Finn’s skin was the color of dirty dishwater. He stared at his feet. “That’s too bad.”
“Is that all you can say? Let’s cut to the chase, Finn. Mary’s mother saw you. She saw the silver RAV you drive, too.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“You delivered packages to three other girls who have been peeped in their bedrooms in the last month.”
“I told you, I deliver a lot of packages.”
Maggie reached into the envelope for another sheaf of papers stapled together. She folded the first page back. “This isn’t the first time, is it, Finn? You’ve been watching girls for a long time. According to DMV records, you lived in the Uptown area of Minneapolis for three years in the late 1990s. During that time, there was a string of eleven reported incidents of a peeper targeting blond teenagers. The peepings started a month after you moved to the city. They stopped right after you left.”
“Minneapolis is a big city. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Fifteen years ago, you were fired from your job as a custodian at a school in Superior,” Maggie continued. “I talked to the woman who was the principal back then. She said there were accusations that you had been going into the locker room at inappropriate times to watch the girls.”
“Oh, come on, like I’d be the first janitor who liked to sneak a peek now and then,” Finn said. “I’m not saying I did, but what’s the big deal? The teachers all do it, too. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“We’re searching your house right now,” Maggie told him. “There are officers tearing your place apart. What are they going to find, Finn? Photos? Maps? We’re going over your car with a toothbrush, too. We’ll find something that ties you to the girls you’ve been stalking.”
Finn’s bald head glistened with sweat under the hot light. “I think I should go. I thought you wanted to talk about Laura. I’m not saying anything else about stalking or peeping or whatever the hell you think I did.”
“You can go if you want,” Stride said. “But you brought it up, so let’s talk about Laura. She had a tattoo almost identical to the one that Mary Biggs had. Did Mary’s tattoo remind you of Laura? Is that why you focused on her?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“You told me you saw Laura and Cindy in the woods that night by accident. Then we find out about Mary Biggs and all these blond girls with someone panting outside their bedroom window. You know what I think, Finn? I think you were watching Laura. I think you were stalking her. Sending her threats. I think you followed her to the park that night.”
“I didn’t stalk her,” Finn replied. “I never sent her any letters.”
“There’s something else,” Stride continued. “We never released this to the media. Someone masturbated at the crime scene where Laura was beaten to death. I guess the guy was so turned on by what he had done he had to jerk off. We still have the semen, Finn. What happens next is we get a court order to sample your DNA and we match it against the semen we found at the scene. I think we’re going to get a match, Finn. I think you were at the murder scene that night.”
“I told you, I don’t remember,” Finn said.
“Then let us help your memory. Give us a DNA sample right now. Let us run the test. Don’t you want to know the truth?”
Finn looked at them, horrified. “No.”
“You told me how hard it is to live your life not knowing if you killed someone. Maybe it will unlock your memory if you find out you were really there.” Stride paused and said, “Or maybe you remember already, Finn. Maybe you know what happened that night.”
“I can’t tell you anything. It’s gone.”
Stride shook his head. “It’s not gone. It’s still inside your head. You say you saw someone attacking Laura. Trying to rape her. Are you sure it wasn’t you?”
“No! That wasn’t me. It was someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know who it was. I couldn’t see.”
“Then Dada broke it up. Laura ran into the woods. Are you sure you didn’t follow her?”
“No,” Finn told them. He uncrossed and recrossed his legs.
“You said you don’t remember. Isn’t it possible you did follow Laura into the woods? Toward the beach?”
“I wouldn’t do that.” His eyes darted around, looking for escape.
“That night didn’t end in the field. Someone went after Laura. Someone took the baseball bat and chased her up to the north beach. Someone killed her. Beat her to death. Hammered her until she was almost unrecognizable. If I did that, I’d probably black it out, too.”
“Oh, my God,” Finn murmured.
“Or did you just see it? You’re a watcher, right? Did you see who killed Laura? Because that’s what we need to know. We need to know what happened.”
“I don’t remember.”
Maggie leaned forward. “You remember Mary Biggs, though, don’t you? You remember what she looked like, right? Well, here’s what she looks like now.”
She spilled a stack of photographs onto the desk. Autopsy photos. She picked them up one by one and pressed them into Finn’s hands, watching him go blue, watching him swallow hard, watching his head bob back and forth like the ticking of a clock as he stared, unable to look away, at the swollen, lifeless remains of Mary Biggs, pulled from the water after she drowned.
“You killed her, Finn. You killed this wonderful girl.”
Finn squeezed his eyes shut.
“OPEN YOUR EYES!” Maggie bellowed at him. His eyelids sprang up in shock. She clutched a close-up photo of Mary’s face, her skin puffed and pale. She shoved the photo so close to Finn that Mary’s face was his whole world, and he couldn’t see anything else.
“Tell me why,” Maggie said. “Tell me why you did this to her.” Her voice softened. “Look, I know you didn’t mean to. Did you love her? Did you want a chance to tell her how you felt? But she didn’t understand. She was scared of you.”
Finn gulped air like a fish. He swallowed hard as if something were in his mouth that wouldn’t go down.
“Mary and Laura both deserved better,” Stride said quietly.
Finn was a rubber band that had been stretched until it was frayed and ready to snap. When Finn buried his face in his hands, Stride caught Maggie’s eye. They both thought the words would spill out now, like a dammed-up river seeping through sandbags and finally bursting free. He would talk. He would confess. He would throw off the anvil that had weighed on his conscience. He would seek absolution for the secrets that had made his life so miserable that he could only escape it into a numbed world of marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol.