by Rick Mofina
“She’s in the crevasse.”
“What if she fell?”
Zander’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m going to find out, Walt. Give me time. I am going to get them on the box as soon as possible.”
“It’s your case. How you handle it is up to you.”
Within twenty minutes, everything was conveyed to Lloyd Turner, FBI Special Agent In Charge, and Nora Lam of Justice, who immediately shook her head.
“What’s you’re hurry? Why not see what your investigation at the crevasse yields? It might give you your trump card.”
“We’re holding a pretty winnable hand now, Nora.” Zander said.
“I agree with Frank. A polygraph might help at this stage,” Turner said.
“You know he has to agree, cooperate and be Mirandized?” Lam said. “You must advise him of his right to a lawyer.”
Doug was escorted once again to the task force room and seated before the investigators. He listened as Zander explained the situation.
“Doug, we’ve got a problem and we need your help.”
He emphasized how the search was expanding, “more people, more resources,” but the job of ruling out all other possibilities in Paige’s disappearance required a lot of work. “We’re going through permits trying to locate and talk to every other party in the area at the time.”
“How can I help?”
“Well, Doug,” Zander said. “An investigation is largely a process of elimination. We want to eliminate all potential options quickly so we can concentrate on valid ones.”
“I see.”
“The most disturbing one we have to deal with is that something has happened to Paige--an animal, or a stranger in the park. Do you follow me?”
Doug looked at his hands. That other family made him uneasy.
“I--I. Yes.”
“We have to look at everyone. It is critical.”
“Yes.”
“We want to eliminate you.”
Doug said nothing. He had known for a long while that was coming.
“Doug, your wound, the ax, her T-shirt…”
Doug sniffed; tears welled…he knew.
“Can you appreciate where I am going here?”
His pulse galloped. “Yes,” he said, his heart breaking.
“Would you agree to take a polygraph?”
Doug swallowed.
“It’s just a tool, but it might help us, help everyone.”
Before Doug realized his head was nodding, Zander asked him to voice his answer.
“Yes, I will take a polygraph.”
“Then I have to tell you certain things first because the law requires it.”
“What things?”
“You have the right to remain silent…”
Jesus, Doug could not believe…
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
How does a life come to this…?
“You have the right to consult with an attorney and have them present with you while you are being questioned.”
Screaming at Paige. Shouting at my daughter with the bloody ax in my hand. The terror in her eyes…
“If you cannot afford to hire an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning, if you wish one.”
For God’s sake, I’m just a teacher, a husband, a father. Days before, we were like any other American family, struggling through an airport, embarking on a vacation.
“Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you?’
No I do not understand any of this. Lord, help me…help Paige….
“Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”
Doug looked into Zander’s eyes.
“I want a lawyer before I take the test.”
FORTY-TWO
The phone rang in David Cohen’s Deer Lodge motel room at 5:14 a.m.
“I’d like to speak to David Cohen, the lawyer for Isaiah Hood?”
“That’s me. Who’s this?”
“Nick Sorder, Capitol News Radio in Helena. I’m calling for your reaction to the development in the case. Governor Nye’s office issued a statement this morning. Actually, late last night, from the time on our fax.”
A statement? He knew nothing about this.
“Tell me what it says.”
“Summarizing quickly, it says with respect to the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of Hood’s petition for appeal and the Board of Pardons not recommending executive clemency, the governor will not grant your request for a delay. The AG’s office adds that the sentence will be carried out tomorrow as scheduled.”
Oh, godamn it.
“Your reaction, sir?”
John Jackson in his dinner jacket, winking his warning about the governor squeezing his balls so hard they’ll hear the scream in Chicago.
“Your reaction, sir?”
“I’m very disappointed. But I have no further comment until I speak with my client.”
Cohen hung up and hurled the phone to the floor.
I will take your concerns under advisement and make my decision known to you tomorrow. His black suit waiting. Ashes to be scattered. He did not do it. Whatever happened out there, it was not murder. Emily Baker, or whatever her name is, knows the truth. She knows the goddamned truth. Somehow, it has to be squeezed out of her.
Cohen sat at the edge of his bed in his boxers and Chicago Bulls T-shirt, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, tears stinging his tired eyes. His stomach quaked.
Think clearly. It is not over. Cohen attempted to console himself with a hot shower, then flipped on the TV news and pulled on jeans and a fresh shirt. He downed some hot coffee, bit into a muffin he picked up the night before at a truck stop on the return drive from Helena.
“The long-awaited execution of Isaiah Hood, who murdered a five-year-old Buckhorn Creek girl twenty-two years ago, will go ahead as scheduled tomorrow. In a statement released this morning from Helena, the governor said he will not intervene….”
Local news mocked him as he worked, sifting through his files.
“…the search for Paige Baker enters another day in Glacier National…”
A blue file, a pink file. Case law, that wasn’t it. The green file. Nope. Here, the yellow file. It contained e-mails, faxes, business cards and scribbled contact numbers from reporters with the most recent requests to interview Isaiah Hood. He went through the file. Cohen had rejected all requests. Hood had never, ever, been interviewed. Now most news attention had been drawn to the lost girl story. Here it was. Cohen had a priority list of cell numbers for about half a dozen big outlets. All print because it was easier and quicker to get a print reporter inside the prison. Most of the people on the list had called recently saying they were in Montana on the lost girl story in Glacier.
The New York Times, Denver Bureau, Dianna. K. Strauss. Cohen dialed the number. Busy signal. But a strange one. Maybe a bad connection? He tried the Washington Post. Phillip Braddock. It just rang and rang, unanswered. Cohen dialed the Los Angeles Times. Francis Lord. Out of service range. Damn. USA Today. Lawrence Dow. Voice mail. Damn. Cohen wanted to talk to somebody now. Right now. The San Francisco Star. Tom Reed. He’d heard of him. A hotshot on some big story in California. Saw him on CNN talking about it. Emily Baker was from San Francisco. This could work. Cohen punched Reed’s cell phone number. Come on. The clock was ticking. Ticking. The number rang.
Not long after the morning sun lit the eastern sky, Tom Reed was waving good-bye to Chester Murdon, standing with his Lab, Sonny, on the porch of his house. They made a perfect picture against the crisp dawn and the glorious snowcapped mountains.
Thank you, Chester, Reed thought, patting the files that Murdon had given him. They were vibrating on the passenger seat. Reed was speeding into Wisdom, intending to get to the FBI in Glacier without wasting a second. Thanks to Murdon, he had a new angle. Tomorrow, the man who murdered Emily Baker’s sister twenty-two years ago in Glacier Nation
al Park would be executed while searchers try to locate Baker’s daughter, Paige, in the same region. It was an incredible story. A haunting tale. He had surpassed everyone; even the Montana press had missed Emily’s connection to Hood. And if the police knew, they certainly were mute on it. Maybe there was more to it?
It was coming up on the hour, Reed switched on the radio news, bracing for any break in the search. He’d have to alert the desk and Molly, he thought as the dramatic radio jingle led into the news from an AM station in Bozeman.
“…our top stories this morning…Isaiah Hood will be executed tomorrow as scheduled, Montana’s attorney general says. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Hood’s latest appeal and the governor will not delay the sentence. The Montana Board of Pardons and Paroles convened an emergency meeting last night and did not recommend the governor intervene in the case. And, it’s day four of the massive search up in Glacier National Park for Paige Baker. The ten-year-old San Francisco girl reportedly wandered from her mother and father while camping in the remote and rugged Grizzly Tooth Trail region of the park. Across the nation, a deadly heat wave in Dallas claimed three lives as temperatures soared--”
Reed’s cell phone trilled. He killed the radio and took the call.
“Tom Reed, San Francisco Star.”
“This is David Cohen.”
Cohen? Cohen? Hood’s lawyer.
“Yes, Mr. Cohen. I just heard the latest on your case. Sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
Reed was just exercising professional courtesy.
“I’ll come to the point. How fast can you get to Deer Lodge?”
“Why, what’s happening there?”
“I’m offering you an interview with Isaiah, right now, today in the prison.”
“Exclusive?”
“Exclusive.”
The ABS brakes on the rental engaged, bringing Reed to a halt.
FORTY-THREE
Maleena Crow arrived early at her law office on South Main in downtown Kalispell to await an expected referral call from Philadelphia. She went over a file while sipping herbal tea, stopping to consult ‘the partners’, the exotic fish gliding in the aquarium that bubbled and hummed in the corner of her red brick storefront office.
At twenty-nine, the University of San Diego grad was living her dream as a criminal attorney, operating her one-lawyer practice in what she told her law school friends were “the mystical Rockies.” She recently won back-to-back acquittals for clients in two separate assault cases: a stabbing that was self-defense; a shooting, ruled accidental. Crow smiled at her aquarium. The partners seemed pleased. She was pondering booking a vacation on the luxury train that traveled through the Canadian Rockies between Vancouver and Banff when her call came.
“Maleena? I’m so glad you’re there. It’s Legal Services. We just took a call from the county attorney’s office--”
“Can this wait? I’m expecting a call.”
“I am passing this to you. You’re to call a Ms. Nora Lam from the U.S. Justice Department. It’s urgent.”
“Justice? What is this about?”
“Someone in Glacier National Park needs a lawyer right away and I guess you’ve been designated for the area.”
Glacier? Crow was up on the news. She called Lam, connecting with the first ring on her cell phone.
“Nora Lam.” Very professional. Authoritative.
“Maleena Crow. Criminal defense attorney in Kalispell.
Lam was to the point, underscoring the severity and confidentiality of Doug Baker’s circumstances. Crow agreed to represent him.
She changed to jeans, T-shirt and a blazer, grabbed her Penal Code, brief case, sunglasses. Within a half hour, a Montana Highway Patrol Officer was waving her new silver VW Jetta to park behind the virtual army of TV satellite trucks, scores of news crews and the growing press contingent.
“Press over there, please.”
“Uh-uh. I was summoned.” Crow held out her card.”
“Certainly, ma’am,” the officer reached for his radio. “Follow me.”
He trotted, leading Crow to a parking spot among the park, forestry and FBI vehicles at the community center. She was whisked inside to the small paneled room where she met Nora Lam, Frank Zander and Lloyd Turner.
“Doug’s been Mirandized. He’s agreed to be polygraphed to be cleared as a possible suspect in his daughter’s disappearance,” Zander said.
Crow produced a legal pad, noting everyone’s name, their positions and time.
“Is he a suspect? You got a case? You going to charge him?”
Zander listed the domestic call, the school complaint, the argument in the mountains witnessed by a vacationing NYPD detective.
“Circumstantial and hearsay,” Crow said. “Continue.”
The bloodied T-shirt, the bloodied ax, his wounded hand, the opportunity when Doug and Emily were separated.
Crow absorbed it. “You find the little girl, or any part of her?”
“Not yet.”
“This is what you want to polygraph him on?”
Zander nodded. “Right away.”
“What about the mother?”
“She’s not your client,” Zander said. “This is all you get.”
“Where is Mr. Baker? I’d like to speak with him.”
Zander took Crow to the paneled storage room where Doug Baker was standing at the small window, watching a helicopter disappear.
“Doug Baker?” He turned.
“Maleena Crow. I’ve been appointed to be your attorney.”
“Yes, sit down.”
Crow put her briefcase on the small table and sat in one of the chairs.
“You were given your rights and understand them?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you ask for a lawyer?”
“I figured it was best, under the circumstances.”
“You agreed to be polygraphed?”
“Yes, whatever it takes.”
“Doug, you understand that whatever they tell you, the fact is they are trying to build a case against you. They want to charge you.”
“I know from the start. I would do the same thing…because I am guilty.”
“No. You do not determine that. A court determines that.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Doug, they are working to build a case against you, probably against your wife too. In this state, the penalty is death. You are not guilty of anything at this time.”
“No, Maleena. It’s not like that,” Doug said. “I did not harm Paige. God, no. I am guilty of making it look like I did in every way, through my own action, my own selfish stupidity.”
He slammed his back against the wall and slid to the floor, placing his elbows on his knees, and over the next hour, he recounted everything while Crow took notes.
“I am the reason Paige fled. Sure, it was easy for me to blame Emily. We were arguing over her refusal to tell me about the problems of her childhood growing up here.”
“Which are…?”
“She never got over the death of her parents. It destroyed her family. The whole time I’ve known her she refused to talk about it. We came here so she could deal with her ghosts. The night before Paige vanished, Emily told me she has a sister. I never knew this. If we live through this, I’m hoping we can rebuild the remnants of her family.”
“Doug you do not need to take a polygraph--”
“After we realized Paige had disappeared, we searched into the night, just Emily and me. Nothing. Emily withdraws and I decide to hike out for help at daybreak. During my hike, all I can think of is how I caused this, how ashamed I am. Her T-shirt on my hurt hand reminds me. So I toss it. Then my ax banging from my pack reminds me, so I toss it.”
“But Doug, how will a taking a polygraph help? If Paige is lost, the searchers will find her.”
He shook his head.
“I pray for that to happen. But if she doesn’t come back. If they don’t find her. If she’s already d
ead out there, then I killed her. I am guilty because I forced her out there. And I will have live with it for the rest of my life. Can you understand? I want to take that polygraph to let them know I have nothing to hide. To let them know I am ashamed, to let them know exactly what I am guilty of. Because if my daughter is dead, then I might as well be dead, too. And there is nothing the FBI can do to hurt me anymore than I am already hurting.”
Crow swallowed hard, finishing her notes, touching the back of her hand to her nose and nodding.
“Okay, Doug.”
“Will you help me?”
“Yes.”
FORTY-FOUR
About an hour after his call from David Cohen, Tom Reed arrived in Deer Lodge, pulling into the lot of the Four Bs Restaurant, parking among the pickups, Macks, Peterbilts and Freightliners. Inside he spotted a man in his thirties, alone at a booth with an open briefcase that had erupted with files and papers. He was wearing jeans and a navy shirt. An intelligent-looking man; neat, dark hair, serious face behind rimless glasses.
“David Cohen?”
Cohen lifted his attention from his work, nodding.
“You must be Tom Reed.” They shook hands. “Thanks for coming.”
A waitress freshened Cohen's coffee and poured a cup for Reed. She took his order of a toasted BLT on white. Cohen came to the point.
“Your interview is in one hour. I talked to the prison. Your background check has been cleared. I'll be present.”
"What's the deal here, David?"
"You're obviously familiar with the case of Emily Baker, the mother of the little girl missing in Glacier?"
"Of course."
“Emily is the sister of the girl my client, Isaiah Hood, is accused of killing twenty-two years ago.”
“Yes. I just discovered this myself. A friend, expert on state criminal history, pointed out the similarity with the old news photos."
"Why didn't you report it?"
“I intend to. I just learned about Isaiah's connection to Emily Baker--literally--a few hours ago. It's a compelling story.”
“How much of it do you know?”