Cold Fear by Rick Mofina Page B

You’re a
cop.”
    Bobby had just made detective first grade with the NYPD.
The guys in his detective squad respected Bobby Ropa for his superior eye for
detail. Or so they said, following a shift and several beers at Popeye’s Bar on
Flatbush Avenue. Now, he sat here, hands covering his face. Eyes blinking.
Thinking. Had he dropped the ball on something? He knew why he was so
unsettled. It was not that they happened on a family having a blowout in
public. You see that in stores, restaurants, supermarkets--stress spots--but
that it was here, in such a serene setting.
    And that it was so disturbingly intense.
    “Maybe you will feel better if you talked to somebody.”
    “Here you go,” the waitress set that day’s Daily
Interlake near Bobby’s plate. “This is the cook’s copy. More coffee?”
    Paige Baker’s pretty face stared at Bobby. When he
finished reading the article, he looked for the Montana Highway Patrol vehicle
in the parking lot.
    It was gone.
    “Bobby, what is it?” Lori asked.
    “Hurry up and finish,” he said. “I’ve got to find out
who is in charge of this case.” Then he flagged the waitress. “Excuse me, miss,
is there a phone and park directory I could use?”

FIFTEEN

    Community Building #215, originally a school house built in 1923, is a green frame hall
found among the government compound buildings in the shade of lodgepole pine at
Glacier National Park’s headquarters.
    Used primarily for fire-rescue exercises, staff meetings
and social functions, it was now the command center in the search for Paige
Baker.
    The wooden walls of its large meeting room were papered
with huge, detailed maps of the park, dotted with colored locator pins. Large
tables were covered with radio chargers, new phone lines, fax machines,
photocopiers, computers, TV monitors and VCRs, all for the operation.
    Inspector Walt Sydowski arrived shortly after dawn
watching it fill with local, state, and federal authorities. He was met by FBI
agents and taken to the criminal investigative section, which was hidden within
the massive operation. Known only to a few officials, the specially formed
secret joint forces unit was headed by the FBI. It had one aim: to investigate
the disappearance of Paige Baker as if she were the victim of a criminal act.
    Its operations were set up out of sight, in a storage
room where Sydowski had not yet seated himself at a table to await the unit’s
first meeting when the door opened.
    “Inspector Sydowski,” a young male FBI Agent said
softly. “You have a call, sir. You can take it in here. And I’ve been advised
that Agent Zander will be here momentarily to convene a briefing with all team
members. He and Agent Bowman are en route from the command post.”
    Sydowski nodded his thanks and picked up the land line
phone, noticing a number of other senior ice-cold police-type men in jeans and
casual shirts taking seats at the meeting table, studying files. Sydowski
nodded a hello to them as he took his call.
    “Hi Walt, it’s Linda. Been up all night, I’ve got some
stuff.”
    Sydowski sat down to make notes on his clipboard.
    “First off Walt, you got a fax there?”
    He saw a machine and got its number from the young
agent.
    Turgeon took it down, continuing.
    “Emily Baker is a professional photographer. Has her own
studio. No charges, convictions or warrants. Not even a traffic violation.
Nothing much on her family. She has an aunt in San Francisco who is on vacation
in Eastern Canada with her husband. The feebees have a line to the RCMP, who
put them on the tourist alert.”
    “Hope you reach them before the press does. What about
the domestic call to SFPD?”
    “Pulled tapes from dispatch, had them transcribed. I am
faxing that to you along with the summary from the responding unit. Trying to
hook up with the officers who took the call and the neighbor who made the
complaint. No charges, convictions or warrants for Doug Baker either. He’s an
ex-marine. Honorable