slightly and catches himself on the door.
“You remember where the study is, I assume,” Mooney says.
“I do,” Bates replies with mock civility.
“Go ahead. I’ll be right up.”
Mooney disappears down a hallway and Bates leads me up a wide staircase. I look around in awe: marble tile, cherry molding, cathedral ceilings, expensive art, a huge chandelier in the foyer. I’ve always heard that Mooney’s wife was extremely wealthy, and from the looks of the house, she must be. We walk into a study filled with plush leather and expensive wood. There’s a large cherry desk to my right and a leather couch to my left. Bates and I sit down on the couch.
“He’s deep in the bottle,” I say.
“No kidding. I thought he was gonna fall on his backside when we came in.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Once. It’s been a while, though.”
“What’s going on, Leon?”
“You’ll see. Just let me do all the talking.”
Mooney walks in a couple of minutes later and closes the door behind him. He’s carrying a martini. He sits down behind his desk, sets the drink down, laces his fingers around the back of his neck, and leans back.
“What’s so damned important that it can’t wait until morning?” he says in a drunken, belligerent slur.
Bates leans forward and rests his forearms on his thighs. He stares at Mooney for a long minute-so long that even I begin to become uncomfortable.
“We finally got a break in the Hannah Mills case,” Bates says.
“We?” Mooney says. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”
“Me and Mr. Dillard, here. We’ve been working together. Well, that ain’t exactly right. I’ve been doing most of the work, but Mr. Dillard did help me out with one little detail. It was important, though. It surely was.”
Mooney unlaces his fingers, takes a drink from the martini, and crosses his arms.
“Why is he wearing a suit?” Mooney says.
“I’ll get to that in a minute. Don’t you want to know about Hannah? I thought you’d be tickled to hear that we found her.”
“You found her? Where? Is she alive?”
“She was in a mine shaft up on Buffalo Mountain. Somebody killed her and dumped her down that hole like a bag of trash.”
Mooney shakes his head and lowers his chin. He reaches for the martini glass again and misses, then finds it. I don’t know exactly where Bates is going with this, but I can feel a slow burn beginning in my stomach.
“Do you have any suspects?” Mooney asks.
“Oh yeah, I’ve got a suspect, all right. As a matter of fact, I know exactly who’s responsible for her death.”
“Then I assume you’ve made an arrest.”
“Well, I’ve got a little problem with that. I was hoping maybe you might help me out, but I kinda doubt it, to tell you the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t reckon you’re gonna confess, are you?”
Time freezes momentarily. I see Mooney draw in a long, slow breath, as if trying to gather himself. I’ve suspected since the beginning that Mooney was involved in Hannah’s death, but I didn’t want to believe it. Bates must have gotten his DNA test results back. Mooney must be the father of Hannah’s baby.
“Is this some kind of joke, Sheriff?” Mooney says. “You’re making jokes about Hannah’s murder?”
“Oh no, it’s no joke. I’ll just go ahead and tell you the way I see it. After you got Hannah drunk up there at Tanner’s birthday party and she made her little announcement about being a virgin, I reckon you just couldn’t stand it. You had to help yourself. So the way I figure it is, you followed Tanner and Hannah home and raped her while she was passed out.”
Mooney stands abruptly, his face twisted in anger. He points toward the door.
“Get out!”
Bates doesn’t move. He seems perfectly calm, but I feel myself growing angrier with each passing second.
“I ain’t going nowhere,” Bates says. “Not until I’ve said my piece. Now, you can either sit your ass back down in that chair, or I can go downstairs and tell your wife what I’m about to tell you.”
Mooney sits, slowly. Beads of sweat are forming on his forehead. He takes a long drink of the martini.
“You didn’t think about getting her pregnant, though, did you?” Bates says. “You damned fool. You see, ol’ Dillard here got me a sample of your DNA. It matches the DNA sample from the embryo the pathologist found in Hannah’s body. Tough luck for you, huh? If Hannah had stayed in that hole for a couple more weeks before we found her, we wouldn’t have been able to get DNA and you would’ve been in the clear. The only thing I don’t know is how you found out about her being pregnant, but that don’t really matter, does it? I’ll bet you were in a panic. You had to do something, and you had to do it fast. So you went to your old buddy Stinnett and made a deal with Ramirez.”
Mooney remains quiet. He’s taken on the look of someone who has just been forced to eat a pile of dung.
“Ramirez is locked up again,” Bates continues, “but this time ain’t nobody gonna let him out. One of his cronies hired a couple of bikers to kill Hannah. They’re as dead as she is. Stinnett’s dead, too. So you can relax, Brother Mooney. I can’t prove any of this.”
Mooney’s expression changes slowly to one of smugness. He clears his throat and leans back in his chair again. I can feel my heart beating inside my chest. Pressure has been steadily building at my temples, and my field of vision has narrowed. All I can see is Mooney. I’m thinking about his sneaking into her bedroom, sweating over her while she lay helpless and unaware. I’m thinking about what a sick, perverted bastard he is. I’m thinking about how good it would feel to snap his neck like a twig.
“Get up,” I say.
“Get away from me,” he mutters.
“I said get up, you fucking coward!”
I’m conscious of movement to my left, and I realize it must be Bates. I crack Mooney across the bridge of the nose with the back of my right hand before Bates can get to me. He yelps like a puppy and tears immediately fill his eyes. Bates is pulling me backward while talking in my ear, but my eyes stay on Mooney. I feel a sense of satisfaction as blood begins to run from his nostrils onto his mouth and his chin. Bates keeps talking, but the words are like white noise. They mean nothing to me. He pushes me into the chair and kneels in front of me.
“Brother Dillard, you with me?” The voice sounds as though it’s coming from far away. “Brother Dillard? You’ve got to come out of it, now. We’ve got business to take care of.”
The rage begins to subside, and I slowly become conscious of where I am. I feel sick, and I suddenly want nothing more than to leave this place. Mooney’s presence in the room nauseates me. I nod weakly at Bates. He stands and turns toward Mooney, who is holding his expensive robe against his bloody nose.
“This can go one of two ways,” Bates says. “What I could do is run straight to the media folks around here and tell them that Hannah Mills was pregnant with your child when she was killed. I can prove that. Then I might start leading some of them reporters down the same road I’ve been traveling for the past few weeks. My guess is that they’ll draw the same conclusions I’ve drawn. It’ll be real embarrassing for you. No way you’ll be able to stay in office once they get through with you.
“But what I’d rather do is keep this between you, me, and Mr. Dillard here. All you have to do is write out a letter of resignation right now and give it to me. I’ll see to it that it goes straight to the governor. He’s already got your replacement picked out. He’s already signed the paperwork for the appointment. You’re finished either way. Pick your poison.”
“You’re lying,” Mooney says.
Bates reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a piece of paper. He tosses it onto the desk in front of Mooney.
“There’s the lab report,” Bates says. “Read it and weep.”
