“Don’t say that. You’re lucky.”
“Yeah. People see me, they say, there goes a lucky man.”
Tish sat down on the floor next to Finn and slid an arm around his shoulder. His bare skin was clammy. “Maybe you should be in bed.”
“I’ve been in bed for days. I pretended to be asleep so Rikke would finally leave me alone. She’s afraid of what I’ll do.”
“Does she have reason to be afraid?”
“You mean, will I do it again? I want to, but I’m a coward. How pathetic is that?”
“I feel guilty,” Tish told him. “Like I did this to you by coming back.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Then why did you do it?” she asked. “Was it because of Laura’s murder? Did you remember something more?”
Finn squeezed his eyes shut. A tear bloomed like a rose out of the corner of his eye and trickled past his nose to the corner of his mouth. “Everyone wants me to remember, but I don’t.”
“I think you do.”
Finn shook his head. “I never should have gone to the park that night.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I can’t stop!” Finn exclaimed. “Don’t you get it? I’ve never been able to stop.”
“Stop what?”
He clenched his fists. “Watching. That’s who I am. I’m a watcher.”
“You mean the young girls in their bedrooms?” Tish asked. “That was you?”
He put his face in his hands and nodded.
“Why, Finn?”
“You think it’s my choice? You think I want to be like this?” He stared at the floor and added, “Mom made me watch. I didn’t even know what was going on, but she made me watch. I hated her for that.”
Tish stared at the bed and began to understand. “Did you watch Laura?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Here. I would watch her in bed when she stayed with us.”
“Did she know?”
“No. Not at first.”
“You said you were in love with her, Finn. How could you do that to someone you loved?”
“I told you. I can’t stop. I wish I could gouge my eyes out.”
“Did you know Laura was going to be in the park that night?”
Finn’s head bobbed.
“How did you know?” Tish asked.
“She told me. I knew she was running away. It was my fault. I scared her.”
“Did she find out you were spying on her?”
“Yes. I told her everything. I had to. But it was a mistake. She didn’t understand.”
“You kept following her after the fight with Peter, didn’t you? You followed her all the way to the beach.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I did.”
Tish felt as if she were being suffocated. “What happened?”
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“Finn, you have to tell me.”
“
Tish closed her eyes and leaned close to him, smelling his sweat and fear, murmuring in his ear. “You’re so close. What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you ever dream about it?” she asked.
“No. I don’t dream.”
“I bet you do, Finn.”
“Go. Just go. Get away from me.”
“Tell me about your dreams.”
Finn shook his head mutely. She knew he was ready to break.
“Tell me,” she repeated.
“I have nightmares,” he whispered. “I’ve had them for years.”
“About what? What do you see?”
“Blood.”
Tish waited.
“There’s so much blood,” he said. “It’s all over her.”
“What else?”
“Noise. Like something sucking. Gurgling. And the wind. Except it’s not the wind. It whooshes. Like a bird’s wings.”
“What is it?” Tish asked. But she knew.
Finn’s eyes grew wide, and his mouth opened into a hole like the entrance to a cave. “It’s the bat. I can see it going up and down. Up and down. I can’t make it stop. Somebody make it stop!”
He stared at his hands. His bandaged hands.
“I killed her,” he said. “Don’t you understand?
35
Who killed her?” Stride asked Hubert Jones.
“I have no idea.”
Stride shook his head in frustration. “Then why are we here?” Jones tilted his bottle of beer and drained it, then dabbed at his puffy lips with a napkin. They had relocated to a quiet table in the rear of a bar in Terminal 5.
“I never said I knew who killed that girl,” Jones said. “I only know that it wasn’t me. When I last saw her, she was alive. I was shocked when word spread at the tracks that she had been murdered.”
“Why not come forward?”
Jones chuckled and shook his head. “When a white girl gets murdered, the first question that the police ask is, ‘Who was the nearest black man?’ You said yourself, the cop on the case was dirty. I knew what was coming. I knew I had to get out of town.”
“You said Laura had secrets,” Stride said.
“Yes, she did. I knew it the moment I saw this girl.”
“When was that?” Stride asked.
“In the woods. I saw her pass me no farther away than you are now, but she didn’t even see me. She was determined. She had a destination in her heart. It was in her walk and how she held her backpack. I looked at her and I thought to myself, tomorrow this girl will be gone. Not gone as in dead, mind you. Gone as in somewhere else. Gone as in starting a new life.”
Stride wasn’t convinced. “Tell me about the fight in the softball field.”
