Cold Fear (15 page)

“Okay,” the little one says.

“Guess what I’m going to do.”

“What are you going to do?” The little one wants to
play.

Hood had no friends in his life.

Suddenly, he has two.

It was CNN reporting the live news conference of the
parents of the lost girl. There was an inset picture of her, ten years old.
Paige Baker. The anguished mother was talking about her disappearance in front
of several dozen microphones.

Hood knew.
It’s her.

He stared so intensely at the TV news pictures his
knuckles whitened. His hands were gripping the table with such force it creaked
and his chains chinked.

“Petitioner’s rights were violated under these articles
of the Constitution of the State of Montana and the following Amendments to the
Constitution of the United States because…What is it? Isaiah, are you OK!”

Hood’s body began trembling.

Cohen banged on the door.

“Guard!”

Yet Hood’s brain had slipped into a tranquil trancelike
state.

That face. The older one. The little one.

The message was coming through now.

Isaiah would not die in this prison.

TWENTY-TWO

FBI Agents
encircled Doug and Emily
Baker after their news conference near the command center. Bowman was among
them.

“Everybody OK?” She placed her hand on Emily’s shoulder.
“Doug, these fellas will take you inside to talk to Agent Zander and the other
guys. Emily and I will go back now on this flight to wait at the campsite.”
Bowman indicated an approaching helicopter.

Doug took Emily quickly into his arms. His worried eyes
were searching hers for something--he didn’t know what. They didn’t have the
chance to talk privately after Emily talked to police. Was that coincidence?
Doug felt something was happening, something deep beneath the surface
compounding his anguish and his guilt for having screamed at Paige before she
vanished.

Bowman gestured. It was time to go.

Emily pulled Doug’s head to hers. “Be careful,” she said
into his ear, then kissed his cheek.

Doug turned from Emily’s embrace and froze.

Less than ten feet away, at the entrance to the command
center, Bobby Ropa had been watching them.

The contempt in Ropa’s icy stare chilled Doug, making
him uneasy--even more so than when this jerk came upon them arguing on the
trail. The way this strange family just stood there spying on them for such a
long time before declaring their presence. It was unusual. Now the guy’s face
was telegraphing scorn. Disturbing. What if he has something to do with Paige’s
disappearance? Doug’s jaw clenched.
If this asshole harmed my daughter in
any way.
Doug swore to God he would--he should just walk up to him and ask
what he’s doing here.

“Dad, I just counted the news trucks. Guess how many?”
The man’s son, who was about Paige’s age, ran to his father’s side. Noticing
the standoff with Doug, the kid stared, then looked away, as if he possessed a
secret too risky for him to conceal. Had this family just been questioned by
police? What the hell was happening? The father took his kid and walked off.

“Right this way, Doug.” Zander had witnessed the tense
moment.

Inside the task force room, Doug finally exhaled,
rubbing his face. He agreed to a cup of coffee.

“You know everybody here, Doug, except Inspector Walt
Sydowski from San Francisco PD.” Zander set a ceramic mug on the table before
Doug.

“San Francisco? I don’t understand why you’re here.”

Zander answered. “It’s basic procedure, in assisting the
physical search, that we investigate every link to Paige. That means working
with the FBI and local law enforcement in San Francisco, in the remote case her
disappearance was premeditated, or involves someone there who followed you
here.”

“But we told you she just ran off.”

“That’s right.”

Doug ran a hand through his hair.
That other man
.
“Oh God, you really don’t think there is more to it?”

Zander regarded Doug. “We hope not. While the searchers
are doing their job, we are working as fast as we can to eliminate all the
terrible possibilities, or immediately act on anything concrete.”

“Well, who was that man who just left? You know he was
on the trail the day before Paige got lost. Did you talk to him?”

“Just finished. You know him? Ever see him before the
trail?”

Doug shook his head. “Just the one time. What did he
tell you?”

“That he and his family came upon your family having a
discussion.”

“What else?”

“Doug, can you tell us about everything before Paige got
lost? It might help us if we overlooked anything. Take us back to the decision
to come here for vacation. Would you do that for us? Then we’ll fly you out to
Emily.”

Doug collected his thoughts.

“For the past few years, Emily was having trouble coming
to terms with the deaths of her parents. She grew up here. She witnessed her
father’s death. He fell from his horse and was stomped to death. Her mother
moved her to San Francisco, then abandoned her to relatives before she died in
a homeless shelter. It began when Emily was around Paige’s age, so it was
coming up on her and she was having a hard time dealing with it. In fact, she
refused to discuss it or reveal much of it to me.”

“Was it a source of conflict within the family?”

“Yes, particularly in recent years, as Paige reached the
same age. We argued a lot. First in private, then openly in front of Paige.”
Doug stopped to grip his coffee mug with both hands, peering into it. “I am
ashamed to admit that one argument a few days ago was so loud it forced a
neighbor to report it to police. A patrol car came to our house. The officers
calmed us down.”

Zander and Sydowski exchanged lightning-fast glances.

“So why come here?”

“Emily had never, ever returned to Montana since leaving
with her mother. About a year ago, in San Francisco, at my insistence, she
began getting counseling. We learned she was enduring a sort of
post-bereavement crisis. Her counselor advised her that the most effective way
for Emily to deal with her past was to return and confront it. Lay her ghosts
to rest. So we took a vacation here, for her.”

“How did that go?”

“Not so well. Paige did not want to come. So I agreed to
smuggle Kobee in as part of the deal. Dogs are forbidden in the backcountry,
but that beagle is like a brother to her.” Doug shook his head. His eyes
glistened. “Emily was having a rough time with her ghosts and shut me out when
I tried to talk to her. We argued. I figured it would be cathartic to get it
all out, scream therapy in the mountains. We thought it was private until we
discovered that guy’s family was watching us for an abnormally long time. Paige
had convinced herself Emily and I were getting a divorce and it was breaking
her heart.”

“That was the day before she got lost?”

“Yes. The fallout of our battle carried into the next
day. We all needed some space. Emily went off to a cliff by herself. I was
chopping firewood and was going to read. Paige and Kobee were alone in her
tent; then she came out and tried to, to--”

Tears pooled in Doug’s eyes, which were focused on the
last images of his daughter. He rubbed his chin, as if summoning the strength
to reveal what happened.

Noting that Doug used his right hand, Zander said,
“Doug, it might be better if you tell us. It might help things.”

Doug swallowed.

“Uh, I was angry at Emily, at the whole damn thing, and
I was chopping wood, working it off. Paige, she just wanted to talk to me. She
came out and I’m just chopping away, angry at the world, and I scream at her to
get out of my face and join her mother up the trail on the ridge. Paige knew
the way. We had all gone there the previous day a few times for Emily to take
family pictures. It was no more than seventy yards or so.”

“Then what happened, Doug?”

“She wouldn’t go. I was upset, chopping, and I hit my
hand with my ax, bleeding all over. Looks worse than it is.”

“How’s your hand now?” Zander asked.

“”It’s OK. Like I said, looks worse than it is.”

“You got a white strip around it?”

“Yes,” Doug rotated his hand. “Tore my T-shirt to tend
to it.”

“Doug, would you mind showing us the cut?”

Doug looked at them.

“I said it’s not that bad.’

“Please.”

He removed the strip to show a bloodied incision
beginning at the knuckle of his right forefinger flowing several inches into
his palm.

Zander reached for Doug’s hand, holding it palm out.

“Does it hurt? You want someone to look at it? You could
have tendon damage, or need stitches.”

“It’s OK, really.”

“Mind showing how you did it? Demonstrate.”

Doug considered the request while wrapping his hand.

He raised his right hand in a chopping motion, holding
his left hand extended. “I was holding the log with my left hand when I swung
and cut it, like that.”

Doug brought his ax hand down in one swift arching
movement; that image burned, lingering like the intense flash of a crime scene
photographer’s camera at a homicide. The room fell silent…until Zander spoke.

“Then what did you do, Doug?”

“I scream at Paige, worse than I ever have at any
football player. I terrified her. I was bleeding and yelling. I chased her off
with Kobee. I was so angry. Not at her. I chased her off. I am so sorry.”

“Why didn’t you go after her?”

“I was white hot, not thinking clearly. I tended to my
wound and thought she would be better off with her mother. A couple of hours
passed with me thinking Paige was with Emily, but then Emily returned alone.
She thought Paige was with me. That’s when we realized what had happened. We
rushed to the trail, took opposite sides, searching for her, calling for her
and Kobee until it got dark. The next day, just before dawn, I hiked out for
help.”

Doug cradled his temple in his right hand, staring down
at the table.

No one in the room voiced a word.

Doug sighed, exhaustion and anguish overwhelming him.
His tears splashed on the table; his left hand relaxed from coffee mug and the
strip slipped, revealing that horrible gash.

Zander, Sydowski, and Thornton each evaluated what they
had witnessed: a father consumed by the anguish of a faultless tragedy, or the
calculated display of a cold-blooded killer.

FBI agents had secretly searched the Bakers’ campsite.

They had not found Doug’s ax.

TWENTY-THREE

Inspector Linda Turgeon
waited at
her desk in Room 450, the Homicide Detail of the San Francisco Police
Department in the Hall of Justice on Bryant checking her watch.
Where are
they?

Turgeon could almost hear the second hand ticking down
on Paige Baker as she studied the Chronicle, then the
San Francisco Star
,
whose headline blared: S.F. GIRL MISSING IN ROCKIES.
Is she still alive?
Wilson went to the faces of Paige’s father and mother, which accompanied the
front-page article.
A horrible tragedy, or something worse?

Molly Wilson from the
Star
was, like the other
local reporters, all over her, pumping for data. Wilson was one of the best
diggers. She and Tom Reed produced a pretty good piece in the
Star
.
Sooner or later, the lid was going to come off this thing. Turgeon and the
press were tugging at threads, each one leading to another that would bring
them closer to the truth.

Her own brass and the FBI were demanding more instant
information, information they did not yet possess, to be sent to Montana.
It was a whirlwind of bureaucratic hysteria.

Sitting here waiting on Jones and Pace, the two officers
from the Richmond District who took the stale domestic call to the Bakers’
home, she was getting a little ticked. They were late.

Flipping through her notebook, the scores of
appointments, of people she needed to contact, Turgeon was relieved her boss,
Lieutenant Leo Gonzales, had assigned more bodies to help with the overwhelming
file.
Where are Jones and Pace?
For a moment, Turgeon found comfort in
the fragrance of the dozen peaches-and-cream roses her boyfriend had sent to
her. A thank-you for their reunion date. HERE’S TO POSSIBILITIES was printed on
his card. Turgeon smiled.

Back to work, Inspector.

Turgeon reviewed the all she had so far on the Baker
call. Dispatch tape and CAD records. All she needed were the unit log notes and
the recollections of the responding officers.

Turgeon could not dismiss the growing feeling something
was not right in the lives of Doug and Emily Baker. She was anxious to hear
from Willa Meyers, Emily’s aunt. Hopefully, the aunt could elaborate on the
information that had come from Kurt Sikes.

The athletic-looking history teacher at Beecher Lowe
High, where Doug taught and coached the football team, was deeply concerned for
the Bakers. After Turgeon sidestepped his pressing her to arrange for players
and students to go to Montana to aid the search in some sort of “go, team, go”
demo of school pride, Sikes gave her something useful.

“Well, not long ago, Doug told me how Emily was driving
him out of his mind.”

“How so?”

“Well”--Sikes dropped his voice to a confidential
tone--“Doug said she was under psychological counseling for some past problem
she was having trouble dealing with, and it was creating tension at home
because Emily would not discuss it with him.”

“What was the past problem?”

“I never found out because Doug only mentioned it that
one time. We were having a beer at my place, watching a ball game. He seemed
lost, almost haunted by it. He never talked about it again and I never asked
him. Now this happens with Paige. Man, we got to find her. Doug and Emily have
got to be hurting bad.”

Turgeon closed her notebook and bit her bottom lip. She
should go back to Sikes.

“Inspector Turgeon?”

Two uniformed officers, Jones and Pace, introduced
themselves. Turgeon collected her file.

“We’ll go to an interview room. You guys want a coffee?”

Both shook their heads. Hard faces. She should not have
been surprised by the attitude. Turgeon had done a quick check on them. Pace
was six feet four inches, a ceiling-scraping bodybuilder, an eleven-year
veteran you wanted to keep happy and on your side.

Jones had sixteen years on the street. Her cynicism
manifested itself in the taut lines around her eyes, her gray-streaked hair and
her black belt in karate.

They were hardened warriors behind the shield. Between
them, they had four citizens’ complaints, all unsupported. Fourteen citations:
rescuing attempted suicides, thwarting an armored car heist in progress, saving
a baby in a burning building, disarming a gun-toting hostage-taker. Like most
street cops who had a nanosecond to make life-and-death decisions, and years to
be judged on them, they resented being second-guessed. Being defensive was an
auto-reflexive action.

Their leather utility belts squeaked and their Kevlar
vests pushed against their uniformed shirts as they scraped chairs out from the
table and occupied them.

Pace circled his index fingers in tandem, inquiring if
Turgeon was taping them.

“This is not being recorded.”

“We were late because we talked to our rep.”

“Why?”

“In case you guys are coming after us, for missing
something on that call with that family,” Pace said.

“What the hell--”

“We see the news. Read the papers. We figure you got
something on the family in Montana and are hauling us in here to CYA on the
domestic.”

“Dead wrong.”

Jones and Pace let a cold moment pass.

“Convince us,” Pace said.

“We have nothing,” Turgeon said. “We are looking
everywhere. I need your help with anything you remember about the call that I
can throw to Montana. That is it, kids.”

“You building a case against the parents?” Jones asked.

“No, I am working one. Eliminating possibilities.”

“That call was from last week. I barely remember it.”
Pace folded his massive arms.

Turgeon slid the thin file to them.

“Refresh your memory and get out your notebooks, because
I know you brought them. Can you hurry it along, please?”

After a few minutes, Pace began shaking his head,
sticking his bottom lip out. “It’s all there. Nothing more.”

“It is not ‘all there’. You guys were booked out on
scene for thirty minutes. Get out your notes.”

Pace summarized it, flipping through his notebook.

A neighbor, some angry old coot, called in shouting and
suspected assaults to the address. Claims he saw Doug raise a baseball bat to
somebody in the house. The unit responded. No signs of violence and they were
welcomed in without resistance. First, they put Paige alone in her room, out of
harm’s way. Other than crying, she seemed fine. Then Pace took Doug aside and
Jones took Emily. Each parent was rational; no weapons present but there was a
bat in the garage. No drugs or alcohol. No assaults. A loud disagreement over
the wife’s mood and refusal to discuss her feelings with her husband. Shouting
and a smashed plate. The daughter confirmed it. No bat used. No charges. No
report. No big deal.

“It was a non-event,” Pace said, closing his notebook.

“OK, that’s the straight-up solid police-work version,”
Turgeon said. “Do you remember any little thing from that call, something that
bothers you, or that you can’t put your finger on?”

Pace shook his head.

“Jones?”

She was reflecting, studying her notes.

“Who talked to the daughter?” Turgeon said.

“I did,” Jones said.

“Well, something in there strike you?”

“It was nothing really, but I remember the kid telling
me how scared she got when her parents had an argument.”

“She say they argued often?”

“No, not often.”

“But something about it scared her? Scared how?”

“Like they were going to get a divorce because of her
mother’s problems,” Jones said. “I dismissed it at the time, the girl was
sobbing at the sight of police officers in their home. It was not the kind of
home we go to. It was an emotional time, so I did not think then that the
divorce talk was anything out of the ordinary.”

“But...?”

Jones and Pace exchanged a look. Whatever they were
going to give up had to be significant; the reason they went to their rep.

“The girl said her dad got mad at her mom because she
would not tell him more about her problems.”

“What were her problems?”

“She said her mother heard voices.”

“Voices?”

“Something to do with people who died a long time ago.”

“That’s it?”

“They died in Montana and her parents had to go back
there if things were going to get better.”

Turgeon did not ask another question. She was too busy
writing.