Shadows of Justice

by Brian Copeland

Genres: Literary Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

When a determined reporter and his homicide detective sister link the disappearance of a missing Black woman to the highly publicized case of a vanished suburban housewife, they uncover a terrifying criminal conspiracy in this gripping crime thriller.

“Brian Copeland and Topher Davis are back with a vengeance. Shadows of Justice is rich with everything that made Outraged a compelling debut: page-turning action, characters we care about, vivid sense of place, and a mind-bending whodunit—all seasoned with welcome shots of mordant humor.” —New York Times bestselling author JONATHAN KELLERMAN

When Kristen Promes leaves her family’s annual Fourth of July barbecue in an upscale Bay Area suburb to pick up her daughter’s playmate, she is never seen again. The discovery of her abandoned vehicle along the short route sparks a media frenzy, thrusting the mysterious disappearance of the affluent suburbanite into national headlines.

San Francisco investigative reporter Topher Davis and his dedicated team dive into the high-profile case. Amidst the relentless coverage, Josephine “Josie” Walker from East Oakland seeks out Topher, revealing that her daughter, Danica, has been missing much longer than Kristen and without any attention from authorities or the media. Desperate for help, Josie pleads with Topher to cover her daughter’s story.

Enlisting the help of his sister, San Francisco PD Homicide Detective Lynn Sloan, Topher attempts to retrace Danica Walker’s final footsteps. As they unravel the layers of her life, they unearth buried connections between the two cases. Will Topher and Lynn expose the perpetrator before another life is claimed, or are they now mere pawns in a more perilous and deadly game?

Release date: April 29, 2025

Publisher: Black Odyssey Media

Print pages: 288

Sample

ONE

Kristen Promes rubbed her lower back as she watched the gaggle of children splash in her Olympic-sized pool. Her back had been bothering her for three days now, which surprised her. She was only four and a half months along and thought that those issues wouldn’t start until she was a little later in her pregnancy. That’s how it had been with Taylor, her first. She didn’t have back problems with that gestation until she was at six months. It was an inconvenient day for this as there were over a hundred guests at the house.

The sun was hot this Fourth of July as the annual Promes Barbecue was in full swing. It was her husband, Tom’s, favorite day of the year. He had made sure that anybody who was anybody in the city of Pleasanton was there. She spotted the mayor at the outside bar having drinks with her dad, Morgan Duffy. The fire chief chatted up Congressman Whitlock as they watched their kids get butterflies delicately drawn on their cheeks by the face painters Tom had hired. Steve Chambers, who owned the local BMW dealership, stood at the grill as the caterer piled his plate high with ribs, chicken, and hot links. Tom said that the event was good for business and that, as usual, he was right. She knew that you could never have too many friends in the real estate business. Her father had taught her that. He’d spent his life in the property game.

“Look at you! You’re positively glowing!” came a voice from behind her.

Kristen turned to see Sheila Douglas, little Whitney’s mom from Taylor’s preschool. Kristen didn’t much care for her. Since first becoming a mom four years ago, she’d discovered that every organized children’s activity had a “queen bee.” In her circle, it was Sheila Douglas. Sheila was the Room Mom for the class. She took it upon herself to coordinate the field trip the kids took to Knowland Park Zoo and the reception for the dance recital at the girls’ ballet class. Sheila was only invited because Tom hoped to “buddy up” with her husband, Roland. Roland Douglas was on the zoning commission, and Tom needed some commercial lots the Duffy firm had optioned rezoned for residential development.

“Why, thank you!” Kristen said. “I sure don’t feel like I’m glowing in this heat.”

“The thermometer in my Mercedes read 102 degrees, and that was over an hour ago,” Sheila said. “It’s definitely warmer than that now.”

“Good thing global warming is a hoax, or it would be really hot,” Kristen joked.

Sheila laughed.

“Well, regardless,” she said, “this pregnancy definitely agrees with you.”

“Tell it to my lower back,” Kristen said.

Sheila laughed again.

The cell phone in Kristen’s pocket vibrated. She pulled it out and looked at the incoming number.

“Excuse me, Sheila,” she said. “I need to take this.”

Kristen pressed the answer icon and put the phone up to her ear.

“Just a minute,” she said. “Let me get someplace quiet.”

She walked around the pool, past the bouncy house filled with yet more kids gleefully jumping up and down as they laughed, squealed, and hollered. It was nice seeing the little ones having such a good time. She went through the patio door of her family’s McMansion. Kristen hated that word, but it really was apropos. All the stucco monstrosities in their Colby Hills development fit that description: large, overbuilt structures that aspired to be something greater than they actually were.

Kristen walked through the kitchen and past Katrina Long, her housekeeper and nanny. Katrina was a slight woman in her late thirties who wore a black-and-white maid’s outfit to work. Kristen always smiled when she saw it, thinking that her attire resembled something more out of a lingerie shop than a work uniform.

Katrina, carrying a silver tray of puff pastry hors d’oeuvres, nodded as Kristen walked past her and into the office that Tom kept at home. Kristen closed the door and plopped down behind Tom’s neatly arranged desk. He was such a neat freak. Overly organized about everything. Sometimes, it drove Kristen nuts. Love the man, love his faults, she thought.

“Sorry,” she said, putting the phone up to her ear. “Had to go inside. It’s really loud out there.”

“No problem,” said Julie Wolfer.

Kristen and Tom met Julie and her husband, Jack, during a Lamaze class when they were both pregnant with their daughters, and they immediately hit it off. Julie’s daughter, Hope, was born eighteen hours after Taylor, and the children had been inseparable ever since. So had their parents.

“What time you getting here?” Kristen asked. “You’re about the only thing that makes this madhouse bearable.”

“That’s just it,” Julie said. “I can’t make it. My head is stuffy. My throat is sore. I’m congested. I just want to lie on the couch with a box of Kleenex and die.”

“That’s awful. Is it COVID?”

“No. I took a rapid test, and it came up negative. I tested Hope too. She’s fine. Jack’s out of town on business, and I’m not up to driving, so, unfortunately, we’re not going to make it this year.”

“Shit,” Kristen said. “Taylor will be so disappointed. She was really looking forward to hanging out with Hope today.”

“I’m sorry,” Julie said. “I’d put her in an Uber and send her over, but she’s a little young for that.”

“Ya think?” Kristen laughed. “Tell you what? Why don’t I come over and get her? She can spend the night. That way, you can get some rest.”

“I really don’t want to be a bother…”

“What bother? You’re only ten minutes away, for God’s sake.”

“You sure?” Julie asked.

“Pack a bag for Hope. Let me fight my way out of here, and I’ll see you in fifteen,” Kristen said.

“Kristen, you’re an angel.”

“I’ve been told that before,” she said, laughing. “See you soon.”

She ended the call just as Tom walked in. Tom was tall and handsome with sandy-brown hair and chestnut-colored eyes. Strong, sloped shoulders indicated the physique of a man who never missed a daily gym workout.

“There you are,” Tom said.

He walked over to Kristen and gave her a peck on the lips. “How you feelin’?” he asked.

“Lower back is killing me, and this heat isn’t doing me any favors.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Tom said. “The day will go by quickly. I just came in to get the maps with those parcels I want Roland to rezone for us.”

“I’m glad you’re getting some business done,” she said. “Julie’s got a bug or something. I’m going to pick up Hope. She’s gonna spend the night if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course,” Tom said. “Tell Julie I said to feel better.”

“I will,” Kristen said.

“Hurry back,” Tom said. “I can’t handle this mob by myself.”

“I have complete confidence in you,” Kristen replied, giving him another peck on the lips.

She left the office and made her way through the throng of guests to the front door. She reached into the little bowl they kept on a table next to the door and extracted the keys to her Rav4 hybrid. Even though it was starting to get up there in miles, Kristen loved the car and the fact that the electric vehicle’s reduced emissions might, in some small way, help alleviate the extreme temperatures they’d been seeing lately. She tucked the keys into the pocket of her shorts and went out the door.

She had no way of knowing it would be for the last time.

TWO

It was another Pleasanton scorcher as I sat in the Electronic News Gathering, or “ENG” truck as we call them, with Stu Simons, my cameraman. The truck’s AC gave us a respite from the noonday heat if we were judicious in our usage. It would run down the battery if we left it on too long. That was the last thing we needed. Whatever could go wrong had gone wrong that morning.

My alarm hadn’t gone off at five as scheduled, so I had to scramble to the station in San Francisco from my home across the bay in Castro Valley. Then the first ENG truck we were assigned had mechanical problems on the Bay Bridge in the morning commute traffic, and we had to wait two hours for a replacement to be delivered to us. This, of course, made us get to the Pleasanton site later than every other news organization in the Western world, resulting in a parking spot four and a half blocks from our destination—the perfect start to the perfect day.

My name is Topher Davis, and for years, I’ve been an investigative reporter for Channel 6 in San Francisco, where I’ve reported on everything from political corruption to robberies to homicides. Stu, my producer, Mandy Lang, and I are now working under a different arrangement with the station. Following our reportage on a series of cop killings a few months back, we had the full resources of the station but were given a lucrative contract that gave us the independence to cover any story we deemed fit. I was enjoying the autonomy, even though there were times like this when there was something that I wasn’t thrilled about covering but had to. This was a story that had captivated the nation. You do what you have to do.

A soccer mom in nearby suburban Pleasanton had left her home on the Fourth of July to run an errand and never returned. Her disappearance caught the media by storm. In the ten days since she vanished, the number of news vans in front of her home had swelled from just a few to dozens from media outlets across the country and as far away as the UK. Every station in the San Francisco Bay Area broadcast market was there, as well as radio, print, and social media reporters, bloggers, and true crime podcasters from our area and beyond. The media circus included the four major broadcast networks and cable news channels CNN, MSNBC, and FOX NEWS. PBS and even the BBC had gotten in on the act. Print journalists were adequately represented by the Associated Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the East Bay Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Orlando Sentinel, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, and several alternative weeklies I’d never heard of. The story had devolved into entertainment and gossip with the National Enquirer, the Star, People Magazine, and Us Weekly present. The Today Show and Good Morning America were there, as were NBC Dateline, ABC’s 20/20, and CBS’s 48 Hours. There were even documentary filmmakers from Netflix and HBO in attendance.

Had I followed my initial instinct and passed on it, I would have been conspicuous by my absence. I was one of the only African Americans on the air in this broadcast market, and I’ve always believed that my lived experience as a Black man gives me a unique viewpoint on news coverage. I can see the world through a lens most of the other reporters can’t. That’s what I like to tell myself, anyway.

Mandy jumped into the back of our news van and quickly closed the door. The heat had turned her face into a dewy mess. Short brown bangs lay pasted to her forehead, held in place with perspiration. Beads of sweat streaked along tracks that ran from her temples to her chin and dripped onto the white blouse she wore. She’d only been out there ten minutes. Mandy had been with me since she was a college intern. Now, in her thirties, she was the best field producer in town and. . . one of my best friends.

“What’s the deal?” I asked.

“Just a minute,” she said, opening the small plastic cooler Stu had stocked with icy Evian water and placed in the back of the van. She pulled out a frosty bottle and downed it. How she did that without getting the requisite brain freeze, I have no idea.

“Goddamn, it’s hot!” she exclaimed. “It’s a hundred and six out there.”

She grabbed a small hand towel from a backpack she’d brought and furiously mopped her brow.

“They’re finally making a statement in about ten minutes,” Mandy said. “You’d better get ready.”

I opened my portable makeup bag, pulled out a compact of Mac powder, and used it to cover the perspiration shine on my nose and forehead. When I finished, Stu handed me a wireless stick mic.

“Fresh batteries in this?” I asked.

“Of course. When have I ever left you in the doggone lurch?” he said in his Odessa, Texas, twang.

“The way this day has been going, a dead mic would be par for the course,” I said.

“It ain’t gon’ die on ya,” he promised.

“Plus,” Mandy added, “I’ll be standing right beside you with a backup.”

“And I’ll have the camera right behind her,” Stu said, hoisting his television camera on his shoulder. “Extra batteries are in my pocket.”

I nodded, opened the vehicle door, and my little caravan began pushing through the media morass. A fleet of white ENG trucks sat in fortification of an army of tripods supporting television cameras. Hordes of reporters squeezed in where they could, pointing stick mics in the direction of a wooden podium that stood in front of the porch of the missing woman’s home. Print photographers focused their lenses and prepared to fire off digital volleys when the time was right.

Much to the consternation of neighbors, the press had been camped out 24 hours a day for over a week in the event some titillating bit of information should trickle out from the command center that was the Promes’s home. The press had nicknamed the encampment “Camp Kristen” in a nod to “Camp O.J.,” the similar media circus that had spent a year parked in front of a Los Angeles County courthouse, covering the O.J. Simpson double murder trial a generation before.

“Camp” wasn’t an inaccurate description. There was an almost festive feel about the whole thing. Food trucks offering everything from tacos and burritos to sandwiches, Indian food, and organic ice cream lined the perimeter, serving an ever-growing crowd of spectators, onlookers, and rubberneckers desperate for a glimpse of the action taking place in this ordinarily sleepy neighborhood.

My compatriots and I were able to wedge our way into a spot between a correspondent from The Today Show and a reporter from the Oakland FOX affiliate. We were about fifteen feet from the porch behind a row of steel barricades erected to keep the mob from charging the house itself.

Soon, an impressive-looking law enforcement officer walked out the front door of the home and approached the podium. He was a tall six-footer in a dark uniform covered with police commendations on the right breast. The sun gleamed off the bright silver stars that adorned the epaulets on his shoulders. His frame was muscular. His hair was black and wavy. His face, that of a teenager. Despite being in his early forties, he looked more like a high school kid playing dress up than Pleasanton’s new chief of police.

He was followed by a professional-looking man in his midthirties who I recognized from news reports as Tom Promes, the missing woman’s husband. He stood behind the chief, flanked on his right by a paunchy, balding, sixty-something Morgan Duffy, Kristen Promes’s father. Duffy’s baggy, bloodshot eyes indicated the poor guy hadn’t slept in days. On Tom Promes’s left, I recognized Skyler Duffy, Morgan’s wife and Kristen’s mother. Skyler stood a petite five feet. Brown hair with blond highlights was held tightly in a bun at the back of her head. Like the chief, she looked much younger than her age. I could tell that she’d had cosmetic work done, not unlike a lot of similarly aged women and men who populated the area. It was good work. Practically undetectable. She dabbed at her eyes with a white handkerchief. Tom Promes put a comforting arm around his mother-in-law’s shoulder and pulled her close to him.

“Good afternoon,” came a booming voice from the podium. “I’m Courtney Lane, the Chief of the Pleasanton Police Department.”

A whir of camera shutters clicked in my ears from all directions—a symphony of castanets.

“With me,” Chief Lane continued, “are the husband and parents of Kristen Promes.”

More faster clicking and whirring.

“I’m here today to update you on where we are with our investigation,” he said. “Kristen Promes left her home at this address at approximately 12:40 p.m. on July fourth during a family barbecue to pick up a friend’s daughter for a playdate. When the friend called several hours later to inquire why Mrs. Promes hadn’t arrived from what should have been a ten- to fifteen-minute drive, her family became concerned. Around 4:30 p.m. Mrs. Promes’s husband, Tom, and her father, Morgan Duffy, drove the route that Mrs. Promes would have taken. Approximately one mile northwest of here, they found her Toyota Rav4 SUV parked along a residential side street near Bernal Avenue. Mrs. Promes was not inside, but her phone, keys, and wallet containing cash and credit cards were on the driver’s seat. Mr. Duffy immediately notified the Pleasanton Police Department, which opened an investigation. We are asking for information from the public. If you saw Kristen Promes or a green Toyota Rav4 SUV in the vicinity of Bernal Avenue between 12:40 and 1:00 p.m. on the afternoon of July fourth, we’re asking that you call the Pleasanton Police Department at your earliest convenience. Mrs. Promes is approximately five feet, two inches tall and weighs about one hundred forty pounds. She has blond hair and blue eyes. She is approximately four-and-a-half months pregnant and was last seen wearing a light blue cotton maternity blouse, white shorts, and brown leather sandals. We need any information you might have. Even the slightest detail could be important.”

Sweat had formed at Chief Lane’s hairline and rolled down his face and into his eyes. He blinked in discomfort a few times and then pulled a white handkerchief from his pants pocket and swiped his forehead.

Returning his attention to the crowd in front of him, he said, “I have time for a few questions.”

Hands bolted into the air amid a chorus of men and women shouting, “Chief! Chief!”

“Yes,” Chief Lane said, pointing at a forty-something woman holding a reporter’s notebook.

“Shelley Burton, USA Today,” she said. “Do you have any solid evidence that Kristen Promes was taken from her vehicle involuntarily?”

“I’m sorry,” Chief Lane said. “I’m not at liberty to divulge any information on that subject.”

Lane pointed to a young male reporter holding a stick mic.

“Charlie Frank, NBC News,” he said. “Has the family received any kind of a ransom demand?”

“Not at this time,” Chief Lane replied.

“Chief!” I bellowed.

“Yes?” he said, pointing at me.

“Topher Davis. Channel 6,” I said. “Since Mrs. Promes’s vehicle was found in a residential neighborhood, is it correct to assume that there may have been civilian surveillance and doorbell cameras on the street? And if so, has your department canvassed the area to retrieve any available video footage?”

“Our officers have canvassed the area for surveillance video,” he said.

“A follow-up,” I quickly added before he could recognize another reporter. “Did your department obtain any video footage?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information at present,” he said.

That’s how it went for the next twenty minutes in the blazing heat. Reporters asking questions, and the chief was “not at liberty” to answer them. I hate it when they do that. Why even bother taking media questions at all if you aren’t going to provide meaningful responses?

He thanked us for our attention to the matter and left the podium. Mason Duffy followed. Tom Promes, his arm still firmly around Skyler Duffy’s shoulder, was right behind. Suddenly, the mother of the missing woman broke free of his arm and bolted to the podium mic.

“I’m Kristen’s mom,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Whoever has my daughter, I beg of you, please. Please bring her back to us safely. Kristen, we love you, and we miss you.”

Tom Promes walked to the podium and again put his arm around her. She buried her face in his chest. He hugged her tightly for a moment in a futile attempt to provide comfort and then guided her back into the house.

“The hell she must be going through,” Mandy said softly in my ear.

“Every parent’s worst nightmare,” Stu said. “If this happened to one of my girls . . .” His voice trailed off as he shook his head.

“Let’s get out of this heat,” I said.

We again waded through the crowd and returned to our ENG truck, where Stu climbed into the driver’s seat and cranked up the air-conditioning. Mandy opened the sliding door and took a seat in the rear. I opened the passenger-side door and was just about to plant myself in the seat when I felt a hand rest gently on my shoulder.

I turned to see an African American woman in her late forties. She wore a sweat-stained white tee shirt with the logo for ThriftyMart, a regional grocery store chain, emblazoned across the front. She was thin and of medium height with a haggard look about her. Dark circles underscored puffy, red eyes. Like Skyler Duffy, she wore her hair in a bun, but it was loose. Defiant strands of stray follicles pointed in all directions. She clutched an eight-by-ten photo in a gold, metal drugstore frame.

“Mr. Davis?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“My name is Josie Walker, and I need your help.”

THREE

I looked at the framed photo in my hand. It was of a pretty, young African American woman in her late twenties. The picture looked like a studio shot—baby blue background with perfect lighting. The woman was pretty wi. . .