"So you think it was a date?" Maggie asked.
"Maybe," Stride said. "She left Kevin just before ten o'clock and told him she was tired. Rachel doesn't strike me as a girl who gets tired early on a Friday night."
"So maybe she was meeting someone else. Someone who picked her up at her house."
Stride nodded. "They go for a little romp at the barn. But something goes wrong. Something gets out of hand. And suddenly the boyfriend has a body on his hands."
"We're assuming she's dead?" Maggie said.
Stride sighed. "Aren't we?"
"So who is this mystery stranger? Another boy at school?"
"That's the first place to start, Mags. Time to reinterview anyone who even smells like a boyfriend."
Maggie groaned. "A whole day interviewing high school jocks with overactive hormones who think they're God's gift to everyone with a pussy. You give me the nicest jobs, boss."
"Dress for the occasion, Mags. You'll get more out of them that way."
"Great," Maggie murmured. "It's not like I've got any cleavage to show off."
"You'll think of something."
Maggie punched him in the arm, then turned and stalked back toward the van. Stride smiled. He started walking toward the media crowd down the road, bringing up his walkie-talkie in his gloved hand and shoving it up under his hood.
"What have we got, Guppo?" Stride asked.
Guppo's voice boomed through the walkie-talkie. "What the hell is this place, Lieutenant?" he called. "Shit, we've got more crap in each grid box than I'd expect to find in a New York crack house. You had to pick this place as a crime scene?"
He heard something else, and then Maggie complained in the background. "Son of a bitch, Guppo, I'm back in the van for five seconds, and you have to do that."
Stride chuckled. "Tell her to quit whining, Guppo. Ask her what she's going to wear to work tomorrow."
He heard a voice crackle in the background. "Fuck you, Stride."
Stride transmitted again. "Look, Guppo, do we have anything that suggests a connection to Rachel?"
"Could be all sorts of things. Could be nothing. We won't know until this stuff is tested. There's plenty of evidence of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but without fingerprints and blood work, it's all speculation."
"Nothing like a confession from a murderer tied around a rock?"
"Not yet. We're still looking." Guppo belched.
"Okay," Stride said. He shoved the walkie-talkie back in his coat pocket. He approached the police cars and talked briefly with the two officers who were entrusted with the thankless job of keeping the media and spectators out. On the other side of the yellow tape, it was a mob scene, much as it had been on the night Rachel disappeared. Stride squinted as a series of floodlights illuminated him. The hum of voices escalated into a roar.
Stride pointed at one of the television reporters he knew. "Can your crew do the lights?" When the reporter nodded, Stride continued. "Okay, we'll have one team light me up, and the rest of you, keep the flashbulbs off, all right? If I hear shouting, I'm out of here. You want to ask a question, you raise your hand, I call on you, you ask one question."
"When did you get elected president, Stride?" Bird Finch retorted from the front of the crowd.
Stride grinned. "Listen up, everybody. Bird has already asked his one question. Move him to the back of the crowd."
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?"