Breach of Honor

by Janice Cantore

Draper faced the room. He was a big man, at least six-four, with a full head of steel-gray hair. His frame held weight that came with age, but his posture was straight. He reminded Clint of old-time actor Lee Marvin.

  “You all know who I am, what I lost.” He paused, Clint figured for effect. “And you know that I once walked in your shoes. Table Rock PD is a great department, staffed by fine men who want to do right by their community. This fe-male lawyer just wants to smear fine men to help someone we know committed a crime. Let it roll off your backs, boys. Just do the jobs you’re paid to do, the jobs you’re good at.” He waited, but if it was applause he wanted, he didn’t get it. Finally Draper nodded and left the room.

  Clint looked around at his coworkers. Had Draper rallied them? Sergeant Forman started to clap. A couple more joined in, but for the most part there were folded arms and blank stares. Clint knew then that if there was such a thing as the Hangmen, they were a minority, and that gave him hope.

  Wilcox looked to be at a loss, and Racer stepped up and took over, admonishing everyone to say nothing to the press.

  “Any offhand comment could be taken the wrong way. Nobody wants the FBI in here poking around.”

  Murmurs of agreement floated through the room. Clint felt as if Racer were speaking directly to him, but he didn’t flinch. The hotter the fire was under the PD, the greater the chances that something would break loose and help Leah’s case.

  Later, at home, Clint reread Leah’s letter.

  I’m worried about what all this Hangmen stuff will stir up at the department. I gave Gretchen a list of everyone I thought was in the group, but there may be a lot more. Watch your back. I’d like to think that they don’t have as much power as Brad thought they did, but be careful anyway.

  I had a bit of excitement here myself . . .

  She went on to write, rather nonchalantly in his opinion, about an attempt on her life. Someone came at her with a razor blade!

  Clint felt his heart stop again. He took a deep breath and reread the account.

  . . . it was a clumsy attempt. I’ve gotten in pretty good shape, and the muscle memory of weaponless defense really helped. Please don’t worry. I’ve told my dad the same thing.

  In spite of her mitigation, the thought of another attempt on her life made the hair rise on the back of his neck. The danger was real. In his next letter he asked her permission to visit her.

  Another internal investigation was underway regarding the second attempt on Leah’s life. Where the woman, fresh out of intake, got the weapon was a huge question. Two weeks into it, Hastings told Leah something huge.

  “Trina Kotov brought the razor blade to jail with her,” she said. “One of the intake officers admitted taking a bribe to go easy on her search.”

  Leah frowned. “Bribe? From who?”

  “She can’t say. Or won’t. But she got four grand in cash to do it. This investigation is not over.”

  Leah eventually found out from Hastings that an officer named Helen Jones confessed to being approached by a man with an accent and given the money in cash in an envelope. She believed she was only making it easy on a girl who’d never been arrested, claimed she had no idea the woman was hiding something like a razor blade. And she’d never seen the man before or since.

  Sobered by the news, Leah now knew someone outside the prison wanted her dead. Harden Draper’s name rose to the top of her list. Sadly, Leah realized that she couldn’t put it past her ex-father-in-law. In retrospect, she’d never liked Harden. Brad idolized him, and the feeling was mutual, so she did her best to get along. But Harden had always made her nervous. He didn’t really think much of women. Reflecting on how angry he was with her during the trial—and how, if looks could kill, she’d already be dead—she didn’t doubt that he would really pay someone to try to kill her.

  The lockdown ended after three weeks, and Leah had a surprise visit from Gretchen’s investigator, Jenna. Leah knew Jenna had been a state cop and how she’d lost her eye, but she’d never met her. Tall and blonde, she moved like an athlete with confidence and purpose.

  “Glad to finally meet you, Leah.”

  “Likewise. I guess I can thank you for uncovering good evidence for me. But I confess that I’m worried about the ramifications.”

  Jenna frowned. “Ramifications? If you mean that the Hangmen might retaliate for being uncovered, let them try. I look at them as bullies, ones that need to be confronted. I know you talked to Gretchen about the Hangmen. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  Leah blew out a breath and tried to think. “Brad took a lot of cues from his dad. Harden would talk about the ‘good old days’ as a cop when he could intimidate people to his heart’s content. I’m embarrassed that I never spoke up. I even laughed at his stories. But Harden had some sexist and racist views. I can’t say he was a Hangman, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was.”

  Jenna nodded. “I believe all of this started with Harden. What do you know about Melody Draper?”

  The question surprised Leah. “Not much. She’s Brad’s older sister. They never talked about her. I only knew about her because Brad’s sister Ivy got drunk one night and mentioned her. Brad wouldn’t. All he’d say was that she left years ago and then he called her names. Why do you ask about Melody?”

  “I’m thorough. She’s a loose end. I’m trying to find her and talk to her.”

  “If I remember right, Harden and Blanche tried hard to have kids and couldn’t. They hired a surrogate and . . .” Leah paused.

  “Go on.”

  “This is conjecture on my part—I’m reading between the lines. They were certain the baby would be a boy up until it was delivered. Along came Melody. Harden didn’t want a girl, but it was the only time Blanche put her foot down. They brought Melody home. Five months later, Blanche found out she was pregnant with twins.”

  “Brad and Ivy.”

  Leah nodded. “I’m not surprised Melody left, more surprised that Ivy stays. As far as Harden was concerned, there was only Brad. Where Melody went to and when . . .” Leah shrugged. “I wish I could help you.”

  They went on to talk about the case. Leah gave Jenna the names of a few retired police officers to talk to.

  Later, back in her cell, she sat down to answer Clint’s latest letter, to respond to the request to come visit her.

  Clint met Jenna after work. She’d called him and said she’d uncovered something huge.

  “You heard about the latest attempt on Leah’s life?”

  Grimly Clint nodded. “Leah mentioned it in her latest letter. Randy said an officer was in custody.”

  “Yes. Helen Jones is related to Marcus Jones.”

  “So?” Clint asked.

  “Marcus Jones was on Leah’s jury.”

  “What?”

  “He was the foreman. I tried to talk to him and got the door slammed in my face. Gretchen made a formal complaint to the state police alleging jury tampering.”

  “Wow, great thinking connecting Table Rock to Wilsonville, with a name as common as Jones.”

  “It felt like too much of a coincidence. And now the full force of the investigation will be handled by the state police.”

  “That’s a good thing. They have the power to compel cooperation and get answers.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  Clint did hope, and he prayed. He also kept corresponding with Leah. He’d asked permission to visit her, but she didn’t want him to.

  “It’s a vanity thing,” she wrote. “I don’t want you to see me wearing clothes emblazoned with ‘Oregon Department of Corrections.’”

  CHAPTER 32

  Though Leah felt as if she was getting to know him better with every letter over the last several months, the correspondence with Clint was wonderful and painful at the same time. Bitter and sweet. Leah could see his face as she read his writing. She smiled at the bits of self-deprecating humor. He told her about his time on the mission field and how he got that scar on his face. He also wrote abo
ut his aunt GiGi, a woman Leah hoped to meet someday.

  She read each letter over and over again. While they were breathtakingly refreshing, they also stung like lemon juice on a paper cut. She wanted to be free, sitting across from Clint, listening and sharing face-to-face. The ache of that want sometimes took her breath away.

  Leah remembered how her mom had always handwritten her letters. “It’s the personal touch,” she’d say. Her cursive writing was beautiful, a work of art. Leah couldn’t say the same of hers, but she was working at it. Clint always handwrote his letters. Not cursive, but in clear, readable block printing. And in the letters Leah heard Clint’s heart.

  I went to State, just like you. I was there when you played, two years ahead of you. I caught every home game and most away games even after I graduated. You were a great point guard. The games were always exciting and worth the price of admission. I have to confess, once I thought about approaching you—okay, the truth: I had a crush on you . . .

  A crush! Leah’s knees went weak. She thought about her time in college. It was all basketball, all the time. Because of her size she’d always felt she needed to work twice as hard as everyone else. She hadn’t walked away from God completely yet. How would her life have been different if she’d met Clint then?

  Playing basketball for four years in college totally burned me out. The game was not fun anymore, so after I graduated, I rarely played. Brad hated the game . . . Needless to say, after we started dating, I stopped completely. It took prison for me to pick up the game again. There’s a joke in there somewhere. I’ve also started to go to church here regularly. Another regret—why did I ever walk away from church and God? The service here is really beautiful, considering . . .

  Clint was glad to hear the part about church. He enjoyed reading every word from Leah. She was three-dimensional and real in her letters, but sometimes he sensed a subtext that made him angry and sad. Brad was never, ever the right man for her.

  He remembered well the day Leah graduated the academy and joined Table Rock PD. That was the first time he realized he really had been carrying a torch for her. He’d rehearsed asking her out, trying hard not to sound like a lovesick puppy or worse, some kind of strange stalker. He wanted to wait until she passed probation, figuring there was just too much going on in training, and he didn’t want to distract her.

  But in waltzed Draper the month before she would have been off probation, and Clint saw his chances evaporate like snow off a hot pavement.

  His phone rang and he saw it was Randy.

  “Hey, Randy, what’s up?”

  Randy was breathless. “We did it.”

  Clint sat up straight. “What?”

  “You heard me. Leah’s been granted a new trial. A juror confessed to taking a bribe to ensure a guilty vote. The new trial date is pending.”

  “Amen!” Clint exclaimed, standing to his feet. Answered prayer. He knew that soon he’d be seeing Leah face-to-face and not just in the inked lines of her letters.

  CHAPTER 33

  Sergeant Clint Tanner suppressed a yawn as he prepared his notes for the first briefing of his newly minted task force. He’d barely slept in the last thirty hours and had about six more to get his team briefed, staged, and on task—raiding a suspected smuggling operation.

  Four years ago, after the death of Brad Draper and an unrelated scandal that rocked the smuggling task force with the acronym SAT, the unit had been disbanded. Since that time, the department had made only sporadic attempts to interdict smuggling operations on the I-5 corridor. There was infrequent talk about forming a new task force because of the uptick in human trafficking.

  When Clint arrested two Russian nationals driving a truck loaded with an absurd amount of marijuana bound for states where it was still illegal, talk became reality, and he was tasked with getting the new task force up and running. With individuals brazen enough to try to move a mountain of marijuana, there were undoubtedly worse things going on along the interstate.

  Interim Chief Haun poked his head into the briefing room. “You nervous?”

  “A little,” Clint admitted. He’d been a sergeant for eighteen months, but this was his first gig as a task force leader. And while he was excited about the opportunity and anxious to get going, it pained him that he would miss the last part of Leah’s trial. He’d already missed the first part because of training. There was no way around it. Her second trial was being held in Salem, four hours away, and he’d never make it. He prayed Leah would understand.

  “You’ll do fine,” Haun told him. “With all of that intelligence you gathered, I have high hopes this will be a huge success.” He held up a thumb. “Be safe.”

  Clint nodded. In spite of the butterflies and the regret over missing the trial completely, he was confident about the operation. When he arrested the two men in the truck a day and a half ago, he’d overheard a conversation. The men were speaking Russian, apparently believing they were safe from anyone understanding. But Clint spoke Russian—not well enough to pass for a national, but well enough to understand what concerned the men. That led him to scrutinize paperwork he found in the truck and on their persons, a lot of it in Russian. Through the two information sources, he pieced together an address in Sams Valley, a place called Larkspur Farms, and he picked up on a strong desire in both men to reach a phone quickly, as there were people they needed to warn that their mission had been compromised.

  The arrested men were allowed by law to make one phone call each, but the judge recognized the need for secrecy, so he agreed to let the police hold the men incommunicado pending booking—but for no longer than thirty-six hours.

  A little bit of intelligence gathering while the men were in a holding cell awaiting booking uncovered a farmhouse and barn on a large piece of property. Neighbors reported trucks coming and going at all hours. Most believed the farm was owned by a large commercial enterprise. But the kicker was, the farm and land were in foreclosure; no one should be there at all. That gave the PD enough time to get a warrant and mobilize a strike team before the judge’s deadline expired.

  There was also the coincidence regarding the woman who attacked Leah in prison; she too was Russian, though a naturalized citizen now. Clint hated coincidences. The men he arrested might have absolutely nothing to do with the woman who attacked Leah, but he planned to make sure one way or another. So Clint beat back his fatigue with a strong cup of coffee and told himself to suck it up. He could sleep for hours when this was over.

  As the team—including four members of his own department, two state cops, and two county deputies—began to file in, Clint checked the clock. In thirty minutes, they’d be breaking down doors. TRuST, the Table Rock Smuggling Team, would serve its inaugural warrants and hopefully be in a position to interdict a lot of illegal smuggling in southern Oregon.

  Daylight was two hours away when TRuST reached their destination and Clint deployed his personnel. He’d decided against bringing in SWAT, both because of the time it would require and because he was reasonably certain these people couldn’t know their cover was blown.

  The place was dark and quiet, and Clint wondered at that. He pushed any niggling concern to the back of his mind. He knew the men in custody had not been able to call and sound the alarm. They hadn’t been booked, so they weren’t even in the system. The people in this farmhouse should have no idea what was about to hit them.

  He led a team to the front, and his friend Jack Kelly, a deputy sheriff, led the team that would go around the back. His radio crackled that Kelly’s team was in position, and Clint gave the go signal.

  His team roared up the drive in two vehicles. They came to a stop and he and his men bailed out. Clint and Vicki Henderson and Marvin Sapp took the front door while the other two officers took positions of cover. Clint was on the porch steps in one leap.

  He pounded on the door with a knock and notice. “Table Rock PD! We have a warrant—open up!”

  He waited a beat and then nodded to Sapp, who had
the battering ram. In two quick strikes, the door splintered and fell open. Clint and his team rushed in.

  The rooms were dark except for the team’s flashlight beams. Clint and Henderson went left, while Sapp and another officer went right. Clint heard something that sounded like crying, and for a minute he wondered if they’d stumbled into human trafficking.

  He held up a hand to quiet Henderson. With the sound of the rest of his team in the distance, Clint heard crying for sure, but it wasn’t human. It was coming from the last room to be cleared. Signaling Henderson to cover him, Clint pushed the door open and stepped in, gun up and on target.

  The whining increased exponentially, and in the corner he saw the source. A small brown-and-white puppy of questionable heritage sat on a dirty pillow, obviously terrified. Aside from the pup, the room was empty.

  “Ah, poor thing,” Clint said as the all clear was given and he holstered his weapon. Somehow, seeing the miserable creature took his mind off the incredible failure this raid was.

  Henderson crinkled her nose. “He’s filthy, and it looks like he’s been using this room as a toilet.”

  “Not a dog person, Henderson?” Clint asked as he knelt down near the frightened animal.

  “Afraid I’m a crazy cat lady.”

  Clint held his hand out and clicked his teeth. The frightened dog’s body vibrated with fear, tail tucked between its legs. It looked as if its meals hadn’t been too regular either.

  “Here, sweetie,” Clint cooed. The dog came to him and he scooped it up.

  “Want me to call animal control?”

  “Nah, I’ll handle it. Let’s just go see how badly we’ve been hosed today.”

  The dog settled into the crook of his arm, and for a brief second, Clint forgot his disappointment.

  After all their hasty planning, in a few minutes, they’d cleared an empty house.

  Clint wiped sweat from his forehead and contacted Jack’s team.