Six Seconds

The day after it happened, the county had dispatched a deputy to check Maggie’s house for foul play before sending Maggie to Vic Thompson, a grumpy, overworked detective. He said Jake had ten days from the date of Maggie’s complaint to give the D. A. an address, a phone number and to begin custody proceedings. If that didn’t happen, the county would issue a warrant for Jake’s arrest for parental abduction. Maggie gave Thompson all their bank, credit card, phone, computer, school and medical records.

He told her to get an attorney.

Trisha Helm, the cheapest available lawyer Maggie could find, “first visit is free,” advised her to start divorce action and claim custody.

“I don’t want a divorce. I need to find Jake and talk to him.”

In that case, Trisha suggested Maggie hire a private detective and steered her to Lyle Billings, a P.I. at Farrow Investigations.

Maggie gave Billings copies of all their personal records and a check for several hundred dollars. Two weeks later, he told her that Jake had not renewed his license in any U.S. state, Canadian province or territory, nor was Logan registered in any school system.

“Assume he changed their names,” Billings said. “Creating a new identity is easier than most people think. It looks like your husband went underground.”

The agency needed more money to continue searching.

Maggie couldn’t afford it.

There was just enough left in their savings for her to keep things going with the house for another three, maybe four months. Then she’d have to sell. She’d been cutting corners. She still had her bookstore job, but things were getting desperate.

So Maggie held off paying the agency more money. She searched on her own, spending most nights on her computer. She contacted truckers’ groups and missing kids organizations, pleaded her case to newsletters and blogs. She scoured news sites for crashes involving rigs and boys Logan’s age.

With each new tragedy Maggie’s stomach knotted.

Maggie attended support groups. They told her to get the press interested in her struggle to find Jake and Logan. Every few days, then every week, she worked her list: the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, the Riverside Press-Enterprise and nearly every TV and radio station in the southland.

“Oh, yeah, we looked into it,” one apple-crunching producer told Maggie after she’d left three messages. “Our sources say that while it’s classified as a parental abduction, it’s more of a civil domestic thing. Sorry.”

Every newsperson had stopped taking her calls, except Stacy Kurtz, the Star-Journal’s crime reporter.

“I don’t think we’ve got a story yet, but please keep me posted,” she said each time Maggie called.

At least Stacy would listen. Maggie had never met her but sometimes her picture ran with her articles. Stacy wore dark-framed glasses, hoop earrings and a smile that her job was slowly hardening. Daily reporting of the latest shooting, fire, drowning, car crash or variant urban tragedy was taking something from her. Some days, she looked older than she was.

“I can’t guarantee we’ll do a story, but I’ll listen to your case as long as you promise to keep me posted on any developments.” Stacy’s to-the-point manner placed a premium on her time in a business ruled by deadlines.

For Maggie, time was evaporating.

What if she never found Logan? Never saw him again?

Now, here she was standing before the Star-Journal, a paper that covered Blue Rose Creek from a forlorn one-story building on a four-lane boulevard.

It sat between Sid’s Check Cashing and Fillipo’s Menswear, looking more like a 1960s strip-mall castaway than the kick-ass rag it once was. A palm tree drooped above the entrance. Weak breezes tried to stir a tattered U.S. flag atop the roof, where a rattling air conditioner bled rusty water down the building’s stucco walls.

To locals, the Star-Journal was an eyesore in need of last rites.

To Maggie, it was a last chance to find Logan, for, day by day, her hope faded like the flag over the Star-Journal. But she’d come here this morning, all the same, with nothing but a prayer.

“May I help you?” a big woman in a print dress asked from her desk, which was the one closest to the counter. The other desks were nearby, situated in the classic newsroom layout. About a dozen cluttered desks crammed together. Most were unoccupied. At others, grim-faced people concentrated on their computer screens, or telephone conversations.

The off-white walls were papered with maps, front pages, news photos and an assortment of headlines. A police scanner was squawking from one corner where three TVs were locked on news channels. At the far end, in a glass-walled office, a balding man with his tie loosened was arguing with a younger man who had a camera slung over his shoulder.

“I’m here to see Stacy Kurtz,” said Maggie.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but—”

“Name?”

“My name is Maggie Conlin.”

“Maggie Conlin?” the big woman repeated before shooting a glance at the woman nearby with a phone wedged between her ear and shoulder.

“No, that is absolutely wrong,” the woman said into the phone as she typed, glancing at Maggie at the counter. She held up her index finger, going back into her phone call. “No, it is absolutely not what your press guy told me at the scene. Good. Tell Detective Wychesski to call me on my cell. That’s right. Stacy Kurtz at the Star-Journal. If he doesn’t call, I’ll consider his silence as confirmation.”

After typing for another moment Stacy Kurtz, who looked little like her picture, approached the counter.

“Stace, this is Maggie Conlin,” the big woman said. “She doesn’t have an appointment but she wants to talk to you.”

Stacy Kurtz extended her hand. “I’m sorry, your name’s familiar.”

“My husband disappeared with my son several months ago.”

“Right. A weird parental abduction, wasn’t it? Is there a development?”

“No. My husband—” Maggie twisted the straps of her bag. “Could we talk, privately?”

Stacy appraised Maggie, trying to determine if she was worth her time. She turned toward the glass-walled office where the balding man was still arguing with the younger man. She bit her bottom lip.

“I just need to talk to you,” Maggie said. “Please.”

“I can give you twenty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

“Della, tell Perry I’m going to step outside to grab a coffee.”

“Got your cell?”

“Yes.”

“Is it on?”

“Yessss.”

“Charged?”

“Bye, Della.”

* * *

A few moments later, half a block away on a park bench, Stacy Kurtz sipped latte from a paper cup and tapped a closed notebook against her lap. As Maggie poured out her anguish, seagulls shrieked overhead.

“So there’s really nothing new though, is there, Maggie? I mean not since it all happened, right?”

“No, but I was hoping that now, after all this time, you would do a story.”

“Maggie, I don’t think so.”

“Please. You could publish their pictures and put it on the wire services and then it would go all over and—”

“Maggie, I’m sorry we’re not going to do a story.”

“I’m begging you. Please. You’re my last hope to find—”

The opening guitar riff of “Sweet Home Alabama” played in Stacy’s bag and she retrieved her phone. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this. Hello,” she answered. “Okay. On my way now. Be there in two minutes.”

“But will you do a story, please?” Maggie held out an envelope for Stacy as they hurried back toward the newspaper.

“What’s this?”

“Pictures of Logan and Jake.”

“Look—” Stacy pushed the envelope back “—I’m sorry, but I never guaranteed a story.”

“Talk to your editor.”

“I did and, to be honest, this is not a story for us at this point.”

“At this point? What’s that supposed to mean? That he’s only news to you after something terrible happens? Like after he’s killed, or dead.”

Stacy stopped cold.

They’d reached the Star-Journal. She tossed her two-thirds-full latte into the trash can and stared at Maggie, then at the traffic. Dealing with heartbroken people every day was never easy, but Stacy’s experience had forged her approach, which was to be truthful, no matter how painful it could be.

“Maggie, I spoke to Detective Vic Thompson. He mentioned something about some incident with your husband and a soccer coach. And that this was all about problems at home. A civil matter, really.”

“What? No, that’s not true.”

“I’m sorry.”

Suddenly, the buildings, traffic, the sidewalk, all began to swirl. Maggie steadied herself, placing her hand on a Star-Journal newspaper box. She raised her head to the sky in a vain effort to blink back her tears.

“My son is all I have in this world. My husband came back from working overseas a changed man. It’s been five months now and no one’s been able to find them. I may never see them again.”

Stacy’s phone rang. She glanced at the number then shut it off without answering.

“I have to go.”

“What would you do if you were me?” Maggie said. “I’ve gone to police, a lawyer, a private detective. All in vain. I have nowhere else to go. No one else to turn to. I have no family, I have no friends. I’m all alone. You were my only hope. My last hope.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure things will work out. I’m so sorry. I really have to go.” And with that Stacy disappeared through the doors of the Star-Journal.

Maggie stood alone in the street, the flutter and clang of the flagpole sounding a requiem to her defeat. She returned to her car and she met a stranger in her rearview mirror. She blinked at the lines stress had carved into her face. She’d let her hair go. She’d lost weight and couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled.

How did her life come to this? She and Jake had been in love. They’d had a happy life. A good life. She thrust her face into her hands and sobbed until she heard a tapping on the window and she turned to see Stacy Kurtz’s face.

Maggie lowered her window.

“Listen.” Stacy was searching her notebook. “I’m sorry things ended that way.”

Maggie regained a measure of composure as Stacy snapped through pages.

“I’m not sure that this will help, but you never know.”

Stacy copied something on a blank page then tore it out.

“Very few people know about this woman. She doesn’t ask for money. She doesn’t advertise and when I asked to profile her, she refused. She does not want publicity.”

Wiping at her tears, Maggie studied the name and telephone number written in blue ink.

“What’s this?”

“I have a detective friend who swears this woman helped the LAPD locate a murder suspect, and that she also helped the FBI find a teenager who’d vanished and, I guess, about ten years ago she helped find an abducted toddler in Europe.”

“I don’t understand. Is she a police officer?”

“No, she senses things, sees them in her mind and feels them.”

“Is she a psychic?”

“Something like that. It’s up to you whether you go to her or not. I apologize, today’s been a bad day at the paper. Please keep me posted. Bye.”

After Stacy left, Maggie stared at the name she’d written.

“Madame Fatima.”

She clenched the note in her fist as if it were a lifeline.

4

Faust’s Fork, near Banff, Alberta, Canada

Graham hung on to the girl.

How long had it been? Half an hour? An hour? He didn’t know.

The river’s force was draining his strength but he refused to let go.

Where’s the chopper? They’ve got to see us. Come on!

Shouting was futile. The current pummeled him, the pain was electrifying. His body went numb. He was slipping from consciousness.

He thought of Nora, his wife. Her eyes. Her smile.

It gave him strength.

The river was relentless but he refused to let go. His hands were bleeding but he refused to let go, reaching deep for everything drilled into him at the training academy in Regina.

Never give up, never quit, never surrender.

He held on until the air began hammering above them.

A helicopter.

Everything blurred in the prop wash: A rescue tech descended, tethered to a hoist and basket. Graham helped position the girl into it, then watched her rise into the chopper. Then the tech returned for Graham, strapped him into a harness and raised him from the water. Mountains spun as they ascended over the river to a meadow where they put down. The techs pulled off his wet clothes, wrapped him in blankets and they lifted off.

As rescuers worked on the girl, the helicopter charged above a rolling forest valley that cut through the mountains. In minutes they came to a clearing near a trailside hostel where several emergency vehicles waited, including a second helicopter—the red STARS air ambulance out of Calgary. Its rear clamshell doors were open. Its rotors were turning.

“She’s not responding,” Graham heard the techs shout to the medical crew.

Wearing their flight suits and helmets, the emergency doctor, paramedic and nurse worked quickly, administering CPR, an IV, slipping an oxygen mask over her face, transferring her to a gurney. They packaged her into the medical chopper which thundered off to a trauma hospital in Calgary.

Graham stayed behind on the ground. He was barefoot and enshrouded in blankets as paramedics from Banff treated him for mild hypothermia and cuts to his hands and legs. Other officials watched and waited.

“Let’s get you to the hospital in Banff for a better look,” a paramedic said.

Graham shook his head, watching the red helicopter disappear in the east.

“I’m fine. I want to stay with the search.”

A park warden trotted to his pickup, dug out a set of government-issue orange coveralls—the kind firefighters wore for forest fires—woolen socks and boots, and tossed them to Graham.

“They’re dry and should fit,” the warden said, nodding to a change room. “When you’re ready, I’ll drive you to the search center.” He shook Graham’s hand. “Bruce Dawson.”

A few minutes later, with Graham in the passenger seat, Dawson ground through all gears as his truck rumbled along the dirt road that cut southwest through pine forests. On the way, he radioed a request to the searchers to retrieve the Mountie’s bag from his campsite, along with his badge, boots and things he’d left by the river, and bring them to the center.

“What’s the status?” Graham asked. “Those kids didn’t come up here alone.”

“Right, we figured on adults, too. We’ve expanded the perimeter downstream.” Dawson kept his eyes on the road, letting several moments pass before he said, “I was listening on the radio after they spotted you in the river with the girl. That’s a helluva thing you did.”

Graham looked to the mountains without responding.

It was a bumpy thirty-minute ride over backcountry terrain to the warden’s station for the Faust region. It sat on a plateau near a ridgeline trail. In its previous life the station had been a cookhouse built from hand-hewn spruce logs by a coal mining company in 1909.

Now it was doubling as the incident command center. Its walls were covered with maps. The main meeting room was jammed with people and a massive table was loaded with computers, GPS tracking gear and more maps. Sat phones and landlines rang, amid ongoing conversations as radios crackled nonstop over the hum of search helicopters.

The station was also equipped with basic plumbing. Graham took a hot shower, changed into his clothes from his retrieved bag. As he joined the others, his chief concern was the girl.

“What’s her status?”

“No word yet.” Dawson offered him a mug of coffee and a ham sandwich. Graham accepted the coffee, declined the sandwich. “We know they landed at Alberta Children’s moments ago. While we’re waiting for news, I’ll update you on the search.”

Referring to the map spread out on the big table, Dawson touched the tip of a sharpened pencil to a point along the river.

“This is where the boy was found. Mounties from Banff and Canmore are at the scene, and the medical examiner’s just arrived.”

“Do we have an idea who the boy is? Or who he belongs to? Any missing children reports?”

Dawson shook his head. “Not yet. Too many possibilities.” His pencil followed the river. “You’ve got scores of campsites, day-trippers. We’re going through the registrations and we’ve got teams going to each site to account for each visitor. People are mobile. They’re on trails, or in Banff doing the tourist thing, or in Calgary, or wherever. It’s going to take time.”

Graham understood.

“We’ve gridded the area. We’ve got people on the ground, on the water, in the air, we’re searching every—”

“Is there a Corporal Graham here?” Across the room, a young woman held up a black telephone receiver.

“That’s me,” Graham said.

“Call for you!”

Taking it, Graham cupped a hand over one ear.

“Dan, we heard what you did. You okay?”

It was his boss, Inspector Mike Stotter, who headed Major Crimes out of the RCMP’s South District in Calgary.

“I’m fine.”

“You went above and beyond the call.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Dan, listen, I’m sorry, but they just pronounced her at the hospital.”

“What?”

“They just called us. She didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”

Her trembling body. Her eyes. Her last words, spoken into his ear.

Graham rubbed his hand over his face.

“Give me this case, Mike.”

“It’s too soon for you.”

“I was coming back from leave this week.”

“I’ve got some cold cases ready for you. Look, this one’s likely going to be a wilderness accident, nothing suspicious. We don’t need to be there. Fornier’s rookies in Banff can have it.”

“I need this case, Mike.”

“You need it?”

“Did the chopper crew or the hospital indicate if she said anything? If she tried to speak before she died?”

“Hang on. Shane was talking to them.”

Graham looked at the mountains, feeling something churning in his gut until Stotter came back on the line.

“Nothing, Dan, why?”

“She spoke to me, Mike.”

“What’d she say?”

“It wasn’t clear. But I’ve got a feeling that this wasn’t an accident. We need to be on this. I want this case, Mike.”

A long moment passed.

“Okay. I’ll tell Fornier. You’re the lead. For now. If it’s criminal, it stays with us in Major Crimes. If it’s not, you kick it back to Fornier’s people. Look, Prell’s in Canmore on another matter, I’m sending him to you now, to give you a hand.”

“Prell? Who’s Prell?”

“Constable Owen Prell. Just joined us in Major Crimes from Medicine Hat.”

“Fine, thanks, Mike.”

“You sure you’re good to take this on. You’ve got two fatals so far and the river’s likely to give you more.”

“I’m good.”

“Better get yourself to the scene where they found the boy.”

5

Faust’s Fork, near Banff, Alberta, Canada

The boy’s face was flawless.

Almost sublime in death.

His eyes were closed. Not a mark on his skin. He had the aura of a sleeping cherub as a breeze lifted strands of his hair, like a mother tenderly coaxing him to wake and play.

His resemblance to the girl was clear. He was older, likely her big brother. His jeans were faded, his blue sweatshirt bore a Canadian Rockies insignia, his sneakers were a popular brand and in good shape. He looked about eight or nine and so small inside the open body bag.

Who is he? What were his favorite things? His dreams? His last thoughts? Graham wondered, kneeling over him on the riverbank with Liz DeYoung, the medical investigator from the Calgary Medical Examiner’s Office.

“What do you think?” Graham raised his voice over the river’s rush. “Accident, or suspicious?”

“Way too soon to tell.” DeYoung was wearing blue latex gloves and, using the utmost care, she grasped the boy’s small shoulders and turned him. The back of his skull had been smashed in like an eggshell, exposing cranial matter. “It appears the major trauma is here.”

“From the rocks?”

“Probably. We’ll know more after we autopsy him, and the girl, back in Calgary. At this stage, Mother Nature’s your suspect.”

Graham glimpsed De Young’s wristwatch and updated his case log using the pen, notebook and clipboard he’d borrowed from the Banff members helping at the scene.

“No life jackets,” Graham said.

“Excuse me?”

“The girl didn’t have one. He doesn’t have one. Did anyone see life jackets?”

“No. But if you’ve got a reason to be suspicious, would you share it?”

“It’s just a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“Forget it. I’m still thawing out. Did you find any ID? Items in his pockets? Clothing tags?”

“No. Except for a little flashlight and a granola bar, nothing. Look, you guys do your thing. Get us some names and a next of kin, so we can request dental records to confirm. You know the drill.”

He knew the drill.

“So we’re good to move him?” DeYoung had a lot of work ahead of her.

Graham didn’t answer. He was staring at the boy, prompting her to look at him with a measure of concern.

“Are you okay?”

DeYoung knew something of Graham’s personal situation and took quick stock of him, blinking at a memory.

“Dan, you know the only time I ever met Nora was last Christmas. We all sat together at the attorney general’s banquet. We hit it off. Remember?”

He remembered.

“I’m so sorry. I missed her service. I was at a conference in Australia.”

“It’s okay.”

“How are you doing? Really?”

His gaze shifted from the boy’s corpse to the river, as if the answer to everything was out there.

He stood. “You can move him now.”

DeYoung closed the bag. Her crew loaded it onto a stretcher, strapped it in three areas, then carried it carefully up the embankment to their van. Graham watched the van inch along the trail, suspension creaking as it tottered to the back road. Then it was gone.

For a moment, he stood alone in the middle of the scene.

It had been cordoned on three sides with yellow tape. He was wearing latex gloves and shoe covers. Nearby, members of the RCMP Forensic Identification Section out of Calgary, in radiant white coveralls, looked surreal against the dark rocks and jade river, working quietly taking pictures, measuring, collecting samples of potential evidence.

All in keeping with a fundamental tenet known to all detectives.

A wilderness death can be a perfect murder. Treat it as suspicious because you don’t know the truth until you know the facts.

Graham resumed studying his clipboard, paging through the handwritten statements and notes he’d taken from the people who’d found the boy. Haruki Ito, age forty-four, photographer from Tokyo, was first. He’d flagged the women on bicycles. Ingrid Borland, age fifty-one, a librarian from Frankfurt, and Marlena Zimmer, age thirty-three, a Web editor from Munich. They all seemed to be pretty straight-up tourists.

Nothing unusual regarding their demeanor.

The guy from Tokyo was a seasoned news photographer, having covered some terrible stuff like wars and tsunamis. He was fairly calm, philosophical, Graham thought. It was a different story with the women, who were left shaken by their futile attempt to revive the boy. “That poor child. That poor, poor child.”

Static crackled from a police radio, pulling Graham’s attention to the man approaching. He’d emerged from the tangle of emergency vehicles atop the riverbank where members from the Banff and Canmore general investigations sections were with the witnesses. He stopped at the tape. A wise decision.