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.