Moral Hazard (Southern Fraud Thriller) Read online

  A WHITELEY PRESS, LLC, BOOK

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by J. W. Becton

  http://www.jwbecton.com

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real people, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Other Works by J. W. Becton

  The Southern Fraud Thriller Series

  Absolute Liability

  Death Benefits

  At Fault

  Moral Hazard

  The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection

  Writing as Jennifer Becton

  Charlotte Collins

  “Maria Lucas”: A Short Story

  Caroline Bingley

  The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection

  Mary Bennet—Coming Soon!

  For Marilyn Whiteley

  and

  In memory of the real Tricia

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  One

  “We’ve got a problem,” Tripp Carver said, his voice straining through the speaker of my cell phone in an anxious whisper. “Can you meet me?”

  Before I could offer a sensible reply, sweat beaded on my forehead, and my skin began to prickle. I shifted in my office chair, causing its springs to squeal in alarm.

  “Okay,” I said, drawing out the word and hoping Tripp might give me a hint about the nature of the problem. When he offered nothing, I plunged in.

  “What’s up?”

  Tripp remained obstinately silent, and I shifted again, eliciting only the response of more squeaky springs.

  This tactic would obviously get me nowhere.

  “When and where do you want to meet?” I asked finally.

  “Fifteen minutes at Middle Mercer Park.”

  Tripp’s curt reply made my scalp tingle with anticipation, and nervous energy loosened my tongue, probably a bit too much.

  “Should I wear my trench coat and dark glasses?” I quipped.

  Tripp gave what sounded like an unintended snort of laughter, a sound that brought me only fleeting reassurance, because when he spoke again, his serious tone returned.

  “This isn’t a joke, Jules. We have a real problem. I’ll see you in a few.”

  “See ya then,” I replied, but he had already disconnected.

  Stunned, I stared unseeingly at my phone.

  Crap.

  I glanced at the clock on my computer screen even though I didn’t need to. Middle Mercer Park stood on the fringes of downtown, so it would take less than fifteen minutes for me to get there from the Georgia Department of Insurance building. But it felt good to distract myself with a simple action. It gave my adrenaline production the chance to ease off and my brain the opportunity to kick in.

  I closed my eyes to analyze our brief conversation.

  When Tripp called, he usually engaged me in harmless flirtation and then inquired after my sister and parents. If nothing else, he at least said hello. He’d initiated none of the expected rituals today, and that didn’t bode well. What’s worse, he refused to answer my questions, and he wanted no delays; we had to meet now. Based on his hurried whispers and choice of private rendezvous point, he didn’t want anyone to know about our conversation.

  Even when Tripp faced the stress that came with being a detective in the Mercer Police Department Violent Crimes Unit, he never failed to maintain a sense of joviality, a trait I admired in him. Despite the darkness he witnessed on the job every day, he never stopped looking toward the light.

  I felt disoriented after his call, as if I’d been in a bright room when all the lights were suddenly shut off.

  I knew I had to get moving, get out there and face whatever I had to face.

  Grabbing my coat, I strode out of the DOI and crossed the parking lot to my Explorer, trying to tamp down my impending panic. After all, it could be nothing, I reasoned. Then immediately dismissed that thought.

  It couldn’t be nothing. When Tripp Carver said we had a problem in that tone of voice, we had an honest-to-God problem.

  I hurried, hoping to outrun what I already knew in my heart. I knew what Tripp had called about, but that didn’t prevent me from listing all the reasons I was surely wrong while I shuttled myself across downtown Mercer on autopilot. At least my mind was busy as I zipped by the roadside plantings and barely noticed that the forsythia was starting to bloom, a sure sign that the city sat on the cusp of spring. But I felt only the gloom of a gray winter morning pressing down on me. For all I knew, there was no color in sight.

  When my SUV ground to a halt in the parking lot of Middle Mercer Park, I sighed and pulled myself from the car, forcing my leaden feet across the asphalt lot and into the playground, where Tripp sat on a swing, waiting for me. Though he looked relaxed, idly rocking his swing back and forth with his feet planted firmly on the ground, his expression was grim, and he didn’t smile at me as I took the swing beside him.

  We remained quiet for a long moment, both of us staring ahead. I didn’t feel ready to hear what Tripp was going to say, and apparently, he was in no hurry to begin either.

  A young college coed bounded across my line of sight. Dressed in bright pink running gear and wearing enough makeup to be photographed for a sporting goods advertisement, she turned down a nearby path toward the trees, earbuds lodged securely in place.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I peeked at Tripp. His eyes followed the jogger without the gleam of appreciation for her lithe feminine form that I expected to see. In fact, he appeared vaguely disgusted.

  “Someone should tell her that it’s not safe to run while listening to music,” Tripp stated.

  I turned my swing so that I could study him. Not yet noon, and already he’d loosened his tie, and his rumpled white button-down shirt looked like it had never seen the business end of an iron.

  Time to get this over with.

  “You didn’t ask me to meet so we could discuss personal safety habits,” I said, watching the coed’s strawberry blond ponytail disappear from view. I tried to keep my tone light but didn’t quite manage it. “Why all the cloak and dagger?”

  “The GBI is in the building today, Jules.”

  Fear kicked me in the gut, and I sucked in a breath as my eyes flew to meet his. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was at the Mercer PD. Something big was going down.

  Apparently, their presence involved me.

  “Oh.”

  That one syllable was the best I could manage as panicked thoughts swirled in my brain.

  “The whole thing’s been very hush-hush,” Tri
pp said. “We got no word about what they’re investigating, but the guys in Internal Affairs seemed pretty pissed. When I found out that they requested your sister’s case file and evidence, I had to look deeper at what they were up to.”

  Tripp’s sober tone threatened to undo me, so I spun my swing until it faced forward again and began to rock myself slowly back and forth in a lame attempt to calm myself. The movement felt vaguely soothing, and I focused on the park path again while I tried to force my quickly numbing brain to think.

  An elderly man with a basset hound had replaced the jogger, and I watched as he pulled the unenthusiastic canine down the path and into the woods too.

  “What are they up to?” I asked quietly.

  “They suspect that the DNA evidence has been tainted,” he said soberly. “The defense attorney noticed an anomaly in the sample—a missing piece, apparently—at the pre-trial evidence viewing.”

  I chewed nervously on my lip.

  The authorities knew about the missing evidence.

  The evidence that I’d stolen and used to help identify and locate the man who had raped my sister. The evidence that I’d tucked away for safekeeping in the small trunk in my house.

  But the authorities didn’t know my part in the story.

  Not yet.

  Maybe they didn’t have to find out.

  I shook my head at that thought.

  The MPD brass had bypassed their own internal affairs division and called in the big guns. That meant the district attorney was serious about discovering the reasons for the anomaly in the evidence; calling an independent third party to investigate would prevent the appearance of bias or impropriety. The MPD probably wanted to keep their own noses clean so they could make an example out of the culprit.

  Me.

  The GBI employed the state’s premier investigators. They’d discover my role soon enough.

  So in short, I was screwed.

  Fear, logical and cold, sneaked into my mind. Not only could the GBI investigate the internal affairs of the MPD, but, when they got wind of my involvement, they would start poking around my work at the DOI as well.

  Not that I had done anything illegal there, but still, it was the principle of the thing. I didn’t want to bring a GBI investigation to the DOI’s doorstep if I could help it.

  I continued to rock my swing back and forth as Tripp explained.

  “Kay Lanyon is prosecuting the case. We’ve worked together on a number of occasions, and let me tell you, she’s one scary bitch. She’s got one of the best conviction records in the county, and she’s the kind of attorney you don’t want to piss off. And she’s pissed, Jules.”

  Oops, I thought.

  But it got worse.

  “The DNA evidence might not be admissible now,” Tripp said, and all the oxygen suddenly disappeared from the atmosphere. My breathing became labored, and I couldn’t suck in enough air to form a proper reply.

  Without the DNA evidence, Clayton Leslie Slidell, the man who had raped my sister Tricia seventeen years ago and the man whom I’d been on a quest to find for my entire adult life, might go free.

  By the time the MPD had arrested his ass for an unrelated assault, the statute of limitations on rape had expired.

  However, the state of Georgia offers an exception.

  If DNA evidence is used to establish the identity of the accused, there is no statute of limitations on rape in Georgia.

  In order for the DNA evidence to be admitted in court, the prosecuting attorney must be able to prove an unbroken chain of evidence, meaning that it could be accounted for from the time it was collected to the time it was presented in court. Any gap in the chain of evidence could indicate mishandling at the very least or foul play at the worst.

  And just as if Tripp had been reading my thoughts, he added, “They suspect tampering.”

  Oh God.

  My mind raced toward the logical conclusion: if they suspected tampering, the case would be thrown out. And now that I’d pissed off the DA, the investigation would not go out the door with the case. They’d want to know what happened, and I would be one of their first suspects. Because I’d actually done it, well, it wouldn’t be long before they scrounged up enough proof to get an arrest warrant.

  I attempted to say something, but my lips wouldn’t part, and even if they had been physically capable of that action, I had no idea what to say.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tripp angle his swing toward mine, and then I felt his fingers wrap around the chain that held me, pulling me toward him. The movement felt slow, languid, as if we were moving through water.

  “Look at me, Jules,” he said. “I’m not your enemy. But I need to know the truth.”

  I did look at him then, and after a few moments of focusing on Tripp’s familiar face and seeing the mixture of disappointment and yet persistent faith in his expression, I was able to suck in a few breaths and gather my thoughts.

  This was Tripp, one of my oldest friends, my former boyfriend, my confidant. But he was also Tripp, the by-the-book cop, the morally upstanding man.

  What would he do if I told him the truth now?

  I trusted Tripp, always had, but would he have my back now, when I was the bad guy?

  “Tell me they’re wrong to suspect tampering,” he said, watching me expectantly.

  I could feel the weight of his gaze as if it were a physical thing.

  “Well,” I began, my voice rasping out from between my suddenly dry lips, “they’re not exactly right, and that’s the truth.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Tripp said, leaning his swing away and running a frustrated hand through his dark, perpetually mussed hair.

  “It means that technically the evidence was ‘knowingly altered,’” I admitted, using terms straight from the legal statute. Yeah, I’d memorized it. It’s the kind of thing you do when you knowingly commit a felony.

  “But,” I added, “not with ‘the intent to prevent the apprehension or cause the wrongful apprehension of any person or to obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person.’”

  “Jesus, Jules, you sound like a law book. Just tell me what you know. Who tampered with the evidence?”

  I forced myself to take another deep breath, and this time when I spoke, I sounded like myself again.

  “Me.”

  “You,” Tripp repeated, more as a confirmation than a question.

  His eyes didn’t leave mine as I explained everything. What I’d done. Why I’d done it. When. How. I spilled it all, sang like a canary, trusted Tripp with the truth.

  With every new admission, I put a little more faith in him. He would understand. He had to.

  Tripp believed in the dogged pursuit of justice, and he had seen what happened to my family in the aftermath of the rape. He knew about the fights and drinking and isolation. He was almost as invested in tracking down Tricia’s attacker as I was.

  Tripp would understand that I had been seeking justice. He would comprehend why I’d done what I’d done.

  He heard my entire confession, and then he dropped the chain he’d been clutching, letting my swing fall away. His shoulders sagged and he studied the ground for a long while before he met my eyes again.

  I hate it when expectations clash with reality, and in this case, I was definitely not ready for the disappointment on Tripp’s handsome features. He didn’t have to say a word for me to realize that he not only didn’t approve of what I’d done but also didn’t understand why I’d done it.

  “I thought you knew, or at least suspected,” I said finally. “You actually walked in on me when I was leaving the evidence viewing room that day.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” Tripp said, shaking his head. “Not about the fabric. I knew you had copied the file and the print, but Jesus, Jules! You altered evidence.”

  I squinted up at him.

  “So copying the file, running the print—that’s okay?” I demanded. “But taking the teensy-weensy scrap of fabric
somehow crosses the line?”

  He lifted his chin and glared at me, and I expected him to shout, but his next words were more resigned than angry.

  “You know it does. You knew it was a felony, or else you wouldn’t have hidden it from everyone. From me.”

  He frowned, and my heart clenched.

  “A good attorney will make it sound like you’ve been obsessed with resolving your sister’s case, that you would have done anything to bring her some closure, including tampering with evidence to convict an innocent man. Or worse, they’ll make it look like you’ve been out to get Slidell for years. Like it’s a personal vendetta.”

  “The defense attorney would be right on one score,” I replied, snorting in aggravation. “I have been out to get Tricia’s attacker for years, but I never wanted to convict anyone wrongly. What would I gain from that?”

  “You tell me,” Tripp murmured, shrugging.

  “Nothing. That’s what I’d gain. Sure, it might sound like a nice idea—get closure at any cost, but you know me, Tripp. You know that I couldn’t live with myself if I did that. I couldn’t send someone else to jail and leave the real rapist on the streets to harm other women.”

  “Well,” he said, sighing heavily, “I didn’t think you’d tamper with evidence either.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Look, it doesn’t matter what kind of spin the prosecutor tries to put on the story or even what you think of me right now. The DNA proves that Slidell raped Tricia, and the remaining evidence supports that fact. That means Slidell’s hardly innocent.”

  Tripp rubbed the back of his neck. “Doesn’t matter. The accused has protections in this country. You can’t just trample Slidell’s rights, even if he is a raping bastard.”

  “You mean like he trampled my sister’s rights?” I hissed, unable to suppress my anger at the whole situation. “I did what I had to do.”

  Tripp rolled his eyes, and his voice turned stony.

  “Oh please, say that again. Repeat to me the mantra of every dirty cop.”

  Taken aback by his choice of words, I leaned away from him.

  “I’m not a dirty cop, and you know it, Tripp! I was desperate to make sure that my sister’s attacker was caught and punished. I couldn’t let him walk the streets, maybe raping other girls. I thought having the DNA sample would help identify him.”