passed for our crystal ball—something Des had bought out of a catalogue a decade ago. From the other side of the table I watched the way it distorted his face, made his eyes huge and extraterrestrial, his mouth puckered and small. I thought of the freak show at the end of the boardwalk, of the alien corpse they claimed to have, embalmed, and yours to look at for only $7. How I had saved up to see it when I was younger, but when I peered down into its casket it was clear that it was only a doll.
“So, please tell me more about what you’re hoping to find out today.” I noticed that his nails were clean and neatly trimmed. He wore a gold wedding band on his left hand. His hair was mostly gray and receding, but he looked like he took care of himself. Like someone who swam laps at the gym and had fruit for dessert and took walks around the neighborhood after dinner. He didn’t look like someone who spent his weekends in Atlantic City, gorging himself at bottomless buffets and snapping his fingers at cocktail waitresses to bring drinks to the poker table. It was what I wanted, too—to seem like a person who didn’t fit in here.
“It’s my niece,” he said. “She’s missing. She’s my sister’s girl. I helped raise her from the time she was ten or so. My sister, you see, had some … issues. So did the girl’s father. Sherri and I—Sherri is my wife—became her legal guardians. There were some, ah, difficulties at first. She had never had any discipline, any order in her life, but things got better. She did well in school, became the star of the track team.” He paused and rubbed another bead of sweat from his temple. “She was supposed to graduate from high school this month, but she … she ran away. She left a note, and then there was one charge on her credit card from a hotel here in Atlantic City, two weeks ago. But other than that, nothing. I have no clue where she is. I know you might not be able to help me, but because she was eighteen the only thing the police can do is file a missing person’s report. I just thought at this point anything is worth a try.”
I realized that I had seen her before, the missing girl. Or at least I assumed it was the same girl—not in person, but on the posters that this uncle, I supposed, had put up all over town. Stapled to telephone poles, hung at entrances of the bus terminals in the casinos. She was thin, dark-haired, with a rhinestone stud in her nose, a small gap between her teeth—same as her uncle’s. The picture looked like it might have been taken at a party or gathering. There was a glow underneath her face, like she was leaning over a bonfire or the lit candles of a birthday cake. It had caught my eye because whoever was looking for this girl—I still couldn’t remember her name—was offering a $1,000 reward for any information that proved useful. I had daydreamed about what I could do with $1,000. How far I could travel with that kind of money. How free I would feel. I tried to picture the poster again. J. The girl’s name began with a J. Jessica? Jamie? Jane?
“So, um, anyway …” He looked around the room again, as though he might still find an excuse to leave. “I don’t know how this works. But if there’s anything you can tell me, anything about where she might be, that would be appreciated.”
This kind of thing had happened a few times before—a client looking for another person who had slipped out of their life. Usually it was a boyfriend or girlfriend, a spouse who had left in the middle of the night. But this was different. No one had ever asked for my help finding a missing girl. Other times, there was something that could keep me from feeling too sorry for those kinds of clients—they were harsh and demanding. They were brusque or otherwise they were weepy, had a quality about them that made me understand why a person would want to pry themselves from their grasp. But this man in front of me, with his apologetic smile, his nervousness, and the sadness that hung over him like an extra layer of clothing—I felt sorry for this man.