“That was a dirty time.”

“Why did you choose that life?” Stride asked. “Why be a drifter?”

“I guess you could say I was appalled by modern life,” Jones said. “I felt disconnected. Only a boy can be quite so naive. Still, the community I found in the shadows was deeper and stronger than any I have found since. It was hard to leave it behind. Every now and then, I try to find the dandelion men again, but they’re an endangered species. Like feral animals whose habitat has been destroyed. They scamper away when I come close. I’m no longer from their world, you see.”

“You sound like you miss it,” Stride said.

Jones tugged at the lapels on his suit with a bemused smile. “I do. Sometimes I fantasize about disappearing again. It’s only a fantasy.”

“Tell me about Laura.”

“Laura?”

“The girl who was murdered.”

Jones folded his hands over his chest. “Yes, of course. I never knew her name until I saw that newspaper article. She was just a girl in the park.”

“All these years, I thought you killed her,” Stride said.

Jones nodded. “And now?”

“Now I’m not so sure. We have a new witness. Someone who says you rescued Laura instead of attacking her.”

“A witness,” Jones said. “Yes, someone else was in the woods that night. I never saw him, but I knew he was there. I smelled the cannabis he was smoking.”

Finn, Stride thought.

“There was another boy in the softball field,” Jones added. “He was the one who attacked Laura. I stopped him from harming her.”

Stride nodded. “After the fight, Laura ran toward the north beach.”

“Yes, I know. I followed her.”

“Did you go all the way to the beach? Did you see her there?”

“I did,” Dada said.

“What did you see?”

Dada smiled. “I already told you, Lieutenant. That girl had secrets.”

33
___________

“We’re never going to make it back to Minnesota tonight,” Maggie said.

They were an hour west of Fargo, seated on top of a park bench overlooking a boat launch that dipped into the waters of Lake Ashtabula. Immediately to their left was the concrete wall of the Baldhill Dam, which held back the Sheyenne River and created a narrow stretch of man-made lake. It was late afternoon. The air smelled of boat fuel and hamburgers. Jet Ski riders left wakes in the water. Nearby, in the camping area, children splashed and squealed along a strip of sand beach.

“Peter wants his plane back,” Serena replied.

“Yeah, but this guy could be out there fishing until the sun goes down.”

After leaving the Mathisen farm, they had stopped at police headquarters in Fargo, where their North Dakota colleagues helped them identify the man who had served as lead detective investigating the murder of Finn’s mother, Inger Mathisen. The detective, Oscar Schmidt, had retired from the force more than a decade earlier and relocated with his wife to a town called Valley City. Serena and Maggie tracked down the Schmidt home, where his wife pointed them north to Lake Ashtabula, Oscar’s favorite spot for fishing.