“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
