Match Play (28 page)

S
arah rises
to prepare the tea. She fills the pot, places it on the tray and brings everything to the table on a tea tray. She sets a cup, saucer, and spoon and cloth napkin for each of them, and then seats herself again at the table.

“Virginia was my friend. I tried to support her, but it was difficult when David Sr. was here. He would keep us apart, and he was always reminding her that I am only a servant. Virginia didn’t have any real friends; David Sr. didn’t approve of anyone and rarely let her have people to the house. He was never satisfied with any of her choices, friends or otherwise, unless he had pre-approved them. He isolated her. He tried to control everything she did.”

“Did you get along with Mr. Steadman Sr. when he wasn’t ill?”

“Well, as long as I did my job and followed his orders exactly, everything was fine. Occasionally I made the mistake of taking either David or Virginia’s side in some argument and then he was very cruel and demeaning to me.”

She sips her tea.

“I learned very quickly to keep my opinions to myself and to stay out of family business. Mr. Steadman never wanted to acknowledge me as anything other than a servant. Virginia was the exception. Sometimes we sat and talked for hours. I would try to console her, to help her understand her husband. I regret now that I encouraged her to make the best of things. I don’t know why I did, I suppose for little David’s sake. If I were in similar circumstances, I would have left.”

“Well, it rather seems like you are in similar circumstances.” Lou regrets saying the words as soon as they leave his mouth. “So was there abuse? Did he hit her?” He rarely stops writing. He picked up several new notebooks before he left his hotel room, and now the first one is nearly full.

“I shouldn’t be telling this, but David Sr. had an awful temper. He did hit Virginia and he could be hurtful to David. I saw both of them with bruises. Virginia would never admit to it, but it was obvious. Those days she would stay in her rooms. I’d serve her there. She would be withdrawn and uncommunicative.

“Sometimes she and little David would spend the entire afternoon together. About six years before she died, she stopped having anything to do with David Sr. They had separate rooms, dined alone and only were seen together at social functions if he demanded that she attend with him. I would often serve dinner to little David and his mother in the dining room, but David Sr. rarely came home. He usually ate at his club or the golf course, or somewhere I wasn’t aware of.”

She fusses with her napkin and then touches it to her mouth.

“What about golf? Did Mr. Steadman Sr. teach his son to play?”

“I don’t think I can recall a time when the two of them actually golfed together. David Sr. would only allow little David to caddy for him, which he did almost anytime his father played, up until he was about fifteen or sixteen years old. I don’t know much about golf, except that David Sr. played very well and often played for a lot of money. He liked to gamble.”

She leans forward and looks directly at Lou Schein. “What they did at the golf course is beyond me. David often came home with his face swollen from crying, but he would never tell me what happened. His father would just drop him off in front of the house, sometimes later than a young boy should have been out, but we couldn’t tell David Sr. anything.

“His father’s car was so quiet; I couldn’t hear it on the street. It’s a Rolls Royce. It’s out in the garage and David never uses it. Albert drives it to the dealer every six months for service and starts it twice a week, but that’s all. Albert says David never goes near it. Sometimes, in the evening when I was working here in the kitchen, I would turn around and David would be standing there staring at me. I’d ask him if he wanted something and instead of answering, he would turn and run out of the kitchen.

“David usually went straight to his room. It was obvious David had been punished but I never knew for what.” She fidgets again with her napkin, then lays it on the table. “I think David was terrified of his father.”

Lou gives her a reassuring nod and a motion to go on while continuing to make notes.

“I did let David in my room sometimes, especially when he was younger. He would be so upset over something and Virginia just couldn’t cope, so he would come to me. Mr. Steadman would have been furious if he had known I was mothering the boy, but he never found out and David needed someone to love him.”

“Did he ever confide in you about his parents or his problems?” Lou knows he’s treading on dangerous ground.

“He has confided in me, but it’s just that, a confidence and I don’t feel comfortable breaking that bond. Maybe his doctor can tell you more.” She looks around the kitchen, comfortable in her familiar surroundings. “I’m certain you will discover that all this nonsense about these crimes isn’t true.”

“Well, the evidence is compelling, Ms. Waite.” Lou continues with his questioning, “Do you recall anything happening before David left on vacation that was unusual or out of the ordinary? Did he seem out of sorts?”

“David is always the same. He’s quiet and thoughtful and it isn’t worth disputing his decisions. When he makes up his mind, it’s final. And that’s just the way he was before he left. I prepared things as he requested. I wasn’t concerned about him. I knew he was going and that was that.”

She finishes her tea and sets the cup down a little too harshly. “He said Dr. Jensen thought it was a good idea, but he seemed like he was making a joke sometimes when he said it. Anyway, who am I to argue with a doctor? I thought it was a good idea too.”

“Did you know that Dr. Jensen is dead? I’m going to try to see a colleague of hers when we finish here.” Lou looks at his notes, waiting for a reaction.

Sarah looks quizzically at him but doesn’t say anything.

Agent Sullens enters and whispers something to Lou, then leaves.

“Sorry, Ms. Waite.” Lou writes something down, then, “Do you recall anything about David from any time in his life that you questioned or thought was odd. You know, didn’t make sense to you?”

“I don’t think I know what you mean, Agent Schein. David was a normal boy. He did what all little boys do. He did get into trouble sometimes, as anyone would expect. When he did, I always thought David Sr. made way too much of it.”

She is looking at Lou in a curious way.

“Well, I mean something unusual. Like unexplained absences or something about him that didn’t seem to make sense in light of everything else you believed about him?” Lou is trying to be as tactful as possible.

“Oh, well, I never understood why he had so many bloody noses. I was always finding blood on his clothes, and he always said he’d had a bloody nose. I never saw that boy with a bloody nose except once, and that was when David Sr. slapped his face. His mother took him to the doctor several times to have it checked, but they didn’t find anything wrong. When he got older, they seemed to go away. At least I stopped finding blood on his clothes.”

Her face reveals that the subject continues to perplex her.

Schein is thinking of the crime scenes. He writes
Was it David’s blood on his clothes?
“Was David ever arrested when he was younger? Did he get into any trouble with the authorities?”

“No, he didn’t. He was a good boy. David knew if that ever happened, David Sr. would have gone on a tirade. Mr. Steadman was very concerned about appearances. I only recall one time that a policeman came to the door. He wanted to know if I was Mrs. Steadman; Virginia was ill, so I told him I was. He said he was checking to verify that David had returned my butcher knife.

“I was so surprised because I didn’t know what he was talking about, but coincidentally I had been having trouble finding certain knives when I wanted to use them. I thought I was losing my mind. You can imagine…”

Lou interrupts her. “And what did the policeman say?”

“He said he had stopped David on the street and that David had a large butcher knife in the basket of his bicycle. Well, I didn’t believe it. And when I went to look, all the knives were there, so of course I told the policeman he was mistaken. I remember, I asked David if he had been borrowing my knives and he said he hadn’t. The policeman never came back, but I did seem to keep misplacing my knives.”

“How old was David when this happened?”

“Oh, maybe ten or eleven. What would a boy that age want with a butcher knife anyway?” She smiles. “Do you think those other men are about finished? I can just imagine the mess they are making.”

“They try to be as careful as they can, so please don’t worry.” Lou is anxious to check on the agents as well. “Is there anything else unusual you can remember?”

“No, I don’t think so. David was just a normal boy. I do remember when he was a teenager, he was always upset when I went into his room. You know how teenage boys are?”

Lou nods and smiles.

“Actually he was upset a lot during his early teen years. It was an awful time between him and his father. Sometimes he took it out on me. Well, I had to do my work too. Sometimes I found Virginia’s clothes in his room, but I just picked them up and kept it to myself.”

Lou writes
Sex with mother? Dressing in mother’s clothes?

Sarah keeps looking around, trying to peer around the corner to see what the agents are doing. She seems more nervous. It is apparent to Lou the interview is coming to a close. Sarah Waite is becoming more distracted with each question. She picks up the tea service and carries it to the sink and begins to clean up the kitchen.

Lou decides he will withdraw for a while and wait for her to relax before he does any more probing of her memory. He leaves her to her tasks and finds Agent Sullens in the master suite with two other agents.

T
he notebook
is a spiral ring type that looks to be quite old. Schein starts thumbing through the yellowed pages that contain drawings of animals. He wonders what it is Curtis Sullens thinks is so significant.

“Just keep going. It gets pretty weird,” Sullens replies.

Schein continues with the pages—none are dated or numbered—and as he gets further along the drawings become more anatomical. Skulls and skeletons of birds, and legs of cats and dogs are displayed. Anatomical parts of all kinds of animals have been drawn in the notebook, including drawings of humans.

It rather looks like a crude Leonardo notebook. There is nothing exceptional about the drawings until he reaches the middle section, when the drawings start appearing with “cut” lines at a particular joint or muscle. As he turns more pages, there are corrections and revisions to the drawings, as if experimentation occurred. Some of the drawings have eraser marks and then a note that says “not here.”

As he continues through the book, it becomes apparent what Sullens thinks the drawings imply. Lou considers the crimes they are investigating; if not for the age of the notebook, he would expect to find dissections of human females at the back.

Like so many before him, David Steadman Jr. started early.

One of the agents searching the master closet calls for Sullens and Schein to join him. While tapping on the back wall of the closet, he triggered a hidden door that opened into another closet.

Lou stands back, his mouth practically gaping open. The hidden closet appears to be a woman’s dressing room full of women’s clothes, expensive shoes, and undergarments. They are not outdated items; some are so new they still have store tags on them. The agents open built-in drawers and find jewelry and makeup. The closet walls are lined with mirrors.

Lou is almost shaking as he remembers the woman in the elevator with Shirley Scott, the third hole in Rancho Mirage, California.
Was that David Steadman?’ Is that why we can’t find him?

Lou steps out of the closet and, at the window overlooking the back gardens, he speed dials Nancy Cochran. When she answers, he practically jumps into the phone.

“We’re at David Steadman’s house in Chicago; the local agents are processing a search warrant. We’ve found a hidden closet full of women’s clothes and shoes, jewelry and makeup. My first thought is the woman in the elevator with Shirley Scott in Rancho Mirage. Could that have been David dressed as a woman?”

“That’s certainly possible considering what we know about him. I would be inclined to suspect multiple personality disorder.”

Lou is shocked. He feels like he’s been going down the wrong path through this entire investigation.

Nancy tells him she will have to see the pictures of the closet and read his notes and find out what else was discovered in the house. She suggests Lou talks to the psychiatrist as soon as possible. Nancy says if he can’t get anywhere with her, she will call the doctor herself.

“Ask the housekeeper if David has long hair,” Nancy adds.

Lou thanks Nancy and tells her he’ll get all the information to her via email as soon as possible.

The agents find several sets of golf clubs in the basement and a small workroom further back. In a drawer of the room is a collection of knives, and Lou wonders if Sarah would recognize any of them. He asks one of the agents to bring Sarah downstairs when they’re done with the search and ask her if those are her knives.

The back wall holds a shelf filled with various sized, old jars, each capped, but the contents had rotted away long ago and are not identifiable. Some have bones in them.

It is apparent that David Steadman has been collecting trophies all his life.

The agents make a thorough search of the garages and the Rolls Royce. Albert remains close by. Lou asks him some probing questions, and Albert’s responses confirm his dislike for David Sr. He expresses the same sympathy for Mrs. Steadman and David Jr. but otherwise has nothing new to offer.

The Rolls Royce is a rather stripped-down version of a classic model from the 1990s. It is meticulously clean inside and out, thanks to Albert. When asked, he says he has never opened any of the compartments in the car or the trunk. That had been Mr. Steadman Sr.’s instructions.

Lou suspects he is lying; after all, Mr. Steadman had been dead for four years. They did find some hundred dollar bills in the center compartment of the console, along with a pistol. Schein, ever suspicious, wonders how many bills Albert has taken over the years. They open the trunk, which contains an open case of expensive whiskey and a set of golf clubs. Going through the bag they find IOU’s to Steadman Sr., more large bills and another pistol in one of the pockets of the golf bag.

When they are finished, Agent Schein returns to the house and asks Sarah Waite if he can call on her again if he has more questions or needs more information. She agrees. As he turns to leave, he asks, as if he’s just now thought of it, “Does David still have long hair?”

And before she can think, she answers, “Yes! It’s lovely long, blonde, wavy hair.”