Scott Free Read online

  Scott remembered thinking that the class was lame—he’d gone because of the free skiing in the afternoons—but he’d taken notes anyway because there would be a test at the end, and Scott always took notes for tests. Once he’d written something down, it was burned into his brain forever. Mr. Forbes, his guidance counselor, told him that his recall was as close to a photographic memory as he’d ever seen.

  Pulling himself away from Cody Jamieson’s remains, Scott tried to organize his thoughts. It was time to listen to Sven.

  Problem was, when Scott and his dad had built their shelters in class, they’d worked in daylight on a sunny afternoon with shovels and two-person teams. Here, he faced the prospect of working alone at night in the swirling snow without tools. Just how in the hell was he supposed to do that?

  “SO, YOU DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW that they crashed,” Brandon summarized, grasping for anything that looked like hope. They sat in the living room, in front of the dark fireplace, Brandon in the middle of one sofa, his visitors on the sofa facing him.

  Officer Hoptman’s sigh betrayed frustration. “Mr. O’Toole, sir, I don’t know anything firsthand. All I know is what we heard from the Utah State Police. Apparently, your son and a friend took off from the ski resort to attend a concert, and they never arrived.”

  “And what was the friend’s name again?”

  Hoptman paged backward in his notes. “Jamieson. Cody Jamieson. I’m sorry that I don’t have more solid details, but this is coming to me twice filtered. Your wife filed the initial missing person’s report—”

  “My ex-wife,” Brandon corrected.

  “Okay, your ex-wife, then. And even there, things are a little fuzzy. They assume that they flew, mainly because the plane belonging to Cody Jamieson is missing from the airport. Plus, there are some witnesses who heard one or both of them talking—”

  “How long, then? Before we have harder details, I mean?”

  Brandon knew these people had no answers, but it was as if he somehow needed to direct the discussion. As his visitors searched for something to say, Brandon zeroed in on Father Scannell. Of the two men before him, the priest seemed the most willing to answer questions. “So, what happens next, Father?”

  At sixtyish, Father Scannell looked more like a tennis player than a priest, his leathery skin testament to many hours in the sun. He wore his white hair closely cropped with a part so sharp that it looked sculpted. But it was the priest’s eyes that captured Brandon and wouldn’t let him go. A shade of blue that he’d never seen before, the eyes were at once piercing and sad, windows to a soul that had absorbed and absolved more than its share of sin. Scannell spoke with those eyes, and right now they offered only sympathy and kindness. Brandon wanted none of it. Terror blossomed in his gut like a poisonous black flower. Clamping his jaw tight and pursing his lips, he cocked his head to the side as his vision blurred.

  “We can pray,” the priest said softly.

  The quiver in Brandon’s gut turned to pain. There had to be more than that. Praying was the last resort, what you did when all options were gone. You prayed for the dead.

  For the first time, he saw what they saw: A plane crash at night, in the mountains, in winter. In Utah. Brandon drew a huge breath through his mouth, and held it, hoping to stop his head from spinning. “He’s not dead,” he whispered. “My son is not dead.”

  “Pray with me, Mr. O’Toole.”

  “He’s not dead!” This time, his voice showed strength that the rest of his body didn’t possess.

  “Then we’ll pray for God to protect them and keep them safe.”

  “Scott is not dead. He can’t be dead.”

  Father Scannell held out his hand, and Brandon looked at it for a long moment before grasping it. Then the priest offered his other hand to Officer Hoptman, who closed the circle. Brandon watched, dumbstruck, as they bowed their heads.

  “Heavenly Father, in the name of your Son and the Blessed Virgin, we ask you to intercede at this critical hour. To protect Scott O’Toole from harm, and to guide him to safety. We beseech you to open his heart to your love and your guidance….”

  Don’t let him be dead, Brandon thought. Let him be healthy and unhurt. Let this all be a miserable dream or a terrible mistake.

  If what these people said were true, Brandon would know it. The cosmos could not continue its normal rhythm while his son was in mortal danger. It just wasn’t possible.

  Praying was not the answer. It couldn’t hurt, but it wasn’t anybody’s solution. Brandon needed to take real action, concrete action. He needed to do something that would directly affect the outcome of this nightmare, without intercession from third parties, God notwithstanding. There had to be something. Someone he could call. Some action he could take.

  “How do they go about locating lost aircraft?” he asked, interrupting Father Scannell’s prayer.

  The priest looked startled. “Excuse me?”

  “Not you, Father.” Brandon’s tone sounded more abrupt than he’d intended. “Officer Hoptman, how do they locate lost aircraft?”

  The young police officer looked suddenly confused, caught off guard. “I don’t know, sir. I’ve never actually participated in something like that.”

  Brandon nodded. That seemed reasonable. Aircraft don’t fall out of the sky every day. “Who do I need to call to find out?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know that, either.”

  “Would your supervisor know?”

  Hoptman shrugged. “Maybe. I guess. Listen, Mr. O’Toole, these are things that I think can—”

  “There’s a phone on the wall around there in the kitchen. Do me a favor and call your supervisor and give me a jump start on this thing, will you?”

  Hoptman and Scannell exchanged confused glances. “I don’t understand, sir,” the officer said. “A jump start on what?”

  “On finding my son.”

  Scannell sighed deeply and leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs. “Look, Mr. O’Toole, at times like these the tendency is to reject bad news. It’s only human. But I really must say—”

  “Save it, Father,” Brandon interrupted. He didn’t care that it came out harshly. “I know what the chances of survival out there are, okay? I’m a ski patroller myself. But you know what? Scott has camped his whole life. Just last year, we took a winter survival class together.” He turned to Hoptman. “Do you think anyone out there knows that?”

  The officer didn’t answer, obviously assuming the question to be rhetorical. He seemed startled when he realized otherwise. “No, sir, I suppose not.”

  “Don’t you think we should tell them, then? Whoever they are?”

  Hoptman nodded.

  “Did I mention that there’s a phone in the kitchen?”

  The cop knew his cue when he heard it, and he rose quickly from the sofa and disappeared.

  “Please don’t expect the unreasonable,” Father Scannell warned.

  Brandon eyed the priest narrowly. The man meant well, but he didn’t understand. Not Scott and certainly not Brandon. “Isn’t that what prayers are all about, Father?”

  4

  THE MAN WHO CALLED HIMSELF TEDDY wasn’t much of a talker by nature, but tonight the role required it, so he just chatted along as if he’d forgotten how to breathe. In the past five hours, he’d covered music, food, movies, religion and politics—the latter only after listening carefully to what his new friend thought about the issues. No sense unnecessarily pissing people off. For a while there, back in the truck stop, he was worried that he might be laying it on a little too thick, but in retrospect he should have known better. Some people were just too friendly for their own good.

  But ultimately, when the heavens dumped this much snow, only the weather made the A-list for discussion. Would they close the interstates or wouldn’t they? How many New York skiers would turn up frozen to death in the morning? One particularly animated discussion among the truckers was the ethical reasonableness of pushing stranded four-wheelers off the ro
ad when they were stupid enough to drive in powder that was deeper than their axles were high.

  The truck stop banter required the patience of a fisherman. Fact was, if Teddy hadn’t hooked a ride with someone—if he’d gotten stranded there—his careful planning could have unraveled very quickly. He could have found solace in the fact that the cops had far more important things to do on a night like this than trace the tags on his car, but it wasn’t impossible, and as a man who stayed alive by controlling risk, he’d wanted to be back on the road as quickly as possible. The idea was to abandon the car at the truck stop and catch a ride under the auspices of having hitchhiked this far. Tomorrow was his mother’s eightieth birthday, don’t you know, and he was coming home to her as a surprise.

  Teddy’s mother had had more eightieth birthdays than McDonald’s has fries.

  One guy in particular had looked like he might be a strong candidate. He sat in a far corner and made eye contact periodically, but every time Teddy had offered a smile, the other guy looked away. Teddy didn’t like that. He’d considered for a moment that maybe the guy was watching him—that he knew more than he should—but the very idea seemed preposterous. Still, one could never be too careful. Teddy had decided to make the first move if the stranger didn’t approach soon. All the professionalism in the world couldn’t crush irrational paranoia completely.

  The stranger in the booth became irrelevant, though, the instant that Maurice Hertzberger waddled in. Clearly a regular, Maurice chatted it up with the waitress who, by pure happenstance, seated the newcomer in the booth directly across the aisle from Teddy, who continued on with the small talk. He tossed off a casual how-ya-doin’, which led to the where-ya-froms and within ten minutes, Teddy had received an invitation to move his place setting over to Maurice’s table. That’s when the conversation turned to the eightieth birthday. Damn this weather, though. It would be a bitch finding a ride.

  Right on cue, Maurice had made his offer and Teddy had his chauffeur. Thus began the five hours of endless chatter.

  “The roads are getting worse by the minute,” Maurice observed for at least the dozenth time. In profile, his huge belly made his arms look too short to steer.

  “You’re doin’ great by me,” Teddy replied. Thanks to a theatrical fat suit he’d picked up on an Internet auction for about seventy bucks, people would remember Teddy as a full-figured fellow himself. The suit added a good fifty pounds to his appearance, and the bushy beard concealed his lean features well enough to not raise casual suspicion. “You must drive this route a lot.”

  “Actually, no. Salt Lake is my usual run, but I don’t take this route. Certainly not in this weather.” Maurice reached across and playfully slapped his passenger on the arm. “This one’s for you and your mom.”

  Teddy appeared moved. Acting was part of his job description, too. “Are you serious? I didn’t expect you to go out of your way.”

  Maurice waved him off. “Oh, hell, I don’t mind. Night like this, it’s kinda nice to have the company, know what I mean?”

  Teddy returned the playful slap, only his probably left a bruise. “Maurice, that is so nice of you. I really am very touched.” In the blessed silence that followed, Teddy watched in his peripheral vision as the driver rubbed the spot on his arm.

  The quiet endured for only thirty seconds. “You sure you don’t want to call home or something?” Maurice asked. “You’re welcome to use my cell phone.”

  “No, that’s all right. Thank you.”

  “You sure?” Maurice tried again, this time thrusting a matchbook-size cell phone at his guest. “Your mom must be worried sick.”

  “She’s not expecting me,” Teddy explained. “And even if she was, she doesn’t have a phone.”

  Maurice recoiled at the thought. “No kidding? She doesn’t have a phone? How come?”

  This was actually kind of fun. New territory to be explored. “She thinks they’re the work of the devil,” he said with a hearty laugh. Then, in his best old-lady voice he added, “I’ve been on this planet since nineteen and twenty-three and never once saw the need for a telephone. Somebody wants to talk to me they can damn well come to my door and talk to my face.” That sounded pretty good, he thought.

  Maurice chuckled. “But what about emergencies? What if she gets sick?”

  Teddy laughed, maybe a little too heartily. “You don’t know Mama. Never been sick a day in her life. I always figured the germs were afraid of her.”

  Maurice enjoyed that one, too. His boisterous laugh jostled the cab. At the rate they were traveling, Teddy figured they had another forty-five minutes to share. Maybe an hour.

  ARAPAHO COUNTY POLICE CHIEF Barry Whitestone listened to the bad news and gently placed the telephone receiver back in its cradle. Out in the squad room, beyond the glass panels that defined the walls of his office, six officers stared hopefully at him, then looked away when they saw his expression. Some nights, nothing went right.

  He pushed his wooden desk chair back on its casters, and headed for the door to make it official.

  “Is it as bad as you look, boss?” asked Jesse Tingle. At twenty-seven, Jesse was the second-oldest cop on his staff, and at that, he got carded at every restaurant.

  “From every angle you can think of,” Barry replied. He helped himself to a seat on the front corner of an empty desk. “With the storm blowing the way it is, nobody will put a plane in the air, and the weather service says this is all we’ll see for the next thirty-six hours.”

  “What about ground teams?” asked Charlotte Eberly, the department’s token nod to equal opportunity for women.

  Barry shook his head. “Don’t know where to send them, and even if we did, who’d go out in this? I alerted Burt Hostings, and he says he can have his search and rescue troops assembled within two hours of getting our call.”

  “If the roads are open,” Jesse cautioned.

  “Exactly,” Barry agreed. “If the roads are open. And who wants to cover my bets for that happening?”

  Charlotte shook her head, totally baffled. “Such craziness. What were they doing up there in the first place?”

  “The pilot was twenty-one and stupid,” Barry said.

  Charlotte looked at him like he smelled bad. “Aren’t you Mr. Sensitive.”

  “Hey, it was Metallica, for God’s sake. Cut him a break.” This entry into the conversation came from James Alexander. Blue-black, and built like the linebacker he’d been all through college, James had a voice that made the ground tremble.

  Barry arched an eyebrow. “You a heavy-metal fan, James?”

  James smiled. “Helps me digest my watermelon. I read in the Denver Post that this is their tour to end all tours. Tickets are scalping for a thousand bucks a pop.”

  “The hell you doin’ reading the Denver Post?” Jesse wanted to know. Even if he’d seen James’s Phi Beta Kappa key, he wouldn’t have known what it was.

  “Denver, New York, Washington and L.A.,” James said. “I read all four.”

  “Every day?”

  James laughed. “Only Denver on the weekends. That make you feel better? All that Sunday supplement crap makes me feel guilty about all the trees I’m killing.” Then, to Whitestone, “So we’re not gonna do anything tonight about the crash?”

  “We can pray and think pleasant thoughts. Unless you’ve got better ideas.”

  “They’re dead,” James said. “If they weren’t when they hit the ground, then they sure as hell are now.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Barry cautioned. “I got a message from the…” He rummaged through his pockets looking for the slip of paper where he’d jotted the note. “…the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia, where one of the fathers lives. Dad wanted us to know that his boy—the youngest victim, Scott O’Toole—has had winter wilderness survival training.”

  “That’s bullshit,” James blurted. “How old is he?”

  “Sixteen, I think. Maybe fifteen. I don’t remember.”

  “Well, it
’s bullshit.”

  This drew an incredulous laugh from the chief. “Why is it bull shit?”

  “Because no sixteen-year-old can keep himself alive in the mountains during a snowstorm. Lord Almighty, it’s near zero degrees out there.”

  “Everywhere I turn, I’m surrounded by optimism,” Charlotte mocked.

  “It’s not about optimism,” James argued. “It’s about pragmatism. Reality.”

  “So you say, ‘write them off and assume they’re dead?’ Sounds to me like you’re in the wrong line of work.”

  Jesse intervened with hands outstretched, as if he were stopping traffic. “Easy, guys.” To Barry: “What about tomorrow?”

  The chief shook his head. “I think the Air Force’ll be able to get somebody up over the storm to listen for their locator beacon, but a rescue will depend on the weather. The Civil Air Patrol will be scrambled to head up that part of the search.”

  This triggered a disdainful snort from James.

  “What now?” Charlotte wanted to know.

  “The Civil Air Patrol? You ever seen the Civil Air Patrol?”

  Charlotte made a motion with her shoulders that might have been a shrug.

  “I’ve seen them around my little brother’s high school. They’re kids. Air Force wanna-bes whose voices haven’t changed yet.”

  Looking shocked, Charlotte turned to Barry for confirmation.

  The chief half nodded. “They’re really an Air Force auxiliary, and yeah, the high school kids—cadets, they call them—do a lot of the leg work. But the commanders are all active duty or retired military.”

  “Am I the only one thinking about the movie Taps?” Jesse asked.

  “I don’t believe that,” Charlotte said. “Who are all those people swarming all over crash scenes on the news?”

  “We’re not talking a 747 here,” Barry explained. “This was a little Cessna with two people on board. The Civil Air Patrol has jurisdiction over the search. That’s just the way it is.”

  “Unless you’re an ex-president’s kid,” James added. “When he crashed, they dispatched the whole friggin’ Navy.”