by Rick Mofina
“Pick up anything else?”
“Yes. When we got here this morning, we got lucky. I bumped into a guy one of my girlfriends used to date, Vince Delona with the New York Daily News. We’re talking and this strange-looking little man in a suit walks by us and says, ‘Hi Vince’.”
“Who was he?”
“Reese Larson, the FBI’s top polygraph examiner. He’s based in New York. Vince profiled him a few years back after the World Trade Center bombing. Kayle got pictures. Nobody but Vince and I know he went in to conduct polygraph tests.”
“That means they’re building a case against the dad and likely the mother. Or possibly clearing the dad to focus on the mother.”
Wilson nodded. “And I talked to some guys with the search. They’re pissed because the FBI is telling them squat. There’s supposedly no trace of the kid, and if she were out there, she’s either dead now, or will be by morning. It’s going to snow out there tonight.”
Kayle was finished with Reed’s documents. “Pretty damning stuff there, Reed. You going to the news conference?”
“I am,” Wilson said. “After it’s over, we’ll meet here, sort out how we’ll put our story together. Okay, Tom?’
While the press pack went to the conference, Reed went down the road to the police tape near the command center. He needed the FBI Agent in charge of the investigation to react to what he had.
A young agent, his ID hanging on a chain around his neck, came to life to meet Reed, eyeing his plastic press credentials clipped to his waist. His face was not friendly.
“Press conference is that way.”
“I know that,” Reed smiled. Agent Evan Crossfield. That’s all he needed. “Tom Reed with the San Francisco Star. I am making a formal request to speak with the agent heading the investigation. The Star is going to publish some critical information we’ve obtained. The FBI might want to know about it before we publish.”
The agent was unfazed, scowling at Reed.
“Our press people are over there at the conference. Run along.”
Run along?
“Listen, your press people are not investigating the case. If you could please alert the agent in charge that I have very critical information.”
“Sorry, just go over there with the rest of them.”
“Don’t be sorry”--Reed handed the agent his card--“because when our story comes out tomorrow, it will contain the line that ‘the FBI refused to comment’ on our information. The people above you will search for the agent who took it upon himself to make the decision not to alert the investigators. This information could seriously embarrass the Bureau. When they call me, and they will, asking who the heck was it ‘that refused,’ I’ll have to tell them it was you, Agent Evan Crossfield, who never even bothered to look at what I had to show the FBI. So I would not be sorry now, if I were you, Agent Evan Crossfield. Save it for tomorrow when our story hits the wires and certain people in the Hoover Building start speaking your name. You’ll be very sorry then.”
Reed smiled, turned, walked off. Five yards. Ten yards. He could hear Agent Evan Crossfield thinking. Fifteen--
“Hey, just a minute, wiseass!”
Within three minutes, Special Agent Frank Zander emerged from the command center, looking very irritated, holding Reed’s card in his hand. Zander went to the tape, lifted it, took Reed out of view to the shade of a tall spruce.
“You Reed?’
“That’s me.”
“Sydowski says you are an asshole who stumbles on to things.”
“Is that on my card?” Reed answered with a shrug. “Who might you be?”
“Frank Zander, on the investigative side of the search for Paige Baker.”
“So you going to charge the parents?”
“Don’t waste my time. What do you have that’s so important?”
Reed gave Zander the old report. He read it. Reed could not tell from his poker face if it was news to him. Zander passed it back.
“That it, Reed?”
“Does this change the direction of your investigation?”
“No comment.”
“Do you suspect anything beyond the report of a lost girl?”
“No comment.”
“Do you deny polygraphing Doug Baker?”
“This is not twenty questions, Reed. You are wasting my time.”
Zander escorted him outside the perimeter.
“Zander, that’s Z-A-N-D-E-R?”
Zander walked off, leaving Reed at the tape.
“Happy now?” Agent Crossfield grinned. “Asshole.”
Zander was good. Reed got nothing from him. Zip. Not even a “where did you get this?”
The press conference offered little new information to a nation gripped by the drama of ten-year-old Paige Baker facing her fourth night lost in the rugged Rocky Mountains near the Canadian border.
As night descended on the press village, the TV lights created intense halos. The temperature dropped, snowflakes swirled as TV reporters in hooded jackets talked solemnly about the ratio of survivability, quoting experts about ‘the death zone’ and reports that the FBI had not ruled out anything. This included a possible criminal act, such as abduction, an Internet connection or accidental death.
Inside Reed’s rented car, the only sound above the idling motor and the heater’s humming fan was the clicking of laptop keyboards as Reed and Wilson worked against the Star’s early deadline. Their story was going to push the case to an unbearable level. Wilson glanced over Reed’s shoulder at the article he was drafting:
THE SAN FRANCISCO STAR
WEST GLACIER, Mont.--Tonight the state of Montana will execute Isaiah Hood, who claims to be innocent of murdering the five-year-old sister of Emily Baker 22 years ago in Glacier National Park.
Hood’s attorney revealed what he said is proof Baker played a role in her sister’s death.
It comes amid a massive search by park rangers, FBI agents, and volunteers for Baker’s 10-year-old daughter, Paige, who vanished with her beagle, Kobee, five days ago in a remote region known as the Devil’s Grasp.
It is the same elevated corner of the park where Emily Baker’s little sister, Rachel Ross, was thrown to her death by Hood while on an outing with a local youth club two decades ago.
Baker witnessed the tragedy and revealed aspects of it in private letters to a childhood friend shortly after giving testimony that led to Hood’s death sentence….
The FBI conducted a polygraph test on the missing girl’s father, Doug Baker, a popular San Francisco high school football coach and English teacher, and are expected to subject Emily Baker to one...
FIFTY
The sky darkened outside the command center.
The members of the task force had watched the national newscasts, jaws tightening as each report suggested the rangers and FBI were not revealing everything they knew, citing “sources” who indicated Doug Baker was under suspicion.
“That kind of crap does not help. We’ve got to plug these leaks.” Zander finally snapped off the room’s large set.
Empty coffee cups, crumpled notepaper, creaking chairs, buffeting winds rattling a loose window, contributed to the tension in the cramped room.
“Frank, by our last count, there are three hundred newspeople out there. It’s not an excuse, but rumors are going to fly,” said a sergeant with the Montana Highway Patrol.
Zander conceded his point.
It was late. Everyone was irritable. On edge. Zander wanted to move things along.
The San Francisco ERT was en route with special gear to confirm Paige’s corpse was somewhere deep in the crevasse. The equipment could not be put to use until morning. Zander’s gut told him the crevasse was the case clincher. Once that was solid, everything else would fall into place. Until then, they had plenty of loose ends.
“I’d like to know how the hell Tom Reed got the jump on Emily Baker’s connection to Isaiah Hood. How could he obtain that old document from the county attorney he wav
ed in my face?”
“I think I know.” Bowman was going over the FBI’s copy of the county attorney’s report on Emily’s letters. She explained how after she had reported to Zander on what Emily had revealed to her about her sister’s death and her connection to Hood, the FBI immediately ordered an urgent search of all Bureau and state files on Hood’s case. The pertinent records that Helena managed to retrieve were faxed to the FBI at the command center, and the discovered pieces of the old file confirmed what Emily had revealed to Bowman: her mother had moved frequently, changing their names so that the state lost track of them. She had essentially disappeared. It explained why the FBI did not make the connection between Emily and Hood when Paige’s case broke.
“So how did Reed get his copy so soon after we did? Who tipped him to the connection?”
“David Cohen, Isaiah Hood’s lawyer,” Bowman said. “I called the capital and they told me there was a simultaneous request for the file from Cohen’s law firm.”
“More vital,” said Turner, “do you think Hood’s claim of innocence is valid, Tracy, based on the records and your work on Emily Baker?”
“It’s too difficult to be conclusive. It is accepted Emily was present at the time of her sister’s death and that she tried to reach for her. It is crystalline in her mind, even in her emotional state, that Isaiah Hood is guilty.”
“Could be she is putting on a show to make sure we buy Hood’s guilt, and that her daughter’s vanishing is just a coincidence?” Pike Thornton asked. “This woman has had some strong emotional outbursts during this ordeal. Weigh that with her undergoing counseling in San Francisco.”
“I agree, Pike.” Bowman gazed at the county attorney’s report. “Consider her old letters and the fact her daughter is now missing. Same location. Certainly raises a lot of questions.” Bowman shook her head. “I just don’t know.”
“I don’t buy it.” Paige could have fallen in that crevasse,” Sydowski said. “We know the dad has a temper. We know the mother’s been hearing voices, that she has a troubled past. But I just can’t see how this fits together, I really don’t buy it. Not yet.”
“That’s your opinion, Walt,” Zander was icy. “Any word from San Francisco on the school girl complaint on Dad? Do we know who Emily’s shrink is? Maybe she confessed the old murder, which would impact the disappearance.”
“The counselor is traveling in Asia. I am expecting to be updated on the school allegation against Doug Baker.”
Zander told everyone the preliminary lab reports showed the blood found on the pink T-shirt and axe were one type: O positive. Doug Baker’s military records show he is O positive.
“If Paige has a different blood type we should have a mix, but if they’re the same, which I think they are, we may need DNA done to separate them.”
“I recall Paige’s school records show she’s O positive.” Sydowski said.
“Yes. They need more time for testing if they can determine a gender distinction in the blood.”
“What is the blood at the crevasse?” Pike Thornton asked.
“O positive.”
“The hair?”
“Matches with Paige’s taken from her sleeping bag.”
Someone knocked on the door. It was Reese Larson.
“Sorry to interrupt. I have concluded my analysis.”
Reese opened an FBI file folder, unscrewed his fountain pen, went over notes that were so neat they resembled calligraphy.
Zander was impatient but polite. “Reese, first your opinion on Doug Baker’s response to the questions, please.”
“Inconclusive. I am sorry. The results of my examination are inconclusive.”
Zander gritted his teeth, looked out the window into the night.
“On every single point, Reese?”
“No, not the mundane aspects. He was truthful there. But on the points salient to the investigation, I could not form an opinion as to whether he was truthful or not truthful. He was a difficult subject. I’d be willing to re-test him, if you would like.”
Turner, a veteran of many battles, steepled his fingers.
“Reese, is there any area, any critical area, where you even came close to forming an opinion one way or the other?”
Reese flipped through his file folder, with the FBI seal, leafed very purposely though page after page of graph paper with their inky spikes, nearly touching them with his fountain pen as he reviewed his notations.
“Hmmm. Well there was one area that was close, very close.”
“Close to what, Reese?” Zander sighed.
“I’d say he was very close to being untruthful here on this important area, which we visited several times.” A neatly manicured little finger touched the graph paper at an area marked “1473” with an asterisk. “See?”
“Reese, I don’t understand. What was the area of questioning?”
Larson flipped through a separate note sheet. Here it is: “Do you believe your wife could have harmed your daughter? He answered no. He answered the same way each time we came back to that one.”
“Yes, Reese?”
“Well, in my opinion, he was very close to being untruthful there; when you study these numbers, heart rate, skin…”
Zander looked at the others as Larson went on with technical details.
We’re close. We’re getting close, he thought.
After Larson finished, Zander used one of the FBI’s satellite phones to call the agents at the command post. The ones assigned to watch Emily Baker. The darkness and the rough, snowy weather made it too treacherous to fly out that night.
“This is Zander. Who’s this?”
“Fenster.”
“What’s Emily doing, Fenster?”
“In her tent?”
“Her demeanor?”
“Restless. Keeps asking if we know anything. Wants to know when Doug is coming back.”
“I want someone watching her all night. Go in shifts. Do not let her out of your sight. We’re coming out for her at daybreak. Understand?’
When Zander finished, he asked Sydowski if he knew if Emily had traveled as a freelance news photographer to any hot spots.
“I seem to remember something about East Timor, why?”
“Her blood type would be on file with the Pentagon. We’ll get it,” Zander said. “Look, there are a number of scenarios here. She could have done something and Doug’s covering up. He could have helped her. We’ll be keeping him in custody for a while.”
“You going to charge him?” asked Nora Lam, punching a number in her cell phone.
“Not yet,” Zander said. “And who are you calling please?”
“County attorney. If you’re bringing the mother in to go hard on her, you’ll have to Mirandize her. She may request an attorney.”
“All you tell her is to be prepared to send another lawyer here in the morning,” Zander said. Lam nodded.
Pike Thornton was a study of concern.
“Frank, if this goes the way it is shaping up to go, what does that mean for Hood? We can’t sit here and let the state execute an innocent guy.”
“What time is he scheduled to go?” Turner said.
“Midnight our time tomorrow night.” Thornton studied his watch.
Zander nodded to Lam, who was speaking softly on her phone. “We’ll get Nora to give the governor’s office a heads up, depending on how things go. It’s looking like it will all come down tomorrow.”
Thornton said it would be seen as Washington interfering in the state’s jurisdiction. “Governor has aspirations of running for national office.”
Painfully familiar with the sleaze within the Beltway, Zander shook his head. “Executing an innocent man would not really enhance his chances, not that I give a rat’s ass, mind you. Hood is his problem. It was his state that convicted him.”
Afterward, everyone got into their vehicles, driving wearily through the night to their hotel rooms.
Looking out at the darkness, Zander was convinced Paige
Baker’s corpse was at the bottom of the crevasse deep in the mountains. Her mother’s history, her father’s wound, their argument, the bloodied ax. The shaky polygraph results.
But he noticed Sydowski was subdued, his body language telegraphing that he was holding something back. Something we missed?
Zander shook it off. It would be over tomorrow. Once they pulled that little girl’s corpse from the crevasse and autopsied her, it would all be over.
FIFTY-ONE
That night, Inspector Walt Sydowski was sitting up in the bed of his pine-scented room at the Sky Forest Vista Inn, wearing his bifocals, attempting to read an article on bird droppings. He wanted to take his mind from the case long enough to let him sleep.
It was a technical overview of what to look for in droppings. They were a warning of illness. Understanding could help prevent a bird’s death. He set the article on the nightstand, removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes.
Paige Baker’s face would not let Sydowski rest. He could not take his mind off of the case. In all his years as a homicide cop, this was one of the most baffling files he had ever known. Zander was an excellent investigator, doing everything Sydowski would do. Were they missing something?
Sydowski was exhausted.
What was he doing here? The Rockies were not his streets. It was an FBI file. It was unusual for them to arrange a team this way on an unfolding case, working a homicide when it has not been established you have a body. Or even a crime. Was it conceivable that Doug and Emily Baker murdered their daughter? They could not execute an innocent man if there was reasonable doubt about his guilt. Too many times, Sydowski had seen firsthand how evil manifests itself. His tired eyes burned at the memory of one case of two sisters, aged two and four. Their mother had bound them together with duct tape, put them in a cage built for a large dog and…
Sleep, he told himself.
But he couldn’t. He was suddenly overwhelmed with loneliness. He dialed the number for his father’s unit at Sea Breeze Villas in Pacifica. He imagined the old man spending the day tending his seaside vegetable garden while snow swirled outside Sydowski’s Montana motel.