Longhorn Law 2: A Legal Thriller

by Dave Daren

  From the vantage point of our seats, we had a great view of the moderator’s table that sat nearly flush with the makeshift stage. A microphone sat on the table in front of a binder, along with what looked like a stopwatch, and a slightly fancier-looking metal chair than the ones that filled out the rest of the crowd.

  I didn’t recognize the man that made his way to the chair from the back of his bald head, but he seemed confident and assured as he sat down and began to adjust the microphone to the correct height.

  I drummed my fingers against my leg to try and burn out the excess energy I felt as it thrummed through my body. I wasn’t even the one going up to debate, and I felt a warm burst of nervous adrenaline as it spread up my chest.

  It wasn’t the same sort of adrenaline I’d felt before I had to run for my life. No, it reminded me of the thrill I’d always felt before a race back when I’d been on the track and field team, what felt like a lifetime ago. I realized then that what I was feeling was the drive to win, and I’d take that any day over fear.

  As the room filled up, so did the noise level. I could barely hear myself think over the low roar of the chattering crowd as we all waited for both candidates to make their way to the stage, and I finally forced myself to put aside my concerns and simply exist in the moment.

  After a few more minutes of unsilent silence, the moderator tapped the microphone with his index finger. The sound rolled over the speakers aimed at the crowd, and ever so slowly, the din quieted.

  “Hello,” the moderator said, and his voice echoed in that mechanical way all voices did over speakers too close to a microphone. “I’m city council representative Tom Forester, and I will be acting as the moderator tonight for our debate for the position of sheriff.”

  Tom spoke slowly and with clear enunciation on each word that I appreciated. He was concise and easy to understand, even over the less than optimal sound setup. There was a round of applause from the crowd, and I could feel the buzz of energy that filled the room.

  I glanced over my shoulder for a better look. Almost every seat in the old gym was filled, and the news crews I’d seen outside lined the back wall with their cameras ready and pointed at the makeshift stage.

  I inhaled a deep breath and turned back to face the back of Tom Forester’s head.

  “Tonight we will be hearing from our incumbent, Sheriff Jethro Thompson, and the challenger, David Vaneck,” Tom announced for the waiting crowd as if we weren’t all well-aware of why we were there.

  My pulse thrummed in my veins as I shifted in my seat and flicked my eyes up toward the still-empty makeshift stage.

  The audience seemed to be just as on edge as I was, and I cut my eyes to Brody and Evelyn on either side of me to see that they looked just as anticipatory.

  Even if Sheriff Thompson hadn’t been the very scum of the earth, I assumed it would have still been exciting to have a debate like this after having the same person running Crowley for sixteen years. I just prayed it didn’t turn into twenty.

  A polite smattering of applause broke out over the crowd as both David and Thompson stepped up onto the stage at opposite ends, like boxers stepping into the ring. I half-expected to see a scantily clad woman with a large sign waltzing across the stage to indicate which round it was.

  Unlike David, Thompson hadn’t dressed up in any sort of suit, and instead, he still wore his uniform. His golden badge glinted under the bright stage lights the news crews had set up in the back of the room.

  When I looked at the two men at the same time, their differences couldn’t be more obvious. It was more than just their physical appearances, which weren’t remotely similar to begin with, but how they carried themselves.

  David stood with ramrod posture and his chin tipped up, but there was a sort of jovial tilt to his lips and a genuine kindness to his eyes. If I’d just looked at him for the first time, I’d have assumed he’d have no problems softening himself.

  Sheriff Thompson was another story. He was a few inches shorter than David, but he made up for it in ego. He stood like he needed to take up all of the space in the room and wouldn’t budge on that fact. His eyes squinted out at the crowd, and I could tell he was trying to smile and look charming, but there was something so false about it all.

  Maybe that was my own personal bias getting in the way, but I couldn’t ever imagine Thompson as the sort to go around kissing babies and shaking hands.

  Tom tapped the microphone again to quiet the applause that still drifted around the room as both of the men got settled at their podiums and adjusted their own microphones.

  I felt like I couldn’t exhale the breath trapped in my lungs as I watched them. There were so many things riding on this debate, and I tried to psychically will David to remember everything he needed to say.

  Whatever nervousness I’d seen on him back in the storage room had melted and slipped away to some invisible place. On the stage, he radiated a confidence I wished I felt.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Tom said to Thompson and David who both gave nods of greeting in return.

  “We’ll start out simple,” continued Tom. “Sheriff Thompson, you have a minute to explain why you’re running for re-election and the basis of your platform.”

  Tom then reached down and grabbed his stopwatch as he held his other hand up as if to hold Thompson off.

  “You may begin,” he said as he clicked the stopwatch.

  Every eye in the room seemed to fall onto Thompson at the same time, and to his credit, he didn’t flinch or cringe. But I couldn’t help the twinge of anger that threatened to make its way through me as I stared at him and his smarmy smile. I could have sworn he was staring right back at me and me alone.

  “I’ve been the Sheriff for the last sixteen years,” Thompson began in that pseudo-charming, southern drawl he’d put on with me what felt like an eternity ago when I’d stopped into the sheriff’s department to report the first attempt on my life. “And in my time here, I’ve been dedicated to eradicating crime in Crowley. I want everyone to feel safe and welcome. There have been a few unfortunate mishaps, but we’ve remained strong as a community, and, well, why fix what isn’t broken?”

  He smiled, and I wanted to launch myself up onto the stage and deck the smug look off his face.

  It was evident based on just his opening alone that he wasn’t any sort of politician or public speaker. He hadn’t needed to be to get the position and keep it, and I took a small amount of pleasure from seeing the chinks in his armor now.

  Tom glanced down at his stopwatch and nodded before he looked over at David.

  “Your turn, Mr. Vaneck,” he said and repeated the procedure of lifting his hand and the stopwatch. “You may begin.”

  David shifted his posture from foot-to-foot and flashed the crowd a toothy, white smile that I could tell was genuine, even from my seat a handful of yards away in the audience.

  “Hello,” he greeted the crowd in his calm timbre. “For those of you who don’t know, my name is David Vaneck, and I’m a former spec-ops officer with the United States Army. I’ve been a community organizer for the last four years since I returned from my last tour overseas. I’ve organized over a dozen marathons and thirty smaller events for local charities, and during all of my efforts for the people of the city, I’ve noticed a few glaring issues with the sheriff’s department.”

  He paused for a moment to let his words sink in and glanced back at Tom as if to check his time. When the mediator nodded, David continued on.

  “My platform is one based on clearing the corruption from our city and turning over each and every stone until everything comes to light” he declared. “After the incident with Knox Chemicals, plenty more issues are rising to the surface, and I intend to bring the city into a new light.”

  He smiled when he closed his statement, and it felt like the sort of smile you’d want to see on the face of a friend. He really did have that age-old appeal people always used when voting for politicians, the ‘I’d get a
beer with him’ standard.

  Tom nodded again to indicate that David’s time was up, and I looked over at Thompson to see how he’d taken David’s opening statement.

  His face was impassive and smooth, but something flashed in his eyes that I could clearly see was disdain, and I’d be a liar to say I didn’t feel a small thrill of pleasure at that look.

  “Your boy is fairly good at this,” Brody said to me as he leaned over in his seat.

  I didn’t look away from Thompson, who I was certain was staring right back at me, but I gave a small grin at Brody’s words.

  “He really is,” I agreed.

  The debate continued on as Tom fired off questions and gave both parties a chance to respond. My eyes darted between both men like I was watching a riveting game of tennis or ping-pong.

  The first few questions had been softballs, the sort of easy questions that were meant to lead into more difficult discussions later. David had been pleasant, charming, and open about the sort of things he wanted to see in the community, and I was impressed and surprised to realize that he had clearly put a lot of thought and effort into this admittedly sudden excursion.

  Thompson’s answers had come across as simultaneously cocksure and hesitant as he tried to defend his own lack of a hard stance on anything against David’s apparent policy beliefs.

  But it wasn’t until the closing words that things really kicked into overdrive.

  I’d been waiting on the edge of my seat with all but bated breath for the entire debate for David to spill the information we’d compiled against Thompson. He’d peppered in bits and pieces of the information over the course of the debate, and I’d seen Thompson shift in discomfort each time a tidbit was mentioned, but David had clearly been saving it all as a final blow.

  Tom cleared his throat and took a sip of water from the labelless plastic bottle next to him on the table before he guided the night into the homestretch. Everyone could hear the plastic bottle crunched as he clasped it too tightly, and he shot an apologetic look toward the crowd.

  “Now, I’d like to hear a final statement from each of you and then that will conclude our debate for the night,” he said to inform both candidates as well as all of us in the audience. “Sheriff, you have the floor.”

  Tom gave a small wave for Thompson to go on, and I worried my teeth over my lower lip as Thompson adjusted his microphone.

  “You’ve heard plenty of things from my fellow candidate today,” he began in that same honey slow drawl. “But, he’s never been police. He’s never been a part of Crowley like I have. He’s spoken a big game about turning over a new leaf and bringing things to light, but he’s not had a damn example other than the real tragedy that was the chemical plant. He’s new blood, but that’s all, and we need someone that understands this city and how to run things.”

  His meaty hands gripped the side of the podium, and I noticed that his knuckles were nearly white from the strain. Clearly, David had rattled him.

  I almost laughed aloud at how perfectly his statement set up for David’s killing blow, and he didn’t even know it. It felt like karma had finally thrown me a bone, and I was more than willing to watch as Thompson was forced to come face-to-face with his own misgivings being brought to light.

  Tom nodded as Thompson’s speech came to an end with another smarmy smile and turned his attention to David.

  “Mr. Vaneck, your final remarks,” he said to usher David on.

  I didn’t pull my focus away from Thompson even when I heard David clear his throat in his microphone.

  “Sheriff Thompson is right,” he began, far too casually for Thompson’s comfort if the look on the sheriff’s face was any indication. “I haven’t told you all what corruption it was that I intend to overturn.”

  My body thrummed with an electric pulse that I couldn’t stave off as I listened to David gear up toward a killing blow.

  Thompson’s face was calm, but I saw the way his lips had drawn taut at the edges.

  “Recently, it has come to my attention that Sheriff Thompson is not the sort of man he’s stood in front of us all and claimed to be,” David said, and from the corner of my eye, I saw a few camera flashes from the back of the room. “I don’t want to beat around the bush any longer, and you all deserve to know what has been happening right under our noses. The sheriff’s department was taking money from Knox Chemicals to keep the misdeeds of the petrochemical plant under the radar.”

  It was as if a bomb had been dropped in the room, but David didn’t slow down.

  “He has claimed it was a tragedy, but he was a willing partner in it all and complacent in letting your friends and neighbors get sick, letting them pass away,” David said. “And in Knox’s absence, Thompson hasn’t stopped his corruption. I have evidence and witnesses that corroborate the fact Sheriff Thompson has been using inmates from the county jail to do his yardwork.”

  If his first statement sent the room into a tizzy, David’s second claim all but caused a wave of conversation that Tom silenced by tapping his microphone, but still, David didn’t slow or stop.

  Thompson’s face was contorted into an angry, red mask, and all the while I smiled and smiled and smiled.

  “He has been illegally seizing the property of his citizens and using the proceeds from the auctions to fund not only his campaign, but his own lifestyle,” David continued.

  The cameras at the back of the room continued to flash and despite the moderator’s attempts at silencing the crowd, there was a rising hum of conversations as the energy in the room spiked.

  “And I have a list of ten separate individuals willing to attest to that with the evidence to back them up,” David said. “I might not have ever been police, but now that I’ve brought everything to light about the corruption in our city, I hope you’re all ready for some new blood. Because the old blood just won’t cut it anymore.”

  Chapter 21

  The aftermath of the debate had been pure, unfiltered chaos. Once David and Thompson had left the makeshift stage, they’d both been swarmed by citizens and the press alike as they were asked question after question about Knox Chemicals and the allegations David had raised against Thompson.

  It had been a madhouse, and in the handful of weeks that had followed the debate, things had barely calmed down.

  Public favor had swung in David’s direction more than any of us had expected, and we’d had to start seriously considering what would happen if David won. He’d assured me plenty of times that he was more than willing and ready to accept the position, and that alone had removed a massive weight from my chest.

  As the election drew nearer and nearer, the harassment from Thompson’s deputies hadn’t tapered off like I’d so naively hoped, but I had been able to get my car back from the impound lot with only a few scratches in the paint I’d been certain weren’t there before.

  Our caseload had lightened substantially as well, which was a much welcome relief from the intense workload Landon Legal had been facing before. After we’d secured Natalie’s injunction and realized that David was actually incredibly competent with running his own political campaign, Brody, Evelyn, and I had been able to put most of our focus back on the open cases we’d let fall to the wayside.

  And earlier that very morning, all of us at Landon Legal had proudly waited in an achingly long line to cast our ballots for David Vaneck as sheriff.

  If not for the still looming threat of Thompson remaining unscathed and in office after all the votes were tallied that night and his deputies interfering in my life, I’d have said things were as good as they could get.

  Well, they were almost as good as they could get. Despite the clearances in my previously packed schedule, Clara and I still had been forced to circle around each other like a pair of feral, skittish cats as we tried to set up a new time for our forever-out-of-reach date.

  I shifted in my desk chair and chewed at my lower lip as I tossed around what was a truly unromantic idea.

  There wa
s a party scheduled for that night to either celebrate David’s election win or drink to mourn its loss. But one way or another, there was a party, and I was invited.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached out and snagged my cell phone from where it rested on the corner of my desk. I ignored the plethora of texts that waited for me in my messaging app and instead opened up my contacts and scrolled until I found Clara’s name.

  I clicked on her contact and brought my phone up to my ear as I listened to the dial tone as it rang and rang. It was late enough in the afternoon that she should have been off work, but that knowledge didn’t stop the gnawing in my gut that grew worse the longer the call went unanswered.

  Just when I was certain that the line was going to shoot me straight to her voicemail message, I heard a faint click and straightened up in my chair as if she could see me.

  “Archer,” Clara said my name as her greeting, and the warmth in her tone pulled a smile across my face as the tension in my shoulders relaxed. “What’s up?”

  I leaned back in my seat and ignored the way the leather creaked in protest.

  “Is it too short of notice for you to get a sitter for Emma?” I asked without any sort of preamble.

  I drummed my fingers against my desk and cut my eyes to the clock at the bottom of my computer screen. Four hours might have been cutting it too close, but I would have felt like a fool if I didn’t try to ask.

  I knew that I should have floated the idea past her sooner, but for the last handful of weeks, Clara had confessed that she’d barely been sleeping thanks to Emma catching a cold. If Emma had been a perfectly-healthy child, it wouldn’t have been much of an issue, but I knew that with her leukemia, even a cold took a drastic toll on her well-being.

  She’d only rounded the corner in the last week and started to really perk up in the last day or so, and I’d been so scatterbrained with everything else on my plate that I hadn’t even considered bringing up the election party. But I could practically hear Clara’s eyebrows raise, and I felt my doubts return.