Cold Fear (35 page)

SIXTY-FIVE

In his newly
restored office in the
neoclassical capitol building, which dominated Helena’s skyline, Montana’s Governor Nye was grappling with a crisis.

His stomach tensed as he witnessed the early morning
news reports of Isaiah Hood’s eleventh-hour claim for clemency.

It churned watching Hood’s Chicago lawyer, David Cohen,
tell the country live on every network that Montana was going to murder his
client.

That cocksure SOB had pushed him into a corner and he
didn’t like it.

Every news organization in the nation wanted the
governor to state his reaction and intentions.

He sat at his desk, studying the framed photograph of
his wife and their daughter.

Two quick knocks on his door were followed by his
attorney general and John Jackson, his chief counsel. The governor had been
talking and meeting with them since 6:00 A.M. when the
Washington Post
called him on his personal cell phone. How the Post reporter got the number was
a mystery to him. He had declined to comment until he had reviewed the latest
events.

The AG and Jackson seated themselves. The governor
gritted his teeth, then exhaled. “I am not backing down here.”

The two men exchanged quick glances. The governor had
given the wrong answer.

“Sir, there are many considerations,” the attorney
general began.

“Cohen went public with his claims; as I see it, that’s
it.”

“You have to take into account the Glacier situation,”
the attorney general said. At least what we know of it. Not a trace of the
little girl has surfaced. Investigators have mounting evidence of criminal
intent.”

“My feeling at this point is that we cannot link the two
cases,” the governor said. “What if Doug Baker killed his daughter? Or someone
else? That has nothing to do with Hood’s case. Tragic for Emily Baker. But Montana convicted Hood fairly. The letters after the fact were in the possession of the
county attorney who felt no compunction to reopen the case.”

“Of course he didn’t. It would have been political
suicide. An admission of failure, to point at the little sister and free the
person whose blood the community wanted for the death of this child. It is
understandable the county attorney would have downplayed or diminished the role
of the letters. Would you like to follow that course, in light of what is now
happening in Glacier?”

The governor sighed, sitting back in his chair, looking
at his daughter’s face.

“You seem to be singing a different tune from the other
day,” the governor observed.

“I just think this is a dreadful case and we should not
push too fast in any direction that is not reversible.”

“Be indecisive? Soft on crime?”

“Be responsible, respectful and responsive to facts at
hand.”

The governor turned to Jackson. “What is going on in
Glacier, John? The last we had was the ax, the T-shirt, Dad on the polygraph.”

“I’m awaiting word from our people on the task force.
Indications are some new evidence has surfaced.”

“Something indicating she is alive?”

“Not sure. I expect to hear soon.”

“What was the reaction from David Cohen’s boss in Chicago? They going to rein him in? Not that it matters now--the damage is already done.”

“No is the short answer. They’re proud of him.”

“I don’t like this. Not one damn bit.”

The intercom buzzed.

“The U.S. Attorney General’s Office in Washington,
Governor.”

It was a short conversation with the Governor politely
but forcefully let the attorney general know how “Montana is going to do the
right thing here. After we examine all the facts, separating reality from
rhetoric. I am sorry--what was that? Right. No, we did not know that. We are
awaiting word from Glacier. An update? Yes. They are certain it’s her? I see--”

As the call ended, John Jackson’s cell phone rang. It
was word from Glacier that they are ninety-nine per cent certain they had found
the corpse of Paige Baker at the bottom of a crevasse nearly two miles from her
parents’ campsite.

The governor was nodding, his finger caressing the frame
of his daughter’s picture. He ran his hand over his face, stood, walked to his
window, looked out to the mountains.

“They suspect the parents,” the governor said. “The case
is virtually sealed against them.”

He asked the attorney general if he could still invoke
executive clemency for Hood after first refusing it.

“Yes, the statutes allow for it when new evidence
surfaces,” the attorney general had answered. “You can intervene and grant
thirty days of relief for Hood’s case to be investigated in light of events. If
he has a case, he can make a new appeal to the Board, or he can go right to
court with it.”

The governor nodded at his advisers.

“I’ll do it. I’ll call the director of DOC. I suppose I
have to sign something, then fax it to Deer Lodge. Better alert Pardons and
Parole, too.”

“I can arrange all that, Governor,” Jackson said.

“Thanks. And call Cohen. He’s probably going to be on
with Larry King tonight. We better schedule a news conference, say in three or
four hours here. Let the pack at Glacier get here.”

The attorney general checked his watch.

“Wait, Governor. You’ve got well over fourteen hours
yet.”

“Yes?”

“Why not wait a few more hours? See what happens. We can
keep everything in this room for the time being. See if someone plays a card.
If charges are formally laid and the FBI announces it, then you are not seen as
too eager but reacting accordingly. A few hours one way or the other are not
going to matter much.”

Governor Nye considered the suggestion and agreed.

“We’ll give it a few hours.”

SIXTY-SIX

“Yes, it’s one
of his seizures. A
massive one. His vital signs are deteriorating.” The anxious senior nurse was
talking to the warden from the death watch guard’s phone as she stared at
Isaiah Hood.

“Can he be treated on-site?” the warden asked.

“Not a chance.”

“Give me odds.”

“Ninety-five per cent likelihood he’ll be dead within
two hours if he’s not airlifted now to Montana General Mercy.”

“Is he secured?”

“Yes, but he’s convulsing again. I have to go.”

The warden immediately called DOC Director. Hood was
high profile and it was imperative he alert the director so they could weigh
the ramifications of transporting him.

“I’m sorry sir, the director’s in a meeting,”

“Interrupt it now--”

“But--”

“Now!”

The director came on the line, annoyed until he caught
the urgency of the situation.

“Are you going to give this one to the governor?” the
warden said, aware of the director’s legendary contempt for the man. The
dislike was mutual, stemming from embarrassing grillings the director endured
during corrections review committees chaired by the future governor.

“The governor does not run the prison. I do.”

The director analyzed the situation. Hood’s case, its
entanglement with the Baker drama, was tainting the governor’s administration
and his aspirations for national office. If Hood died now, the crisis facing
the governor would vanish. Or worsen if Hood was proven innocent or was wrongly
convicted. The director considered the ramifications. He was bound to follow
the laws of the state. That is what he would do.

“We can’t execute Hood unless he’s healthy. That’s our
law. I urge you to give him immediate medical attention, as is the policy under
the Corrections Act,” he told the warden.

The chain-of-command decision took just under two
minutes.

An air ambulance in Missoula was dispatched. ETA was
twenty minutes.

Under the warden’s order, security escort procedures
would be followed to the letter. Two uniformed officers would accompany Hood,
who would be restrained. They would have radios and a cell phone. One would
have a prison-issued firearm. The county sheriff’s office was advised and
confirmed two deputies would be standing by to assist at General Mercy in Missoula.

“I want a news media blackout, understand?” the warden
told the security supervisor.

Johnson-Bell Field was situated on an expanse of flat
terrain at the edge of Hellgate Canyon at Missoula’s northwest edge. The air
ambulance service for Montana General Mercy was known as Mercy Force. All
flights were dispatched from its hangar where a crew stood by twenty-four hours
a day, seven days a weeks. They could be airborne in eight minutes.

Park rangers had an air ambulance chopper out of
Kalispell on-site for transport. The Mercy Force was on standby for backup.
Shane Ballard, the pilot of Mercy Force, had just come on duty. The tanned,
thirty-one year old, former U.S. Air Force pilot knew the terrain. He had flown
Mercy’s twin-engined chopper to scores of scene calls for hiking accidents
within the park.

Like most Americans, Ballard was consumed by the live
televised news reports on the case of Paige Baker and now Isaiah Hood, trying
to decide what to make of it all.

“What do you think happened out there, Mya?” Ballard
called to the on-duty paramedic, Mya Wordell, who was pouring coffee for the
crew in the lounge. She was engaged to be married in two weeks to an emergency
surgeon at Mercy.

“I just think it’s so tragic.” She passed coffee to
Ballard. He was going to be one of the ushers at her wedding. Earlier, he
showed her pictures of himself being fitted for his tux.

Wordell then passed a cup to Jane McCarry, the emergency
nurse, who was her best friend in college and now her maid of honor.

“It’s just a horrible thing to watch.” McCarry sipped
from her cup as Mercy’s hot line rang. Ballard grabbed it, jotting notes.

“On our way!” Ballard slipped the note into a zippered
pocket of his blue flight suit, then clapped his hands. “Let’s go ladies.
Traumatic incident at Deer Lodge.”

Isaiah Hood’s medical records were pulled from Montana
State Prison files by the nursing supervisor and clipped to the stretcher as
they wheeled Hood through the penitentiary.

En route to the front gate, they were met by several
officers and the grim-faced security chief, who was wearing a suit. He had
cancelled a departmental meeting and was gripping his own clipboard of
checklists, hastily authorized offender-transfer sheets. He was relieved to visually
confirm that Hood was restrained by straps, cuffs and shackles.
No SNAFU’s
on my watch. No sir.

“I want him scanned on his way out,” the security boss
said as they rolled Hood along the exterior walkway from death row toward the
main gate. Hood’s head bobbed. An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose. He
appeared unconscious. Inside the main gate, they wheeled him near the prison’s
high-tech security equipment.

A state-the-art X-ray system, able to detect metal or
drugs hidden anywhere, was connected to a camera wand with a high-definition
screen. An officer passed it slowly over Hood’s body as half a dozen pairs of
eyes watched the monitor. Anything contraband would stand out on the screen and
trigger a warning bell, which began pinging and displaying a metal object in
Hood’s lower abdomen, in the vicinity of his navel. The sound mixed with the
beating of the approaching air ambulance. The security boss frowned.

“What the hell is that?” He pointed to the object on the
screen.

“Bullet fragment,” the nursing supervisor said. “Hood
was shot as a teen. Hunting accident.” The medical official was flipping pages
of Hood’s records. “Here, see? It’s in his file.”

The security chief studied the record, then the screen,
slipping on his glasses. “It looks fairly large.”

“Read his file.”

Sure enough, a bullet fragment was duly noted,
twenty-two years ago when Hood was first processed. He took drugs for it to
prevent blood poisoning. Doctors recommended against it being removed. The
discomfort was minimal but the surgery was risky.

The helicopter was nearing.

“Fine,” the security boss said. “Let’s move him. We’ve
got an LZ in the parking lot.”

Ballard brought the blue and white Mercy Force
helicopter to a soft landing, keeping the rotors idling as Wordell and McCarry
lowered the aircraft’s rear clamshell doors. Prison staff helped load their
patient into the compact interior, which was crammed with advanced life-support
equipment.

Ballard flinched when he saw the two corrections
officers squeezing in.
No way! The weight will kill us. It’s too risky.
All Ballard could do over the noise was wave them away.

The security chief hurried inside to joust with Ballard
in the cockpit, his face a scowl of authority.

“No damn way can they come,” Ballard shouted. “We can
only carry the patient. It is a weight issue and not one for debate.”

“This is a security issue.”

“Is he restrained?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve taken prisoners before. You have police at the
other end?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’re wasting time. You want him to die right
here?”

The security chief thought it over. It was in
contravention of policy.

“I’ll send one officer.”

Ballard considered it.

“Just one, unarmed. “Your lightest guy. Make it quick,
I’m burning up fuel here.”

“How long is the flight?”

“Twenty minutes.”

McCarry was talking to Ballard on the intercom.

“Shane, we’re losing him and we’ve got to remove one of
his arms to fix an IV.”

Ballard nodded, informed the supervisor of the urgency
of leaving now and freeing one of Hood’s wrists.

The supervisor summoned a young uniformed officer in his
early twenties with a slight build. No more than 150 pounds.

“Sign here,” the supervisor shouted in the officer’s
ear. “You’re the escort. You will not be armed. Just take the radio and the
cuff key. County deputies will pick him up at the hospital. We’ll send the van
after you.”

The young officer nodded, watching his chief personally
free one of Hood’s wrists, then secure the other to the stretcher. The
supervisor double-checked to ensure Hood’s ankles were shackled together, then
patted his officer’s shoulder and exited.

The helicopter ascended over the prison.

As it banked, Hood’s head turned; his eyes flickered
open, glimpsing the prison shrinking below while they soared alongside his
beloved mountains.

Hood rubbed the hardened lump near his navel.

He would never return.