“The bad news is that there are hundreds of vehicles like that in the Duluth and Superior area,” Maggie told them. “That’s a long list. However, we’re cross-referencing vehicle ownership with criminal records to see if we can narrow down the suspect pool. We’re also going back to the other neighborhoods where the peeper struck to reinterview people who may have seen something, now that we have a specific vehicle type. We’ll also be checking the vehicle ownership records against the list of people and organizations you’ve given us, to see if there’s anyone who was part of Mary’s life.”
“No one who knew Mary could have done this,” Donna said.
Clark bobbed his head. “Yes, it was a stranger. If it was anyone she knew, Mary’s reaction would have been different.”
“I understand, but we have to cover every angle,” Maggie said. “Remember that this could be someone who had little or no direct contact with Mary. Peepers and stalkers often develop elaborate fantasies about their victims based on nothing more than their physical appearance or a minor encounter. To a girl, it may be no more than saying hello to a clerk at a store. To a maladjusted mind, that simple conversation can trigger an obsession.”
“Mary was a child,” Donna protested. “Who could possibly think of her that way?”
Maggie sighed. “Mary was also a pretty girl.”
“She was vulnerable,” Clark said. “How could you leave her alone, Donna? How? Tell me that.”
Donna’s cheeks turned bloodless and white. “What could I do, Clark? I mean, for God’s sake, what could I do?”
“You call 911, and you sit there with Mary. That’s what you do. She was your responsibility.”
“And leave that boy bleeding in the street?”
“You should have locked Mary in the car.”
“There was no time! I didn’t have time to think!”
Maggie put a hand on Donna’s knee. “Mr. and Mrs. Biggs, I know you’re both upset, and I understand. Whatever you both think, you are not to blame. Mrs. Biggs, you almost certainly saved that boy’s life, and you had no way of knowing that anything like this could happen to Mary. Mr. Biggs, I know you’re devastated, but the best thing we can do right now is try to find the man who terrorized your daughter and make sure he doesn’t do this to anyone else. Okay?”
Clark Biggs got out of his chair and paced. Some of Mary’s plastic blocks were littered across the living room carpet. He bent down, picked up one of the blocks, and squeezed it inside his meaty fist. His eyes were closed. He was unkempt, with dirty hair and blond stubble on his face.
“Mr. Biggs?”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Maggie said.
“Why did it have to be water?” Clark murmured.
“Oh, Clark, please don’t,” Donna said.
“Was God pissed off that we saved her the first time? Did He think she hadn’t suffered enough? How could He put her back in the water? Tell me that, how could God let her die in the water?”
Maggie expected to see tears on Clark’s thick cheekbones, but his sun-cracked face was dry, and his eyes were empty. On the sofa, Donna moved to go to her ex-husband, but then she stopped herself. Maggie could see that the love between them wasn’t dead, but they might as well have been on opposite edges of a canyon, with no way to cross.
“Did you find anything in the woods?” Donna asked quietly. “You said they were going to search the woods for clues.”
“I wish I could tell you we had more luck,” Maggie replied. “We found some trash on the path, in the trees, and on the side of the highway, but nothing with any obvious connection to the peeper or his vehicle. Later, when we identify him, it’s possible that something we found will help us place him at the scene.”
Clark let Mary’s block fall out of his hand. “When you find this man, will you charge him with murder? Will he have to pay for what he did to Mary?”
Maggie hesitated. “That’s not my decision. The county attorney will make that call, based on the evidence we gather. I assure you, I will do everything possible to make a case that we can bring to trial. I want to see justice for Mary.”
Donna shook her head sadly. “If you can’t find corroborating evidence, then it’s just my word, isn’t it? I work in a law office, Ms. Bei. I know that’s a problem.”
“Why is that a problem?” Clark asked. “If Donna says she saw him, then she saw him.”
“But I didn’t see him,” Donna said. “I saw a car and a man I can’t identify. I know how defense lawyers work. They’ll say it could have been anybody. Or they’ll say I made it up.”
“Made it up?” Clark asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I was the only one who saw the RAV on the highway, Clark. They’ll say I felt guilty because I left Mary alone, and I was just trying to protect myself by blaming someone else. They’ll say I knew about the peeping, so I used it as a convenient excuse.”
“That’s bullshit,” Clark said.
“It’s way too early to be thinking about any of this,” Maggie said. “Once we identify this man, we’re likely to find much more evidence in his house and car. If we can find something that ties him to Mary, then your testimony will carry a lot of weight with a jury, no matter how much smoke a defense lawyer tries to blow at them.”
She tried to sound convincing, but she knew Donna was right. Stride was right, too. The most they were ever likely to do was convict the man of interference with privacy. A two-year felony for peeping on minors. Two years was a lousy trade for losing a daughter.
“The first thing we have to do is find him,” she added. “This man stalked Mary. Somewhere, somehow, their lives intersected.”
“You said it could be as simple as Mary saying hello to someone on the street,” Donna said. “If that’s true, how will we ever narrow it down?”
“Well, we have to hope it wasn’t quite that simple,” Maggie told her. “Mary wasn’t the first girl he peeped, but something about Mary was special. He hooked onto something about her that made him come back to Mary. The question is what. Her physical appearance isn’t really distinctive compared to the other girls. If you lined them all up, you wouldn’t pick out Mary as being different.”
“She was mentally handicapped,” Donna said.
Maggie nodded. “Yes, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that just by looking at her. I think there had to be some kind of interaction between Mary and this man, however minor. I’ll talk to the people at Mary’s school again, but if the connection didn’t happen there, then the chances are that you were with Mary when it did happen. Because she was hardly ever alone, am I right?”
She knew as she said the words that she had accidentally jabbed another needle into Donna’s guilty conscience. The one time she had left her daughter alone, Mary died. Donna wiped her eyes.
“Yes, you’re right,” she said. “We were always with her.”
“Mr. Biggs, you told me that you think the peeper was at Mary’s bedroom window the week before the incident you reported.”
Clark nodded. “It was Saturday night.”
“Do you think that was the first time?”
“That was the first time Mary saw him,” he insisted.
“I’m sure of that.” “I’m trying to nail down a time line here,” Maggie said. “I’d like to know when this man first met Mary. So I’d like you both to think hard about the days just before that Saturday. I want you to remember if anything unusual happened during that period.”
“I’ll check my calendar at work,” Donna said. “Mary was with me until Friday evening.”
“Nothing happened on that Saturday,” Clark said. “Mary and I were home all day. I ordered a swing set, and it was delivered that morning. After I set it up, I couldn’t get Mary off the swing for the rest of the day. The two of us spent all afternoon outside, and then I grilled hamburgers for dinner.”
“Did anyone stop by the house while you were outside? Or did you notice any unusual activ
ity? People circling the neighborhood?”
Clark shook his head. “I keep a close eye out for that kind of thing.”
“Mary was sick for a couple of days that week,” Donna added. “She didn’t go to school on Wednesday or Thursday. I had to take her to the doctor’s office.”
“Did you see anyone new while you were there?”
“Yes, there was a male nurse in the lab we hadn’t met before. Mary liked him.”
Maggie jotted down the name of the clinic in Superior where Mary’s doctor was located. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s exactly the kind of information I need. If you remember anything else like that-any kind of casual contact Mary had with a stranger-please let me know immediately.”
Donna and Clark Biggs both nodded.
“Tell me, Ms. Bei, do you think that-well, is this man violent?” Donna asked. “Did he intend to do some kind of harm to Mary?”
Maggie knew what she was thinking. Maybe, somehow, it was better this way. Death by drowning was a better fate than to be kidnapped by a predator. God was actually being merciful.
“I just don’t know,” Maggie replied. “He hasn’t shown any inclination to violence yet, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have crossed the line eventually. He still may.”
“It doesn’t matter what his intentions were,” Clark growled. “He killed her. This pervert killed my little girl.”
19
The lake breeze made the water choppy out beyond the lift bridge. Dozens of seagulls placidly rode the swells. The small harbor tour boat bobbed in the white-tipped waves, and Tish Verdure grabbed hard to the red steel railing near the bow. She zipped up her leather jacket to her neck, but the cold made its way inside her clothes. Beside her, Finn Mathisen swayed with the rolling motion of the deck. He looked as tall and lean as a flagpole. His shirt billowed in the wind. He tilted his head back and finished his can of Miller Lite.
“You look really cold,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Come on, let’s go sit inside.”
He took her hand and led her back to the enclosed lower deck of the ship. Tish almost sang with joy when the door closed behind them, cutting off the wind and leaving her under the hot air vent from the boat’s furnace. She shivered, warming up. Most of the other passengers were here, seated on benches by the windows, soaking up the view. Finn found an open stretch of bench on the starboard side, where the boat looked out on the lake, and the two of them sat down.
“I’m going to get another beer,” Finn said. “You want something?”
“No, thanks.”
She watched him head up to the bar. His dress clothes looked a size too large, as if he had dropped weight since he wore them. He was in his late forties, like her, but he wore his age hard. She noticed a tremor in his hands. A yellowing in his skin. He was ill. She wondered if his shaved head was voluntary, or whether he had lost his hair to some kind of cancer treatment.
When he came back, he noticed her eyeing his bare skull. “I was losing most of my hair anyway.”
“The shaved look is trendy now,” Tish said.
“You don’t have to say that. I figured bald was better than having a forehead that went halfway up my head. My hair used to be so thick it was like an Afro, but I started finding blond curls on my pillow in my twenties.”
He popped the top of his beer can.
“So how are you, Finn?” Tish asked.
Finn drank down half the can on his first swallow. He wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt. “How am I? I guess you can see how I am.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Self-inflicted wounds,” he said. He held up the beer can. “This is the enemy. Back then, I was mostly into grass and coke. Not that I have to tell you that, huh? I finally kicked drugs and took up booze instead. The docs say my liver is hoisting the white flag.”
“But you’re still drinking.”
“If I’m going to die, I’ll die happy,” Finn said. “I’ve been in and out of rehab for years. I’d get sober for a while, but I couldn’t kick it. A few months ago, they said the damage was permanent. So what the hell.”
“You shouldn’t give up.”
“I don’t think of it as giving up. It’s more like suicide for dummies. If I had any guts, I would have killed myself years ago.”
“Finn, for God’s sake,” Tish said.
“What, does that shock you? I’m sorry. Laura never wanted to see me as a lost cause, either. She was the only one who ever tried to help me.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like this.”
“Hey, at least I’m not blaming anyone but myself anymore. For years, I blamed my mother. Even after Rikke and I got out of North Dakota, I figured that I was who I was because of what my mother did to us. That didn’t change anything, though, so I started blaming Rikke. It was all her fault that I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. I even moved away for a few years. But after another stint in rehab down in the Cities, I realized the only person that fucked me up was me. So I came back here. Nothing changed.”
“How is Rikke?” Tish asked.
Finn downed the last of his beer. He was wobbly. He leaned forward and pressed his face against the glass window of the boat. They were in the ship canal now, heading back toward the harbor. The bridge was up, and Finn bent his neck back to look at the span suspended above them.
“She’s like me. Bitter.”
“Is she still teaching?”
Finn swung his head back and forth. “She left the schools years ago. She was fired for having an affair with a student. These days, you do that, you go to jail. Back then, they just swept that kind of thing under the carpet.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. Laura liked Rikke, but you didn’t.”
Inside the harbor, Tish felt the wavy rocking of the boat diminish. She saw the ribbon of land on the Point and thought about Stride and Serena living there. Ahead of them, she saw the towers of grain elevators and the giant docks for the ore boats. They looked darker and larger in the evening gloom.
“Why did you want to see me, Finn?” Tish asked.
He shrugged. “I think about the old days a lot.”
“Sometimes I wish I could forget them.”
“I’ve forgotten way too much already. I’ve had blackouts all my life. Big gaps where nothing’s left. Maybe it’s better that way.”
Tish said nothing.
“I hear you’re writing a book about Laura’s death,” Finn continued.
“That’s right.”
“Why would you want to do something like that?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, why dig up the past? Wasn’t it bad enough as it is?”
“I guess I felt like I owed it to Laura,” Tish said.
Finn’s hands twitched. He eyed the bar, but he stayed on the bench. “You know I was in love with Laura back then.”
“No, she never told me,” Tish murmured.
“That’s okay. I knew she didn’t feel the same way. I never told her how I felt, because I didn’t want to hear her say it. But like I said, she was the only person who ever gave a shit about me. Other than Rikke.”
Finn put his hands on top of his skull and squeezed. He closed his eyes and opened them, blinking rapidly.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. As okay as I’ll ever be.” He added, “What happened between you two?”
“What do you mean?”
“That May, Laura hung out with me a lot. You weren’t around. She was really upset that you were gone. She needed someone.”
“Things happen between friends,” Tish said.
Finn nodded. “Do you feel guilty for leaving her behind? I mean, maybe if you’d stayed, she’d still be alive.”
Tish felt as if she’d been struck. She opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t. “Yes, I think about that.”
“Me, too. I wanted to be the one to save her. Instead, l
ook how it turned out.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No?” He hesitated. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you. There are some things I need to get off my chest.”
“About what?”
“Laura’s murder.”
Tish held her breath. “What is it?”
“A lot of it is missing, you know? Gone. I only remember bits and pieces. I was high, out of my mind, like usual. I just thought, maybe this would help you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I was in the park that night,” Finn told her. “The night Laura was killed.”
Tish’s hands clenched into fists. “What did you see? Did you see who killed her?”
“No.”
“Why were you there?” Tish asked.
“When I saw Laura and her sister in the park, I began following them. I was watching them down by the lake.”
Marijuana, Tish thought. “Why follow Laura?”
“Because I loved her. I told you.”
“Were you stalking Laura? Did you send her those letters?”
“What letters? What are you talking about?”
She looked for guile in his face and didn’t see any. “Never mind, what did you see that night?”
“I saw her leave her sister and her boyfriend by the lake. I followed her along the trail until she got back to the softball field.”
“Then what?”
“Someone attacked her in the field.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. It was too dark. I couldn’t see him. All I could see was the guy jumping her, pushing her to the ground. She screamed.”
“What did you do?”
Finn stared at his feet. “Nothing.”
“My God, Finn, how could you? You just let it happen?”
“I thought about shouting for help, but I didn’t want anyone to know I was there. Anyway, it didn’t matter.”
“What do you mean?”
“While I was watching, I heard someone behind me. Someone came running when Laura screamed. I ducked into the woods, and this guy ran out into the clearing. It was a big black guy. I didn’t know who he was.”
In the Dark aka The Watcher Page 15
