“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.”
He reaches back into his pocket and pulls out a pen. “That resignation needs to be effective immediately.”
54
Bates and I are riding through the darkness in silence. I’m stunned by what’s happened, not so much by the fact that Mooney is guilty, but by the fact that he’s going to get away with it. Losing the district attorney’s office will devastate him-he’s become addicted to the power and prestige-but I can’t stop thinking that he needs to be punished. He needs to be dragged through a public trial, convicted, and sent off to prison. There he should be gang-raped for ten years before they finally stick a needle in his arm.
I know Bates is right. The only way to prove that Mooney was involved in Katie’s death would be to bring a string of witnesses into court to testify how the contract came about and how it was executed. But the only direct link to Mooney-Roscoe Stinnett-is dead. So are the two bikers who actually murdered Hannah. Ramirez is in a federal prison, but the prosecution couldn’t force him to testify at a trial without leverage. Even if he did testify, Stinnett apparently never told him precisely who was putting out the contract on Hannah. There’s simply no direct evidence that Mooney was involved, and the only circumstantial evidence is that he’s the father of Hannah’s child. It’s not enough.
I think back to the day I went out to Hannah’s house, discovered she was gone, and then went back to the office and talked to Mooney. He was so emotional, such a skilled actor. What was it he said? Something about being protective of her, fatherly. And then he said, “That’s the way I felt about her.” He knew she was dead. He knew it.
“I can’t believe he’s going to get away with it,” I say to Bates.
“He ain’t gonna go to prison, but he ain’t gonna get away with it, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“I ain’t one to lie much, but I’m afraid I had to lie to him a little. I already mailed a copy of that DNA report to every newspaper and television station within fifty miles. In three days’ time, they’ll be on him like jackals. He’ll have to find him a cave to live in.”
“I wanted to kill him back there.”
“Can’t say as I blame you for that. At least you got a good lick on him.”
I look down at the back of my hand and clench and unclench my fist. The knuckles are bruised. It feels good.
“Don’t you want to know where we’re going next?” Bates says.
“I can’t wait.”
“You’re about to become the new attorney general of the First Judicial District.”