Cold Fear (38 page)

SEVENTY-ONE

“Going to pour
on the magic now.”
That’s what Frank Zander’s old man used to say to him.

On rainy summer nights, when Zander was just a little
boy growing up in Shaker Heights, his old man would play the shell game with
him. He’d place a pea under one of three walnut shells on the kitchen table.

“Keep your eye on the one with the pea, Frankie.”

Sliding the shells in meshing circles, stopping to
quickly reveal the pea, then resume. “Are you watching, Frankie? Where’s the
pea?”

Even at a tender age, Zander was acutely perceptive. He
never missed finding the pea, until one night his dad had a cool glint in his
eye.

“Going to pour on the magic now, Frankie.”

After his tabletop juggle of the shells, his father
lifted Zander’s choice, then began laughing. No pea. Nothing. Zander was
stunned. That was the shell. It had to be. He lifted the others. Nothing. He
lifted his original to find the pea wedged inside. His old man, a Cleveland robbery detective, beamed.

“You’re a natural investigator, Frankie.” His dad winked
and tussled his hair, then finished his Old Milwaukee. “You never know the
truth until you hold the facts in your hand. Never forget that, son.”

Zander clung to his old man’s advice now as the task
force began debating its next move.

Tracy Bowman had taken Emily Baker outside the command
center for air while Zander and the others analyzed the circumstances.

“I think we have to really consider that the Bakers have
told us the truth, Frank,” Walt Sydowski flipped through his file.

“And what is that?”

“That she ran off.”

“What if they took her out there to perish?”

“That’s a theory. Where’s the hard evidence?”

“The region is littered with it. Blood, articles from
her. And the whole business with Emily’s sister and Isaiah Hood. Come on, Walt.
It is too early to cave on anything. Until we know the truth about Paige
Baker’s disappearance, her parents are suspects.”

“I just don’t know Frank,” Sydowski twisted a rubber
band. “It just doesn’t fit for me. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s just my
read on the parents. I think they were a family in crisis hit with horrible
misfortune.”

“How did her pack and sock get down a crevasse?”

“She could have been taken by an animal.” Pike Thornton
had seen it before. “The goat carcass is a strong indicator, plus the fact that
whole region is bear country.”

“What about the ax, her T-shirt, Doug Baker’s wound?”

“Frank,” Sydowski said, twisted his pen cap, “it could
have happened just like they said.”

Zander flipped through his clipboard with updates from
the park’s SAR people, the county attorney’s old report on Emily’s letters,
Isaiah Hood’s claim of innocence, the complaints with SFPD concerning Doug
Baker’s temper, the New York cop’s account of an outburst the day before Paige
vanished.

“There are too many red flags.” Zander shook his head,
remembering how the deranged young mother in Georgia fooled detectives,
including him. He recalled the face of the little boy he talked with, played
with, while on the case. Killed by his mother on their watch because everyone
let their guard down.
Oh yeah, that psycho had poured on the magic.
Zander made a vow that he would never be fooled again.

“You never know the truth until you hold the facts in
your hand.”

Zander ran his hands over his face. “We’ll go back to
Doug Baker for an explanation of Paige’s sock and backpack in the crevasse.”

Someone rapped on the door. An FBI agent stuck his head
in.

“Inspector Sydowski? An urgent call for you from San Francisco. It’s Inspector Turgeon. Can I put it through here?”

Emily Baker and Tracy Bowman walked in the shade of
lodgepole pines behind the cabin dorms for the park’s trail and fire crews.
Half a dozen FBI agents formed a security circle around them, watching from a
distance.

Emily reached under her sunglasses, dabbing her eyes
with a tissue. “You know, I used to put her hair in pigtails when she was just
learning to walk.”

Bowman nodded.

“She was so adorable, the way they bounced when she
toddled all over the place. I must’ve shot a thousand pictures. The way her
eyes just radiated joy and then that camera in the crevasse and those dead
eyes--oh God.”

“Emily, it was not her.”

“Why did he do that to me? Did he know?”

Careful, Agent Bowman,
she cautioned herself.

“We’re just trying to understand what happened.”

“Uh, do you think there is any chance, um--” Emily
stopped, removed her glasses. “Tracy, tell me what your heart feels as a
mother. Please tell me if you think there is any hope Paige is still alive out
there.”

Bowman met her eyes. “I would never give up hope. No
mother could until--” Bowman looked up as a blue and white helicopter pounded
overhead.

“Until what, Tracy?”

“Until you knew the truth. The absolute truth.”

Emily was motionless with her thoughts.

“I want to talk to Doug,” she said. “Will you help me?”

Nora Lam of the U.S. Justice Department entered the task
force room without knocking, her face taut.

“Not now, Ms. Lam, please!” Zander said. Sydowski was on
the phone.

“Maleena Crow wants Doug Baker released. You can’t hold
him much longer.”

“Not now!”

“And Washington called demanding an update.”

Washington
.
Zander felt his stomach lurch, thinking of his soon-to-be-ex, and
the egocentric, bureaucratic dunghill….

“Damn it! We’re in the middle of something.”

“The Hood case is critically linked--”

“Hood’s case was investigated twenty-two years ago!”

Sydowski placed his hand over his ear, struggling to
hear Inspector Turgeon, who was on a cell phone driving on a San Francisco
freeway.

“What do you have, Linda?”

“The complaint against Doug Baker by Cammi Walton is
bogus.”

“You have that confirmed?”

“The kid admitted to making it up after we pressed her.
I’ll be faxing my report to Golden Gate and they’ll forward it to your team
there. You’re getting it hot off the press.”

“What happened?”

“I talked to the history teacher whose classroom is across
the hallway from Baker’s. He said teachers, especially male, have a policy to
never, ever be alone with a student, especially female teens in a classroom.”

“Good policy.”

“Well, the history teacher and two students all gave me
statements that they witnessed Baker talking to Ms. Walton at the doorway of
his class during the time she claimed he flipped out. It never happened.”

“All right.”

“There’s more. We ran Ms. Walton’s name through Juvenile
and it turns out she had a shoplifting beef a week or so before her alleged
incident with Baker. The store manager was late reporting it.”

“Why?”

“Cammi tried to keep it quiet, and almost succeeded, by
threatening to say a manager ‘made advances toward her’ and she would be
believed because her mother is a police commissioner. The store staff backed
off but filed the report later. We just got it.”

“The little--”

“We took this to Cammi, who fessed up and gave us a
statement.”

“Did you take it to Mother Walton?”

“Yes. I feel for the lady. She’s a class act.”

“What about the domestic call to the Baker house?”

“I talked to the responding officers and reviewed the
call.”

“Right.”

“Talked to the neighbor who called in the complaint.
Pushed him hard. He couldn’t swear about a bat or any real threats. The best we
get, it was just a little shouting. That part is on your plate.”

“Thanks, Linda.” Sydowski turned to inform Zander.

Lloyd Turner had just entered the room with Park
Superintendent Elsie Temple, clutching a sheet of notepaper.

“This is less than two minutes old from our
communications center,” Temple began. “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police report
finding a footprint, very fresh, fitting the shoes worn by Paige Baker, and a
plastic bottled-water container purchased at San Francisco International
Airport. It’s a significant indication that she’s alive in the northern reach
of the park.”

Temple
immediately ordered all
search operations concentrated in the border area.

“The Mounties indicate she was moving back into Montana.”

SEVENTY-TWO

Tory Sky,
the sunset blond photographer
from Santa Monica with the Malibu tan, was bewitching Levi Kayle, news shooter
from the San Francisco Star.

“Well, I simply tired of celeb-stalking in L.A.,
so I freelance news images. I sell everywhere through my service on the
Internet. I’m here for a German magazine.” Brushing her hair from sunglasses,
she touched her ear, pressing her earphone tighter.

“Something’s up!”

Tory’s new ultra compact $3,000 digital radio scanner
enabled her to listen in on some of the emergency frequencies used by some of
the agencies searching for Paige Baker. Kayle’s unit was not as good. Tory’s
green eyes were intense as she listened to the urgent transmissions to the
rangers on the RCMP’s discovery. She grabbed her cell phone.

“They may have found her!”

Tory’s thumb expertly pushed her cell’s speed-dial
button.

“At the northern edge. I might be able to get you in.
Come on,” she said into her phone. “Be there, be there.”

Kayle was intrigued. With the exception of
ranger-controlled chopper flights for pool shots of the search, the press was
barred from any part of the search region. It was virtually inaccessible. Tory
had her connection.

“Rawley? Tory. Yes, I heard it. Can you?--You can!--How
many? West Glacier ASAP? Five spots, right. Five hundred. On our way. Do not
dare leave without us! Yes, I will be there.”

“What’s up?”

“Get your friends, Kayle we’re airborne. Dieter! Where
is that guy?”

The search for Paige Baker had swollen into a major air
operation largely dependent upon helicopters. In all more than a dozen federal,
state, national guard, and private contractors were involved in searching,
moving people and equipment, or ferrying supplies. One of the contractors was
Rawley Nash, a burned-out 1970s relic who listened to Creedence Clearwater
Revival through his supercharged eight-track tape system. Nash had it amplified
so he could hear his speakers inside his bird, the
Widowmaker
. Nash was
an out-of-state mercenary, a gypsy cab with rotors who flew by his own rules,
operating a big old reconditioned Huey.

He had just been assigned to deliver a K-9 team from Idaho
to join the refocused search near Boundary Creek at Grizzly’s northern edge.
The rendezvous was at West Glacier, where he had met Tory Sky earlier. They
worked out a standing deal. If the critical moment came, Nash would duck the
rules and fly her in to get her pictures for $1,000--with the understanding
that depending on the heat he drew, it may be a one-way trip. The bonus was
that if Tory could find at least three other press types to pay five hundred
each for their ride, hers was free. “Could she dig it?”

At least that was the version Kayle was explaining to
Molly Wilson and Tom Reed. Kayle was at the wheel of his rented Sunbird, racing
behind Tory Sky’s Taurus. She was ahead of them with Dieter, the quiet man from
Hamburg, stringing out of L.A. for Der Speigel, the big German magazine.

“We have to go,” Kayle said to Reed. “Nothing is going
to happen at the command center. It’s a press internment camp.”

“Kayle, what if we get dropped and don’t get out? How
are you going to get us back? Have you looked at the map--we’ll be as good as
in Canada.”

“We’ll just talk this guy into picking us up. We’ve got
our sat phone and computers. We can file from there. Just chill, Reed.”

“Didn’t Tory say her pilot was flying in a K-9 guy?” Wilson said.

“That’s right,” Kayle said. “We’ll follow the tracker.
Chances are he’ll lead us to the kid, or at least the action in there. Besides,
he’ll have a radio to call for our ride.” Reed, everyone is likely attempting
to get in now. If she’s alive we have to get the picture and story!”

Reed calculated the time. The
Star’s
desk in San Francisco had not yet decided if he or Wilson was covering Hood’s execution tonight.
Either way, they would want Kayle there for whatever part they could grab.

“We have to get to Deer Lodge tonight for Hood,” Reed
said.

“We’ll have time,” Kayle said.

Reed remembered being dispatched to Montana with Kayle
for the Unabomber arrest and how Kayle loved pushing things to deadline. Like
most news people, he thrived under pressure.

At West Glacier, Rawley Nash, carrying a tattered
leather briefcase, came to them, swiftly laying down his rules as his machine
was being fueled amid helicopters lifting off and landing at the helispots.
Reed pegged him as being in his early fifties. A good-looking man with two
day’s growth, a shark’s smile and eyebrows arching over his aviators that told
you not to tangle with him because his charm alone would defeat you.

Nash removed his sunglasses. “Five hundred each.” His
twinkle suggested Tory would show her appreciation later. And the way his eyes
walked all over Molly Wilson. “Well, well now …” Glancing backward over his
shoulder, he produced an old credit card imprint machine on the hood of Kayle’s
Sunbird. “All major cards accepted. Let’s go, kiddies. Flash that company
plastic.”

Transactions done, Nash instructed them to walk one
hundred yards or so to a clearing behind a stand of pine. “That’s ‘Gate Nine,’”
he chuckled. “Going to leapfrog over there and pick you up. Now.”

Within minutes, the group was boarding Nash’s
Widowmaker
,
He instructed them to put on intercom headsets, close and lock the doors, and
buckle up. He came on the air.

A woman in her twenties with a leashed German shepherd
was in the rear, her face a question mark. “What’s going on here?” Her dog
barked at Dieter.

“Nice dog,” Dieter’s accent was heavy. “Don’t bite, nice
dog.”

“Kids, meet Hilda Sim and her pup, Lux, with Idaho SAR.
Sim, these are some people critical to the operation. Ask no questions. No beverages
will be served on this mission. Please check your belts and get ready to rock
and roll.” Nash gave the old Huey some throttle and slammed in an eight-track
which began blaring “Up Around the Bend.”’

Wilson
felt her stomach flutter
as the airship climbed rapidly, then roared. All the while, Creedence
Clearwater Revival blared through Nash’s sound system. Nash grinned as if he
were king of the Rocky Mountains.

Reed thought they were making good time, but then a
faster, sleeker chopper shot passed in the same direction at two o’clock. A
blue-and-white blur that disappeared.
Jesus. They must have found something.
Reed felt his adrenaline stirring, glad Kayle and Wilson talked him into the
trip. The story was definitely out here.

After several minutes, Nash eased up, slowing down.

“We’re a few miles from the coordinates. I want to check
on the activity down there, uh, for a safe drop.” Nash nodded. Reed knew right
off that he did not want anyone official to know he was operating black-market
press tours.

Kayle and Tory were checking their cameras.

Kayle was first to spot a threadlike pole of black smoke
ahead. Instinctively, he began shooting.

Can’t be a signal fire,
Nash thought.
Nothing on the radio. What the hell?
As they neared the
scene, it came over him full force.

Chopper crash!

“Goddamn! We’re landing!” Nash reached for his radio and
called in the incident and location. “We’re going to check for survivors!”

As they descended, Tory and Kayle, faces locked in
professional concentration, took news photos without saying word. Nash
continued calling for help until he was acknowledged. He made out the downed
craft’s call numbers, relaying them. It was Mercy Force, the Missoula air
ambulance that had rocketed by them earlier.

Missoula
Tower
acknowledged Mercy Force was off course and indicated trouble,
relaying to Nash that it should have five souls aboard. He put down a safe
distance from the wreckage. Grabbing an ax, fire extinguisher and medical kit,
he led his group to the rescue. Kayle and Tory took pictures along the way.

Nash and Dieter hauled the pilot out quickly. He was
alive, moaning, bleeding. “Why does he have bare feet?” Kayle wondered.

Sim leashed Lux, who was barking wildly. No one could
believe the scene inside--two women and a Montana State Prison officer,
shackled in the back, unconscious, bleeding from the head and hands.

“What the hell happened here?” Kayle shot pictures.

“We’re going to help you. You’re alive. Help
is
coming,” Nash told the victims. “Dieter, douse the fire,” he ordered. “I’ve got
bolt cutters in my machine.” Nash returned. His cutters did their work on the
cuffs, freeing the guard and women. All four victims were pulled to safety. Sim
worked on their cuts.

“They’re going to make it,” she said.

Lux was still barking.

“Quiet down, boy!” Sim ordered.

“I do not like this,” Nash said. “Supposed to be five
people. We’ve got four. Three of them were in chains. Christ.” He had heard
earlier radio chatter about a medical standby and a flight to Deer Lodge.
Montana
State
Prison is in Deer Lodge. Chains. Medical. Five people, only
four
. It was becoming clear. Nash hurried into the wreckage, knowing he
glimpsed something a second ago. He tossed debris.
Yes. Here. Orange!
A prison-issue pair of coveralls. He held them up.

Kayle and Tory took pictures.

“The fifth passenger is a convict who escaped,” Nash
said, scanning the area.

Dieter followed Nash’s gaze through his rimless glasses.

“This is the area where the Mountie thinks the little California girl is alive, and this prison escaper is now here, after the helicopter
crashes.”

Wilson
swallowed at the
realization, watching Nash head to his helicopter to report and update.

Kayle studied Sim and Lux. “Bet your dog could pick up
his trail.”

“Yes, he could.”

Everyone exchanged glances, passing around the question
no one wanted to raise.

Who was willing to chase after an escaped convict?