sign of surrender. “Fine. Sorry.” He turned and trudged back to his car, not giving Leah another glance.

  “You all can go in now,” the deputy said.

  Ivy stepped back and made no move to go inside the house. The deputy did. As for Leah, once she was inside, her hard-fought composure crumbled. A musty, unused smell permeated and something else—was that blood? She nearly fainted. Tanner caught her.

  “Whoa, you okay?” he asked as he helped her to the couch.

  “I can’t go in there. I can’t go back into that room. My dresser is on the left. Same with the closet. My stuff is on the left.” She looked up into his worried face. “Can you just pack the boxes for me?”

  “Sure. Just rest here.”

  Clint said something to the deputy, and then he and everyone else went into the bedroom.

  “Can I get you some water?”

  “What?” Leah looked up at the deputy. His expression was neutral, his eyes kind. “No thanks. I’ll be fine. I just . . .” Her voice trailed off. She stayed on the couch while moving activity went on around her. Every so often someone would ask her about a piece of furniture. Ivy never came inside, Rachel never showed up, and for that, Leah was grateful. She and Ivy had never been friends, but they’d been cordial. She didn’t think Brad and Ivy were very close, even though they were twins. Obviously her brother’s death had hit her hard.

  Once the truck was loaded and Leah and all her movers were out of the house, the next stop was a storage place her father had rented. Here, things went faster, and Leah was even able to help a bit. The fog on her brain lifted somewhat with the physical activity. After they finished, Leah felt hungry for the first time in days. Clint said he’d drop off the U-Haul and return to their house with pizza. She didn’t argue.

  Leah looked forward to returning to her father’s quiet manufactured home. On five acres, no neighbors in sight, it was the best place for her at the moment. She felt safe there. She was in limbo physically and emotionally. The bruises on her neck had faded, Brad had been laid to rest, and now the house was empty of all her belongings. Still, there was a question always at the forefront of her thoughts: What if the grand jury votes to indict?

  “You defended yourself. The grand jury will see that,” her father said. “Besides, we’re praying, and God hears.”

  She remembered Michael and Lavinia praying for Alex Porter. A lot of good that did her.

  “I don’t believe that. If God really listened to anything, this never would have happened.”

  Under the anger bubbled guilt. She’d killed her husband; maybe she needed to be found guilty.

  Brad had been a cop for six years to her three and had a large cadre of friends and admirers. Their opinion that she was guilty of murder seemed to keep everyone else awa
y. She’d long since stopped reading the local paper. The publisher was a close friend of Brad’s folks and had practically made the paper a daily memorial for Brad, rehashing all of his victories in football and in life. If the grand jury did indict, the best Leah could hope for was a change of venue.

  When Clint arrived with the pizza, Leah felt something, finally, almost glad. He was the only silver lining in the entire situation. She hadn’t known him well at all before the shooting, but he was the only officer openly supporting her. Tanner had shown himself to be a man of integrity, believing in and supporting Leah, promising to stand by her through everything.

  She met Tanner at the door, ready to eat a full meal, even one classified as a junk food meal. Maybe getting her things out of the house had been the right thing after all.

  But the expression on his face stopped her cold. “You’ve heard something, haven’t you?”

  He nodded, shifting the pizza to one hand. “I’m sorry, Leah. I just got the message. It was five out of seven, but the grand jury voted to indict you for murder.”

  All of Leah’s composure fled. She grabbed the pizza from Clint’s hand and flung it across the driveway.

  “Aggh! Your God did this! The God you say you pray to! I don’t want any more of your useless prayers. I don’t want to hear about your vindictive God! I never want to see you again. Stay away from me and stop praying.”

  She turned on her heel and stormed into the house, pushing past her stunned father.

  CHAPTER 10

  Table Rock Officer Indicted: Radcliff Accused of Shooting Her Husband, Also a Table Rock Officer, in His Sleep.

  After the indictment was handed down, Leah and her father reported to the city jail. She was booked and fingerprinted, but Judge Revel, citing jail overcrowding and Leah’s spotless record while an officer, allowed her to be released on house arrest, with an ankle bracelet, over the vociferous objections of Harden Draper. It seemed as if Brad’s father gave an interview every day saying he believed she’d murdered Brad. Rachel Clyburn stood right next to him, nodding with a serious expression on her face. When given the chance, she called Leah a “rogue cop” who thought she answered to no one. Cable news outlets picked up the story, calling the incident a cop-on-cop killing.

  DA Birch also seemed to enjoy the spotlight. He made it clear that he believed Leah had murdered Brad. Her attorney promised a vigorous defense.

  The months leading up to the actual trial were surreal with Leah bound to stay inside her father’s house, ankle monitor secure. Her dad had to battle the press from time to time, and he lost work over the situation, but never did his confidence flag that Leah would be acquitted.

  The trial itself was nightmarish, unlike anything she ever imagined. Leah had to walk the gauntlet of reporters every day as she entered the courtroom. She ignored every shouted question.

  “Your husband was in his underwear; did you shoot him while he slept?”

  “Was there another woman?”

  “Brad Draper was a hero. Why would anyone believe you were abused?”

  “Did you abuse your husband?”

  In the courtroom her attorney tried everything to refute the cold-blooded murder allegation. The photos of the crime scene did not support it, but Birch continued to hammer it home. Along with the fact that Brad was a medal of valor recipient and a true hero. Nearly all of the witnesses he called praised Brad and his character. In one glitch devastating to Leah’s defense, the tape of her hoarse-voiced interview could not be presented. It had been lost—all the jury had was the transcript.

  Tanner and Vicki Henderson both testified for Leah, as did Becky, but no one could say Leah had told them she was being abused. Leah herself chose not to take the stand; she didn’t trust herself to be coherent, and neither did her attorney.

  The trial lasted a week, and after four excruciating days of deliberation, twelve jurors convicted Leah of murder. Oregon didn’t assign degrees to murder; it was either murder or aggravated murder, which could have led to the death penalty. It was aggravated murder to kill a police officer, but they still found Leah guilty of only the lesser charge.

  “That’s a good sign,” her attorney told her. “I’ll file an appeal; I promise this is not the end of this case.”

  As it was, Leah received the maximum sentence of twenty-five years to life. She was denied freedom while the appeal went forward and would serve her time at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Oregon.

  CHAPTER 11

  When the guilty verdict came down, shock shrouded Clint as if he were buried in tons of new snowfall. He’d told Leah to trust the system and now the system had found her guilty of murder. As a witness, he’d not been able to sit through the entire trial. When he was on the stand, he’d told the jury how serious Leah’s injuries were. The pictures should have proved what he said, but for some reason they didn’t depict the seriousness of what he remembered. A picture might be worth a thousand words but not in Leah’s case. The severity of the bruises didn’t show through. When he learned that the recording of her raspy-voiced interview had been lost, he tried to emphasize how bad she’d sounded.

  He had to admit Birch was a pit bull for the prosecution, something Clint had admired in the past. But when it came to Leah, Clint knew Birch had it all wrong. He hounded Clint on the stand about not being at the scene, and all Clint could say was no, he hadn’t been on scene; he’d only seen Leah right after.

  “Then how could you possibly know exactly what happened?”

  No matter what Clint said after that, Birch dismissed it. Obviously the jury had as well.

  The judge had ordered that no officers attend in uniform for fear they’d influence the jury, and that kept some away. Others attended every day they could. Most of the officers who attended the trial were on Brad’s side. Marvin Sapp was the only one Clint knew who was on Leah’s side.

  “Her attorney was just outclassed,” Marvin told Clint. “He made no impact on the jury. Birch is good—great, maybe. Leah’s attorney was mediocre.”

  “But the injuries . . .” Clint held up his hands. “There wasn’t even a clear motive.”

  “The pictures certainly didn’t tell the whole story.” Marvin shrugged. “And Birch painted Brad to be some kind of god. He kept pointing out all the awards and accolades Brad achieved over his lifetime. Leah was the wannabe.

  “She didn’t get any help from Judge Revel either. He always sided with the prosecution. She was hit by an avalanche.” Marvin rubbed his face with both hands as Clint digested what he’d said.

  He knew from Randy that the criminal defense attorney he’d hired was the best they could afford. He’d been recommended by the POA attorney who’d helped Leah the day of the shooting.

  Was it really the attorney’s fault? A defendant is entitled to a speedy trial. Was this trial a little too speedy? He was at a loss. He’d trusted the system, but something went wrong and it rocked his faith to the core.

  He needed to find out what had happened. How on earth could twelve people see those injuries on her face and neck and not say self-defense?

  Clint went into investigator mode. He requested a copy of the court transcripts, but while he waited, he reviewed the grand jury testimony, which was already available to the public.

  The most important part of the transcript to him was the part about Leah following Brad and seeing what she thought was a payoff—it was the incident that precipitated the argument with Brad.

  Grand Jury Testimony—Larry A. Ripley

  Q: Ms. Radcliff said in her statement to investigators that she witnessed Brad Draper receive what she believed was a payoff, in the early morning hours of August 6, while you and Richard Chambers stood by. Is that what she saw?

  LAR: No, no, that’s not what she saw. I realize it was a bit unorthodox, and out of policy, but I was accepting a large amount of cash, first and last months’ rent for one of my commercial properties. Officer Draper and his partner merely stood by to make certain
it all went well. Officer Draper took the money and then gave it to me. The help of these officers was approved by their sergeant.

  Q: Why did your renter pay in such a way and so early in the morning?

  LAR: Grant Holloway is a busy man. I simply tried to accommodate him.

  Q: Did Officer Draper threaten Mr. Holloway with a gun?

  LAR: No, never.

  Q: Would Officer Draper’s wife finding out about this “out of policy” meeting, as you called it, cause Officer Draper to become so enraged that he’d want to harm her?

  LAR: No, not Brad.

  When Clint read Larry Ripley’s explanation of the incident, it sounded lame. Yet Grant Holloway gave testimony to corroborate Ripley’s, as did Richard Chambers. Were they all lying?

  Clint pondered how to proceed. He had no authority as an investigator, but he wanted to ask questions, gauge answers, find out if someone was not telling the truth. Leah deserved that.

  In his head, he heard his father’s voice: “Pick your battles.” That gave him pause. What was the battle here? The jury heard all the evidence. Could he be wrong?

  No, I’m not wrong. Leah is not a cold-blooded killer.

  CHAPTER 12

  Each step of custody stripped away everything that Leah was. She was handcuffed in the courtroom, not allowed to hug her father, and led away to the very cells she herself had locked people in. People she’d worked with for three years gave her stone-cold hate stares. When she left the custody of the Table Rock city jail, remanded to the state prison, everything familiar was gone.

  “You’ll do what you’re told when you’re told and how you’re told” was the admonition from the intake officer at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. There was a strip search and a haircut because short hair was easier in prison. Her personal clothes were taken away and exchanged for the prisoner uniform. She was given jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with Oregon Department of Corrections to put on.