by Rick Mofina
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.
TWENTY-FOUR
By mid-morning, a Montana forestry helicopter touched down on the makeshift helipad of the command post at the Bakers’ campsite deep inside Grizzly Tooth Trail.
Emily Baker and Agent Tracy Bowman were met by Incident Commander Brady Brook. There was no encouraging news.
“Nothing so far, ma’am.” He shook his head sadly. The other rangers attempted to look off, or get busy in a respectful attempt at giving Emily privacy to absorb the negative update.
Emily nodded, wiped her eyes with a crumpled tissue, then returned to her lonely vigil at the camp’s edge overlooking the forest.
The search planes and radio chatter somehow comforted her, like the din of a choir practicing in a church.
“Emily, please. Have some of this.”
Bowman had brought her a tin cup of chicken noodle soup.
“It’s mostly broth. Please, you need something.”
She reached up with both hands to accept its warmth.
“Thank you, Tracy.”
Emily sipped some of the broth. It was good. She gazed at the view.
Bowman sat next to her with a cup for herself.
“Tell me about your husband, Tracy. Please?”
Bowman remembered Zander’s advice to befriend Emily. “All right,” she said, conjuring up Carl’s handsome, kind face. “He was a loner. Grew up near Butte. Joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Served in Desert Storm. Never talked much about it, except to say Kuwait was like Montana without the grass and the mountains. After that, he started his own towing business. We met in a god-awful snowstorm outside of Missoula when I was working as a highway patrol officer before I was accepted into the FBI Academy. Just talked and joked the night away. He had a good heart. I fell in love with him that night. We were married about a year later, had Mark a year after that. Carl had dreams of expanding his business statewide. He just loved driving around out here looking for people to help. He had a big-sky soul. He belonged to Montana, and Montana belonged to him.”
Emily’s face was sympathetic. “Tell me about your son.”
“Just like his dad. I see Carl’s eyes, hear his voice in Mark. He’s good-hearted like his father. They were good together. Buddies.”
“That must give you some comfort.”
“Mmm, it does.”
“You ever think about what would happen if you lost him? I mean--having lost Carl--you--I’m sorry.” Emily sniffed. “It’s none of my business.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s OK. Yes, I think about it. Mark’s got a congenital lung condition. It makes breathing difficult for him at times. It’s not terminal but he’ll always have it.
“I guess you know how life is so fragile, so very…temporary.”
“Yup.”
“Do you think I will ever see my daughter again?”
Bowman scanned the forests and ranges of mountains that stretched to an eternity. “I don’t know.”
“Thanks for the honest answer.”
Bowman reminded herself she was an FBI agent assisting in an investigation. Zander’s words echoed with the choppers over the valley.
All she may need is a little nudge. You decide when to push.
“How was it for you growing up here, Emily?”
“Heavenly. We had a place my grandfather built near Buckhorn Creek.”
“That’s not far from here.”
“No. It had a rafter roof. I had a horse. Dad worked on a feedlot. My parents got me my first camera and I started learning about photography here, studying Dad’s old Life magazines.”
“Why did you leave?”
Emily looked to the mountains for the answer.
“Guess what I’m going to do.”
Bowman thought it best to wait her out. A full minute passed.
“I moved with my mother to San Francisco after my father was killed.”
“What happened?”
“He fell from his horse while working on our ranch, got kicked. I saw it happen.”
“Oh my God. I am so sorry.”
“I was fifteen. It happened because he was distracted. He was upset with me.”
“What on earth for?”
“A rumor was going around town that I lied about something. Something important.”
“What was it?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Did you lie about this important thing?”
“No, I did not. But now, things have gotten so crazy. It’s like--”
“Guess what I’m going to do.”
“Stop it!” She hurled her cup down the mountain, the tin tapping and tinking all the way down, underscoring the echo of her “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Emily thrust her face into her hands and sobbed.
Bowman held her.
“Emily. Please. You have got to talk to me.”
“It’s happening again. It’s happening again. I cannot let this happen again. Oh God, please! Paige!”