Cold Fear (29 page)

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 thing 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 waved 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.

“Hahllow.”

“Hey, Dad, so you’re awake?” Sydowski said in Polish.

“Yeah, sure. Watching a movie.”

Sydowski smiled. “So how are you doing?”

“No problems. You going to be in the mountains a long
time?”

“Hard to say, Dad.”

“The TV says you think the father killed his little
girl. The bastard, why would he do something like that? It’s crazy.”

“We don’t know anything for certain, Dad. You know how
it is.”

“I know how it was for you with that last case with the
baby girl and the kidnapped kids. I think you want to retire, maybe have
something new in your life. But you’re afraid.”

“Who knows? Listen, Dad, I was thinking when I’m done
here, how about we drive down the coastal highway to Los Angeles.”

“What for?”

“We could see the Dodgers, there’s a doubleheader coming
up. We could have some fun, do something you always wanted to do.”

“Like what?”

“Go to Hollywood. Get a map of the stars’ homes and
check them out. See Brando’s house?”

“He’s a great actor. The best. Played a good Polack in
that Streetcar. Kowalski. ‘Stellllaaaa.’ Heh-heh. He’s put on weight though.
Hey, and maybe I can give you a haircut and shave like the last time?”

Sydwoski winced at the memory.

“Listen, Pop, we’ll think about everything. I got to
go.”

“You better call your girlfriend, Louise.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“She’s worried about you.”

“How do you know?”

“She called me asking how you were doing. So call her.”

A warm feeling flowed through Sydowski. In the six years
since his wife’s death, when was the last time a woman cared about him? Maybe
she was his girlfriend, he thought brushing his teeth, inspecting his old face
in the mirror. What did she see in him? She was so smart, so comfortable to be
with. She made him feel so good.
You’re like a lovesick pup, you dumb
flatfoot
. He picked up the phone and put it down. Christ, he was acting
like a teenager.
Go ahead. Call
. Before he knew it her number in San
Jose was ringing. He was suddenly guilty. Betraying Basha’s memory.
Hang
up. It’s better to be alone--

“Hello?”

“Louise? Uhm. I know it’s late. I’m sorry if I woke you,
it’s Walt Sydowski.”

“You didn’t wake me, Walter.” Her voice was like
medicine. He could hear her smile. He nestled the phone closer. “I just had an
evening swim in the pool.”

“Oh.” He tried envisioning her figure in a swimsuit.
“Look, I won’t keep you. Uhmm, it’s just, well, my father said you called.”

“I did. I was concerned about how you were doing. It is
such a huge story. Tragic. On the radio, TV, the papers. Nonstop, so many
twists and turns. It has got to be so stressful.”

“Yes, well, it has its complications.”

“Are you holding up okay, Walter?”

“I’m fine. How are you budgies doing?”

“They are singing up a storm. But now you didn’t call
just to ask about my birds?”

“Well, no. How are you doing?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Walter, are you going to ask me
for a date or not?”

He was at a loss. Positively impressed and stunned.

“Uh, sure. How about dinner when I get back?”

“That would be lovely.”

“Okay. I’ll call you.”

“Sound’s wonderful. Now, good luck on your case.”

“Thanks, Louise. For everything.”

For several minutes afterward, Sydowski sat on his bed,
in his boxers and T-shirt, listening to the wind howling outside, struggling to
think of nothing. Then he switched off the room’s lights and was overcome with
a thousand thoughts and worries. His father, his new relationship, Tom Reed and
his relentless pursuits, the real possibility that an innocent man was going to
be executed in a few hours.

Sleep. He ordered himself. Sleep.

Drowsiness was coming for Sydowski but it was coming
with visions of ten-year-old Paige Baker’s corpse, stiff and frozen in the
mountain night at the bottom of the crevasse, so deep, so eternal that none of
the flakes swirling amid the celestial peaks of the Rocky Mountains would ever
reach her.