Chapter Forty-Five
Forty-Five
Leanne followed the croon of Linda Ronstadt to the tack room, which smelled of wood chips and leather cleaner. Bridles and harnesses hung from a pegboard. Her mother’s phone sat in the center of the desk beside a vase of pink tulips.
“Mom?”
Leanne grabbed an apple from a basket and walked to the farthest stall, where she found her mother with Starlight. She leaned her head against the mare’s nose and spoke in the soothing voice she reserved for horses and babies.
“Mom.”
She turned around. “Hi. I didn’t hear you come in. What in God’s name happened to your face?”
Leanne touched her forehead. “I conked my head during an arrest last night.”
Her mom stepped closer, frowning as she studied the gash.
“How many stitches is that?”
“Ten. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal? It looks horrible.”
Leanne approached the horse and held the apple flat in her hand. Starlight’s lips tickled her palm as she chomped the fruit.
“Are the flowers from Boone?” she asked.
“From Ben.” Her mother beamed. “He sent them for my birthday.”
Leanne couldn’t remember the last time her brother had remembered anyone’s birthday. Maybe he was maturing. Or maybe he needed something. Either way it was progress.
“So, what brings you here?” Her mom grabbed the curry brush from the wooden ledge. “Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
“I have a few updates.”
Her mom made circular strokes over the horse’s chestnut coat, moving from shoulder to flank. She glanced up. “I’m listening.”
“Jim McBride is being arraigned this morning.”
She stopped. “You’re kidding.”
“He was implicated in a bribe-taking scheme, along with some others.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say yet.”
One of the others was Ron Hausmann, a current judge and former Chisos County district attorney.
The day after Justin Carr’s arrest at the yucca farm, a pair of FBI agents had shown up at Leanne’s house to debrief her about the case.
They had also informed her that Hausmann was under investigation for bribery.
As part of a plea agreement, he had implicated Jim McBride in numerous illegal incidents, including the time when he used a loaded gun and death threats to coerce a false confession from nineteen-year-old Sean Moriarty.
As the then county prosecutor, Hausmann had been in the room during the interrogation.
So had Leanne’s dad.
“You don’t look surprised,” Leanne said.
Her mom traded the curry brush for a soft brush and started on Starlight’s legs. “I’m not.”
“So, I have a question.” Leanne folded her arms. “Did you know Dad went to the Texas Rangers with his tape?”
She stopped. “What tape?”
“The original of the one you had, the tape of Sean Moriarty being interrogated.”
“When was this?”
Leanne studied her mom’s expression. She looked genuinely surprised. She must have believed the cassette she’d discovered after her husband’s death had been the only one. But it had been a copy.
“The year after the trial,” Leanne said. “Dad took it to the Rangers’ Public Integrity Unit.”
This, Leanne had learned from the FBI agent who’d been leading an investigation of high-ranking local officials for the past ten months.
“I didn’t know.” Her mom rubbed her forearm over her brow. “Can’t say I’m surprised, though. He probably couldn’t live with the guilt of it. What happened?”
“Someone over there buried the report,” Leanne said. She didn’t know who, but she could tell the FBI did. “Nothing came out until they were investigating another public official, and this person offered to give up what he knew about the Moriarty thing as part of a plea deal.”
Her mom tipped her head to the side. “ ‘Another public official’? Let me guess. Ron Hausmann?”
Leanne lifted an eyebrow.
“That man always was a weasel. McBride, too.”
Her mom scooted around her and started brushing Starlight’s neck.
The wrongful conviction of Sean Moriarty very easily could have stayed secret forever.
For sixteen long years, McBride had buried it.
Hausmann had buried it. The Rangers had buried it.
Every step of the way, people in power had protected one another and run from accountability.
If it weren’t for Sean and his enterprising lawyer, there would have been no reckoning.
Sean would have spent the rest of his life rotting in prison and a serial murderer might still be free.
“You need to be prepared,” Leanne said. “There’s a story running in a major newspaper tomorrow, and when all this comes out, there’ll be reporters sniffing around.”
Her mom scoffed. “What? More than now? They’re all over town. You can’t hardly go to the gas station.”
“Probably even more.”
“How do you know all this, anyway?”
“I’ve heard.”
And she had talked to the reporter personally. Max Scott’s two-page spread was set to run in the morning. Even without Leanne’s help, the reporter had managed to dig up most of the salient facts, and the rest were sure to come out eventually.
“You’d better be careful who you talk to.” Her mother gave her a sharp look. “Someone could come after you.”
“I’m careful.”
She shook her head. “I swear, Leanne.”
“What?”
She shot her a glare. “What do you mean, ‘what’? Look at your face! You’re all beat up. You walk around every day looking dead tired. You have no man. No personal life. I truly wonder why you do this job.” She paused. “Why do you?”
“I’m good at it.”
Her mom blew out a sigh. Starlight nudged her with her nose, and she stroked the white star on her forehead.
“So much like your father.” Her mom turned to face her. “He was so damn stubborn, wouldn’t ever let anything go.”
“Could you not bad-mouth him right now, please? I’ve heard enough disappointing shit about him lately.”
“I’m sure some of it’s true,” her mom said. “But…I will also tell you that he tried to do right. That whole thing with that confession wasn’t his doing. He just witnessed it. Your father had flaws, but he also had a good heart.”
“Tell that to Sean Moriarty.”
She set the brush down and gave Leanne a long, pensive look. “You sound cynical.”
“I am.”
“It’s like I said, that job of yours is a hell on good people. It chews you up and spits you out.” She paused. “Sure you don’t want to change careers?”
“What do you hear from Ben?” Leanne asked, switching the subject.
“Talked to him last night.” Her mom grabbed another brush from the ledge. “He wanted me to cosign the lease for his apartment with Isabella.”
Leanne looked through the door at the sloping ranchland, aglow with the morning sun. It was so quiet out here that you could walk for miles without seeing another person. She thought of Ben showing up in traffic-choked Austin with no job and a head full of dreams.
“I can’t believe he’s going to be a father,” her mom mused. “He’s barely been out of rehab three months.”
“One hundred and four days.”
She looked up. “You’re counting?”
Leanne shrugged. “I worry about him. And I worry he’s not ready.”
Her mom laughed.
“What? Do you think he’s ready?”
She smiled. “Of course he isn’t! You think I was ready? Or your father? Hell no.” She walked over and softly patted Leanne’s cheek. “No one ever is.”