“All I can say is that the local police and the FBI were chasing a couple of kids last night and it had something to do with Zack Fischer.”
“Really? I’ll check it out. Guess what? They’ve extended my anchor gig, I’m on again today from noon to midnight.”
“I’m thrilled for you.”
He failed to notice her sarcasm. “Thanks,” he said. “What are you going to do today?”
She snorted. “Damage control. And oh yeah, I think I might help look for the missing kid.”
“Be careful out there. Keep in touch. The second you find out anything new, let me have it, okay? Bye, babe.”
She called Lauren, got her voice mail, left a message to keep the faith, that she would find a way to fix this. She checked the park phone line again. Still busy. Kent’s cell phone went straight to voice mail, so she wasn’t going to get any news from him.
Hurriedly packing her gear, she checked out and picked up a cup of coffee to go at the café, feeling the eyes of the locals burning into her back as she waited at the counter. She hoped that was paranoia: how many of them knew she was Wilderness Westin, star reporter for SWF?
A handful of people, five adults and a couple of kids, blocked the south gate into the park. A woman held a sign that read PROTECT CHILDREN, NOT COUGERS. One of the children carried another—SAVE A CHILD, SHOOT A MOUNTAIN LION. The other kid wore double cowboy-style holsters with weapons that Sam prayed were plastic.
She honked. The group didn’t budge.
In her rearview mirror Sam saw the KUTV News 9 van angle onto the shoulder behind her. Carolyn Perry, microphone already in hand, stepped out of the vehicle, the driver-cameraman hard on her heels.
The arrival of the press emboldened the protesters. The placard-carrying woman bounced her sign up and down, glaring at Sam’s Civic like a shepherd threatening a recalcitrant sheep. Why me? Sam thought. Then it came to her: the SWF sticker on the windshield.
The reporter hurried in her direction. Sam pressed the gas pedal; the Civic lurched forward a couple of feet. The protesters bleated and scattered. She couldn’t resist speaking to the placard-carrying woman. “Get a dictionary, lady, and learn how to spell.”
As she drove away, she heard a loud thump. She checked the rearview mirror and saw the woman raise her mangled sign from the back of the Civic.
At park headquarters, Zack’s poster was taped onto the front door. So they hadn’t found him.
“Hang in there, Zack,” she whispered. Wherever you are.
A table in the lobby was laden with a large coffee urn, homemade sweet breads, a plate of sandwiches, and several boxes of cookies. The work of church ladies. The same food miracle occurred during every crisis in the small town where she’d been raised.
The reception desk was empty. Sam helped herself to a hunk of pumpkin bread. Zack watched from a poster across the room. A map on the wall was partially cross-hatched, and she walked closer to study it. Like Tanner had said in that news clip, search crews had double-checked all areas close to Red Rock Campground. In the section she had searched yesterday, red backslashes crisscrossed the black lines, and red initials, RC, appeared in the lower corner next to SW, which someone had scrawled in black marker on her behalf. RC had to mean that Rafael Castillo had either preceded or followed her in the same sector. Good. The law enforcement officer wasn’t likely to miss much. She hoped he’d interviewed Wilson.
An X and the word Shoe marked a location about four miles up Powell Trail. She frowned. It was a steep, rocky climb. Impossible for a two-year-old to walk there by himself. And the Powell Trailhead was at least three-quarters of a mile from Goodman Trail parking lot, where she’d last seen Zack.
Sam ventured into the hallway, heard the faint voices of the FBI agents, with a man and woman responding. Perez and Boudreaux were questioning the Fischers. She pressed herself to the wall beside the threshold. Although the door was closed, the conversation was audible. Not exactly eavesdropping, she told herself.
Agent Boudreaux expressed sympathy that the ransom note and subsequent arrests hadn’t solved the case. “We’re still looking, but so far there’s no evidence that these boys ever saw Zack.”
“Why would somebody do something like that?” Jenny wailed.
A man cleared his throat, then said, “For the money.” Fred Fischer.
“That money,” Jenny said, “Where is it?”
“It’s safe. We’ll return it to your parents, Mrs. Fischer,” Perez said.
“We were the ones who asked for it,” Fred said. “We should be the ones to return it. They’ll be expecting that.”
“This is standard FBI procedure, Mr. Fischer.” Boudreaux’s smooth tone again.
“Bu t . . .” Jenny’s voice broke, forcing her to pause before she continued, “If the kidnapper doesn’t get the money, won’the . . . In that note, he said . . . Oh, no, won’t he . . .”
“The money would not have kept Zachary safe,” Boudreaux told her. “We don’t believe that your child was kidnapped for ransom.”
“But,” Jenny began again, “if not for money, then what? Oh, God—” Her words stopped and a wretched sobbing began.
“We suspect the ransom note was sent by someone who saw the story on the news and wanted to take advantage of your situation. We’re still hoping that Zack is merely lost, Mrs. Fischer,” Perez said. “But it’s our job to consider all the possibilities.”
For a moment, Sam heard only Jenny’s stifled sobs. Then Perez asked, “What made you come to this park, Mr. Fischer?”
Again, the throat clearing first, then, “I wanted to get away from the city. I wanted to show Jenny and Zachary this place.”
“So you know the park?”
“Sure. My family used to come here all the time when I was a kid. We lived in Orem until I was eighteen.”
“I see.” Sam pictured Perez thumbing through notepad pages.
Boudreaux took the offensive. “We’ve come across some disturbing information.”
“About . . . about Zack?” Jenny’s voice quivered with pain. Sam hoped Fred had his arm around her.
“No, ma’am. This is in regard to Mr. Fischer’s record.”
Fred immediately blurted, “That’s completely irrelevant!”
A rustle of paper, then Perez’s voice. “You were arrested six years back for striking your previous wife?”
“That was a lifetime ago.” Fred stumbled on the words. “I drank then. Now I’m sober; now I’m in AA.”
Perez pressed on. “At the time of your arrest, hadn’t you also kicked your four-year-old stepdaughter?”
A sob from Jenny. “Fred would never do that!”
Fred’s voice, a controlled snarl. “Beverly said that. It wasn’t true.”
More shuffling of papers. In a flat tone, Boudreaux read, “An examination of Elizabeth Snow, four years of age, revealed bruises on buttocks and rib cage. When questioned about her injuries, the girl said, ‘Daddy kicked me.’ ”
Tense silence followed. Sam imagined Fred Fischer squirming in his chair before he answered. “I tripped over her on the stairs. Like I said, I’d been drinking. It was an accident.” A swish of clothing, a squeak of leather indicating a shift of position. “I loved that little girl like she was my own.”
“And where is Elizabeth now?”
“How the hell would I know? Stepdaughter, remember? I don’t have any rights.”
“That’s right, she wasn’t your child.” The briefest of pauses, a crinkle that could have been the turning of a page. “And Zachary’s not your child, either. Isn’t he adopted?”
“Yes.” Fred again. “Jen can’t have children, so we adopted Zack. What’s the big deal?”
Perez said, “Maybe you’re regretting the thirty thousand dollars you spent on the adoption?”
A chair leg scraped the floor. “How the hell—? You have no goddamn right!” Fred had definitely lost his temper.
“Zack’s still young enough that many couples would be willing to adopt him. A
nd they’d probably pay more than thirty thousand,” Perez said, his voice calm.
Thirty thousand dollars? With their ancient rusting Suzuki and their cheap clothes, the Fischers didn’t look like they had two cents to rub together. But maybe the original adoption fee came from Jenny’s parents, too.
“Frankly,” Perez added, “I’m surprised you qualified to be adoptive parents. Especially you, Mr. Fischer. Not only is there your previous record, but I see here that you don’t work regularly. You’ve been a house painter, worked at a lumber mill. And now you’re driving a truck?”
“I’ve been a truck driver for five years. I drive all over the West.”
“But you’ve changed employers three times in five years?”
Fischer interrupted. “I’m independent. I’ve got my own rig: I work for whoever gives me the contracts. That’s the way the trucking business works. Got it?”
Neither agent responded. Fischer continued, “I work all the time. Ask Jen, she’s always whining about me being on the road! Not everyone can go to some pansy college, you know. Some of us have to do real work for a living.”
Another muffled sob from Jenny.
“Don’t try to make something out of this that it’s not.” Fischer angrily bit off his words. “I’m a good worker. And a good father. I loved Lizzie then, and I love Zack now.”
“Aren’t there times when you’d like to strike your adopted son?”
“No!” Jenny cried. “Fred would never hit Zack!”
“Where was Fred when Zachary first disappeared, Mrs. Fischer?” Agent Boudreaux’s voice.
Tense silence.
“Gathering wood,” supplied Fred.
“Yes, he was off in the trees, gathering wood for the fire,” Jenny echoed. “I was making our supper. Fred was crashing around, sounding like a moose—”
“For chrissake, Jen, they don’t need to hear every damned detail.”
“Zack had already eaten, he was—” Her words were drowned by another sob.
“Mrs. Fischer, how long after you noticed Zachary was missing did your husband show up?”
“What is this?” Fred’s tone rose in pitch. “I came as soon as I heard Jenny shouting.”
What were they getting at? Sam remembered hearing the man’s voice, shouting for Zack, only minutes after hearing the woman’s. The man had been close to the Goodman Trail parking lot. Maybe Fred had seen the little boy go down the trail and gone after him, unbeknownst to Jenny? And then what?
“How long, Mrs. Fischer?” Boudreaux pressed.
“I don’t know,” sniffed Jenny. “It seemed like a long time.”
“It was only a few minutes!” Fred interjected. “Then I started searching for him, too. I was the one who called the ranger station at six thirty.”
“We have a report of Zachary in the Goodman Trailhead lot around five forty-five.”
“Where’s that?” Jenny asked.
A paper rustled, no doubt a map. “Here,” Boudreaux said.
“There?” Fred asked. “By the river? Wasn’t there something on the news about a cougar by that river? And wasn’t that where that guy found Zack’s baseball cap? Did he say he saw Zack there?”
“No, it was a woman.” Perez’s voice again. “She reported that Zack ran back down the path back toward the campground. Toward you, Mr. Fischer. And that you waved to her.”
“I remember that woman now. But not from any parking lot. That never happened. I don’t know anything about any parking lot.” Fred’s voice held not a shred of doubt. “We looked all over, then we called the ranger station at what, six fifteen?”
“Six twenty-nine,” Perez verified.
“The first time I saw that woman was yesterday morning, at the campground. And she was at the café last night, too. Like she was following us. Silver-blond hair. And she’s real short.”
Sam bristled. She preferred the word petite.
Jenny chimed in. “She said that Zack would be fine. Like she knew.” Her voice sounded simultaneously hopeful and suspicious.
Fred’s tone grew louder. “Maybe she’s got Zack! You should be checking her out.”
“We’re checking everyone,” Boudreaux assured them.
The pumpkin bread turned to heavy clay in Sam’s stomach. She was a suspect?
Perez asked, “Were you two together all night after Zachary disappeared?”
“No,” Fred explained. “We split up. So we could search faster.”
“Where did you search, Mrs. Fischer?” Boudreaux’s tone was softer now.
“I didn’t really . . . I stayed at the campsite, thinking maybe Zack would—”
“And you, Mr. Fischer?”
“I took the Suzuki, around eleven or so. I drove around the campground, calling him.”
“Just around the campground? Do you mean the ring road?”
“When I didn’t find Zack there, I drove the road by the river, too. All the way to the end of the valley, then back.”
“What time did you return?”
“Christ, I don’t know. Three A.M., maybe? You can ask the rangers: they were all out there, too.”
“Mr. Fischer, did you make your son disappear the night before last?” Perez’s tone was cold, clinical.
Gasps from Jenny. “Oh God, no!”
Fred’s voice cracked. “Hell no, of course not! What’s wrong with you people? We’re not the criminals here, we’re the victims! Zack’s the victim!”
“And we’re working on finding him,” Perez said. “Did you go straight to the hotel from the park yesterday afternoon?”
“I took Jenny to the hotel and then I went to the police station.”
Another rustle of paper. “Our records show you checked in at twelve forty-five P.M. but you didn’t show up at the police station until almost two thirty.”
“I took a walk—is that against the law now?” Fred’s anger was unmistakable.
“Not at all,” Agent Boudreaux said soothingly. “Do you remember the route you took?”
“Hell no. I don’t know this dump of a town. Some sort of circle, I guess. My mind was occupied with Zack.”
“Of course. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. and Mrs. Fischer,” Nicole Boudreaux’s tone was smooth, cordial. “I have one more question—have either of you had contact with Zachary’s birth parents?”
Silence hung heavily for a few seconds before Jenny responded, her voice wavering as she struggled to control her emotions. “No . . .” She sounded perplexed. “Our lawyer arranged the whole thing. We don’t even know who they are. Why?”
Agent Boudreaux ignored the question. “Mr. Fischer?”
“Don’t know ’em.”
A notepad slapped shut. “Then that about sums it up for now. There’s just one more thing. We’ll need pictures of both of you.”
“What the hell for?” barked Fred.
Perez answered. “Standard procedure. We can take a couple now.”
“I have one of Fred and me and Zack in my billfold,” Jenny volunteered. “Would that work?” A creak followed by rustling noises proved that she was pulling it out. “They used it for the . . . for the poster.”
“This is fine,” Boudreaux assured her. “You wait at the hotel. We’ll let you know as soon as we discover anything more.”
“But what about the shoe?” Jenny asked, her voice trembling. “The rangers said they found Zack’s shoe. What does that mean?”
“We’ll let you know as soon as we discover anything more,” Boudreaux said again.
Scuffling sounds indicated that all parties were rising to leave. Sam quickly strode down the hallway and ducked into a big locker room.
A young woman in National Park Service uniform sat on a bench before an open locker. She blinked at Sam in surprise. Shiny black blunt-cut hair, delicate Asian features. Vietnamese, or maybe Korean.
“Can I help you?” The accent was Southern Bible Belt, a startling contrast with the woman’s features. The voice on the phone. Ranger Gates. Sam ha
d envisioned a buxom Southern belle with poufy tresses.
“I’m looking for Kent Bergstrom,” Sam said hopefully. Poor Kent; she used their friendship to explain her bumbling all over the park.
Georgia pointed at a doorway off the locker room.
Kent knelt on the floor of the equipment room, pushing packets of freeze-dried meals into the pockets of a well-worn nylon park service backpack. A chocolate-chip cookie protruded from between his lips. A stuffed sleeping bag lay on the floor beside his knees as well as several quart-sized water bottles.
“Hitting the trail?”
He removed the cookie. “Mesa Camp, here I come! Am I ever ready.”
He had shadows under his eyes. “You look tired,” she said.
“That would be because I’ve been up all night. But this will revive me.”
“Heading up Powell Trail?”
“Nope,” he said. “Been there, done that, last night. They’re sending me up the East Ridge Trail and over the top. Backcountry patrol. Blue skies, birds, clear air.”
“They can spare you from the search party? I’d think they’d be even more focused now that there’s some real evidence that Zack’s in the park.”
“They’re still searching around the shoe site. Hey, if Thompson wants to give me a break, I’m taking it.”
Soul mate, Sam thought. Trouble had always sent her running for the woods, too, even as a young child.
A cloud passed over his face. “I hope they find him. But it’s going on two days now.”
“He could still be alive, Kent.”
He shrugged. “You think a two-year-old could walk up Powell Trail?”
“Not by himself. Maybe someone carried him.” Which, she dared to think, meant Zack was most likely still alive.
He yawned, scratched at the stubble on his cheeks. “Thompson’s getting out more helicopters today. Maybe they’ll spot something from the air.” He looked up. “Georgia Gates told me about Buck Ferguson on Special Report last night. That damn jerk! But I hear that some asshole in Seattle sabotaged you first.”
What would Kent think if he knew she’d been dating the asshole who started the whole cougar hysteria? She hoped nobody in the park would discover that association. “I saw Ferguson on the news earlier,” she said. “The stuffed heads behind him were a nice touch.”
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