Finishing School Read Free Page A

coat.
    Garue took U.S. 2 south out of Bemidji, then turned east on a county road leading to another two-lane running south through Bassinko’s forest number four. The road was wet, the flurries from last night having melted off in this Indian summer day. Ahead, on the right, a service road cut back to the west, and Garue saw three squad cars lined up on it; behind them was a van from the regional office of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension—the state crime lab.
    As Garue pulled in, a deputy stepped forward to hold up a hand in ‘‘stop’’ fashion. Garue braked to a halt, then powered the window down as the deputy approached—a broad-shouldered blond kid, a rookie named Swenson.
    The deputy smiled at Garue. ‘‘Sorry, sir—didn’t recognize your car.’’
    â€˜â€˜Just doing your job,’’ Garue said. ‘‘These are my wheels, son, no reason you should make ’em. . . . You first on the scene?’’
    â€˜â€˜Yup,’’ Swenson said with a nod. ‘‘Me and Sergeant Condon. He was right behind me.’’
    â€˜â€˜When did the crime lab get here?’’
    â€˜â€˜About half an hour after us.’’ Swenson checked his watch. ‘‘Make that a little over an hour ago.’’
    â€˜â€˜They find anything?’’
    Shrugging, Swenson said, ‘‘Dunno. I been out here. . . . Park on the side, would you, and you can just follow the crime scene tape. Should take you right to ’em.’’
    â€˜â€˜Thanks, son,’’ Garue said.
    The detective pulled in behind a squad car, climbed out and started tramping up the service road into the woods. He had gone maybe fifty yards when he saw crime scene tape wrapped around the trunk of an aspen.
    The forest wasn’t as thick here. This plot had been harvested within the last ten years; the Bassinko outfit cut down plots of forty to eighty acres at a time, then allowed the plot to grow back over the next forty to sixty years before harvesting there again.
    Looking deeper into the woods, Garue could see a strip of crime scene tape on another aspen ten yards on, then another, and another.
    He was almost a quarter of a mile into the woods when he heard voices on the other side of a small hill. Over the short rise, Garue found a handful of men spread out in a semicircle, backs to him, and off to one side, three men in camouflage, obviously hunters, with a deputy. Those four men turned to see him as he approached.
    The deputy, tall, rail-thin with hair as white as Garue’s, wore no jacket despite the chilly morning. The tan shirt, with the three-tiered stripes of his rank, and brown uniform pants were freshly ironed, his shiny silver badge reflecting the sunlight.
    Craig Condon was old enough, and certainly had enough time in, to retire. He hadn’t, though. His wife was ill, and Condon needed the health insurance that came with the job, so he stayed on. Maybe longer than he should have, Garue thought.
    Condon bestowed a solitary nod in the detective’s direction—more greeting than he gave most people. The deputy’s pinched face and long chin made him look serious, even on those rare occasions when the sergeant found something humorous. Today would not likely be one of those rare days.
    Next to Condon stood the human cannonball that was Daniel Abner, and seeing Abner gave Garue a sick feeling, damn near a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with the breakfast his wife had served him.
    Fifteen years ago, the disappearance of Abner’s ten-year-old daughter, Amanda, had been among the first cases Garue had drawn as a detective. Garue and the entire Beltrami County Sheriff’s Department, the Bemidji PD, and the regional state crime lab had worked ceaselessly for over a year before the little girl’s body had been found buried in the crawl space of a house on the edge of town.
    The house was owned by