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.