Immoral (22 page)

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.