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But Garue shook his head. "Not with me. When Keegan said he was going to call Agent Rossi, I was all for it. You federal guys and gals may not be much at Indian affairs, but you're a hell of a lot better at this sort of thing than we local cops are."

"Thanks for that much," Rossi said.

"There's some crazy shit going on around here, and we need your kind of help." Garue shrugged. "Anyway, I really do want a book or two signed."

The two men shared a respectful if guarded smile; then their stare-down concluded.

"We could get started," Hotchner said, looking around with frank irritation, "if we knew where our vehicles were."

Garue faced Hotchner. "That's why Deputy Swenson and I are here. Your SUVs are downtown, at the law enforcement center. Sheriff figured it would be easier for us to chauffeur you, some—just till you get the lay of the land."

"Considerate," Hotchner said. "Thank you."

Garue looked from face to face. "Any of you been to Bemidji before?"

They all shook their heads.

"We figured as much. Better you ride with us awhile."

No one argued the point.

With the help of Garue and Deputy Swenson, the team loaded their gear into the patrol vehicles. They split up as they got into the SUVs, Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid riding with Deputy Swenson while Hotchner, Rossi, and Jareau accompanied Detective Garue.

Hotchner sat up front with Garue while Jareau and Rossi shared the rear. Even though wire mesh separated front and back, the inside of the Durango was toasty warm—Jareau found that a soothing relief, after their windy entrance to what seemed to be the southernmost tip of the polar ice cap.

They had only gone fifty yards or so toward the airport's entrance when Garue said, "The building on the right there is the regional crime lab, a division of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension."

Rossi asked, "That's Keegan's office?"

"Yeah," Garue said.

The one-story glass-and-brick building was mostly dark, though Jareau could see some fluorescent lights on in the rear part of the lab.

"That's probably his light in the back," Garue was saying. "He's been working full tilt on this one since Saturday."

On the other side of the road, a two-story motel sat vacant, its windows boarded shut.

Rossi asked, "What happened there?"

"Northern Inn," Garue said. "Too many other choices—the land was sold for a new Ford dealership and the motel lost its lease."

From the airport, Garue turned left. On the right side of the road, a pine forest ended right before an overpass for Highway 71 north to International Falls, less than two hours away.

As they passed under the highway, someone might have thrown a switch—the landscape changed from rural forest to urban sprawl, strip malls, big box stores, restaurants, and gas stations lining the fourlane thoroughfare into town.

Hotchner asked, "How many people in Bemidji?"

"Almost fifteen thousand," Garue said. "Growing more every day. Nearly seven thousand students at Bemidji State University."

Jareau asked, "Crime problem at all?"

"Mostly petty stuff. Certainly nothing like what you folks are here for. Some burglaries and so on. The usual meth freaks you find anywhere. With poverty so high on the reservations, you get some B and Es, people trying to get by however they can."

Rossi said, "That was plural—'reservations'?"

Garue nodded, eyes on the road. "Three. I grew up on the Red Lake Reservation, north of here. The Leech Lake Reservation is to the east, the White Earth Reservation, west."

"Things are tough for them," Rossi said, not a question.

"Yeah," Garue agreed glumly. "The White Earth Band is doing the best, unemployment rate only twenty-five percent. At Leech Lake, it's over thirty, and nearly forty percent at Red Lake."

"That's a lot of people," Rossi said, "with a lot of time and not many worthwhile ways to fill it."

"Got that right," Garue said. He shook his head. "Desperation makes people do things they might not otherwise."

"This UnSub," Jareau said, thinking it time to steer the conversation back toward the case at hand, "seems to have done just what he wanted to with these girls."

Garue turned right onto Irvine Avenue and the retail strip was left behind for rows of well-kept older homes, mostly two-story clapboards.

For a couple of blocks, their driver said nothing and they lapsed into silence.

Finally breaking it, Garue said, "You know, you do this job long enough, you think you've seen everything."

"Yeah," Hotchner said, years of experience coloring that single word.

"We had a case a few years ago," Garue said, "crazy bastard stabbed his wife thirteen times. Then went into the bedroom, woke his three-year-old and slit the kid's throat. Woke him up first—Jesus."

Despite the heater, a chill settled over the car's interior.

"When we got to the scene," Garue was saying, "Daddy had propped the dead kid on the counter so the corpse could 'watch' as he made cutlets out of Mommy with a meat cleaver."

No one said anything.

"That was bad enough. Thought I'd never see any crime scene that could get to me again." He grimaced. "But after what I saw in the woods the other day . . ."

Garue turned left onto Eighth Street. A parking lot spread out before them on their right and beyond that sat a cluster of matching buildings.

Rossi asked, "What did you see in the woods?"

Another block passed in silence before Garue turned right onto Minnesota Avenue.

Finally, Garue said, "They looked so peaceful lying there. The coats, the blankets, the plastic, they were prepared by someone who . . . who loved them."

No one said anything. On the right, Jareau saw the first of the matching redbrick buildings. This one had the legend COUNTY ADMINISTRATION over its entrance.

"In the end," Garue said, "it was the complete lack of violence at the scene that got to me most. The last grave was shallower than the first two. Like maybe the perp . . . what did you call him? The UnSub?"

"Yes," Hotchner said. "That's our shorthand for Unknown Subject."

Garue nodded. "It was almost like your UnSub was rushed that last time. Everything else was identical, except the depth of the third grave. Somehow, the critters got to it and they picked at the plastic, and picked the hand clean, too . . . but that was all they got."

Rossi said, "We came to the same conclusion, Detective—that the killer, or whoever buried the bodies for the killer, might've wanted to protect them."

"It was the peacefulness of the graves that shook me. This is one cool-as-a-cucumber character. You just take these kids out and bury 'em in the woods like a dead pet? You can do that, man, you got something a lot colder than ice water in your veins."

In the next block, on the left side, the redbrick building carried the legend BELTRAMI COUNTY JAIL AND JUDICIAL CENTER. Garue pulled up to the curb in front of the third matching building. Over the door, this one had the words LAW ENFORCEMENT CENTER.

Garue and Hotchner had to open the back doors to let Rossi and Jareau out. Jareau looked over and saw two black SUVs in the parking lot with U.S. government plates.

"This is home," Garue said. "This building houses both the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office and the Bemidji PD."

Hotchner said, "Looks fairly new."

"Nineteen ninety-eight," Garue said. "All three buildings. The county decided to do it all at once and consolidate everything. Actually's made life easier."

Rossi asked, "Any closer on the cause of death?"

Garue shook his head. "Tomorrow, if we're lucky. The coroner had to send material off to the lab. You want to go in and get set up, or just wait for morning?"

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