The Stranger in the Woods_ The - Michael Finkel

15
To commit a thousand break-ins before getting caught, a world-class streak, requires precision and
patience and daring and luck. It also demands a specific understanding of people. “I looked for patterns,”
Knight said. “Everyone has patterns.” Knight perched at the edge of the woods and meticulously observed
the families of North Pond, quiet breakfasts to dinner parties, visitors to vacancies, cars up and down the
road, like some Jane Goodall of the human race. Nothing he saw tempted him to return.
He wasn’t a voyeur, he insisted. His surveillance was clinical, informational, mathematical. He did not
learn anyone’s name. All he sought was to understand migration patterns—when people went shopping,
when a cabin was unoccupied. He watched the families move about and knew when he could steal.
After that, he said, everything in his life became a matter of timing. The ideal time to steal was deep in
the night, midweek, preferably when it was overcast, best in the rain. A heavy downpour was prime. People
stayed out of the woods when it was nasty, and Knight wished to avoid encounters. Still, he did not walk on
roads or trails, just in case, and he never launched a raid on a Friday or Saturday, days he knew had arrived
from the obvious surge in lakeside noise.
A constant dilemma was the “moon question.” For a while, he opted to go out when the moon was large,
so he could use it as a light source and have little need for a flashlight. In later years, when he suspected the
police had intensified their search for him and he’d memorized much of the forest, he switched to no moon
at all, preferring the cover of darkness. He liked to vary his methods, and he even varied how often he
varied them. He didn’t want to develop any patterns of his own, though he did make it a habit to embark on
a raid only when freshly shaved or with a neatly groomed beard, and wearing clean clothing, to reduce
suspicion on the slight chance that he was spotted.
There were at least a hundred cabins in Knight’s repertoire—“one hundred might be a low number”—in
addition to the providential Pine Tree kitchen, and he continually shuffled the ones he broke into. The ideal
was a fully stocked place, with the family away until the weekend. He knew, in many cases, the precise
number of steps required to reach a particular cabin, and once he selected a target, he bounded and wove
through the forest, a touch of Tarzan to his style. “I have woodscraft,” Knight acknowledged, choosing an
elegant term.
Sometimes, if he was headed far or needed a load of propane or a replacement mattress—his
occasionally grew moldy—it was easier to travel by canoe. He never stole one. Canoes are difficult to hide,
and if you steal one, the owner will call the police. It was wiser to borrow; there was a large selection
around the lake, some up on sawhorses and seldom used. Almost no one calls the authorities if they suspect