26 #2
"Well... sorry I couldn't have been more help to you. If you're looking for him and his phone is turned off... it sounds like a man that doesn't want to be found."
"Did you know... did the owners that lived here say anything else about him?" I press. "Like, maybe where he could be or..."
Bo puffs out a thick cloud of smoke, filling the cramped living room with that choking sensation. It makes me shiver as the memory of King’s hands around my throat flashes back, how he used my own dreads to cut off my air.
One time it was passion; the other was something else entirely. Like he was a different person.
Bo traces his right fingers over his black hair, pushing it back before it falls over his eyes again. "I mean, he was a bit, um... off, like I said. Different."
"Different how?"
"Like how kids are different," Bo states. "He had problems. Learning, I guess. Getting along with other people. Did things... little kids should not have done."
My heart is beating so fast I can hear it in my ears. "Was he... mentally ill?"
"I mean, that's one way to put it," Bo replies tiredly in his heavy drawl. "He was just off. We'll just leave it at that. Be it far for me to call down a diagnosis on anyone."
I wonder if this is something King has suffered from since he was a boy. "Has King ever hurt anyone?"
"In what way?" Bo asks, looking at me with a mix of exhaustion and suspicion.
I shrug, trying to look casual. "I don't know. Did he get into fights a lot, or did he..."
"Well, there were some kids picking on some other kids that he said were his friends...
even though I thought they were all friends.
And he drove... the edge of one of those metal garbage pails into the kid's head.
In his face, actually. People called that kid Ridge Face after that.
But ‘round here... I mean, that kid kind of asked for it.
So I guess we can give King a freebie. But...
hurting is one of those things, because I guess he thought he always had a reason. "
"But was it a normal thing with him?"
"Look," Bo says, looking off to the side before fixing his icy eyes back on me.
"From here on out, we're just going to play guessing games.
But you tell me. The man is in jail for killing someone.
A pregnant woman. Now, I'm not saying that he did it on purpose, but...
it is in the reports that he went to his garage in the middle of the night to check on her.
She was still alive, and he left her there to die until the morning. "
Bo shrugs non-committally. "I don't know what you'd call that. He was also doped up on a lot of things at the same time. And then there are the other... rumors."
"What rumors?" I ask, my pulse quickening.
"I don't know, maybe it's just coincidence. But... he's not very... gentle with his women. And some of those women..." Bo takes another slow puff before shrugging again. "I don't know. They go missing sometimes."
"What do you mean, they go missing?"
"Meaning they go missing," he expresses more emphatically.
"Poof. Abracadabra, you are now antimatter.
That kind of missing. They leave... and just go missing.
And every single one of them... the last person to see them was him.
He's been a suspect in some of those cases, but...
no one could ever pin something on him. But they just keep...
" Bo makes a gesture with his cigarette, as though he's trying to burn a hole in the empty space in front of him, narrowing his eyes. "Disappearing."
"I know you don't think he killed them, right?"
"I didn't say that," Bo tells me. "The other rumor is that just saying that can also get you killed. So nobody really talks about it. Kind of like a cryptid story around these parts."
I start laughing, and I can't stop. It’s the absurdity of it all. Bo narrows his eyes at me.
"I thought you were a good girl, Erica. But you're laughing at other women's misfortune."
"No, I'm sorry," I gasp out. "It's just... you're talking about him like he's some kind of vampire or something."
"Vampires are smart," Bo replies. "They know people are going to come looking for them and they're going to lose their supply.
So they take what they need, wipe the minds, and let them go so they can feed again.
This is different. An investigator also goes missing looking into the issue. Just weird shit happens around him."
"If it's really him and he's that good at making people disappear," I challenge, "then why would he all of a sudden up and kill a pregnant woman and land himself in prison? Do you think maybe it's just coincidence? Maybe people see what they want to see because it’s a psyop to discredit him?"
Bo shrugs. "Maybe." He lets out a tired exhale. "Maybe it's all just a rumor, like I said." He smiles through the corner of his mouth at me. I notice his house doesn't seem very lived-in; maybe he doesn't spend much time in this room.
"What do you believe?" I ask him.
"Me? Oh, I don't believe in anything. Just telling you what I heard."
I’m getting thirsty, but there’s no way I’m drinking anything from this guy. I stand up, dusting off my sundress. I tell Bo that I'm going to go now.
"Good luck," Bo says. "And be careful."
I don't like the way he says it. "Do you think he's dangerous or not?"
"I'm the kind of person that lives alone for a reason," Bo tells me.
"It's because I don't trust anybody, and you shouldn't either.
And I think the reason people disappear is because you're given signs that you should stop looking, and you keep looking.
You're a nice girl, for real, and I would hate to see what happened to those girls happen to you.
Something tells me you already know the answer you're looking for, but for some reason, you're on a savior complex, and it's going to get you killed. "
A blood-chill runs up my spine.
"I have to try," I say.
Bo rolls his eyes as if he already knows my fate is sealed. "Okay," he says with a hint of sarcasm. "Good luck." He walks me to the door, his movements having this lazy fluidity.
I get in my car and immediately put on my seatbelt, locking the doors with a click.
I notice Bo coming back out. He walks slowly, his hands buried in his pockets, and then he leans forward.
He knocks slowly three times on my window with that weird, unsettling smile of his.
I lower the window only slightly, barely enough for a finger to pass through.
"Do me a favor," he says slowly, putting his hand back in his pocket. "Don't come back here. And if you do see him... you never saw me. Leave us out of your obsession with death."
I nod, my throat dry. He looks away from me, scanning the surroundings as if he’s expecting someone to be watching. Then he goes back into his house, looking at me one last time before the door shuts.
Why is everyone so terrified of King? What the fuck? Maybe they met him when he was having a bad trip and that’s how the rumors started, but straight up people missing? Women missing? A private investigator missing?
I drive into town and stop at a rest stop to use the bathroom.
While I'm there, I search for the address where King lived.
I don't find much information, except for a note about his mother, who apparently wanted to move to Norway many years ago to start a new life, probably after the previous owner of the house, the old man who passed away, died. Maybe that was the last of King’s family.
King never talked about his family; the only person I know of is Yvonne, and maybe that Gia person he mentions in his sleep.