“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.”