Hard Day's Knight by John G Hartness

he can be so careful with his car but such a spaz on two feet.

    “I think we start with the path of least resistance – Joe Arthur, owner of Joe’s World of Tires and school board member. We should be able to play the P.I. card and find out who was representing the World of Tires at the Career Days straight from the source.” I gave him the address and we headed out to meet the tire king. I looked out the window and watched the city roll by, thinking a lot more than I wanted to about ten missing children and the fact that we only had a couple of nights left to stop something from coming to town that even a fallen angel was scared of.

    It took us about half an hour to get to Joe Arthur’s house, a modest ranch in one of the better, but not ridiculous, parts of town. I noted the bicycle laying beside the driveway, and guessed the owner to be no more than eight or nine years old. “Looks like Joe’s got a kid right in the target age range,” I whispered as we walked up to the front door.

    “Yep. How do you want to play this? Good cop/bad cop? Two bad cops? Fangs out? Subtle?” He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and shadowboxing his way up to the door. I grabbed the back of his utility belt and dragged him down the steps back to where I stood.

    “I thought we’d ask him very nicely to invite us in, then see what he knows about the disappearances.” I spoke very low and very slowly, and held one hand on Greg’s shoulder to steady him while I tried to reign in his excitement. When you pair his enthusiasm with the fact that we haven’t aged in fifteen years, it’s pretty easy to forget that he remembers the Carter administration.

    “Oh.” He deflated a little, and I shouldered my way past him up the steps and rang the bell. No one answered, so I rang again. A couple of minutes passed, and still nothing. I could hear people walking around inside, so I knocked on the door. After a couple more minutes, a light flipped on over my head, and the door cracked open.

    “Can I help you?” A sliver of a middle-aged woman’s face appeared between the door and the jamb, as she looked at me through the security chain. The last time a woman was that unhappy to see me, it was my date for the senior prom.

    “Is Mr. Arthur home?” I asked, reaching in my coat pocket for my investigator’s license.

    “No, he’s not,” she said, and moved to close the door in my face. I’d already wedged one foot in the opening, though, so she met with limited success.

    I held my credentials out where she could see them and said, “We’re investigating the disappearance of some children. Maybe you’ve heard about the situation?”

    “Yes, yes, I’ve heard of that. Awful stuff. But I don’t see what that has to do with Joe. He’s never hurt anybody…” She looked around like she was afraid of somebody seeing her talk to us, and I began to doubt her assertions of Mr. Arthur’s harmlessness. Maybe Greg had found something after all.

    “We understand that, ma’am. We’re just hoping that he could answer a few questions for us about the Career Day events that he attended at several of the schools prior to the disappearances. He may have seen something that could be useful in our investigation. Could we come in and wait for him?” She looked more and more nervous, and I suddenly became aware of another heartbeat in the house.

    “Um…no, I’m sorry. I’m alone here you see and it wouldn’t be proper. You understand? You’re welcome to come back later, when my husband is home. Maybe tomorrow afternoon?” I could hear the heartbeat moving closer to the door and was trying hard to figure out how to get inside before whoever was in there with her did something seriously bad, when Greg pulled on my sleeve.

    “Come on, James. We’ll come back and visit when Mr. Arthur is home. Thanks for your time, ma’am.” He led me down the steps by my elbow and steered me towards the car.

    “Dude!” I