Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  Lam’s face flushed as she nodded.

  “The crevasse should do it,” Zander said. “We’re close, very close.”

  The helicopter was nearing. Zander stood. It was time for him to leave with Bowman to get Emily Baker at the command post.

  “One way or another, we’ll be resolving this case,” he said. “But we’ll need a few hours.”

  Zander and Bowman left, just as Lam’s cell phone trilled again.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Emily Baker awoke. Or maybe she didn’t. She was not sure she had even slept.

  The snow had long since vanished. Warmer breezes were caressing her tent. Dawn was breaking. Her body ached as the horror of her daughter’s disappearance came sharply into focus, engulfing her.

  She heard low radio transmissions of searchers getting their assignments from rangers at the command post search table. How many hours Paige had been lost in the wilderness? Emily’s thoughts veered to images of her little sister’s casket.

  No. Please. She had to be strong for Paige. Today could be the day something good would happen. Something to awake her from the nightmare.

  Emily stepped slowly from her tent into the morning light under the watchful eyes of FBI agents and rangers. A young FBI agent from Salt Lake City approached her with a steaming tin cup of coffee.

  “Did you get some sleep, Emily?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, accepting the warm cup into both hands. “Is Doug coming back?”

  “They haven’t told us.”

  “Is Tracy Bowman at the command post, I don’t see her.”

  “No. I think--uhm…” The agent glanced back to the others at the equipment tables. “They’re searching the northern sectors today.”

  “Sure, like they did yesterday. And the day before.” Emily followed the agent’s attention to the other agents and rangers. “What’s going on?” she asked and started moving toward the tables.

  “I wouldn’t--” the agent said.

  “Excuse me.” Emily ignored her.

  This morning, it seemed a larger number of agents and rangers were huddled around the table. Brady Brook was busy studying a map and talking on his radio to a searcher in a far-off sector. Emily picked up how others were stealing glimpses at her, over the brims of their coffee cups, from whispered conversations, diverted ever so subtly from laptop computers or the small color TV monitors that were flown in--Was it yesterday?--as the search gathered national news attention.

  Their cool glances became stares of icy accusation as she stood before the table.

  “Jesus Christ,” somebody whispered at the realization Emily was standing before them.

  “Has something happened? Did you find Paige? Did you find something? Please? Anything?”

  No one answered.

  Their attention had been fastened to the small TVs that had been tuned to the twenty-four-hour news networks and their reports stemming from the San Francisco Star story.

  “What’s going on? Somebody, please, tell me!”

  One of the rangers had secured an Internet link through a satellite phone and had found the Star’s Internet site--and the full story by Tom Reed and Molly Wilson.

  “What is it?” Emily’s voice was breaking; she was inching around the tables in order to see what the others were seeing, reading. “What’s happened? Did you find her?”

  Thunder filled the sky as a helicopter flew by their ridge, en route to Sector 23. The air was quiet again as Emily’s eyes began catching the images on one of the TV screens.

  “Will someone tell me, please?”

  No one wanted to inform her. Another helicopter was approaching, hovering near the command post. Emily heard snatches of the TV news reports: “As preparations are made for tonight’s execution of Isaiah Hood, disturbing evidence has surfaced challenging his guilt; evidence that may explain the mystery behind the disappearance of ten-year-old Paige Baker….” That was all she could hear. The noise of the landing helicopter overwhelmed the TV news report, leaving Emily to stare at the images of her dead sister’s face, Isaiah Hood, Paige, Doug, the execution chamber at Montana State Prison and herself at the earlier news conference, in anguish over Paige. The chopper kicked up the wind; it thumped on Emily’s back as she raised a hand to cover her mouth.

  What was happening?

  The others stared at her. She saw the computer laptop, its large screen displaying the Star story on the Internet under the headline: CONDEMNED MAN CLAIMS PROOF MISSING GIRL’S MOTHER IS A KILLER.

  The young ranger, realizing Emily was reading the story, reached to fold the screen closed. Emily shot out a hand to stop her and continued to read.

  TOM REED and MOLLY WILSON

  THE SAN FRANCISCO STAR

  WEST GLACIER, Mont--Tonight, the state of Montana will execute Isaiah Hood, who claims to be innocent of murdering the five-year-old sister of Emily Baker 22 years ago in Glacier National Park.

  Hood’s attorney offered what he said is proof Baker played a role in her sister’s death. It comes as rangers and FBI agents search for Baker’s 10-year-old daughter, Paige, who vanished with her beagle, Kobe….

  Emily groaned.

  “I don’t think you should see anymore.” The ranger raised her voice over the helicopter’s whirling blades and tried in vain to close her computer as Emily held the screen up and read…the haunting words from letters she’d written as a child coming to life, leaping into her soul.

  “…I am guilty of her death. She begged me to save her. I don't know what happened. She pleaded and screamed. I had her hand, but I don't know what happened that day. I will never forget her eyes staring into mine as she fell. God please forgive me….”

  Rachel’s eyes. Falling.

  Emily dropped her coffee cup. Oh God. Eyes blurring, heart pounding in time with the helicopter, a roaring in her ears.

  She moved from the table.

  Someone shouted her name. Inching from the table. Numbed. Her face in her hands. Dust, pebbles, swirling about her, blocking the sun, calling her name. She was falling; she was lost until someone, something…a firm hand on her shoulder. Her name above the fury.

  “Emily.”

  A woman. A voice she knew.

  “Emily, it’s time.”

  Bowman. Tracy Bowman.

  “It’s time for you to come with us to the command center. We need to talk.”

  Special Agent Frank Zander was standing behind Bowman.

  SIXTY

  Isaiah Hood’s execution would take place in sixteen hours.

  The press was searching for his lawyer, David Cohen, but Cohen had switched off his cell phone; even his concerned Chicago law firm could not reach him.

  Newspaper, radio and wire service reporters, as well as TV network news bureaus from across the nation, were calling every hotel and motel near West Glacier, Montana, frantically trying to find him. Magazine and tabloid reporters, and three Hollywood scouts wanting to discuss buying Hood’s rights, joined the hunt.

  Cohen did not want to be found.

  Not yet, he thought after finishing his breakfast and checking out of his tiny motel near Flathead Lake, a few miles south of Glacier National Park.

  Watching the TV behind the manager, he saw another report of the case. It showed a three-year-old still photo of himself that one of the Chicago stations had fed the network. Fortunately, Cohen was traveling to Glacier wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap.

  Nearing the park, he knew Hood was sitting in the death cell under a death watch as the clock ticked down. The way things stood, there were no tomorrows for him. Only hours.

  Cohen passed a news satellite truck lumbering northbound. He picked up a cell phone and switched it on to retrieve messages. Listening only for the caller, then skipping through the message. “Francis Lord with the L.A. Times.” Next. “Chuck Ryker, ABC News, New York.” Next. “Nancy Womack, Great Falls Tribune.” Next. “Mr. Cohen, this is Phil Braddock with the Washington Post.” Next. “Hi David, it’s Dianna Str
auss at the New York Times.” Next. “Anna Barrow, Newsweek.” Next. “This is Larry Dow, USA Today.” Next. “David, it’s Lane. Please call me. Please!” Next. “Abe Gold at the firm. We’ve seen the news reports. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t you make another move without informing us. Is that understood? Call me on my personal cell phone number….”

  The old man himself. Pissed off. The senior partner. Cohen glanced at the stack of photocopies on the passenger seat next to him. Copies of the county attorney’s old summary of Emily confessional letters.

  He switched off his phone. No, he was not calling back.

  Tom Reed’s news story was effective beyond his expectations, accomplishing exactly what Hood needed: attention to the questions that needed to be raised, to the injustice that was about to be committed at midnight. Cohen would embark on the next stage of his struggle, one that may cost him everything. He had to halt the execution.

  Cohen reflected on his days at Harvard, brooding along the Charles River, or hopping a train downtown to Fenway while grappling with philosophy or ethics problems. If a good man does nothing when confronted with a moral wrong, what is lost? It was just theory. Academic posturing. He had expected the only time he would face such a question was during a law exam.

  Not in reality.

  In his heart, he knew Hood should not be executed. Lane knew that, too. The principle that had guided Cohen was now a legal certainty that compelled him. If he was a moral man, he must take action. Or he could never face himself again.

  A Montana Highway Patrol Officer was now directing Cohen to turn away from the main gate to Glacier National Park.

  “We’re limiting traffic at this entrance, sir. What is your business here?”

  Cohen identified himself. The officer sent him to park with the press vehicles. Precisely where he wanted to go. The press camp was in full force.

  Cohen grabbed his stack of photocopies and searched for the podium that had become familiar to the nation and the world following the story of Paige Baker. She was still missing, according to the latest update from the rangers. While weaving his way to the microphones, Cohen handed out his sheets to every newsperson he saw. Word spread at the speed of sound. Network field producers, reporters, photographers, encircled Cohen, advising him to hold off starting his news conference for fifteen minutes for technical reasons, peppering him with prep questions, talking at once. Cohen did not see who was asking what.

  “You Hood’s lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Spell your first and last name.”

  “You’re giving a press conference?”

  “Why did you come?”

  “Well, I--”

  “Hold it--” Someone was shouting on his cell phone to New York, “Well, get them out of the meeting. We found him! He’s right here--”

  “What are you going to say, David?”

  “I think that’s clear by what’s already come out. We’re talking life and death here.”

  “Good, OK,” a bearded man with a southern accent shouted. “Everyone, we’re going with the lawyer in ten.”

  Radios and cell phones became intense with staccato conversations as more people gathered around Cohen. A helicopter passed overhead.

  Soon dozens of TV news and newspaper cameras were trained on Cohen as he stood at the microphones, licking his dried lips, realizing he had no choice. This has to be done. There’s no turning back.

  “Go ahead,” someone said.

  “No, wait!” Someone was on a radio phone. “OK.”

  Cohen nodded, hand on hips. He was wearing a faded denim shirt and khakis; his tanned face was stubbled with a day’s growth; his hair, just the right amount out of place, made him look like the idealistic, anguished attorney he was. Eyes staring honestly into the cameras. The networks loved it. Cohen cleared his throat and explained who he was, answering rapid-fire questions.

  “I am calling on the governor to reconsider his position on the fate of my client, Isaiah Hood, whose execution is set to go ahead at midnight tonight.”

  The questions started at once. Still cameras clicked.

  “Why?”

  “On what basis, Mr. Cohen?”

  “What’s your reason for…”

  “In light of evidence that has surfaced showing the connection of Emily Baker to my client, showing the documents that never surfaced at trial or in subsequent appeals--”

  “You’re referring to her so-called confessional letters?”

  “Yes, and given the circumstance we’re seeing played out before us--”

  “Sir, are you are implying that Emily Baker murdered her sister?”

  “No. What I am saying is look at this profoundly disturbing evidence. We have always maintained reasonable doubt permeated this case, that his conviction was based on circumstantial evidence. Now we have only hours before my client is executed. I am pleading for relief here so we can sort things…”

  Some seventy floors above downtown Chicago, Abe Gold and other senior partners of Cohen’s law firm were watching, with apprehension, the boardroom’s large television.

  “What the hell is he doing?” said one of the partners. “Did we know this was coming, Abe? Did we know any of this crap was coming?”

  Gold shook his head. The intercom on the boardroom phone buzzed.

  “Mr. Gold, a Mr. Jackson, for the Montana attorney general’s office.”

  “Yes,” Gold said, eyes fastened to the news conference.

  “Abe, what is this shit?” Jackson said from Helena. “Call in your kid now. Phone him right now! We’re contemplating filing a complaint with Washington, charging him with obstruction.”

  Gold said nothing, weighing the situation. While he was upset that David had not advised the firm, he admired Cohen’s spine, recalling his own days of youthful fire.

  “Mr. Jackson, am I to understand Governor Nye will grant our client relief until these serious issues raised by Mr. Cohen are addressed?”

  Jackson hung up.

  Gold almost smiled.

  “I think the other guy blinked,” he said.

  The boardroom phone rang again.

  “The U.S. attorney general’s office in Washington, Mr. Gold.”

  In Montana, Maleena Crow slammed her palms on the steering wheel of her Jetta. Traffic had halted her progress near Glacier National Park’s main gate. En route to see the FBI, Crow had tuned in her VW’s radio and, to her surprise, caught the start of David Cohen’s news conference. Immediately, she was outraged.

  “How dare he do this!”

  The previous night, Nora Lam had advised her Emily Baker would be Mirandized before being questioned this morning. No other attorneys were available. Lam alerted Crow to return in case something developed with Emily. Did they know this Cohen character was going to pull this stunt? she asked herself as she abandoned her car on the side of a road and stormed toward Cohen’s press conference.

  A patrol officer chased her. ‘Miss, you can’t leave your car…”

  Crow hurried to the conference, elbowing her way through the throng of reporters, until she was standing next to Cohen, startling the news people. No one knew the striking woman in the jeans, T-shirt and pastel blazer holding a briefcase. She had the intelligent air of an official. Cohen was answering a question.

  “I think there is more than sufficient evidence and reason to re-open--”

  “Excuse me,” Crow said. “I think you’ve all been duped by some legal sleight of hand here.”

  “Identify yourself, please, miss!

  “I am Maleena Crow, attorney for Doug Baker. It is unethical and immoral for Mr. Cohen to direct this accusation at the Baker family at this time and in this manner.”

  “I disagree--”

  “Just let me finish, please, sir. You’ve had your say.” Tension and the cameras tightened on her pretty face. The networks were eating up the drama. “Your accusations, innuendo and implications are all hypothetical and circumstantial, and it is u
nconscionable for an attorney, even one of your caliber, to do this--”

  “There is disturbing and overwhelming evidence.”

  “Mr. Cohen, it is circumstantial at best and you are not privy to all the facts concerning the search for Paige Baker.”

  “Nor are you, apparently, Ms. Crow.”

  “I think you’ve crossed a line. There is a missing child and your accusations do not warrant a trial, not in court and not in the press--”

  A chopper was approaching, drowning out the news conference.

  As was the ritual with each approaching landing helicopter, the news cameras zoomed in to see who was aboard.

  This time they were rewarded.

  All the crews kept the audio rolling as Cohen and Crow argued.

  As if cued, FBI agents Tracy Bowman and Frank Zander stepped from the chopper, crouching as they each took an arm, escorting Emily Baker to the command center.

  The pictures told the story.

  Emily Baker was a suspect in her daughter’s disappearance and now her sister’s murder twenty-two years ago; meanwhile the clock ticked down on the life of a man who claimed to be innocent.

  SIXTY-ONE

  On her previous trip to the center, Emily regarded the news media as an ally. Now they had swollen into a ravenous force. She closed her eyes, gripping her knees as the chopper touched down.

  Oh Paige. Please come back to me.

  Agents Zander and Bowman escorted her to the center as dozens of cameras and press questions were aimed at her; the wind from the rotating blades thumped a sobering score. Above it all, Emily swore she heard someone shouting, “Did you kill your sister and daughter?”

  Inside the center, conversations stopped and heads turned as Emily and the agents, their steps echoing on the maple floor, swept by the search operations people. Everyone knew. Bowman signaled to another female agent and they entered the washroom with Emily. She was asked to leave the stall door open; later, they scrutinized her in silence as she washed her face.