In the Dark (39 page)

 

The window in the rear of the house was dark. Finn brought a hand to his head, and Clark realized that Finn had a cell phone. He was making a phone call. A few seconds later, the window flashed with light, and Clark understood. Finn was calling the girl. Waking her up.

 

Clark could see through the vertical blinds on the window. The girl in the photo, no more than sixteen, climbed out of bed and padded in her gray half-shirt and pajama bottoms to a white desk. She picked up the phone. Spoke into it. Hung up. She headed back to bed, but before she could turn off the light, Finn called again, and Clark saw the girl answer, her face cross with annoyance.

 

She hung up again, but she was awake now. She approached the window to stare at the storm and the rain pelting down. Finn was enraptured, staring at the girl framed in the bright square, with her flimsy shirt and her flat expanse of midriff. She was awkwardly beautiful, stroking her messy hair,
biting a fingernail. Unaware that she was vulnerable and on display. Clark took advantage of Finn’s obsession to come up behind him. All he wanted was for the girl to turn away.

 

For almost a full minute, all three actors in the play were motionless. The girl, inside, staring with huge blue eyes at the rain and the night. Finn, watching from beside the evergreen. Clark, so close he thought Finn might smell his breath.

 

Then the blond girl wheeled around abruptly, and a moment later, the window went black again.

 

Before Finn could move, Clark was on him. His huge forearm encircled Finn’s neck with the crushing grip of a snake, and he lifted the man bodily off the ground. Finn couldn’t breathe. He struggled, kicking his legs spastically, landing harmless blows on Clark with his fists. Clark thought about choking him, feeling the life drain out of his body, but instead he dropped Finn and backhanded his skull with a swift blow of his fist. Finn collapsed onto the wet ground, unconscious.

 

Clark slipped off his belt and tied Finn’s ankles, then grabbed the man’s shoulders and pulled him up in a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. He didn’t notice Finn’s weight. Instead, through the swirl of the storm, he hauled Finn back toward his truck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

41
___________

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donna’s right,” Maggie said unhappily. “Clark must be going after Finn Mathisen.”

 

Stride took his eyes off the road. “Do you think Clark would throw his life away over a nothing like Finn?”

 

“To get vengeance for his daughter? Yeah, I do.”

 

“Add Finn’s silver RAV to the ATL on both sides of the border. Let’s hope Rikke can tell us where Finn went.”

 

“That would mean admitting he’s guilty.”

 

“To save his life,” Stride said.

 

Maggie punched the buttons on her cell phone while Stride drove.

 

As they sped through the driving rain, the St. Louis River twisted like a dragon on their right. Walls of water sprayed from under his tires as Stride shot through deep, fast-moving rivers that poured off the hills and flooded across the highway. He skidded onto the railway bridge that crossed from Minnesota into Wisconsin over the marshy river lands. Wind howled through the canyon created by the river, and an ore train thundered the opposite way on the trestle above him. He hung on to the wheel. The entire superstructure of the bridge shuddered as if it would come apart in pieces.

 

Stride braked at the sharp curve on the far side of the bridge and then flew past the block-long town of Oliver onto the lonely highway leading into Superior. Through the sheeting water on his windshield, he saw miles of birch trees growing parallel to the two-lane road. Cattails swayed in the ditch like spinning toys. He drove through a long stretch of nothingness before arriving at the southernmost end of the city. It was one in the morning. Superior was dead. Silver rain blew diagonally through the glow of streetlights.

 

He followed the chain of streets until he was at the end of the developed land near Finn Mathisen’s house, which was ablaze with light. A squad car from the Superior police was parked out front.

 

Stride pulled up behind the police car, and he and Maggie both got out. A blond policewoman with matted wet hair jogged from the porch to meet them. The three of them shook hands while the rain pricked at them like needles.

 

“Lynn Ristau, Superior police,” the woman said. She wasn’t tall but had a tough, strong physique that would make larger men think twice before messing with her.

 

“I’m Lieutenant Stride. This is Senior Sergeant Maggie Bei.”

 

“You guys from Duluth know how to pick the right weather for losing suspects,” Ristau said with a smile.

 

“Any hits on the ATL?” Stride asked.

 

Ristau shook her head. Water sprayed from her blond hair. “Nobody’s spotted your guy.”

 

“Did you talk to the woman inside?”

 

“Yeah, but she’s not saying much. She says she didn’t know that her brother had left the house until I knocked on her door. She has no idea where he went.”

 

“All right, we’ll see if we can pry anything else out of her,” Stride said. “Can you hang out and keep us posted? We may need some help.”

 

“You bet.”

 

Stride and Maggie climbed the front porch and passed through a curtain of water streaming from the roof. Rikke yanked open the door before they could ring the bell. She wore a yellow cotton robe that draped to her ankles, and her face was pinched into a frown.

 

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded.

 

“May we come in?” Stride asked.

 

Silently, the tall, husky woman stood aside. Stride and Maggie shook off as much as water as they could and entered the house, where they dripped on the throw rug. The walls shook as gusts of wind assaulted the frame from the west. Rikke closed the door behind them and folded her arms.

 

“Well?” she asked.

 

Stride studied the empty living room. Rikke had been sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee in a china mug. “Where is Finn?”

 

“I have no idea. You didn’t answer my question. What is going on?”

 

“We think someone may be hunting for Finn.”

 

“Who?”

 

“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.

 

“So this guy had
pictures
of me?” Angela asked.

 

“I’m sorry, but yes, we think so,” Maggie told her.

 

“That is so creepy. I mean, like, nude pictures even?”

 

“We don’t know.”

 

“I am never opening my blinds again, you know? I can’t believe this.” She nestled her head against her mother’s shoulder.

 

“Where the hell is this bastard?” Angela’s father demanded. He was small, with a thin ring of black hair around his bald head. His cheeks flushed red with rage. “Is this the pervert who was on the news?”

 

“We’re trying to locate him right now,” Stride said. “We’d like your permission to search your backyard.”