Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper

they?''
    ''They were good enough for the jp.''
    ''They must've been. But we'll see how that stands up before a judge who actually holds a law degree. And let me remind you that your reference to the location of the tire tracks as the 'crime scene' is desperately premature. No bodies, no crime, no crime scene .''
    ''You're free to call it what you like, Mr. Crane.''
    ''Thank you. I think I'll call it horseshit, then, if you don't mind, because I don't see a single good reason for the police to have been searching the end of that road for tire tracks in the first place. Why there? Why, in a county with a hundred and seventy-two prime locations to ditch bodies, would the bright sparks of the Murdoch Ontario Province Police detachment all head to the one place?''
    Goodwin presses his lips together, pushes the color out of the skin around his mouth. ''A collection of reasons,'' he says finally.
    ''I'm curious.''
    ''Well, Tripp used to spend his summers on St. Christopher for years, so he would know the area well. That's for starters. Next, his car had been seen up there once or twice driving around in the months prior to the girls' disappearance. But more important, it was simply the first place people around here thought to look. The woods are thick, the water's deep. And there're stories.''
    ''Stories?''
    ''Bad things that happened, years back. And you know how people can turn old facts into new tales.''
    Goodwin tries at an embarrassed laugh, brings the pads of his hands together in a single smack of flesh.
    ''I know all about turning facts into tales, Mr. Goodwin. And I'm beginning to see that you and the police up here are enthusiastic amateurs at it.''
    ''Now, there's no need for--''
    ''You said 'bad things.' What kind of bad things?''
    ''I'm not sure of the particulars. A drowning, I think. And now there's a ghost story to go along with it.''
    ''Beautiful. So are all the cops up here gypsies or something?''
    ''I'm not trying to--''
    ''Regarding the search of Tripp's apartment: there was no journal or diary found? No half-finished letters?''
    ''No.''
    ''Just the muddy pants and catalog pinups?''
    ''That's right.''
    ''And both easily explained, wouldn't you say? Lonely father seeking comforting images to remind him of his only child. A lonely father who also lives in a town of wall-to-wall mud, particularly after the big spring thaw?''
    ''Perhaps, but I think--''
    ''And no weapon found?''
    ''Nothing yet.''
    ''No bloodstains or anything gruesome in the laundry hamper?''
    ''No, just--''
    ''Just the bloodstains in the Volvo. I know. Now, assuming you get a readable result on the DNA analysis, I ask you, what do you propose to match it against ?''
    Goodwin raises a corner of his mouth slightly to reveal star-shaped dimples cratered high in his cheeks.
    ''Perhaps I neglected to mention,'' he says, mouth still raised, ''that in addition to the bloodstains in the back and the hair taken from their hairbrushes at home there were also a number of hair samples found in the car, apparently emanating from two distinct sources: one dark, one blond, both long. Not Tripp's. We've sent these out for DNA tests as well, and if the hairbrush hair matches the hair found in the car, or if the hairbrush hair matches the bloodstains--well, I think at the very least it would go a good way toward proving their presence in the car.''
    ''Big fucking deal!'' I'm shouting now. ''Nobody's denying their 'presence in the car.' Who cares about their 'presence in the car'? The elements of the offense of firstdegree murder, Mr. Goodwin, involve establishing that a planned and deliberate homicide has occurred. Girls with long hair having nosebleeds or picking scabs in the back of their teacher's car falls a little short, wouldn't you say?''
    Then Goodwin does something alarming. He sits forward (as far as this is possible), his face a shiny mackintosh, his upper lip dancing in the involuntary way that signals the onset of either frustrated tears or violence. But