“So Mr. Nash, you have no thoughts of anyone who might have wanted to harm you or your family by hurting Ann?”

“Miss, I sell chairs, ergonomic chairs for a living—over the phone. I work out of an office over in Hayti, with two other fellas. I don’t meet anyone. My wife does part-time office work at the grade school. There’s no drama here. Someone just decided to kill our little girl.” He said the last part beleaguredly, as if he’d given in to the idea.

Bob Nash walked to the sliding glass door off the side of the bedroom. It led onto a tiny deck. He opened the door but stayed inside. “Might be a homo did it,” he said. The word choice was actually a euphemism in these parts.

“Why do you say that?”

“He didn’t rape her. Everyone says that’s unusual in a killing like this. I say it’s the only blessing we got. I’d rather him kill her than rape her.”

“There were no signs of molestation at all?” I asked in a murmur I hoped sounded gentle.

“None. And no bruises, no cuts, no sign of any kind of…torture. Just strangled her. Pried her teeth out. And I didn’t mean what I said before, about her being better killed than raped. That was a stupid thing to say. But you know what I mean.”

I said nothing, let my tape recorder whir on, capturing my breathing, Nash’s ice clinking, the thunks of a volleyball game being played next door in the last of the daylight.

“Daddy?” A pretty blonde girl, hair in a ponytail down to her waist, peeked through the crack of the bedroom door.

“Not now, honey.”

“I’m hungry.”