Brian Freeman - Immoral

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.

The judge nodded. "And no ready means of identification? It could be Rachel or Kerry or some other girl?"

"There was nothing left to identify. No clothes, no personal effects. The body was partially burned. We'll be running DNA tests on the surviving bone."

"How long will all of this taker"

Stride shook his head. "I wish I could give you a clear answer, Your Honor. It could be a couple days, and it could be a few weeks."

"And you found no other evidence of note near the body?"

"No. We'll continue searching, but I'm not optimistic, given the amount of time that has passed."

Dan interrupted. "But the real key is the identity of the body, Your Honor. If this turns out to be Rachel, it has an enormous bearing on the trial."

"If, if, if," Gale said. "If this, maybe that. No evidence, but we'll continue searching. Maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks, maybe never. Mr. Stoner should not have to sit around while the police and the prosecution stall us with vague promises of evidence yet to come. Neither should the jury. There is really nothing here, Your Honor, except smoke."

Judge Kassel sighed. "I'm inclined to agree."

Dan grabbed the bench with both hands. "Your Honor, just a few days. Give us until the end of the week to confirm the identification. If we don't have anything by then, we'll wrap up the trial."

"And meanwhile the witnesses will be a distant memory," Gale said scathingly. "It's now or never."

"They can have any testimony they like read back to them," Dan said.

"Oh, please," Gale said.

Kassel cut them both off. "That's enough, gentlemen. Mr. Erickson, I'm sympathetic to your situation. I'm loath to proceed with the tantalizing possibility of new and crucial evidence so close. But right now, you have nothing but hopes and theories. You went into this case without a body, convinced you could get a conviction. You're going to have to abide by that decision."

The judge reached down, clicking on her microphone, and banged her gavel again to quiet the courtroom. She directed her announcement to the court.

"The motion for continuance is denied. We will proceed with the trial."

"Your Honor, I renew my motion that hearsay evidence of a sexual relationship between the defendant and Rachel Deese, as cited in deposition by Dr. Nancy Carver, be admitted, on the grounds that the declarant is unavailable as a witness."

"Denied. Anything more, Mr. Erickson?"

Dan clenched his fists in frustration. "No, Your Honor."

"Fine. Bailiff, please bring in the jury."

Stride turned away from the bench. He saw fury in Dan's eyes, a coldness, directed at him, he had never felt in his life. It was as if Dan's future had been buried in the shallow hole where they had dug up the body, and he could find only one person to blame.

Dan whispered, "You fucked this whole case up for me from day one."

Stride didn't reply. He didn't have time.

Something was wrong.

The buzz in the crowd had changed. The noise and whispering that followed the judge's decision turned into something else. People were confused, pointing, standing. Someone was shouting. It was Maggie, in the third row, calling Stride's name and scrambling across people to get to the aisle.

Close by, others began screaming.

Stride saw Graeme Stoner jerk up out of his chair at the defense table, as if an electric current were bolting through his skin. Graeme steadied himself with his hands flat on the table. His eyes were wide, filled with puzzlement.

Graeme's mouth fell open, as if he were about to laugh. Then his chest heaved, and instead, a trickle of blood dribbled from his lips. Graeme blinked. He looked down at the drips splashing on his white shirt like cherries in the snow.

He smiled.

Then his chest heaved again, and the trickle became a river.

Bright red blood streamed from Graeme's mouth, then his nose. The river poured over his suit, bathing his shoutders and chest, then spilled onto the table, soaking the raft of papers scattered there. It cascaded like crimson fountains into puddles on the floor.

Graeme's eyes turned gray and glassy and rolled up into his head. For another few seconds, he remained standing at attention. Then his body seemed to shrivel. His shoulders caved inward, and he collapsed in a pile on the table, his face dangling over the edge, still spouting a geyser of blood that now squirted over the courtroom floor in a growing lake. There was no way to turn off the spigot, and even Dan Erickson and Archibald Gale shouted and reared back as the red flood pooled around their shoes.

All the while, Graeme lay face down, draining the last few beats of his heart.

Stride tried to run, but he slipped in the blood. He regained his balance and dove forward. Maggie arrived first. She battled past the last few people who stood in her way, transfixed by the horror in front of them. She leaped over those who had thrown themselves to the floor, screaming, in an effort to escape.