Stride stared down into the hole, which was really a grave.
A skull stared back at him.
That was all that was visible right now, a white skull against the black dirt. In seven years, all the flesh had long since been eaten away. Its eye holes gaped. Where the nose had been was a dark, open triangle. The mouth of the skull was parted, its two rows of teeth separated as if in midscream. And in the middle of the forehead bone was a single, round hole.
A bullet hole.
The man in the ground had been shot in the head.
Maggie immediately grabbed Stride’s arm and pulled him away. He resisted, unable to take his eyes off the skull, caught somewhere between his nightmares and his memories. Maggie pulled again, hard, but he remained rooted in place. Then she got on tiptoes and whispered in his ear.
“Stride, I’m not kidding around. You can’t be here. You need to come with me right now.”
This time, he let her drag him into the rain. His hood slipped from his head and the downpour drenched his face. The two of them hiked past Steve’s old house, dodging the tall spruce trees until they got to the small backyard. They were steps from the bay. The water was dimpled, and fog and rain blocked the far Wisconsin shore from view. Maggie glanced over her shoulder, making sure that none of the other cops could see where they were.
“Okay, boss, what the hell?” she demanded in a loud voice. “What’s going on?”
Stride understood Maggie’s reaction. He would have been just as upset with her if the tables were turned. “You know as much as I do about this, Mags. The last thing Steve said to me was that he buried a body. I didn’t know if it was real or not. For all I knew, he was delirious. Hallucinating. But it’s not like I could ignore what he said. We had to check it out.”
“Be straight with me, boss. Did you already know about this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you know about the body before yesterday?”
“No. Of course not.”
Maggie shook her head. “Is that the truth? I can keep this off the record for now, but as soon as we go back out there, everything goes in the file. I have to know what happened.”
“It’s the truth, Mags. I didn’t know about the body. Steve never said a word about it before now. This was a dying confession. I’m as shocked as you are.”
Maggie swore. She bent down and picked up a thick branch that had blown off one of the trees and threw it into the water. “We’re talking about a murder victim. Somebody shot this guy.”
“I know that. Obviously.”
She closed her eyes, wiping away the rain from her face with both hands. “It’s Ned Baer, right?”
Stride shrugged. “I assume so. I don’t see who else it could be.”
“Did you know he was dead?”
“No, I didn’t. I knew what you knew. What we all knew. Baer was missing. We assumed he’d drowned in the Deeps and the body was lost in the lake. I sure as hell didn’t know he’d been shot.”
“Do you think Steve killed him?” Maggie asked.
“Steve? No way.”
“He buried the body. What the hell am I supposed to think?”
“Steve didn’t even own a gun, Mags. As far as I know, he never fired a gun in his life.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Maggie replied.
“I’m telling you, Steve had no reason to kill Ned Baer. He didn’t do it.”
“So why hide the body? Why cover up a murder?”
“I don’t know.”
Maggie made sure they were still alone. They didn’t have much time before the other cops got curious and came looking for them. Maggie leaned in close to Stride and jabbed a finger at his face. Her voice was an angry hiss.
“Like hell you don’t know! You told me what Steve said. You’re safe, buddy. If Steve didn’t kill Ned Baer, then the only reason he hid the body was because he thought you did it. Now why the hell would he think that?”
“I’m telling you, Mags, I don’t know. Steve and I never talked about Ned Baer. Not before he disappeared, not after. I had no idea that Steve even knew who the hell Ned was. There’s no reason he would have thought that I killed him.”
Maggie let a hostile silence draw out between them. “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you kill him?”
“Oh, come on. Are you serious, Mags? I can’t believe you would ask me that.”
“I’m totally serious.”
“Well, what’s next? Should I call a lawyer? I came to you. I told you what Steve said. If I killed Ned Baer, why wouldn’t I just keep my mouth shut? No one would have known about the body if I hadn’t told you to get the warrant.”
“Yeah, until somebody bought the house and decided to plant a new garden, right? Come on, Stride. It’s an official question, and I need an official answer. We’re back on the record. This all goes in the file. I don’t have any choice about this. Did you kill Ned Baer?”
“No. I did not.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No, I don’t. And obviously, Steve didn’t know either, because if he thought it was me, he was wrong.” Stride glanced over his shoulder and saw Max Guppo lumbering toward them. The sergeant’s round face was furrowed with concern, watching the two of them argue. “But since we’re back on the record, Mags, we might as well go to the station and make everything official. Interview me. Ask me whatever you want. I know you have more questions. Because even though I didn’t kill him, we both know that I was the last person to see Ned Baer alive.”
4
Stride had never spent any time on the opposite side of the witness table. He was typically the one conducting the interrogations, and he had a better sense now of what it was like to be on the receiving end of suspicion and mistrust from the police. Maggie sat across from him. Her face was a mask, the way it always was when she was in this room. No emotion, nothing personal between them. Except the two of them were close enough that they always knew what the other was thinking. She didn’t believe for a moment that he’d murdered Ned Baer, but she also knew that he hadn’t been honest with her when Ned disappeared.
Maggie had an overstuffed folder on the table. Two evidence boxes were stacked on the chairs on either side of her. He recognized all the materials they gathered seven years ago. This was the sum-total of what they learned while investigating the disappearance of Ned Baer.
An investigation he led.
An investigation that he’d deliberately obstructed.
He knew how this interview would go; he knew what he had to say. He was surprised to find himself oddly calm about admitting it after all this time.
Maggie opened the folder. On top was a photograph, which she removed and pinned to the bulletin board behind her. Stride recognized the picture. He’d long ago memorized the man’s face.
Ned Baer had been a compact man, five foot six, with a scrawny, underfed frame. At the time he disappeared, he’d been thirty-nine years old. He had messy, receding black hair that left only a U-shaped tongue on his high forehead. His eyes were brown, with dark half-moons beneath them. He wore a wispy beard, and his lips were thin and unsmiling. In the picture, he wore hiker’s clothes: boots, cargo pants, and a navy blue zipped REI jacket. The photo had been taken in the Colorado mountains, two hours from where Ned kept a Denver apartment.