“Did anyone stop by the house while you were outside? Or did you notice any unusual activity? People circling the neighborhood?”
Clark shook his head. “I keep a close eye out for that kind of thing.”
“Mary was sick for a couple of days that week,” Donna added. “She didn’t go to school on Wednesday or Thursday. I had to take her to the doctor’s office.”
“Did you see anyone new while you were there?”
“Yes, there was a male nurse in the lab we hadn’t met before. Mary liked him.”
Maggie jotted down the name of the clinic in Superior where Mary’s doctor was located. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s exactly the kind of information I need. If you remember anything else like that-any kind of casual contact Mary had with a stranger-please let me know immediately.”
Donna and Clark Biggs both nodded.
“Tell me, Ms. Bei, do you think that-well, is this man violent?” Donna asked. “Did he intend to do some kind of harm to Mary?”
Maggie knew what she was thinking. Maybe, somehow, it was better this way. Death by drowning was a better fate than to be kidnapped by a predator. God was actually being merciful.
“I just don’t know,” Maggie replied. “He hasn’t shown any inclination to violence yet, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have crossed the line eventually. He still may.”
“It doesn’t matter what his intentions were,” Clark growled. “He killed her. This pervert killed my little girl.”
19
The lake breeze made the water choppy out beyond the lift bridge. Dozens of seagulls placidly rode the swells. The small harbor tour boat bobbed in the white-tipped waves, and Tish Verdure grabbed hard to the red steel railing near the bow. She zipped up her leather jacket to her neck, but the cold made its way inside her clothes. Beside her, Finn Mathisen swayed with the rolling motion of the deck. He looked as tall and lean as a flagpole. His shirt billowed in the wind. He tilted his head back and finished his can of Miller Lite.
“You look really cold,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Come on, let’s go sit inside.”
He took her hand and led her back to the enclosed lower deck of the ship. Tish almost sang with joy when the door closed behind them, cutting off the wind and leaving her under the hot air vent from the boat’s furnace. She shivered, warming up. Most of the other passengers were here, seated on benches by the windows, soaking up the view. Finn found an open stretch of bench on the starboard side, where the boat looked out on the lake, and the two of them sat down.
“I’m going to get another beer,” Finn said. “You want something?”
“No, thanks.”
She watched him head up to the bar. His dress clothes looked a size too large, as if he had dropped weight since he wore them. He was in his late forties, like her, but he wore his age hard. She noticed a tremor in his hands. A yellowing in his skin. He was ill. She wondered if his shaved head was voluntary, or whether he had lost his hair to some kind of cancer treatment.
When he came back, he noticed her eyeing his bare skull. “I was losing most of my hair anyway.”
“The shaved look is trendy now,” Tish said.
“You don’t have to say that. I figured bald was better than having a forehead that went halfway up my head. My hair used to be so thick it was like an Afro, but I started finding blond curls on my pillow in my twenties.”
He popped the top of his beer can.
“So how are you, Finn?” Tish asked.
Finn drank down half the can on his first swallow. He wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt. “How am I? I guess you can see how I am.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Self-inflicted wounds,” he said. He held up the beer can. “This is the enemy. Back then, I was mostly into grass and coke. Not that I have to tell you that, huh? I finally kicked drugs and took up booze instead. The docs say my liver is hoisting the white flag.”
“But you’re still drinking.”
“If I’m going to die, I’ll die happy,” Finn said. “I’ve been in and out of rehab for years. I’d get sober for a while, but I couldn’t kick it. A few months ago, they said the damage was permanent. So what the hell.”
“You shouldn’t give up.”
“I don’t think of it as giving up. It’s more like suicide for dummies. If I had any guts, I would have killed myself years ago.”
“Finn, for God’s sake,” Tish said.
“What, does that shock you? I’m sorry. Laura never wanted to see me as a lost cause, either. She was the only one who ever tried to help me.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like this.”
“Hey, at least I’m not blaming anyone but myself anymore. For years, I blamed my mother. Even after Rikke and I got out of North Dakota, I figured that I was who I was because of what my mother did to us. That didn’t change anything, though, so I started blaming Rikke. It was all her fault that I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. I even moved away for a few years. But after another stint in rehab down in the Cities, I realized the only person that fucked me up was me. So I came back here. Nothing changed.”
“How is Rikke?” Tish asked.
Finn downed the last of his beer. He was wobbly. He leaned forward and pressed his face against the glass window of the boat. They were in the ship canal now, heading back toward the harbor. The bridge was up, and Finn bent his neck back to look at the span suspended above them.
“She’s like me. Bitter.”
“Is she still teaching?”
Finn swung his head back and forth. “She left the schools years ago. She was fired for having an affair with a student. These days, you do that, you go to jail. Back then, they just swept that kind of thing under the carpet.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. Laura liked Rikke, but you didn’t.”
Inside the harbor, Tish felt the wavy rocking of the boat diminish. She saw the ribbon of land on the Point and thought about Stride and Serena living there. Ahead of them, she saw the towers of grain elevators and the giant docks for the ore boats. They looked darker and larger in the evening gloom.
“Why did you want to see me, Finn?” Tish asked.
He shrugged. “I think about the old days a lot.”
“Sometimes I wish I could forget them.”
“I’ve forgotten way too much already. I’ve had blackouts all my life. Big gaps where nothing’s left. Maybe it’s better that way.”