Chapter Fourteen #2
She nodded. “Turned out, they hadn’t just talked, they’d argued.
Then he took off and she stayed behind with friends.
Police later turned up video footage from a gas station that showed Sean driving back past the Dairy Queen around the same time Hannah was last seen.
So police asked if she’d gotten into his car, and of course, he denied it.
But when confronted with another contradictory witness, he admitted giving her a ride. ”
“So…that makes him the last known person to have seen her alive?”
“Exactly. He claimed they had ‘stuff to work out’ and he offered to drive her home so they could talk in private. He initially claimed he dropped her off along the highway near her family’s ranch because she didn’t want her parents to see his truck pull in.
Said she wanted to walk. It wasn’t until police got a search warrant and found her blood in his front seat that he finally broke down and admitted killing her. They got the confession on videotape.”
Moriarty’s court-appointed defense attorney made several attempts to get the confession thrown out, but those attempts failed.
The video made it in, and jurors watched as a mumbling, sometimes tearful, Sean Moriarty recounted to detectives—including Leanne’s father—how he’d offered Hannah a ride home, but then taken her to an isolated road to have sex, and when she’d refused him, he’d killed her and dumped her body in a well.
“The blood evidence might have been enough to convict him, but the confession made it a slam dunk,” Leanne said. “The jury only took four hours to find him guilty.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t end up on death row.”
“He could have,” she said. “His age and lack of previous felonies helped him out there. I’m sure his race helped, too.”
At the time, Leanne had naively thought the tensions in town would go away when the trial ended.
But the aftermath turned out to be almost as contentious as the trial itself.
People who had been divided about the case against Sean Moriarty were equally divided about his sentence.
To some, he embodied the very reason capital punishment existed.
To others, he was a troubled young man who had made terrible mistakes but deserved mercy.
Leanne didn’t know where Hannah’s parents stood. But based on what Trish Rawls had said the other day, she figured they were in the no-mercy group.
“Anyway, now he’s out of prison and the whole thing is upside down.” She rubbed the sweat off her forehead again. “So, McBride’s freaking out every minute and saying how we might get sued.”
“You will.”
“I know that.”
She looked at Duncan, challenging him to say something along the lines of well, at least your dad’s not here to see his biggest case unravel. But he simply returned her stare with a cool, steady look.
She finished off her water. “So, long story short, the chief is being a prick, and today we butted heads. Again.”
“Why this time?”
She sighed. “You know Jen Sayers?”
“The forensic anthropologist.”
“Yeah. She informed me of five additional cases of un-IDed bones in this area that could possibly be related to my Jane Doe.”
His eyebrows arched.
“I want to expand my investigation, and McBride wants me to wrap it up,” she said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
He smiled slightly. “So, you came here to pound out a few miles and devise a way to go around him.”
She didn’t respond.
He laughed and shook his head.
“I’m glad you think this is funny.”
“I think you’re funny.”
A phone chimed softly. It took her a moment to realize it was hers. She pulled it from her pouch and checked the screen. Josh.
“Everhart.”
“Canyon Glen again,” Josh said. “Looks like you’re up.”
Leanne wasn’t on call, but she’d made him a promise.
“Send me the address,” she said.
“I just did.”
She hung up as a text landed on her phone.
Duncan pulled his keys from his pocket.
“I have to go,” she said.
“I know.”
He rounded the front of his truck and looked at her over the roof. “Call me next time you come out here. We’ll run it together.”
“I’ll smoke you,” she told him.
“We’ll see.”
· · ·
Izzy gave herself a pep talk as she stared at the building from her car.
Her meeting started in two minutes.
She didn’t have time for nerves. Or doubts. Or the sudden wave of panic that made her feel like she was going to throw up before she even walked in there.
She flipped the visor down and checked her reflection.
Maybe she’d overdone the eyeliner. Not maybe.
She definitely had. She didn’t usually wear makeup, but she wanted to look put together—not like someone who’d spent the afternoon on the side of the highway in a fluorescent yellow vest photographing skid marks on the pavement.
Not that she hated her job. Some days she even liked it.
But documenting traffic accidents was not what she’d had in mind when she accepted a scholarship to NYU and went off to pursue her dream of becoming a professional photographer.
She’d come back home for a good reason. But her mom’s cancer was in remission, and she no longer needed Izzy to shuttle her back and forth to doctor appointments on a regular basis.
Izzy had no more excuses, and she was running out of time to get her life back on track.
She carefully applied lipstick, then flipped up the visor. No more stalling.
She grabbed her portfolio from the passenger seat and got out of her car. She’d dragged out her knockoff Fendi boots for this, and as she strode up the sidewalk, she tried not to catch a heel on the pavement and do a face-plant in front of the window.
It was six o’clock sharp, but the door was unlocked.
She stepped into the gallery and was confronted by a wall of cold air.
The enormous photographs on display immediately caught her attention.
She’d seen them on the website, but nothing compared to viewing them in person and being dwarfed by their scale.
She approached the one closest to the reception desk.
“You must be Isabella.”
She turned around, and nerves flitted through her stomach as Zach Olmstead crossed the gallery. He wore black slacks and an espresso-colored sweater that matched his eyes.
“Hello.” She shook his outstretched hand. “I’m here to meet with Freya?”
He smiled, and she understood why her friend Aspen had slept with him on the first date.
“She had to step out. But come on.” He nodded toward the back of the gallery. “We can get started without her.”
Izzy followed him behind a matte black wall with a pair of photographs mounted on it. Behind the partition was a glass conference table surrounded by chairs.
“Freya tells me you went to NYU,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“I see you brought some work. Let’s have a look.” He nodded at her portfolio, and she hesitated for a split second before unzipping it and sliding out the first of ten pieces.
Ten should be plenty, Freya had told her when Izzy had asked how many to bring. So of course, she’d spent an hour stressing over which ones to choose.
Izzy placed the photographs on the table. Zach arranged them into two straight rows as she held her breath.
“Ah. Moab.” He picked up the one on the end, an eight-by-ten of a vibrant orange canyon set against an azure sky. “I was out there in September.”
He studied her photograph with a furrowed brow, then set it down. “Digital?”
“That one, yes. I do both, though. I prefer my analog camera for black-and-white shots.”
“So do I.” He picked up a photo of a towering rock formation. “Arches National Park?”
“Canyonlands.”
He stepped over to the final of the ten pieces, a crooked Joshua tree silhouetted against a dusky sky. Izzy had saved this photo for last. It was one of the ones she’d sent to Freya that helped land her this interview.
His eyebrow lifted as he touched the corner. “This is good.”
“Thank you.”
He looked at her. “You ever work at night?”
“Not a lot, actually.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve been focused on color contrasts.”
He stepped back from the table and studied the array of photos. Years and years of work condensed into a handful of eight-by-ten images. Compared to the gigantic pieces a few feet away, hers felt small and amateurish.
“Well, Freya was right.” He looked at her. “She usually is.”
It sounded like a compliment, and Izzy’s stomach did a somersault. She sensed she’d passed some sort of test.
He stepped closer, and she caught a whiff of expensive cologne.
“I’m a member of the Presidio Arts Council.
We’re putting together an exhibit at the observatory—Lone Star Nights, we’re calling it.
” He gave a crooked smile. “I didn’t come up with the name.
At any rate, we’re looking to highlight local artists. Do you live in the county?”
“I’m in Madrone.”
“Close enough.” He tilted his head and looked at the Joshua tree picture again.
“When is the exhibit?” she asked.
“April. That gives you some time.”
“So…since you’re partnering with the observatory, I assume the focus is constellations?”
“Anything after dark would work. As you can see, we take our night sky seriously.” He smiled again. “Why don’t you take a crack at it, see what you come up with?”
“I will.”
He checked his Rolex, and she took that as a cue that she’d used up her time. She collected her prints off the table and felt his gaze on her as she slid them into her portfolio.
“Have you been out to the observatory?” he asked.
She didn’t want to mention her middle school field trip, which would only remind him that she’d grown up in a town that didn’t even have a movie theater.
“It’s been a few years,” she said.
“I should take you to one of their star parties sometime.”
The nerves were back again. There was something in his tone, and she remembered Aspen telling her that with Zach Olmstead, everything was transactional.
He stepped over to a shelf and plucked a business card from a silver holder. He wrote something on it and returned to the table.