Teitscher shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, Lieutenant. If Eric was wrong, why kill him? If I accuse you of a crime you didn't commit, why the hell would you kill me over it?"

Stride knew that was true. He was missing something.

The two men looked up as a guard opened a door at the far end of the narrow hallway, and Max Guppo ran toward them. Guppo never ran, and by the time he reached them, he was sweating in large beads on his forehead, and his big chest was heaving up and down. He bent over and broke wind loudly, and both men involuntarily took a step backward.

"Son of a bitch, Guppo," Teitscher complained.

Stride suppressed a smile and said, "What's going on, Max?"

Guppo took several wheezing, labored breaths. He loosened his tie and tugged his belt up over his protruding stomach. "All hell is breaking loose."

"Over what?"

"Another body," Guppo told them. "We've got a body in Enger Park. Right where we found that girl ten years ago."

61

It was déjà vu all over again. Stride couldn't believe it.

The victim was placed exactly where they had found the anonymous black teenager a decade earlier. He had been over this ground so many times that he could pinpoint the growth in the trees lining the fairway and the number of footsteps it took to get here from the road. The body was on its back, arms and legs spread like a da Vinci drawing. She was in a valley that was invisible from the road and sheltered from the golfers walking the straightaway toward the green. The girl back then, who was found in August, who had haunted his dreams ever since, was found because of a doctor's errant slice.

"Two cross-country skiers came across her," Guppo said. They were calf-deep in snow, and Guppo was looking back at the slope that led to the highway as if wondering whether he would survive the climb. It was mid-afternoon. The snow was done, and the sun was back, but it couldn't manage more than a weak shine.

Stride nodded. His lips were thin and cold. "Any idea how long she's been here?"

"She's frozen solid, so it won't be easy to pin down," Guppo said. "But one of the skiers said he followed this path two days ago, and there was no body."

"He's sure he was in the same place?"

Guppo nodded. "He said this is his favorite route."

"Was she killed here?" Teitscher asked.

"No, not enough blood," Guppo said.

Stride studied the victim, or what was left of her. Like the girl ten years ago, this newest body was missing its head and hands. On the part of the neck that remained intact, he could see ligature marks to suggest that she had been strangled. She was naked, and he could see bruising in the pelvic area. In those respects, the murder was a carbon copy of the earlier crime.

A few details were different, though. It was summer then and winter now. The original victim was black, and this woman was white. The girl back then was young, no more than seventeen, and it was easy to tell from the condition of the skin that this victim was older, probably in her thirties or forties.

"Don't hold your breath on DNA this time," Guppo said.

Stride nodded. He had a feeling the perp was too smart to leave his calling card again. "What else have we found?"

"Not a lot. Violet's working the body for the M.E. She's up in her truck now. We're scouring the area, but like I say, I think the perp just dumped her here."

"What about footprints? He had to get her down here."

Guppo pointed at a narrow track of matted snow leading down the slope. "Yeah, looks like he dragged her. We've got blood spots and hair all along the route back to the road. I think he took a shovel and backfilled in the snow, though. Plus, we've had another inch or so in the last two days."

"Same with tire tracks?"

"Nothing on the road."

Teitscher looked up as he heard the thumping roar of a helicopter hovering over their heads. "Who the hell leaked this to the media? It's a damn circus."

"Don't blame me," Guppo snapped. "One of the skiers called his wife, and she happens to be a secretary at KBJR. They broke it first, and the others have piled on. We've got reporters from the Cities up here, too. They're all smelling a serial killer. Everyone's asking about the original Enger Park Girl case and whether there's a connection."

"More likely a copycat to throw us off the scent," Teitscher said.

Guppo shrugged. "These guys are all talking like this is something out of the next John Sandford novel."

"Well, we're not ruling anything in or out," Stride said. "It's a long time between killings if we're talking about the same perp, but you never know. If it's a copycat, he's just as bad."

"Do we have any idea at all who this woman is?" Teitscher asked. "Are there any reports of missing persons in the region that fit the profile?"

"No likely candidates except for Lauren Erickson."

Stride shook his head. "It's not her. Too tall."

He figured Lauren was somewhere at the bottom of Hell's Lake, and they would find her in the spring.

His cell phone rang, and he took a few steps away into the deeper snow to answer it. He heard Maggie's voice. "I'm watching the news," she said. "They've got you on live TV, did you know that?"

"Great."

"You've got something green on your front teeth."

"Ha-ha."

"Tell me they've got this wrong," she said. "Tell me this isn't a rerun of the Enger Park Girl."

"It's the same M.O., Mags. The scene is virtually identical."

"Shit."

Stride couldn't help but think of standing on this same ground with Maggie ten years ago on that hot August night. They had only been together for a year then. Maggie was young and smart, coming out of her shell slowly, more like a kid than a woman.

"You talk to Blue Dog?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Did you kill him?"

"I wanted to."

"What did he tell you?"

"He says he had nothing to do with Eric's death," Stride said.

"Do you believe him?"

"Unfortunately, I do. He has an alibi."

"Meaning it's back to me."

"Come on, you're off the hook, Mags. Even Abel doesn't want to charge you."

"Because they can't convict me, or because I'm innocent?"

Stride was silent.

"I thought so," Maggie said. "Look, that's not good enough, boss, you know that. I can't come back on the job if everyone still thinks I'm a murderer."

"It's not over, Mags."

"No? Abel thinks I did it, but he can't prove it. He's not going to invest a lot of energy in solving the case."

"Give me time."

"I want back in," Maggie insisted, impatience bubbling up in her voice. "I want to be with you on the scene right now. I deserve to be on that case."

"I know."

She sighed over the phone. "Look, I'm sorry, I know this isn't your fault. You've got work to do. I'm going over to see Serena, okay?"

"Thanks."

"She's probably watching you on TV, too, so why don't you moon the camera?"

"Goodbye, Mags."

He hung up the phone and rejoined Guppo and Teitscher, who were standing stiffly a few feet apart from each other. There was no love lost between them. Guppo had been among the loudest to complain during Teitscher's short tenure as lieutenant, and Teitscher knew it. It didn't help that Guppo also had a long and close relationship with Stride.

"I want to review the original case file on the Enger Park Girl," Stride said. "Who's got it now?"

Teitscher blanched. "I think it's in my desk."

"What's up with it?"

"What's up? Nothing's up. You know how it is with cold cases, Lieutenant. Every few months, you pull it out of the drawer and rifle through it to see if you get a new idea. It's not like I've got the time to work a ten-year-old file."

"Especially if the victim's just a black teenager, huh?" Guppo asked.