Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“Commander Mattox, please let me go inside the CIFW. I can teach fire classes. My dad taught me everything he knew about firefighting. Then, I can supervise the inmates at fire camp. Trust me, Tawny and I will solve this case together.”
Commander Mattox scowled his displeasure. “Sergeant Finnigan, we’ve been over this. I made myself clear about your going undercover several times . The answer is no. I can’t spare you. Do not bring it up again.”
Finnigan turned toward Jiena, who’d met him at SWAT’s command center. He needed reinforcements to persuade Commander Mattox to change his mind. “A little help here, please?”
“Commander Mattox is right. I’m sorry, Finn, but you’re not the obvious choice.”
Finnigan’s heart rate spiked with ire as heat enflamed his face. “What do you mean? Who’s the ‘obvious choice,’ if not me?”
“I am.”
Finnigan spun around and stared into a face that mirrored his own—same shade of light brown hair, same deep brown eyes, same arrangement of facial features. Finnigan and his sister could have been twins if not for the two-year age difference.
Moira Finnigan stared at him. A tiny half-smile played about her lips. The familiar smirk, the smugness of it, brought him to the boiling point.
“Oh, hell no !” Finnigan exploded. “No way my sister is going undercover instead of me. Moira doesn’t know shit about law enforcement.”
Moira stood ramrod straight. The smirk morphed into an indignant glare. “And you, Marcus, don’t know shit about fighting real fires. Oh, you can teach the science and the physical requirements but not the practical experience. Out in the field, those women’s lives depend on someone who truly understands the danger. My sole focus will be on keeping everyone safe, including Tawny. We’ll protect each other.”
“If that’s not enough to convince you, Finnigan,” Jiena added, “it’s my op, and we’re doing this my way. Moira is the right choice, whether you agree or not.”
There was no point in arguing based on the stubborn expressions on Moira’s and Jiena’s faces. And Commander Mattox’s stern countenance meant he would brook no more protestations from him.
“Okay, I get it. So, what’s the plan?”
“We were able to ascertain the name of the fire instructor and have detained him for questioning. He may or may not be part of Warden Stoltz’s scheme. He contacted Stoltz to tell him he’s ‘sick’ and to expect a replacement. Moira is heading to CIFW now,” Jiena explained.
“What if Stoltz recognizes her name?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your connection to Tawny has been scrubbed from all social media, not only by my cyber tech but by Tex, too. Unless Stoltz’s organization has a tech genius equal to ours, there’s no way he’ll discover the truth.” Jiena spoke with confidence.
“You said ‘organization.’ Is this more complicated than what we originally assumed?”
Jiena tapped a few keys on the computer console, and three faces appeared on the large screen, along with demographic information. Warden Mickey Stoltz. Public Defender Perry Jones. Honorable Judge Harry Cohen.
“Yes. We’re getting a sense of some type of organized network that’s been operating under the radar for months, if not years. While we’ve been concentrating on major crime families like the Finnicelli’s, these criminals have been slinking in the shadows and taking advantage of the downfall of the larger drug cartels.”
“So, you believe this is about moving and selling drugs?” Finnigan asked.
“It’s always about drugs.” Jiena turned toward Moira. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“All right, then.” Jiena turned toward Macklin and Henley, and they stepped forward. “Here are your escorts to CIFW.”
“Let me—” Finnigan stopped short at Commander Mattox’s warning look. “Never mind.”
Finnigan grabbed Moira and wrapped his arms around her, even though they hadn’t shared a hug in a while. “Don’t poke the bear, Moira. Just teach the fire classes and let us handle the rest.”
Moira squeezed him in return. “I promise I won’t do anything stupid, Marcus.”
Finnigan gripped her shoulders, reassured by her response. “Do me a favor? Will you slip a letter to Tawny from me?”
“Of course.”
Macklin, Henley, and Moira followed Finnigan to the locker room. He retrieved the letter he’d been saving in hopes of somehow getting it to Tawny himself and kissed it before handing it to Moira. He didn’t care what the others thought of his sentimentality.
“If you get the opportunity, tell Tawny I love her, I miss her, and I pray for her safety every day.”
“I will, Marcus.”
Finnigan slammed his locker shut and hurried back to the command center. On the screen, he saw a flow chart with lines drawn between Stoltz, Cohen, and Jones. Pieces of information were in text boxes, and he studied them as he listened to Jiena speak.
“We’re not sure why the fire program at CIFW has failed under Warden Stoltz. But I can tell you that the DOC isn’t happy about the dismantling of its best rehabilitative program, which is why Stoltz is anxious to get it back on track.”
“He’s concerned about his job?” Finnigan guessed.
“Maybe. But here’s our working theory. The women are being used as drug mules.” She held their attention. “And we believe it’s happening when they’re at the fire camp. We’re putting a stop to this evil, and we’re bringing Tawny home.”
Her voice rang with conviction.
Thirty miles north of Chino, Carey Whitcomb parked in a dirt lot outside a dive bar whose name had been long forgotten. Signs no longer touted its existence. Only a few locals and motorcycle clubs drank and conducted business there. A perfect location for him to meet with the others.
Sweat trickled down his face and back and stained his armpits. He glanced with distaste at the dark blotches on the front of his shirt. Cursing his nervousness, he climbed from his Tacoma.
How the hell had this happened? How could an inmate as dumb as Bette Simpson escape and disappear without a trace?
Whitcomb tucked his personal handgun inside the waistband of his jeans. No one cared if armed patrons entered the bar as long as they paid their tab and didn’t shoot anyone. Whitcomb stepped inside the cool, smoky interior. A college football game was playing on a forty-two-inch TV above the lacquered pinewood bar. Three regulars were perched in their usual spots on the chipped barstools. Their vacant eyes watched the football game without focusing on it. Half-empty beer mugs sat before them as they puffed contentedly on their cigarettes. No bikers were in the bar, but it was still early in the evening. By nine p.m., the place would be crawling with them. Whitcomb appreciated the current level of quiet, just the usual clink of dishes or bottles or an occasional muffled voice.
He nodded at the bartender with the greasy, straggly ponytail. The man’s dark eyes tracked Whitcomb’s progress to the back of the bar, where the others waited for him at a table for four. Here, they were out of anyone’s direct line of sight but could monitor who came and went.
Whitcomb slid into the empty seat.
“It’s about time,” Mickey Stoltz snapped. “What did you find out?”
“There’s no trace of her,” Whitcomb replied, careful not to mention Bette’s name. “She’s vanished. Completely off the grid.”
“That’s fucking impossible.” Mickey glanced at the hard-set, concerned faces of Harry Cohen and Perry Jones.
“Is it?” Cohen picked at his dirty fingernails—a habit that disgusted Whitcomb. His bland voice held a challenge.
“To pull it off, to execute the plan so flawlessly, took resources she doesn’t have,” Whitcomb argued.
“Has she had any unusual visitors?” Cohen looked up from his fingernails and pinned Stoltz with an icy stare meant to intimidate him.
“No, no one. Her parents are deceased, and she lost contact with her sister long before she was sent to CIFW.”
“Why wasn’t she recruited?”
“Too stupid,” Perry Jones piped up. “She flunked out of high school.”
Cohen lifted a brow. “I don’t see the correlation, but let’s move on. Had she been hanging around anyone she ordinarily wouldn’t associate with?”
“No, just her usual crowd. And the reason why we didn’t recruit her is that her cellmate was someone we eliminated. If we had done the same to her, questions would have been raised,” Stoltz replied.
“Is that so? And you don’t think the inmates will raise questions when she doesn’t return to the prison?” Cohen demanded.
“It’s covered. We’ll say she died en route to the hospital, and her remains were cremated. We’ll even hold a memorial service for her in the chapel,” Stoltz suggested.
“And how will you explain this to the DOC?” Cohen asked. “They’re already breathing down your neck.”
Stoltz’s face grew red. “It was an accidental poisoning, nothing more. She wasn’t suicidal.”
“What if she resurfaces, spouting wild stories and tossing around accusations?”
“She won’t. She’s an escaped convict. No one would listen to her. And if she did, I’m sure Your Honor would prevent her from ever seeing the light of day again.”
“Huh.” Cohen drummed his fingers on the table, unconvinced. “What about the doctor? Is she a loose end?”
“I questioned her extensively. She knew nothing,” Stoltz reassured the others.
“In the meantime, I want information on the EMTs who were on the scene,” Cohen ordered.
Sweat continued to tickle Whitcomb’s back. “I spoke to them myself. They swore they delivered their patient to Chino Regional, and video footage bears it out. After that, no one knows what happened.”
“I think we’re overlooking the obvious. She saw an opportunity to escape and seized it.” Perry Jones signaled the bartender to refill his mug.
“How the hell did you graduate from law school and pass the bar exam?” Cohen’s voice resonated with scorn.
Jones’ eyes narrowed. “I’m not so dumb that I can’t figure out that the best course of action is to report her as an escapee to the fucking police and let them start a statewide manhunt for her. She’s got nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Law enforcement will find her.”
Stoltz met Cohen’s grim expression. “What do you think?”
“For what it’s worth, I think Jones is right,” Whitcomb interjected. “It’s too farfetched to believe she has powerful friends who aided her escape and disappearance. And saying she died is too risky.”
Cohen leaned forward and lowered his voice, “All right. Alert the authorities. As far as the network is concerned, this is a routine escape by a prisoner and has nothing to do with anyone associated with our enterprise.”
“At approximately eleven forty-two yesterday morning, inmate Bette Simpson, age thirty-one, suffered a seizure due to self- ingested rat poison. Emergency personnel were contacted immediately while we administered CPR. EMTs arrived, stabilized Bette Simpson, and transported her to Chino Regional, where she subsequently vanished.”
Tawny sat in the common room, along with several other inmates, all of whom had their eyes glued to the large screen TV. No one spoke as they listened to the warden announce Bette Simpson’s daring escape.
Reporters for various local news agencies shouted questions simultaneously at Warden Stoltz, most of which inquired about the delay in alerting the public that a convict was at large.
The warden responded by assuring them that Bette Simpson wasn’t a threat to anyone. “At the time of her disappearance, she was unarmed. She was serving a five-year sentence for drug possession with three years left on her term.”
“Five years for drug possession? Come on, Warden, isn’t that an outrageous sentence, especially since the prison system is overcrowded?”
Stoltz whipped his head toward the reporter. Faith Stoker. Tawny smiled. Judging by his dour expression, Faith nailed him, and he knew it.
“Ms. Stoker, I supervise the inmates. I don’t sentence them. That’s for the judge to decide.”
“Apparently, you don’t supervise them too well. Aside from this latest incident with Bette Simpson, more women have either disappeared or overdosed under your watch than in the entire history of the California Institution for Women. How do you account for them?”
Several women in the common room gasped and exchanged worried looks.
“What is she talking about?” Jo asked.
“Shh.” Yolanda held a finger to her lips. “I want to hear this.”
Faith rattled Stoltz. He ran a telltale finger underneath his shirt collar to loosen it. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. Tension radiated through the TV screen.
“Ms. Stoker, please refrain from asking irrelevant questions.”
Other reporters vied for the warden’s attention, shouting over each other and drowning out Faith’s response to Stoltz’s evasion of her question. U. S. Attorney Judd Morgan stood behind Stoltz. His rigid posture and blazing eyes indicated his displeasure. With whom or what Tawny could only guess. Next to him, the district attorney for San Bernadino County wore a stern expression on his tanned face.
“What’s being done to apprehend Bette Simpson?” a reporter yelled above the cacophony.
“I’ll allow Sheriff O’Grady to answer that question.” Warden Stoltz stepped away from the microphone, most likely relieved to have the opportunity to avoid any more questioning.
Tawny respected Sheriff O’Grady. He held the officers under his command to high-performance standards while on duty and fostered positive community relationships with the sheriff’s department.
O’Grady walked up to the microphone. “First, let me reiterate that Bette Simpson poses no physical danger to the community. She is not, I repeat, not a violent offender. At this time, we have state and local law enforcement working together to apprehend her. Checkpoints are now in effect in case she’s hitched a ride or possibly stolen a vehicle. In addition, K-9 units are canvassing the area. If Bette Simpson is on foot, she won’t get far.” O’Grady’s strong and husky voice rang with confidence. “We expect her to be back in custody within twenty-four hours.”
Sheriff O’Grady answered several more questions before the live press conference ended with comments by U.S. Attorney Judd Morgan, who echoed the sheriff’s reassurances.
The TV station returned to its regular programming, yet none of the women moved or said a word for a few seconds. Then, as though they possessed a hive mindset, they gravitated toward Tawny as one body, buzzing with questions and assuming she knew the answers.
“T, what’s going on?”
“How many of us are missing or dead? Maybe Bette was on to something with her crazy conspiracy theories, and she’s been vaporized.”
“What about Nixie?”
“And Lucy? Didn’t she die of an overdose?”
“We were told some of us were transferred due to overcrowding. Was that a lie?”
“T, we saw you talking to Bette the other day on the bleachers. Were you in on it?”
The last question came from Jo. “No. I swear on the Bible, I had no idea what Bette was planning or that something like this would happen.” That much was true, but the lie turned Tawny’s stomach sour. She imagined the fallout from Bette’s escape would be severe.
She held up her hands and spoke in a gentle but firm voice to calm the women down. “Look, Bette took a gamble. The only way we’ll know if it paid off is if we never see her again. With the statewide manhunt for her, it’s unlikely she’ll make it out of California. When they catch her, they’ll haul her back here in handcuffs. She’ll no doubt have extra time added to her sentence.”
“You mean if someone don’t kill Bette first,” Yolanda murmured.
Tawny couldn’t deny the possibility. She knew Bette was safe but could only say, “Let’s hope and pray not. In the meantime, be prepared to pay the price for what Bette did.”
“What does that mean?” Jo questioned.
“You’ll see.”
The fallout started as soon as Warden Stoltz returned to CIFW. Everyone was hustled into their cells and denied their usual privileges and freedoms. Some demanded why, and the guards, who’d been duped and were now on high alert, told the women to shut their filthy mouths and do as they said. Several of the guards roughed up the women who protested and left bruises on their arms. Even Pomeroy, whom Tawny regarded as one of the good ones, lost his temper and manhandled an inmate.
Then, the long hours of questioning began. It started with Grandma Mo, whose intimate and extensive knowledge of the prison and its inmates made her an immediate suspect. When Grandma Mo learned of Bette’s escape, Tawny hoped that she’d wisely disposed of the cell phone that had been used to call Agent Thomas. Warden Stoltz interrogated Grandma Mo for two hours, but he couldn’t wring information from her that she didn’t have. She’d shuffled past Tawny’s cell with her head held high and a triumphant gleam in her eyes. A few of the inmates applauded her return to the cell block.
Tawny’s turn to be questioned came after dinner. Since the interrogations of the women yielded no results, and they hadn’t been allowed to watch the news, the first question she asked when she faced Warden Stoltz was, “Have they found Bette yet?”
Worry flickered in his eyes. “No.”
“They will. Someone will spot her and call the authorities.”
“You’re fast becoming the inmates’ new best friend. A leader. So, I’m demanding that you confess everything you know about Bette’s escape.”
Tawny objected to his use of the word “confess.” “I don’t have anything to confess because I don’t know anything.”
“You reportedly spoke to her before she poisoned herself.”
“Yes, that’s not a secret. She commented on the basketball game. A better question would be how she got her hands on the rat poison.”
“We’re looking into that.”
“And?”
Stoltz scowled. “Who’s the interrogator here?”
“Look, Warden, just admit you’ve got nothing and give us back our privileges.”
“No. Not until Bette Simpson is back in custody.”
“You know that’s unrealistic.” Tawny hadn’t been handcuffed on this visit to the warden’s office, so she crossed her arms. “You don’t have the right to treat us so inhumanely. I want to speak to my lawyer.”
Stoltz raised a dubious brow. “TK Winchester? She’s a sham. You’ve been scammed, Tawny, if you believe she can do anything for you.”
He smiled with cold mockery as he ripped away her power. Or so he thought.