There was that phrase again! He moves through images. In hindsight, I wish I had asked about it straight away, rather than wasting time with what seemed more reasonable at the time.
Charlie and I shared another look, wondering at Nick's sanity. He was definitely paranoid and anxious, but we were both wondering if his danger was real or imagined. I had not yet found evidence of any real hostility in his life, but there were some things at the studio which had felt off. Now that we had found him, it was worth getting his side of things first. Maybe there was someone after him. There would be no point finding him if as soon as I brought him to Meredith he would get hurt.
"Nick, just what have you gotten yourself into?" said Charlie. "Are you involved with bad people? I can help you, y'know."
Nick rubbed his eyes again. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Nobody would. I'm alone on this. But trust me, I'm doing what I need to do to keep myself safe."
"Who's after you, Nick?" said Charlie. "You know I'm an officer. We could help you. We could arrest them or get you someplace safe. Someplace safer than this."
Nick shook his head and began his rambling again. "The police can't help me. Nobody can - you'd know that if I could somehow make you understand. Nobody can help. I'm not sure what else I can do but hide, to stay away. I had asked her, but she didn't tell me anything I could use, only what I suspected. I'm alone, even with you here. I'm better off alone. Backed into a corner of an endless maze, but I'm safe right now. Unless you brought him..."
"Slow down," I said. "What the hell are you even talking about?"
Nick gave a tired, sardonic smile, his eyelids heavy and half drooping. "There's no way to explain. You'd think I was just crazy."
"I'm already leaning that direction," I said, trying my best to conceal the exasperation in my voice.
I must have failed, because Charlie gave me a stern look. Then he turned to Nick. "It's okay, Nick, we're friends, right? We're not here to judge you, we're just trying to understand. So why don't you just tell us what you do know? If you tell us, at least then maybe we'll understand what you are dealing with, even if we don't come to the same conclusions about it. And then we might be better able to help you, right?"
"I don't know..." said Nick.
"We're friends, right?" said Charlie. "Friends help each other. Let me help you."
Nick had a sharp intake of breath, but halfway through he relaxed it and turned it into a big sigh. He finally nodded his head, reluctantly, tiredly. Resignation clouded his face and stayed there. Though he had nodded, he still didn't speak for a long minute. I guess he was collecting his thoughts, though at the end of it I wondered if he had fallen asleep.
"I screwed up," said Nick finally. "I tried to do something, to actually create something in this world of money and recycled ideas. And I found out I didn't even create anything new, anything I wanted to make! I created what he wanted me to create! I did my part in that unholy birth, and now he wants me dead." Rather than continuing on to perhaps explain things after his earnest yet incredibly vague confession, he lapsed into a silence. A single tear began to fall from his downcast eyes before he wiped it away.
I wanted to jump in and prompt Nick, but Charlie caught my eye and waved me off. I guess he was right, it would feel too much like an interrogation if I simply closed in and poked at him whenever he withdrew. My job is finding clues, not caring for people, so I'm more used to needling with questions to put someone off guard than giving someone some space for sanity and compassion. So I sat back and tried to soak up what Nick was saying. But it was just so opaque and vague. I needed more. I decided I could try to take it apart with simple questions.
"Let's take a step back," I said, taking a quick glance at Charlie to make sure he approved of me going forward. "Is there someone after you? Does someone want to cause you harm?"
"No," said Nick, but that No felt very tentative, and the movement of his head was half shake and half nod. "Not exactly. Not a person... Unless he's been talking and getting allies. If there are those who would consciously throw in with him... then yes, there may be someone after me."
If I had been trying to write notes, I would have written something down at the start and then crossed it all out by the time he stopped speaking. That was a whole lot of vague walked back to almost nothing.
"Who is after you?" said Charlie. "Do you have names? Descriptions?"
"I'm not sure," said Nick, his eyes going to the ceiling of the tent in thought. "I could think of candidates, but it's really all theoretical who'd he recruit. I don't really know who for sure."
"Wait, so, let me get this straight," I said. "Nobody is after you, right? You're saying nobody is trying to get you." I paused, adding, "As far as you actually know."
"No... yes... it's complicated," said Nick.
"I'm seeing that," I said. "Then why the rabbit impression? Why run?"
"Because I need to hide from him," said Nick, his words choked as a new wave of tension ran through him.
"Let's just take this slow and talk through it all," said Charlie with a shake of his head. He had clearly dealt with frazzled witnesses before. My own limited experiences with being kind during questioning was just getting a jilted lover to slow down and say why they thought their spouse was cheating. I'd never dealt with someone as bad as this. I didn't even know how to ply them with cheats. Usually all I needed was a box of tissues, some high class truffles, a beer or two, and time to get to the information I needed. Nick didn't seem the beer or truffles type. "Who's the him?"
"He's... he's no one," said Nick, closing up again.
"Earlier you said you created something bad, that it was your fault," I said. "Let's talk about that. Was it the show? I know you created the show at the studio."
Nick's face paled and his eyes opened wide. He nodded slowly. "Have... you seen it? The show?"
"Yeah, I saw the rehearsal of the pilot," I said. "I'm sorry to say it's nothing special. Unless I'm wildly out of touch, it's just a crappy kids show, the same stuff from when I was a kid recycled with fancier effects." I paused, adding, "No offense."
Nick shook his head, the phantom of a smile crossing his features for just a moment. "No, you're right. I see it now. It's not a good show. It never was a good show. That's his trick! I think that was always his trick. He influences weak minds, like you or me... when we see him, he changes our minds, makes the switch, smoothes over the rough! The show seems great because he wants it to be great! He wants it made. He wants it out there."
During this monologue, Nick's speech pattern started reasonable and then descended into his half pronounced rambling again. I wasn't sure exactly what he was talking about. It sort of sounded like the most convoluted way of coming to terms with that fact that your artistic creation was crap, but who was I to judge? I had created very few things in my life.
"Who's 'he'?" I said. I thought back to the staff at the studio. Most of the people at the top were female. Adele, Deb, Meredith. They were the ones in control. They were the ones who needed the show to succeed. But Nick kept saying "he". Was it someone higher up at PBS? An unknown backer? He who?
"I don't want to say his name," said Nick. "I don't think he can travel by it, but I'm not entirely sure. He has his way of watching and influencing. He likes to make you think he doesn't know, but he does. He's always watching, always listening. If any image of him can see you, he can hear you. He moves by image. But his real name? I'm not sure. He has aliases, lies. The lies he says, the lies he puts in your head. The lies he places on the lips of everyone around you."
"Nick, you're babbling again," said Charlie gently.
"I'm sorry," said Nick, rubbing his eyes. "But this is so hard to talk about. And I've been barely sleeping. I've been running in real life, but I've also been running in my dreams. He's there, back in the past, before the accident... before... that car." He shook his head vigorously, as if dispersing the thought. "I don't even want to go to sleep anymore. I've begun to wonder if he can tr
avel by dreams as well. Then no place would be safe. We'd all be doomed."
"We understand that you don't feel safe," said Charlie. "You're afraid. But we're still trying to understand why and how so we know how to best help you."
"I don't think you can help me," said Nick, eyes downcast.
"Let us try," said Charlie. He and I exchanged a glance. We both knew that one way we might help Nick could be getting him psychiatric care. While it was true that I had seen strange things in my day, especially at Bellingham, until I saw anything to think otherwise Nick seemed to be having a breakdown, one heavy on delusions. And because of my Bellingham experiences, I did not suggest a mental health facility lightly. However, I couldn't deny that Nick seemed damaged.
"I know, I know," said Nick. "No sense. It never makes any sense until you know. Until that one moment where it falls apart and you can see beyond the lies, seeing him laughing at you. It seems entirely crazy to me, except, well, I'm living it. Right now, right this second. It's true! I've seen your looks at each other. You want to put me in the hospital, don't you? Maybe he's been in your heads already. That's how he gets rid of his enemies sometimes. They committed her - Jennifer - the only one to stand up to him. But maybe they committed her due to the murder. Or the suicide. Pills? Was it pills? Pills I think. Fuck, is that really what it takes? I can't do that. I can't kill anyone, not even myself. I don't want to die." His head rolled forward, hanging down as if held on just by a thin string, his hair falling forward over his face.
"Slow down there, Nick," said Charlie, reaching out to gently touch Nick's arm. "Come back to us."
Nick pulled his head up and rubbed his eyes again. It didn't seem like any type of rubbing was going to get rid of the dark circles he had. "I'm sorry. What were you asking? I'm having so much trouble concentrating."
"You keep mentioning a 'he'," I said, "who seems to be the one causing all your trouble. But I've been to Studio Austin, I've seen the people who work there, and as far as I can tell, I've seen no one that sounds like what you're talking about. There's no great and powerful Oz, no brute, no bully. If there was a problem, Adele would have glared at them and it would have been over."
I saw for the first moment something of the man Nick might have been before this. He half snorted, half chuckled. For just a moment. A smile stretched across his lips, but the energy to hold it wasn't there, so his lips fell into a straight line. "Adele. I forgot about her. It feels like an eternity since I was at the studio. But she couldn't help with this."
"She couldn't? Or wouldn't?" I said. "Why not? And who could?"
"I never tried to talk to her about it. It's not a work issue, not a legal issue. And it's not a criminal issue," said Nick, heading off Charlie who had opened his mouth to say something. "Nobody deals with these sorts of problems. I don't know who can help. We're all screwed, I think."
"Why?" I said. I needed to get some information from all this meandering.
"Because of the show," said Nick. "The show's the thing. It's the end of the scheme, the first step in the doom that will chase us all. The show has to succeed, he needs it to succeed. If PBS picks it up and puts it on the air, he'll be unstoppable. He'll be everywhere. In living rooms, in schools, in our children, in -"
"He who, Nick?" I broke in. "He who? You need to tell us who he is."
Nick stared at me, his eyes blinking with tears, as he needed to rub them again but hadn't yet. He frowned, licking his lips.
"Who, Nick?" I prodded.
Nick grimaced. "The star of the show," he said softly.
Huh? I didn't understand. The star of the show? They were producing a goddamn puppet show, there was no star, just a construction of felt and plywood. Did Nick mean Rhys, the voice of Hornswaggle? I had only met the man briefly, but he didn't seem particularly dangerous. Not overly smart or deceitful either, so I didn't buy the idea of him manipulating a whole show. And he wasn't even in a particularly powerful position. He was just an actor, a puppeteer. His face wasn't even on the screen. The studio could replace him even if the show was successful. This didn't add up.
Charlie, however, didn't know anything about the show, so he didn't have the same confusion I did. "Who's the star of your show? I thought you worked with puppets or something like that."
Nick grimaced and nodded slowly.
Charlie frowned and looked to me, while I was still trying to make it all fit. "I don't understand," said Charlie.
I nodded. "You need to be more specific," I said. "We need a name. Who's trying to hurt you? Who's this horrible man?"
Nick frowned again, once again near tears. I saw his face go through its own fight, as he nearly spit out the name a few times, in each case, biting back on it, knowing that he wouldn't be believed, knowing that even if he pronounced the name of his oppressor, it would not convince us, only give credence to our view of his madness. He did not want to utter that name on his lips, but finally he did. It was a whisper when it came out.
"Hornswaggle."
Ten
Nothing in life really prepares you for when the falling apart subject of your case blames all of his extreme paranoia on the felt puppet that he himself created. There's no movie to prepare you to react to this, no schooling, nothing your Mom or Dad might have advised you on. Due to that, your first reaction is to push back. It's impossible. It's crazy. This person is insane.
Yet, I had survived the insanely twisted space of the Bellingham Psychiatric Institute and the strange supernatural powers of Max. Might I instead have a soft spot for this claim, this strange accusation of a television show puppet for all of Nick's anxiety and fears?
Unfortunately, no. Not even in the slightest. Despite the blood and fear of Bellingham, this was nothing like that. No insanity, no monsters in the flesh, no twisted memories and overgrown labyrinths. This was a puppet, an inanimate doll constructed of felt and plaster for the enjoyment of children. I had even seen the puppet myself. I saw nothing nefarious about it. Nothing to harm a grown man, a college graduate. My first reaction was that in another time and place, Nick might belong in Bellingham, if I ever could damn anyone to that fate. Maybe he was just better off in this Twilight Zone insanity. But it was still due to get much, much worse.
While I was shocked and incredulous, Charlie was just confused. He didn't know Hornswaggle was a puppet yet. He looked back and forth from me and Nick, wondering why Nick was flinching from all my glances and why my face roiled with disbelief.
"I don't get it..." said Charlie.
"Hornswaggle... your puppet?" I kept my voice slow, but it was hard to keep my voice from raising at the end with disbelief.
"What?" blurted out Charlie.
"He's more than a puppet," said Nick defensively. "Much more. And don't... don't say his name so much. I still don't know if his name allows..." He broke off and looked side to side in the tent, as if he expected the puppet to suddenly appear, bursting through the fabric of the tent like the Kool-Aid Man. Instead there was just the patter of the rain.
"I am so lost right now..." said Charlie.
"Hornswaggle is a puppet, the star of the show Nick created," I said the Charlie, my voice a little angry at all my searching and then this meandering conversation just to learn Nick was afraid of a damn puppet. "Sure, he's a big puppet, but he's still a puppet. Like a muppet. Felt and fabric, maybe papier-mâché'. Sticks and plywood. He's not even remote controlled! Someone sticks his arm up the puppet to make him move and talk."
"And that's... trying to kill you?" said Charlie to Nick, confused. "Is it the guy who controls the puppet who is after you?"
Nick shook his head. "Rhys doesn't know anything about this or the dangers of the puppet he operates. If he does... well, I'd expect that he has already altered Rhys's mind. Rhys could now be his ally. So on second thought, maybe Rhys is after me..."
"I... I just don't understand," said Charlie. "Nick, what's really going on?"
"I told you that you'd think I was crazy," said Nick. In another circ
umstance, the person who said this would smile in satisfaction, but no smile stretched across Nick's gaunt face, his eyes struggling to focus without blinking.
I ran my hand through my hair. "People use the phrase 'you're going to think I'm crazy' with me pretty often. This is one of the few times I have actually thought about it... which is probably not what you wanted to hear from us."
Nick frowned with a sigh, his downcast eyes looking at his hands. Charlie was similarly speechless.
"Look," I said, "it does sound crazy. You knew that. You even said so yourself. You'll have to excuse us if that's our first reaction. It's a lot to process."
"I know," said Nick sadly.
I looked him over. Nick was definitely not putting us on. Whatever this all was, he truly believed it. Worse, he was miserable believing it and knowing no one would understand. Was this a delusion or was he just overreacting to the situation? Whether he was delusional or not, Nick was harmless and needed help. Charlie and I had promised him that much at least.
I sighed. "Why don't you tell us the details and we'll try to work this out?"
Nick perked up, for once an emotion that wasn't dismal crossing his face. He looked at me. "Really?"
"I think Charlie and I would both agree you're a smart guy," I said, pausing to get a nod from Charlie. "So even though we might initially be... put off by your explanation, it's gotta make some truth to you, even when you know it sound crazy. You didn't just jump to that conclusion. So help us help you. Tell us how this all makes sense to you."
Charlie nodded again. "That might be best."
Nick nodded faintly, relaxing a miniscule amount, probably all he could while still staying awake. "Hornsw - he isn't a puppet. Not really. Well, he is as far as anyone else knows. But when I say that name, I don't mean the puppet. The puppet is... well, though I didn't know it at the time, I guess you could say the puppet is based on him."
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