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They have a little list of possibles for next fall, and this Santa’s elf would make a good addition.
“As long as she’s not vegan,” Roddy says. “We don’t need another one of those.”
Emily kisses his cheek. She loves Roddy’s dry sense of humor.
July 23, 2021
Vera Steinman lives on Sycamore Street, which is devoid of sycamores. Devoid of any trees, in fact. There are plenty in the manicured and well-watered acres beyond Sycamore Street’s dead end, but they are sequestered behind the gates and meandering rock walls of Cedar Rest Cemetery. In this neighborhood of treeless streets named for trees, there are only tract houses standing almost shoulder to shoulder and broiling in the sun of late afternoon.
Jerome parks at the curb. There’s a Chevrolet occupying the cracked driveway. It’s at least ten years old, maybe fifteen. The rocker panels are rusty and the tires are bald. A faded bumper sticker reads WHAT WOULD SCOOBY DO? Jerome has called ahead and started to explain that he came across Peter Steinman’s name while pursuing another case, but she stopped him right there.
“If you want to talk about Peter, by all means drop by.” Her voice was pleasant, almost musical. The sort of voice, Jerome thought, that you’d expect from a well-paid receptionist in an upscale law or investment firm downtown. What he thinks now is that this little house standing on a dead lawn is no upscale anything.
He pulls up his mask and rings the bell. Footsteps approach. The door opens. The woman who appears looks like a perfect match for the upscale voice: light green blouse, dark green skirt, hose in spite of the heat, auburn hair pulled back from her face. The only thing that doesn’t fit is the whiff of gin on her breath. More than a whiff, actually, and there’s a half-full glass in her hand.
“You’re Mr. Robinson,” she says, as if he might not be sure himself. In the direct sunlight he sees her smooth middle-aged good looks may be due in large part to the magic of makeup. “Come in. And you can take off the mask. Assuming you’ve been vaccinated, that is. I’ve had it and recovered. Chock-full of antibodies.”
“Thank you.” Jerome steps inside, takes off his mask, and shoves it into his back pocket. He hates the fucking thing. They’re in a living room that’s neat but dark and spare. The furniture looks strictly serviceable. The only picture on the wall is a humdrum garden scene. Somewhere an air conditioner is thumping.
“I keep the shades down because the AC is on its last legs and I can’t afford to replace it,” she says. “Would you like a drink, Mr. Robinson? I’m having a gin and tonic.”
“Maybe just some tonic. Or a glass of water.”
She goes into the kitchen. Jerome sits in a slingback chair—gingerly, hoping it won’t give way under his two hundred pounds. It creaks but bears up. He hears a rattle of ice cubes. Vera Steinman comes back with a glass of tonic and her own glass, which has been refreshed. He will tell Holly when he calls her that night that in spite of what one of the Dairy Whip skateboys said, he had no idea he was dealing with a deep-dish daily drunk until the end of their conversation. Which came suddenly.
She sits in the boxy living room’s other chair, puts her drink on the coffee table, where there are coasters and a spread of magazines, and smooths her skirt over her knees. “How can I help you, Mr. Robinson? You seem very young to be chasing after missing children.”
“It’s actually a missing woman,” he says, and gives her the rundown on Bonnie Dahl—where her bike was found, how he and Holly (“my boss”) went down to the Dairy Whip to talk to the boys skateboarding there, and how Peter’s name had come up.
“I don’t think Peter’s disappearance has anything to do with Bonnie Dahl’s, but I’d like to make sure. And I’m curious.” He rethinks that word. “Concerned. Have you heard from your son, Mrs. Steinman?”
“Not a word,” she says, and takes a long swallow of her drink. “Maybe I should buy a Ouija board.”
“So you think he’s…” Jerome finds himself unable to finish.
“Dead? Yes, that’s what I think. In the daytime I still hold out hope, but at night, when I can’t sleep…” She holds up her glass and takes a deep swallow. “When not even a bellyful of this stuff will let me sleep… I know.”
A single tear trickles down her cheek, cutting through the makeup and showing paler skin beneath. She wipes it away with the back of her hand and takes another swallow. “Excuse me.”
She goes into the kitchen, still walking perfectly straight. Jerome hears the clink of a bottleneck. She returns and sits down, careful to sweep the back of her skirt so it won’t wrinkle. Jerome thinks, She dressed for me. Got out of her PJs and housecoat and dressed for me. He can’t know this, but he does.
Vera Steinman talks for the next twenty minutes or so, sipping away at her drink and taking a second pause to refill her glass. She doesn’t slur. She doesn’t wander off-topic. She doesn’t stagger or weave on her trip to and from the kitchen.
Because Peter disappeared before Covid and the current turmoil in the city’s police department, his case was quite thoroughly investigated. The conclusion, however, was the same. The investigating detective, David Porter, believed (or said he believed) that Peter had run away.
Part of Detective Porter’s reasoning was based on his interview with Katya Graves, one of two guidance and health counselors at Breck Elementary School. A year or so before Peter’s disappearance his grades had slipped, he was often tardy and sometimes absent, and there had been several incidents of acting out, one resulting in a suspension.
In Graves’s meeting with the boy after the suspension had run its two-day course, the counselor persisted past the usual no-eye-contact mumbles, and finally the dam burst. His mother was drinking too much. He didn’t mind his friends calling him Stinky, but he hated it when they made fun of his mom. Her husband had left her when Peter was seven. She lost her job when he was ten. He hated the jokes, and sometimes he hated her. He told Ms. Graves he thought often about hitching to Florida to live with his uncle, who had a home in Orlando, near Disney World.
Vera says, “He never showed up there, but Detective Porter still thought he was a runaway. I bet you know why.”
Of course Jerome knows. “They never found his body.”
“No,” she agrees. “Not to this day, and there’s no more exquisite torture than hope. Excuse me.”
She goes into the kitchen. The bottle clinks. She returns, walking straight, skirt swishing, hose whispering. She sits. Good posture. Clear speech. She tells Jerome that Peter’s photo can be found among thousands of others on the Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website. He can be found on the FBI’s Kidnappings & Missing Persons website. On the Global Missing Children’s Network. On MissingKids.org. On the Polly Klaas Foundation website, Polly Klaas being a twelve-year-old kidnapped from a slumber party and subsequently murdered. And for months after Vera reported Peter missing, his picture was shown on the assembly room screen of the city PD at every rollcall.
“Of course I was questioned as well,” Vera says. The smell of gin is now very strong. Jerome thinks it isn’t just coming from her mouth, but actually seeping from her pores. “Parents murder children all the time, don’t they? Mostly stepfathers or natural fathers, but sometimes mothers get into the act, as well. Diane Downs, for instance. Ever seen the movie about her? Farrah Fawcett was in it. I was given a polygraph, and I suppose I passed.” She shrugs. “All I could tell them was the truth. I didn’t kill him, he just went out one night on his skateboard and never came back.”
