In the Dark aka The Watcher

by Brian Freeman

  Maggie closed the laptop when the phone rang. It was Max Guppo.

  “Sorry to get you up,” he said.

  “I was up.”

  “You said you wanted to know as soon as he was spotted again.”

  “The peeper?”

  “Right. I’m down in Gary. A retarded girl saw him outside her bedroom. I’m here with the father. His name is Clark Biggs.”

  Maggie took down the address. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  She took five minutes to shower, then pulled on a black T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of square-heeled lace-up boots. She didn’t bother drying her hair, just let it fall in wet, messy bangs. A diamond stud winked from her tiny nose. She grabbed a burgundy leather jacket from her closet as she left the house and piled into the yellow Avalanche in her driveway.

  Maggie sped down the hill onto I-35 and headed through the jumble of freeway overpasses that led south out of the city. The harbor sparkled in a swath of moonlight as the clouds raced past on her left. She accelerated to eighty-five miles an hour through the industrial zone, where plumes of steam belched into the air, forming white dragons against the black sky. Lingering raindrops tapped on her windshield. She veered off the interstate at Highway 23 and followed the fifteen-mile stretch of worn-out towns that tracked the path of the St. Louis River. Low mountains loomed beyond the road, swarming with evergreens and birches. She could see green tracks carved into the hills, which turned white with snow and became ski slopes in the winter. They weren’t exactly black diamonds, but if you were into downhill skiing, you didn’t have many alternatives in a state as flat as Minnesota.

  Gary, where Clark Biggs lived, was one of the many small communities that had lost their way in the superstore generation. Its main street looked like a movie set out of the 1950s. Its brick buildings were mostly abandoned. Paint flecked away on old signs advertising Coca-Cola and Miller High Life. Between every building was an empty lot with weeds growing through cracks in the concrete. The bars were the new economic backbone of these towns, and they kept the Duluth police busy every night after midnight.

  Clark’s small house was west of the highway and almost directly across the street from the town’s elementary school. The development butted up against a densely wooded area of parkland. Maggie drove past the development in order to scout the crime scene and found herself in a trailer park on the opposite side of the woods. The forest encroached on the mobile home community from all sides, and it wouldn’t be hard to park a car unnoticed and then duck into the trees and disappear.

  She did a U-turn and returned to the development where Clark Biggs lived. The streets were wide, and the lots were large and flat, occupied by one- and two-story matchbox houses with detached garages. Tall, bushy oaks offered plenty of shade. It was the kind of neighborhood where cars and trucks didn’t get traded in; they simply sat on the lawn, rusting. Many of the houses had fenced yards to keep out the deer, but not the Biggs house, which was open and all on one level. It was painted white, with a block of five concrete steps leading up to the front door. The roof was missing a few of its red shingles. The large yard featured soaring pine trees and a weeping willow, and directly behind it, the yard spilled into the forest. The grass was long.

  For a peeping tom, it was a prime choice. A quiet area. First-floor windows. An easy sprint back to the woods. This was a neighborhood where the biggest worry was Dad losing his foundry job or brother Jim getting cut in a bar fight after midnight. No one thought about pulling the shades and curtains. There was no one around to watch.

  Maggie parked on the street, and Guppo met her outside. He was in his fifties and not much taller than Maggie, but the stretch dress pants needed to accommodate his girth could have doubled as a parachute. A few strands of greased black hair labored to stretch across his skull.

  Guppo filled her in quickly.

  “What about these footprints that Biggs found?” Maggie asked.

  “There’s not much we can do with them,” Guppo said. “The rain mushed the prints by the time we got here.”

  “Did the peeper head right into the woods?”

  Guppo nodded. “We followed the trail to the trees, and we lost it there.”

  “There’s a trailer park on the other side of the woods,” Maggie said. “We need to talk to the people there. Kids, too.”

  “You don’t want me to wake people up over a peeping tom, do you?”

  “No, tomorrow is soon enough. I want to know if anyone saw strangers, cars, anything unusual. Find out how many people knew this girl, too. I want to know how this guy finds them. She’s another blonde, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pretty?”

  “Well, yeah, but not in an adult way. She’s like a child.”

  “Okay.”

  Maggie hiked up the steps. Her big heels made a clip-clop noise. The screen door was unlocked, and she rapped on it with her knuckles and let herself inside. The house smelled like McDonald’s food. The carpet in the living room was worn and gray. The furnishings showed their age with nicks and scratches.

  “Mr. Biggs?” she called.

  Clark Biggs emerged from the shadows of a hallway on her left. He had his finger over his mouth to quiet her.

  “Mary’s finally sleeping.”

  Maggie nodded and introduced herself. She quickly assessed Clark, who looked like a typical Minnesota blue-collar worker. Big and strong, a pot roast and Budweiser guy. Unlaced boots. Old clothes. Long, sandy hair with a ridge where his baseball cap had been. She could see sleeplessness and worry in his face.

  They took seats on the tattered sofa.

  “How is she?” Maggie asked.

  “Scared to death,” Clark said bitterly. “What kind of freak does that to a sweet little girl?”

  “I understand how you feel,” Maggie said. “My sergeant tells me that Mary is mentally handicapped, is that right?”

  Clark nodded. “She suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child that left her severely retarded.”

  “What happened?” Maggie asked.

  “A few other kids held her too long underwater as a game, if you can believe it. Physically, she’s a normal sixteen-year-old girl, but she’s barely at a kindergarten level for learning.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me, Ms. Bei. Mary is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I don’t give a shit whether she’s five years old going on forty. I would do anything for her.”

  “Of course.”

  Maggie decided that she liked Clark Biggs. She had a weakness for men who hid behind a brusque mask. Mary was the center of Clark’s universe, despite the pain, expense, and hardship that her disability must have caused him over the years. Guppo had told her that Clark was divorced, and she imagined that taking care of a girl like Mary had proved to be more than their marriage could endure. He didn’t look like a man who complained about it. He just went about his life.

  “The other police officer said this man has done this before,” Clark said. “Is that true?”

  “We think it’s the same man, yes. There have been nine reported peeping incidents on the south side of the city and in southwest Superior. The girls are all blond teenagers, like Mary.”

  “You mean he chooses them?”

  “We think so, yes.”

  “Who is this son of a bitch?”

  “That’s what we need to find out. Can you tell me if you know any of the other victims?” She rattled off the list of names from memory.

  Clark shrugged. “Katie Larson. That’s Andy’s girl, right? They live in Morgan Park?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know Andy from church. Katie babysat for Mary a couple times. That was two or three years ago. I don’t know any of the others.”

  Maggie jotted down the relationship in her notes. There had been ancillary connections among some of the other girls, too. Two of them were on the same soccer team. Two got their hair cut at the same place. Three went to the same
high school. Nothing constituted a trend that tied any of the other girls together.

  “Does Mary go to school?” Maggie asked.

  Clark nodded. “She attends a special school in Superior for developmentally disabled children. My wife takes her there during the week.”

  “You and your wife are divorced?”

  “Yes, I have Mary on the weekends. Donna takes her during the week.”

  His face twitched. It was a sore subject.

  “May I have Donna’s address and phone number? I’ll need to talk to her.”

  Clark recited them. “I haven’t called Donna to tell her what happened. She’s coming by in the morning. I want to let her know in person.”

  “I won’t talk to her until you do.”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sure Sergeant Guppo asked you some of these things already, but please bear with me,” Maggie continued. “Have you noticed any strangers near your house recently? Have you seen any parked cars in the neighborhood that you didn’t recognize?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “Has anything unusual happened involving Mary lately? Or has your wife mentioned any problems with her during the week?”

  Clark shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Does Mary interact with many other girls outside school?”

  “No, she’s mostly with Donna or me.”

  Maggie nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you could write up a list tomorrow of the people that Mary regularly comes into contact with. Men and women. People at school. People at your workplace or your wife’s workplace, if she ever goes there. Anything like that. Because of her condition, Mary’s universe is substantially smaller than those of the other girls who have been peeped, which may make it easier for us to find an overlapping connection with the other victims.”

  “I’ll get you a list,” Clark said.

  “This is an awkward question, Mr. Biggs, but can you tell me more about Mary’s intelligence level? Do you think she would recognize the man who peeped her? Or could she pick him out of a lineup if she saw him?”

  “She’s not stupid,” Clark snapped. “She’s just disabled.”

  “I wasn’t trying to offend you. I just want to know if she could be a witness for us.”

  “I don’t know whether she saw this guy’s face, but Mary remembers things. If she saw him, and you show her a bunch of pictures, she’ll pick him out. I’ll never let her inside a courtroom, though, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I understand. Would you mind if I had an officer bring a photo book of registered sex offenders in this region? For Mary to look through?”

  “I don’t know if I want to traumatize her like that,” Clark said. “If she sees him in there, she’s going to be scared.”

  “That may be the only way to find him.”

  Clark sighed. “Okay. I want to be there, though.”

  “Of course.” Maggie added, “I’d like to come back and talk to Mary, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “She’ll be with Donna. You’ll have to clear it with her. I have to tell you, I’m not too crazy about the idea. You’re not going to get anything from her, and I don’t like her talking to strangers.”

  “I promise I won’t get her upset.”

  “That’s not a promise you can keep,” Clark said. “She’s a big girl, but she’s a child. She’s scared of things she doesn’t understand.”

  “May I see her?” Maggie asked.

  “What, now?”

  “Not to talk to her. I just want to see what she looks like.”

  Clark frowned. “I don’t want to wake her up.”

  “I’ll be very quiet. I’d like to see her room, too.”

  Clark relented and led her down the hall. For a big man, he walked quietly on the old floorboards. He inched Mary’s door open and peered inside, then let Maggie squeeze into the room in front of him. Mary was asleep and snoring gently. Her father was right-she looked like any other teenage girl that way. Other than Mary being blond, Maggie didn’t see any physical characteristics that she shared with the other victims. She was heavier than most of the other girls. Her hair was the curliest. She was lying on her stomach, with the blankets kicked halfway down her body. Her nightgown had bunched up, and her lower back was exposed. Maggie noticed a tattoo of a butterfly on her spine.

  She silently checked out the windows. With the night-light shining, she wasn’t sure if Mary would have been able to see much outside. Maggie didn’t feel confident about getting any results from the photo array of local sex offenders.

  She returned with Clark Biggs to the living room.

  “I notice your daughter has a tattoo,” Maggie said.

  “So?”

  “I was just surprised.”

  “Mary loves butterflies. Her mother thought she would like having a tattoo of one. They did it without telling me.”

  “Would you have objected?”

  Clark frowned. “No, I guess not, but I’ve got tattoos, and I know it hurts like hell to get them. Even so, Mary was thrilled with it. She likes showing it off by lifting her shirt, though. She shows it to everyone. I don’t like that.”

  “What do you mean, everyone?”

  “If someone drives by, and she’s in the yard, she lifts her shirt. If someone comes to the door, same thing. I can’t make her stop.”

  “I understand. I think that’s all for now, Mr. Biggs.”

  “I hope you nail this bastard. I’m going to sleep on the floor in Mary’s room until you do.”

  “There’s really no need for that,” Maggie told him. “I know it was an awful experience for Mary, but it’s over.”

  “Until the next time,” Clark said.

  “I don’t think you need to worry about a next time. This peeper keeps changing targets. We’re trying to catch up to him by figuring out how he picks his victims.”

  “Bullshit,” Clark snapped.

  Maggie arched her head in surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, he’s done this to Mary before. What’s to say he won’t come back again?”

  “You’re saying this isn’t the first time Mary saw this man?”

  Clark shook his head. “I think it happened last week, too.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why didn’t you report it?”

  “I didn’t think there was anything to report,” Clark said. “I thought Mary had a bad dream. I thought she imagined it. But now that I think about it, the way she was shouting, ‘Him! Him!’ I think it was because the guy came back.”

  The guy came back.

  That was a first, as far as Maggie knew. None of the other victims had suggested that the man might have been watching them before. Of course, maybe he got lucky. Maybe they didn’t notice.

  Maggie didn’t think so, though. This was new behavior. New and frightening.

  She didn’t like it.

  10

  Serena drove west along the Point on Wednesday morning. After several days of rain, the clouds had blown out across the lake, leaving the city sunny and warm. In the calm harbor on her left, she spotted the rust-colored superstructure of an ore tanker shouldering through the deep water toward the lift bridge. She swore. She was running late already for her meeting with Peter Stanhope, and she knew that she would have to spend ten minutes now waiting for the boat to clear the canal and make its way to the open water.

  As she expected, the bridge was up. Hers was the fourth car in line. She parked, rolled down her window to let in a humid breeze, and picked up a paperback by Louise Penny. When you lived on the Point, you were always prepared for delays at the bridge. Serena read several more pages of Still Life, until she saw the giant ship gliding under the bridge span. The boats always seemed to clear the bridge with only inches to spare, and they were an impressive sight, vast and silent. When the ship and the bridge exchanged farewell blasts of their signal horns, Serena turned her Mustang back on, and a couple of minutes later, she headed through
Canal Park toward the city center.

  Peter Stanhope’s law firm occupied the top two floors of the Lonsdale Building, in the commercial sector of Superior Street, among the banks, brokers, lawyers, and government workers that made the city tick. The facade was made of elegantly carved, copper-colored brick, with a roof line that resembled a Doric column. The building was smaller than the other high-rises around it and dated back to 1894. Peter could have chosen taller and more modern surroundings in the glass tower of the bank building one block east, but he had explained to Serena that he wanted his office to have a link to a more glamorous past, when the city, like his father, was rich and prosperous.

  Serena found a parking meter and hurried across Superior Street between cars. She wore black pinstriped dress pants that emphasized her long legs, pointed-toe heels, and an untucked turquoise silk shirt. Her black hair was loose and fell around her shoulders. She carried a slim burgundy briefcase and felt as if she were dressed to be a ladder-climbing corporate executive. It was a strange feeling. When she was a Vegas cop, she had worn tight jeans and sleeveless T-shirts and hung her shield from her belt.

  She took the elevator to the top floor at ten minutes after ten o’clock. She was panicked about being late, but she relaxed when the receptionist told her that Peter was tied up in another meeting and was running at least twenty minutes behind schedule. She took a seat on the sofa, then got up again and paced restlessly in the waiting area.

  The lobby furniture was antique and expensive. Black-and-white photographs adorned the wall, showing Peter’s father and the postwar buildings, ships, and train cars of Stanhope Industries. Serena saw more modern memorabilia, too, including framed newspaper headlines of the major litigation victories of Peter’s law firm. They had won forty million dollars in punitive damages from a Twin Cities manufacturer over a defective heart stent. Almost twenty million dollars following a school bus accident that left one child dead. And so on. Peter and his team of associates were personal injury lawyers with a vengeance.