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Moscow, Idaho

I t’s pitch-black, but anyone can see Maddie sitting at her vanity, as clear as day, through the window. She has no idea who is out there in the parking lot, looking.

But neighbors, like Lexi Pattinson, see her nightly routine. They know that she always takes her time putting on her face: Foundation. Then blush. Eye shadow, mascara or fake lashes. Sometimes she uses a curling iron to style her long blond hair.

Anyone who didn’t know Maddie’s name would learn it in an instant, because the letters spelling it out are in the window. Anyone can see right into her room’s pink interior and discover the minutiae of her life as a “cutesy” girl who likes order. Even her quilt is pink.

A passerby who stopped and stared would know she has a boyfriend, because on weekends, he sits on the bed when Maddie and the other girls model clothes for Instagram and TikTok.

She tags the boyfriend on social media. His name is Jake.

Recently, the boyfriend brought Maddie cookies and a bouquet of flowers that stands in a vase on her dresser.

Her mom, or at least a woman who looks exactly like Maddie, often pops in, and so does an older, graceful-looking woman (Maddie’s grandmother, whom she calls Deedle).

Anyone can see just from watching that Maddie is close to all these family members. She’s even making a little quilt for someone, a baby.

Kaylee, one of her friends, often pops in from next door. These two are obviously close; they pore over their phones, comparing social media posts, taking photos and videos of each other.

They’re so immersed in their phones and their coziness that they never think to look farther than the sanctuary of their yard.

They don’t see anyone out there, staring.

Corporal Brett Payne of the Moscow police later alleges, based on AT&T cell phone records and the pings Bryan’s cell phone made off a Moscow cell tower, that that was what Bryan did.

Payne alleges that he was there at least twelve times between August 21 and November 13—almost always late at night, cloaked in darkness.

The theory among Maddie’s friends is that she rejected him. So he watched. Waiting.

Elliot Rodger wrote of reuniting with a childhood friend, named Maddy, in the months before the day of retribution:

She was a popular, spoiled USC girl who partied with her hot, popular blonde-haired clique of friends…

my hatred for them all grew from each picture I saw of her profile.

They were the kind of beautiful, popular people who lived pleasurable lives and would look down on me as inferior scum, never accepting me as one of them.

They were my enemies. They represented everything that was wrong with this world.

Corporal Payne alleges that on the night of August 21, Bryan was there at King Road between 10:34 p.m. and 11:35 p.m.

At 11:37 p.m., at the junction of Farm Road and Pullman Highway, on his way back to Pullman, Bryan is pulled over by Latah County sheriff’s deputy Corporal Duke.

His car doesn’t have a front plate. It’s registered in Pennsylvania, where front plates aren’t required.

He’ll need to change that in Washington and Idaho, Duke tells him. Bryan says okay.

He’s smooth with the officer. Natural.

The officer has no clue as to what Bryan is really doing in Moscow.

If Bryan is asked about it—which he will be—he’ll deny that he was doing anything other than going out for a drive. Like he always does when under stress.

He often goes out stargazing, he’ll say.

The police can’t see into his mind. No one can.

Even though the people out here in the Pacific Northwest do try.

Boy, do they try.