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?”