“It’s the man whose daughter died in the river.”
Rikke paled and turned away. “That’s ridiculous.”
“We know Finn was at the river that day,” Maggie told her. “He was stalking that girl. She drowned because of him.”
“If you could prove that, Finn would be in prison right now,” Rikke snapped. She turned back and jabbed a finger in Stride’s face. “This is your fault. You won’t quit until my brother is dead.”
“We’re trying to protect him,” Stride replied.
“It’s a little late after everything you’ve done. Plaster his face all over the television. Reporters banging on our door all night. It’s no wonder some animal decided to come after him. You couldn’t arrest him, so you hung him out in the media and let someone else do your dirty work.”
“I’m sorry about the reporters,” Stride said. “They have their sources, and it’s hard to stop them. None of this changes the fact that we need to find Finn before Clark Biggs does.”
“I can’t help you.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Maggie asked.
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I have no idea where Finn went. I told the officer outside that I didn’t even know he had left the house. I was sleeping.”
“Do you know what time he left?”
Rikke shrugged. “It must have been after midnight. Finn was downstairs when I went to bed.”
“So he’s been gone for less than an hour,” Stride said. “How is Finn’s physical condition?”
“Weak. He shouldn’t be out.”
“Did he say anything to you about leaving the house?”
“No. He’s not strong enough to go anywhere.”
Stride leaned closer to Rikke’s face. “There’s only one thing Finn would be doing after midnight. We both know what that is.”
He saw it in her eyes. She knew.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rikke protested, looking down at the floor.
“I know you want to protect him, but right now, all you’re doing is putting him in harm’s way by lying. Let’s not play games, Rikke. Finn is sick. He went out to stalk a teenage girl, and if we’re right, Clark Biggs followed him. This is a man who believes that Finn is responsible for his daughter’s death. If he finds Finn standing outside another girl’s window, what the hell do you think he’s going to do?”
Rikke swelled her chest with a deep breath. Her jaw hardened like concrete, and Stride saw her hands curl into fists. She marched over to the sofa and sat near the cold fireplace. Water dripped down the chimney onto the grate. She took her cup of coffee in her hand, but she didn’t drink from it.
“We know what happened to your mother,” Maggie told her. “I talked to the police in North Dakota. Finn needs help.”
Rikke rolled her eyes, as if she were a teacher again and one of her students had made a stupid mistake. “Help? You think I haven’t tried to get him help? He’s been in and out of therapy for years.” She added, “I protected him all these years because I felt responsible.”
“Finn’s an adult,” Stride said.
Rikke shook her head. “You didn’t grow up in our house. You don’t know what we went through.”
“The police told me there were rumors that Finn was abused,” Maggie said.
“Rumors? Yes, that’s all they were. Rumors. Let’s keep it hush-hush so our nice little farm town doesn’t have to face something ugly.” Rikke’s voice was bitter. “Our neighbors, our teachers, our pastor, they all knew. They pretended everything was fine. Inger baked cookies and pies. She had it so hard after her husband died, the poor soul. Who cares about her kids? Who cares if she’s really a wad of phlegm that the devil spat up from hell?”
“You got out of that house,” Maggie said.
“Yes, but I left Finn behind.”
“You couldn’t have brought him with you,” Stride told her. “Not at your age.”
“No? Then how stupid I am to beat myself up over it for thirty-five years. I knew what was going to happen to Finn after I left. Inger started with me. I was her little piece of cherry pie. It wasn’t so bad during the day, but Finn and I hated the nights. The farm felt like we were on the moon. Just the three of us in that twisted triangle. She used to make Finn watch, you know. Pretty picture, isn’t it? She made Finn watch as she went down on me. Made him watch as she held my head to make me go down on her. He’s still watching. He can’t stop.”
“Where is he?” Stride asked her.
“I told you, I have no idea.”
“We’ve sent cops to the homes of all the girls who were involved in the peeping incidents,” Stride said. “There’s no sign of Finn or Clark at any of them. So he probably found someone new. A girl we don’t know about yet.”
“We know you sanitized his room before we searched it,” Maggie added. “We need to know if you found anything.”
Rikke put the cup down and folded her hands as if she were praying. “If you find him, you’ll put him in jail.”
“If we don’t find him tonight, he may wind up dead,” Stride said.
“There were pictures,” Rikke murmured. “Lots of them. Teenage girls. Some naked, some not. Taken through bedroom windows.”
“Did you destroy the photos?”
She nodded.
“Did you recognize any of the girls?” Maggie asked.
“Yes, I had seen some of them on the news,” Rikke admitted. “Including the retarded girl. The one who died.”
“Was there anyone recent? Someone he might have found since Mary?”
“Yes, he had new pictures. They were still on his camera. Another blonde. She looked young, maybe fifteen or sixteen. She looked a little like Laura did back then.”
“Do you know who this girl is?” Stride asked.
“I don’t.”
“Do you have any idea how he found her?”
“No.” Rikke thought about it and said, “She probably goes to Superior High School. In one of the photos, she was wearing a Spartans T-shirt.”
Stride turned to Maggie. “Talk to Ristau outside. See if we can track down a current yearbook from Superior High ASAP. Rikke might recognize this girl in the class photos.”
Maggie was already halfway to the door. “I’m on it.”
42
Less than an hour later, Stride and Maggie sat in the East End living room of a frightened teenager named Angela Tjornhom. Her parents sat on either side of her. Angela wore a gray Spartans T-shirt and pajama bottoms, with bare feet. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap. She was as waiflike as a model, with a pretty face and tiny frame. Stride could see that Rikke was right. If he looked for it in her face, he could see that Angela bore a faint resemblance to Laura.