The Vanished (19 page)

“Call me if you have any questions,” he said. “Does your father’s girlfriend have her own computer?”

“No. She uses my dad’s laptop.”

Vincent got out his tablet computer and logged into the spy program’s control panel. Two and a half minutes later Carol activated the program on Sam Powell’s cell. Vincent put the tablet back in the briefcase and headed for the door.

4

He had dinner at a Thai restaurant on McDowell Road in Phoenix called Star of Siam. As Vincent tried to think of a way to find out how Tom Powell had learned hypnotism, it occurred to him that it would be a good idea to go through Tom’s bank and credit card statements. If Tom had studied at a hypnosis school, there was going to be a payment trail.

You could learn a lot about people from their bank and credit card statements.

If Carol was unable to obtain the statements, he would ask Paul Sibert.

He called Carol and said, “I need all of your brother’s bank and credit card statements from his release to his disappearance. Can you get them for me?”

“My mom might have them. She was the executor of Tom’s estate.”

“You could try and get the statements your mother doesn’t have directly from the credit card companies.”

“Okay.”

“And ask your mother for a copy of Tom’s credit report.”

“Okay, I will.”

Vincent needed Tom Powell’s credit report because it listed all Tom’s credit cards.

“By the way, my mom’s house has an alarm system,” Carol said. “I’ll give you the code tomorrow.”

The first thing Vincent did when he logged into Sam Powell’s email account was search for messages to or from [email protected]. There were no messages to or from [email protected] in any of the email folders. Then Vincent printed out every email he was able to find that had been sent to and received from Tom Powell after his release from prison. The emails were short, most no longer than forty words, and none of them made any mention of Tom’s plans to fake his death. The last message from Tom had been received on April 16 of last year, about a month before he went missing. It read: “Hey Dad, watch this. Awesome trick!” At the bottom of the message was a link to a video of a Japanese magician putting his hand through the glass of a fish tank to retrieve a playing card that was inside the tank.

There was no mention of hypnosis or hypnotists in the emails. And there wasn’t a word about Tom’s friends or girlfriends there. Attached to one of Tom’s messages was a picture of Tom standing on the shore of a lake. According to the email, the photo had been taken at Lake Pleasant, a fairly large lake twenty-five miles north of Phoenix, on March 2 of last year.

When he was done with Sam Powell’s email account, Vincent examined his cell phone text messages that had been received after Tom’s disappearance. He didn’t find any texts sent from Tom’s last known cellphone number. There were no texts that
appeared
to be sent by Tom, either.

Vincent spent an hour searching the hard drive of Sam’s computer for pictures of Tom with his friends. His hope was that the hypnotist or the woman that had helped Tom kidnap Annie would be in one of those photos. He found six pictures featuring Tom and someone other than Carol or his parents.

On Sunday, Vincent planted listening devices in Carol’s mother’s home. Elizabeth Riggle lived in a five-bedroom house in Maricopa, a small city thirty-five miles south of Phoenix. To get her and her husband out of the house, Carol took them to a restaurant in Tempe. Just before they headed out, Carol sent Vincent the alarm system code.

He put a bug on the phone line and placed microphones in the living room, the dining area, and the master bedroom. He didn’t find any boxes with Tom’s name on them. He was in his hotel room when Carol installed the monitoring program on her mother’s computer. At ten past six Carol told him that she had gotten hold of Elizabeth’s phone. He sent the link, and Carol installed the spy app.

Vincent didn’t find any messages from Tom that had been received after his disappearance in Elizabeth’s email account and cellphone. There were no messages sent to or received from [email protected] there, either.

Sam and Elizabeth must have deleted all the texts and emails they had received from and sent to their son after he went missing.

While Vincent was browsing the contents of the My Documents folder on the hard drive of Elizabeth’s laptop, his phone rang. It was Carol.

“I talked to my mom,” she said. “She says the police didn’t find Tom’s cellphone and computer. She thinks the killer took them.”

“What about Tom’s notebooks or diaries?”

“She doesn’t have them. My dad doesn’t have them, either. Maybe the police kept them as evidence.”

“What about credit card statements?”

“My mom will look for them.”

“Did you get a video with Tom in it?”

“Yes. I’m at the hotel, so you can come and pick it up.”

“I’m on my way.”

Elizabeth had given Carol a video of Tom’s twenty-fifth birthday party and a video of the party she had thrown at her house to celebrate Tom’s release from prison. When Vincent returned to his hotel, he cut a three-minute video that consisted of clips where only Tom’s voice was heard, and then called Michael Camp.

“This is Vincent Daley,” he said when Camp answered the phone. “Remember me? We met in your house in Magnolia three weeks ago.”

“Yes, I remember you.”

“I’m sorry to bother you. Do you have five minutes?”

“Yes.”

“I’m calling to ask you for a favor. I have a tape with the voice of the man who I believe called you last February. I need you to listen to the tape and tell me if that’s the guy. Can you do it?”

“Yes.”

Vincent clicked the Play button and held his phone to the left internal speaker. After two minutes, he stopped the video and then asked Camp, “So, is this the guy who called you?”

“I think it could be him. It’s hard to tell for sure; it was so long ago. I’d say there’s a sixty percent chance it’s him.”

A sixty percent chance. It was a fairly good chance, in Vincent’s opinion.

He had two options: he could wait for Sam and Elizabeth to start communicating with Tom or he could try to make them do it.

How could he get Sam and Elizabeth to contact their son?

Nine years ago Vincent had been hired to track down a businessman who had defrauded investors out of five million dollars. He told the businessman’s wife that her husband had inherited seven million dollars from a great-uncle, and a week later the guy came to his hotel room. Would this trick work on Sam, Elizabeth, and Tom? It might. But it was also possible that Tom’s parents would smell a trap or think it was some kind of scam.

He needed to come up with a different story.

After an hour of brainstorming, Vincent hit on an idea he believed was going to work.

He was going to tell Sam and Elizabeth that the police had found Tom’s body, that he had been killed the day before.

What would you do if you learned that your son had been killed? You would call him, hoping against hope he would answer the phone. You wouldn’t believe he was dead until you saw his body with your own eyes. At least that was what normal people would do, and Sam and Elizabeth seemed to be normal people.

Chapter
24

1

On Monday, Vincent told Carol about his plan to trick her parents into contacting Tom.

“It’s a clever plan,” Carol commented.

Vincent asked her to say as little as possible when Elizabeth and Sam told her about the discovery of Tom’s body.

Later, he went to Maricopa and placed a GPS tracker on Elizabeth’s car.

The next morning, two of his investigators, Bob Navarro and Dennis Hatton, flew into Phoenix from Dallas. At three in the afternoon, Vincent rang Sam Powell’s doorbell. He expected Tom’s father to be home because Sam’s phone was in his apartment (the spy app installed by Carol allowed Vincent to track the phone’s location).

His investigators were in their assigned positions. Bob Navarro was sitting in a van parked a hundred yards from Sam’s condo complex, listening to the transmissions from the eavesdropping devices Vincent had placed in Sam’s apartment. Dennis Hatton was in Maricopa, monitoring the bugs planted in Elizabeth’s house.

Sam opened the door and asked, “How can I help you?”

Vincent flashed a fake Phoenix police badge, which Bob Navarro had brought with him from Dallas, and said, “I’m Detective Duncan. I’m here to inform you that your son is dead. He was killed yesterday in Avondale.”

Sam frowned. “Please come in.”

Vincent stepped into the apartment. As they went to the living room, Sam asked, “Are you talking about Tom?”

“Yes. Tom Powell.”

Sam’s face froze in shock. “Did you say he was killed yesterday?”

“Yes. Yesterday morning.”

“Tom was murdered a year ago.”

“I was told Tom was presumed to have been murdered a year ago. His body wasn’t found.”

“That’s correct.” Sam chewed on his lower lip, then said, “How do you know it’s him?”

“I can’t tell you the details right now, but we’re sure it’s your son.” Vincent cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry, Mister Powell.”

“Can I see the body?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see it today?”

“No. We’ll let you know when you can do it.”

His eyes shifting around the room, Sam sighed and then said under his breath, “Oh my God.” Aloud, he asked, “How was he killed?”

“He was shot. We believe it was murder.”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“We don’t have a suspect yet.”

“Where did you say you found the body?”

“Avondale.” Vincent pulled out his notebook. “Can I get your cellphone number?”

“Sure.”

Vincent wrote down Sam Powell’s number and stood up. “We’ll keep in touch.” He shook Sam’s hand. “I’m really sorry about your son, Mister Powell.”

When Vincent climbed behind the wheel of his car, he switched on the receivers tuned to the frequencies of the room and phone bugs planted in Sam’s apartment, and logged into the cellphone spy program’s control panel. The phone bug receiver was silent, and there was no activity on Sam’s cell. Vincent started the engine, drove one block, and pulled over to the curb.

The phone bug receiver was still silent. Vincent checked the spy program’s control panel and saw that Sam still hadn’t called or texted anyone from his cell. He logged into Sam’s email account and found that Sam had sent his last email at 9:48 this morning.

Vincent had expected Sam to call Elizabeth and tell her about Tom’s body, but apparently he had been wrong. Perhaps Sam disliked his ex-wife.

He opened the GPS tracking program on his tablet and saw that Sam’s Chrysler was still sitting in the parking garage (he had put a tracker on Sam’s car before he went to talk to him). Vincent withdrew his cell and dialed Bob Navarro’s number.

“I’m leaving for Maricopa,” he said when Bob answered the phone. “Give me a call if you hear something interesting.”

“Sure, boss.”

Half a minute later Vincent was on his way to Elizabeth Riggle’s house.

As he drove down Interstate 10, Vincent analyzed Sam’s reaction to the news about Tom’s body. 

Sam had appeared shocked when Vincent told him about the body.

Would a man who thought that his son had been murdered a year before be shocked when he heard that the police had found his son’s body? Shock implied surprise and emotional disturbance such as horror or disgust. Sam would have had no reason to be surprised and horrified if he had sincerely believed that Tom had been dead since May of last year. Even if Sam had clung to the hope that Tom was alive, he wouldn’t have been shocked by the news that his son’s body had been discovered. He would have been upset and saddened but not shocked.

Maybe what he’d seen on Sam’s face was not shock but bewilderment?

When he was two blocks from Elizabeth’s house, Vincent pulled over to the curb and turned off the engine. Then he looked at the GPS tracking screen. Sam Powell’s car hadn’t moved since he had last checked its location.

Still no activity on Sam’s cellphone except for a text message from Sam’s girlfriend, which read: “I’ll be home in 30 min.”

Vincent opened Sam’s email account. There was one new sent message, which was a reply to Lucas Hanna’s email from yesterday. Sam informed Lucas that he liked the pictures Lucas had taken on his trip to Paris. The message had been sent nine minutes ago.

Vincent called Bob Navarro and asked if Sam Powell had called anyone from his home phone.

“No, he hasn’t,” Bob said.

“Is he alone?”

“It looks like he is. I think he’s watching TV.”

It had been almost an hour since Sam had heard about Tom’s body. If Sam was going to get hold of his son, he would have done it by now—or at least started doing it. Why was he watching TV instead of trying to find out if his son was okay?

Maybe Sam didn’t want to get hold of Tom.

Why?

One possible reason Sam didn’t want to contact his son was that he was sure Tom couldn’t have been killed yesterday. Perhaps he had spoken to Tom on the phone this morning.

Well, even if Sam was positive Tom was alive, he, as a loving father, should call his son just in case, right?

2

“Hello. How can I help you?” Elizabeth smiled.

Vincent showed her the badge and said, “Good afternoon. I’m Detective Duncan. Can I come in? I have something important to tell you.”

“Sure.”

In the living room, Elizabeth asked, “Did something happen to Philip?”

Vincent supposed she was talking about her husband, Philip Riggle.

“No, it’s not about Philip. It’s about your son, Tom.”

“Tom? Did you catch his killers?”

“No. We found out that Tom wasn’t killed in May of last year.”

“Tom’s alive?”

“No, he’s not. He was shot to death yesterday. I’m very sorry, Mrs. Riggle.”

Elizabeth’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened. “Where did it happen?”

“Avondale.” 

“Did you catch the guy who shot him?”

“No. We don’t have a suspect right now.”

Elizabeth sighed heavily and said, “Oh my God. I can’t believe it. He was alive the whole time. My Goodness.”

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Riggle.”

“Can I see his body?”

“Yes. We’ll let you know when you can come in and view it.”

Elizabeth wiped at her eyes and asked, “Do you know what happened to Tom a year ago? Was he imprisoned somewhere all this time?”

“We don’t know. The investigation is in its early stages.”

“When will we be able to take the body?”

“Probably in a few days.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly. “Are you sure it’s Tom?”

“I can’t tell you all the details right now, but we’re sure it’s your son.” Vincent took out his notebook and asked Elizabeth for her cellphone number.

3

As Vincent turned around the corner, Elizabeth called Carol from her cellphone.

“Hi, honey, how are you doing?” Elizabeth said.

“I’m fine, Mom. How are you?” Carol replied.

“I’m good. I just talked to a police detective. He said Tom was alive all this time. Can you believe it?”

Vincent pulled to the curb and killed the engine.

“What do you mean?” Carol asked.

“We thought Tom was dead. It turns out we were wrong. The detective said Tom was shot to death yesterday in Avondale.”

“So Tom’s dead?”

“Yes. But he was alive until yesterday.”

There was silence, then Carol said, “This is terrible. How are you feeling, Mom?”

“I’m okay. I’m just wondering why Tom never called us. I think they kept him locked up in a basement.”

“Maybe they did.”

Elizabeth sniffled and said, “Poor Tom. I hope they catch the bastard that killed him.”

Was it all an act or did Elizabeth really not know that Tom had faked his death a year ago?

“I hope so, too,” Carol said.

“They’ll let us take his body in a few days.” A pause. “I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Bye, honey.”

“Bye, Mom.”

Elizabeth hung up.

Vincent checked Sam Powell’s cellphone and saw that there had been no incoming or outgoing messages since the text sent by Sam’s girlfriend, and that Sam had just received a phone call from a contact named George. Vincent played the recording of the call, which was only forty-two seconds long. George turned out to be Sam’s buddy. He had called Sam to ask if he wanted to play poker tonight at Hank’s place. Sam said that he didn’t know and promised to call George around eight o’clock.

Vincent was disappointed to see that Sam hadn’t sent any emails since his message to Lucas Hanna.

Sam’s car was still in the garage.

Vincent opened the text message log of Elizabeth’s cell. Elizabeth hadn’t sent or received any text messages since he had left her house.

He logged into Elizabeth’s email account. Elizabeth’s last email had been sent at 10:17 this morning.

At the moment, he was inclined to think that Elizabeth didn’t know Tom’s death in May of last year was fake. If Elizabeth was in on the secret, she would have tried to contact Tom before calling Carol. That was what a decent mother would have done, and Elizabeth did seem to be a decent mother.

His eyes fixed on the spy program’s control panel, Vincent called Dennis Hatton, who was stationed in a van about a hundred yards from Elizabeth’s house. He instructed Dennis to text him when Elizabeth made a phone call.

A few minutes after Vincent left Maricopa, Elizabeth called Sam on his cellphone. Vincent listened to their conversation while he drove.

“Hello, Sam,” Elizabeth said.

“Hello,” Sam replied. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. I just talked to a police detective. He told me our Tom was killed yesterday in Avondale.”

“I talked to him, too. About two hours ago.”

“This is terrible. Poor Tom.” Elizabeth sniffled.

“Yeah. Poor Tom. Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Calm down, Liz. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

“I don’t understand why he didn’t call us.”

“Maybe he got in with the wrong crowd. It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

“I think he was held captive somewhere. And they killed him because he tried to run away.”

“If Tom had stayed out of trouble, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Sam… Please don’t blame him. You don’t know what happened.”

“I’m not blaming him.”

“Do you want me and Philip to arrange the funeral?”

“Sure, why not. He can afford it.”

When Vincent crossed the city limits of Phoenix, he decided to follow Sam around for a while. He was going to wait until seven o’clock; if Sam’s car didn’t leave the garage by then, he would head back to the hotel. As he entered Sam’s address into the GPS, his cellphone rang. It was Carol.

“Hi, Vincent,” Carol said.

“Hi.”

“My mom called.”

“I know.”

“Has she called Tom?”

“No.”

“Have you talked to my dad?”

“Yes. He hasn’t contacted Tom yet, either.”

“Do you think this will work?”

“It will if any of them has Tom’s contact information.”

“Please keep me posted.”

“Okay.”

4

It was five-fifty when Vincent got to Sam Powell’s condo complex.

At 6:13 pm Sam Powell drove out of the garage. He traveled four blocks west and pulled into the parking lot of a Safeway store. He parked the car, got out, and went into the store. Vincent chose not to follow Sam inside, for fear of being spotted by him. He was monitoring Sam’s cellphone while he waited for Sam to come out. Thirteen minutes later, Sam walked out of the store, carrying a plastic bag. He was alone. Then Sam drove home, making no stops along the way.