Summary

In Chapter 12, set July 23, 2021, Jerome is meeting with Vera Steinman, Peter’s mother. Jerome smells gin on Vera’s breath when she opens the door. Jerome tells her that he does not think Bonnie’s disappearance has anything to do with Peter, but wants to be sure.

Vera tells Jerome she thinks that her son is dead. She refills her gin glass several times in the twenty minutes that she talks to Jerome. The police believed Peter had run away because he told a school counselor that he had thought about hitchhiking to Florida to live with his uncle because his mother drank so much. Vera says she does not think this was the case because she stopped drinking the year before Peter disappeared.

Jerome notices that Vera only begins slurring her words at the end of their visit. She says the police...