"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.