In the Dark aka The Watcher

by Brian Freeman

  When she reached the point in the trail where Mary had run for the river, Maggie veered off the path into the woods. She knew the ev techs had been over this ground thoroughly, and she didn’t expect to find anything they had missed. Even so, she wanted to put herself in Finn’s shoes. Mary is screaming, running away. The noise terrifies him. He escapes back into the trees, heading for his car, pushing through spindly branches that claw at him, hearing his own breath and the squish of wet leaves beneath his feet. It isn’t far, but it must have seemed far, wondering if he would be caught. Maggie saw the road ahead of her. She emerged from the trees, as he would have done, and found herself on the gravel shoulder of the highway. The silver RAV4 would have been parked right here.

  He got in; his tires spun on the loose rock; he sped away.

  Maggie stared down the curving stretch of road. She could see the flat area near the parking lot where the young boy had spilled off his bicycle. From there, Donna could see clearly up the slope. She would have seen the RAV parked here as she called out for help. It all must have happened quickly. Mary wandering up the trail. Donna noticing she was gone. The man spying Mary, realizing she was coming closer, stepping out onto the trail to confront her. Mary wailing, Donna running to find her, Finn-if it was Finn-pushing through the trees.

  Maggie realized that Finn couldn’t have predicted that Mary would wander up the trail alone. That was a bonus. He knew that Donna and Mary came down to the park most Fridays and that they spent time sitting on the bench by the river. So the most he could have hoped for was to spy on her. Watch her. Where would the best place have been to do that? Maggie didn’t think he would have risked sitting in his car, with traffic coming and going. He would have taken binoculars and staked out a spot near the trail, closer to where they sat.

  She wandered down the slope, looking for a place where she could duck back into the trees. She kept an eye on the parking lot, as Finn would have done, trying to find a hiding place with the best vantage. Twenty yards away, she found a slim trail, where the foliage was beaten down, a shortcut for kids to hike and ride bikes off the highway on their way to the river. She followed it, certain that Finn would have used this route. Maggie reached the wider trail, the one Mary had used, and realized that if she continued down to the water, she would have a largely unobstructed view across the bend of the river toward the clearing where Donna and Mary sat, watching the birds fly.

  Maggie scooted down the gentle slope to the water. There, she could imagine Finn tucked behind the brush, crouched down, binoculars in hand, zooming in on the pretty young face a hundred yards away. When she studied the area, however, she didn’t see any remnants of someone lurking there. She would get the ev techs to come back and examine the spot in detail, but she wasn’t optimistic.

  Frustrated, Maggie retraced her steps up the slope. When she pushed her way back onto the main trail, she was surprised to find a man watching her, no more than ten feet away.

  It was Clark Biggs.

  “Oh!” Maggie exclaimed. “Mr. Biggs. I’ve been looking for you.”

  Clark nodded but said nothing. His hands were jammed in his pockets. He hadn’t shaved, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept. Maggie thought that big men always took it hardest. The burly ones were used to thinking of themselves as strong, but when it came to something like this, a strong man was nothing in the face of disaster. His muscles didn’t matter. His courage didn’t matter.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “Talking to Mary,” he said.

  “I understand.”

  “She loved the water,” he continued. “It’s so ironic, because the water is what killed her. I used to take her down to the Wisconsin Point, and we’d spend hours on the beach there. She hated to leave. It was her favorite place.”

  Maggie said nothing.

  “Tell me you found this bastard.”

  “We’re pursuing some promising leads, but I don’t want to get your hopes up, because this could all come to nothing. But I do need your help.”

  “Anything.”

  Maggie took a breath. “If you don’t mind my asking, how are you? I can only imagine what you’re going through. And your ex-wife, too. I know that families are often reluctant to get help, but there are people you can talk to.”

  “I don’t want that kind of help,” Clark said.

  “If you should change your mind, call me. I can give you some names.”

  “I know a little about you, Ms. Bei. I know you lost someone close to you earlier this year, too.”

  “Losing a husband isn’t the same as losing your daughter,” Maggie said. She didn’t add that Eric’s murder had come at a time when their marriage was largely over, when their love had wasted away to contempt.

  Clark shrugged. “Loss is loss. Just tell me, how can I help? I want to see this man rotting away behind bars where he belongs.”

  Maggie reached into the pocket of her shorts and extracted an eight-by-eight postcard with six photos pasted in two rows. All the photos were from driver’s license records. All the men were bald, in their forties.

  “I’d like you to look carefully at this photo array and tell me if you recognize any of the men here.”

  Clark took the wrinkled postcard from her hand and held it up at arm’s length from his face. Maggie watched his eyes as he studied each photo. He hesitated at the man in the upper right corner, then moved on. When he was done, he went back to that photo and squinted at it for nearly a minute. Finally, he tapped the picture with his finger.

  “This one,” he said. “I’ve seen him before. I don’t know where, but I know I’ve seen him.”

  “He’s a delivery driver. On the Saturday that Mary first saw the man outside her bedroom window, this man delivered a package to your house. A swing set.”

  Clark’s fingers tightened on the card. Maggie didn’t like what she saw in his eyes. She pried the card out of his hands and slipped it back in her pocket.

  “So it’s him,” he said.

  “We’re a long way from proving it, but we think so.”

  “Does he drive a silver RAV4?”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “That should be it then, right? I mean, what else do you need? You’ve got the right car, and you’ve got him at my house. Can’t you arrest him?”

  “Nothing would make me happier, but we don’t have enough evidence yet,” Maggie told him. “We’re going to be executing a search warrant, and we’re going to question him thoroughly. Depending on what we find, we may be able to charge him with interference with privacy. In effect, that’s the law against peeping toms. However, we’re a long way from a manslaughter charge, and to be honest with you, we may never get there.”

  “So this guy harasses my daughter to death, and he gets a slap on the wrist.”

  “Please, Mr. Biggs. The investigation is still in an early stage. If this is the man who harmed Mary, I will do everything I can to see that he’s punished for it.”

  “Does he have a connection to the other girls who were peeped?”

  Maggie nodded. “He made deliveries to three of the other houses. That’s significant, but not necessarily persuasive for a jury. We’re looking for ways that he might be connected to the remaining girls, but we haven’t found anything yet.”

  Clark’s face twitched. He snapped a branch from a tree overhanging the trail and broke it in half again and again, dropping the pieces on the dirt. He stared down at the river, where the reflection of the sun was blinding.

  “I was hoping you could remember what happened when the swing set was delivered,” Maggie said. “Did the driver have any kind of interaction with Mary? Did he see her?”

  Clark closed his eyes and didn’t respond. Maggie waited for him without interrupting, and when Clark opened his eyes again, he nodded slowly.

  “Mary and I were both outside,” he said.

  “Did anything happen?”

  Clark sighed. “Yes. Mary exposed herself. She lifted up her T-shirt
and showed him her breasts. She did that kind of thing all the time. She was just a kid, she didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “How did the driver react?”

  “I apologized. He said it was no big deal.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you recall ever seeing this man around Mary before?”

  Clark shook his head. “No. I don’t get many packages. He didn’t act as if he knew who she was.” He swore and added, “Is that really enough to set these guys off? I mean, could just seeing Mary’s breasts turn him into a freak?”

  “It happens,” Maggie said. “To men like this, an innocent exposure of nudity by a girl-even accidentally-can trigger an explosive string of erotic fantasies. They literally build it up in their heads until they believe they have an actual relationship with her. It can become an obsession.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Clark said. “I was always telling Mary not to do it, but she didn’t understand. She thought it was funny.”

  “It’s not your fault. Or Mary’s.”

  “Didn’t this guy realize she was retarded? I mean, how can anyone think that about a little girl?”

  Maggie didn’t answer.

  “Don’t let him get away,” Clark told her.

  “We’ll do our best.”

  Maggie walked away toward the parking lot, but Clark stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. His grip was surprisingly tender.

  “There’s something else,” he said.

  She turned back. “What is it?”

  “He saw her tattoo.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The driver saw Mary’s tattoo. She was bent over, and her shirt rode up, and he saw the tattoo she had in the small of her back. Remember? You saw it. It was a butterfly. He was staring at it, and when I noticed, he looked away. He said something to her about it. Like how pretty her tattoo was. Mary loved that. That was when she flipped up her shirt.”

  “A butterfly tattoo,” Maggie said. She did remember.

  “Exactly. I don’t know if it means anything.”

  “It just might.”

  27

  The interrogation room was small. From the door to the wall was barely six feet. When the door was closed, it felt as if the ceiling were coming down and the walls were squeezing against your shoulders. The fluorescent light was cold and sterile. You blinked when you looked up. You could smell each other’s sweat, farts, and belches. There was one metal desk-it barely fit inside-and one wobbly chair where the suspect sat, close to the ground. Stride sat next to Maggie on top of the desk, their hips touching. Finn squirmed in the chair, his long legs uncomfortably bent, like a spider’s.

  “So what is it now?” Finn said. “I came down here like you asked. God, don’t you guys have anything else to investigate? Have all the criminals gone on vacation? Shit, it was thirty years ago.”

  Stride nodded at Maggie, who read Finn his rights.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Finn exclaimed. “What the hell is this? Are you arresting me for something?”

  “Not yet,” Stride said.

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “Look, I was just trying to help Tish. I didn’t have to say a word. Goddamn it, Rikke was right. I never should have gotten involved in this.”

  “You’re not under arrest,” Stride told him. “We just want to make sure you understand your rights. You can call a lawyer if you want. You can walk out that door. Got it? We want to clear a few things up, but that’s up to you. Of course, it’s going to be hard to clear things up if you’re not talking to us.”

  Stride saw blue veins in Finn’s skull, twisting over his head like rivers.

  “Yeah, sure, talk,” Finn said. “I don’t care. Can we open the door?”

  “Maybe in a few minutes. This is the only room available.”

  “How about some water?” Finn asked.

  “This won’t take long, and then we’ll go and get some water and a little more air to breathe. Okay?”

  “I just want to get this over with.”

  Maggie grabbed a manila envelope from the desk. She opened it and slid out a photograph, which she handed to Finn.

  “Does this look familiar?” she asked.

  The photograph was a close-up of a monarch butterfly tattoo on a girl’s back, life-sized and detailed, with orange-and-black wings that looked as if they would flutter in the wind. The photo had been taken at the morgue. The girl was Mary Biggs.

  “It’s a tattoo,” Finn said.

  “I didn’t ask you what it was,” Maggie snapped. “I asked if it looked familiar. Have you ever seen a tattoo like this before?”

  Finn turned the photograph over and refused to look at it. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “No? On Saturday, May 24, you delivered a package to a man named Clark Biggs in Gary. His daughter, Mary, was in the front yard. She showed you her tattoo.” Maggie slapped the photograph. “This tattoo.”

  “I don’t remember. I deliver hundreds of packages every month.”

  “This girl exposed herself to you. She showed you her breasts. Does that happen every month, too?”

  Finn smiled. “You’d be surprised. Women answer the door, and a lot of times, they’re not wearing much.”

  “This is funny to you?” Maggie asked. “The night you delivered that package, someone was outside Mary’s bedroom window, watching her undress. He was there again the next week. And on Friday night, he was on a trail with her in Fond du Lac. Terrifying her. Terrorizing her. Mary was just a little girl inside her brain. She didn’t understand. She ran, and she fell into the river, and she drowned. A sweet, innocent girl. Dead.”

  Finn’s skin was the color of dirty dishwater. He stared at his feet. “That’s too bad.”

  “Is that all you can say? Let’s cut to the chase, Finn. Mary’s mother saw you. She saw the silver RAV you drive, too.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “You delivered packages to three other girls who have been peeped in their bedrooms in the last month.”

  “I told you, I deliver a lot of packages.”

  Maggie reached into the envelope for another sheaf of papers stapled together. She folded the first page back. “This isn’t the first time, is it, Finn? You’ve been watching girls for a long time. According to DMV records, you lived in the Uptown area of Minneapolis for three years in the late 1990s. During that time, there was a string of eleven reported incidents of a peeper targeting blond teenagers. The peepings started a month after you moved to the city. They stopped right after you left.”

  “Minneapolis is a big city. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Fifteen years ago, you were fired from your job as a custodian at a school in Superior,” Maggie continued. “I talked to the woman who was the principal back then. She said there were accusations that you had been going into the locker room at inappropriate times to watch the girls.”

  “Oh, come on, like I’d be the first janitor who liked to sneak a peek now and then,” Finn said. “I’m not saying I did, but what’s the big deal? The teachers all do it, too. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “We’re searching your house right now,” Maggie told him. “There are officers tearing your place apart. What are they going to find, Finn? Photos? Maps? We’re going over your car with a toothbrush, too. We’ll find something that ties you to the girls you’ve been stalking.”

  Finn’s bald head glistened with sweat under the hot light. “I think I should go. I thought you wanted to talk about Laura. I’m not saying anything else about stalking or peeping or whatever the hell you think I did.”

  “You can go if you want,” Stride said. “But you brought it up, so let’s talk about Laura. She had a tattoo almost identical to the one that Mary Biggs had. Did Mary’s tattoo remind you of Laura? Is that why you focused on her?”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “You told me you saw Lau
ra and Cindy in the woods that night by accident. Then we find out about Mary Biggs and all these blond girls with someone panting outside their bedroom window. You know what I think, Finn? I think you were watching Laura. I think you were stalking her. Sending her threats. I think you followed her to the park that night.”

  “I didn’t stalk her,” Finn replied. “I never sent her any letters.”

  “There’s something else,” Stride continued. “We never released this to the media. Someone masturbated at the crime scene where Laura was beaten to death. I guess the guy was so turned on by what he had done he had to jerk off. We still have the semen, Finn. What happens next is we get a court order to sample your DNA and we match it against the semen we found at the scene. I think we’re going to get a match, Finn. I think you were at the murder scene that night.”

  “I told you, I don’t remember,” Finn said.

  “Then let us help your memory. Give us a DNA sample right now. Let us run the test. Don’t you want to know the truth?”

  Finn looked at them, horrified. “No.”

  “You told me how hard it is to live your life not knowing if you killed someone. Maybe it will unlock your memory if you find out you were really there.” Stride paused and said, “Or maybe you remember already, Finn. Maybe you know what happened that night.”

  “I can’t tell you anything. It’s gone.”

  Stride shook his head. “It’s not gone. It’s still inside your head. You say you saw someone attacking Laura. Trying to rape her. Are you sure it wasn’t you?”

  “No! That wasn’t me. It was someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know who it was. I couldn’t see.”

  “Then Dada broke it up. Laura ran into the woods. Are you sure you didn’t follow her?”

  “No,” Finn told them. He uncrossed and recrossed his legs.

  “You said you don’t remember. Isn’t it possible you did follow Laura into the woods? Toward the beach?”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” His eyes darted around, looking for escape.

  “That night didn’t end in the field. Someone went after Laura. Someone took the baseball bat and chased her up to the north beach. Someone killed her. Beat her to death. Hammered her until she was almost unrecognizable. If I did that, I’d probably black it out, too.”