bankruptcy but at jail time, too. When Ray’s wife called Stride from their cabin near Ely, Ray was threatening to kill all of them. His wife. Their two kids. Stride went up there alone, wanting to talk Ray out of it, man to man, detective to chief. He thought he had a chance of making it all end peacefully when Ray let his wife and kids walk safely out the door. He only realized later that this was between himself and Ray, that Stride’s betrayal was like a son taking down a father. Ray wanted Stride to be there when he killed himself.
“You don’t still blame yourself, do you?”
Stride saw Maggie in the doorway of his office. The rest of the Detective Bureau was dark behind her; it was after midnight. She strolled inside and sat down sideways in the upholstered chair he kept in the corner. Her short legs dangled off the ground. She had a can of Diet Coke in one hand.
“I’ve been down that road too many times,” Stride said. “There’s nothing I would have done differently.”
Maggie and Cindy had been the two people in his life who helped him climb out of a well of depression after Ray died. Without Maggie, he doubted that he would have gone back on the job after his shoulder healed. He had been ready to quit, but Maggie had nagged him about open cases until he realized that he still loved being a cop, with or without Ray.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Stride said.
“What’s that?”
“I still wonder why Ray never tried to corrupt me. He was on the take all those years, but he never once asked me to cut a corner for him. He never asked for my help.”
“He knew you’d say no,” Maggie said.
“Do you think so? If Ray came to me when I was a young cop and asked me to look the other way on something, do you think I wouldn’t have done it? No way I would have said no to him.”
“Maybe that’s the point, boss.”
“What?”
“You were the one thing Ray was really proud of,” Maggie told him. “He wasn’t going to mess you up the way he was messed up. He didn’t want you to wind up like him.”
Stride laid the photo down on his desk. “Maybe you’re right.” He looked up at her and added, “Why are you here so late?”
“I saw your light.”
“Any more news on the adoption front?”
“Not yet. I still can’t make up my mind.”
“You know what I think. You’re a natural.”
Maggie shrugged and didn’t say anything more.
“Were you on the scene in Fond du Lac?” he asked.
Maggie took a long swallow from her can of soda. She draped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Yeah.”
“Did the girl make it?”
“No. She was dead when they pulled her out of the water.”
“How about the boy? The one on the bicycle?”
“Lucky. His vitals are good. The docs think he’ll pull through.”
“How are the girl’s parents?”
Maggie shook her head. “They’re both wrecks. Mary was everything to them. Taking care of her destroyed their marriage, but they lived and breathed for that girl.”
“I hope the mother doesn’t blame herself for leaving the girl alone,” Stride said. “It was a terrible accident. There was nothing she could have done.”
“I’m not so sure it was an accident.”
Stride balanced his elbows on his desk. “What do you mean?”
“Donna Biggs thinks the peeper was there. She thinks that’s what spooked Mary and made her run. When she went into the water, he took off.”
“Is there anything to back it up?”
“Donna swears she saw a car parked just up the hill from where she was. She says it was a silver RAV4, which tracks with the reports of a mini-SUV near several of the peeping scenes. No one got plates, of course.”
“That’s not much.”
“Donna also saw a man get into the RAV when she was running up the trail after she heard Mary scream.”
“Can she recognize him?”
“No.”
“Is there any physical evidence?”
“We’ll be searching the woods between the trail and the spot where the car was parked.”
“I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but even if you find this guy, it’s going to be a tough road to prove he was responsible for Mary’s death.”
“If he tried to grab her, and she wound up dead as a result of his actions, we can make a manslaughter case out of that.”
“I know, but with what evidence?” Stride asked.
“The peeping history with the girl. The car. Any physical evidence we can find. Mary’s scream. Hell, who knows what souvenirs this guy kept? Maybe when we find him, he’ll have pictures. If I can put a few of the pieces together, Pat Burns can make a jury see the light.”
“You sound like this case is personal,” Stride said.
Maggie nodded. “I saw the girl when she was sleeping at her house. She was sweet. I told her father he didn’t have anything to worry about, and now the girl winds up dead. We were staking out Clark’s house and Donna’s apartment, but it looks like he outsmarted us. Donna says she stopped at this park every Friday night before she dropped Mary off at her ex-husband’s place. He must have been following them.”
“Or the mother is wrong.”
“I don’t think she is.”
Stride trusted Maggie’s instincts. “Go with your gut,” he said.
He picked up the photograph from his desk and studied it again. He was having a hard time shrugging off the past. “You know, I’ve always believed that Ray’s death was one more ripple effect from Laura’s murder,” he said.
“How so?”
“I think the connection between Ray and Randall Stanhope started back then,” he told her. “That’s when Ray got corrupted.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No? After we interviewed Peter, Randall asked Ray to stay behind. Then Ray came out a while later, and the two of us went after Dada. It wasn’t until years later that I realized what must have happened.”
“You think Ray and Randall did a deal,” Maggie concluded.
Stride nodded. “Exactly. Ray didn’t go there with me to catch Dada. He went there to kill him.”
