I said, “I’m David Wong—”
“I know. I remember you from your involvement in every single horrible thing that has happened in this town for the last several years.”
“What about the mayor’s bestiality scandal? I wasn’t involved in that.”
“That we know of.”
John walked up from behind the detective, wearing a black overcoat and under it, a gray suit and tie. He yanked off his reading glasses and said, “Dave, this girl is just missing as fuck.”
He handed me a photo. I asked, “Why are you wearing that?”
“Which thing?”
“All of it. I didn’t even know you owned a suit.”
“Oh, I have to be in court later. That public indecency charge. I’m going to fight it, lawyer dug up some good case law where they found that body paint counts as clothing.”
I glanced at the picture. It was a little girl, all right. Elementary school age, long blond hair. The type of missing kid the news media actually notices.
John said, “I think this case is a screaming clown dick. The girl’s name is Margaret Knoll, they call her Maggie. Parents are Ted and Loretta. She went missing a few hours ago.”
I handed the photo back to John and said, “That’s all the time it took the cops to decide it was Dave and John territory?”
The detective said, “How many bites do you have to take out of a shit sandwich before you figure out it’s shit? Follow me. And wipe your shoes.”
* * *
The house’s interior was as depressing as the magazines at a Laundromat. It looked like maybe they’d just moved into it a couple of weeks ago, like they’d been there long enough to get the chairs and sofa in the right spots, but hadn’t hung any pictures or otherwise decorated. The place just seemed lifeless.
The father of the missing girl was a tiny little guy with a mighty blond beard, kind of seemed like a character out of a fantasy novel to me. He had a tattoo on his right bicep that looked like it was from some military unit, a skull in front of an ace of spades. Probably no more than five years older than John and I but with a lot more miles on him. I figured there had been a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan or both, and it looked like he’d returned to a job of manual labor. He was on the sofa, rough hands clenched between his thighs, one knee bouncing. A caged animal. Seemed like the kind of guy who’d have a whole detailed routine for how to make up with his wife after he got rough with her.
Ted Knoll looked me over. What I was wearing could best be described as the opposite of a tuxedo.
He said, “You’re the guy? You look like a bag of smashed asshole.”
“Thank you for the feedback. So it’s been explained to you? Who we are?”
“I asked for you. If it was up to me, cops wouldn’t be here at all.”
“Okay. Sure. So, what’s going to happen is, I’m going to ask you a series of questions and it’s not going to be at all clear why I’m asking them, some will seem random or even cruel. All I ask is that you simply answer those questions as best you can, and don’t interrupt to ask me why I’m asking. If you don’t know an answer, just say you don’t know. Okay?”
He nodded.
“Is Maggie’s mother here? I’d prefer to not have to go through this twice.”
“She don’t live here, we’re separated. She don’t know I’m talkin’ to you and we’re gonna keep it that way.”
“Ah. All right, when did you notice your daughter was missing?”
“Got up in the middle of the night, don’t know why, happened to walk past her room and saw there was no lump in the blankets. Went in to check, bed was empty, no sign of Maggie anywhere. Front and back doors of the house were both closed and locked. All the windows locked, too. We got an alarm system, either they figured out how to disarm it, or they managed to not trip it. Got security cameras front and back, looks like they went dark at around two in the morning, stayed off for an hour, just a black screen, like somebody knew exactly what they were doing. Like they’d planned it.”
“All that aside, we’re one hundred percent sure your daughter’s not hiding in a closet, anything like that? We’re not going to find her in the attic, or crawl space, or garage? Under a bed? In a kitchen cabinet?”
“I’ve torn this fuckin’ place apart. She ain’t here.”
“In the days or nights leading up to this, did you have any strange dreams?”
“No.”
“Did you see any shadowy figures, like maybe out of the corner of your eye, but when you turned to look, nobody was there?”
“No.”
“Do you ever have memories of events that never happened? A presidential election that turned out differently than the newspapers say, a famous person you was sure was dead, turning out to be alive?”
“No. I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”
“Did you see anything else unusual leading up to Maggie’s disappearance?”
“Five days ago, a man named Nymph showed up and said he was going to abduct her soon.”
John and I exchanged a look. John said, “I think that might be our first lead.”
To Ted I said, “Did you call the cops after that?”
“I did not.”
“Because you don’t think this was just some local deviant. Or else you wouldn’t have asked for us.”
“Also, don’t got much use for cops.”
“Tell us about that encounter, from the start.”
“It was last Sunday. After church. I was in the driveway putting an alternator on the Impala. Guy walks up, dainty little guy, looked like a fag, or a child molester. Got this lispy little voice, holding a cigarette between his thumb and index finger, like you’d hold a joint. Made this little duckface every time he took a puff, I wanted to punch him before he even said a word. Came mincing up the driveway, I didn’t even see a car pull up or anything, he was just there. Maggie was in the yard with me, chasing the cat around. This guy comes up, says his name is Mister Nymph. Actually referred to himself as ‘Mister.’”
“Wait, say the last name again?”
“Nymph, like short for ‘nymphomaniac’ or somethin’. That’s how I heard it anyway.”
It wasn’t a name we’d run across before.
Ted continued, “So he looks over at Maggie, and he’s got his leering look, you know, and says I have a beautiful daughter. Starts asking me a bunch of weird questions about her. Then he says—”
“What kind of questions?”
“Started out random things. How much does she weigh. Do we let her eat meat. I’m not answering any of these as he asks; I’m just asking him who he is, what does he want. But he just keeps up with the questions. And they just get creepier as they go. Does she shower or take baths. Do my wife and I allow her to see us naked. Do we let her shop for her own underwear.”
“Like he was trying to get you agitated, then.”
“Guess so, yeah. Told him to get off my property; he said he was just asking questions. I tell him he’s got five seconds to get off my driveway, tell him that he’s threatening my child, as far as I’m concerned. I say that in this state I have grounds to kill him where he stands, based on that alone. Finally he says, and he’s saying it like he’s shopping for a car, he says, ‘I’ll take her.’ Says he’ll be back in a few days to pick her up. I take a step toward the guy, big wrench in my hand. Then I turn to check on Maggie real quick, just a split second, then I turn back to Nymph and—”
“And he was gone,” finished John.
Ted nodded. “I asked Maggie if she saw where the guy went, she said she didn’t see nothin’. Said she saw me standing in the driveway alone, yelling at nobody. By the next day, I was doubtin’ myself.”