Endangered (A Sam Westin Mystery Book 1)

by Pamela Beason

  “We were the ones who asked for it,” Fred said. “We should be the ones to return it. They’ll be expecting that.”

  “This is standard FBI procedure, Mr. Fischer.” Boudreaux’s smooth tone again.

  “But . . .” Jenny’s voice broke, forcing her to pause before she continued, “If the kidnapper doesn’t get the money, won’t he . . . In that note, he said . . . Oh, no, won’t he . . .”

  “The money would not have kept Zachary safe,” Boudreaux told her. “We don’t believe that your child was kidnapped for ransom.”

  “But,” Jenny began again, “if not for money, then what? Oh, God—” Her words stopped and a wretched sobbing began.

  “We suspect the ransom note was sent by someone who saw the story on the news and wanted to take advantage of your situation. We’re still hoping that Zack is merely lost, Mrs. Fischer,” Perez said. “But it’s our job to consider all the possibilities.”

  For a moment, Sam heard only Jenny’s stifled sobs. Then Perez asked, “What made you come to this park, Mr. Fischer?”

  Again, the throat clearing first, then, “I wanted to show Jenny and Zachary this place.”

  “So you know the park?”

  “Sure. My family used to come here all the time when I was a kid. We lived in Orem until I was eighteen.”

  “I see.” Sam pictured Perez thumbing through notepad pages.

  Boudreaux took the offensive. “We’ve come across some disturbing information.”

  “About . . . about Zack?” Jenny’s voice quivered with pain. Sam hoped Fred had his arm around her.

  “No, ma’am. This is in regard to Mr. Fischer’s record.”

  Fred immediately blurted, “That’s completely irrelevant!”

  A rustle of paper, then Perez’s voice. “You were arrested six years back for striking your previous wife?”

  “That was a lifetime ago.” Fred stumbled on the words. “I drank then. Now I’m sober; now I’m in AA.”

  Perez pressed on. “At the time of your arrest, hadn’t you also kicked your four-year-old stepdaughter?”

  A sob from Jenny. “Fred would never do that!”

  Fred’s voice, a controlled snarl. “Beverly said that. It wasn’t true.”

  More shuffling of papers. In a flat tone, Boudreaux read, “An examination of Elizabeth Snow, four years of age, revealed bruises on buttocks and rib cage. When questioned about her injuries, the girl said, ‘Daddy kicked me.’”

  Tense silence followed. Sam imagined Fred Fischer squirming in his chair before he answered. “I tripped over her on the stairs. Like I said, I’d been drinking. It was an accident.” A swish of clothing, a squeak of leather indicating a shift of position. “I loved that little girl like she was my own.”

  “And where is Elizabeth now?”

  “How the hell would I know? Stepdaughter, remember? I don’t have any rights.”

  “That’s right, she wasn’t your child.” The briefest of pauses, a crinkle that could have been the turning of a page. “And Zachary’s not your child, either. Isn’t he adopted?”

  “Yes.” Fred again. “Jen can’t have children, so we adopted Zack. What’s the big deal?”

  Perez said, “Maybe you’re regretting the thirty thousand dollars you spent on the adoption?”

  A chair leg scraped the floor. “How the hell—? You have no goddamn right!” Fred lost his temper.

  “Zack’s still young enough that many couples would be willing to adopt him. And they’d probably pay more than thirty thousand,” Perez said, his voice calm.

  Thirty thousand dollars? With their ancient rusting Suzuki and their cheap clothes, the Fischers didn’t look like they had two cents to rub together. But maybe the original adoption fee came from Jenny’s parents, too.

  “Frankly,” Perez added, “I’m surprised you qualified to be adoptive parents. Especially you, Mr. Fischer. Not only is there your previous record, but I see here that you don’t work regularly. You’ve been a house painter, worked at a lumber mill. And now you’re driving a truck?”

  “I’ve been a truck driver for five years, all over the West.”

  “But you’ve changed employers three times in five years?”

  Fischer interrupted. “I’m independent. I’ve got my own rig: I work for whoever gives me the contracts. That’s the way the trucking business works. Got it?”

  Neither agent responded. Fischer continued, “I work all the time. Ask Jen, she’s always whining about me being on the road! Not everyone can go to some pansy college, you know. Some of us have to do real work for a living.”

  Another muffled sob from Jenny.

  “Don’t try to make something out of this that it’s not.” Fischer angrily bit off his words. “I’m a good worker. And a good father. I loved Lizzie then, and I love Zack now.”

  “Aren’t there times when you’d like to strike your adopted son?”

  “No!” Jenny cried. “Fred would never hit Zack!”

  “Where was Fred when Zachary first disappeared, Mrs. Fischer?” Agent Boudreaux’s voice.

  Tense silence.

  “Gathering wood,” supplied Fred.

  “Yes, he was off in the trees, gathering wood for the fire,” Jenny echoed. “I was making our supper. Fred was crashing around, sounding like a moose—”

  “For chrissake, Jen, they don’t need to hear every damned detail.”

  “Zack had already eaten, he was—” Her words were drowned by another sob.

  “Mrs. Fischer, how long after you noticed Zachary was missing did your husband show up?”

  “What is this?” Fred’s tone rose in pitch. “I came as soon as I heard Jenny shouting.”

  What were they getting at? Sam remembered hearing the man’s voice, shouting for Zack, only minutes after hearing the woman’s. The man had been close to the Goodman Trail parking lot. Maybe Fred had seen the little boy go down the trail and gone after him, unbeknownst to Jenny? And then what?

  “How long, Mrs. Fischer?” Boudreaux pressed.

  “I don’t know,” sniffed Jenny. “It seemed like a long time.”

  “It was only a few minutes!” Fred interjected. “Then I started searching for him, too. I was the one who called the ranger station at six thirty.”

  “We have a report of Zachary in the Goodman Trailhead lot around five forty-five.”

  “Where’s that?” Jenny asked.

  A paper rustled, no doubt a map. “Here,” Boudreaux said.

  “There?” Fred asked. “By the river? Wasn’t there something on the news about a cougar by that river? And wasn’t that where that guy found Zack’s baseball cap? Did he say he saw Zack there?”

  “No, it was a woman.” Perez’s voice again. “She reported that Zack ran back down the path back toward the campground. Toward you, Mr. Fischer. And that you waved to her.”

  “I remember that woman now. But not from any parking lot. That never happened. I don’t know anything about any parking lot.” Fred’s voice held not a shred of doubt. “We looked all over, then we called the ranger station at what, six fifteen?”

  “Six twenty-nine,” Perez verified.

  “The first time I saw that woman was yesterday morning, at the campground. And she was at the café last night, too. Like she was following us. Silver-blond hair. And she’s real short.”

  Sam bristled. She preferred the word petite.

  Jenny chimed in. “She said that Zack would be fine. Like she knew.” Her voice sounded simultaneously hopeful and suspicious.

  Fred’s tone grew louder. “Maybe she’s got Zack! You should be checking her out.”

  “We’re checking everyone,” Boudreaux assured them.

  The pumpkin bread turned to heavy clay in Sam’s stomach. She was a suspect?

  Perez asked, “Were you two together all night after Zachary disappeared?”

  “No,” Fred explained. “We split up. So we could search faster.”

  “Where did you search, Mrs. Fischer?” Boudreaux’s
tone was softer now.

  “I didn’t really . . . I stayed at the campsite, thinking maybe Zack would—”

  “And you, Mr. Fischer?”

  “I took the Suzuki, around eleven or so. I drove around the campground, calling him.”

  “Around the campground? Do you mean the ring road?”

  “When I didn’t find Zack there, I drove the road by the river, too. All the way to the end of the valley, then back.”

  “What time did you return?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. Three a.m., maybe? You can ask the rangers: they were all out there, too.”

  “Mr. Fischer, did you make your son disappear the night before last?” Perez sounded clinical.

  Gasps from Jenny. “Oh God, no!”

  Fred’s voice cracked. “Hell no, of course not! What’s wrong with you people? We’re not the criminals here, we’re the victims! Zack’s the victim!”

  “And we’re working on finding him,” Perez said. “Did you go straight to the hotel from the park yesterday afternoon?”

  “I took Jenny to the hotel. Then I went to the police station.”

  Another rustle of paper. “Our records show you checked in at twelve forty-five p.m. but you didn’t show up at the police station until almost two thirty.”

  “I took a walk—is that against the law now?” Fred’s anger was unmistakable.

  “Not at all,” Agent Boudreaux said soothingly. “Do you remember the route you took?”

  “Hell no. I don’t know this dump of a town. Some sort of circle, I guess. My mind was occupied with Zack.”

  “Of course. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. and Mrs. Fischer,” Nicole Boudreaux’s tone was smooth, cordial. “I have one more question—have either of you had contact with Zachary’s birth parents?”

  Silence hung heavily for a few seconds before Jenny responded, her voice wavering as she struggled to control her emotions. “No . . .” She sounded perplexed. “Our lawyer arranged the whole thing. We don’t even know who they are. Why?”

  Agent Boudreaux ignored the question. “Mr. Fischer?”

  “Don’t know ’em.”

  A notepad slapped shut. “Then that about sums it up for now. There’s just one more thing. We’ll need pictures of both of you.”

  “What the hell for?” barked Fred.

  Perez answered. “Standard procedure. We can take some photos now.”

  “I have one of Fred and me and Zack in my billfold,” Jenny volunteered. “Would that work?” A creak followed by rustling noises proved that she was pulling it out. “They used it for the . . . for the poster.”

  “This is fine,” Boudreaux assured her. “You wait at the hotel. We’ll let you know as soon as we discover anything more.”

  “But what about the shoe?” Jenny asked, her voice trembling. “The rangers said they found Zack’s shoe. What does that mean?”

  “We’ll let you know as soon as we discover anything more,” Boudreaux said again.

  Scuffling sounds indicated that all parties were rising to leave. Sam quickly strode down the hallway and ducked into a locker room.

  A young woman in National Park Service uniform sat on a bench before an open locker. She blinked at Sam in surprise. Shiny black blunt-cut hair, delicate Asian features. Vietnamese, or maybe Korean.

  “Can I help you?” The accent was Southern Bible Belt, a startling contrast with the woman’s features. The voice on the phone. Ranger Gates. Sam had envisioned a buxom Southern belle with poufy tresses.

  “I’m looking for Kent Bergstrom,” Sam said hopefully. Poor Kent; she used their friendship to explain her bumbling all over the park.

  Georgia pointed at a doorway off the locker room.

  Kent knelt on the floor of the equipment room, pushing packets of freeze-dried meals into the pockets of a well-worn nylon park service backpack. A chocolate-chip cookie protruded from between his lips. A stuffed sleeping bag lay on the floor beside his knees as well as several quart-size water bottles.

  “Hitting the trail?”

  He removed the cookie. “Mesa Camp, here I come! Am I ever ready.”

  He had shadows under his eyes. “You look tired,” she said.

  “That would be because I’ve been up all night. But this will revive me.”

  “Heading up Powell Trail?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Been there, done that, last night. They’re sending me up the East Ridge Trail and over the top. Backcountry patrol. Blue skies, birds, clear air.”

  “They can spare you from the search party? I’d think they’d be even more focused now that there’s some real evidence that Zack’s in the park.”

  “They’re still searching around the shoe site. Hey, if Thompson wants to give me a break, I’m taking it.”

  Soul mate, Sam thought. Trouble had always sent her running for the woods, too, even as a young child.

  A cloud passed over his face. “I hope they find him. But it’s going on two days now.”

  “He could still be alive, Kent.”

  He shrugged. “You think a two-year-old could walk up Powell Trail?”

  “Not by himself. Maybe someone carried him.” Which, she dared to think, meant Zack was most likely still alive.

  He yawned, scratched at the stubble on his cheeks. “Thompson’s getting out more helicopters today. Maybe they’ll spot something from the air.” He looked up. “Georgia Gates told me about Buck Ferguson on Special Report last night. That damn jerk! But I hear that some asshole in Seattle sabotaged you first.”

  What would Kent think if he knew she’d been dating the asshole who started the whole cougar hysteria? She hoped nobody in the park would discover that association. “I saw Ferguson on the news earlier,” she said. “The stuffed heads behind him were a nice touch.”

  Kent jammed a package of freeze-dried food into his pack. “I’d like to stuff his head! We’ve seen him carrying rifles in the park three times just this year.”

  “Well, you be careful. There will be more nutcases out there with weapons. Speaking of weapons,” she said, “where’s yours?”

  “I hate guns, you know that.” He zipped up a pocket. “Thompson’s been wanting to send me to law enforcement training, and so far I’ve said no. But now that the yahoos in Washington gave their blessing for the whole world to carry guns around the park, I’m beginning to think that it might not be a bad idea to carry a pistol. For the people, not the animals.”

  “Just bury them deep, at least a hundred yards away from trails and water sources.”

  They both laughed; it was the standard instruction for handling human waste. “I’m on my way up Powell,” she said.

  “Good. Maybe you can prove that Apollo didn’t carry the kid up there.” He stood up, hefted the backpack, snapped shut the buckle of his waist strap.

  “Hey, Kent, did you hear the forecast?”

  “Cold front rolling in slowly from the west. Scattered showers predicted late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.”

  She tried to visualize the calendar.

  “This is Thursday,” he added helpfully.

  “And you call me a smart-ass. Keep an eye out,” she said. “You don’t want to be caught on the mesa in a thunderstorm.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom.” Kent raised both arms, flexed to make his biceps bulge. “I’m Superman.”

  “Don’t forget your radio, man of steel.” She held it out.

  He clipped it to his belt, beside a large canister of pepper spray. Liquids inside his pack sloshed as he turned. “I’m outa here.”

  “Just remember—”

  “Bury ’em deep!” he shouted as he slipped out the back door.

  She exited the crew room. As she scooted past the park superintendent’s office, she caught a quick glimpse of Thompson, Tanner, and the FBI agents gathered around the desk inside. The Fischers were gone.

  In the reception area, Ranger Gates was on the phone. Assistant Superintendent Tanner came into the room, spotted Sam. Her brow ins
tantly bunched up into a frown. Sam pulled the Rescue 504 kerchief and armband out of her pocket and pressed them into the woman’s hands. “Just wanted to return these, Meg.”

  The woman’s expression softened. “Thanks for helping out.”

  Sam opened the door to the whock-whock-whock of a helicopter passing by. As she slid into her Civic, a familiar white van pulled in next to her space. KUTV News 9. Carolyn Perry climbed out of the front passenger’s seat. Did that woman never rest? Several other people with a variety of equipment spilled out of the back, including Buck Ferguson, who was dressed today all in khaki, except for a VFW flag on his collar and a black Eagle Tours baseball cap. He held a hunting rifle casually in one hand. The crew immediately set up for a shoot, taking no notice of Sam sitting in her car.

  “Get Superintendent Thompson out here,” Perry commanded a woman holding a clipboard. The minion disappeared into the building.

  The reporter positioned Ferguson next to her, then signaled for the camera to roll.

  “Two-year-old Zack Fischer has been missing for two nights and a day now. We’re here in front of Heritage National Monument Headquarters to find out what’s happening. With me is Buck Ferguson, local wildlife expert. Mr. Ferguson, why do you think the search is taking so long?”

  Ferguson made a big show of engaging the safety on his rifle before parking it under his elbow and focusing on the camera. “The FBI is spending all of its time persecuting the kid’s parents instead of focusing on the real culprits.”

  The reporter edged her face closer to his. “You believe that cougars are the real culprits?”

  Sam admired the woman’s technique. Carolyn Perry was always careful not to state a personal opinion of her own.

  “That’s right. That’s why they’re not going to find him: no little kid could survive a cougar attack.” Ferguson looked at the reporter for the first time. “Since the government outlawed hunting here, the mountain lions have multiplied like rabbits. They’re a menace to society.”

  Thompson burst from the ranger station, right into Carolyn’s ambush. “Superintendent Thompson!” She shoved the microphone under his nose. “Some have made allegations that you have killer cougars in your park. Do you plan to do anything about these animals?”

  He swallowed and turned toward the camera. “I’ve just been on the phone with USDA’s Wildlife Services branch.”