Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

Move you closer to your death.

  The other men averted Hood’s gaze, allowing him a final, private look at the eight-by-ten-foot space that had served as his tomb for twenty-two years of his life. All of his personal effects had been dispatched, given to other inmates--his books, his chess game. Hood swallowed hard, absorbing his cherished poster of Montana’s Rocky Mountains. That was going to David Cohen, for his Chicago law office. Hood was transfixed by it. His gateway to paradise.

  That is where I live. That is my home.

  Although it was a practiced security ritual, the guards were more solemn than usual slipping the chain around the waist of Hood’s orange prison jumpsuit, locking a link to the handcuffs that secured his wrists.

  Hood closed his eyes, clasping his hands.

  Tense seconds ticked down with all four corrections officers hoping Hood’s sessions with his spiritual adviser and the Warden, who gently stressed the virtues of “being a man and facing his consequence with dignity,” would make the process a smooth one for them.

  Hood opened his eyes to his poster. A last drink of paradise.

  Then he faced the senior guard. His knees weakened. He overcame it, nodding.

  “Let’s go, boss.”

  The machine was in motion.

  A certified copy of Hood’s death warrant had long ago been delivered to the Helena office of the state’s director of the Department of Corrections. In accordance with Montana’s Corrections Act, Montana’s Execution Procedural Manual requires that at least twenty-four hours before execution, a condemned offender is moved from his cell to an isolated holding cell.

  The Death House.

  The ringing of Hood’s shackles echoed as he was escorted down death row’s corridors, past the cells of other condemned men who offered farewells.

  “God’s speed, Isaiah.”

  “Meet you on the outside, my friend.”

  “Freedom, brother. Freedom.”

  Hood looked straight ahead. Unblinking. His body numb. He was taken to a seldom used area of death row. Out of range of the noise and clamor of prison activity, the place where his death sentence would be carried out in the manner prescribed by law.

  Electric current hummed. Keys jingled. Steel doors clanked, rolled and thudded. Hood entered his new reality.

  The Death House.

  He felt the temperature drop. His heart skipped a beat. He exhaled slowly. They had incarcerated him in the holding cell with floor-to-ceiling bars so they could easily keep a suicide watch.

  The senior guard, his eyes mixed with duty and compassion, looked hard into Hood’s face after they had removed his restraints.

  “You take it easy now, Isaiah,” he said softly.

  Hood nodded.

  Then the barred door closed on his cell.

  It was the same size as other cells, only its walls were cream-colored. Supposedly, psychologically soothing. There was a bunk, a pull-down shelf table, a pad of lined yellow prison-issue paper and envelopes for letters, and a form for last meal request. Nearby, outside the bars, there was a TV stand supporting a small color TV controlled by the prison. Near it stood a small table draped in white linen with a telephone and a Bible resting upon it. A short distance down the corridor was a private shower. As the Warden had already explained to Hood days earlier, “You can shower beforehand if you choose, Isaiah.” Several feet from Hood’s cell sat a guard at a desk with a computer and telephone. He gave a gentle wave. According to the procedural manual, guards would take shifts performing the pre-execution duty of keeping a vigil over the condemned offender.

  Upon Hood’s arrival, the guard’s computer keyboard began clicking as he created a new file and typed:

  AO#A041469

  ISAIAH HOOD

  DEATH WATCH

  The guard noted the time and Hood’s activity.

  “Sitting on bunk.”

  An hour later, the guard typed: “Talking with spiritual adviser.”

  Reverend Phillip Wellsley was from a small church near Anaconda. In his late seventies, with a hunched back, he had white hair and a pale wrinkled face. He smelled of vinegar and sat in the chair on the other side of the bars of Hood’s cell, reaching in to pat his shoulder as he talked.

  “Soon you will stand before the Creator debt-free, my son. To begin life anew in eternity.”

  Hood was motionless. His eyes glistening. His whole life was a mistake.

  The first of the cars and vans of death penalty opponents began arriving in Deer Lodge. They had come at their own expense from all over the United States and Canada. College students, doctors, mothers, clergy, retired soldiers, school teachers, compelled to act on their beliefs. They assembled that night at a local church to make placards and begin a prayer vigil. At dawn on the day of Hood’s execution, they would travel to the edge of state property where they would stand in serene protest before prison security vehicles within sight of the penitentiary and the majestic Rocky Mountains. Among prison staff in death penalty states across America, they were known as “the candle people.”

  Inside the prison, as Reverend Phillip Wellsley said good night to Hood, preparations for Hood’s death were being made.

  Outside, just beyond Hood’s cell, within a few final paces was the double-wide trailer that has been fashioned into Montana’s execution chamber.

  Hood knew the procedure. Every detail of it. Tomorrow night, at the stroke of midnight, the Warden would come to his cell and read his death warrant; then he would be handcuffed, removed from the cell, escorted outside a few short steps to the small death chamber and the waiting gurney. Hood would be requested to hop up on to it, whereupon his body would be secured at five points by thick caramel-colored leather belts. His arms would be extended and secured onto the armrests, which were encased in white medical tape, filling the chamber with the antiseptic smell of a health clinic.

  As a medical official would affix an IV to Hood’s arm and a monitor cable to his heart, he would gaze around the intimate plain room, at the bright light above, hearing the witnesses shuffle into place at the nearby viewing area, feeling their steps vibrate on the trailer floor. He would look at the two dedicated phone lines on the wall of the room. One to the governor’s office, the other to the attorney general’s office. The lines would remain open during the process in the event of a last-minute stay.

  The warden would ask him for any final words, then offer him best wishes, as the prison chaplain would pray and the process would commence. Beyond the prison walls, the candle people would begin singing “Amazing Grace.” The IV tubes from Hood’s arm would run through a small port into the executioner’s room where an anonymous medical official would begin the lethal injection as the chaplain would pray.

  “Naked and alone we enter this world. Naked and alone we leave it.”

  First, a flow of Sodium Thiopentol would put Hood into a deep sleep.

  “Look to the light, son.”

  Followed by a large measure of Pancuronium Bromide to relax his muscles. Then the lethal dose of Potassium Chloride, which stops the heart. The price of death? About $75 for a process that would take less than ten minutes. Hood would be declared dead and his death certificate would be signed. A hearse waiting at a secured area within the prison walls would take his body to a local Deer Lodge funeral home where his remains would be cremated and, in keeping with his wish, his ashes taken by his lawyer, David Cohen, to be dispersed in Glacier National Park among the Rocky Mountains.

  “It is not over yet, Isaiah.”

  Odd, he heard David’s voice comforting him. Then Hood saw him, on the other side of the bars of his cell, as he came back from his thoughts to listen to his lawyer.

  “The interview with Tom Reed will help. His story will have an impact, take us closer to our goal.”

  Hood just stared at him. He could see David was ashen, scared to death himself. “I’ve got something planned for tomorrow morning, Isaiah.”

  So do I, Hood thought.

  Hood heard the clicking of
the guard’s computer keyboard.

  “Visiting with lawyer.”

  “I am not guilty of her death anymore, David.”

  “Yes, I believe you. I am doing something in the morning.”

  “What is there left to do?”

  Cohen did not answer because the guard apologized and said their “time was up.”

  Cohen patted Hood’s hand, his eyes shone. He bowed his head and left. “I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”

  That night, after the lights dimmed in Hood’s cell, he lay on his bunk. For a time, he watched the computer screen glow on the face of his guard, then closed his eyes.

  He felt her little wrists in his hands.

  Smelled the sweet forest-scented breezes sweeping up to the cliff as she gasped, sobbed, pleaded for her life. She was so light in his large hands.

  It was just a game.

  He’d played it before with the dog, then the rabbit.

  Now the butterfly girl with the bright eyes.

  She said she wanted to play.

  She weighed nothing at all. Surely, she would float in the air. He had to know if she could fly.

  All of them thought they were better than him.

  “We’re not supposed to play with you.”

  Like they walked on air.

  How could they say he murdered her? It was just a game.

  The keyboard was clicking

  “Sleeping.”

  But Hood was not sleeping.

  He was awakening his plan.

  He would not die here.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  The chief pressman of the San Francisco Star and his crew were hard at work in the massive basement of the Star building in downtown San Francisco.

  They were testing ink, aligning newsprint, readying the Star’s twenty-five-ton Metroliner presses to roll the paper’s second edition, which would consist of some 310,000 copies destined for subscribers in the city and in the Greater Bay Area.

  The story by Tom Reed and Molly Wilson was a front-page wallop, lined under the paper’s flag, above the fold, across six columns. A copyrighted exclusive. Even before ink stained newsprint of the first paper, it set off a chain of events that would cause the nation to question their outpouring of sympathy for Emily and Doug Baker.

  Just after 1:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, the San Francisco Star released its final summary list of forthcoming front-page stories to the Associated Press wire service. At APs’ world headquarters in Manhattan, the national night editor read the short sentence summarizing the Reed-Wilson article. “Condemned killer’s lawyer claims proof missing girl’s mother is child killer.” The editor picked up her phone to make a call when an incoming line rang. The New York Times Internet night editor demanded the Star’s story; that call was followed immediately by the Washington Post, then CNN and CNBC. Others were coming in. The AP editor implored the Star’s night desk to move the entire story on the AP wire. The Star was reluctant but agreed to release a 250-word summary of the article on its Internet site by 3:00 A.M. PST and a full version by 4:00 A.M. PST.

  “The demand is intense,” said the AP editor, mindful of the paper’s right to protect exclusive enterprise work. She reasoned that AP could quickly grab a damp copy from the Star’s San Francisco loading docks.

  The paper gave the wire its full story with the understanding that it would not release it until well beyond the deadline of the Star’s California newspaper competitors.

  The AP then issued a wire service alert that went to virtually every subscribing newsroom in the Unites States and on most of the planet. Thirty-six minutes later, it moved the article. Just before 5:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, large news radio networks were rewriting the AP item and reading it on the air, crediting the San Francisco Star. The same was happening with Internet news groups and 24-hour TV news operations around the world, which aired footage of “the drama in the Rocky Mountains,” the Bakers’ news conference, still photographs of Isaiah Hood, Montana State Prison, the execution chamber gurney. By 5:00 A.M. in New York, the staff at network news breakfast shows were flipping through Rolodexes, waking professors, lawyers, authors, victims’ rights advocates, experts on the topics of “mothers/fathers who kill”; “wrongful convictions”; “fragile justice system”; “anti-death penalty”; “halting executions”; “political fallout of wrong decisions”; “compensating the innocent”; “media distortion”; “re-opening and prosecuting old cases.”

  By the time most Americans awoke, they not only knew what the Bakers were accused of, but if guilty, why they likely did it; how they likely did it; what led the FBI to think they likely did it; why poor Isaiah Hood was likely innocent; why people should consider, sadly, that ten-year-old Paige Baker was likely dead; how this case illustrates “precisely what is wrong with our flawed justice system”; the “American media machine”; “the stresses on urban families”; and the “state of California.” Throughout the morning, every network news producer was screaming at their staff, “Why we can’t we get Hood’s godamn lawyer on the godamn air?”

  By 7:00 A.M. California time, the first “flowers of remembrance” for Paige Baker were delivered anonymously to the doorstep of her family home in the Richmond District.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FBI Special Agent Frank Zander took another swallow of his black coffee. He needed to concentrate on what Agent Rob Clovis was telling the task force members gathered at the command center office in the predawn.

  Clovis was a gravel-voiced technical wizard from the FBI’s Evidence Response Team in San Francisco, which had responded to the call-out for Glacier. He’d flown in last night with remote video camera equipment to assist Bill Horn’s team in the search for Paige Baker’s corpse deep in the crevasses among the cliffs of Sector 23. Clovis was completely bald and had the sober intensity of an engineering professor who realized he was talking over the heads of his students.

  “It’s one of the most advanced remote fiber-optic camera systems in the world,” Clovis said. “It’s still under development by a company in Silicon Valley. They worked nonstop adapting this system for us to probe the crevasse. That’s why it took a little time to get it here. We wanted to set up last night but the snow and high winds grounded us. It’s clear this morning.”

  The air was a mingling of cologne, mouthwash, perfumed hotel shampoo and coffee as Clovis directed his technical team to set up what looked like laptop computers and high-tech electrical equipment on the tables of the cramped room.

  “How does it all work, Rob? Run that by me again. In English,” Lloyd Turner asked.

  Clovis set his coffee down.

  “We’ve got just over two thousand feet of hybrid cable not much bigger in diameter than, say, a yo-yo string.” He held his thumb and forefinger nearly touching. “We have a miniature remote video camera and high-intensity light attached to the end of the cable. The cable is connected to a control panel so we can direct the camera. The images it captures are carried by the cable to a color monitor, like a TV screen.”

  Turner was nodding.

  “Think of it as the same principle used in microsurgery. Or what cities use to inspect sewer systems for damage to avert expensive exploratory excavation. But we’re going to do something a little different.”

  Clovis nodded to the room’s large TV monitor.

  “We’re going to transmit our probing of the crevasse to you live, in real time. The company boosted the signal strength for the cable and customized the satellite transmitter and receiver.”

  “You’re going to bounce the images off a series of satellites from the crevasse to our monitor here in the command center?” Zander said.

  “Correct. Following some of the principles NASA uses for sending signals for its missions. You will see what the camera sees after a two-or three-second delay. We’ll transmit narration from the crevasses about depth and conditions.”

  Zander looked at the other members. All seemed impressed. He had one concern. “Isn’t there a risk of TV peo
ple with their satellite gear intercepting the images?”

  Bowman shuddered at the thought.

  Clovis shook his head. “Our signal is encrypted.”

  The radio clipped to Clovis’s wrist came to life.

  “Chopper’s loaded and ready, Rob.”

  “Roger.” Clovis nodded to the others and grabbed a small case of equipment. “That’s our ride.”

  On his way out of the task force room, Clovis had to shuffle past Nora Lam, who was on her way in. Her face was grave as she studied the agents, slamming her files and clipboard on one of the tables.

  “Did anybody have any warning this story by the San Francisco Star was coming? My phone has not stopped ringing.”

  “Tom Reed was here,” Zander began, halted by Lam’s hand as she interrupted to answer her trilling cell phone for a short, terse call.

  “That was the Office of the Attorney General in Washington,” Lam said. “They want to know if you intend to charge somebody soon. This appears to them to be a slam dunk. And I’ve got Maleena Crow demanding you release Doug Baker.”

  “Well we need to wait for--” Zander was cut off again.

  “And the governor’s office in Helena has been calling since the story broke this morning demanding to know what the hell is going on. Isaiah Hood’s execution is set for midnight tonight.”

  Zander sat down, steepling his fingers in front of his face.

  Lam sat down next to him.

  “Frank, this case has suddenly become the top file in the nation and these are the facts: the clock is ticking down on an execution directly related to your investigation; nobody wants to confront the fact that Hood may be innocent; Washington is demanding a resolution fast. We’ve got a governor who’s frantic over Hood, over this whole thing. You have to assure people the FBI is in control of this file and not the other way around.”

  “I’ve heard enough, Ms. Lam,” Zander snapped. “I am aware of the stakes here. Our priority is our investigation, not politics, and not public opinion. It is also not my concern to clean up any wrongful convictions rendered by the State of Montana. If the governor has doubts, they are his to deal with.” Zander’s heart rate was increasing in time with the distant thumping of an approaching chopper. “If we laid charges now, it could all crumble to dust in our faces.”