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.”