Mast finally glances at us. “Es waarken maulvoll gat.” There’s nothing good about that.

Yoder lowers his voice and, speaking in Pennsylvania Dutch, tells him about us drawing our sidearms. Yoder breaks into laughter again, unabashedly amused. Mast’s reaction is more subtle. If I hadn’t been watching him, I would have missed the whisper of a smile on his lips.

He motions toward the hog. “When the hair slips easily, pull it out. I won’t be long.”

Without looking at us, he peels off his gloves and removes his blood-spattered apron. He tosses both on the scraping table and starts toward us. Perry Mast is a tall, thin man with sagging jowls and hound-dog eyes. He wears black work trousers with a dark blue shirt, black suspenders, a black vest, and a flat-brimmed straw hat.

“I am Perry Mast,” he says by way of greeting.

Tomasetti and I introduce ourselves, letting him know we’re with BCI. Neither of us offers our hand.

“Is this about my son?” he asks.

The question is clearly devoid of hope. And I wonder how many times during the last nine years he asked other law-enforcement officials the same question. I wonder how many times their answers tore the last remnants of hope from his heart.

“I’m sorry, no. There’s a girl who’s missing,” I tell him. “An Amish girl. Annie King.”

“Ja.” He closes his eyes briefly. “I heard.”

Tomasetti motions toward the door. “Is your wife home, Mr. Mast? We’d like to speak with her, as well.”

Mast looks as if he’s going to refuse; then his shoulders slump and he seems to resign himself to unavoidable unpleasantness. “This way,” he says, and leads us through the door.

A few minutes later, Perry Mast, Tomasetti, and I are sitting at the table in their small, cluttered kitchen. The interior of the house isn’t much neater than the exterior. Dozens of jars of canned fruits and vegetables cover every available surface on the avocado green countertops. A hand-painted bread box—perhaps from the Branch Creek Joinery—encloses a crusty loaf of bread. A well-seasoned cast-iron skillet sits atop the big potbellied stove. The open cabinets expose stacks of mismatched dishes—blue Melmac and chipped pieces of stoneware—and sealed jars of honey with chunks of honeycomb inside. Homemade window treatments dash the final vestiges of daylight, giving the kitchen a cavelike countenance. A kerosene-powered refrigerator wheezes and groans. The lingering sulfur stink of manure has me thinking twice about coffee.