by Rick Mofina
The governor’s intercom buzzed again.
“It’s CNN, sir.”
“Not now. Tell them we’ll make a statement later.”
The intercom buzzed once more.
“No press, please,” the governor said.
“It’s the White House, sir.”
The Attorney General was on his cell phone. Jackson turned the TV volume down.
“Put it through.”
“Governor?” A man’s voice.
“Yes.”
“It’s the Oval Office. Please stand by for the president.”
The governor pursed his lips, knowing full well what this was all about.
“Governor,” the famous voice was deeper over the phone. “Our hearts go out to everyone involved in the events in Montana.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
The governor rubbed his eyes, knowing the chief’s iron-clad stance on the death penalty was legendary when he was governor of his state. Never blinked. Even under extreme political and international pressure.
“How are Cynthia and Ellen, Grayson?”
The president had the names right. Probably had executive staff pull up his Montana bio, he thought, touching the pictures of his wife and daughter.
“Fine. Thank you. We’re appreciative no lives were lost and for your call, sir. Thank you.”
“Now listen, if you need any more federal help to see this thing through--I mean this is a federal park and federal jurisdiction, except for the prison. But if I can provide you with any resources, do not hesitate to call me.”
The governor swallowed. He knew the subtext of the call.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with you for a peaceful resolution.”
“Yes, I really should be--”
The president cut him off, dropping his tone to a gut-tightening degree.
“You really should be reconsidering your national aspirations, Governor. You were supposed to be strapping this guy to a gurney, not giving him goddamned helicopter rides over the Rockies.”
The line went dead in the governor’s ear.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Doug Baker’s tears stained the print-out pages as he read the Internet copy of the San Francisco Star article his lawyer gave him that morning.
“It’s important you see what the rest of the country sees, Doug.” She left him in the small room of the command center where the FBI was holding him.
He read the story over and over:
“Baker was responsible for her sister’s death. It comes as the FBI searches in vain for Baker’s 10-year-old daughter, Paige”
Then from the county attorney’s report, “She begged me to save her…. I will never forget her eyes staring into mine as she fell. God, please forgive me.”
The horror hammered at Doug’s heart, but he refused to succumb to it, composing himself, seeking strength from the mountains where Paige was. He ached to be out there searching for her.
He tossed the pages aside.
Concentrate. Concentrate on what you know.
Emily was psychologically chained to her tortured childhood. If she was present when her little sister was murdered by Isaiah Hood, naturally she would feel guilty. That is how he saw it.
But could you ever truly know what is in a person’s heart?
Did he know Emily? Really know her? She kept so much hidden from him. What if she was sick? What if she was guilty?
Doug scanned the mountains, rubbing his eyes. What should he believe? Believe this. He did not kill his daughter. He was guilty of some terrible behavior, but he did not kill his daughter. And he did not believe Emily killed her.
“You sure about that?”
“Do you believe your wife could have harmed your daughter?”
Emily would give her life for Paige.
No.
They were guilty of being victims of horrible circumstances. Look at the awful wound on his hand. Tossing his ax as if hiding it. Arguing in front of that family. A New York detective, Crow had told him. Losing it in front of a New York cop the day before his daughter disappears and then he shows up with an ax-murderer’s gash on his hand. Doug did not blame the FBI for their suspicions.
But everyone’s thinking on this was dead wrong.
He heard more helicopters outside, the activity intensifying. He yearned to take part in the search. What was happening now? No one told him anything. No one updated him.
What if Paige is dead?
A gentle knock. The door opened. Agent Tracy Bowman and Maleena Crow with Emily. His eyes brightened.
“You’ll have just a few moments with your wife,” Bowman said.
“Then what? What is happening?”
“Just a few minutes. I’m sorry that’s all I can tell you.”
Crow touched his shoulder. “Doug, I am working on getting you released.” Nodding to the Bakers, leaving with Bowman, closing the door.
Emily stood before him, looking broken; her hands were clenched in fists touching her lips, eyes brimming with tears.
“Doug, they think I--you--we, oh God…”
He took her in into his arms. Doug drew strength from holding her. “I know everything. Maleena gave me the article.”
“I did not hurt anyone, Doug.”
“I believe you. I did not harm her, Em.”
She nodded and swallowed. “I know.”
“You listen to me. We are going to get through this. She is not dead. We have to believe that.”
“Doug, the police, they said so many horrible things. They take the truth and mix it up and then they showed me part of the search when we thought it was her b-b-body--”
“What was it? Did they find her?”
Emily shook her head. “An animal in a crevasse. So awful. It has been horrible. Then they said a student has accused you of some sort of violent act with her. They said your wound, your ax, her T-shirt--Oh God--
“I know. Emily. I know about that stuff. The student business is not true. A kid with problems at home. The ax, the blood and T-shirt. We know all of it. But I never hurt anyone. I can’t blame the FBI. That is why I took the polygraph, to prove I have nothing to hide. We have to believe Paige is alive. Whatever we are going through, it is far worse for her out there. If we give up hope, it’s over. She has to feel we are pulling for her against all the odds.”
Emily nodded.
“Em, she has Kobee. She’s a smart girl. I’ve been going over it. I think she had food and water in her pack--”
“She doesn’t have her pack anymore, Doug.”
“What?”
“They found it. In the crevasse, where there are bears. But they did not find her--Oh--I--God--”
A knock sounded.
It was Maleena Crow, breathless. “There’s been a break.”
“Oh Lord, what?”
“Just inside the Canadian border, the Mounties found a footprint matching her sneaker. It is very fresh. They also found an empty water bottle from San Francisco Airport.”
“I bought her bottled water there before we boarded!” Emily said.
Doug looked hard at Maleena. “You’re sure of this?”
“Elsie Temple, the park’s superintendent, just told me.”
Doug felt as if a mountain of pain had shifted.
“It’s a sign that she’s alive,” he said.
“It’s something for sure.” Crow nodded. “I’m working on them to return you to the mountain command post. That’s where the focus will be now.”
SEVENTY-FIVE
Cool breezes glided up the sloping forests, carrying the fragrance of western red cedar, larch and hemlock to Isaiah Hood, who surveyed the Rockies from his God’s-eye view.
Like a reawakening mountain spirit, Hood inhaled deeply, drawing power from an ancient force, activating his acute senses of hearing, vision, smell and animal-like intuition.
He spotted a white-tail deer amid a stand of spruce, some seventy-five yards off; hear
d the rustling of a bald eagle’s wings skirting the treetops of a valley below; detected the sweetness of glacier lilies; sensed mountain butterflies zigzagging among them.
Hood was home. Free. A king in his kingdom. He pushed on swiftly.
He had cheated his executioners. Cheated his scheduled death, as he knew he would. For it was only right. He had given them twenty-two years for a game. Time for him to take control.
Hood had plans--intricate designs--drafted, polished, taken apart and reassembled in a million dreams dreamed while living in a concrete casket. His poster of the Rockies was his portal to his paradise. His trances, visions and “apprehension of the mind,” the vehicles that got him here.
A network of ancient Indian, trapper and miners’ trails existed among the ranges that traversed the U.S.-Canadian border. They were not on maps but burned into Hood’s heart. He knew them all. Knew them better than any other human being. He had travelled them as a boy, disappearing for weeks after a savage thrashing with the hooks. All part of his education. It took him years to learn who he was and how the world loathed the thing he had become.
The Mark of Cain, some called it. Living with the sin of the father.
“Don’t you understand?” his sister whispers to him the night she packs and runs away for the last time. Dad murdered Mom! Dropped her from a mountain. I’m messed up because of it. Get away from him! Why are you so loyal? He beats you like a dog. Get away, Isaiah, before he kills you, too!
In his heart, Hood knew his sister was right but could not accept it. He was fourteen at the time. She ran away to Seattle; he escaped to the Rockies, where he would spend days and weeks alone in the alpine trails. Perhaps in some way he was hoping to prove his sister wrong by somehow finding their mother. But more likely, it was because he realized that, like his father, he was afflicted with the malevolent need to have those under his control plead for mercy, giving currency to his power.
But for Hood, it was a consuming game.
“A psychopath with a destructive psychological neurological disorder most likely brought on by his father’s beatings.”
That is how the doctors defined it.
It was a game, one he was compelled to play. That is how Hood lived it.
It started with the dog, the rabbit, the cat. Then the butterfly girl. No one understood that, to him, it was a game.
He pushed on fast, relishing the gift he had left behind. The warden, the DOC boss and the Governor, the guards on death row. Hood could picture them, finger-pointing, ass-covering. He feasted on that one.
Hood was startled, sensing a helicopter in the distance.
Stepping under a thick stand of cedars, he rummaged through the pack, produced the guard’s radio, flipped the channels. It was fully charged, coming to life with emergency transmissions from rangers, SAR and others in the region. He secured it in the holster clipped to the belt around his waist, inserted an earpiece.
Hood’s nostrils flared. Tracking dogs were in the area far off, searching.
Quickly, he rooted through the bag: a hatchet, fruit, water, first-aid kit, pilot’s wallet with cash and credit cards, sunglasses, several other items. Then he found the lunch kit belonging to one of the nurses. Had some sliced vegetables, crackers, cheese and cookies. He tore off a patch of towel in the bag, rubbing it under his armpits, his sweating groin, his stomach, still oozing blood and puss. He headed into an area dense with trees for nearly fifty yards, then back-tracked carefully. He placed the towel down.
Ought to tie up the first dog behind me, he thought before pushing north.
Dressed in the blue flight suit, wearing the pilot’s boots, sunglasses, a cap, a utility belt with the radio, a small knapsack, using a walking stick, Hood resembled someone with search operations. His plan was to slip into Canada using the most treacherous trail, a long-forgotten ancient Indian path on the western slopes.
But a message was coming.
There was a critical twist to his plan. The special reason he came here.
A headache, one of his mega-pounders, seized him.
He knew he possessed the power to find her.
No. I shouldn’t.
Yes. Find her. It is key to the plan.
The message was building. Triggering rage pent-up for twenty-two years.
Why not find her and play?
One more time.
Anger and adrenaline coursed through him, bubbling into a dangerous mixture. His head quaked with pain. Twenty-two years. He made one critical mistake with the butterfly girl. He let her big sister live.
Look what she cost him.
The message was clear now.
The lost one is very near.
SEVENTY-SIX
FBI Agent Frank Zander was shouting into a telephone.
“Yes, we know Isaiah Hood was on that helicopter! He walked away! No, I do not know why he was…Hello? You there?”
Zander lost his connection to the marshals. He swore while following a park ranger’s finger pinpointing the crash site on the wall-size map of Glacier National Park.
Radios sizzled with chatter, and cell phones, including Zander’s, trilled constantly in the command center. Its five TVs blared, each tuned to a different network’s live report.
“…an incredible series of events unfolding in the case of…”
“…Montana death row inmate Isaiah Hood, whose execution was…”
“…has confirmed Hood is a fugitive at large in the same area…”
At the Ops table, an EMS supervisor spoke above the bedlam into his radio.
“No, no, no! They are transporting them to the LZ at the command center now! That’s right! Then ground from here to Kalispell. Three ships. Yes. Stable. Kalispell’s alerted. Get one of them to stand by at the command post now until we get our air ambulance back…Yes, the largest one. Just a standby…at the post--talk to Brady Brook out there--”
Phones were ringing.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Marshals Service, news organizations, urgently demanding information.
“Frank! A quick meeting.” Lloyd Turner was calling Zander to an urgent, intense conversation with Maleena Crow. Nora Lam and the other detectives were there.
“All we’re requesting is that you release them back to the command post, back to their campsite,” Crow said.
“What do you think, Frank?”
“This is not a good time for this discussion.”
“You cannot hold Doug without charging him. Let them go back to the command post. Consider what they’re going through.”
Zander was wary. The case had taken a dramatic turn, but he refused to let his guard down.
“They know about the RCMP’s report,” Crow said.
“I told them Frank,” Elsie Temple, answered the question in his face. “They have a right to hope.”
Zander inventoried the group for allies. Bowman was absent, searching for David Cohen. Walt Sydowski’s subtle shrug suggested it would make little difference if the Bakers were under watch at the command post.
“I do not have a problem returning them for the time being,” Turner said. “No one has been charged. No one is under arrest or in custody. It’s an open investigation. No one is suggesting it is concluded, Frank.”
But Zander sensed that Turner and the others thought so; they believed events had miraculously cleared the Bakers.
This is exactly what happened in Georgia. He would not be fooled again. “You never know the truth until you hold the facts in your hand.”
Zander felt the decision to return the Bakers had already been made. “We still have agents at the command post?” he asked.
Turner nodded.
“Frank, let’s see what transpires with these other events. Let’s just see.”
Zander swallowed. “It’s your call.”
“We’ll send them back with an escort,” Turner said. “But it will be some time before a helicopter is available. Until then, they are free to wait in this room.”<
br />
Stepping from the storage room, Doug and Emily were hurled into the maelstrom. Before Crow could alert them to Hood’s escape, they confronted his face displayed next to their daughter’s on one of the large TVs.
“…death row inmate Isaiah Hood escaped within the last hour when the air ambulance crashed in the same region the…”
Emily covered her mouth.
Doug was horrified. “Maleena, what is going on? Hood escaped! But how? Paige. Any sign?”
Crow worked quickly to explain, sitting them down.
Emily searched the chaos for Zander. Was this a blatant psychological trick? She saw him, looking angry on a phone call, carving notes. No. It’s real! She looked at the TV. Saw Doug and Paige, with Kobee smiling back from it. Then an old photograph of Rachel. Her eyes. Rachel.
Crow could not put it any other way. Hood had escaped in the very same area where the Mounties found fresh signs of Paige.
Emily groaned, began trembling.
“Doug! It’s happening again. Please not again!” Emily raised her face to the ceiling. “God, why!”
Doug’s heart nearly broke from his chest; his mind, a whirlwind of rage, fear, desperation. He pulled Emily tight, as much to hang on to his sanity as to comfort her.
Paige is alive! At least it appears they have signs she is alive. God! They have to find her! They have to do something. Anything. Think, Baker. Time is running out. Damn it. Think. You are not going to sit here doing nothing. Not anymore.
There had to be a way out of this. Amid the confusion, Doug was half-listening to Crow telling him about waiting for a helicopter to deliver them to their campsite, the point from where all the rescue efforts would be directed. Doug’s military training, his coaching skills, were kicking in, using the pressure to fuel his thoughts. Holding Emily. He took careful stock of the crowded room, watching as rangers, FBI Agents, searchers, came and went.
