Maggie sighed. “Mary was also a pretty girl.”
“She was vulnerable,” Clark said. “How could you leave her alone, Donna? How? Tell me that.”
Donna’s cheeks turned bloodless and white. “What could I do, Clark? I mean, for God’s sake, what could I do?”
“You call 911, and you sit there with Mary. That’s what you do. She was your responsibility.”
“And leave that boy bleeding in the street?”
“You should have locked Mary in the car.”
“There was no time! I didn’t have time to think!”
Maggie put a hand on Donna’s knee. “Mr. and Mrs. Biggs, I know you’re both upset, and I understand. Whatever you both think, you are not to blame. Mrs. Biggs, you almost certainly saved that boy’s life, and you had no way of knowing that anything like this could happen to Mary. Mr. Biggs, I know you’re devastated, but the best thing we can do right now is try to find the man who terrorized your daughter and make sure he doesn’t do this to anyone else. Okay?”
Clark Biggs got out of his chair and paced. Some of Mary’s plastic blocks were littered across the living room carpet. He bent down, picked up one of the blocks, and squeezed it inside his meaty fist. His eyes were closed. He was unkempt, with dirty hair and blond stubble on his face.
“Mr. Biggs?”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Maggie said.
“Why did it have to be water?” Clark murmured.
“Oh, Clark, please don’t,” Donna said.
“Was God pissed off that we saved her the first time? Did He think she hadn’t suffered enough? How could He put her back in the water? Tell me that, how could God let her die in the water?”
Maggie expected to see tears on Clark’s thick cheekbones, but his sun-cracked face was dry, and his eyes were empty. On the sofa, Donna moved to go to her ex-husband, but then she stopped herself. Maggie could see that the love between them wasn’t dead, but they might as well have been on opposite edges of a canyon, with no way to cross.
“Did you find anything in the woods?” Donna asked quietly. “You said they were going to search the woods for clues.”
“I wish I could tell you we had more luck,” Maggie replied. “We found some trash on the path, in the trees, and on the side of the highway, but nothing with any obvious connection to the peeper or his vehicle. Later, when we identify him, it’s possible that something we found will help us place him at the scene.”
Clark let Mary’s block fall out of his hand. “When you find this man, will you charge him with murder? Will he have to pay for what he did to Mary?”
Maggie hesitated. “That’s not my decision. The county attorney will make that call, based on the evidence we gather. I assure you, I will do everything possible to make a case that we can bring to trial. I want to see justice for Mary.”
Donna shook her head sadly. “If you can’t find corroborating evidence, then it’s just my word, isn’t it? I work in a law office, Ms. Bei. I know that’s a problem.”
“Why is that a problem?” Clark asked. “If Donna says she saw him, then she saw him.”
“But I didn’t see him,” Donna said. “I saw a car and a man I can’t identify. I know how defense lawyers work. They’ll say it could have been anybody. Or they’ll say I made it up.”
“Made it up?” Clark asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I was the only one who saw the RAV on the highway, Clark. They’ll say I felt guilty because I left Mary alone, and I was just trying to protect myself by blaming someone else. They’ll say I knew about the peeping, so I used it as a convenient excuse.”
“That’s bullshit,” Clark said.
“It’s way too early to be thinking about any of this,” Maggie said. “Once we identify this man, we’re likely to find much more evidence in his house and car. If we can find something that ties him to Mary, then your testimony will carry a lot of weight with a jury, no matter how much smoke a defense lawyer tries to blow at them.”
She tried to sound convincing, but she knew Donna was right. Stride was right, too. The most they were ever likely to do was convict the man of interference with privacy. A two-year felony for peeping on minors. Two years was a lousy trade for losing a daughter.
“The first thing we have to do is find him,” she added. “This man stalked Mary. Somewhere, somehow, their lives intersected.”
“You said it could be as simple as Mary saying hello to someone on the street,” Donna said. “If that’s true, how will we ever narrow it down?”
“Well, we have to hope it wasn’t quite that simple,” Maggie told her. “Mary wasn’t the first girl he peeped, but something about Mary was special. He hooked onto something about her that made him come back to Mary. The question is what. Her physical appearance isn’t really distinctive compared to the other girls. If you lined them all up, you wouldn’t pick out Mary as being different.”
“She was mentally handicapped,” Donna said.
Maggie nodded. “Yes, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that just by looking at her. I think there had to be some kind of interaction between Mary and this man, however minor. I’ll talk to the people at Mary’s school again, but if the connection didn’t happen there, then the chances are that you were with Mary when it did happen. Because she was hardly ever alone, am I right?”
She knew as she said the words that she had accidentally jabbed another needle into Donna’s guilty conscience. The one time she had left her daughter alone, Mary died. Donna wiped her eyes.
“Yes, you’re right,” she said. “We were always with her.”
“Mr. Biggs, you told me that you think the peeper was at Mary’s bedroom window the week before the incident you reported.”
Clark nodded. “It was Saturday night.”
“Do you think that was the first time?”
“That was the first time Mary saw him,” he insisted.
“I’m sure of that.” “I’m trying to nail down a time line here,” Maggie said. “I’d like to know when this man first met Mary. So I’d like you both to think hard about the days just before that Saturday. I want you to remember if anything unusual happened during that period.”
“I’ll check my calendar at work,” Donna said. “Mary was with me until Friday evening.”
“Nothing happened on that Saturday,” Clark said. “Mary and I were home all day. I ordered a swing set, and it was delivered that morning. After I set it up, I couldn’t get Mary off the swing for the rest of the day. The two of us spent all afternoon outside, and then I grilled hamburgers for dinner.”