Immoral

18

The Kitch, as the Kitchi Gammi Club was known, was Duluth 's attempt to emulate the elegance of New England city clubs. It was a four-story red-brick mansion with tidy, manicured gardens flowering in the warmth of springtime, wide gables, and a stately porch. The club boasted cozy upstairs libraries, with cherrywood antiques, elegant recliners, and all the day's news from Minneapolis and New York neatly placed on the lion's-paw coffee tables. This was where politicians and investors enjoyed snifters of brandy while they conducted the city's important business.

The doorman, a wizened Norwegian in his early eighties named Per who had worked at the Kitch longer than many of its members had been alive, drew to attention as a tall, stout man approached the steps of the club. The man was whistling a Sinatra song, as he had been doing for all of the thirty years Per had known him. He was in his late fifties, and nearly as wide as he was tall, but he had an energetic bounce in his step. He had gray curly hair neatly trimmed and receding well behind his forehead. His face was florid and wide, with razor-sharp blue eyes, tiny owlish glasses, and a peppery goatee. He wore a charcoal pinstripe three-piece suit with a white shirt. Gold cufflinks peeked out from the ends of his coat sleeves. A flower was poked into the slit of his lapel. An aroma of cologne trailed him up the steps.

"Good evening, Mr. Gale," Per said, swinging open the door.

"Per, it is a pleasure to see you, as always," Archibald Gale replied in a booming voice. "What an astonishing spring day, isn't it?"

"Oh, that it is, Mr. Gale. I'm guessing you have another big case, then, don't you?"

"I do, Per, I do."

"Well, I always say there isn't anyone better than you."

"From your mouth to the jury's ears, Per," Gale replied.

He patted the old man affectionately on the shoulder and entered the dark foyer of the club. The door, with its heavy oak panels and stained glass, closed gently behind him. He checked his watch and noted that it was four forty-five, fifteen minutes before his appointment with Dan Erickson, the county attorney. Gale liked to arrive early, situate himself in one of the libraries with a single-malt scotch, and await his prey.

Although Gale was one of the state's most notable criminal trial lawyers, it was rumored that he won most of his cases at the Kitch, by demoralizing his opposing counsel over a cordial drink. His innocent hints and dark innuendos so thoroughly unnerved prosecutors that they began second-guessing their strategy and fumbling their presentations in court. Gale's reputation for psychological warfare had become so well known that prosecutors were now turning down his traditional offer of a chitchat at the Kitch on the night before a trial began.

But Daniel had too much ego to turn him down. It was more fun that way. Gale had dealt with many ambitious, politically minded attorneys over the years, and he enjoyed poking holes in their arrogance. Daniel was more ruthless than most. Initially, when Trygg Stengard, the previous county attorney, had hired Daniel, Gale had given his old friend and adversary words of caution about his new number-two man. But Stengard, unlike Gale, was a politician with a soft spot for naked ambition.

"I expect you to soften the kid up, Archie," Stengard had told him. "Kick his ass a few times. It'll be good for him."

Gale had done just that. He was not surprised to find that Daniel was suave and effective in court and had done a good job as county attorney after Stengard died. Daniel had lost two big cases, though-both at the hands of Archibald Gale.

The trial of Graeme Stoner would be either Daniel's revenge or a humiliating strikeout.

Gale knew that Daniel was confident, and Gale was fully aware that the prosecutor had reason to be. Even without a body, the forensic evidence alone would be enough to sour a jury on a client who looked even more arrogant than the prosecutor, and if Daniel could make them believe that the man had truly been screwing his stepdaughter, Gale would have a difficult time keeping Stoner out of jail for the rest of his life.

But Gale enjoyed a challenge-and he had a few surprises of his own waiting.

Gale hopped into the ancient elevator and felt it sag under his weight. He usually took the stairs to stay in shape, but for his pretrial meetings, he didn't want to risk being winded. When the elevator finally creaked to a halt, he got out and headed down the hall to the large Ojibwe Library, with its three sets of chambered windows overlooking the lake. Margaret emerged from the kitchen, and he bent down merrily to give her a peck on the cheek. The old woman giggled and blushed.

"I've got your glass of Oban on the coffee table for you, Mr. Gale."

"Oh, Margaret, you're too good to me. Let's run away together, shall we?"

Margaret giggled again. "Do you know what Mr. Erickson will be drinking?"

"Make sure you have a Bombay gin with lots of ice waiting for him. Put it on my account. And I imagine he'll quickly want another."

Margaret smiled, as if they were sharing a little secret, and retreated back to the kitchen.

Gale made himself comfortable. He spent a moment or two reflecting as he stared out the windows, glanced at the headlines of the Star Tribune, which he had already read, and settled himself into a 1920s sofa, where he allowed his Oban to warm in his palm. He was calm. He was always that way before a trial. Other lawyers became energetic and restless. Gale became focused. He could feel his pulse slow down and feel his brain slowly bring itself to bear on the big picture of what lay ahead.

Five minutes later, Dan Erickson burst into the library, carrying a double shot of gin in a lowball glass, which he swirled in his hand, clinking the ice cubes. Drops of gin slurped over the edges and onto the carpeting.

"Hello, Daniel," Gale said. "My, my, you look nervous."

Dan stopped and smiled. "On the contrary. I can't wait to get started. Last time, you beat me, Archie."

"And the time before that, as I recall," Gale reminded him cheerily.

"Well, not this time."

Dan didn't sit down. He paced between the windows and the fireplace. He was dressed in a navy suit and polished black shoes. His blond hair was carefully sprayed in place. Although a short man, Dan was handsome and fit, and Gale suspected he had been going to a tanning booth for weeks to make an impression on the jury.

"Ah, but Judge Kassel already took my side regarding Nancy Carver," Gale said.

Dan shrugged. He picked up a small porcelain figurine from the fireplace mantel, passed it back and forth between his hands, and put it back. "Carver's testimony was hearsay. I knew we wouldn't get it in."

"So you say, but it makes it much harder to put Graeme and Rachel in bed together, doesn't it?"

"Oh, we have enough to do that," Dan said. "This is a very sick client you've got, Archie. You're not making yourself any friends in the community by taking the case."

Gale buried his nose inside his glass of scotch, then took an imperceptible sip. "Yes, I've already gotten the usual hate mail and death threats. It's ironic, don't you think, people saying they're going to kill me because I'm defending an alleged murderer?"

"You're hardly on the side of the angels here," Dan said. He was at the window now, staring at the Monday afternoon traffic on London Road. Then he paced back to the center of the room.

"Sit down already, you're making me dizzy."

Dan smiled. He drummed his fingers on his pockets. "Just wait, Archie. Just wait."

"You do seem confident," Gale told him.

"That's because I've got Stoner nailed. I know it. You know it."

"Oh, if I were you, I'd look into a few of my witnesses a little more carefully. You might find they have other stories to tell."

A faint flicker of worry passed across Dan's face and then was quickly replaced by a broad grin. "Damn, you are an old fox. You lie almost as well as I do."

Gale chuckled. "High praise from you. But I'm not lying, Consider it a professional courtesy."

"Yeah, yeah. Look, you can wriggle and squirm, but you won't escape on this one. Your one chance was to get the case moved to another venue, and on that one, you lost. Hell, I don't need to worry about putting Nancy Carver on the stand to say that Rachel told her she was boffing her daddy. The whole jury pool already knows. Not that I'll admit that outside this room."

"Yes," Gale acknowledged, sighing. "I was disappointed about the change of venue. I suspect the judge knows the case should have been transferred, but I really think she wanted it herself. She's a little like you."

Dan bent down, dipping his fingers into a crystal bowl and scooping out a handful of mixed nuts. He sifted through them, sorting out a white chunk of Brazil nut, which he popped into his mouth.

"You're right about that," he said, as the nut crunched between his teeth. "In fact, you should know that I slept with Catharine."

Gale's eyebrows arched in surprise. He reached over to the end table and retrieved his Oban. "You slept with the judge? Isn't that going a little far to win a case?"

"It was several years ago. She wasn't a judge, and I wasn't the county attorney then."

"But she was already married, as I recall," Gale said.

Dan shrugged and found a cashew from the pile in his hand. He ate it loudly without replying.

"I could ask for a different judge," Gale continued.

"You could, but you won't," Dan said.

"You're so sure?"

Dan nodded. "This won't be your last case in front of Catharine, and I don't imagine you want to be the one to air her dirty linen in public. Besides, you know you could do worse. Stoner will get fair treatment at her hands. More than he deserves."

"And from what I know of your reputation, Daniel, your affair with her may work to my advantage," Gale retorted dryly.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far."

"Well, then, why tell me?" Gale asked innocently.

"You know perfectly well why, Archie. Now you can't claim to be ignorant. I've given you reason to remove her, and you've declined. If you had discovered the affair after Stoner was convicted, you'd have grounds for a retrial."

"True," Gale said. "Although Stoner will never be convicted."

"Come on, Archie. If I were you, I'd plead him. We've got Rachel's blood in his van, on his knife, and at the murder scene-a perfect DNA match. You'll never get the better of Dr. Yee on the scientific evidence. No one ever does."

Gale shrugged. He had tangled with Yee many times. "Yes, if Dr. Unshakable says it's the girl's blood, then it's the girl's blood."

"Put the blood evidence together with the evidence of an incestuous affair," Dan added. "Plus, he has no alibi, and he's a rich, smug son of a bitch. The jury is going to loathe him."

Gale shook his head. He finished off his drink and pushed himself out of the chair with a groan. He smoothed his goatee. "Trust me, Daniel. You picked the wrong case to turn into a public circus."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning you and Bird Finch and the rest of the media may already have declared my client guilty, but that verdict doesn't count. When I get done with the jury, they won't even need an hour to acquit him."

Dan flushed. "Because he's got the great Archibald Gale defending him?"

"Because you have no case," Gale said. "You don't even have a body. You know the odds of a successful murder conviction without one."

"It wasn't an impediment with the grand jury," Dan pointed out.

Gale snorted. "We're talking about the real jury now, Daniel."

"I'll take my chances," Dan said. "The jury's not going to reward Graeme Stoner because there are so many places up here to hide a body. You can blow smoke, Archie-God knows you do it well-but the jury will draw the right conclusion when I show them the kind of man Stoner is."

Gale approached Dan, towering over him, and put a fleshy hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Look, I don't want to humiliate you in the courtroom. Why don't we work this out now between the two of us? Drop the charges. Say there's not enough evidence right now, and you're waiting until you've got conclusive proof to make sure you don't have to worry about double jeopardy. Stoner will leave town. His life here is over regardless. And then everyone forgets about this."

Dan ate the last Brazil nut and dusted the salt off his hands. His eyes were cold and angry. He looked up at Gale and jabbed a finger in his face. "Don't think you can intimidate me. Stoner's life is over, all right. He's going to spend the rest of it in prison. He's a murderer, and I'm going to put him away."

"You're so sure he's guilty?"

Dan groaned. "Come on, Archie. This is just us boys. Don't tell me you think he's innocent?"

Gale shrugged and didn't reply.

"Well, I guess we have nothing else to say," Dan told him. "I'll see you in court."

"Yes, indeed," Gale said, still chuckling. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

19

Gale strolled southward along the back street, avoiding the early evening crowds on Superior. For a large man, he walked briskly and athletically. When he saw the circular Radisson a couple of blocks to his right, he turned up the street, keeping an eye on the people around him as he neared the hotel. He drifted casually into the lobby and headed for the elevators.

This was always the risky part. Gale was a recognizable figure, and he worried that reporters from the Duluth newspaper, whose offices were only a few blocks away, might be hanging out over drinks in the hotel bar. He took the elevator to the seventh floor, got out, then retreated to the stairwell. He walked down three flights, took the elevator again, and this time got out on the eleventh floor. He glanced carefully down the corridor, then proceeded to the far end and knocked five times on the door of one of the hotel's suites.

He saw a shadow pass across the peephole.

Graeme Stoner opened the door.

"Counselor," Graeme said. "It's always a pleasure."

Graeme moved aside to let Gale in, then closed and locked the door behind him.

"Bird Finch is convinced you're still in Minneapolis," Gale told him.

"That's good. Otherwise, the hotel would be under siege."

Gale had succeeded in obtaining bail for Stoner, but he couldn't go home. The publicity surrounding his arrest put him in danger, and even if he had been safe, he was no longer welcome in his own house. Emily had filed for divorce. His bank had also fired him, although Gale had helped Graeme win a lucrative settlement in return for his walking quietly away without a legal challenge.

"What's the good word from Danny Erickson?" Graeme asked.

Gale chuckled. "As confident as ever. He wants to bury you, Graeme."

Graeme shrugged. "That's Danny boy. You know, we used to go out together now and then. I thought of him as a friend. But with Danny, friendship is important only as long as it is useful. Can I get you a drink?"

Gale shook his head.

"Well, I hope you don't mind if I indulge," Graeme said. He hunted under the bar and poured himself a glass of brandy, then situated himself in a comfortable chair by the window. The sky had turned to a deep blue twilight. Graeme was wearing a maroon golf shirt and pleated tan slacks. His laptop was glowing on a nearby desk. Gale asked him once what he did to pass the time, and Graeme told him he had increased his holdings in the stock market by 20 percent over the past five months. It was like a vacation for him.

Gale, still standing, studied his client. Even when Graeme called him on the day of the search, the man had been unemotional, calmly asserting his innocence and apologizing to Gale for talking to the police without his lawyer present. But, he claimed, he knew he was innocent and so had nothing to hide.

He wondered. It made no difference to the defense, of course, but morbid curiosity made Gale speculate on the truth. He had heard many liars in his day, and usually he could see through them immediately. Graeme was different. Either the man was sincere, or he was one of the most gifted liars Gale had encountered in his career. Unfortunately, he had always found that the better the liar, the more likely his client was guilty as charged.

Not that he couldn't make a jury believe otherwise.

But which was it?

Gale had to admit to himself that the prosecution had a compelling circumstantial case. The evidence in the truck and the barn pointed directly to Graeme, even though there was nothing specific to link him to either location. And though the prosecution had nothing (so far as he knew) to prove a sexual relationship between Graeme and Rachel, the hints were tantalizing, maybe enough to sway a jury of stolid Scandinavians who didn't approve of phone sex or promiscuous seventeen-year-olds. The truth? He simply didn't know. He could poke holes in the prosecution's case, and he had other suspects that the jury could readily believe were involved in Rachel's disappearance. None of that cleared Graeme in his own mind.

He just didn't know. It made him vaguely uncomfortable. He didn't mind defending guilty clients, and he enjoyed defending innocent ones. Being in the middle was a new experience for him.

Graeme was smiling at him. It was as if he could read his thoughts. "Do you feel like you're dancing with the devil, counselor?"

Gale took a chair opposite Graeme. "A totally different jury will have to decide who owns your soul, Graeme. Let's worry about the jury in court tomorrow."

"Touche," Graeme said. "Well, what did you learn from Danny? Did you psych the poor boy out?"

Gale shrugged. "He's got a pretty good case for a man without a body. And Daniel is good before a jury."

"But not as good as you," Graeme said.

"No," Gale admitted easily. "He's not."

"See, that's the confidence I'm paying for. But tell me honestly, what's the outlook? Don't spare my feelings."

"All right," Gale said. "The physical evidence is the heart of the case. It's strong. And the publicity has been so vicious against you that much of the jury pool is likely to be tainted, regardless of what they say in voir dire. I'm afraid that most of them are going to walk in thinking you're a perverted son of a bitch."

"So what do we do?"

"Daniel knows the evidence only takes them to the edge of the cliff, and he wants the jury to stroll across the bridge to the other side. I want them to take a long look down and conclude the bridge isn't sturdy."

"A beautiful analogy," Graeme said. "I assume there's more."

Gale nodded. "Then there's the bogeyman theory."

"I've always liked that one."

"You should. It's not enough to plant doubt as to whether you did it. I have to make sure the jury realizes there are plausible alternatives. If you're the only game in town, they'll convict, even if the evidence is shaky."

Graeme finished his brandy and poured himself another from the bottle. "But you assured me we do have alternatives."

Gale nodded. "I think so."

In fact, Gale was unusually suspicious that either of the persons he planned to paint as a culprit might actually be guilty. But there was something in Graeme's cool smile that disturbed him. He didn't like the man.

"You won't tell me what you've found, though," Graeme continued. "That doesn't seem fair."

"Sometimes the less you know, and the less you tell me, the better," Gale said.

"Well, then, give it to me straight. Do you think I'll be free to move to Colorado in a few weeks, or will I be checking into a less comfortable hotel for the rest of my life?"

Gale eyed his client. "I'm not a betting man, Graeme. I don't know if you're innocent or not, and I don't really care. But the fact is, it's hard to prove a murder without a body, and in this case, I don't think the circumstantial evidence will be enough. I think you'll walk."

"Even though the jury thinks I'm a perverted son of a bitch?" Graeme replied, smiling.

"We can get past that," Gale said.

Graeme nodded, satisfied. "I'm delighted to hear it. But I can think of at least one person who will be bitterly disappointed."

Gale could think of many people. "Who?"

"Rachel."

Gale stared at Graeme. "So you think she's alive."

"I'm sure of it."

"And the evidence in the van? The barn?"

"Planted," Graeme said.

"To frame you?"

"Exactly."

Gale's eyes narrowed. "And why would Rachel want to do that?"

"She's a complicated girl."

Gale realized again how much he disliked that smile. Every time he began to convince himself his client was really innocent, that smirk slid onto his face, and the evil twinkle came and went in his eyes. "Why are you so sure? Couldn't someone else have killed her and then framed you?"

"That sounds like reasonable doubt, so I'll say yes."

"But you don't think so," Gale said.

Graeme shook his head.

"This was all an elaborate plot by Rachel?" Gale asked. "She faked all this evidence?"

"That's what I think," Graeme said.

"You know, there's one thing that could sink our case and put you in prison."

"Oh? And what's that, counselor?"

"If Daniel can make the jury believe you were really fucking that girl."

"It's hard to prove something that never happened," Graeme said.

Graeme's face was darkened by the shadows in the hotel room. Gale could see only the man's eyes, not blinking. Graeme's voice conveyed the same smooth sincerity it always did, and his body language was perfect. There were no telltale signs of dishonesty, none of the usual symptoms the lawyer had learned to spot and exploit. But Gale realized that this time he didn't believe a word. Not any of it.

His client was guilty.

It was almost a relief. Now he could defend him.

"I hope that's true," Gale said. "If you had sex with her and Daniel can prove it, you're in big trouble."

Graeme smiled.

20

The port at Two Harbors was barely visible, just a long, narrow smudge that interrupted the line of trees. Behind them and overhead, the sky was blue and clear, but Stride could see dark clouds massing at the horizon, growing like a cancer in the sky and creeping closer to the boat. The wind whipped the lake into foamy white swells and tipped the boat from side to side like a bathtub toy. He pushed the throttle forward, and the engine churned against the waves, but the speed barely inched faster. The squall would reach them long before they made it home.

He felt like a fool, allowing them to be trapped. The beautiful Sunday weather had been too tempting, and Guppo had offered him the use of his twenty-six-foot sport cruiser, a beauty he had inherited from his uncle. Stride had urged Andrea to join him. They usually did city things together, going to plays and concerts, or having dinner with teachers from the high school. Andrea liked to show Stride off to the women who had been so sympathetic when she divorced. They didn't do the quiet things closest to Stride's heart, like sailing on the lake. He wanted those things back in his life.

But the afternoon had been a disaster. Even under the warm spring sun, the lake was freezing, wind ripping through their middleweight coats. Stride had cast a line, only to have a gust of wind snap his pole. Andrea threw up, sickened by the endless up-and-down motion as they rode the troughs. They spent two hours down below in the cabin, huddled under blankets, barely talking except for Stride's occasional apology and Andrea's murmured response, accompanied by a weak smile. They had an unopened bottle of wine in the refrigerator and an elaborate picnic lunch, scarcely touched.

He offered to take her home. It was the only time that day he saw enthusiasm brighten her face.

Now he was going to steer them right into a storm. It couldn't get much worse. He hoped she would stay below and not see the ugly blackness sliding toward them across the sky.

Stride tried to coax more speed out of the engine, but it was already doing its best to fight the lake. As it was, he would need to slow down soon simply to keep control. He angled the boat toward the waves and the wind, but the gusts kept shifting direction. He frowned as the clouds caught up with the sinking sun in the west, sending shadows across the blue water. The air seemed immediately colder. He wore gloves and a leather jacket and had a Twins baseball cap pulled down low on his brow, but his ears were raw, and his cheeks were pink and numb.

He felt hands slip around his waist and then felt Andrea's head lean against his back. She sidled up beside him, and he leaned down to kiss her. She smiled at him, but her skin was pale, and her lips were cold. When she looked toward land and saw the approaching storm, her eyes widened. She glanced up at him, and he pretended everything was fine.

"How long until we make it back?"

He shrugged. "Maybe an hour."

Andrea cast a wary eye at the storm. "That doesn't look good," she said.

"Don't worry, we're just going to get a little wet. Why don't you wait below?"

Andrea didn't want the truth. She wanted comfort and reassurance. Cindy would have taken a look at his eyes and seen right through him, and then prodded him until he revealed what was in his heart.

The truth was, he was nervous. He had a coiled ball of worry lodged in his gut. He was worried about the storm, because he hadn't sailed in a year, and his skills were rusty. And he was anxious about the trial, which would begin tomorrow in earnest now that the jury had been impaneled after two weeks of extensive voir dire.

He was worried about Andrea, too.

He didn't know if they were groping their way toward love or just covering up each other's pain.

Their sex life had cooled. In the early weeks, they had been adventurous, working through months of pent-up passion. Andrea told him what a wonderful, caring lover he was, and how good he felt inside her. Now they made love only infrequently. Andrea let him take the lead, and she was strangely detached, kissing him, letting him love her, even reaching orgasm, but not letting herself go as she had before. Stride began to understand, although he would never breathe it out loud, why Robin had called her cold in bed. She seemed afraid to release herself. Or just afraid.

He kept asking himself if he was feeling the right things, if he was feeling the way he was supposed to feel. Stupid questions. What really mattered was that the hurt had now become something he could manage, and there was something much better in his life now. He liked the feel of Andrea's body next to him. He enjoyed how good she made him feel. He wanted to be with her.

He looked down at her, watching the nervousness in her eyes, but seeing, too, the emotional hunger she felt for him. It was there whenever she saw him. He wanted to wrap himself up in it.

"You're thinking about the trial, aren't you?" Andrea asked.

He wasn't, but it was convenient to say yes.

"What does Dan say about the jury?" she asked.

"It's as good as we can hope for," Stride said. "Dan likes his chances."

"You don't sound convinced."

Stride shrugged. "I wish we would have found more direct evidence. But Stoner is smart."

"I don't understand. You've got her blood in the van and at the murder scene. Won't that be enough?"

"With some lawyers, maybe, but I've crossed swords with Archie Gale before. He could make the jury believe I killed her." Stride laughed.

"Is he going to pull an O.J.? Try to say you planted evidence?"

Stride shook his head. "No, nothing like that. That wouldn't work here. I don't even think he'll challenge the DNA. Chuck Yee is too good for that. But we don't have a body, and we don't have anyone who saw Graeme and Rachel together on the night she disappeared. We also don't have anyone who can prove they were having sex, since Carver's testimony got thrown out."

"Are you sure he's guilty?" Andrea asked.

"I've been wrong before, but everything points at Graeme. I'm just not sure we can prove it, and I hate to think of the bastard getting away with murder because he's smarter than we are and richer than we are. I've got a bad feeling. Like there's a piece of the puzzle we're missing. And if I think so, God knows Gale will think so. He just might find it, too."

"What are you missing?"

"I don't know," Stride said. "The case feels solid to me, but I can't help thinking there's part of the story we don't know."

He studied the sky. The clouds had almost reached them, and the blue sky had darkened around them until it was like night. The swells roared up and broke over the prow, dousing them in cold spray. The boat lurched, lifting out of the water and slapping down with a jolt. Andrea lost her balance and grabbed Stride's arm. He backed off the throttle until the boat was barely holding its own.

The storm swooped down on them with a fury, much worse than Stride had expected. Sheets of rain beat against them, driven horizontal by the wind, pelting their skin with such force that the pellets felt like thousands of bee stings. Stride was blinded. He tried to squint, but even through slitted eyes he saw nothing. The horizon had disappeared. Their only reality was the black mass engulfing them and the twisting blanket of rain.

He pushed the button on the control panel that unfurled the anchor somewhere below them. He wanted to make sure they didn't capsize. The lake tossed the boat in circles and made it dance on the tops of the waves. Even with the anchor down, the boat yawed so far left Stride thought they would overturn, and they had to grab the slippery brass handrail to avoid being thrown overboard. It righted itself but spun around crazily. He tried to keep it on an angle to the waves, but the effort was hopeless. He was more concerned now that they would be ditched into the water.

All Stride could think of was that if the boat went down, he hoped he drowned. Because otherwise, Guppo would kill him.

But they weren't going down.

He realized that the waves were smaller now. The rain lessened, allowing him to see a glimpse of the sky, which was lighter overhead. The boat still rocked and swayed in the deep troughs, but the engine was fighting back again, keeping them pointed in one direction. A few seconds later, the rain stopped completely. The clouds began to disassemble, leaving a patch of blue sky. The wind became calm, as if the storm had sucked all the energy out of the atmosphere.

He could see land again. He glanced at his watch and saw that only twenty minutes had passed since the storm hit.

"It's over," he said. "Come on, look."

Hesitantly, Andrea looked around, staring at the placid sky, then behind them at the storm disappearing out over the lake. She peeled her fingers away from his belt, then slipped, her knees buckling. Stride grabbed her.

"Why don't you go down below?" he suggested. "Lie down and rest. We'll be back home soon."

She gave him a wan smile. "You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Jon."

"We won't do this again," he said.

Andrea stretched, catlike, working out the kinks from her muscles. "I ache all over." She studied his face and reached up to caress his cheek. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You look like something's bothering you," Andrea said.

He shrugged. "It's just the trial. I always get this way."

Andrea didn't look convinced. "Is it me?"

He took his hands off the wheel and cupped her face. "You're the best thing that's entered my life in a long time."

That was the truth.

"I don't know, Jon. Can two wounded people make a go of it?"

"How else will we ever get better?" he said.

Andrea took his hand and stared at him intently. "I love you, Jon."

Stride waited several beats too long, but then told her, "I love you, too."

21

When they finally got back to Duluth, Stride stayed overnight at Andrea's house, which he now did several nights a week. They never stayed on the Point. He had to admit that Andrea's pillow-top mattress was more comfortable than the sunken twelve-year-old model he used at home and that her coffeemaker made coffee that could be sipped, not chewed. Still, there were times when he missed the rustic solitude of his own home. He sometimes yearned for the icy touch of the wood floors on his feet in the morning, rather than plush carpet. He missed hearing and smelling the lake, which was now just a great expanse in the distance, viewed from Andrea's bedroom window.

He fell asleep easily that night, with Andrea's head nestled on his shoulder. In the middle of the night, though, he had a bad dream, of being back on the boat, with Andrea still clinging to him. This time, he couldn't hold on to her, and she slipped away into the water. All he heard was her voice screaming to him before the lake swallowed her up. He woke up, panting, eyes wide. He was relieved to see Andrea still sleeping calmly beside him, but the dream was too intense for him to quickly get back to sleep.

Awake, he thought about the trial.

Dan was bursting with confidence, but Stride had seen Archibald Gale pull rabbits out of his hat for too many years. Besides, something still bothered him, as if he were overlooking something, missing a fact that would put his fears to rest. He wanted Graeme to be convicted. If something was out there, something that would seal the case, he wanted to find it.

The same feeling dogged him on many cases. He always wanted more. But as Maggie reminded him, there were only so many pieces left of the puzzle after the crime was done. They found as many as they could, and then they had to rely on the prosecutor and the jury to piece them together.

Dan was pleased with the jury. He had used a jury consultant, and they had ended up with what the consultant described as the ideal mix to be receptive to the circumstantial story of Graeme's guilt, including the hypothesis of his affair with Rachel. Eight women, four men. Four of the women were married, with children ranging from four years old to twenty. Two were divorced, and two were young and single. One man was a grandfather and widower, another single and gay, another married with no children, and the last a college student.

What they had successfully avoided, at the consultant's direction, was a middle-aged married man with teenage daughters-in other words, someone very much like Graeme.

When they completed the jury selection on Friday, Dan took Stride out for a celebratory beer. He spent two hours crowing about his victory over Gale, who had shown surprisingly little fight in the voir dire. The defense attorney's only victory had been convincing Judge Kassel to order the jury sequestered, to protect them from the barrage of press coverage that was bound to accompany the trial.

Stride drank along with Dan, but he was worried. If the jury was so good for the prosecution, why had Gale allowed it? Gale, who wasn't known for skimping, hadn't even employed a jury consultant.

Why?

Dan dismissed his concerns. "He's got you believing his mind games," Dan said. "Gale doesn't walk on water, Jon. He simply blew it. He thought he could handle the jury selection himself, and he got sandbagged. End of story."

Stride wasn't convinced.

He slipped out of bed, moving carefully so as not to awaken Andrea. Naked, he stood before the window. The city was illuminated by thousands of twinkling lights, with the blackness of the lake beyond. Silently, he cracked the window. Andrea didn't like sleeping with the windows open, and Stride, who did so well into the winter, had trouble adjusting.

The night air was cool and sweet.

He hadn't been honest with himself about how much this case meant to him. That was why he wanted even more evidence-to be absolutely sure that Graeme would not slip through the fingers of justice. It was as if, having failed Cindy, having failed Kerry, he could not bear to fail Rachel, too. This time, one of the women in his life could rely on him to come through.

Stride stood there for almost half an hour, staring at the horizon and letting the gentle breeze swirl over his bare skin. Then, when he heard Andrea begin to stir, he closed the window and slipped back under the covers. He tossed and turned and finally drifted back to sleep.

The morning was stunning, as perfect a day as Duluth had ever enjoyed, with blinding sunshine, light blue skies, and a mild breeze floating in from the lake. Stride slipped sunglasses out of his pocket as he neared the courthouse. He put them on, hoping he could merge into the crowd and slip inside the building without being assaulted by the press.

The courthouse was just off First Avenue on a dead end called Priley Drive. A circular driveway led around a garden area, with the courthouse in the center, city hall on the right, and the federal court building on the left. It was normally a peaceful place to have lunch away from his basement office, on a bench near a bubbling fountain and a tulip garden, with the American flag snapping overhead atop a giant flagpole.

Not today.

The crowd filled the cobbled walkway and spilled into the street, which was clogged with television vans. Camera crews filmed reporters from different angles, all of them capturing the five-story brownstone courthouse overrun with curiosity-seekers, demonstrators, and other reporters. Traffic had ground to a halt, backed up for blocks. Stride saw several of his officers at the top of the courthouse steps, struggling to hold back the crowd from entering the building. A cluster of reporters stood on the steps, thrusting microphones and cameras toward Dan Erickson, who was shouting answers to their questions.

The noise was overwhelming. Horns honked as drivers grew frustrated. Stride could hear radios and televisions booming. Several dozen women chanted loudly, carrying signs that protested pornography. Graeme Stoner's taste for adult entertainment had been big news in the press, and the anti-porn crowd had seen his affair with Rachel, and the subsequent violence, as a useful rallying cry.

Chaos. The Stoner trial was the biggest legal event to hit Duluth in years, and no one wanted to miss it.

Stride casually drifted into the crowd. He politely excused himself as he navigated through the milling people. When he saw reporters, he glanced away, just one more face among hundreds. Those who knew him rarely saw him in a business suit, so today he could well have been an executive on his way to pay a parking ticket. He left the crowd behind him and made it unscathed to the courthouse steps. He entered the foyer and took the marble steps two at a time. There was continual traffic up and down the stairs around him. He reached the fourth floor, slightly winded, and followed the hallway to the courtroom. He paused long enough to glance through the windows down at the seething mass below.

Archibald Gale was arriving. The media converged on him.

Two officers guarded the massive oak doors of the courtroom. They recognized Stride and let him pass. Everyone else had either a courthouse pass or one of the coveted visitor passes that had been distributed by lottery. A handful of media members had also been allowed inside, but without cameras. Judge Kassel didn't want any more of a circus in her courtroom than she already had.

The courtroom itself was old-fashioned and imposing, with long pews for spectators and dark, intricately carved wood railings. The visitor rows were largely filled. He saw Emily Stoner, seated in the first row behind the prosecutor's table. She stared at the empty defense table, as if Graeme were already there. Her eyes were tear-stained and bitter.

Stride slid into the row beside her. Emily looked down at her lap and didn't say anything.

Dan Erickson was directly in front of him, whispering to his assistant prosecutor, an attractive blonde named Jodie. Stride assumed Dan was sleeping with her, although Dan hadn't formally admitted it. He leaned forward and tapped Dan on the shoulder. The prosecutor paused, glanced back, and gave Stride the thumbs-up sign. Stride saw Dan's fingers strumming like a nervous tic and his lower body quivering underneath the table. Dan was pumped.

"You look like you're in the zone, Dan," Stride told him.

Dan laughed. "I'm ready to rock."

He turned back to his conversation with Jodie. Stride watched Dan's right hand graze his assistant's shoulder. Then it briefly moved down and squeezed her thigh. Yes, he was sleeping with her.

Stride heard a whisper. "The man is a pig."

He realized that Maggie had slid silently into the row next to him. Maggie shot an icy stare at Dan's back. In the wake of her aborted pass at Stride the previous year, Maggie had wound up in a brief affair with Dan. It came to an ugly end when Dan turned out to be sleeping with two other women at the same time. Maggie's stare reflected zero forgiveness.

"He's cute, though," Stride said. He knew he was poking the bear, but he couldn't resist.

Maggie frowned. "You're a pig, too."

"Oink," Stride said.

"How's the teacher?"

"I almost killed both of us on a boat yesterday afternoon. Other than that, fine."

"She went on a boat with you voluntarily?" Maggie deadpanned.

"Funny. Don't tell Guppo. He almost lost his boss and his boat with one wave."

"The boss would be no big deal. He'd sue your estate over the boat."

A ripple of noise filled the courtroom. They noticed spectators craning their heads and turned to see Archibald Gale make his entrance with the panache of a movie star. Gale wore a navy three-piece suit, perfectly tailored as usual, with a neat triangle of handkerchief showing above his pocket. His small gold glasses glinted in the light.

Stride was always amazed at how light on his feet Gale seemed for such a large, imposing man. Gale almost seemed to glide. He stopped to shake several hands on his way to the bar, then roared through the swinging gate. He deposited his slim burgundy briefcase on the defendant's table, then interrupted Dan long enough to lean down and whisper something in his ear. Stride watched Gale's lips and could make out what the lawyer said.

"Don't say I didn't warn you, Daniel."

Seeing Gale, the bailiff opened a side door, and a guard escorted Graeme Stoner, dressed as impeccably as his attorney, into the courtroom. Graeme maintained the same even demeanor Stride had seen in him from the very beginning, cool, confident, with a slight amusement in his eyes. He didn't blink or flinch when he saw his wife, who was soon to be his ex-wife. Graeme simply smiled at her, then sat down and began a hushed conversation with Archibald Gale.

Emily, in contrast, could not take her eyes off Graeme. It was as if she had seen a ghost that she hated with all her soul.

At nine o'clock, the bailiff called for the crowd to rise. Judge Catharine Kassel, forty years old, with a black robe obscuring her slim figure, entered the courtroom. She had been appointed to the bench two years earlier, and soon afterward Law & Politics magazine named her the Sexiest Judge in Minnesota. With impeccably coiffed blonde hair and an elegant, tapered face, she lived up to the billing, Even so, most lawyers feared her. Her cool gray eyes could quickly turn to ice in the courtroom.

Seated, Judge Kassel cast a wary eye on the crowd.

"Let me remind all of you," she announced firmly, "that I want no demonstrations of any kind throughout the proceeding. Consider this a zero tolerance policy. Anyone who violates it will be escorted out immediately and will not return. I hope I am being very clear about that."

The courtroom was absolutely silent. Then Judge Kassel smiled, and she was radiant. "I'm glad we understand each other."

She motioned to the bailiff.

The jury was brought in and took their places uncomfortably, staring anxiously at the sea of faces in the courtroom. Judge Kassel welcomed them, adopting a more friendly tone to keep the jury at ease. They would spend the next several days separated from friends and family in the downtown Holiday Inn, and Stride could see in their faces that they were anxious for the trial to begin and end.

The judge gave the jury a minute to settle down and led the courtroom through the usual preliminaries.

Then she invited Dan Erickson to give his opening statement.

Dan took his time. He made eye contact with each juror.

He held up an enlarged school photograph of Rachel, a cryptic smile on her face. He looked at it, then held it delicately in his hands, facing the jury. He allowed her image to sink into all of their minds.

"This is Rachel Deese," he told them. "She's beautiful. A pretty seventeen-year-old girl with her whole life ahead of her. Unfortunately, a month after this photo was taken, Rachel disappeared. The evidence that was found in the subsequent weeks leads us to an unhappy conclusion. This beautiful girl was murdered."

Dan stared at his feet, shaking his head sadly.

"I wish I could make it easy for you. I wish someone had been there on that Friday night in October, other than Rachel and the man who killed her, to sit here in the witness stand and tell you how it all came about. But I think you know that most murders don't happen in public. Murder is an ugly, private business."

He turned and stared at Graeme Stoner, allowing the jury to follow his eyes. Then he continued.

"But if murderers keep their own secrets, how do we convict them? Often, as in this case, we use what is called circumstantial evidence. These are facts that, when taken together, lead you to an inescapable conclusion about a defendant's actions and his guilt. Let me give you an example. A man is found stabbed to death in his home. No one saw the crime. No one saw who killed him. There is no direct evidence at all. Nonetheless, we discover another man's fingerprints on the murder weapon. We discover that this man had a grudge against the victim. We discover that this man had no alibi for the night of the murder. We find traces of blood matching the victim's on his shoes. This is all circumstantial evidence that tells us the truth about the crime."

Dan waited, absorbing the looks on their faces, making sure they understood.

"And in this trial, you will see overwhelming circumstantial evidence about the murder of Rachel Deese. You will be convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the man at the defendant's table, Graeme Stoner, killed this beautiful girl and disposed of her body.

"Who is this man?" Erickson demanded, jabbing a bony finger at Stoner. "In this trial, we'll pull aside the mask that this man puts on for the world. We'll show you someone very different. Someone who keeps a naked photo of his stepdaughter on his computer. Someone who fantasizes about sex with teenage girls. Someone with a dark secret about his relationship with Rachel. He was having a sexual affair with her."

He paused, letting the jury reflect on this conclusion. He let them stare at Graeme and wonder what was behind his impassive expression. It didn't matter that Graeme was wearing a business suit, as he would for any workday at the bank. Dan wanted the jury to see his clothes as a facade for a dirty mind.

"And what of Rachel?" Dan asked. "I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know where Rachel's body is. There's only one person who does, and he's sitting over there at the defense table. You may wonder why we know a murder has been committed, if we can't show you a body. You'll hear the defense try to tell you that, because we have no body, it's possible for you to believe that Rachel is still alive."

Dan shook his head.

"Is it possible? Well, I suppose it's possible that Elvis is still alive. But you're not here to determine what's possible. You're here to determine the facts beyond a reasonable doubt. So remember this. When you see the physical evidence we have gathered, you'll realize that the only reasonable conclusion you can draw is that Rachel was murdered, and her body hidden somewhere in the vast wilderness of northern Minnesota. Sadly, no one may ever find her. It's a terrible, tragic reality. But not knowing where her murderer disposed of her body doesn't change the truth. Rachel is dead. You will be convinced of that.

"We're going to retrace her steps for you. We'll show you videotape of this girl driving home on a Friday night. She's safe. She's smiling. She's just made a date with a boy for the next night. And yet this same girl is never seen again. Instead, we find a fragment of a shirt she was wearing-a shirt she had purchased only a few days earlier-stained with her blood, in a wooded area a few miles north of town. We find a bracelet she treasured lying on the ground. That's the last we know of Rachel."

Erickson shot a withering look at Graeme Stoner, then turned sharply back to the jury. "And what connects these two scenes? The girl in the car, alive and happy, and the bloody scrap of clothing found miles away? Well, Rachel was heading home that night, where Graeme Stoner was alone. Rachel's mother was out of town. And in the driveway of the house was Graeme Stoner's van, locked up tight. In that van, you'll find the evidence that links the scenes together. More of Rachel's blood. Rachel's bloody fingerprint on the blade of a knife. More fibers from the turtleneck she was wearing. And Graeme Stoner's fingerprints on the same knife.

"That's what I'm going to show you in this trial. Facts. Evidence. Blood and fibers that don't lie. My job is to lay out those facts for you, to show you what we found.

"Now, the defense has a different job in this case," Erickson told the jury. "They need you to overlook the facts, or to find wildly improbable explanations for them. Mr. Gale there, he's a showman, kind of like one of those magicians you see in Las Vegas. Magicians are talented people. They can dazzle an audience and pretend to levitate a beautiful girl right before your eyes. In fact, a good magician can be so convincing, you might even be tempted to believe that the girl really is hovering above the stage. But you know and I know it's nothing but a trick. An illusion."

He locked eyes with each juror, his face turning serious.

"Don't be fooled. Don't be tricked into giving up your common sense. Mr. Gale's going to try his magic out on you, but I want you to look at the physical evidence of this case. And you will see that the evidence leads you to one explanation only-that on that terrible night when Rachel disappeared, Graeme Stoner's obsessive relationship with his stepdaughter finally crossed the line into violence and murder. We may never know exactly what happened between them, or why. But an incestuous relationship is so ripe with evil that it can literally explode at any time. No one may have been there that night to see how the violence came about. But it happened. That's what the evidence will show you. It happened."

Archibald Gale stood up, taking off his glasses and depositing them carefully on the defense table. He looked down at Graeme Stoner, smiled, then turned his attention to the jurors. Gale wandered closer, patting all of his pockets, as if looking for something.

"You know, I was hoping to surprise you by pulling a rabbit out of my pocket, but I seem to have left all my magic tricks back at Caesars Palace."

The crowd in the courtroom tittered, as did several of the jurors. Gale's eyes twinkled.

He rubbed his graying goatee, then slowly let his eyes travel around the courtroom. Gale had a flair for creating suspense. It didn't really matter what the facts were. What mattered was who told the most convincing story to the jury. With his commanding size and talent for drama, Gale was a natural.

"I have been in this courtroom many, many times over the past few decades," he began softly. "We have had some very newsworthy trials take place here. But I don't recall ever seeing such a crowd and such intense interest in a trial before today. Why do you suppose that is?"

He let the jurors think for a moment.

"Because what we have here is a mystery. Everyone wants to know how the last chapter ends. A girl has vanished. What happened to her? Did someone do violence to her, or did she run away, like tens of thousands of unhappy teenagers do each year? If something did happen to her, what was it? And why? Was it really the fault of her stepfather, as the prosecutor contends? Or did one of the other people in Rachel's life, who had reason to be angry and jealous of her, let their emotions become violent? Or did a brutal serial killer, who is still at large in our city, claim another victim?"

Gale nodded thoughtfully.

"I'd like to promise that when we're done here, you'll know what happened to Rachel. But you won't. Because we don't know. Graeme Stoner doesn't know. And neither does Mr. Erickson. All you'll end up with is questions and doubts. But that's all right. You may want to find the truth yourself, but it isn't your job in this courtroom to pick an ending to a mystery story."

He cocked his head. "Yes, I know what you may be thinking. There he goes again. The magician. Isn't that what the prosecutor told you to watch out for? That I'd be twisting his nice little facts and trying to make you go off on some improbable flight of fancy? Well, no, I'm not asking you to take my word. The difference is that Mr. Erickson plans to show you some of the facts, and I want to make sure you see all of the facts. When you do, you'll realize that Graeme Stoner is innocent of the crime of murder, and you'll send a message to the police that they need to go back and find out what really happened to this strange, unhappy girl."

Gale leaned over and grabbed the railing of the jury box. "Mr. Erickson says you should pay attention to the evidence. I agree. I want you to watch the evidence closely, so you can see what the prosecution isn't telling you.

"They're not telling you that Graeme was in his van with Rachel on the night she disappeared. Because they have no evidence that he was.

"They're not telling you that the Stoners' van was at the barn on the night Rachel disappeared. Because they have no evidence that it was.

"They're not telling you that they know Rachel is dead. Because they don't.

"They're not telling you that they can prove Graeme Stoner was having sex with his stepdaughter. Because they can't.

"Instead, they want you to make a leap. They're going to give you little unrelated facts and stitch them together to try to make you believe what they can't prove. That's not evidence, circumstantial or otherwise. That's fiction. That's guesswork."

Stride felt his insides go soft. Bang bang bang, Gale was punching at the weaknesses in their case. Of course, he was right. They really couldn't prove any of those things. All they could do was lay out the pieces of the puzzle and hope the jury was smart enough to put it together.

"But there's more," Gale continued. "You'll also see that the prosecution, in its zeal to package a neat ending to the mystery, has ignored many other possible solutions. I'm afraid that Mr. Erickson is the kind of man who would find a lot of parts left over after he put his engine back together and conclude they must not be very important."

He winked at the jury, then grinned at Dan.

"Let's look at a few of those extra parts," Gale said. "Another teenage girl named Kerry McGrath, who lived within a couple miles of Rachel and who went to her school, disappeared the year before Rachel did. She, too, has never been found. The circumstances of her disappearance are remarkably similar to Rachel's. The police know that Graeme Stoner had nothing to do with Kerry McGrath's disappearance, and yet they ignore the grim possibility that a serial killer could be stalking the young girls of this city.

"Extra parts. On the night she disappeared, Rachel was behaving strangely. Why? Did she know something? Was she meeting someone? Was she planning to run away?

"Extra parts. Who else was with Rachel on the night she disappeared? Who else had reason to be happy if she vanished forever?

"Extra parts. What was the real source of Rachel's unhappiness? Was it her relationship with her stepfather? No. It was the miserable, bitter, violent relationship she had with her mother. Remember that word. Violent."

Stride glanced at Emily and saw a tear slip from her eye. She looked down at her lap, weeping silently.

Gale continued. "Questions and doubts. You'll have many at the end of the trial. But there will be no question, and no doubt in your minds, as to the right action for you to take. And that is to find my client not guilty of the crime of which he has been wrongfully accused."

Gale held the stares of the jurors for a few long seconds. Then he returned to the defense table and sat down.

Stride examined the jurors' faces. He figured it was a tie ball game heading into the first inning.

Batter up.

22

Stride took his place in the witness stand. He had done so hundreds of times before, so many that the chair felt familiar, as if he had worn an impression in it so it clung to his body. He made eye contact with the jurors.

Duluth jurors believed the police. He saw it in their eyes. This wasn't an urban jury pool, where the citizens felt the police were sometimes an enemy. He saw them studying his craggy features, the strands of gray in his dark hair and his sturdy physique, and concluding they could trust him.

Dan took him through introductions and allowed Stride to talk about his history on the force, his years of experience, his expertise on crimes and crime scenes. Only after the jury had gotten to know him did Dan begin to talk about Rachel. Stride explained how he had first been notified of the girl's disappearance and then, step by step, led the jury through a reconstruction of the evidence from Rachel's last night.

He described the bank video showing Rachel's car gliding by shortly after ten o'clock. Dan played the video for the jury. Then he held up a grainy, enlarged photograph, showing a girl's face behind the wheel. Despite the blurry image, everyone could see it was Rachel. She was smiling. She looked happy.

It was the last image, Dan reminded the jury, that anyone ever saw of Rachel Deese.

"Lieutenant, what is Rachel wearing in this photograph?"

"A white turtleneck," Stride said.

Dan returned to the prosecution's table and retrieved an exhibit-a receipt neatly packaged in a plastic bag. "Can you identify this item?"

Stride nodded. "It's a receipt found in a Gap bag found on the floor in Rachel's bedroom. We discovered it during our initial investigation."

"What is the receipt for?"

"It's for an item of clothing sold the Sunday prior to Rachel's disappearance. A white Gap-brand turtleneck."

"Did you find any white turtleneck during your search of Rachel's bedroom?"

"No, we did not."

Dan nodded thoughtfully. "Lieutenant, please tell us how you and your officers conducted a search for Rachel."

"We mounted an immediate and exhaustive statewide and region-wide search. My officers interviewed all neighbors within twelve blocks around the Stoner house. We checked the bus station, the airport, the train station, and all taxi companies in both Duluth and Superior. Throughout the state, police checked every service station and convenience store along the major highways, distributing Rachel's photograph and interviewing clerks. We posted a notice on our Web site and faxed information to police across the country. These efforts generated hundreds of leads, which were methodically researched by our officers and our fellow officers in other states. We had excellent photographs of Rachel to use with witnesses. We conducted literally thousands of interviews. Nonetheless, we did not receive a single verified sighting of Rachel after the videotape at the bank. Not one. Not anywhere."

"What conclusion did you draw from this?" Dan asked.

"We began to discount the possibility that Rachel had run away. No one had seen her alive since that Friday night. Plus, we were doubtful from the beginning that Rachel would have run away and left her car at home. It seemed highly unusual to us that a teenager with a car would leave her sole means of transportation behind her. And as I said, we covered all possible means of public transportation and found no evidence that she had used any of them."

"Did you consider the possibility that she had been abducted by a stranger?"

Stride nodded. "We interviewed all known sex offenders within a hundred-mile radius of the city. We investigated several who could not provide definite alibis for Friday night. There was no evidence that they were anywhere near Duluth. No one recognized their photographs or their vehicles in the area surrounding Rachel's house."

"Are there other elements of the crime that, in your experience, are inconsistent with a stranger abduction?" Dan asked.

"Yes. Virtually all stranger abductions occur in rural or isolated areas. Country roads, for example. It's highly unusual for a girl to be taken off a city street near her home. Most sexual predators don't want to risk identification by waiting in a populated area or abducting someone where their screams and resistance could attract attention from neighbors. Instead, they commit crimes of opportunity. A lonely road. An unfortunate victim. Since we know Rachel made it home that night-her car was parked outside-we know she was in a well-traveled neighborhood."

Dan returned to the prosecutor's table long enough to take a drink of water. He didn't want to rush the jury. Stride was presenting a complex scenario, and it was important that the jury follow the chain of evidence and conclusions.

"Eventually, did you find further evidence of what happened to Rachel?" he asked.

"We did."

Stride described the tip from Heather Hubble that led to the discovery of Rachel's bracelet and the search of the area near the barn where it had been found.

"As a result of that search, did you find other evidence that Rachel had been at this location?"

"Yes. We uncovered a scrap of white cloth with dark stains on it. The stains appeared to be blood."

Again Dan produced the evidence and introduced it. "Why was this discovery significant?" Dan asked.

"We believed that Rachel was wearing a white turtleneck that she had purchased the weekend before on the night she disappeared. The cloth matched the general characteristics of the turtleneck. We forwarded it to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in Minneapolis for analysis."

Dan didn't pursue any more questions about the turtleneck. Immediately after Stride, Charles Yee-Dr. Unshakable, as he was known in the Minnesota criminal court system-would take the stand to begin putting the forensics pieces in the puzzle. Yee had compared the cloth to another turtleneck from the same manufacturer and concluded that it was consistent with the brand and style of turtleneck Rachel was wearing, and the bloodstains would be linked to her by DNA matching.

"At that point, Lieutenant, did the nature of your search change?" Dan asked.

"Yes. We concluded that Rachel was dead and began searching for a body."

"But you didn't find a body, did you?"

Stride shook his head. "No, we searched miles and miles of forest surrounding the barn. We used both police and volunteers to go yard by yard through a precise grid. Unfortunately, there are simply too many places to hide a body up here."

"Nonetheless, are you firmly convinced that Rachel is dead?" Dan asked.

"Objection," Gale called. "The witness has no direct knowledge of whether this girl is dead or alive."

Dan shook his head. "I'm asking for a conclusion based on the lieutenant's extensive experience in homicide investigation. He's an expert."

Judge Kassel pursed her lips. "I'll allow it. The witness will answer."

"Yes, I believe Rachel is dead," Stride said. "It's the only reasonable explanation for the evidence."

"Let's backtrack for a minute, Lieutenant. In addition to the bloody piece of fabric, did you find any other evidence at the crime scene?"

Gale stood up again. "Your Honor, the prosecution has characterized the location as a crime scene without definitive evidence of a crime."

Judge Kassel nodded. "He's right, Mr. Erickson."

Dan was unperturbed. "Did you find anything else near where you found the piece of cloth?"

"We did," Stride said. "There were many overlapping footprints in the dirt area behind the barn, where cars usually park. We were unable to find anything useful there. But less than a yard from where the piece of fabric was discovered, we found several partial footprints of an athletic shoe, size twelve. We also found prints from a different athletic shoe, size eight."

Dan introduced photographs of the footprints, followed by reconstructions of the tread marks. "Were you able to identify the brand of shoe associated with the size twelve footprints?"

"Yes, the pattern is distinctive. There's a large red oval in the center of the heel. It comes from an Adidas shoe, model 954300. It's sold at three locations in the Duluth area."

Dan retrieved a paper from the prosecutor's table and again introduced it as evidence. He turned to Stride. "Will you tell us what this paper is, Lieutenant?"

"This is a copy of a check written by Graeme Stoner, dated four months prior to Rachel's disappearance. It's made out to a store called Sports Feet for a purchase of eighty-five dollars."

"How many locations of this store are there in Duluth?"

"One, in Miller Hill Mall."

"Does this store sell the model of Adidas shoe that matches the footprints?"

"It does. Their retail price at the time this check was written was eighty-five dollars."

Dan nodded grimly. "Tell me, Lieutenant, did you find a pair of Adidas shoes when you searched Mr. Stoner's residence?"

"No, we didn't."

"No athletic shoes at all?"

"We found a pair of Nikes that had been purchased recently. They had hardly been used."

Dan produced another copy of a check written by Graeme Stoner. "Tell us about this other check, please."

"This check is also made out to Sports Feet, this time for seventy-eight dollars. The check is dated the weekend after Rachel's disappearance. Seventy-eight dollars is the retail price for the model of Nikes we found in Mr. Stoner's bedroom."

"He bought another pair of athletic shoes only four months after he purchased the first pair?"

"That's right," Stride said.

"And what size were the Nikes you found?" Dan asked.

"Size twelve. Same as the footprints near the barn."

"One more question about feet, Lieutenant. Did you determine what size shoe Rachel wore?"

"Size eight. That matches the size of the other prints found near the barn."

Dan took a moment to stare at the jury and watch their eyes, making sure they were following the significance of everything Stride had described. Stride saw the impact of his testimony in their eyes. They didn't like coincidences any more than he did.

"During the investigation, Lieutenant, did you obtain a search warrant for the Stoner residence?" Dan asked.

"We did," Stride said.

"Tell us what you found during this search."

"The first significant evidence was discovered on a computer hard drive in Mr. Stoner's personal office. It was a photograph of Rachel."

Dan retrieved an enlarged printout of the photograph. He introduced it as evidence, then showed the photograph to Stride without the jury seeing it.

"Is this the photograph?"

Stride nodded. "It is."

Dan approached the jury box. Slowly, he turned the photograph around so that all the members of the jury could see it. Several gasped. Stride could see that, involuntarily, the four men on the jury leaned forward. It was impossible not to react sexually to the image of the girl in the picture.

"In the course of your search, did you subsequently find any other evidence of a sexual nature?"

"We did. In a rear drawer of a filing cabinet, also in his office, we found several pornographic magazines. The magazines included titles like Candy Girls, Jail Bait, and Lolly-pop Pussy."

Still studying the jurors' faces, not looking at Stride, Dan asked, "What kind of magazines are these?"

"They include explicit photos of models made up to look like teenage girls."

Dan returned to the prosecution table, carrying the photo of Rachel. He and Stride had talked about whether to leave the photograph on display on an easel for the jury throughout the rest of his testimony, but both men concluded that the image would be too distracting for the men on the jury, and perhaps even for the women.

Dan brought out copies of the magazines discovered at Graeme's house and handed them one by one to the jurors. They flipped through them. Their faces twisted in disgust. Dan let them spend several minutes reviewing the highly explicit photographs, long enough to get a flavor for their perverted nature, but not long enough to become desensitized. He collected the magazines, then extracted another page from his stack of exhibits.

He handed it to Stride. "Can you tell us what this is?"

"It's a printout of phone calls from the Stoner household."

"What does it show?"

"There are regular calls to a number of phone sex services. They average two or three times a month for more than a year. The calls are all to services that emphasize teenage sexuality. Essentially, they allow callers to fantasize that they are having sex with young girls."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Let's go back to your search of the Stoner household, shall we? Did your search include a minivan owned by Mr. Stoner?"

"Yes. The minivan was parked in the detached garage on the side of the house. The van was in the same location during each of our visits to the Stoner house."

"When you searched it, was the van locked?"

"Yes, Mr. Stoner provided us with a key."

"What did you discover in searching the van?"

"We analyzed the carpet carefully in the rear of the van. We found several small stains that appeared to be blood. We also found white fibers that were consistent with the fabric of Rachel's turtleneck. All of this material was sent to the BCA."

Dr. Yee would soon make the next connection for the jury: The fibers matched the brand of turtleneck Rachel was wearing on the night she disappeared, as well as the fabric found at the barn. The stains in the van and on the knife were also matched to Rachel's blood.

"You found the bloodstains and fiber evidence in the rear of Graeme Stoner's locked van?" Dan repeated.

"That's right," Stride said.

"Did you find anything else in the van?"

Stride nodded. "In a toolbox, we found a six-inch hunting knife."

Dan returned to the table and, when he turned back to Stride, brandished the knife in a menacing manner. "Is this the knife you found?"

"Yes."

Dan brought the knife closer to the jury, twisting and turning it in his hands, letting the overhead lights glint on the blade. "Did you find any evidence on the knife itself?" he asked.

"We found traces of blood on the blade of the knife. We also found two fingerprints on the knife that we matched to Rachel's thumb and middle finger."

"Were these fingerprints on the handle?"

"No, they were on the blade."

Dan looked back, seemingly confused. "On the blade?"

"Yes. Rachel's fingerprints were on the blade of the knife, facing upward, indicating a defensive posture."

"Objection," Gale snapped.

"Sustained," Judge Kassel ruled.

"Well, can you show us how the fingerprints and blood were laid out on the knife, Lieutenant?" Dan asked. He approached the witness stand and handed the knife to Stride. Carefully, the lieutenant turned the knife around so that the blade was facing his palm. He then curled his fingers onto the knife.

"Like this," Stride said.

He handed the knife back to Dan.

"I see," Dan said. "So let's say I came at you like this."

In an instant, Dan leaned over the witness box, flashing the knife in Stride's face. Immediately, Stride reacted, trying to block the knife with his hand. His palm and fingers ended up in the same position he had demonstrated for the jury.

Gale stood up angrily. "This is rehearsed stagecraft, Your Honor. Rachel could just as easily have picked up the knife when it dropped on the ground. Mr. Erickson's little drama is misleading and irrelevant."

Judge Kassel nodded and gave Dan a severe glance. "Sustained. I'm instructing the jury to disregard this show by the prosecutor and the witness. And Mr. Erickson, no more of this kind of nonsense in my courtroom, is that clear?"

"Of course," Dan said.

But the message had been sent to the jury.

"All right, Lieutenant, one more thing. Did you find any other fingerprints on the knife?"

"Yes, we found fingerprints matching the defendant on the handle of the knife."

"And no other fingerprints?"

"None," Stride said.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. No more questions."

23

"Hello, Lieutenant," Gale began.

He pushed himself to his feet, standing behind the defense table. The lawyer studied Stride with sad eyes.

"I don't believe our paths have crossed since your wife passed away. I'm very sorry."

Stride said nothing at all. Gale had no shame. Hidden in a sympathetic comment was a message to the jury. Maybe the lieutenant's judgment was clouded by grief. Maybe he overlooked things.

"Rachel isn't the first teenage girl to disappear in this area, is she?" Gale asked.

"No," Stride said.

The defense lawyer took off his glasses and idly slid the frame between his lips. He squinted at Stride.

"Another teenager, a girl named Kerry McGrath, disappeared a little more than one year earlier than Rachel, is that right?"

"That's right," Stride said.

"She was the same age as Rachel," Gale said.

"Yes."

"Went to the same school?"

"Yes."

"She lived within a couple miles of Rachel?"

"Yes."

Gale shook his head. "That's remarkable, isn't it, Lieutenant? Do you call that a coincidence?"

He glanced at the jury in consternation as if to say, Can you believe this guy? Is he blind?

"We found no evidence that the two cases are related," Stride said.

"And yet you considered the cases similar enough that you tried to find evidence that might implicate Mr. Stoner in Kerry's disappearance. Isn't that true?"

Stride shrugged. "We typed all physical evidence we found against both Kerry and Rachel. It's standard procedure."

"And the fact is, you found absolutely no evidence whatsoever that might point to my client's involvement in Kerry's disappearance."

"That's right," Stride acknowledged.

Gale nodded. "No blood?"

"No."

"No fibers?"

"No."

"In fact, Kerry McGrath's disappearance is still unsolved, isn't it?" Gale asked.

"Yes."

Gale spread his arms wide, his glasses dangling between the fingers of his left hand. "So here we have two teenage girls missing in very similar circumstances. Isn't it just as likely, Lieutenant, that some deranged maniac, some stranger, one of the dozens of convicted sex offenders living in northern Minnesota, abducted both Kerry McGrath and Rachel Deese? That both these girls were the victim of a serial killer? Isn't that an equally plausible theory?"

Stride shook his head. "No. That's not what the evidence tells us."

"Ah, the evidence," Gale said, smiling at the jury. "Yes, we'll get to that in a moment. But let's look at this from a different angle, Lieutenant. You don't know for sure that Kerry McGrath is dead, do you?"

"No."

"And yet you're sure that Rachel is dead."

Stride nodded. "We found additional evidence in this case."

"A drop or two of blood. A scrap of cloth."

"It was Rachel's blood. Rachel's shirt."

Gale rubbed his goatee thoughtfully. "Was there enough blood found to suggest someone bled to death?"

"No."

"There wasn't even enough blood to prove any kind of crime took place, was there?"

Stride eyed Gale calmly. "I doubt Rachel cut herself shaving."

"But you don't really know, do you? She could have reached into the toolbox, cut herself on the knife, and bled on the carpet and on her clothes. Isn't that possible?"

"Only if you take the evidence out of context. We also found blood and fiber evidence at the barn."

"But still not enough evidence to suggest someone died, isn't that right?"

"On the contrary. I think that's precisely the conclusion this evidence suggests."

Gale raised a furry gray eyebrow. "So you say. Tell me, Lieutenant, do you know how many teenagers run away from home each year?"

"Thousands."

"Tens of thousands, in fact," Gale said. "Rachel wasn't happy at home, was she?"

"No."

"In fact, Rachel fits the classic profile of most runaways, doesn't she?" Gale asked.

"I'd have to say no. Runaways don't leave behind the kind of evidence we found. Her blood. Fibers from the shirt she was wearing that night."

"But what if she didn't want people to look for her?" Gale asked.

Stride hesitated, briefly losing his cool. "What?"

"Well, if she had taken her car, as you suggest, everyone would have known that she had run away, right? You'd be looking for her all over the country. But let's say Rachel wanted to disappear, and she didn't want the family she hates or the nosy police on her trail. Couldn't she have pricked her finger and left behind a hint of physical evidence that she met with a dark end?"

Stride shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. If she was faking her death, she would have made the evidence obvious. As it was, we did look for her all over the country. We did conduct an exhaustive search. Rachel had no way of knowing we ever would have stumbled on the evidence in the van-and certainly not at the barn."

"And yet here we are." Gale straightened, studying Stride, then the jury. "Let's talk about the barn, Lieutenant. This is a place where high school kids go to do all the things their parents don't want them to do at home, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Do you have any idea how many teenagers go there in any given week?" Gale asked.

"No."

"All right. Well, do you know how often the police were called about the barn in the last year?"

Stride shook his head. "I don't know."

"Would you be surprised if I told you it was thirty-seven times?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"And would you be surprised if I told you there were eight accusations of rape involving the barn in the past five years?" Gale asked. His smooth voice took on a hard edge. His eyes became hard azure points.

"That's possible."

"More than possible. It's true, Lieutenant. This is a dangerous place, isn't it?"

"It can be," Stride acknowledged.

"You've got teenagers raping teenagers, and the police don't seem to do anything about it."

"The barn is periodically raided," Stride said. "The kids keep coming back."

"That's right, Lieutenant. Kids. This is a place where kids do bad things. Doesn't the fact that evidence of Rachel was found at the barn suggest that another teenager may have been involved?"

"We investigated that possibility and discarded it," Stride said.

"In fact, it was your first thought, wasn't it? You sent people out to the high school to question teenage boys immediately after the bracelet was found. Didn't you, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, we did," Stride said.

Gale nodded. He chewed on his glasses again and then took a long swallow from a paper cup. He dabbed at his lips with the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.

"What size shoe do you wear, Lieutenant?" Gale asked.

The man was good, Stride thought to himself. He wondered how Gale had found out. "Twelve."

"I see. So it could have been you who left those footprints at the barn, right?"

"Objection," Dan Erickson snapped.

Judge Kassel shook her head. "Overruled."

"I don't own a pair of shoes that match the pattern of the tread found at the barn. Whereas Graeme Stoner bought such a pair only four months prior to Rachel's disappearance. And those shoes are now missing."

"But do you know how many of that brand of shoe, in size twelve, were sold in Minnesota in the past year?"

"I don't," Stride admitted.

"It's more than two hundred. Couldn't any of those people have left the footprints?"

"Yes. But none of them is Rachel's stepfather. And they don't own a van in which we found Rachel's blood."

"But apart from those footprints that could be from you or several hundred other men, you don't have any evidence to place my client at the barn on Friday night, do you?"

"No."

"In fact, you don't know when those footprints were made, do you?"

"No."

Gale paused to let the jury focus on this exchange.

"How about the van, Lieutenant? You make a big point of finding my client's fingerprints on the knife you found in the toolbox."

"That's right."

Gale shrugged. "But it's his van and his knife. Wouldn't you expect to find his fingerprints on it?"

"If someone else had handled the knife and wiped it clean, there would have been no fingerprints on it at all," Stride pointed out.

"Unless whoever handled it wore gloves," Gale said. "Isn't that true?"

"That's possible," Stride acknowledged. "But doing so very likely would have smeared other fingerprints, which didn't happen."

"But couldn't Rachel have deliberately left the evidence on the knife herself, knowing that Graeme's fingerprints would be there, too?"

Stride shook his head. "There's no evidence at all that she did that."

"There's also no evidence that she didn't, is there? But let's stay on the van for a while longer. No witnesses saw Graeme Stoner driving the van that Friday night, did they?"

"No."

"So we don't know that the van went anywhere that night, do we?" Gale asked.

"I disagree. The fibers found in the van match the fibers found near the barn. Rachel's bracelet was also found at the barn. Rachel was wearing the bracelet and the white turtleneck on Friday night. Connect the dots, Mr. Gale."

Gale smiled. Stride saw a brief twinkle in the lawyer's eyes, like a nod of appreciation. Score one for the good guys.

But Gale wasn't finished.

"If someone did take Rachel in the van, Lieutenant, how do you know it was Graeme Stoner?"

"It was his van. It was locked."

"Oh, it was locked. I see. No one else could have taken it."

Stride nodded. "Not without hotwiring the engine. Plus, if you suggest someone else took the van, that person would have had to use his own car to get to Rachel's house. It's ridiculous to think a murderer would park his own car on the street, kidnap a girl, steal a different car, drive to the barn, then come back to collect his own car again."

"Unless the killer walked," Gale said.

"Maybe he flew," Stride retorted. The jury laughed. Judge Kassel frowned and looked sharply at Stride.

Gale waited for the amusement to subside. "You took photographs at the Stoner house when Rachel disappeared, am I right?" he asked quietly.

"That's standard procedure," Stride said. He wondered where Gale was going.

Gale returned to the defense table and retrieved a photograph of his own. He put it on an easel near Stride, in full view of the jury.

"Is this an enlarged detail from one of those photographs?"

Stride studied the photo briefly. "Yes, it is."

"The enlargement shows a table in the hallway in the Stoner house, directly beside the front door, is that correct?"

"That's correct."

Gale reached inside his suit coat pocket. He extracted a gold Arrow pen and pointed to an object on the table. "Can you tell us what this is, Lieutenant?"

Stride recognized it. "It's a crystal ashtray."

He knew where Gale was going.

"And what's inside the ashtray, Lieutenant?"

"It's a set of keys."

"In fact, they are Mr. Stoner's car and house keys, isn't that right?"

"I believe so."

"The keys to the van. In an ashtray on a table right next to the front door."

"Yes," Stride said.

"So anyone who came to the door could have simply reached in and taken them. And taken the van. And taken Rachel."

Stride shook his head. "No, that's not a reasonable conclusion from the evidence. According to your scenario, the killer would have to be someone who knew Rachel was home, walked to the house, wore gloves, knew the keys would be there, and wore the same size and brand of shoes as Graeme Stoner. This sounds like part of your magic act, Mr. Gale."

"None of that, Lieutenant," Judge Kassel snapped.

Stride nodded and apologized. Still, he had temporarily derailed Gale's theories. He just hoped the jury wasn't getting confused in the web of outlandish possibilities the lawyer kept throwing in front of them.

Gale offered Judge Kassel a warm smile. Then, carefully patting his gray hair down on the top of his head, he turned back to Stride. "All right, Lieutenant, let's talk about this so-called affair Mr. Stoner was having with his stepdaughter. You don't have any physical evidence to support this wild notion, do you? No semen anywhere? No vaginal fluids?"

"I'm sure they did their laundry," Stride said.

"No witnesses?"

"It's not the kind of thing they were likely to do in public," Stride said with a slight smile.

Gale didn't smile back. "I'll take your answer for a no, Lieutenant. You also spend a lot of time worrying about Mr. Stoner's fantasy life. He indulges in some rather tasteless pornography." Gale sighed. "In other words, he's a man. But none of the material you found was illegal, was it?"

"No," Stride said.

"You can get those magazines on the main street in Duluth, can't you?"

"I believe so."

Gale grabbed the phone records that Dan had introduced as evidence and flapped them in the air. "And as for these phone sex calls-well, no offense, Lieutenant, but if a man were really having sex with teenagers, would he need to pay five dollars a minute to simulate it on the phone?"

"It shows his taste for sex with minors," Stride said.

"These numbers Mr. Stoner called from time to time, do you know how many other men in Duluth have called the same numbers in the last six months?" Gale asked.

"No."

"I do. It's nearly two hundred. Including a few men who I believe are on the police force, Lieutenant. Did you investigate all of them as suspects?"

"No, we didn't."

Gale nodded. "Of course not. Because you and I know that these calls are fantasies and have nothing to do with the reality of how a person behaves. Right?"

"That depends on the context. And the person."

"And yet you don't know the contexts of these people, do you?" Gale asked.

"No."

"No, you don't. In fact, when you get right down to it, the only physical evidence you have that suggests any kind of sexual relationship between Rachel Deese and my client is this amazing photograph you found on a computer in his home. Correct?"

"The photograph is extremely suggestive," Stride said.

"In more ways than one," Gale retorted. "But you don't have any evidence that Mr. Stoner ever saw this photograph, do you?"

"It was on his computer."

"Yes indeed, but Rachel herself had access to that computer, didn't she? She could have put the photograph on Mr. Stoner's hard drive at any time, couldn't she?"

"Again, we have no evidence to suggest she did that."

Gale waved his big hand dismissively. "But you don't have any evidence that she didn't, isn't that right? Who knows what possesses teenage girls? She could have been playing a joke. She could have been trying to embarrass him. She could have been trying to cause a fight between her mother and her stepfather. You don't really know, do you?"

"No," Stride said.

"Tell me, Lieutenant, when was that photo loaded on Mr. Stoner's computer?"

"The file statistics indicate it was loaded two days before Rachel disappeared."

"And when was the photograph last accessed on that computer?" Gale demanded.

"That same time."

Gale reared back in disbelief. He stared at Stride, stunned. He knew perfectly well what date was on the file, since he had seen all the evidence in discovery. But for the jury, it was as if Gale learned this shocking news for the first time.

He retrieved the enlarged photo and displayed it for the jury again, letting it linger there so every one of them could drink in Rachel's erotic power. "The same time? You say this man was obsessed with his stepdaughter, Lieutenant. In the midst of a torrid illicit affair. And he loads this incredible photograph on his computer-and then never looks at it?"

Gale flapped his hand in front of his face as if he were trying to cool down.

"My God, Lieutenant, if this photo were on my computer, I don't think I'd get any work done."

Dan Erickson jumped to his feet. "Objection."

Gale raised his hands in surrender. "Withdrawn, withdrawn."

Then he smiled wickedly at Stride.

"Now, Lieutenant, let's be realistic. This breathtaking photo is loaded on Mr. Stoner's computer, and for weeks afterward, he never even bothers to open it up. Maybe he put it there. Maybe he had incredible willpower. But isn't the most logical explanation that he didn't know the photo was on his computer at all?"

24

Dan called Emily Stoner as the first witness on the second day of the trial.

Her dark hair was neatly styled in a short bob. Her skin, under heavy makeup, looked smooth and pink. She wore a pale shade of lipstick, a pearl necklace, and matching earrings. Her navy blue dress, with white trim on the collar, was obviously new and hugged her body. Watching her, Stride saw a glimmer of what Emily had been like a few years earlier. The only telltale sign of Emily's age today, like yesterday, was in her eyes, which couldn't hide her exhaustion and despair.

Emily squeezed into the aisle. Her heels tapped on the marble floor as she approached the witness stand and was sworn in. She didn't look at Graeme, and Stride noticed that Graeme ignored her. Gale noticed, too, and Stride saw him discreetly jab his client with an elbow. Graeme had lost his wife over these false charges, and he had to display grief.

Emily settled into the chair. She took a quick glance at the jury, then looked away nervously. Her hands were folded in her lap. She was an attractive, sympathetic figure, but to Stride's eyes, she looked unstable. The events of the past few months had deepened the cracks in her soul. Stride began to wonder if the only reason she hadn't made another suicide attempt was to have this chance to testify against Graeme and see him put away. He hoped she got the chance.

"Mrs. Stoner, I know this is difficult for you," Dan began.

Emily swelled her chest with a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes. She straightened her back, steeling herself to tell her story. Her face was intense and determined. "I'm all right," she said.

"How did you meet Graeme Stoner?" Dan asked.

"I was a teller at the Range Bank. He joined the bank as an executive from New York. He was single, attractive, and wealthy, and all the women in the office were crazy about him. Me included."

"Did he show any interest in you?"

"No. Not at first. He would pass me without looking at me, like I didn't exist. It was the same with all the women. He ignored them."

"And then?" Dan asked.

"Well, one day, Rachel came to the bank. She was dressed in a tight halter and short shorts. I scolded her about it, and we got into an argument in the lobby. Graeme saw us together, but he didn't say anything. Later that day, though, he asked me out on a date."

Dan zeroed in on Emily's story, his voice rising. "The day that Graeme approached you was the day he saw Rachel with you in the bank?"

"Yes."

"After several months of ignoring you?"

"Yes."

"Had he seen Rachel with you before?" Dan asked.

"I don't see how. Rachel hardly ever came to the bank."

"Okay. So the two of you began dating. How did Rachel react to your having a man in your life again?"

"She was friendly to Graeme. She flirted with him."

"Eventually, you and Graeme were married. What did you observe about Rachel and Graeme's relationship after that?"

Emily took another deep breath. "They did things together, just the two of them. They went out on photography trips in the woods and were gone for hours. Graeme bought her gifts-clothes, compact discs, that kind of thing."

"How did you feel about this?"

"Initially, I thought it was fine. I was happy to have a family again. But I began to be concerned that Graeme was spending more and more time with Rachel and less and less time with me. He became very distant, very cold. It was like he was shutting down our relationship, and I didn't know why."

Dan took a long look at the jury, then said quietly, "Mrs. Stoner, did you ever have reason to believe that your husband was having sexual relations with your daughter?"

Emily's eyes flashed with anger. "The signs were there. I was blind to them. I didn't want to believe it. But looking back, I can point to things that should have set off warning bells in my head."

"Like what?"

"Well, one time, I was putting groceries in the back of the van. It was a Monday, and Graeme and Rachel had gone out hiking together the day before. I came across a pair of Rachel's panties in the van."

"What did you do?" Dan asked.

"I asked Graeme about it. He said Rachel had slipped while crossing a creek and fallen in. Her clothes got wet."

"Did you talk to Rachel, too?"

"No. I just washed them and put them away."

"What else did you observe?" Dan asked.

"Another time, I saw them kissing. I had already gone up to bed, and I heard Rachel and Graeme coming up the stairs. Rachel was giggling. The lights were on in the hallway, and I heard her say good night, and then I saw her put her arms around his neck and kiss him. On the lips. It wasn't a chaste kiss."

"Did you talk to Graeme or Rachel about it?"

"No. I pretended I was asleep. I couldn't face it."

Dan waited, letting Emily's story sink in. "Did this close relationship between Graeme and Rachel last?"

Emily shook her head. "No, something changed. Two summers ago, Rachel's relationship with Graeme soured. She became very cold and indifferent. I hadn't seen anything to precipitate it, no arguments, no fights. But she turned him off like a switch. Graeme tried to win her back. He was almost pathetic about it. He bought her a new car, but nothing changed. Rachel treated Graeme from that point very much the way she treated me. Like an enemy."

"Objection," Gale snapped.

"Sustained," Judge Kassel said.

"Mrs. Stoner, why didn't you tell any of this to the police when Rachel first disappeared?" Dan asked.

"I tried to tell myself it was impossible that Graeme could be involved. I was fooling myself, as if the things I had seen didn't mean anything. And I guess it was too humiliating to think that something so horrible was going on under my nose and I never saw any of it."

Gale objected again and was sustained again. But Dan had made his point. He was ready to wrap up.

"We know you had a difficult time with your daughter. After all that happened between you, did you still love her?"

Passion flowed into Emily's face. It was the first time that Stride could recall seeing any life at all in her tired eyes. "Of course! I loved her with my whole soul. I still do. I know how much pain she went through, and I would have done anything to reach her. I never could. It tore me up inside. It will always be the greatest regret of my life, that I couldn't find a way to mend the gap between us."

Dan smiled. "Thank you, Mrs. Stoner."

25

Stride assumed Gale would treat the mother of the victim with kid gloves. He was wrong. There wasn't a hint of sympathy in Gale's demeanor.

"The fact is, Mrs. Stoner, your relationship with your daughter was awful, wasn't it?" Gale began.

"It wasn't very good. That's what I said."

Gale snorted. "Not very good? Rachel regularly said she hated you, didn't she?"

"Well-she said that a few times."

"She regularly called you a bitch," Gale said.

"Sometimes."

"She would destroy things you owned, personal things, just for the hell of it."

"Sometimes."

"She would do despicable things for the sole purpose of hurting you?"

Emily nodded. "That's true." Then she lobbed an angry missile: "Like having sex with my husband."

"Or like running away and leaving your life and your marriage in ruins?" Gale demanded.

"She didn't do that."

Gale threw his beefy arms in the air. "How do you know? Wasn't she bright enough and devious enough to have staged all of this?"

"Objection," Dan said.

Gale shrugged. "I'll withdraw it. Mrs. Stoner, by your own admission, you didn't tell anyone about these so-called suspicions until after the police told you your husband was a suspect, is that right?"

"I was in denial," Emily said.

"Denial? The truth is, you really didn't think they were having an affair, did you?"

"Not then, no."

"And the only reason you think so now is because it seems to fit with Mr. Erickson's little mystery story, isn't that right?"

"No. That isn't true."

"Isn't it?" Gale asked, his voice dripping with disbelief. "Everything you've told us, it's all about you and Rachel, isn't it? Not about Graeme. It was about Rachel playing games with you. Tormenting you. Trying to hurt you."

"It was difficult," Emily said.

"So difficult you beat up your own daughter once, didn't you?"

Emily cringed. She began to withdraw, staring into her lap. "Yes," she murmured.

"Speak up! You were angry, and you beat the hell out of her, didn't you?"

"It was just once."

Gale shook his head. "Oh, so you only abused your daughter once. That's all right, is it?"

"No! I'm so sorry!"

"Your daughter pushed you until you viciously assaulted her, right?"

Dan stood up. "Mr. Gale is badgering the witness, Your Honor."

The judge nodded. "Back off, Mr. Gale."

Gale changed direction. "If she pushed you far enough, you'd do it again, wouldn't you?"

"No."

Gale lowered his voice and continued with a wicked calm. "In fact, weren't you the one with the motive to kill Rachel?"

Emily's eyes flew open. "No!"

"No? After she humiliated you for years?"

"I would never hurt her."

"You just told us you did."

"That was a long time ago," Emily pleaded. "It happened once and never happened again."

"Didn't it?" Gale asked. "Didn't you finally have it out with Rachel once and for all on that last weekend?"

"No-no, of course not! I wasn't even there!"

Gale was patient. "Where were you?"

"With my sister in St. Louis."

"On Friday night?" Gale asked. "The night Rachel disappeared?"

"Yes."

Alarm bells began to go off in Stride's head.

"But not on Saturday," Gale said. "You weren't in St. Louis on Saturday night, were you?"

Emily shook her head. "No. I stayed at a hotel in the Cities. I was tired. I had been driving all day."

"Where did you stay?" Gale asked.

"I don't remember. Somewhere on the Bloomington strip."

"Could it have been the Airport Lakes Hotel?"

"Possibly. I really don't remember."

Gale retrieved a piece of paper from the counsel's table. "In fact, isn't this a copy of your receipt from the Airport Lakes Hotel in Bloomington for that weekend?"

Emily paled. "Yes."

"Well, then," Gale said, frowning. "We have a problem, don't we?"

Emily was silent.

Gale held up the paper. "Because this receipt shows you checking in on Friday night, not Saturday, doesn't it?"

Stride murmured, "Son of a bitch."

Maggie leaned over and whispered, "Goddamn it, the sister covered for her. She swore Emily was there on Friday night."

In the witness stand, Emily hadn't spoken. Gale spread his arms, the receipt held high in his left hand. "Well, Mrs. Stoner?"

"It must be a mistake," Emily said in a ghastly voice.

"A mistake?" Gale was scornful. "They billed you for two nights, and you didn't notice? Shall we call the desk clerk who checked you in?"

Emily's eyes darted frantically, looking for cover. As Stride watched, she seemed to look repeatedly in one place, at the man seated a few feet down the row. At Dayton Tenby.

Stride glanced at the minister and saw a look of panic in Dayton 's eyes, too.

Emily crumbled. "All right, yes, I was there on Friday night. I did some shopping at the Mall of America on Saturday. Graeme wouldn't have liked it, and that's why I lied. It didn't seem like a big thing."

"How convenient," Gale said. "But the fact is, you could easily have driven to Duluth and back on that Friday night, couldn't you?"

"I didn't do that," Emily insisted.

"You check in, you head north. You would have arrived just after ten, right? Just when Rachel was getting home?"

"No. That's not what happened."

Gale smiled. "No? Tell us, Mrs. Stoner, what did Rachel do that night? What did she say? Did she push one button too many?"

"No, no, no."

Dayton Tenby leaned forward, and Stride saw him whispering furiously to Dan.

"You knew about the barn, right?" Gale persisted.

Emily didn't answer.

"I need a yes or no. Did you know what the barn was and where it was?"

"Yes."

"You'd been there yourself, hadn't you?"

"Not in years."

"But you had been there? You knew all about it?"

"Yes." Her voice was a lifeless echo.

"You had the real motive and opportunity to kill Rachel, didn't you? You had a history of violence toward her. She treated you like dirt."

Emily stared at him. "I didn't kill my daughter."

"You lied to the police. You lied to your husband. You lied to the jury. How do we know you're not lying now?"

Tears rolled in streaks down Emily's face. "I'm not lying."

Gale shrugged.

"That's all, Mrs. Stoner. I have nothing further."

Dan stood up on redirect.

"Mrs. Stoner, tell us again what you were doing on Friday night, when you claimed you were at your sister's house."

"I was shopping," Emily repeated.

Dan caught Emily's reluctant eyes. His voice softened. "You can't hide it anymore. It's time for the truth to come out. Now please, tell us. Where were you on Friday night?"

Stride saw Emily stare, stricken, at Tenby. He saw the minister nod his head gently. Emily took a deep breath and turned to the jury. She seemed composed again.

"I was at the hotel in Bloomington, just like the receipt says. I was having an affair. I didn't want my husband or anyone in the community finding out."

Dan nodded. "Who were you seeing in Minneapolis?"

"It was-I mean, I was meeting- Dayton. Dayton Tenby. He's been my pastor for years." Her words galloped out of her mouth as she tried to explain. "We didn't meet with the intention of having an affair. He was in Minneapolis for a conference. I wanted to talk to him, so I came back early. We had dinner, and then, well, one thing just led to another. We ended up spending the weekend together. It was beautiful. But I felt guilty and ashamed, and I didn't want to endanger Dayton 's career. Even though it was my fault, I knew he could be hurt."

"Were you with him the whole time?" Dan asked.

"Yes."

"Did you have any opportunity to sneak up to Duluth?"

Emily shook her head. "Of course not. That's ridiculous. There's only one person who was at home with Rachel that night. And that's Graeme."

26

"I watched the news tonight," Andrea said, taking a large swallow from a glass of Chardonnay, which they were gulping like cold beer. "You know how they are, all the experts handicapping who's winning and who's losing. But this time, they didn't sound like they knew. Even Bird wasn't ready to call the trial one way or another."

"Nice to know something can render Bird speechless," Stride said.

"What does Dan think?" Andrea asked.

"He thinks we're winning."

"What do you think Gale thinks?"

"I think he thinks he's winning."

"So who's winning?"

Stride laughed. "Us, I think. Then again, I'm an optimist."

Andrea, who was already more than a little drunk, shook her head. "An optimist? You? I don't think so."

"Even better. We must really be winning, then."

"Does Maggie think so, too?"

"Maggie?" Stride asked. "Maggie hates Dan so much, I think she would be content to have Stoner go free just to have Dan fall on his ass. However, she calls it a draw so far, and she's probably right."

Andrea was silent. Then she said, "I don't think Maggie likes me too much."

Stride shrugged. "I've told you about Maggie. I think she still cares about me and won't admit it. She's probably a little jealous. This is about her, not you."

"She doesn't think I'm right for you."

"Did she say that?"

"No," Andrea said. "Women just know these things."

"Well, let's leave us to worry about us, and Maggie can worry about Maggie. Okay?"

Andrea nodded. She finished her glass of wine and poured the dregs of the bottle into both of their glasses, spilling a few drops on the glass coffee table. She rubbed it off with her finger, then licked her fingertip.

Stride sat next to her in the living room. The picture window, opposite the sofa, exposed a view of the city below them and the lake, darkening in the twilight. He had changed into a short-sleeved green polo shirt and old jeans. Andrea reached over, touching the thick scar on his upper arm.

"You've never told me about the bullet, you know," she said.

"It was years ago."

"So tell me," Andrea urged him.

"It was a suicide attempt," he said. "I was a lousy shot."

"Jon-a-than," she said, drawing out the syllables in exasperation. "Don't you ever give your morbid humor a rest?"

He smiled. "Okay, it was a hunting accident."

"Oh?"

"Yes, I hunted something that hunted me back."

"You're impossible. Come on, I really want to know. Please tell me."

Stride sighed. It wasn't a part of his life he enjoyed dredging up, because he had spent a year unliving it with Cindy and a therapist.

"A few years ago, I ended up in the middle of a domestic dispute. We used to own a cabin west of Ely, and the couple that owned the place near us-well, the husband basically flipped out. He was a very good friend of mine. We were close. But he was a fragile guy, a veteran, and he lost his job and his marbles all at once. His wife called me one evening, told me he was waving a gun around, threatening to kill her and kill the kids. I knew him, knew he was serious. But I didn't call for backup, because I thought that was a good way for a lot of people to end up dead, him included. Instead, I went to talk to him."

"What happened?"

"I got inside, and he pointed a revolver with a six-inch barrel at me. Biggest fucking gun you've ever seen, right in front of my face. Seems he didn't want to talk. Well, I talked anyway. I was getting through to him, too, or so I thought. I got him to let the kids go outside. A few minutes later, I got him to let his wife go outside, although she didn't want to go. So it was just him and me. I really thought I was home free. My only challenge was to make sure he didn't kill himself. But I guess I underestimated him. He pointed the gun at his head, and I shouted at him. I started forward, hands up, trying to make him stop, to put the gun down. Instead, he pointed the gun right at my chest and pulled the trigger, just like that, no warning. I was already diving. The bullet sliced through my shoulder, spun me around, threw me to the floor. And then, with that little interruption out of the way, he put the gun in his mouth and blew out the back of his head with me screaming at him."

Andrea caressed his face. "I don't know what to say."

"See what happens when you get me drunk?" Stride said. "You get me to say things that upset you."

"My fault. I pushed. But I'm glad you told me."

"Well, enough of that, okay? Do you want to open another bottle?"

Andrea shook her head. "I've got to go to school tomorrow, remember? I don't think the kids would appreciate me having a hangover."

"So how come we didn't date in high school?" he asked. It was the kind of question driven by several glasses of wine.

"I think it's because you had already graduated by the time I was a freshman," Andrea said.

"Oh, yeah. Just as well. I bet you wouldn't have given me a second glance."

Andrea shook her head. "I would have given you a second glance and a third glance."

"No, I don't think so," Stride said. "I was one of those intense, brooding loners. And you-you were a cheerleader, I bet, and in all the clubs, and with lots of boyfriends."

Andrea grinned. "Cheerleader, yes. Science club, yes. Boyfriends, no."

"Come on."

"Seriously! I got asked out all the time, but it usually didn't go beyond a first date." She cupped her breasts. "Once they figured out they weren't going to get their hands on these, they lost interest"

"Well, it is kind of like blowing out the birthday candles and not eating the cake," Stride said.

"Oh, don't pull that typical guy crap on me. I'm sure you were a perfect gentleman in high school."

Stride laughed. "There's no such thing as a sixteen-year-old gentleman."

"Anyway, you were lucky in high school," Andrea said. "You found your soul mate. You met Cindy during your senior year, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And that was that, wasn't it?" she asked.

Stride smiled wistfully. "Yes, that was that. I was hooked. Love at first sight. It really was that fast"

She snuggled closer to him on the sofa, clutching his arm. Her cat, who was sleeping on Stride's lap, looked up, offended by the interruption.

"What was it about Cindy?" Andrea asked softly.

Stride stared into the distance, where he could still picture Cindy in his mind. Over time, the picture had lost a little focus. It wasn't a close-up anymore. It was a portrait, getting farther away.

"She wouldn't let me be a loner," he said. "She teased me and poked holes in all my defenses. And she was the most spiritual person I ever met. Not so much religious, but spiritual. She helped me see the things I loved, the lake, the woods, in a new light Once I saw it through her, none of it was the same. It was better."

He looked down at the cat, which was sleeping again, unimpressed with his memories. He looked over at Andrea, still nestled against his shoulder.

She was crying.

The next morning, Dan called Kevin Lowry to the stand.

Kevin made a perfect witness, a strapping, clean-cut teenager, looking slightly uncomfortable in his white shirt and tie. He shifted and squirmed to fit his husky body into the witness stand. His eyes darted around the courtroom, nervously studying the jury and then making eye contact with Emily Stoner. He gave her a small smile of support, but Emily didn't react.

Dan quickly covered the early days of Kevin's relationship with Rachel and then moved on to Graeme.

"Kevin, we've heard testimony that Rachel's relationship with Graeme changed abruptly. They were close, and then they weren't Is that what you observed?"

Kevin nodded. "Oh, yeah. Big time. About two years ago, Rachel did a turnaround. She wouldn't go near Mr. Stoner anymore. She told me she hated him."

"Did she say why?"

"No. I asked her about it once, and she said-well, she called him something pretty harsh."

"What did she call him, Kevin?"

Kevin looked uncomfortable. "She said he was a fucking pervert."

"Did you observe Mr. Stoner's behavior during this time?" Dan asked.

"When I saw them together, he was real nice to her. Same as always. Although, I don't know, it was like he was trying too hard. Like right around the start of the school year, Mr. Stoner bought Rachel a new car."

Stride frowned. Something about Rachel's car bothered him. He remembered feeling that way from the beginning. But they had searched it thoroughly and found nothing.

"Did that make Rachel happy?"

Kevin shook his head. "No. I mean, she liked the car okay. She always hated driving that old hand-me-down from her mother. But she was sort of sarcastic about the new car. She said Mr. Stoner had to buy it for her, he didn't have a choice."

"Did she say what that meant?"

"No."

"And was this the car she was driving on the last night you saw her?"

"Yes."

"Okay, Kevin, let's talk about that night Tell us what happened."

Kevin described the events in Canal Park with Rachel and Sally the way he had originally told them to Stride.

"Please describe Rachel's emotional state. How did she seem to you?"

"Normal. Happy. Not upset or anything."

"Was it just an ordinary evening?"

"Sure."

"Okay, what about the next day, Kevin?" Dan asked.

"Well, Rachel asked if I wanted to go out on Saturday night. But when I showed up at her house, she had disappeared."

"Did you talk to the defendant?"

"Yes. I told him I had a date with Rachel. He said he didn't know where she was. He told me he hadn't seen her that day."

"And where was Rachel's car?"

"It was parked right outside. I couldn't understand where Rachel would be if she didn't have her car."

Dan nodded. "Did you tell Mr. Stoner this?"

"Sure. I said that was really strange. It wasn't like Rachel at all. I asked if we should call someone."

"What did he say?"

Kevin shot an angry look at Graeme. "He said no, there was no reason for concern. He said Rachel was probably just playing games with me like she did with everyone else."

"When Rachel made the date with you on Friday, did it feel like a game?"

"No, she was serious. We were planning to go out."

"When Rachel left you that night, what did she say?"

"She said she was going home. She was tired."

"Did she mention going anywhere else or meeting anyone else?"

"No."

"Did she seem upset, anxious, distraught?"

"No."

"So once again, as far as you were concerned, it was an ordinary night"

Kevin nodded. "That's right."

"Thank you, Kevin."

Gale stood up.

"Kevin, you called this an ordinary night. Is that right?" Gale asked, allowing a faint rumor of disbelief into his voice.

"Sure."

"Okay. Now let's see, you said when you first saw Rachel, she was standing on the railing of the bridge."

"Yes."

"It was windy and rainy."

Kevin nodded. "It was an awful night"

"So Rachel was standing on a narrow railing, with the icy water below her, and the wind blowing like crazy? Do I have the picture?"

That's right."

"She could easily have been killed, couldn't she?"

"I guess."

Gale's eyebrows rose. "You guess? Kevin, you were terrified, weren't you? You ran to save her."

"Yes, I did."

"Had she ever climbed up on the bridge like that before, that you know of?" Gale asked.

"No."

"Why, on that night of all nights, would she have been risking death?"

"I don't know," Kevin said.

Gale continued. "You said Rachel made sexual advances toward you that night?"

"Yes."

"In front of your girlfriend?"

Kevin frowned. "Well, Sally was on the ground. We were up on the bridge."

"But she could see you, couldn't she?"

"I suppose."

"Had Rachel ever done something like this to you before?"

Kevin shook his head. "No."

"So, on this night of all nights, she makes a sexual advance on her oldest friend, someone she's known her whole life, for the first and only time?"

"Yes." Kevin's voice was almost inaudible.

"I see. Now, about the date. Was this the first time Rachel had asked you out?"

Kevin nodded. "Yes."

"The first time ever?"

"Yes."

"So again, on this night of all nights, Rachel decides for the first and only time to ask you out on a date."

"That's right."

Gale smiled. "So really, there wasn't anything ordinary about that night, was there?"

Kevin hesitated. "I guess not"

"Why was Rachel behaving so strangely?"

"I don't know."

"Okay, Kevin. Let's talk about something else. You knew Kerry McGrath, didn't you? The other girl who disappeared two years ago?"

"Objection!" Dan practically screamed. "Counsel's question is irrelevant and outside the scope of direct examination."

Judge Kassel slammed her gavel down, and Stride thought she enjoyed the opportunity to do so. She eyed Dan impatiently. "Settle down, Mr. Erickson."

Then the judge stared down at Gale. Her attractive jaw settled in a hard line, but her eyes were intrigued. "Now, Mr. Gale, please tell me you have a point to this question. Because, despite counsel's outburst, I'm inclined to sustain his objection."

Gale knew he had piqued her interest-and the jury's, too.

"I hope the court will indulge me a little while on this line, Your Honor. I want to explore some facts that will play a vital role in my defense. The prosecution's witnesses have testified that there is no link between Kerry's and Rachel's disappearances. I wish to impeach those conclusions, and that is certainly relevant. What's more, Mr. Erickson opened the door by exploring the witness's personal relationship with Rachel. I'm entitled to explore whether he had a personal relationship with another girl who disappeared under similar circumstances."

Kassel 's lips curled into an almost imperceptible smile. Stride couldn't tell whether she was enjoying the drama or savoring the possibility that Gale might have an ace up his sleeve with which to embarrass Dan.

"We'll indulge you briefly, Mr. Gale. Very briefly."

"Thank you, Your Honor," Gale said.

In the silence that followed, the whole courtroom focused its cold attention on Kevin, squirming in the witness stand. Gale repeated the question.

"Sure, I knew her. We were in the same class."

"Did the two of you ever go out on a date?"

"No," Kevin said.

"Did you ask her out, and she said no?"

"No." His voice was a whisper.

"Your Honor," Dan pleaded.

"Mr. Gale?" Judge Kassel demanded. "Our indulgence is running out."

Gale shot his next question in quickly. "Did she ever ask you out?"

Dan rose to object again, but before he could open his mouth, Kevin let out a giant sigh and said, "Yes."

Dan slowly sank back into his seat. The jury and the rest of the courtroom were transfixed. Judge Kassel put her gavel down and eased back into her chair.

"When did Kerry ask you out?" Gale asked.

"It was the week before she disappeared."

A murmur swept through the courtroom.

Stride glanced at Maggie. She looked back at him in confusion. They had worked the McGrath case inside and out, and Kevin's name had never come up. There was no evidence the two of them had ever been together. Then, a second later, they understood.

"Did you say yes?" Gale asked.

Kevin shook his head. "No. I told her I was already seeing Sally."

"So you never actually went out together?"

"No."

"How did Kerry take the rejection?" Gale asked.

"She was okay about it She said maybe another time."

Gale nodded. "How about Sally? How did she like the idea of another girl asking you out? Just like Rachel did that night."

"She was kind of pissed off. I told her it was nothing. We didn't talk about it again."

"And a week later, Kerry disappeared, just like Rachel did."

Kevin swallowed. "Yes."

"You don't have very good luck with girls asking you out do you, Kevin?"

Dan shouted another objection, and this time Kassel directed her anger at Gale, sustaining the objection and instructing the jury to ignore the question. Gale raised his arms in surrender.

"I don't have any more questions for you, Kevin," Gale said quietly.

Before Kevin could get up, Dan quickly got to his feet "Redirect, Your Honor."

Judge Kassel nodded. "Go ahead."

"Kevin, please tell the court where you were on the night Kerry McGrath disappeared."

"I was in Florida. I was at Disney World with my parents."

"And on the night Rachel disappeared, what did you do after she left you in Canal Park?"

"I went home."

"Did you see your parents there?"

Kevin nodded. "We watched a movie on television in the living room until after midnight."

"Thank you, Kevin."

"What the fuck was all that about?" Dan demanded, taking a bite from a portobello sandwich. "'A vital part of his defense?'"

Stride played with a paper clip, folding and unfolding it. "It's obvious, isn't it? He's going to try to paint Sally as a jealous serial killer. 'Anyone comes after my boyfriend, they disappear.'"

"But you told me that's a nonstarter," Dan said. "You said she's got an alibi."

Stride nodded. "She does. I don't know where he thinks he's going with this, but he obviously thinks he can make it play with the jury."

"Well, if I yank Sally off our list, we can't put Graeme at the barn. Besides, Gale will just call her himself, which will make us look like we're trying to hide something. That means in half an hour she goes on the stand. So you tell me, could this girl have done it? Should I be concerned?"

Maggie shook her head. "No way. I've talked to the girl. She may be a jealous bitch when it conies to Kevin, but I don't see her taking girls off the street and killing them. And she wasn't making it up about Graeme and the bam. I talked to her. The girl was telling the truth."

"Then why the hell does Gale seem to think this is his Get Out of Jail Free card?" Dan asked. "Do we know where Sally was when Kerry disappeared?"

"No," Stride said. "Her name never came up."

"We know she wasn't with Kevin," Maggie pointed out slyly. "You made sure of that on redirect. He was in Florida."

Stride intervened before Dan could explode. "She didn't do it, Dan. But you can bet Gale has already checked, and Sally doesn't have an alibi for that night Or she doesn't remember where she was. Hell, it was almost two years ago. It's still smoke and mirrors. A coincidence. Give the girl a chance. She convinced Maggie. She'll convince the jury, too."

Dan slammed his briefcase shut and gave Maggie a malevolent stare. "All right. We don't change our strategy. We ignore the Kerry McGrath issue. By my estimate, we're still ahead on points. If the jury went out now, they might think about it for a while, but they'd convict. But if Gale can muddle their brains with another false suspect, he might talk them into reasonable doubt. And let me make one thing very clear. If we lose this case, the two of you are going to be scraping bird shit off statues in public parks for the next ten years. So you better damn well hope you've given me enough to put this pervert behind bars."

Stride and Maggie exchanged glances. They were both thinking the same thing.

What was Gale up to?

Or worse, what had they missed?

27

Jerry Gull couldn't take it anymore. He had to go. Badly. And there was still a long stretch of empty road between him and Duluth.

He had guzzled coffee throughout the four-hour seminar in Hibbing, then rushed out of the hotel without using the bathroom. Jerry had a phobia about public bathrooms and generally didn't go anywhere except at home or at the office. Normally, he would have made it home from Hibbing in plenty of time, but he was delayed by another hour on his return trip because he had to pick up Brunswick.

Brunswick was his girlfriend Arlene's dog, a Newfoundland who weighed more than Jerry. Stretched out, he was probably taller than Jerry, too.

Arlene had been married for a short time. In the divorce, her ex-husband, who had a small hobby farm outside Hibbing, was awarded custody of the dog. Jerry had never met Brunswick, but he made the ultimate miscalculation of talking to Arlene about his seminar, and she, in turn, had cajoled him into a promise to stop at her ex-husband's farm and bring Brunswick to her for a long weekend at her sister's place just south of the city.

That was why, squeezed into the backseat of his Toyota Corolla, was a black moose the size of Canada.

Almost immediately the coffee began to work its magic. Jerry tried not to think about it and instead just drove faster. It wouldn't have been hard to stop at a fast food restaurant along the way, but he wasn't ready to confront his phobia, and he wasn't sure he could get out of the car without Brunswick escaping.

By the time he began to dance in his seat, squirming to push his legs together, he was in the woods, a long way from any town. There was something about the dog, too, that made the urge to go even worse. He could smell him and feel him puffing, hot and foul, against his neck. The dog dispensed at least a gallon of drool, most of it down the shoulder of Jerry's blue suit. His slobbering face rubbed against Jerry's cheek affectionately and refused to leave him alone.

There was simply not enough room in the car for him, his bladder, and Brunswick.

Jerry eyed the shoulder of the highway, and like a miracle, a quarter mile ahead, he saw exactly what he wanted, a dirt country road winding back into the forest in the middle of nowhere. It looked like a road that got no traffic at all, except for an occasional farmer or hunter cutting over to a parallel highway.

He turned onto the dirt road, and the Corolla bounced and rocked. Brunswick 's jowls swung in a peculiarly compelling rhythm, spraying the car with drool. Some of it slopped onto Jerry's glasses, and he rubbed them clean with his hand, groaning in disgust. Jerry drove more than a mile down the dirt road, finding a place where the forest was thick with birches and there wasn't a sign of humanity anywhere.

His body was bursting with streams, rivers, waterfalls, and every kind of torrential, rushing body of water. He wasn't sure he was going to make it.

Jerry swung open the driver's door and literally ran from the car. He hurried around to the right-side shoulder, ran down into the trees, and began clutching for his zipper. His clumsy fingers reached for his penis and missed, and his eyes rolled as he tried to free it from within his briefs. Finally, blissfully, he got it out, where it began flooding immediately onto the spongy ground. He didn't have to hold it or point it; it just doused the brush on its own like a fire hose.

The relief was so great his eyes teared up.

Then, when he was almost done, something huge and heavy hit him from behind, sending Jerry sprawling. He twisted and landed on his back on the wet ground-ground he had made wet-and meanwhile, his penis was still busily doing its work, spurting like a broken sprinkler over his pants, shirt, tie, and face. Jerry screamed, so caught up in the horror of the moment that he barely realized the culprit who had attacked him was Brunswick, shooting like a cannon deep into the forest.

" Brunswick!" Jerry bellowed, unleashing some of his anger.

He pushed himself off the ground, looking down at his sodden clothes. He couldn't believe it. It was a nightmare. The worst part was, he had probably lost the dog forever, and Arlene would never forgive him. He really thought about getting into the car, driving away, and never going home.

Woof!

He heard a deep bark somewhere in the distance. Brunswick wasn't gone for good, but he wasn't very close by. By the sound of it, he was at least a hundred yards deep in the forest. Jerry called the dog again, then waited, hoping to hear the thunder of paws (which were more like hooves) trampling the ground as the dog rushed back.

No such luck.

Woof!

Jerry signed and started hiking. He kept calling for Brunswick, and the dog would periodically answer, helping Jerry to home in on him. Jerry was wet and dirty, and he smelled. The earth was soggy, and the tree branches scraped at his clothes and skin. His shoes were covered in mud. To add insult to injury, it was starting to rain.

" Brunswick!" Jerry called. He was losing patience.

Woof!

Jerry turned in the direction of the latest bark, squinting to see between the birch trees. This time, he caught a glimpse of a black beast, nose to the ground, paws digging frantically in the soft earth.

"Finally," he muttered.

He came up on the dog softly, not wanting to spook him and send him running away again, but Brunswick was intent on his work and didn't seem to notice Jerry at all. The dog had found something of great interest in a tiny clearing, and he was scooping out the ground with gusto. Every now and then, he would shove his whole huge head into the hole he had created.

Jerry reached down tentatively, taking the dog's collar in his hand.

"You are a bad dog," he said, stroking the matted black fur.

Brunswick, finally feeling Jerry beside him, looked up happily, drool spilling from his jowls. The Newfoundland 's broad mouth clutched something long and white.

"So what was worth all this trouble, Brunswick?" Jerry asked him.

He reached down to take the object from the dog's mouth, and Brunswick, after a slight tussle, released it.

It took Jerry a minute, looking at the thing in his hand, to figure out what it was.

Then, with growing fear, he looked in the hole to see what else the dog had found.

"Holy shit," he said.

28

Sally looked young on the witness stand. She was dressed demurely in a white cotton sweater with a round collar and a blue skirt. The sweater was loose enough to avoid drawing attention to her chest. Her full hair was pulled back and tied neatly behind her head. Her face was pink, but without makeup. She didn't wear any jewelry, just a plain gold watch.

Stride looked at her. Was he wrong? He allowed a shadow of doubt to pass over him, considering the crazy possibility that they had all misjudged the case. Sally was jealous and possessive. Could she have crossed over the line into murder?

Twice?

He simply didn't believe it.

"Sally, I'd like you to tell the jury about an incident that happened to you last summer. Can you describe it for us?"

Sally nodded. Her face was serious and composed. "It was a Sunday morning in July. I drove my car north of the city and turned off on one of the rural highways. I parked there and began biking."

"How long did you bike?" Dan asked.

"Maybe half an hour, I guess. I was listening to my iPod and not really paying attention to the time. But then the chain on my bike broke. I was probably ten or fifteen miles from my car. So I turned around and started pushing it back."

"Did you go all the way to your car?"

Sally shook her head. "No. A mini van passed me on the road. The driver stopped and honked at me. It was Rachel's stepfather. Graeme Stoner."

"How well did you know Mr. Stoner?"

Sally shrugged. "Oh, we knew each other enough to talk. I had been over to Rachel's house a few times with my boyfriend. Kevin."

"Go on, Sally."

"He offered to drive me and my bike to my car."

"Did you accept?"

"Yes. I was tired. It sounded great to have a ride back to the car. So I got in the van, but then we sat there for several minutes. He didn't make any effort to start the van. It was a little weird. He just asked me a lot of questions. Personal stuff."

"Tell us what he asked you."

Sally hesitated. "He said he saw me with Kevin a lot. He asked whether he was my boyfriend."

"What did you say?"

"I said yes, he was. Then he asked me whether Kevin and I were being careful. He was kind of grinning."

"What did you take that to mean?"

Gale stood up. "Objection, Your Honor. Assuming this conversation ever took place, the witness is not in a position to act as a mind reader."

"Sustained, but leave out the aside next time, Mr. Gale," Judge Kassel instructed him.

Gale, with a tiny smile, sat down.

"Were you uncomfortable?"

"Well, not at first But it dragged on. We must have been sitting there for five minutes or so, with him just firing all these questions at me. I started dropping hints, you know? I said we'd better go. I told him I needed to get back to the city. Finally, he started the engine, and we headed off. But I realized he was going very slowly. I looked over, and he was only doing forty. Most people usually do sixty or seventy on those roads."

"Did Mr. Stoner continue talking to you as he drove?"

"Yes. He told me that I was very pretty. That he liked my hair. That I had such nice skin. All the time, he was looking at me. But not really at my face, you know?"

"Tell us what he was looking at, Sally."

She glanced nervously at the jury. "He was staring at my breasts. He kept sneaking looks at them. I tried crossing my arms, but it looked funny. Instead, I kind of twisted my body so he didn't have much of a view."

"How did you feel?"

"It made roe uncomfortable."

"Did you say anything?"

Sally shook her head. "No, I just wanted to get to my car and get out of there."

"What happened next?" Dan asked.

"He asked me if I had ever been to the barn."

A murmur rustled through the courtroom, and Judge Kassel tapped her gavel, restoring silence. Stride saw the faces of the jurors, intent on Sally's words.

"Go on, Sally," Dan said.

"He told me he had heard there was some real hot make-out spot nearby, and he wondered if I had been there with Kevin," she continued.

"What did you say?"

"I said no. He was really surprised. He thought I was kidding. But I really hadn't been there."

"Where were you at this point?"

"We were at a crossroads. I knew the bam was nearby. Everyone knows where it is. He stopped the van at the intersection."

Dan leaned forward. "Just to clarify, Sally, is this the same barn where evidence about Rachel-her bracelet, her blood-was discovered?"

"Yes. The same place."

"So what happened then?"

"He asked me if the barn was just down this road. I said yes, I thought so. He got this gleam in his eyes, like he was trying to flirt with me, and he asked if I thought anyone was there now, making out."

"What did you say?"

"I said I didn't know. I said we should really get going."

"Did he do what you asked?"

"No." Sally grimaced. "He said we should check it out. He was insistent. He turned and headed toward the barn. I was really scared."

"What did you think was going to happen?"

"Objection," Gale snapped. "Calls for speculation."

"I'm asking the witness for her own perception of the situation, Your Honor, not what was in the defendant's mind," Dan countered.

Judge Kassel paused. "I'll allow the question. You may answer."

"I don't really know what I thought I was just so freaked out. The way he was talking, I guess I thought he was coming on to me. Like he was going to try something."

"Did he take you to the barn?"

Sally nodded. "Yes. He pulled in behind the barn and parked. I was getting ready to make a break for it, you know? I mean, he had me spooked. There was nobody around, and he kept looking at me and telling me I was really pretty."

"Did he touch you?"

"No. Well, he didn't have a chance to. We were hardly there a minute or two before another car pulled in behind us. I've never been so happy in my life."

"What did Mr. Stoner do?"

"He hauled ass out of mere." Sally hesitated. "I'm sorry. But that was really what he did. As soon as that other car came up, he hit the accelerator, and we peeled out."

"Did he say anything further to you?"

Sally shook her head. "No, hardly a word. He just headed back to the main road, doing sixty this time. We reached my car in just a couple minutes. He dropped me off, and that was that I was glad to get out of there."

"Did you tell anyone about this incident?" Dan asked.

"No. Not then, anyway. I was embarrassed, and I felt kind of stupid. I tried to tell myself I had just misinterpreted what had happened. But it all took place just like I told you."

"That's all I have, Sally. Thanks." Dan turned to Gale. "Your witness."

Now, thought Stride, the fireworks start.

He leaned over to whisper to Maggie. That was when he realized that Maggie was gone.

29

Gale removed his reading glasses, shoved them into the breast pocket of his suit coat, and gave Sally an avuncular smile.

"This won't take long. Sally," he told her. "I just have a few questions for you."

Bullshit, Stride thought.

"You were out biking on the country roads several miles from town, is that right?" Gale asked. "Weren't you scared?"

"No," Sally said. "I go out there at least once a month."

Gale frowned. "And yet only a few months earlier, another girl in your school was abducted while jogging on the back roads. Didn't that worry you?"

"Objection," Dan snapped. "What the witness was thinking about or not thinking about is irrelevant."

"Your Honor, if the jury is to decide whether this incident really took place, they deserve to hear the full context," Gale said.

Judge Kassel nodded. "Overruled. The witness will answer the question."

Sally shrugged. "I suppose it should have worried me, but I didn't really think about it"

"So you weren't concerned at all that whoever abducted Kerry might abduct you, too?"

"Objection, asked and answered," Dan interrupted.

"Sustained."

"All right. Sally, you claim that Mr. Stoner picked you up while you were pushing your bike back, is that right?" Gale asked.

"Yes."

"And the event was very traumatic for you."

"Yes."

Gale paused. "But you didn't tell anyone about it?"

"No, I didn't. Not then."

"You didn't tell anyone?" Gale asked. "Not your parents? Or Kevin? Or a teacher?"

"No. I was scared. And I thought maybe I overreacted."

"You overreacted. In other words, you began to realize you had leaped to the wrong conclusions, right?"

Sally hesitated. "I didn't know what to think. I mean, I was just glad it was over. I didn't want to get him into trouble."

"The first time you told anyone about this alleged incident was when the police were questioning you, right?"

"That's right."

"But it wasn't the first time you were questioned, was it?" Gale asked.

"No."

"In fact, the police talked to you several times before you suddenly blurted out this story. Isn't that correct?"

"I told you, I was scared," Sally said.

"Yes or no, Sally, please."

"Yes." She raced on before Gale could stop her. "It wasn't until I found out about the evidence the police found at the barn that I realized it was important."

"It never occurred to you to bring it up before then?"

"Not really, no."

Gale changed directions. "You're in love with our previous witness, Kevin Lowry, aren't you?'

Dan stood up. "This is irrelevant and outside the scope of direct examination, Your Honor."

Judge Kassel pursed her lips. "No, I'll allow it"

Sally was pleased to answer. "Yes, we're very close," she said firmly.

"He's a good-looking boy. I bet other girls go after him from time to time," Gale said.

"Kevin loves me."

"He never looks at other girls?"

"No."

"No? But other girls do check him out, right? Didn't Kerry McGrath do that?"

Dan was immediately on his feet again. "Same objection, Your Honor."

"Mr. Gale?" the judge inquired.

"Your Honor, this line of questioning goes to the credibility of the witness."

"Very well, overruled. But I expect to see relevance very quickly, Mr. Gale." Judge Kassel offered the defense attorney an impatient frown.

"Didn't Kerry ask Kevin out?" Gale repeated.

"Kevin said she did once, yes."

"Didn't that upset you?"

"Kevin told her no," Sally said. "If he had said yes, that would have upset me."

"You weren't mad at Kerry for poaching on your turf?" Gale asked, smiling.

"No."

"You weren't? You didn't talk to her about it?"

Sally hesitated. "No."

"You don't sound so sure, Sally."

"Well, I may have mentioned to her that Kevin was off-limits. It was no big deal."

"You mentioned it? Was this sort of a good-natured girl thing, or a 'stay away from my man or I'll rip your hair out' kind of thing?"

Sally's eyes widened. She was catching on now. Stride could almost see the message sinking into her brain. He's trying to pin this on me.

"Objection," Dan called. "Your Honor, I'm confused. Who is on trial here, and which crime is at issue?"

Judge Kassel sighed. "Mr. Gale, I'm confused, too. Would you care to explain the relevance? I've been more than patient."

Dan came around in front of the counsel table and spoke before Gale could open his mouth. "Your Honor, may we discuss this issue in chambers? With all due respect to defense counsel, I don't want him getting in through the back door what you disallow through the front door."

"Your Honor, that's offensive," Gale retorted.

The judge took a long look at both men. Then she nodded. "Ten minute recess. In my chambers, gentlemen."

Seated behind her neatly organized walnut desk, Judge Kassel leaned forward, resting her elbows on the wood. Gale was comfortably seated in front of her. Dan paced.

"Well, Archie?" the judge asked pleasantly. "Let's talk relevance."

Gale spread his arms, as if the explanation were obvious. "Your Honor, I'm trying to demonstrate that an alternate and reasonable theory of Rachel's disappearance exists, and this line of questioning will add to the credibility of that theory. In addition, it will give the jury reasonable cause to believe the witness invented the entire story of Mr. Stoner taking her to the barn. She has no independent corroboration, so all the jury can rely on is her word. I'm entitled to challenge it."

Dan responded angrily. "Your Honor, what this witness said or didn't say to Kerry McGrath has no bearing on her credibility. All Mr. Gale is trying to do is use innuendo to smear the witness and suggest the wild notion that she was involved in the previous girl's disappearance. He hasn't a shred of evidence to back it up, because none exists. He simply wants to confuse the jury. It's outrageous."

Gale shook his head. "I've already established a circumstantial connection between the two disappearances-namely, both girls asked out the same boy shortly before they vanished. And we have a jealous girlfriend in the middle. I'm entitled to explore this connection, because it contributes to reasonable doubt that my client was involved in the second disappearance and impeaches the witness's credibility."

"It impeaches nothing," Dan insisted. "The only way to imply that Sally had reason to lie about the incident at the barn is to suggest that she killed two girls. That's absurd. The so-called circumstantial connection is nothing but coincidence. How many other students and teachers at the same school had dealings with both girls shortly before they disappeared? Does Mr. Gale intend to question them all? The fact is, we have nothing whatsoever to link this witness to either Kerry's or Rachel's disappearance. Nothing. It's a smoke screen."

"Mr. Gale?" Judge Kassel asked coolly. "Do you have any evidence other than coincidences and wishful thinking?"

Gale nodded. "I believe I do, Your Honor, with respect to Rachel's disappearance."

The judge frowned, twisting a pen in her hand. "How nice for you, since this trial is about Rachel's disappearance. But what about Kerry McGrath?"

Gale hesitated. "Nothing direct, Your Honor."

Judge Kassel glowered at him. "Then your line of questioning in this regard is over. Move on to the real issue in this trial, Mr. Gale. I will instruct the jury to ignore all references to Kerry McGrath in your questioning of both witnesses today, and I don't expect to hear her name again. Is that clear? I don't appreciate having my courtroom taken on a fishing expedition."

"I don't believe it is, Your Honor."

"I've made my ruling, Mr. Gale. Now let's get going."

The time stewing in the courtroom had not been good for Sally. Her determined composure was gone, and in its place was the unease of a confused, scared teenager who didn't know what was going to hit her next Stride wondered if that had been the whole point of Gale's gambit over Kerry McGrath-to soften Sally up for what came next.

Gale gave up his pleasant demeanor. His voice was sharp, like a razor. He zeroed in on Sally but waited for a few agonizing seconds before questioning her again.

Stride, watching this melodrama play out, was briefly distracted, seeing Maggie glide back into the row next to him. She sat down, their legs touching. Stride bent and cupped one hand near her ear.

"Anything going on?" he whispered.

Maggie nodded. She glanced behind her, making sure no one from the media was nearby. "Guppo paged me. He's chasing down something north of town. Could be important, he says."

From the defense counsel's table, Gale began again, his voice like ice.

"Sally, where do you live?"

Sally, surprised, gave him the address.

"Where is that in connection to Rachel's house?" Gale asked.

"About a mile, I guess."

"Within walking distance?"

"Sure."

"Have you ever walked from your house to Rachel's house?"

Sally nodded. "A couple times, yes."

"And you've been inside her house?"

"Yes, a couple times. With Kevin."

"What kind of car do your parents drive?" he asked.

Dan stood up. "Objection, relevance."

Judge Kassel sighed. "Overruled. But time is running out, Mr. Gale."

"Please answer," Gale told Sally.

"A Chevy minivan."

"Similar to what the Stoners own?" Gale asked.

"I guess."

"Have you ever driven your parents' minivan?"

Sally nodded. "Yes."

"So you're familiar with the controls?"

"Objection," Dan said. "Asked and answered."

"Sustained. Move on, Mr. Gale."

"All right. Sally, let's talk about the last night you and Kevin saw Rachel. The three of you were in Canal Park together?"

"That's right."

"Can you tell me what you were wearing that night?" Gale asked.

Sally hesitated. She glanced nervously at Dan, who leaned back and shot Stride a confused look. "What was I wearing? I don't remember."

Gale nodded. "Maybe I can refresh your memory." He found his glasses in his pocket and adjusted them at the end of his nose. He flipped through several pages of his notepad. "Could it have been a red plaid shirt, jeans, and a red parka? Does that sound right?"

"Maybe," Sally said. "I'm really not sure."

"But you do own such an outfit, don't you?"

Sally nodded. "Yes."

Gale crossed his arms, studying the girl. "Now, you didn't stay at Canal Park the entire time that Kevin and Rachel did, is that right?"

"No, I left about nine-thirty or so."

"What did you do then?" Gale asked.

"I drove home."

"Did you stop anywhere?"

Sally shook her head. "No, I went straight home."

Gale flipped through his notepad again. "Did you go out again after that?"

"No, I didn't."

Gale smiled coldly. "You're absolutely sure about that?"

"Yes," Sally said.

"All right, then. Tell me, Sally, why did you go home early? Why didn't you stay with Kevin? He's your boyfriend, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is."

"But you left him alone with Rachel?" Gale asked.

Sally smiled weakly. "I was tired."

"Oh, come on. Sally. You know what Kevin testified, don't you? He told us that Rachel made sexual advances to him on the bridge."

Sally said nothing. She bit her lower lip and avoided Gale's eyes.

"The fact is, you saw them together, didn't you? You saw what they were doing?"

"No, I didn't."

Gale arched his eyebrows. "You weren't watching? Your boyfriend was riding the bridge with a beautiful girl, and you paid no attention? You simply left?"

"I told you, I was tired," Sally repeated.

"Actually, you were furious, weren't you? Your boyfriend was cheating on you in front of your eyes. This girl was kissing him and fondling him right there so you could watch." Gale paused. "You stormed away, didn't you, Sally? You were enraged and humiliated. Isn't that right?"

Sally blinked. A tear slid down her cheek, and she wiped it away. "I was hurt," she said softly.

"So you did see them."

Sally nodded.

"You were angry at both of them," Gale said.

"No, not at Kevin," Sally blurted out.

"You were mad at Rachel," Gale said.

Sally frowned. "It was like she could cast a spell over him. She did that with all the guys. But she didn't care about any of them. She just used them."

"And that really upset you, didn't it?" Gale asked.

"She was cruel," Sally said. "I knew she was just toying with Kevin. I knew she wasn't really interested in him."

"But how did Kevin feel about Rachel? Doesn't he have a crush on her?"

Sally flushed. "It was nothing. Just a crush. He loves me."

"And yet, Sally, wouldn't he throw you over in a second for a chance to be with Rachel?"

"No!" Sally shouted.

"But isn't that what he did that night?"

"That's not what happened!"

"What did happen?" Gale asked. "What did Rachel do that night?"

Sally looked down. "She kissed him."

"What else?"

"I don't know."

"You don't? You already said you saw them. What did Rachel do to your boyfriend in front of your eyes?"

Sally hesitated. "She put her hand inside his pants."

"She's up there making out with your boyfriend, and you're left alone on the sidewalk?"

"Yes."

"And you think she was just playing games with him? She wasn't serious?" Gale asked.

"Yes! That was how she was! She didn't care about him at all."

"But Kevin cared. He was always secretly in love with her, wasn't he? And you knew it. And now here was his fantasy girl coming on to him. You were afraid he was going to dump you, weren't you?"

"Kevin would never do that."

"We know he made a date with Rachel for the following night. He broke a date with you. Didn't he?"

Sally bit her lip. She looked like she wanted to escape. "He called and canceled our date."

"And all this was Rachel's fault?"

"Yes!"

"So, after seeing the two of them on the bridge, you went home?"

"That's right."

"That was it, you just went home?"

"Yes, I did. I was upset."

"Didn't you want to confront them?"

"Not then, no, I couldn't. I couldn't look at them."

"And what time was this again?"

"About nine-thirty."

Gale took off his glasses. He ruffled the pages of his notepad as he closed it Sally's eyes followed him. She started to get up, as if she thought Gale was finished, but as she stood, Gale turned back. Sally swallowed and sat back down. Gale tugged at his goatee and studied the girl thoughtfully.

"What did you do when you got home?"

"I talked to my parents for a few minutes, then I went to bed."

Gale nodded. "Did you call Kevin?"

"No."

"Did you call Rachel?"

"No."

"It must have been hard to sleep, since you were so angry."

"I don't remember," Sally said. Her lower lip bulged from her mouth. She was getting belligerent.

"Is your bedroom on the first floor?" Gale asked.

"Yes."

"So if you wanted to, couldn't you sneak out without your parents knowing?"

"I didn't do that," Sally said.

"You didn't walk over to Rachel's house to confront her? To have it out with her?"

"Objection, asked and answered," Dan snapped.

"Sustained."

Gale tried a different approach. "All right, let's be very clear about this, Sally. Did you see Rachel that night after you went home?"

Before Dan could object, Sally's eyes flew wide open. "No!"

Several of the jurors inched forward in their seats. Dan watched Sally suspiciously, then turned to Stride with an inquisitive and hostile stare.

Stride leaned down and whispered to Maggie. "What the hell is this about? Where's he going?'

Maggie's honey skin looked several shades paler. "I think you're going to kill me, boss."

"Tell me," Stride said.

Maggie whispered, "Her clothes."

Gale waited until the courtroom was hushed. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, "Sally, explain this to us. If you didn't go confront Rachel-if you didn't leave your room that night-why were you seen on the street just a few blocks from Rachel's house at a few minutes after ten o'clock that night?"

Judge Kassel banged her gavel as another wave of noise rippled through the courtroom.

Sally seemed to wilt in front of their eyes. "That's impossible. I wasn't there."

Gale sighed. He extracted a white piece of paper from his notes and approached the witness stand. "This is a police report, Sally, from the night Rachel disappeared. It's an interview with a Mrs. Carla Duke, who lives four blocks from the Stoner house. Would you please read the passage that's highlighted, Sally?"

Sally took the paper as if it were on fire, holding it at the comers with her fingertips. Her voice was almost inaudible.

"'I did see a girl going by a little bit after ten. I saw her in the streetlight. But she didn't look anything like this girl you're trying to find. She had bushy brown hair and was wearing jeans and a red parka.'"

Gale retrieved the paper from her hands. "Sure sounds like you, Sally."

"It wasn't," she murmured. "It wasn't me."

Stride murmured, too. "Son of a bitch, how did we miss that?"

"We were looking for people who saw Rachel," Maggie said. "Not other girls."

Gale shook his head in disbelief. "Someone wearing the same clothes as you, same hair as you, near Rachel's house on the night she disappeared, just a few minutes after Rachel humiliated you in the park. But it wasn't you."

Sally was crumbling. "No."

"I say you're lying, Sally," Gale snapped.

"Objection!" Dan said.

Judge Kassel nodded. "Sustained."

Gale wasn't bothered. "If we bring in Mrs. Duke as a witness, do you think she'll identify you?"

"Objection, calls for speculation."

"Sustained."

But the message was getting through.

"What did you say to Rachel?" Gale asked. "Did you warn her to stay away from Kevin?"

"I didn't see her."

"Did she answer the door? Were the keys to the van right there inside the door? Did the two of you go for a ride?"

"No!"

"You were seen, Sally. Kevin's going to know it was you. It's time you tell him and all of us the truth. Now, for the last time: Did you go to Rachel's house that night?"

"Objection," Dan repeated. "He's badgering the witness, Your Honor."

But Judge Kassel was staring at Sally, like everyone else. She shook her head slowly. "Overruled. Please answer the question, young lady."

Sally stared at the judge, then at Gale, then at the jury. She swallowed hard and nervously ran her hand back through her hair. She twisted a lock in her fingers. Tears began seeping down her face.

Then, with a sigh, she said it. "Yes, I did."

The courtroom erupted, and the judge tried in vain to quiet the crowd. Sally's next words were almost drowned out as she screamed, "But I didn't kill her! I didn't! I didn't!"

Gale waited until the chaos subsided. "You've been lying all day, Sally. Why should we believe you now?"

"Redirect, Your Honor."

Dan had no choice. He couldn't leave the jury wondering what happened next He had to pry the truth out of her.

"Tell us what you did that night, Sally," Dan said calmly.

Sally seemed anxious to talk now. "I did sneak out of my bedroom. I was so mad at Rachel. She was being cruel, playing with Kevin like that, when I knew she didn't care about him. So I walked over to her house. I wanted to tell her off, tell her that was a mean thing she was doing to him."

"Then what?" Dan asked.

"Her car was already there when I got to the house. So I figured she was home."

"What did you do?"

"I went up to the door. I wanted to talk with her."

"And did you?"

Sally shook her head. "No."

"Why not? Had she already disappeared?"

"No, that's not it. I was about to ring the doorbell, but I didn't."

"Why not?"

Sally stared triumphantly at Archie Gale. "I heard voices inside. People shouting. I could hear Rachel screaming. She sounded really upset. And I could hear-I could hear Mr. Stoner, too. I recognized his voice. He was shouting at Rachel. They were having a huge fight. So I left."

Graeme Stoner leaned over to Gale and began whispering furiously.

Even Dan looked stunned. He stared at Sally and then simply said, "That's all, no more questions."

Stride shook his head. What a fucking mess.

Gale stood up again. If he was disturbed by Sally's sudden revelation, which was as good as a nail in Graeme Stoner's coffin if the jury believed her, he didn't show it.

"Sally, Sally, Sally," he murmured gently. "So many lies, what's one more?"

"Objection."

"Sustained."

Gale shrugged. "You ask us to believe you had information pivotal to this case and you chose not to reveal it at all? Not until now?"

"I was scared," Sally retorted.

"Of what Sally?" Gale asked, looking bewildered.

"Of him. Of Mr. Stoner."

"Even after he was arrested?"

Sally stuttered, "Well, yes."

"And yet you weren't so scared that you held back on your little story about the barn. If you told that story to the police, why not the rest Sally?"

"I wasn't sure they'd believe me."

"So you lied. Nice strategy."

"I didn't want my parents to know I went out again," Sally said. "Or Kevin. I was afraid of what they'd think."

"They'd think you killed Rachel."

"No!" Sally shouted. "That's not it at all."

"The fact is, you didn't tell anyone about this phantom argument between Rachel and Graeme because it never happened, right? You just made it up here and now."

"No, that's not true!"

"No? Come on, Sally. You now admit you went over to Rachel's house, after lying about this for months. What really happened there?"

"Objection, asked and answered," Dan interjected.

"Overruled," Judge Kassel said crisply.

It was a disaster. Even the judge didn't believe her.

"It happened just like I said," Sally insisted. "I heard them."

Gale sighed. "Really? What were they saying?"

"I couldn't make out the words," Sally said.

"I see. You just heard voices."

"Yes."

"And so, furious and humiliated, after walking a mile to confront her, you just left without seeing her. Because you heard voices."

Sally nodded. "Yes, I did."

"And you never thought to mention this to anyone before? You supposedly have the crucial piece of evidence in a murder investigation, and you say nothing because you think your parents will ground you for sneaking out?"

"No, it wasn't-I mean, that wasn't it."

Gale was relentless. "Sally, can you give us one single reason why we should believe this story?"

Sally opened her mouth and closed it. She wet her lips with her tongue and didn't say a word.

"I'm finished, Your Honor," Gale said.

30

Stride didn't want to go outside. Neither did Maggie, but while they were milling in the tumult of the courtroom after Judge Kassel dismissed them for the day, Guppo paged her again, and she fought her way to the door. Stride and Dan stayed behind. He knew that the gauntlet of reporters would be waiting to feast on both of them. Gale was already outside, putting his spin on Sally's testimony, insisting it opened the door for an acquittal. But the reporters would want to see Dan and Stride, too, and hear their explanation.

Have you lost? Bird would ask.

They both knew. Yes, they had lost. It was as good as over.

Emily Stoner lingered in the courtroom behind them, looking confused and upset. She was alone. Dayton Tenby had been at her side all day, but he had left to pull his car around to the rear of the courthouse. The guards would spirit her out the back, away from the media horde.

She hadn't said a word yet, and Dan hadn't acknowledged her. But Stride knew she was the only reason Dan hadn't flown into an explosive rage.

"You told me she had an alibi," Dan said. His lips were stretched into a thin, cold line.

"She did."

"Yet a witness your own men talked to blew the alibi out of the water. And no one ever caught it."

Stride sighed heavily. "Look, Dan, what's the point of excuses? We fucked up. Pure and simple. We should have caught it, and we didn't."

"Humor me," Dan hissed. "Tell me why."

"We interviewed hundreds of witnesses in those first couple days. We were looking for people who had seen Rachel. Someone seeing a teenage girl on the street several blocks away, who didn't match Rachel's description, just wasn't going to be high on our list."

"Why the hell not?"

Stride shook his head. "Sally was never a suspect. Hell, she's still not a suspect. I don't believe for a second she had anything to do with Rachel's murder. There's no physical evidence at all to connect her to any of this."

"Maybe she's just too smart for you," Dan said.

"No way. If this was really a crime of passion, she would have left evidence all over the scene. Put me back on the stand tomorrow. I can point out that there were no unidentified fingerprints, no hair or fibers, nothing to put Sally in the van or at the barn. It wasn't her."

"You have no new evidence," Dan said. "I can't put you back to reiterate what you already told the jury."

Emily cleared her throat. The two men stopped, looking at her as if for the first time. Her face was white.

"I don't understand," Emily said. "You sound like this was a bad thing for the case. Shouldn't this be a good thing? I mean, she made the connection you needed. She heard Graeme and Rachel arguing that night. It puts them together."

Dan nodded. The anger drained away, and his eyes softened. "I'm afraid it's more complicated than that."

"But why?" Emily asked. "This should guarantee a conviction."

Dan took one of her hands in his. He met her eyes. "The question is, will the jury believe her? Mr. Gale raised doubts about Sally's credibility. We know she told one lie, about not going to see Rachel that night The jury is likely to think she's telling another lie, to cover up something."

"Is that what you think?"

Dan sighed. "I really don't know, Emily. I'd like to believe her. It makes sense, given all the other evidence. If Sally had come forward with this immediately, we'd have a conviction now, no doubt about it. Under these circumstances, I'm afraid it makes it worse, not better."

"But why?" Her voice was plaintive.

"Well, it may open up reasonable doubt in the jury's mind. They may be sufficiently concerned about Sally's testimony that they feel they can no longer be absolutely certain that Graeme is guilty."

"He is guilty," Emily said passionately. "He did this. I know it."

"Many of the jurors may think so, too. The question is, are they sufficiently convinced to convict him?"

The reality seemed to dawn on her. "Are you telling me the son of a bitch could be acquitted? He could walk out of here?"

"I'm afraid that's possible," Dan said. His voice was hoarse and angry, as if that reality were only now dawning on him, too.

Stride looked up, hearing the thud of the courtroom door. Maggie was inside again, hurrying down the aisle, beckoning to him. He saw urgency written in her face. Without a word, Stride left Dan and Emily, pushed through the swinging gate, and met Maggie in the middle of the aisle.

"We found a body," Maggie said breathlessly. "Guppo's on the scene."

"Rachel?"

"No way to tell. It's just skeletal remains. The son of a bitch tried to burn her. Could be Rachel. Could be Kerry. Could be someone else."

Stride closed his eyes. A month ago, this would have been tremendous news. Three months ago, even better. One of Gale's best theories, that Rachel was really still alive, might have been stripped away.

"Where was she found?" Stride asked.

"Just a few miles north of the bam. If our search radius had gone another mile, we might have found her."

"Does Guppo have the scene sealed off?"

"Yeah. The medical examiner is up there, too."

"What's he say about it?" Stride asked.

"For now, not much. All he'll say is that the skeletal structure is consistent with that of a teenage girl. Otherwise, we'll either have to wait for the DNA or dental records or hope something turns up in a search of the surrounding area."

"Not a word to the press yet," Stride said. "Play it cool. I'll tell Dan, and then you and I can go up there."

Stride looked back at Dan and Emily and wondered how you break news like this in front of the girl's mother. He took a deep breath and told Maggie to wait for him. Returning to the front of the courtroom, he saw Dan and Emily watching him. There was no gentle way to say it.

"We've located a body in the woods north of the city," he told them.

Emily's eyes widened, and her hand flew to her open mouth. "Oh, no!"

Dan said, "Shit." He repeated it several times.

Emily crumpled into a seat. She sat there silently, like a piece of broken eggshell, then finally looked at Stride with bloodshot eyes. "Is it-is it her? Rachel?"

"We don't know yet," Stride said. "I'm very sorry. We only have skeletal remains, so it's going to take time to identify them."

"How long?" Dan asked.

"We'll probably have to wait for DNA tests, unless we can do something with dental records. Either way, it's likely to be a few weeks."

Dan shook his head. "We don't have a few weeks. We don't even have a few days."

Stride nodded. "I know."

"What do you mean?" Emily asked.

"The trial is almost over," Dan told her. "Without positive identification, we can't raise the issue in front of the jury. Our suspicions aren't evidence."

"But we have her body now," Emily pleaded. "You can't let that man continue to pretend to the jury that she may be alive."

"Unfortunately, we don't know yet that it is her body," Stride reminded her gently.

"This is insane," Emily said, shaking her head "I can't believe this. My God, they can't just let him walk away now. They have to postpone the rest of the trial. They have to give you time to prove it's Rachel."

Dan sighed, and Stride knew what he was thinking. It was too little, too late.

"That's up to the judge," Dan said.

31

"A continuance?" Judge Kassel's eyebrows twitched, and her voice climbed an octave. "Mr. Erickson, please tell me this is an example of your charming sense of humor."

Dan spread his hands plaintively. "I realize this is unusual, Your Honor."

"Unusual?" Gale snorted. "Try outrageous."

The two men leaned closer to the judge's bench. Behind them, the courtroom was packed again, with hushed conversation buzzing through the crowd. Judge Kassel banged her gavel, but it did little to quiet them. Graeme Stoner sat alone at the defense table, his face stoic. Today, Emily sat immediately behind him, as if she wanted Graeme to feel her presence. Her eyes burned into her husband's neck. Graeme, after noticing her there when he first sat down, hadn't looked back once, but it was obvious that he could feel her there, close enough for her scent to reach him.

The jury was absent, secluded in the jury room while Dan pleaded for more time. They were the only people in the state of Minnesota who had not awakened to the headline splashed across the newspaper:

RACHEL'S BODY?

"No one could have anticipated something like this," Dan said. "But in the interests of justice, we simply must take the time to analyze the remains."

"He wasn't concerned about a body before, Your Honor," Gale said.

Judge Kassel stared down her nose at Dan. "That's true."

"He felt confident enough to make his case without any proof that the girl was dead," Gale continued. "He's had his chance."

"I haven't rested my case," Dan pointed out.

"Yes, but he has nothing more to add, Your Honor. I don't see any evidence. I don't see any witnesses."

Dan shook his head. "Much of Mr. Gale's defense was predicated on leaving the jury with the impression that Rachel might still be alive. He used that implication to try to establish reasonable doubt. If we can prove conclusively that Mr. Gale's insinuations were false, the jury deserves to know that."

The judge crossed her arms and leaned back. "Mr. Gale?"

"The whole situation is prejudicial," Gale argued. "The jury has heard all the evidence. It's fresh in their minds. Giving the prosecutor time to let the jury's memory fade is both unfair and unreasonable. The body could well turn out to be unrelated to this case, and it will be too late to repair the damage. Besides, we have no idea how long it will take them to make a conclusive identification, assuming they can do so at all."

"Archie, you should want the delay," Dan said. "Your Honor, even sequestered, the jury may very well know about the body. It's too easy for news to seep through one way or another. They'll conclude it's Rachel. It will influence their decision. We should allow them to decide on facts, not innuendo."

Judge Kassel offered a faint smile. "That's very charitable of you, Mr. Erickson. But the fact is, the jurors will not hear anything about any body if there's no delay. As soon as you called me last night, I shut down all phone calls in and out. That was before Mr. Finch's little broadcast, thank God. There are no televisions and radios in the rooms. Their transport this morning was closely monitored. They don't know now, and they won't know when they start deliberating in a day or so if we take appropriate precautions. I'll clear the courtroom if I have to."

"You could declare a mistrial," Dan suggested. "We could start over."

Gale opened his mouth, but Kassel waved him to silence. "I'm way ahead of you, Mr. Gale. No mistrial, Mr. Erickson. There's nothing wrong with this one."

"Your Honor, the people shouldn't be penalized because the defendant did such a good job of hiding his crime that we didn't find the body until now."

Gale corrected him. "They found a body, not necessarily the body. And even if it is Rachel, they have no additional evidence to tie Mr. Stoner to the body or the scene. It adds nothing of value to the record."

"We don't know that yet," Dan said heatedly. "We haven't fully analyzed the crime scene."

"Yes, let's not get carried away, Mr. Gale," Judge Kassel said. "Mr. Erickson is right You got a lot of mileage out of the people's failure to produce a body. You can't argue that it's meaningless now that they've got one."

"They chose to proceed without a body," Gale repeated. "If this discovery had been made a week from now, Mr. Stoner would already have been acquitted."

"That's irrelevant, Your Honor," Dan said.

"Perhaps, but you did seem pretty anxious to get Mr. Stoner in front of a jury. Now you seem less anxious to have them decide his fate." Judge Kassel pursed her lips and again held up her hand before the lawyers could continue. "I'd like to find out more about this discovery and how long it might take to get some answers."

Her eyes found Jonathan Stride in the third row of the courtroom, and she crooked her finger, beckoning him to the bench.

Standing up, Stride felt all the eyes of the courtroom on him. He wasn't prepared. He hadn't slept, and his clothes were stained with mud. From early evening until two hours ago, when he sped back to the city, he had tramped through the mushy ground, under the glare of searchlights, hunting along with twenty other officers for additional clues. He knew it was a doomed effort, although they would sift through the dirt for days to come. After six months of rain, snow, and ice, there was nothing left to tie Graeme Stoner to the scene, no footprints, no fibers, no blood, nothing except a body that was no more than a jumble of bones.

But they had a body. The question was, whose?

Stride pushed through the swinging door at the bar and joined Dan and Gale in front of Judge Kassel. She eyed his clothes and the bags under his eyes.

"You've had a long night, I gather, Lieutenant"

"Very long, Your Honor," Stride said.

"I assume you can keep your eyes open long enough to answer a few questions."

Stride smiled. "I'll do my best"

"Thank you. Now, first of all, who told Mr. Finch and the rest of his friends in the media about this body?" Judge Kassel demanded. "It's bad enough to have this in the middle of trial, but worse to have it blared all over the state. We're lucky the jurors didn't hear about any of this."

"I'm very sorry about that, Your Honor," Stride said. "I wish I could tell you how Bird gets his information. I have no idea."

"All right, well, I guess that's his job. Now tell me exactly what you found. These are definitely human remains?" Judge Kassel asked.

"Yes. We confirmed it with the medical examiner."

"Sex?"

"The ME says female," Stride said.

The judge nodded. "And no ready means of identification? It could be Rachel or Kerry or some other girl?"

"There was nothing left to identify. No clothes, no personal effects. The body was partially burned. We'll be running DNA tests on the surviving bone."

"How long will all of this taker"

Stride shook his head. "I wish I could give you a clear answer, Your Honor. It could be a couple days, and it could be a few weeks."

"And you found no other evidence of note near the body?"

"No. We'll continue searching, but I'm not optimistic, given the amount of time that has passed."

Dan interrupted. "But the real key is the identity of the body, Your Honor. If this turns out to be Rachel, it has an enormous bearing on the trial."

"If, if, if," Gale said. "If this, maybe that. No evidence, but we'll continue searching. Maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks, maybe never. Mr. Stoner should not have to sit around while the police and the prosecution stall us with vague promises of evidence yet to come. Neither should the jury. There is really nothing here, Your Honor, except smoke."

Judge Kassel sighed. "I'm inclined to agree."

Dan grabbed the bench with both hands. "Your Honor, just a few days. Give us until the end of the week to confirm the identification. If we don't have anything by then, we'll wrap up the trial."

"And meanwhile the witnesses will be a distant memory," Gale said scathingly. "It's now or never."

"They can have any testimony they like read back to them," Dan said.

"Oh, please," Gale said.

Kassel cut them both off. "That's enough, gentlemen. Mr. Erickson, I'm sympathetic to your situation. I'm loath to proceed with the tantalizing possibility of new and crucial evidence so close. But right now, you have nothing but hopes and theories. You went into this case without a body, convinced you could get a conviction. You're going to have to abide by that decision."

The judge reached down, clicking on her microphone, and banged her gavel again to quiet the courtroom. She directed her announcement to the court.

"The motion for continuance is denied. We will proceed with the trial."

"Your Honor, I renew my motion that hearsay evidence of a sexual relationship between the defendant and Rachel Deese, as cited in deposition by Dr. Nancy Carver, be admitted, on the grounds that the declarant is unavailable as a witness."

"Denied. Anything more, Mr. Erickson?"

Dan clenched his fists in frustration. "No, Your Honor."

"Fine. Bailiff, please bring in the jury."

Stride turned away from the bench. He saw fury in Dan's eyes, a coldness, directed at him, he had never felt in his life. It was as if Dan's future had been buried in the shallow hole where they had dug up the body, and he could find only one person to blame.

Dan whispered, "You fucked this whole case up for me from day one."

Stride didn't reply. He didn't have time.

Something was wrong.

The buzz in the crowd had changed. The noise and whispering that followed the judge's decision turned into something else. People were confused, pointing, standing. Someone was shouting. It was Maggie, in the third row, calling Stride's name and scrambling across people to get to the aisle.

Close by, others began screaming.

Stride saw Graeme Stoner jerk up out of his chair at the defense table, as if an electric current were bolting through his skin. Graeme steadied himself with his hands flat on the table. His eyes were wide, filled with puzzlement.

Graeme's mouth fell open, as if he were about to laugh. Then his chest heaved, and instead, a trickle of blood dribbled from his lips. Graeme blinked. He looked down at the drips splashing on his white shirt like cherries in the snow.

He smiled.

Then his chest heaved again, and the trickle became a river.

Bright red blood streamed from Graeme's mouth, then his nose. The river poured over his suit, bathing his shoutders and chest, then spilled onto the table, soaking the raft of papers scattered there. It cascaded like crimson fountains into puddles on the floor.

Graeme's eyes turned gray and glassy and rolled up into his head. For another few seconds, he remained standing at attention. Then his body seemed to shrivel. His shoulders caved inward, and he collapsed in a pile on the table, his face dangling over the edge, still spouting a geyser of blood that now squirted over the courtroom floor in a growing lake. There was no way to turn off the spigot, and even Dan Erickson and Archibald Gale shouted and reared back as the red flood pooled around their shoes.

All the while, Graeme lay face down, draining the last few beats of his heart.

Stride tried to run, but he slipped in the blood. He regained his balance and dove forward. Maggie arrived first. She battled past the last few people who stood in her way, transfixed by the horror in front of them. She leaped over those who had thrown themselves to the floor, screaming, in an effort to escape.

Emily Stoner stood in the front row, as frozen as those around her, staring at the blood-soaked body of her husband immediately in front of her. Her right arm was held high. Maggie's tiny hands clenched Emily's outstretched arm in an iron grip, holding it in the air, but it was as if Emily didn't notice. She didn't move. She didn't let go.

Then Stride arrived, leaning past Graeme Stoner's dilapidated corpse to strip the red-stained butcher knife from Emily's hand.

Bedlam.

32

The chambered windows in the upper-floor library of the Kitch were closed, buffeted by a morning thunderstorm. Gale sipped coffee from a china cup as he leaned against the window frame. He glanced over at Dan Erickson, who sat on the sofa with a plate of eggs and sausage and a tall orange juice in front of him.

"You know, they would have acquitted him," Gale told Dan. His lips curled upward in a smile, and his eyes twinkled.

Dan's fork and knife clinked on the plate as he cut up his eggs, yolks oozing out "Don't be so sure. You heard the interviews Bird did with the jurors. They didn't believe Sally was involved. They thought Graeme did it."

"I believe they said 'probably,' and that would be reasonable doubt if we were in a courtroom. Besides, they all had the opportunity to watch your press conference last week. Angry prosecutor denouncing the unfounded allegations against an innocent girl. No evidence except what points to Mr. Stoner." Gale's face was illuminated by a flash of lightning. "Forget the fact that you couldn't prove it in court"

"Says you," Dan replied pleasantly.

Gale shook his head. "I can't believe Emily got in there with the knife."

"We had metal detectors, but the media was hounding her. She asked to be brought in through the rear door. Who knew she was going to go off the deep end?"

"You're saying it was a surprise? Please. I half think you wanted something like this to happen, Daniel." Gale sipped more coffee. "Did you work out a deal with her?"

"Manslaughter two. Three years, minimum security."

"A slap on the wrist," Gale said.

"Oh, come on. The man killed her daughter. Archie, we're not in court anymore. You don't really believe Graeme was innocent, do you?"

"I don't know if he was innocent. I don't know if he was guilty. Neither do you."

Dan dabbed at his lips with a napkin and stood up, smoothing his suit He took the pot of coffee and poured himself a cup. "Well, it was brilliant putting Sally at Rachel's house. What tipped you off?"

"It's obvious you've never raised teenagers," Gale said, laughing. "She watches another girl come on to her boyfriend, and she just goes home to bed? Not a chance. That was a catfight in the making."

"And the Kerry McGrath thing?"

"I went looking for connections once I knew Sally had gone to see Rachel that night. When Kevin admitted Kerry had asked him out, it was almost too good to be true."

Dan shrugged. "Sally's father went back and checked his calendar. The whole family was in the Cities that weekend for a play. Les Miz. We confirmed the purchase."

"That's the kind of evidence a father can produce when his daughter's in trouble," Gale said.

"She didn't do it, Archie."

"Have it your way. But there's more to this story than came out in court"

The room rattled as a thunderclap shook the club. Gale studied the dark sky thoughtfully.

"With Graeme dead, we may never know," Dan said.

Gale stroked his goatee. "Oh, I wonder. Perhaps Rachel will come back and tell us the secrets herself. Like a ghost."

Stride listened to the violent rapping of the downpour on the windows and saw a glow behind his eyelids with each stroke of lightning. The oak timbers of the porch groaned under the gusts of wind. He could smell the sweet fresh air, soured by a hint of mildew in the wood.

When the thunder awakened him at four in the morning, he had taken his blankets to the porch, clicked on the space heater, and drifted in and out of a light sleep as the storm rolled overhead in waves from the west. In his bedroom, his alarm had gone off two hours ago. He didn't care. The sky outside was dark enough that it still looked like night.

The investigation and trial lingered in his mind. Stride felt no closure. He refused to believe that Stoner was innocent. That hadn't changed. But maybe he was lying to himself, trying to convince his brain that he hadn't been wrong from the beginning. He would swat his doubts away, but a few minutes later they'd be back, like mosquitoes, buzzing at his ear. Each time louder than before.

He thought about the postcard. It had been waiting in his mailbox when he came home last night. He kept looking at it every few minutes. And hearing the mosquitoes.

The floor groaned under the weight of footsteps. Stride's eyes snapped open. He craned his neck and saw Maggie standing in the doorway of the porch. Her black hair was soaked. Water dripped from her face and sleeves. She looked tiny and vulnerable.

"I see you're selling your house," she said.

The sign had gone up a few days ago. He closed his eyes again and shook his head, angry at himself. "I was going to tell you. Really, Mags."

"You're getting married, aren't you? You and the teacher?"

Stride nodded.

It had happened a week ago over dinner. He wasn't even sure, looking back on it, who had asked whom. They had started out sober and depressed and ended up, several hours later, drunk and engaged. Andrea clung to him, not wanting to let go. It was a good feeling.

"I'm sorry, Mags," he said.

She took one hand out of her pocket and pointed her index finger at him like a gun. "Are you out of your mind, boss? You're making a terrible mistake."

"I know you're upset," he said.

"Damn right I'm upset! I'm watching a friend fuck up his life. I told you not to get too serious, didn't I? Both of you rebounding from disasters. Cindy always told me you were the densest person on the planet emotionally, and I guess she was right."

"Leave Cindy out of this," Stride snapped.

"What? Like she's not in this up to your eyeballs? I'm going to say it again, boss. You're making a mistake. Don't do it."

Stride shook his head. "You and I, that would have been impossible. It would never have worked. You told me that yourself."

"You think this is about me?" Maggie asked. She stared at the ceiling, as if pleading for divine guidance. "Unbelievable."

There was an awkward silence between them. The only sounds were the roar of the storm outside and the dripping of Maggie's coat on the floor of the porch.

"Is it so wrong for two people who need each other to get together?" Stride asked.

"Yes," Maggie said. "That's wrong. It should be two people who love each other."

"Oh, come on, you're just playing word games with me."

"No, I'm not You're in love, or you're not You belong together forever, or you have no business getting married."

"I thought maybe you'd be happy for me," Stride said.

"You want me to smile and pat you on the back and tell you how great it is?" Maggie's voice grew shrill with anger. "Fuck you. I'm not going to do that I can't believe you'd ask."

Stride didn't say anything. He listened to her harsh breathing.

Maggie shook her head and sighed, gathering up her emotions like marbles spilled on the floor. "Look, if this is what you have to do, then you go and do it. But I couldn't live with myself if I didn't say my piece."

He nodded. "Okay, Mags. You've said it."

They stared at each other for a long while, which was like saying good-bye without words. Not good-bye forever, just to their relationship as it was.

"I came to tell you, it wasn't Rachel's body," Maggie said, slipping back into her cop voice, all business again. "We got the DNA tests back. It was Kerry."

Stride cursed under his breath. He thought about that sweet, innocent girl-about losing her, about losing Cindy. He was angry all over again. Angry that a killer had gotten away with murder.

And then he thought, It wasn't Rachel. He heard the mosquitoes at his ear again. Buzzing.

"I got something in the mail last night," Stride said quietly.

He inclined his head toward the picture postcard lying on the coffee table. Maggie glanced down at the photograph on the card, which showed a strangely proportioned, long-eared gray animal in the desert.

"What the hell is that?"

"A jackalope," Stride said. "Part jackrabbit, part antelope."

Maggie screwed up her face. "Huh?"

"It's a joke," Stride said. "A myth. It doesn't exist. People send postcards of jackalopes to see how gullible you are."

Maggie reached down to pick up the card.

"Edges only, please," Stride told her.

Maggie stopped, her hand frozen in the air, and gave Stride a curious look, as if she had sensed something horrible. Then she carefully picked up the postcard by the edges and turned it over. She read the message, which was scrawled in red ink, its letters dripping into streaks where rain had spattered the postcard:

He deserved to die.

"Son of a bitch," Maggie blurted out. She stared at Stride and shook her head fiercely. "This can't be from her. This can't be from Rachel. The girl is dead."

"I don't know, Mags. Just how gullible are we?"

Maggie eyed the postmark. " Las Vegas."

Stride nodded. "The city of lost souls," he said.