The reporters laughed derisively. A few of them tried to push in front of Bird and take his place at the edge of the tape, but the muscular ex-basketball player wasn't giving an inch. He shot Stride an icy smile.
Stride felt the heat of the television lights burning on his face. It was the first time that day he had felt relief from the cold. Only his feet, damp and in shadow, still felt chilled. "You guys ready?" he asked. "I'll make a brief statement, then take questions."
He saw red lights flash on a dozen handheld television cameras. A few flashbulbs burst, despite his prohibition, blinding him.
"Let me tell you what we know right now," he said. "Early this morning, we received a call on our hotline from a woman who had in her possession a bracelet she believed might be connected to the disappearance of Rachel Deese. We retrieved the bracelet, and Rachel's mother positively identified it as belonging to her daughter. We believe that Rachel was wearing the bracelet on the night she disappeared. According to the witness who found the bracelet, it was behind the barn at this location. We are currently conducting a grid search of about one hundred square yards around the area where the bracelet was discovered. That's all I have at this time."
Three people shouted questions simultaneously, and Stride stared them down, not moving or answering. Bird Finch dramatically raised his hand. He was already a head taller than everyone else, and with his arm in the air, he looked like a black Statue of Liberty.
May as well get it over with, Stride thought. "Bird?" he said.
"Do you now believe Rachel is dead?" Bird asked. He put just enough of an edge on the word "now" to suggest that Stride had been delinquent in understanding what everyone else had known all along.
"I don't want to speculate on anything like that," Stride said.
Before anyone else could get a hand up, Bird injected a follow-up question into the silence. "But you are going to be searching for a body now, aren't you?"
"We are currently in the midst of a grid search for evidence. This is an intense, highly focused exercise that will take many more hours. Our next steps will be determined by what we find here, if anything. But the full analysis will take weeks."
Another hand went up. Bird had shown them the way, and the others followed. "When you complete this search, you'll also be searching the surrounding area, right? Are you hoping to find a body?"
"I'm hoping we don't find a body," Stride snapped. "But we do plan to begin a search of the woods around this area for any other evidence we might find."
"They're predicting more snow. Will that slow things down?"
"Of course," Stride said. "This is Minnesota. That's going to make any search harder at this time of year."
"Are you looking for volunteers to help in the search?" one reporter asked.
"I'm sure we'll be able to use any extra help that's offered to us. We'll be posting details on our Web site about how volunteers can help us and where they should go. What we don't want is people combing through the woods by themselves. All that will do is harm the investigation. If people want to help, they need to let us coordinate their efforts."
Hands shot up. "Have you found anything else to suggest Rachel was here?"
"Not yet," Stride said.
Another hand. "Do you have any suspects at all?"
"No," Stride said.
Bird Finch didn't wait to be called upon again. "You've been at this more than three weeks, and you have no suspects at all?"
"The evidence so far has not suggested any persons of interest."
"What about sex offenders?" asked a reporter from Minneapolis.
"We have interviewed all individuals with any history of sexual violence in the surrounding area. But I want to make it very clear again. We have no evidence linking any specific person to Rachel's disappearance."
Bird again. "Are you now more inclined to see a connection to Kerry McGrath's disappearance? A crime in which you also seem to have no suspects?"
"We have not established any connection between the two incidents. We're not ruling it out, but there's no evidence at this time to suggest the disappearances are related."
"Does this break in the case leave you more encouraged that you will find out what happened to Rachel?"
Stride couldn't even see the woman who asked the question, just her arm in the air. He hesitated, framing his words in his mind. "Yes, I am encouraged. We now have a link, a location, that may finally bring some answers. I also want to make an appeal to anyone who is watching: If you were anywhere near this area on the night of Rachel's disappearance, and you saw or heard anything, please call us. We know Rachel was here. We want to know how she got here. We want to know what happened."
He pointed at another raised hand.
"How long are you going to be out here?" a woman from the St. Paul newspaper asked.
"It could be all night," Stride said.
It was.
As the police finished each grid, the evidence bags came back to the van, and Stride and Maggie examined each one before filing them away in a series of banker's boxes. Stride didn't see anything that suggested a connection to Rachel, although he could have been looking right at it and never known. The lab would eventually tell them more.
Stride checked his watch, which told him it was nearly four in the morning. A pizza box lay on the floor of the van, empty except for two square crust pieces that remained uneaten. Stride didn't know how Guppo had missed them. Maggie sat opposite Stride, her head nodding as her eyes blinked shut. She propped her elbows on her knees and cupped her face in her hands.
Stride, frozen and tired, allowed his thoughts to drift to Andrea. She had understood when he called to cancel their date, although he was pleased to hear disappointment in her voice. He was disappointed, too. He wasn't sure if it was the sex or just the opportunity to be close to a woman's body again, but he was anxious to see her. Andrea was very attractive. It wasn't like it was with Cindy, of course, but nothing would be. Andrea was different, and he couldn't expect her to live up to a ghost.
Stride jumped as the speaker in the van crackled. He wondered if he had fallen asleep for a few seconds. "It's starting to snow," one of the officers outside reported.
"Well, that's just fucking great," Stride said.
He pushed himself to his feet in the cramped van. His muscles ached, and he felt a twinge in his back. Normally he did a series of stretching exercises each night to keep his back limber, but for several nights he had skipped it. Now he was paying the price. His arm hurt, too, where he had taken that bullet several years back. It was always worse in the cold.
He peered through the van's frosty rear window. In the glow of the lights they had erected for the search, he could see huge flakes floating peacefully to earth. Each one looked small and harmless, and together, he knew, they would soon bury his crime scene.
"How bad?" Maggie asked quietly.
"Bad enough," Stride said.
Stride stared at the shadows of the forest. He tried to imagine the scene again as it must have been that night. Rachel in the passenger seat. Someone pulling a car in behind the barn. Just the luck of the draw that no one else was there. How did the bracelet get outside? They wouldn't have had sex outside, not when it was a cold night. Maybe they simply went outside to stare at the woods, like he was doing. And then the boy tried to pull her back to the car, and the bracelet slipped off, and they struggled, and then-what?
Or maybe things started to get rough in the car, and she tried to run. He followed her. The bracelet came off in the struggle. He hit her. Strangled her. Then what would he do with the body? Take it deeper into the woods? Take the car and go somewhere else to hide her?
Stride heard the speaker come to life again.
"Any of you guys remember what Rachel was wearing that night?" one of the officers radioed from outside.