Page 45 of The Girl in the Mist

He takes the bottle of water and guzzles down half of it in one swig. It leaves him gasping for the breath the water replaced and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. When he’s settled, he lowers the rest of the bottle to his thigh and looks up atme.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “You know the camp has been closed off. It’s still very much a crimescene.”

“I know that,” he says. “But I needed to get into my office. There’s still a lot of my stuff here and it was just blocked off with everything else. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal for me to go into my own space and get something that belongs tome.”

“You don’t get to make that decision,” Detective Garrison tells him. “A lot of people’s stuff is here. That’s part of why it’s blocked off. We need to be able to look through everything and see the place as it was when everything happened. That’s part of investigation. We’re still going over it and collecting evidence. You can’t just come in here and disrupt things. If you needed something, you could have gotten in touch with me and I could’ve escorted you into your office.”

“What is it that you needed?” Iask.

Mike suddenly looks anxious. He looks down at the water bottle in his hands. I noticed one of his feetbouncing.

“Nothing. It doesn’tmatter.”

“I could bring you in there now,” Garrison offers. “As long as I get a chance to see the place as it is before you go in and can monitor what you’re doing, it shouldn’t compromise the same. As far as you know, the killer didn’t go into your office, right? He shouldn’t have left any evidencethere.”

“No. No one went into my office after I left with Holden and Anthony,” he says.

“Then it’s not a problem. Let’sgo.”

“Never mind,” Mike mutters. “It’s fine. I don’t want to compromise thescene.”

“If no one went in there after you left with the boys, then there’s nothing to compromise,” Garrison points out.

“How do you know no one else went in there?” I ask.

“I didn’t see anyone else,” he says. “As soon as I realized the phone line was cut, I told the guys they needed to go get the police, I got my keys to the truck, and we left. I didn’t see anyone else near there for the rest of thenight.”

“But you weren’t there for the rest of the night,” I point out, trying to strike the balance between interrogating him and simply asking questions. “You didn’t stay in this area. You said you went around the camp looking for people so you could get everybody together in the dining hall. When you ran into Lisa and then Holden, you weren’t at your office. So how would you have been able to see anybody go in?”

“I guess I couldn’t. But I don’t think anybody did. It doesn’t seem like anybodydid.”

“Did you go in there afterleaving?”

“No.”

“And was itlocked?”

“No. I never lock that building. The only buildings on the camp property that are locked on a regular basis are ones with food and infirmary supplies,” Mike tellsme.

“So, you admit it is conceivable that someone could have gone into the administrative building after you left and beforenow.”

“I mean, yes, but why wouldthey?”

“To escape a man chasing them with a hatchet,” Xavier offersbluntly.

I gesture toward him like I’m presenting theresponse.

“You said there’s something in there you want,” Garrison says. “You can get it. I just want to be able to see the inside of the building. We didn’t find any bodies or evidence in that area. But I want to look at it with fresh eyes and you can tell me if you notice anything different about it. After all, you know the space better than any of us. You might be able to spot something that stands out toyou.”

“No,” Mike says again, more adamantly this time. “I really don’t need to. You know what, I just remembered what I was looking for actually isn’t even in there. I thought I’d brought my glasses with me to work and I must not have. After everything, when my girlfriend came to the station to pick me up, she mentioned she’d seen them on the kitchen counter at my apartment and wanted to know if I needed them. That’s it. I can’t believe I didn’t remember that until thissecond.”

I can’t believe it, either.

“It would still be useful to go through the building with you,” I say. “I mean, it’s great that you know where your glasses are, but like Detective Garrison said, getting your insights into the way your officeshouldlook could be really beneficial. I mean, we’ll have no way of knowing if something was moved, or if there is something there that shouldn’t be, and maybe that’s the thing that cracks the case. You are really familiar with the lobby and your office; can you take a few minutes and go through it withus?”

I don’t actually have any interest in hearing what Mike has to say about the administrative building or his office. I want to watch his reaction to this address, then see how he behaves inside the building. Something is making him anxious. This isn’t the way this was supposed to unfold. He wanted to sneak onto the campgrounds when nobody would notice and do something in the office.

When he was explaining to us what was going on, Garrison mentioned the patrolling officers saw Mike enter the campground through the woods on foot rather than trying to drive up to one of the access points. He already knew those access points had been blocked off because he was told along with everyone else before it happened. That means he knew before he even got to the grounds that he wasn’t supposed to be here.

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