Floating Staircase(30)

The only exception was the one wall comprised not of smoked bricks but of a giant assembly of mahogany shelving on which sat hundreds—perhaps thousands—of leather-bound books. Spines cracking and flaking, many of the embossed titles worn illegible, the books occupied every possible slat and crevice of the wall-length shelves. Some were wedged horizontally while others were driven vertically between neighboring volumes and evidently pounded into place with a forcefulness that made retrieving them about as difficult as extracting nails bare-handed from a length of wood. Framed reproductions of various panels from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience hung on the walls, the colors behind the glass sharp and brilliant and completely out of place in the midst of this dreary rural pub.

“What are you talking about?” Adam said. “I told you the whole story.”

“No. You told me he drowned. You never said his body was never found.”

He flicked at the foamy head of his beer with one finger and looked suddenly bored. “Okay, yeah. We never found him.”

“How is that possible? It’s a self-contained lake.”

“A very big, very deep lake.” Adam sighed and rubbed his face. “No one actually saw the kid fall in, so we had no real time of death. The only thing we had to go by was Nancy Stein’s statement about hearing what sounded like a scream. By the time we showed up on scene, that scream took place over two hours ago. Do you know what happens to a body that’s gone underwater for two hours?”

“Hey,” I said, holding up both hands in mock surrender, “I’m not criticizing.”

My brother’s eyes narrowed. “What have you been doing, anyway? Asking around about this stuff?”

“I went to the library and looked at some old newspaper articles.”

“For what reason?”

I tried to appear cavalier. I didn’t want him to know I was writing a book. “Curiosity, I guess.”

“Yeah, right.” The tone of his voice said he didn’t believe me.

“Were you there that day? Part of the search?”

“Yes.”

“What was it like?”

“It was horrible. It made me sick.” Adam placed both his palms down flat on the bar top. “Out here, the biggest things we got going on are the occasional vandals on Main Street and the rowdy bunch of teenagers who decide it’ll be funny to take a dump on the steps of the post office.”

“So you guys weren’t prepared for an investigation into what happened to Elijah?”

“We’re good cops, if that’s what you’re insinuating. We know how to do our jobs, and we do them well.” He looked hard at his beer. “We lost a guy over in Iraq. Left the force on a whim, said it was some calling and he had to answer. Fuck.” He stared off into the dimness of the bar. “We’re a good police force is what I’m getting at.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Fuck,” he said again and finished half his beer in one swallow, then ordered another round.

“Who interviewed Nancy Stein?”

“My partner,” Adam said. “Douglas Cordova. You met him at the Christmas party, remember?”

I did vaguely: giant barrel-chested guy with a pleasant, almost childlike face. “Sure,” I said. “Were the Dentmans ever suspects?”

“Not officially.”

“But you guys had some question about them?”

“No. But when a kid disappears . . .”

“You look to the parents first,” I finished for him. “Or in this case, the mother and the uncle.”

“It’s not unusual to search and search and never find a body,” Adam said.

I thought, Yeah, if they happen to drown in the Atlantic f*cking Ocean. I got the distinct impression that he was trying to convince himself, not me. “And what about the kid’s bedroom I found hidden in the basement? It’s the single creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Sure is.” Noncommittal. I’d lost him somewhere along the way.

“But let’s forget about the room for a second. Veronica Dentman left all that stuff behind on purpose, packed away back there and hidden like a dirty secret.”

“That’s not unusual,” Adam said.

“Children’s books, baseball hats, woolen knit gloves, sneakers, clothes, toys . . .”

“Everybody deals with death in their own way. For Veronica Dentman, maybe that was the only way she could deal with it—to get out quick and leave everything behind.”

“Just seems a bit callous and insensitive. Strange.”

Adam groaned. “What about Mom and Dad?”

I sipped some beer and said, “What about them? They had their little period after Kyle died, but they didn’t erase his memory. There were still pictures in the house, still some of his things around. It took them almost a full year before they cleared out his bedroom, for Christ’s sake.” And thinking of this caused the vivid memory to rise through the murk again: finding Matchbox cars under Kyle’s bed after his death. I blinked repeatedly and had to clear my throat with another sip of beer.

“That’s exactly my point,” said Adam. “Everyone deals with it in their own way. Mom and Dad dealt with it in their own solitary ways. Fuck, I became a cop because maybe I felt some subconscious drive to help those who can’t help themselves.”