Brian Freeman - Immoral

Evidence. That was the troublesome part. Graeme was safe in denying the affair, as long as Rachel never showed up, because little proof ever remained that two people had been having sex. All they had was what Rachel told people-which was worthless in court.

"What's in the filing cabinet, Pete?" Maggie asked.

The cop shrugged. "Tax records. Warranties. The guy saved everything."

"Check every file, and box up the tax records. We'll want to copy those."

Maggie focused on the desk. She took each book from the desk, flipped through the pages, and returned it. She opened the drawers one by one, examined them from front to back, then got down on her knees and checked the bottom of each drawer to make sure nothing was taped underneath.

She booted up the computer. She didn't have time to examine the hard disk byte by byte-that was Guppo's job-but she at least wanted to do a search for e-mails and review the pages Graeme had been visiting on the Internet. To avoid accidentally altering the evidence, she first printed out a full directory listing on the laser printer, noting the details of every file on the hard drive. Then she hooked up a jump drive to the machine's USB port and copied Graeme's hard disk. When she was done, she swapped the drive to the laptop she had brought with her and called up a mirror of Graeme's computer on her own machine.

When she called up Internet Explorer, she was surprised to find that the history of sites visited had been deleted and there was no listing at all in the Favorites box.

"This is interesting," Maggie said aloud. "Looks like Graeme has been cleaning up after himself."

"Huh?" Pete said.

"No Web sites at all. And yet the man is head of e-commerce at his bank. Does that make any sense? He doesn't want anyone to see where he's been surfing."

Maggie loaded Outlook. The e-mail software was equally clean, nothing in his in-box, nothing sent, nothing saved. It was as if the man had never sent an e-mail on the computer, although Maggie knew that was absurd.

Something felt wrong. She wondered if Graeme had a drop box stored on one of the public Web sites like Yahoo or Hotmail, where he could send and receive personal e-mails without leaving a trail on his computer. That was going to be a lot harder to find.

Her walkie-talkie crackled, and Maggie picked it up. "Yeah?"

It was Guppo. "We've covered the basement."

"Anything?"

"Clean as a whistle. Even the garden implements shine like brand-new. I don't think he spends a lot of time down here."

"Damn," Maggie said. She was hoping they might find evidence of the murder itself, even if they couldn't prove that Rachel and Graeme were having sex. Based on the evidence at the barn, though, she realized it was unlikely that he had killed her in the house. It was more logical that they had gone to the barn and that something had happened between them there-something that ended in Rachel's death.

"Okay, Guppo, you and Terry go after the minivan outside, and work it over. Check out every inch, pull up the carpet, run the UV search for blood residue. Hair. Fiber. Semen. Fingerprints. Anything. I want to know if Rachel was in that van."

"Gotcha."

The next voice that crackled over the walkie-talkie belonged to Terry. "Son of a bitch, Maggie, you want me locked up in a van with Guppo? It was bad enough being in the basement with him."

Maggie laughed. "Hey, I put up with it at the barn, Terry. You don't get any sympathy from me. Over and out." She hooked the walkie-talkie onto her belt again.

"I'm going to start on the bookshelves," Maggie said, eyeing the wall of hardcovers with distaste.

"The computer's clean?" Pete asked.

"At least on the basic stuff, yeah. Looks like Graeme kept it tidy. We'll have to have Guppo do a more thorough search."

"How about pictures?" Pete said. "You know, GIFs, JPEGs, that kind of stuff. Maybe he kept some dirty photos or other X-rated stuff around."

Maggie nodded. She did a search of the jump drive. First she typed in "Rachel" and did a global search for any file that might include the girl's name. That would have been too easy, she figured, and she was right. The search came up empty. She tried again with files starting with R but was overwhelmed by the results. She searched for "sex," then "fuck," then "porn," but found nothing.

Then she had another idea. She narrowed the search list to identify any file that had been created or edited in a two-week span surrounding Rachel's disappearance.

The search turned up only a handful of files. She scrolled down slowly, ruling out the system files and checking out anything that looked like a word processing document or spreadsheet. Everything seemed work-related, full of details about online mutual fund transactions and branch profit-and-loss statements. She went through the files one by one, mentally crossing them off her list, doubting this search was going to be any more productive than the others. Graeme was too smart.

And then she saw it.

Fargo4qtr.gif. A picture file created two days before Rachel disappeared.

The name sounded like a business file, but it was in the wrong directory. And she hadn't seen any other GIFs among Graeme's work files. She moved the mouse over to highlight the file, and she hesitated before clicking on it. She held her breath. With a flutter of her fingertip, she clicked and watched the screen go blank. The picture seemed to take forever to load, although she knew that it was only a second or two as she heard the laptop's hard drive whirring. Then the screen refreshed, and a photo jumped onto the screen, filling it in full color.

Maggie gasped. "Oh my God."

She heard Pete turn curiously behind her. Then, seeing the screen over her shoulder, he exhaled, too. "Shit."

It was one of the most amazing pictures she had ever seen. Maggie considered herself a staunch heterosexual, but even she found herself wetting her lips with her tongue. Rachel's eyes drew hers like a magnet.

In the photo, Rachel was naked. She was in the wilderness somewhere, with trees out of focus behind her. The rain was falling, coating her bare skin, running in silver rivulets down her body. The photo captured drops of water on her breasts and little streams of water running into her damp crotch and slipping to the ground. Rachel's knees were bent. She had one hand between her legs, two fingers pushed out of sight into her slit. Her other hand cupped her right breast, reaching up to graze her nipple. Rachel's mouth had fallen open in pleasure, but her bright green eyes were open, staring into the camera.

Maggie realized Pete was beside her, practically panting. "God, I hope the girl's not dead," he said. "What I wouldn't give to fuck that."

"Shut up," Maggie said sourly. She fed the photo to the printer. It printed slowly, line by line, inking out the image of the teenager masturbating in the woods.

"That son of a bitch," she murmured.

The porch was silent. Emily and Graeme sat in dueling recliners. Emily stared vacantly into space, motionless, her hands folded in her lap. Graeme examined a file through his half-glasses, studiously ignoring Stride. When the detective had run out of questions, Graeme had simply gone back to work, as if he had nothing at all to be concerned about.

Stride knew that at least part of Graeme's calm demeanor was an act, because the insinuation alone would be enough to destroy his reputation. Like it or not, Graeme Stoner was finished in Duluth. And the man knew it. The only question was whether he would be free to go somewhere else or whether they would find what they needed to put him away for a long time.

The waiting game got old as the hours dragged by. Stride heard Guppo and Terry trudge back upstairs, then heard them disappear through the front door. He assumed Maggie had directed them to search the van, although he didn't hear the conversation. He had turned off his walkie-talkie rather than let the Stoners hear their dialogue.