How Judy hooked up with Ricky Schlafly wasn’t important: druggies find each other by some system of smell or twitches, although for meth users the rotting gums are a giveaway. Judy and Ricky could have shared some dump in Chicago before Ricky returned to his roots.
I didn’t agree with Kitty Binder’s vehement assertion that Martin stayed away from Judy—children want to find some proof that their mothers care about them, especially mothers who abandon them when they’re babies. I could imagine Martin slipping silently out of the house, going to visit Judy without Kitty’s knowledge. He might have met Ricky Schlafly when he was still living in Chicago.
An arithmetic error, Martin had said to Kitty, something that kept him brooding in his basement for more than a week. If his mother had hacked into his bank account, he could have bicycled down to Palfry to confront her—although why wouldn’t he have driven?
“You still with me, Ms. PI?” Kossel demanded. “I got a traffic accident I’d better get to.”
“Judy Binder’s son disappeared over a week ago,” I said. I explained Martin’s situation. “Can you ask if anyone noticed him? He might have come down by bus, or hitched down. He’s a skinny kid, dark curly hair, narrow face, a bit James Dean–looking. I could probably find a photo and e-mail it to you. The basement to Schlafly’s house—it had a dirt floor.”
There was a pause at the other end. “Crap, PI. You thinking I should dig up that floor?”
“I’m thinking someone with a hazmat suit could tell if it had been dug up recently. They could also climb into the pit in the backyard. I didn’t have the gear with me yesterday to poke around in it.”
After another pause, the sheriff grunted. “The boy comes down a week ago to see if his ma has been stealing from him, Ricky shoots him, buries him, but she’s still around until two days ago? Hard to picture. Still, who knows what a woman full of meth might do. Hell, maybe she shot her own kid her own self.”
I used to represent women who sold their ten-year-old daughters to pimps for a single pipe of crack. It’s not the only reason I left the public defender’s office, but it was high on the list.
Kossel said, “If I look at the basement, there’s something you can do for me. See if you can find any of Ricky’s old pals in Chicago, see if someone up there wanted him dead. I’ve got my eye on a couple of rival dealers down here, but they all have pretty good alibis for when Ricky likely was shot.”
So that was why the sheriff had called, all cooperative with a private eye in a way the law usually isn’t. “I’ve been hoping I could get through the rest of my life without looking at another drug user,” I said.
“Told you you’d seen your share of scumbags,” he mocked.
“How about we trade? I’ll get a hazmat suit and rake through that garbage pit in Ricky’s backyard, and you come up here and start hanging out with local drug dealers.”
“Big-city gal like you can’t handle a little heat? Just wear a bulletproof vest and make sure your will is up-to-date and you’ll be fine.” The sheriff laughed heartily and cut the connection.
He called back a second later. “Ricky’s short for Derrick, not Richard.”
I drew little circles on my desk with my forefinger. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to let other people move their problems into the center of my stage. I did not care who killed Derrick Ricky Schlafly. I did not care what had become of Judy Binder. My only involvement in the Binder world was to give Kitty sixteen hours of hunting for her grandson.
I turned back to my own investigative issues. It was when I’d made my third mistake, confusing a bookstore’s problems with those of a completely unconnected yoga center, that I realized Martin Binder’s face was coming between me and my clients.
Kitty Binder had mentioned a boy who’d been Martin’s high school friend. She was one of the more unreliable narrators I’d listened to in decades of hearing dubious stories, but if she was telling something close to a fact, I could find him.
I hadn’t made any notes when I was with Kitty, but the friend’s name had made me think of television. Not David Sarnoff or Aaron Spelling. David Susskind. Martin’s friend was something Susskind. Toby.
I found three Susskinds in the Skokie area. LifeStory, another subscription search engine, came up with a family that included a Tobias the same age as Martin. They also had a daughter three years older and another son starting high school. Jeanine Susskind was a social worker with the Cook County Department on Aging; her husband, Zachary, worked for a big accounting firm.
It was almost six now. I reached Jeanine at home, but she was not going to share any confidential information with a stranger on a phone.
“I think you’re wise, ma’am,” I said, wishing she weren’t. “Can we meet for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine this evening? Martin Binder has disappeared, and I’d like to talk to someone who knows him. Kitty Binder said your son and Martin are friends.”