Cold Fear (36 page)

SIXTY-SEVEN

Two lifeless
eyes stared from the TV
monitor.

Zander had replayed the video recording of the crevasse
probe to the task force members.

The blurry eyes frozen on the tape locked onto Emily
Baker.

She stared back, motionless, feeling nothing but the
awful crushing weight of pain.

Her heart had been pierced.

Paige.

At the bottom of that dark, cold crevasse. Alone. Dead.

Rachel. Her falling eyes.

Oh, Paige.
Falling.
Did
she think of me? Did she cry out to me? When was the last time I held her, told
her I loved her?

God, why? Why are you punishing me?

Zander took a seat across the table from Emily, his blue
eyes searching hers for answers.

“Are you ready to tell us what happened to Paige?”

How can you ask me that now?

She looked into his face.

How can you?

“Emily, make it easier on yourself. Unburden your
conscience. It is clear you and Doug are involved. Maybe things got out of
hand. Maybe it was not meant to end this way but it is clear something went
wrong.”

Words would not come to her.

Her life had ended at the bottom of the crevasse.

Inspector Walt Sydowski was astounded.

As much as he struggled with the case, deep in his gut
he could not get the pieces to come together. Zander was masterful. It appeared
to be over. Sydowski regarded Emily, then the eyes on the screen. He thought
about a little girl from San Francisco who had set off only days ago to see the
Rocky Mountains with her mom and dad. Going home in a body bag. Sydowski
blinked, gazing through the window, through the trees to the peaks.

Bowman thought of her son, Mark.

Zander reflected on two little graves in Georgia, knowing he could never make up for the one he lost.

Pike Thornton shook his head slowly, knowing he was
right to trust his gut on Doug Baker’s hand wound. But why, he wondered, hadn’t
they found any trace of her little dog, Kobee?

Emily’s mouth started to move and a mournful sound
followed.

“What’s that Emily?” Zander said.

“I did not harm my daughter.”

The temperature of Zander’s gaze dropped. His eyes
narrowed.

“Was it Doug?”

“No. No, he would never harm her.”

“He has a temper.”

“No. He yells because of coaching.”

“The San Francisco Police were summoned to your house
because of his temper.”

“That was a misunderstanding. We were arguing. People argue.”

“A student complained of an assault before you came
here. Doug was on edge.”

Emily shook her head, her face contorting with anguish.

“People witnessed you and Doug in a full-blown argument
the day before Paige vanished.”

“Oh God, please, my baby’s dead! Why are you doing
this?”

“I want you to tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know, she must have fallen, it’s--its--I”

“‘She must have fallen?’ Do you know that is the most
common thing a parent says in child abuse cases? ‘They must have fallen.’”

Zander slammed his hands on the table. Emily flinched.

“What happened!”

“It’s not what you think, please.”

“You tell me what to think, Emily. Your sister died here
and you were there.”

“No, please.”

“The only other person there at the time says you’re
responsible.”

“He’s lying!”

“He’s going to be executed for something he says he
didn’t do!”

“Please, I did not harm my sister, I was trying to save
her. He passed her to me. She was slipping…. He knew what he was doing…. I see
her eyes…”

“You wrote letters admitting your guilt! Your daughter
disappears while you and your husband, Doug, the man with the violent temper,
are out of sight with her.”

“Please, no.”

“He has a wound on his left hand. He’s right-handed. The
wound is consistent with someone swinging an object that slipped. We find the
bloodied ax; we find your daughter’s blood-stained T-shirt.”

“God, nooooo,” Emily sobbed.

“At the crevasse we find traces of her blood and hair.”

“Stop.”

“Deep inside we find her sock.”

“No.”

“Her backpack!”

“Pleeasse.”

“Her corpse.”

“Paige…I’m sorry…”

“You saw it with your own eyes, Emily!”

“No I can’t. Please please--”

“Now, Emily, you tell me what to think!”

Emily dropped her head onto her arms and sobbed. Bowman
resisted patting her shoulders and looked away. The entire room was silent
except for Emily’s weeping. Zander turned to the windows, running a hand over
his face, gazing off toward the mountains. He had won. He was indifferent to
Emily’s weeping. He had her in a vise. He would keep tightening it, forcing the
truth out of her.

The radio from atop the crevasse came to life, a welcome
intrusion.

“Clovis to Zander, come in. Over--”

Zander picked up his radio. “Go ahead.”

“We’re up again. Is your monitor on?”

“No, we’re reviewing the previous search.”

“Better turn it on.”

The camera was now moving, resuming its transmission of
more images from the grisly discovery of the eyes. Thornton was the first to
utter a sound, half gasping, clicking his tongue.

The camera probed the eyes, the area near them, sharply
bringing the context into focus; something white, her face was way too white,
wrong, in fact, furry-looking; the eyes too wide apart, and the teeth too
pointed with blackened lips; not human at all, elongated jaw with a…

“Mountain goat,” the probe’s operator said. “And we’re
at the bottom. Absolutely nothing else here. It’s a mystery.”

Emily lifted her head, dizzy with emotion, struggling to
comprehend.

“It’s not Paige?”

Zander was stunned.

“No, it’s not.” Sydowski said, feeling as if someone had
just collapsed a house of cards.

SIXTY-EIGHT

Sergeant
Greg Garner of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police poured clear, cool water from his canteen into a tin
bowl he’d set on the ground for his partner, whose lapping appreciation made
him smile.

“We’re really pushing you today, buddy.” Garner knelt
down, kneading the shoulders of Sultan, his purebred German Shepherd.

“They want to call us in. Want to relieve us. But let’s
give it another couple hours. Then we’ll go home, pack up everybody, head off
on vacation.”

Sultan yelped. He was a very affectionate, hardworking
two-year-old who lived with the Garner family on their ranch in the foothills
west of Red Deer, Alberta. Garner’s wife and their children adored him.

“Sound good. You miss the kids?”

Sultan panted.

“Me too.”

Garner took in the panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains
from just a few hundred yards north of the Canadian border in Waterton
Lakes National Park. It met Glacier National Park, forming the International Peace Park system. He was reluctant to leave this case unfinished, but the
order had come in from K-Division. Garner and Sultan would be relieved by a
fresh K-9 team from Calgary subdivision.

Waves of sadness rolled over the thirty-five year-old
Mountie as he sat on a rock, surveying the glacier-carved valleys, the alpine forests
and lakes.

Garner always got this way whenever he was pulled from a
search before it was concluded. He and Sultan had been working this one since
they got the call to assist four days ago. They had gridded the entire border
area, where Grizzly Tooth Trail wound into Canada, so many times he’d lost
count. Goat ledges, cliffs, dense forests, rivers, valleys, off-trail,
searching some of the most dangerous, rugged remote terrain on the continent.
The fact no one had found anything, not even a sign of her beagle, Kobee,
frustrated him.

Garner felt he had earned the right to at least know
what had happened to that little girl, especially now that the story was taking
some nasty turns. The FBI suspected the parents; his orders were to keep
searching. Now what were they supposed to be searching for? A corpse? Had the
massive search for a lost child suddenly become a homicide? Was he standing
amid an enormous crime scene? Garner did not want to walk away from this
without seeing it through to the end.

“You awake, Greg?” his radio said to him.

It was Corporal Denise Mayo of the RCMP. He heard a bark
in the background from her Malanois, Prince. A real show-off pup.

“No, I am dreaming this conversation.”

“They’re going to chopper us to you now. Stay put. We’re
just getting the tank topped off. Shouldn’t be long.”

Garner wanted to try something before he left. He
studied his laminated map and his notes. He was a veteran of some three hundred
searches. Canadian high courts had recognized him as an expert witness when he
gave testimony in major criminal prosecutions. His record was exemplary.

But that meant nothing to tourists, he laughed to
himself.

Before he was flown into his search zone, he encountered
the RCMP mystique while sitting with Sultan, resting at his feet, at an outdoor
café in Waterton. Garner was dressed in jeans, T-shirt, sunglasses, knapsack
and sidearm at his side.

“My, are you a police officer?” asked a woman in her
seventies after stepping from a bus with Arizona plates.

“Yes ma’am. I’m an RCMP officer.”

“A Mountie?” She smiled. “You’re not dressed like one.”

Garner chuckled and showed her his badge with the bison
head.

“We don’t wear the red serge and Stetson everywhere.”

“‘But you always get your man,’ that’s your motto,
right?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. Actually, it’s ‘Maintain the
Right.’”

He agreed to let her take his picture, happy to set the
record straight, but not telling her that for him pride and tradition meant you
never, ever gave up on a case. That was not only his motto, it was an emotion
that burned inside, flaring as he studied his map, ready to make his last sweep
the best one.

The Baker family campsite was a few miles south. It was
remote but conceivable the girl, if she was mobile, could have traveled into
the Canadian side. Expect the unexpected. Everything is a factor: weather,
state of mind, potential injury, confrontation with animals.

Garner reasoned that if she was moving, he would go back
to the sector he had not searched for the longest time, in case she had since
moved into it. If she were still alive, that is.

“Let’s go, pal. We’re not pulling out of here yet.”

Garner and Sultan paralleled Boundary Creek in the
shadow of Campbell Mountain. Garner was happy Waterton officials had closed off
the sectors he was searching. It was a little lonely but more effective. Since
it was bear country, Garner commenced making noise, singing Del Shannon’s
“Runaway.” It was a favorite of his growing up as a farm kid near Lethbridge. He tried not to think of the tragic cases he had worked on, not now on the eve
of his three-week vacation. He was renting a camper and driving across Canada
to Niagara Falls. He was grateful he and his wife had time to take the kids to
the Calgary Stampede this year.

Sultan led him toward a rugged boggy area.

With the snow moistening the ground, it might yield
something. There was shelter under some ledges. Nothing but nothing.

Sultan froze.

“What is it?”

Sultan barked, hackles rising.

One of the ledges actually hid an opening, the mouth of
a cave. Garner sang louder as they inched forward. It was large enough to be a
bear den or wolf lair. It stank the way grizzlies stink.

“Hello in there?”

No response.

He unsnapped the strap for his holstered Smith &
Wesson. Sultan’s growl echoed into the cave as they neared its opening. Garner
scanned their immediate area to ensure an escape route. He gently rolled a
grapefruit-sized rock into the hole, hearing it knocking around inside. He
rolled in another, while singing. Nothing.

“You want to check it out, buddy?”

Sultan panted and barked, dutifully bounding into the
darkness, his panting and whimpering echoing. Within seconds he emerged with
something in his mouth.

Garner’s heart raced.

“What the heck is that?”

It was a plastic container for bottled water.

Sultan held it carefully in his jaws by the threaded
lip, allowing Garner to take it. The cap was missing.

Garner moved quickly, putting it in a clear plastic
evidence bag, making a quick note of the time and location, putting it in his
knapsack, then producing his flashlight, crawling into the cave. His eyes
adjusted to the light as his beam swept the cave several times and he called.
Other than the horrible smell, nothing there.

Garner moved from the area to a spot less vulnerable and
studied the bottle. The label said it was bottled in Northern California. There
was some sort of small merchant’s sticker, kind of damaged. It took Garner a
moment to determine he was reading, SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

“Geez.” He rushed back to Sultan, whose snout was to the
ground. they scoured the softer, muddied sections, until Sultan barked.

“Bingo!” Garner dropped to his knees at the beautiful
sight.

A sneaker print, fresh. Very fresh.

“Steady. Good work.”

He estimated it was a child’s size. He found another
footprint, a partial, then another. He checked his location with his compass,
his map and landmarks. From the direction the person was traveling into the United States, the border was less than one hundred yards away.

Garner reached for his radio,

What concerned him was the condition of the plastic
bottle. A jagged gash ran across its middle, as if it had been savagely mauled.
Garner knew Sultan did not do that. He’d call in; then they’d try tracking.

“Go ahead, Greg, what have you got?”

“Alert everybody. She’s been here. Recently.”

“Give us your location.”