Watch Her Vanish: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller (Rockwell and Decker Book 1)

by Ellery A Kane

  Witnesses testified that on the night of the shooting, Decker was off duty and had left the nightclub after drinking there with several other police officers, including his brother, William Decker, when he encountered the victim loitering by his vehicle with another suspect. When confronted by the officers, the pair ran. Both Benjamin and William Decker gave chase, pursuing the suspects into the Double Rock Projects, where Benjamin fired several shots from his service weapon, fatally wounding Ms. Townes. Though Benjamin told detectives Ms. Townes had reached for a gun, no weapon was recovered at the scene.

  The case gained national attention due to allegations of police misconduct in the handling of the investigation. Attorneys for the victim’s family told the Post that the police had waited five hours before obtaining blood samples from the officers involved. By that time, Benjamin Decker had a BAC of .07%, just under the legal intoxication level in California. The San Francisco Coroner’s Office also came under fire for ignoring crucial evidence. A private autopsy requested by the family revealed fresh bruising on the victim’s face and indicated the fatal shot had been fired from close range, rather than the distance testified to by Benjamin Decker.

  Earlier this week, William Decker appeared in court on behalf of the prosecution, giving testimony against his brother, including damning statements that Benjamin was intoxicated at the time of the shooting; had not followed proper police procedure before using lethal force; and that a “reasonable” officer would not have acted similarly. Benjamin Decker testified in his own defense on Friday, describing Ms. Townes as a known drug dealer who often carried a firearm and had refused to follow his commands.

  The Townes family has been outspoken in their search for justice. “Rochelle wasn’t perfect, but she didn’t deserve the death penalty,” her mother, Toni, told reporters at a press conference following the verdict. “We’re just thankful that William Decker stood up and did the right thing, even if it meant going against his own brother.”

  Chapter Seven

  Olivia pushed through the double doors into the crowded chow hall in search of Drake’s work supervisor, Laura Ricci. She didn’t owe Drake any favors but she suspected he was one rules infraction away from losing it. Maybe Laura could go easy on him for a few weeks. Pissing off a serial killer never did anybody any favors.

  Olivia nodded at the officer stationed by the entrance and walked a straight line to the kitchen through the tables of incarcerated men. She kept her head up, confident, but moved quickly, her eyes darting like a gazelle among lions.

  During the dinner shift, Laura could usually be found patrolling the line, making sure nobody doled out extras or pocketed so much as an orange. According to Drake, she ruled her domain with an iron spatula. But today, Laura’s second-in-command had assumed her position on line duty.

  “Where can I find Ms. Ricci?” Olivia directed her question to the young man spooning mystery meat from an oversized pan. His knuckles bore the inked words, CRIME PAYS.

  “In the back. But she said not to bother her.”

  Olivia headed into the bowels of the kitchen anyway, listening for Laura’s boisterous voice, her throaty laughter. She heard nothing above the whir of the industrial mixer and the clatter of the metal trays tossed in the dirty bin.

  She stepped carefully, avoiding the vegetable parts that littered the sticky floor as she followed a few sets of wet footprints toward the back. When she neared the loading dock, the sound of hurried voices drew her into the shadows by the overhead door. Outside, a delivery truck idled.

  Olivia shivered as the cold air reached her. She kept close to the wall and out of sight.

  The first time she’d met Laura, at a case consultation meeting to discuss Drake’s adjustment at Crescent Bay, she’d known in an instant why Drake hated her. With her silky black hair and her big brown eyes, she resembled the only picture Drake had of his mother, Serena. He’d desecrated it with a red ink pen as a boy but kept it anyway. She’d seen it taped on the wall of his cell, the word ‘whore’ scratched into the photo paper.

  Olivia spotted Laura from behind, her long braid hanging between her shoulder blades like a hangman’s noose. She started to call out to her but shut her mouth as soon as she saw Laura’s arms, elbows-deep in a sack of flour.

  Laura cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, and Olivia ducked back behind the corner, her heart racing. She waited, then looked again at Laura’s palm prints, stark white on the dingy dishtowel she’d slung over her shoulder. At the bag of flour, gutted on the table. At her hands, still ghostly white. At what she held in them.

  Olivia opened her umbrella. A light rain had begun to fall, dotting the sidewalk. At least she didn’t have far to go. As chief psychologist, she had her very own parking spot between the chaplain and the lead custodian.

  Most of the parking lot had emptied, and Olivia gazed across the concrete sea to the bordering redwoods, barely visible in the vanishing twilight. She admired those trees, but she feared them too. She always felt small beneath them. Like the eight-year-old girl she’d been, the first time she and her mother had made the sudden turn off Pine Grove Road and rumbled past the VISITING HOURS sign in their beat-up Buick station wagon. Her mother applying lipstick in the rearview and reminding Olivia to put on a smile for her dad.

  The prison had changed since then. It had grown larger, spreading its concrete tentacles across the salt grass in every direction. But the trees, those ancient sentinels, would still be here long after she’d returned to the earth.

  Emily had already arrived at the car and unlocked it with her spare key. Her face lit by her phone’s tiny screen, she relaxed in the passenger’s seat, cozy in her blue raincoat. The headlights beckoned to Olivia through the mist, promising to take her far away from here, at least for the night, and she hurried toward them.

  “Olivia, could I have a minute?”

  Warden Blevins appeared behind her, his thin frame dwarfed under a golf-sized umbrella. His glasses fogged, he lifted the frames with one hand, considering her from beneath them. Under the shadow of his umbrella, his eyes were black as currants.

  Olivia let the rush of panic subside before she spoke. She worked with murderers and rapists, for God’s sake. “Of course. Would you like to meet back inside the entrance?”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’m sure you’ve had a long day. What with Bonnie’s death and the unfortunate melee in the MHU this morning.”

  The longest. But Olivia only nodded, wishing she’d left work earlier, before the sun had set. Before most of the eight-to-fivers went home. Before the trees closed in like soldiers guarding their fortress.

  “You can rest assured I gave Sergeant Wickersham a good talking-to. Though, frankly, I don’t blame him. Sometimes it feels like we’re trying to go against nature here, expecting too much. We wouldn’t ask the wolves not to bite us. Every once in a while, I feel the need to throw them a rabbit just so they won’t gnaw my face off.”

  Olivia nodded again, anxious to be rid of him and his disturbing metaphors.

  “Actually, I’m glad you stopped me,” she said. “I was planning to call you first thing tomorrow morning. A homicide detective stopped by to ask some questions about Drake Devere, and I wasn’t sure what to tell him.”

  “I’m surprised you’d even ask. Finding Bonnie’s killer is our priority. Tell him he’s got our full cooperation.”

  “Yes, sir. But I’ll have to limit what I disclose. You know, the ethics code and all.” Olivia knew the rules better than anybody. She gave the speech to the interns every year. You may breach confidentiality if there is a credible threat to the safety and security of the institution.

  “There’s no one more ethical than you, Doc.”

  The rain fell harder now, and a gust jerked Olivia’s umbrella, briefly turning it inside out. The warden laughed, a thin, reedy sound that was nearly lost in the wind. His umbrella hardly budged, sturdy as an armored shell above him.

  “Funny enough, Drake is exactly who I wanted
to speak to you about. I’d like to ask you a favor. Just between us.”

  Olivia glanced over her shoulder, hoping Emily would bear witness. But to what, exactly? Em doesn’t know what I know, she reminded herself. She hasn’t seen what I saw. Still, when her sister lifted her hand to wave, Olivia felt an inexplicable relief.

  “A favor?” That word prodded at the base of her spine with an icicle finger. “From me?”

  “You’ve got a lifetime of experience dealing with these types. Some things you just can’t learn in a classroom.” So, he’d finally called it out. Her father, the murderer. She wondered if the warden had been holding it back all this time like an ace in his pocket. Waiting to shock her. Well, two could play that game.

  “You’re right. I can spot a con from a mile away. So, what can I do for you, Warden?”

  “Keep an eye on Drake Devere. After he and Hank got into it this morning, he mouthed off to Ms. Ricci. I think he’s up to something, and I don’t want either of us to be caught in the middle of it.”

  Olivia heard herself agree. But, the moment she spotted a smudge of flour on the warden’s jaw, she went somewhere else in her mind. Back to the chapel, two weeks ago. When she’d slipped into the confessional in search of a quiet place to think.

  Got the goods?

  Keep your voice down.

  Relax, dude.

  Call me dude again, and I’ll make sure the only parole you get is the back door kind.

  Easy, man. Ain’t no need for those kind of threats. I ain’t dyin’ in here. You hear me?

  We’ll see about that. Now take it and get out.

  She’d peeked out of the narrow gap between the door and the frame. What she’d seen stunned her. Not what. But who.

  The tattooed hands of Tommy Rigsby, shot caller for the Oaktown Boys. And the delicate, unmarred skin of Warden Blevins. Passing in between them, a mysterious brown package exactly like the one she’d seen Laura fish from a bag of flour in the kitchen. The goods. Which Olivia knew weren’t good at all.

  If Emily noticed Olivia’s hands shaking on the wheel, she kept it to herself. Olivia didn’t want to lie, and she couldn’t explain. For once, she felt grateful Em didn’t look up from her cell phone.

  Olivia piloted the car cautiously past the exit, flashing her ID badge once more, and made the turn onto Pine Grove Road. A fifteen-minute drive and she could put this day behind her.

  “What’re you looking at?” she asked Emily.

  “The news. I wanted to see what they’re saying about Bonnie.”

  “And?”

  “The same.” Emily tossed her phone in her purse and took a breath. “Did you hear anything today?”

  “Did you?” Big sisters had earned the right to answer a question with a question.

  “Maybe. But it seems far-fetched even for Crescent Bay gossip.”

  Olivia tried to focus on the road through the rain-soaked windshield. “Well, let’s hear it.”

  “Bonnie was stealing Drake’s book money, so he snuck out of his cell at night. You know how the cameras always fritz in the rain. He hot-wired a prison truck at the off-site lot on Pine Grove, punched a hole in her tire, and followed her. Then, when she pulled off the road, he snuck up and—Liv, stop!”

  The lone light on their route flashed red, and Olivia jammed the brake. The car seemed to float for a moment, then the back wheels fishtailed as she tried to gain control, skidding to a stop just before the intersection.

  Now Olivia had a good excuse for her shaky hands. She gripped the wheel as tight as she could, her knuckles whitening. “That’s the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard. Do not repeat it.”

  Emily groaned.

  “I’m serious, Em.”

  “Duh. I’d never do that to Bonnie.”

  Olivia turned to her sister, needing to see her eyes. But Emily denied her the one thing she wanted, pointing her finger straight ahead.

  “Green light.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I’ll give you the bad news first.” JB didn’t look up from his cubicle desk as Will shook the rain from his coat and slumped into the seat next to him, exhausted and hungry as hell. In the trash can they shared, JB had stacked a pile of cleaned spareribs, remnants of the Hickory Pit.

  “You ran out of barbecue sauce?”

  “Worse. No prints on the garrote or our UBO. Not a one.”

  “UBO?” Will rifled through the Pit’s brown paper bag. Napkins, utensils, a grease-stained receipt. No sign of the barbecue sandwich he’d ordered.

  “Unidentified buried object.”

  Will rolled his eyes. This was the sort of thing that happened when JB had too much time on his hands. “And the good news?”

  JB grinned and patted his belly. “They threw in an extra barbecue sandwich. Pays to be a cop sometimes.”

  Will glared at the trash can, his sandwich wrapper visible beneath the bones. The waitress had written DECK across the butcher paper in black marker. “That was mine. Didn’t you check the wrapper?”

  The door opened, and Lieutenant Gary Wheeler stepped inside, holding up a clear plastic evidence bag like a trophy. “General consensus among the guys is it’s a footrest. Like the kind you attach to a wheelchair. That, or the flat end of a kid’s beach shovel.”

  “Looks like a shovel to me,” JB said. “What d’ya say, City Boy?”

  Lieutenant Wheeler chuckled as he laid the bag on JB’s desk. Now, Will could see it. The nonslip grip and the rigging where the rubber would attach to the chair. “It’s a footrest. And look.”

  Will took an unsatisfying bite of the stale granola bar he’d scrounged from his desk drawer while he examined the bottom of the plate. “That’s a serial number. Maybe Forensics can figure out the company name and trace it back to the store where it was purchased.”

  “I’ll leave that to you,” JB told Will. “Since I already did most of the work, finding the damn thing.”

  “You mean littering? Yeah, you did do that. And you stole my sandwich.”

  JB shrugged. “We don’t even know if this thing is connected to our case.”

  “This morning you seemed to think it was the Treasure of Lima. Our guy could’ve used a wheelchair to transport the body down that tunnel. It would make sense with what Chet told us about the lividity stains on her legs and feet.”

  “Treasure of who?”

  “Just sort it out, you two.” Lieutenant Wheeler retreated in the direction of his office. “Chief Flack wants a word. You’d both better be on the same page by then or she’ll have your balls.”

  JB wriggled his eyebrows. “As long as she’s gentle.”

  Chief Flack wasn’t a Botox kind of woman. Every line on her face had been hard-earned, and she wore them like battle scars. Will liked that about her. Even now, when the lines gathered between her brows and soured her mouth.

  “So, you’re telling me we’ve got nothing? Our first homicide in nearly a year, and we’ve got nothing?”

  JB shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that, Chief.”

  Will sat back and prepared to be entertained.

  “Oh really, Detective Benson. We’re more than twenty-four hours into this thing, and we’ve got no suspects, no DNA, and no prints. In my book, that sounds a lot like nothing.”

  “We’ve got this.” JB held up the evidence bag with the UBO. Two splatter spots of barbecue sauce dotted the plastic.

  “Right. That. A real smoking gun. If that’s all we’ve got, I’d say we’re still in the starting blocks.”

  “Well, that’s my mistake. I let City Boy here take the lead.” He leaned in toward Chief Flack’s desk, putting his back to Will. “You know how it is, Chief. If you want a job done right…”

  It had been a solid ten years since Will had punched a face, but damn, he wanted to end that streak with a windup hook right to JB’s kisser. “Actually, we do have a suspect.”

  “First I’ve heard of it.” JB tried to pretend Will hadn’t thrown a knockout. But his hard swallow
had the sound of victory. Not as satisfying as the crunch of his bulbous nose, but it would do.

  “You would’ve known that if you’d watched the security footage I emailed you from the theater.” Will opened the link on his phone, propped it on the edge of the desk, and pressed play. “Alright, Bonnie exits the theater right at the 2:12 a.m. mark.” On cue, she burst through the door. Her umbrella unopened in her hand, she shielded her face from the rain and ran through the parking lot. Will tapped the screen to pause the video. “You can tell she’s in a hurry. Didn’t even take the time to open her umbrella. Like she might be afraid of someone.

  “Now, just a few seconds later…” He hit play. “This guy comes out. Also no umbrella. He follows her until we lose them in the rain out of camera range.”

  Will rewound the video, stopping when the man appeared closest to the camera.

  JB guffawed. “That’s our suspect? Good luck, man. With that hood on, you can’t even tell if it’s a guy.”

  Will shrugged, smug in the knowledge he had someone in mind. Even if that someone was trapped behind bars in Crescent Bay. “I say we release it to the media. See if it stirs up any leads.”

  Chief Flack nodded. “Looks like the gun’s finally gone off, gentlemen. Start running.”

  She waited until JB had a firm grip on the doorknob, ready to make his getaway and find a spot to lick his wounds. “And Jimmy, keep the barbecue sauce off the evidence.”

  Will wiped the sweat from his face and leaned against his truck, huffing. His knuckles ached from a solid nine rounds on the bag, and his right shoulder creaked when he took a swig of water. But inside he felt new again, blown clean.

  He unwound the wraps from his hands and hung them across the truck bed to dry, peeking into the far corner of the garage at the cat who’d made himself at home in the old towels Will had left out for him.