Cold Fear

by Rick Mofina

  “Find a body? Any evidence of a crime?”

  “No, but Dad’s got a hurt hand.”

  “Pretty weak, Leo. Come on. What’s the family history?”

  “The feebs asked us to run the old man through our system and we got a hit. A few days before they left for their trip, we were called to their house by a neighbor.”

  “Charges?”

  “None.”

  “What are the details of the call?”

  “Domestic assault complaint. Neighbor says the dad was shouting, threatening violence. Linda’s going through the old report, making calls, putting it together with stuff the FBI sent us in a file for you. Seems the father got in a bar fight quite a few years back in Chicago. Did three days for that. The guys got a temper.”

  “This requires me to rush to Montana? The FBI has people there and here. What, they lose the numbers?”

  “It is out of our hands.”

  “Sounds like somebody’s pumped to build a case where maybe none exists. I’m going to pass, Leo. I’ve got plans and--”

  “You are going to the mountains, Inspector.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Walt, you have no say. Unless you are retiring today?”

  “What is the deal on this, Leo? What’s going on here?”

  “Rangers and feebees got a very bad smell on this thing the instant it broke.” Walt heard Leo shuffling papers. “The strategy is to quietly pull out all the stops now in the event it turns into a homicide. Remember that case not too long ago in Yellowstone? It prompted the rangers and FBI to go hard at the outset. Then there was that old mess in Colorado, a missing turns into kidnapping turns into homicide?”

  “So?”

  “And the South Carolina case. Mom screams on the networks that a stranger took her two kids, when it turns out she killed them?”

  “So? The rangers and FBI can handle their own cases. When we catch one, we don’t wet our pants, call for help to come hold our hand.”

  “I suspect big political buttons were pushed here. The park is federal jurisdiction. It is the state’s tourist jewel. The Montana governor has pull. He calls Washington, who calls Sacramento, who calls our employer, who calls us, and now I’m calling you. They want this settled fast. No mistakes. Whatever the hell happened in the mountains they want it cleared fast, solid and by the book. Preferably with a happy ending. No weekly TV panel discussions with experts pointing out the screw-ups.”

  Sydowski cursed under his breath and shook his head.

  “Anybody think it may be a matter of a child missing in the woods?”

  “It is your sworn duty as an officer assisting in this file to help the team determine if that is the case. Accomplish that, Inspector Sydowski, and your duty will have been done. Then you can go fishing.”

  “You know, Leo, you are a sycophantic boot-licking toady.”

  “You will be assisting a Special Agent Frank Zander. I think he’s coming in from D.C. A brass-balled mother who could build a case against the pope for Jimmy Hoffa. You are supposed to challenge him to make the case solid.”

  “If I see a bear, I’ll cuff it, then bring it back and feed him your asshole.”

  “I knew you would see things my way, dear. Pack flannel.”

  “Up yours.” Sydowski slammed down the phone.

  His father said, “I take it that was not Louise?”

  The call meant Sydowski’s old man had to go home to Pacifica, so he called a cab for him, then phoned a friend in his bird club who lived a few doors down the street. The friend had a key to Sydowski’s aviary and agreed to tend to his birds while he was away. Within twenty minutes, both men had finished packing when Linda arrived in an unmarked Chevy Caprice. Sydowski was upstairs. His old man let her in.

  “Hi there. I’m Linda Turgeon, Walt’s partner.” She removed her sunglasses. Her brunette hair had been recently cut in a jaw-length bob. She was wearing a tailored lavender suit and looked very nice.

  “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.

  Sydow
ski 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 tu
rned 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.”