Cold Fear (5 page)

“I am his wise father, John.” He was wearing his Giants’
ball cap and a frayed navy sweater over a plaid shirt. “You look cute--like my
granddaughters.”

Linda blushed. “Thank you, John. Walt told me you were
not shy.” She was a little puzzled, noticing the old man’s hat, his bag by his
feet. “Are you accompanying him on this trip?”

“No, he is going home, Linda,” Sydowski came down the
stairs. “Grab your bag, Pop. Cab’s here.”

“My son is grumpy. He called his boss a toad because
this new case is interfering with his new romance.”

Linda’s surprised eyes widened and she shot a pretty
smile at Sydowski, who began shuffling him to the street. “Let’s go, old man.”

Sydowski got his father into the cab and on his way to Pacifica. He locked the house and dropped with an angry sigh into the front passenger seat
of the Caprice. Turgeon had them on 101 in good time.

Walt stared at San Francisco’s skyline rolling by the
Golden Gate in the distance, the majestic spires of the Bay Bridge.

“Do you believe this case, Linda?”

“Given what we went through recently, are you kidding?”

“What could they possibly have that warrants this kind
of reaction?”

“You had something better to do? You got a life now?”

“You got a file for me?”

“You’re sitting on it. So who’s your new honey?”

Sydowski grunted, fishing for the file.

“Never mind. How did your reunion date go with your
ex-fiancé architect?” He glanced superficially at papers on Doug Baker.

“Had animal monkey sex on his dining room table.”

“Never invite me for dinner.” Sydowski could not find
his glasses. He’d read Baker’s file on the plane.

“We just talked, Walt. We’re going to take it one step
at a time.”

“Still thinking about making babies?”

“Thinking about a lot of things, Dad.”

“Let’s talk about work now, please?”

“Your plane tickets are waiting at the counter. We’re on
this together. I am working local checks here with the FBI. It’s their show,
Walt. They’re rushing, putting things together. Moving really fast.”

“What is your sense of it at this stage?”

“They told me zero. We do not know all of their
holdback. It’s either a straight up missing kid case…or a mystery.”

“Well, we have this.” Sydowski held up the file.

Linda nodded. Dead serious. “I’ll be interested in your
opinion on everything. Got a few pages there, including theories from Montana already.”

“Based on the information we know, she’s been lost in
the woods, what, about twenty-four, thirty hours?”

“Yup.”

“And this is a remote region of Glacier National
Park?”

“One of the most remote areas of the U.S.”

“Find out if the family is the avid, outdoors type. Or
if this was an impulse trip. Like why there and why now. What was going on in
their lives.”

“There’s the old cop I know. Welcome back.”

Once his jet leveled off, Sydowski slipped on his
bifocals and read every word in the file. Twice. The faxed copy of Pike
Thornton’s fresh notes had currency with Sydowski. He had met him several weeks
ago at a detectives’ conference in Kansas City. They led a panel discussion on
“The Intangibles of Investigation,” the virtue of heeding gut instincts.

Thornton
believed Doug was
hiding something about how he injured his hand, that the Bakers were not
forthcoming, that there seemed to be much more beneath the surface. Doug’s hand
wound was disturbing. Said he did it with an ax, which seemed to be missing
along with the kid. Sydowski went over the recent complaint San Francisco
police had on the family. A neighbor reported that Doug Baker had threatened to
assault his wife and daughter in their backyard. Dispatch sent a car to the
house. There was tension but no assault. Mother said it was a misunderstanding.
That was it.

Sydowski closed the file folder. There were lots of
troubling points about this case. His heartburn flared; he chewed on a Tums as
his jet banked north toward the Rocky Mountains.

SIX

“They found her head
near Dallas,” the cop on the phone was telling Tom Reed, a crime reporter with the
San
Francisco Star
.

Reed drew a small circle in his notebook, placing it in Texas
on his rough map of the country. Other, tiny pieces of a stick person were
scattered throughout the southern United States.

“The head near Dallas.” Reed looked at the newsroom
clock. His vacation started in a few hours. He was flying to Chicago in a few
days. His wife’s sister was getting married.

“Hey Reed, you with me, all-star?” Inspector Harry Lance
from the SFPD Homicide Detail resumed his discourse on dismemberment cases.

“Yeah, Harry. Head near Dallas, a leg near Tulsa,
a leg near Nashville, an arm near Wheeling, an arm near Savannah and the rest
in Louisville.”

“So who gets jurisdiction, Mr. Celebrity?”

Would it ever end? Reed shook his head. For some
inexplicable reason ever since the Keller case, just about every detective,
reporter or armchair critic Reed met, seemed obligated to mess with him.

You were an asshole getting so close to that story.
Ever think of that?

After the Keller case, the national press portrayed Reed
as some sort of hero whose “relentless investigation” helped find Keller. But Reed
knew the truth. He had lived it. He had told everyone how stupid he was. How
un-heroic he was, how lucky he was, extending his concern to the other families
involved. That is what Reed told every interviewer. But that was not what they
wanted to hear:
Tell us about your “relentless investigation”.

That was several months ago. Interest was trailing off.
Reed was thankful. Looking at Zach and Ann’s snapshots taped to his computer
made him smile. The ordeal had changed him. He found peace and focus with Zach
and Ann. Zach was doing well in school. Ann’s children’s clothing stores in the
Bay Area were successful. Their marriage was better. They were a family back in
their house in the Sunset. He was working on his book, declined job offers with
the
Los Angeles Times
and the
Washington Post
and returned to the
San Francisco Star
with restored self-confidence, minus the ego and
obsession. He was a solid crime reporter, just working his beat today, fishing
for news at the Homicide Detail.

“Come on Reed, in dismemberment cases, who’s got
jurisdiction?”

“Louisville catches it. It’s where they find the heart.”

“You’re a smart-ass, you know that, Reed?”

“So you going to give me my prize now?”

“Got my hand on it right now. Know where my hand is?”

“Keep it up and I’m going to come down there.”

“I got to go, Reed.”

“Hey, wait a sec. I’m looking for news. What’s going
on?”

“Nothing. Some addict in the ’Loin. Guys are in court,
working on stuff.”

“What’s Sydowksi doing?”

“Not sure. Linda’s out. Something to do with the feebees
in Montana.”

“What’s going on there that’s connected to here?”

“Remember when the Forty-niners had Montana?’

“You had more hair then.”

“Missing kid.”

“Missing how?”

“Like in not there.”

“Harry, come on, I’m going on vacation in a few hours.”

“Just a friggin’ minute. You are a burr in my boxers,
you know that Reed.” Lance put Reed on hold. Then came back. “Ten-year-old San Francisco girl lost in the Rockies in Montana.”

“Why call you guys?”

Lance was silent.

“What’s the real connection to here?” Reed said. “The
physical evidence doesn’t match the story. Some link to San Francisco?”

“I don’t know.”

Reed had reported on so many homicides he thought like a
detective.

“Something awry in the family’s history?”

“I don’t know.”

“A conviction?”

“I don’t know.”

“That it?”’

“Daddy’s got a hurt hand.”

“How did he do that?”

“I don’t know anything, but your questions are
interesting.”

“Is there a mommy? What’s Mommy’s story?”

“I don’t know.”

“But they’ve got no body? Just a missing kid, right?”

“I suppose. I am not up on the details. I am sure the
very capable FBI has it under control.”

“Who’s the family? Got names?”

“Don’t know. All I heard is the feds are going hard on
it. Walt might be going out to Montana to help. I got to go now.” Lance hung
up.

This was intriguing, Reed thought, checking the newsroom
clock again. He was meeting Ann and Zach to pick up some things for Chicago. Going full out on a kid lost in the Rockies, as if it were a homicide. Secret
suspicions about Dad. Flying Sydowski to Montana. He’d better alert the desk
soon so they could pass it to somebody.

Maybe there was something out on this. The keys clicked
on Reed’s computer keyboard as he called up the newswires, entering terms like
“Montana”, “girl” and “missing” in the search mode. In seconds, one story
appeared on his screen. A short one slugged LOST GIRL. It just moved out of Kalispell,
Montana.

KALISPELL, MT--Searchers began combing the Rocky
Mountain foothills of Glacier National Park for a 10-year-old girl whose
parents reported her missing to park authorities earlier today.

The girl’s family told park rangers that she had
wandered from their backcountry campsite along the Grizzly Tooth Trail several
miles deep into the park’s rugged northern sector, near the Canadian border.

She was last seen some 24 hours prior to the time her
father alerted authorities after hiking alone out of the trail. The isolated
area where she is lost is known as the Devil’s Grasp.

The girl, whose name has not yet been released, is
believed to be from California.

Reed’s investigative juices stirred. The wire item was
the first take on the case so far. No mention of San Francisco or suspicions.
Maybe he had a bit of a scoop. The story moved minutes ago. She’d been lost for
at least twenty-four hours, which meant she’d spent a night in the high
country. Reed thought of Zach, nearly the same age. Not much time before it got
critical for her. Reed grew up in Great Falls. He was no backcountry hiker but
he’d visited the Rockies enough to know that getting lost up there could be
fatal.

Reed rubbed his chin. Aside from the elements, police
had suspicions. Routine police procedure to check out the nearest and dearest
in such cases. But all this other stuff about going full. Flying San Francisco cops to the mountains? Was that all just Inspector Harry Lance, or was there
something to this? Why should Reed care? His vacation started in a few hours.

What if she was already dead?

Reed remembered one late night long ago sitting with
some of the old Homicide bulls in Room 450 at the Hall of Justice. They were in
an unusually friendly mood giving him their thoughts on the perfect murder.
Some suggested “a wilderness accident”. You push them off a cliff, and
whoops
!
A fall. No witnesses. Not likely any physical or trace evidence. Just the
killer’s conscience. Maybe motive, but you cannot be convicted on that. And we
don’t have a body for a while. Decomposition and animals make an autopsy
useless. Killer wins; justice loses. The deceased is not avenged.

A wilderness accident. Reed chewed on that.

“Tom, you’ve got that look in your eye,” Molly Wilson,
the reporter who sat next to him, returned from interviewing a fingerprint
expert for a feature. Her bracelets clinking as she typed. “What gives?”

Wilson
was Reed’s partner at the
paper. Surviving the Keller case together and Reed’s marital strain had
strengthened their relationship. They had become better friends. She was an
astounding writer, a superb reporter. With a brilliant sunrise smile and auburn
hair, she boasted a figure that turned heads, especially in Copland.

“Pal, she is so easy on the eyes,” a recently-divorced
FBI agent told Reed. The reporter had to burst his bubble, telling him Molly
was sorta-kinda dating Manny Lewis, a heavy-hitter with GQ looks at the D.A.’s
office.

“You home? Care to tell me what’s on your mind, usher
boy?”

Reed told her everything and Wilson immediately logged
in to the
Star’s
computerized data files. “Suspicious wilderness
accident. That sort of thing has happened. There was that case not long ago in Wyoming.” Molly’s keyboard was clicking.

“Here it is, a story we ran from from the
Casper
Star-Tribune
--a dad was hiking with his five-year-old daughter. He reports
she fell or was lost near a gorge in Yellowstone. Rangers search for days. Dad
slips away. When they find her body, an autopsy shows she had been stabbed.
There was trouble in the family, a vendetta between the parents over custody of
the girl. Meanwhile, Dad’s fled to Brazil or Bolivia.

“Well,” Reed sighed. “We know zip on this one. In a
short time, I am outta here. Maybe you should brace yourself for a trip to Montana, kid.”

Reed’s line rang. It was Zeke Canter, the new metro
editor. “Tom, come to my office, please.”

Reed got along with Canter. In his mid-forties, dressed
in L.L. Bean shirts and Dockers, Canter was trim and fit, about an inch under
six feet. Kind, thoughtful, razor-sharp and quick, stemming from fifteen years
in New York with the
Daily News
and
Newsday
. National Editor
Violet Stewart was on the phone in Canter’s office and making notes.

“So the next one to Salt Lake leaves in ninety minutes,
just in time to connect to Kalispell.”

That was all Reed needed to hear.

“No. I am on vacation in--like almost now.”

Stewart hung up, removed her bifocals, letting them hang
from her chain necklace. “Tom, we really would like to you to get there
tonight.”

“No.”

“This is shaping into something. She’s from San Francisco. Ten years old,” Canter said, dropping a printout of an updated wire story.

“Look,” Stewart had a color photo of Paige Baker. “This
just moved.”

A beautiful child whose face could melt your heart.
Reed’s stomach tensed. This was moving fast in the direction of a potentially
huge story. “What about Molly?” he said.

“You will be a team. She’ll work every angle from here,
but we want you there. Tom, you are from Montana. It’s tailor made for you,”
Canter said.

“We guarantee you will not miss the Chicago wedding,”
Violet said.

“Let me make one call. Excuse me.”

Back at his desk, Reed punched his wife’s cell phone
number. He never knew which store Ann was at. This was going to be sweet. Wilson blinked up at him with a grand smile. “Who’s going to Montana, cowboy?”

Reed scratched his nose with his middle finger for Wilson
as Ann answered her phone. Reed explained. She was not pleased.

“Tom, you’re on vacation! We’re visiting family and we
have a wedding. We’re both in the wedding party. Usher. Bridesmaid. Remember!
And there’s something else. Or did you forget?”

He had forgotten until that very moment, suddenly
recalling how Ann had talked about privately requesting the minister to renew
their vows because of all they had been through.

“You want to risk missing this?”

“No. Absolutely not,” Reed said. “You go on ahead with
Zach and I’ll fly out from Montana, take all my stuff. The
Star
will
have to swallow any costs. They have guaranteed that I’ll be in Chicago for the wedding.”

“Tom, you better not be falling into your old habits.”

Reed sat down, explaining more to Ann about the story of
Paige Baker, the girl lost in the wilderness, while simultaneously glancing at
the newsroom clock, estimating flight time, driving to Glacier, time zone
difference. Filing a story. Finally, Ann said, “I did not sign on to be a
single parent, mister.”

“Mister,” that was the word. Anne’s code for
I’m
pissed off but here’s my loving approval, you jerk.