by Rick Mofina
“Creepy, huh?” said the younger of the two.
The old one nodded, blinking.
“After his interview, we move him into the death cell and he goes on deathwatch. Then that will be the end of it.”
“What do you make of him saying he didn’t kill that girl?”
“I don’t. And you shouldn’t either.”
The intercom buzzed.
“The lawyer and reporter are here. Move Hood to the visitor’s room.”
Waiting in the small visitor’s room on death row, Cohen and Reed did not speak. They watched the muted TV news. There appeared to be nothing significant in Paige Baker’s case, Reed thought, playing absentmindedly with his small tape recorder. They heard the approach of Hood’s chains. The door opened to Hood, in his orange jumpsuit, prison sandals and shackles.
“You got twenty minutes,” said one of the guards.
“I was told we had an hour,” Cohen protested.
“Twenty minutes because he’s got to be processed.”
Reed shook Hood’s hand, flipped on his tape recorder.
Hood sat down, his chains knocking on the veneer tabletop, looking coldly at Reed, who met his gaze.
“Isaiah, are you innocent of the murder of Rachel Ross?”
Hood looked into Reed’s eyes.
“Yes, I am.”
“Who killed her?”
“No one.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was an accident.”
“An accident?”
Hood looked at Cohen, then back at Reed.
“I was out there that day, minding my own business when they came to me. The little girls were playing some game. Chasing birds or butterflies with some little girl camp. They run from the forest and I said, “Be careful.” But they laughed at me, saying they’re playing some game. Called me names.”
“What sort of names?”
“Like I’m trash, and they’re not supposed to play with me, I mean, all over town, me and my family was the joke of the county. They were the proper little girls of ranchers, bankers, merchants. I told them to be careful near that ledge. They never stopped playing and the little one slipped to the lower ledge there. Got herself dazed and I jumped down to get her, and her sister’s screaming at me to stay away, she’s going to help her sister up. But I see the little one’s stunned, crawling in the wrong direction towards the ledge. This ain’t no part of the game. She goes over the ledge; the big sister’s got her by the hand and I reach over to help, but it’s too late. She’s gone over. She’s dangling for a bit. The big sister’s got her hand but not good. She falls, almost taking the big sister with her. I pulled her up and the big sister runs off screaming I did it. Whole thing happened in less than a minute.”
“Why would she accuse you if it was an accident?”
“Because they hated me. The whole town hated the Hoods. Never, ever thought I would be capable of trying to help. Regarded me as trash.”
“Why didn’t you explain this to police and the county attorney?”
“I did. They didn’t believe me. They kept me awake for nearly two days until I confessed. That’s what they wanted. Later, my lawyer says the judge will believe me and toss the confession, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Reed said nothing.
“Why?” Hood’s eyes were shining, pleading.
Reed searched them.
“I’d like to know why she put me here.” Hood stared at the walls. “The shrinks tested me. They should test her. She’s the one with mental problems.”
“I don’t understand why you didn’t reveal this twenty-two years ago.”
“You deaf? I did tell them. They wouldn’t believe me. They made me confess. Said it was no accident. Started asking how my mother had died years ago. Would not let me sleep. Had me bawling to the point I didn’t know the truth. Where you woulda confessed to anything. Now look at what’s happened! And they want to execute me!”
In the time they had left, Reed went over Hood’s version with him. Cohen did not interfere. Hood seemed to have an answer or explanation for every aspect.
A guard appeared.
“Sorry, time is up. Mr. Cohen you can stay a bit with your client.”
“Tom,” Cohen said, extending his hand. “We’ll talk in about an hour?”
“Sure.” Then to Hood. “Thank you Isaiah.”
Hood said nothing, but nodded. Then the guard led Reed from death row through the prison’s inner yard toward the main gate. It was one of the older guards, a friendly-faced, silver-haired veteran who probably knew as much about inmates as there was to know. During the short walk between death row and the prison’s main gate, the guard and Reed looked to the mountains.
“Mr. Reed, it’s not my place, but I’m going to say this anyway.”
“Say what?”
“At this stage of the game, that fella you just talked to is liable to tell you just about anything and hope you’ll believe it.”
Reed knew that. He also knew that folded in his rear pocket was a copy of the report on Emily’s confessional letters from the county attorney’s office. So it did not matter if what Hood said was true or not.
Reed had a helluva story.
FORTY-SEVEN
After his polygraph test, the FBI placed Doug under guard in the maple-paneled storage room where he had slept on a cot the night before. They were so subtle it went unnoticed by the rangers and officials involved in search operations of the command center. An FBI Agent sat in a chair outside the door to Doug’s room.
His cell.
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Sooner or later he was going to wake up from this, right?
But Maleena Crow, his appointed lawyer, was real. The words she was speaking were real, even though Doug was hearing them as if they were coming from a great distance, through the storm pulsating in his eardrums.
“Clearly, it does not look good, Doug but...” As Crow went on, the final part of the polygraph exam pounded over and over in Doug’s brain.
Emily’s sister was dead.
His world, his senses, were reeling. Confused. Exhausted.
If they did not suspect him, did they suspect Emily?
Emily was present with Isaiah Hood when her sister was killed. “Do you believe your wife could have harmed your daughter?” What? Oh, Jesus, help me. What was Crow saying? What?
“They cannot hold you for more than seventy-two hours without laying a charge. They cannot charge you without solid evidence. They have none.” Then something about awaiting the results of Larson’s examination before their next step. “Unless there is something you’re not telling me, Doug? Is there?”
What? She was asking him something.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?
“No....”
Doug is asking Emily... hadn’t he asked her that so many times? And for so many years? Hadn’t it enraged him that she refused to tell him about her past? The night before Paige vanished, Emily’s tears are shining in the firelight. She raises her face, her beautiful pain-filled face, to the stars, searching for the words “My--my sister…” She stops, leaving her words in the air.
“Sister?” he says. “You never told me you have a sister.”
Oh Christ.
Do you believe your wife could have harmed your daughter?
No. No. No. It can’t be.
Find something real--when we were happy. The honeymoon. Mexico. The little seaside town. The sun setting. Kissing the Pacific. Palm fronds hissing. Breezes. Paradise. A perfect time. She is his dream come true. Together, on the warm private beach, she kisses his cheek.
“Will you love me always no matter what, Doug?”
“No matter what.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
“For better or worse?”
“For better or worse.”
“No matter what the worst may be?” She smiled, so beautiful.
“I wil
l love the worst you can give me.”
She laughs, slipping off her swimsuit, mounting him there on the beach; afterward leading him into the warm surf. He would love her no matter what the worst could be....
Even if she killed Paige?
Did he really know everything about Emily? Why ask the question? He knew the answer. That’s what this trip to the mountains was all about. That’s what the last few years of hell had been all about.
It was all beginning to fit.
Her behavior.
Their first night in Great Falls at the Holiday Inn. He saw her slip out of bed, the room’s digital clock displaying 3:04 A.M. Saw her switch on the TV, mute it, and surf, stopping at local-community cable channel that showed the teletype-style text of local and state news briefs. Saw her absorb the item about the execution of Isaiah Hood. Watched her shroud herself in an extra blanket from the closet, pull her chair to the window, stare at the twinkling lights of the city and weep.
Doug had paid scant attention to Isaiah Hood. Now he remembered how Emily reacted in the Holiday Inn restaurant, seeing him reading the article in the Tribune on their way to Glacier.
“Do not read that. We’re on vacation.”
Rachel Ross was Emily’s sister. She was Natalie Ross, the witness who testified against Hood. Emily’s aunt knew. Damn. Willa knew. She had invited them to join them on the RV trip, to get away during the time the execution was carried out. It all fit now--Willa wanting to get them far away, cutting off his attempts to learn more of Emily’s past.
“Whatever it is she’s sorting out, Doug, she has to tell you. Only she can tell you.”
A dark realization was dawning on him. His heart was racing.
In the last article about Hood, he was claiming innocence. Paige was practically the same age as Emily’s sister. It was Emily who had insisted they hike to the same region. In his anger, Doug sent Paige running to Emily. Was Emily the last person to see Paige?
Why had the searchers failed to find any trace of Paige?
Of Kobee?
Nothing.
Hood was claiming innocence.
“Will you love me no matter what the worst may be?”
Doug’s heart was pounding in time with an approaching helicopter.
He buried his face in his hands.
“Doug,” Crow said. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He looked at her. Lost.
“… and the student of yours, Cammi Walton? Why would they ask you if you struck her? Does that line of questioning make sense to you? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He’d forgotten all about the accusation from Cammi.
FORTY-EIGHT
From the edge of the command post, Brady Brook scanned the ridges and ledges through his high-powered binoculars.
Against the mountains, the on-site commander of the search embodied the calm, consummate professional, confidently sorting out strategies to locate Paige Baker.
But in Brook’s gut, fear and fury churned.
He pulled his face from the binoculars, rubbed his tired eyes, then replaced his frameless glasses. Never in all his experience as Incident Commander had he faced a case like this.
Paige was well into her fourth day of being lost in the wilderness, well over seventy-two hours. In that time, there had been rain, fog and near-freezing temperatures. The overnight forecast called for snow. The region had some of the most dangerous terrain, the most dramatic climbs. Taking all factors into consideration, she was in the death zone now.
Had they lost her?
As far as he knew, nothing had surfaced. Nothing. Not a candy wrapper, an item of clothing, equipment, trace of feces, a scent or trail. Nothing of her dog, either. Brook had always held that his people could find something. If she was mobile, she was defeating the searchers. Was she lost to a river, lake, fall, bear? What?
The chief factor now was the FBI.
One of the rangers, who handled the computer work for the search, had used a sat phone to get on to the Internet this morning. They captured the news reports that the FBI suspected criminal intent and had not ruled out Doug and Emily Baker as suspects. Whenever Brook tried to find out anything, no one would confirm a syllable to him.
Keep searching. That’s the priority. That’s the order.
But it was also getting around that the FBI was finding some sort of evidence within the search perimeter and struggling to keep a lid on their nature of their discoveries, threatening anyone who leaked with “obstruction of justice” charges.
The FBI would simply take control of a sector, turn search crews away with no explanation, making a lot of people unhappy. Brook understood emotions were taut, but urged his people to maintain a professional attitude and perform their duty. Yet in his gut, it really pissed him off when the guys like Holloway and Taylor were simply pulled from his roster.
Given that the official search had so far found nothing, Brook was growing angry his people were being left in the dark. Were they a futile diversion for what was ostensibly a homicide investigation? The news report fit with Doug Baker’s absence. And the way the FBI watched Emily.
Damnit. Shouldn’t they give him some sort of indication how to deploy his people? Searchers sometimes died or got hurt during operations. Tell him to call it off, if that was the case.
Brook pulled his binoculars to his eyes again, trying to determine what was happening near that ridge. It was out of sight, but there seemed to be some FBI activity there. A steady flow of helicopter traffic to the region. It was a heavily fissured, treacherous area.
Nobody told him anything.
Shaking his head, Brook glanced at Emily Baker.
Will we ever know what the hell happened to your daughter?
Brook then looked across the campsite toward the paramedics, playing checkers as they waited. Folded precisely among their gear, and kept respectfully out of sight, was a body bag.
FORTY-NINE
It was late afternoon and overcast when Tom Reed returned to the news media camp at Glacier National Park.
The area was congested. Motor homes, SUVs, news trucks. Reed was stuck behind a FOX affiliate from Minneapolis. A Montana Highway Patrol officer flagged him over at one of the checkpoints.
“You’ve got to park down there, sir.” He pointed to an area a hundred yards from where Reed had parked before, almost out of sight.
“Way down there?”
“Sorry, the press people just keep coming.”
“Why, what’s going on? Something break in the case?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.” The officer touched his brim and tapped Reed’s car. “Move it along, please.”
After parking, Reed worked his way through the chaos. He had to get to the FBI for reaction to his information on Emily Baker. He still had a few hours before he had to start writing. It was a wild scene. Helicopters overhead; networks and big-city TV crews had setup colorful canopies flying their logos and station letters. Reed overheard a reporter speaking Japanese into a phone. Next to him, another reporter, on her cell phone, trying to get information from Doug Baker’s high school, had identified herself a reporter with the Toronto Star. Then Reed passed two TV technicians speaking German while nearby a woman with a British accent gripped a microphone. Holding an earplug in her ear, she talked to a camera. It was an electronic village of satellite dishes, laptops, cell phones and scores of conversations.
A podium had been erected, suggesting news conferences. That was new. What was going on? Had he been scooped? No way. Nobody could have his angle on Emily, Reed assured himself, catching a glimpse of her file photo as he passed a network TV monitor. The case was going to explode when the San Francisco Star rolled out his story. He needed to find the FBI Agent heading the investigation. He was nearing the tape restricting press access to the command center when he heard a familiar clinking sound, then: “Tom!”
It was Molly Wilson.
Hurrying to him. Brilliant smile under her O
akleys. Auburn hair pulled into a tight, feathery tail. Navy T-shirt. Cargo pants. Bracelets. Looking very fine.
Next to her, his tanned face showing a fashionable three day’s growth, was Levi Kayle. Eyes hidden behind his Romeos, he towered over six feet in his hiking boots, faded, torn jeans, a Springsteen T-shirt from an LA concert and a news photographer’s vest. A $30,000 state-of-the-art Nikon digital camera hung from his neck. Kayle rested his forearms on it. He was one of the best shooters in the country.
Wilson took Reed’s arm, pulling him aside urgently.
“We have to talk. Zeke called me and told me what you’ve got. It sounds like dynamite, Tom.” Wilson looked in all directions, finding some measure of privacy for them between two parked Cherokees. “Let me see it.”
Wilson began reading the county attorney’s old report on the letters Emily had written as a child shortly after her sister’s murder.
“I am guilty of her death….”
Wilson put a hand to her mouth. “This is good. Kayle, Kayle. Copy these. Can you shoot them and send them to San Francisco?”
“Hey, ask nice, Wilson. I don’t work for you.”
“Please, Levi. Pretty please, you big sweet lug.”
“Sure.” Kayle grinned as he took the pages, stepped into better light, adjusted his lenses, then set pebbles on the page corners to hold them down as Wilson checked her watch and began updating Reed.
“This is compelling. Do you think they’ll go ahead and execute Hood after we come out with this?”
“Impossible to know. It’s cutting things close. I just know it’s a fantastic story. What did the desk say?”
“They want one big take ASAP putting our stuff together. They’re going to publish your document as part of a package. You know, big exclusive, execution cliff-hanger, missing child, murder mystery.”
Reed nodded. Sounded like a novel. But it was true.
“A newser starts”--Wilson checked her watch--“in a few minutes. We figure it’s reaction to the AP story that they’re questioning the dad.”