Stephen Dixon - Frog

They go to the woman’s car. She’s in the back seat sitting between a man and woman, has a sweater on now, pants, glasses. “This is the man—” “She didn’t wear glasses before,” Howard says. “She only uses them for distance,” the man says. “Let her speak. Can’t she speak? Why isn’t she speaking?” “She can speak but I chose then to speak for her. She’s emotionally shaken. That rock over her head didn’t help any.” “I didn’t hit her with it.” “Held it over. Three inches away, if not two.” “And strangling her,” his wife says. “Strangling her, and nearly breaking her arm. She doesn’t have to answer any more of your asinine charges or be talked threateningly to. She can even be demanding you be locked up and then suing you if she wants.” “Gentlemen, let me continue,” the chief says. “For the record, Miss Reinekin, this is the man you said accused you of doing something terrible to his daughter and then—” “If I hurt her, who wouldn’t for his daughter? She’s lucky I didn’t do worse.” “Anyway, I had nothing to do with it,” she says. “But if this girl truly is missing—” “She’s missing,” the chief says. “We spoke to his wife. There’s an older daughter, same description and age he gave, who’s not home or anywhere to be seen. The whole county’s out looking for her by now.” “Then I’m sorry. It has to be the worst possible thing for the mother. But I’ve told everything I know of it. And Mr. Kaden here — he’s not a lawyer but he knows something about it — has advised me not to talk about it further except in front of a lawyer. But a girl’s missing, we all pray she’s safe—” “Oh shit, just listen to her,” Howard says, “—and I’ll answer any more questions you have if it’ll help find her. First, yes, he is the man who did all the things I said he did. I still don’t know why. We hadn’t said a word or even looked at the same time to one another till he came out of the water, though I did notice him go in and then swimming. Mostly the crawl but occasionally the breaststroke and once the butterfly stroke—” “I did no such stroke. I don’t know how.” “Well, it looked like the butterfly stroke by someone not that good at it, all that splashing and arm-flopping. But after he came out—” “He accused you and grabbed your arm and so on?” the chief says. Nods. “Nothing new to add?” Shakes her head. “Then you ought to go home, rest — we have your statement and now your identification of Mr. Tetch — and well go on with our search as though the girl were lost in the woods and no doubt contact you later.” “You going to let her go just like that?” “It’s been more than ‘just that,’ Mr. Tetch.” “And I didn’t say Olivia was lost in the woods. I said it’s one of the main possibilities. I don’t know where she is. She can be in that freaking water. She can be under a rock or down a well. This one knows though.” “You said I may go, officer? It’s been, as you can see, too much of an afternoon for me and I don’t want to say now what I really think about him.” “Do you have any evidence for what you don’t want to say?” the chief says. “I definitely suggest you don’t say anything, Lita,” Kaden says. “If there’s an inquest or trial or anything like that—” “You fucking liars, with your inquests and trials,” Howard says. “You fucking murderer and kidnapper,” he says to her. “Or you’re all murderers or kidnappers. Now where is she already? Where the goddamn fuck is she?” and tries opening the door, Kaden pulls it shut and locks it while his wife rolls up the window and Lita screams and covers her eyes. Howard bangs on the window, is led away by the chief and made to sit on the grass.

Lita drives off with Mrs. Kaden, Kaden drives behind them in Lita’s car. Mazda, NXH 107, dark red, Connecticut. Search goes on for hours. He calls Denise every half hour from a police car. Last call she says friends have come and gone and been very kind but she needs to be with him. He’s given his and Olivia’s beach things and goes home. She puts some dinner on the table for him, weeps, checks the baby, weeps, says she has to control herself so she can think straight while there’s still a chance Olivia can be found, says she doesn’t understand any of it. “Now go over it, once more, maybe there’s something we missed.” He goes over it thoroughly. She says “How can anything like this happen to her?” “Nothing has — I’m sure she’s alive and we’ll find her — but how can anyone do anything like that to her? How come they don’t press that woman more? How can her friends protect her like that when they must know she’s lying? The police should give her a lie detector test. They should have done it immediately. Or get a hypnotist to work on her — drugs, even, to draw out the truth — if she’s crazy or has a mental or physical disorder where she can’t remember things and one of those means would get her to say where Olivia is or what she did with her. What about where she’s staying? Maybe the Kadens are involved. Some kind of satanic cult or just selling beautiful children or a ring for whatever kind of devious or moneymaking purpose — but in a basement there or some place. Am I thinking straight or is all this part of my own growing craziness?” He says no, it’s valid, “We have to try everything that’s reasonable or possible,” calls the police station, hoping it would relay the call to the chief’s car, is told to call him at home. “The search has been called off, the chief says. “We’ll resume it early tomorrow if you want.” “I want.” “Not even the dogs could turn up anything. They smelled blood but nothing human. They started digging up the ruins of an old cabin. That cabin must be three hundred years old. Nobody even knew an earlier settlement had been there—” “I’m not interested. Listen, my wife and I think you should give Miss Reinekin a lie detector test, and immediately. Or just get a hypnotist to hypnotize the truth out of her, or some serums or drugs to do it.” “No can do. She’s got to be suspected of a crime first and then agree to the test or drugs or hypnotism, and she’s not.” “Then what do you say to going to the Kadens’ house where she’s at? Anybody think of that? Olivia could be there. A satanic cult, let’s say. Maybe they sell babies or slightly older children or are into all sorts of ugly things. The respectability and old-family stuff and all that lawyer-knowledge and holier-than-thou protest shit could be some kind of cover — some ruse.” “Again, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if anyone in the state or county police departments believed that, but we don’t. The Kadens would have to be suspects too and they’re anything but that. We put out queries on them and Miss Reinekin and they’re as clean as they come. Try to listen to me now, Mr. Tetch — don’t make trouble. We know how you both feel and our hearts go out to you as if she were our own child, but you don’t want to be jailed at a time when your wife and other girl need you so much. A state’s attorney and detectives will be out to see you tomorrow morning. Please be there. Then if you want to come where we’ll be searching, you’ll be more than welcome.” “I’ve complete confidence in all your and your people’s abilities, so of course I’ll do what you say.”

He looks up the Kaden address, tells Denise to take a couple of aspirins and maybe some port and try to get some sleep. “I know what I’m doing, honestly,” when she says what he’s doing probably isn’t such a good idea, and drives to the road the Kadens’ driveway leads to, parks, walks in a few hundred feet, ample moonlight, looks around, no outbuildings about, down to the beach, boathouse with a kayak and canoe, sailboat anchored in the water, different colored sail than one he saw in the lake, wades out to it and looks inside, back up the path, looks through all the first-floor windows, sees them sitting beside a fireplace in the only lighted room in the house, Kaden reading a magazine and drinking wine or something pale in a wine glass, two women talking, fireplace going. Knocks on the door. Kaden comes to it. “You.” “Listen, you’ve got to believe me, I’m not nuts. I had my daughter. I went for a swim. I left her with your friend. She’s lying about everything. My wife and I are desperate. Right now she’s going crazy from it. I’m about to too. You know what it means to lose a child like this? It’s the worst feeling in the world. There is no other. Maybe if she got hit and killed by a car right in front of me. That’s what it’s like. Or the doctor’s just told me she has cancer and only a month to live. If you have kids—” “Excuse me, but if you don’t leave our property — and I mean right up to the public road — this minute, I’m phoning the police.” “Hell with the police. Olivia might be here. There might even be a chance you don’t know about it. Now you have to—” but he can see by his face he won’t, so he pushes past him and goes inside. Kaden grabs his arm. He throws him against a wall, puts his fist under Kaden’s nose and says “I’m only going to look around for my daughter. Don’t stop me or 111 bust you, I’ll even break you in two,” and shoves him out the door, kicks but misses him, slams and latches the door, runs through the first floor turning on lights and opening doors looking for the basement, finds it, from another room the women are screaming for him to go. “Scream your bloody heads off; I’m looking, I’m looking.” Goes downstairs, yells “Olivia, are you down here? Are you anywhere around here, Olivia?” Turns over boxes, looks behind a huge wine rack and stacks of newspapers and magazines, only door is to a toilet, nothing else to hide someone in or behind, nothing he can see to show anything strange going on. Runs upstairs; nobody’s around. Runs through the first floor opening cupboards and a bathroom and closet doors. Runs upstairs to the guest bedroom, hallway bathroom, master bedroom, unused bedroom, kids’ bedroom where when he turns the lights on two boys in double-decker bunks and the women start screaming. Checks every room and closet for an attic entrance. Guest bedroom a third time. Dresser and night table drawers for anything that might lead to something, woman’s valise and handbag and under the bed and once more the shower stall. Goes downstairs. “Yes, this moment, walking right past me,” Kaden says on the hallway phone. “Maybe he’s now going to make good on his threat to bust me in two. Well, let him, since I’m not about to fight back. That’s not what I do, and you’re my aural witness on that, Chief Pollard… Now he’s leaving the house. Good riddance I want to say to him … No, the children and women all seem to be OK — Sure you’re all right, boys? Doris?” he yells upstairs. “We’re fine, Daddy,” a boy says. “Is he gone?” his wife says.