by Rebecca Rane
I was hurt, but looking at what happens to other children in the same situation, I was incredibly lucky. My bones were broken. But I wasn’t.
I escaped.
I am fine. My family was traumatized, of course, but we were able to move on in the end. We were able to see the good, that I survived, and not be stuck in the worst four days of our lives. We all know we are incredibly lucky in this.
My abductor is still out there. Somewhere.
I don’t talk about this story, which everyone in my hometown knows. Because everyone knows it. And I didn’t want it to be the only story about my life. That would mean the stranger would win. I’d be frozen in time as the poster child for missing kids.
I didn’t want the crime to win, the criminal. I wanted to win, to determine the narrative of my life. Maybe, someday, decades from now, I’ll know if I succeeded.
If you’re into my case, there’s a Reddit thread with theories, speculation, all the things that go with a sensational crime story. I don’t participate in it. But, well, it’s there.
While my story had a happy outcome, it doesn’t have an ending. I can’t give you the story of his arrest or trial.
Despite not wanting to talk about this or make it a thing on the podcast, I wanted to let you know now, at the start of this season. Because the story we’re about to get into is similar to my own.
This is the story of another poster child for missing kids. Truth be told, I hate the term poster child. But if I was famous for a week, for my tale of escape, this next story was a supernova of crime stories in its day.
Let’s go back to 2005, summer in the Midwest.
It was a hot day in July. Fourth of July Weekend, actually. The holiday fell on Monday, which is perfect, right? Everyone has a long weekend.
July 2nd, Saturday, Margie and Doug Peltz had decided to take their little boy to Sand Point Amusement Park.
The privately owned park doesn’t keep a list of exact attendance numbers, but several news reports from that weekend mention that the park was at capacity.
You can imagine the scene: long lines of sweaty parents and cranky children waiting for a few minutes of fun. Because it is fun, going on the rides.
The smell of sunscreen lotion and taffy and the nearby Lake Erie beach mingled together. If you’ve been to Sand Point, you know.
It’s a special day for a little kid, for most families, that first trip to the amusement park.
The line for the Dune Buggy Bash ride was shorter than most. It wasn’t the hot new ride. The draw in 2005 was a thrilling new rollercoaster. That’s what news crews had done stories about. No, the Dune Buggy Bash was a classic old school ride for the younger park visitors. If you were under four feet, you could ride. You could ride it over and over again.
That’s what one little four-year-old did. He ran to the Dune Buggy Bash car and got in a purple one.
The ride started, the music, a knock-off of a sixties beach tune, pumped through the speakers as the cars spun round and round and round. Not too fast, slow enough for the little kids, but a little too fast maybe to keep track if you were standing at the fence watching.
A little boy waved to his mother, who’d waited behind the fence. She waved back.
The ride slowed and stopped. And the mother waited for her boy to exit.
Riders filed out, first a scrum of them, and then a trickle.
And then the gate opened for the next batch of sweaty park goers to take their turn.
The ride began to move.
The mother didn’t see her son.
She would never see her son again.
Witnesses say they heard her scream his name. They can still hear the terror in it.
“Ethan!”
She yelled it again. And again.
But Ethan didn’t answer.
This season we look at the disappearance of Ethan Peltz.
A disappearance that dominated the news back in 2005.
That was until Hurricane Katrina swept everything else off the front pages that same hot summer.
I’m Kendra Dillon, and this is The Cold Trail.
Kendra looked up, and Miles nodded. She was clear.
Episode one was in the can, and her story was at the top. Hopefully, addressing it herself would take the spotlight off of her and put it where she wanted.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t get in the way of the Peltz’s story.
Miles would add music, a few of the interviews from the early coverage, their pre-recorded intros, and underwriter acknowledgments.
Kendra’s part for episode one was over, which was good. She was itching to get back to looking at Howard Meriwether’s files.
Shoop had them in organized piles in the office.
Kendra thought about her sister’s comment about the parents being the first suspects.
She combed through the initial statements attributed to Margie and Doug Peltz to see what investigators had observed.
Margie Peltz was understandably coming apart. The reports use the word, unglued, hysterical, and medicated. Kendra saw that a family physician had come and helped administer a tranquilizer after two days straight of no sleep for the distraught mother.
The father was also questioned. Kendra read their impressions of him. He was the calm one, the rational one, the one who asked thoughtful questions. He was doing everything one would reasonably do in an unreasonable situation.
They’d also done a background check on him, and he had no record.
On paper, Doug and Margie Peltz were without reproach.
They were a dead-end when it came to suspects in the disappearance of their only son. Back then, law enforcement never thought the parents were to blame in the disappearance of Ethan Peltz.
Though the public had judged Margie harshly anyway.
It was apparently easy to judge a mother harshly.
Kendra realized she’d done the same to her own mother. She felt a wave of guilt wash over her. It wasn’t Stephanie’s fault she’d been grabbed by a madman.
And it wasn’t Margie’s fault either.
Kendra vowed to remember that the next time she talked to her mom.
Chapter 12
The man put him in the bath. He made him wash up.
He did a good job. The man said that. The man helped.
It made him scared. And it made him ashamed.
Babies get help in the bath. Not him. He wasn’t a baby.
And he wasn’t a doll. But the man treated him that way.
Like a doll, it was gross.
He clipped his nails and said they needed to stay clean.
“Don’t be a grubby!” the man said. He said it like he was Barney the Dinosaur or something. He wasn’t Barney.
He was scared, clean, and felt funny inside. But he wasn’t hurting. He checked. Nothing on him hurt now.
Well, his head did, for a little. But the bump was smaller. It wasn’t even a goose egg. He’d heard people say goose eggs. He’d never seen a goose egg, but they grew on people’s heads. He knew that.
He rubbed the back of his head. It was smaller, the bump. Goose egg, goose egg, gooseegggoosegg. It was a funny bunch of words.
He was okay. Nothing hurt.
The man made him get in a towel. He did what the man said.
“I’ve got your very favorite meal! How about that? I made it for you special, your mom said you liked it. We’re celebrating that you live here now!”
“I live here now?” He whimpered. It just came out. Like a baby. He didn’t know what had made him cry.
He didn’t want to live here now. Not all the time.
It hurt his feelings that he just lived here. No one asked him about what he wanted.
His mom always forgot things. Maybe she forgot to tell him.
She used to forget permission slips and to feed him dinner and that the milk was chunky in the fridge. But this. This was worse. Way worse.
The man made him sit at the table, and he put a plate of food in front of
him.
It was mac and cheese. The kind in the blue box. He did like that.
He was happy because that was his favorite. But he also wanted to cry again.
The man was telling the truth. His mom must have told this man that mac and cheese were his favorite.
He would live here now. This was his house.
But this man wasn’t his mom or dad. Or was this man his dad now? Could you replace dads? He didn’t know. Moms were different. You couldn’t get a new mommy. He knew that.
No. No.
He wanted to cry. But he didn’t. And he didn’t whimper either.
He wasn’t a baby.
The man put a fork in his hand.
He ate.
As promised, retired Sheriff Meriwether made the call. Margie Peltz trusted Howard Meriwether. Kendra was going to stand on the shoulders of that trust for the next episode of the podcast.
Interviewing people who’d been through tragedy, trauma, and horror was a delicate dance. Kendra knew the steps better than most.
But it was still like walking with bare feet on the floor where the glass had shattered. As much as you tried to step carefully around the shards, you could still land on the invisible glass dust particles. Those crystals of pain sliced your skin with no warning. No matter how carefully you tread.
Kendra let Josh know that she was meeting Margie at her condo.
If the interview with Margie went well, Kendra would text Josh. It was a meeting that could be a disaster. Josh desperately wanted to reunite with Margie, but Kendra promised to be careful with Margie. Josh wanted to go too, but he didn’t push too hard. He’d been unable to locate Margie and was grateful that Kendra had gotten this far in such a short time.
Kendra knocked lightly on Margie Peltz’s door and didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
“Hello, do come in,” Margie said, smiling. The smile didn’t reach her eyes. The young woman Kendra had seen in the old family photos, as a young mother, was now in her fifties. Kendra knew Margie was quite a bit younger than Stephanie Dillon, but she looked much older.
Every single fear, worry, doubt, and false lead was etched in the long deep lines of her face. Her blonde hair, now white, was pulled back in a ponytail, just like it had been in many of the news clippings. She wore a heavy wool sweater and jeans that were cut to be skinny, no doubt, but looked loose on the woman.
She was painfully thin. The baggy clothes made it worse.
“I thought we’d sit in the breakfast nook, if that works.”
“It does.”
Margie led the way.
Margie knew why Kendra was here. She’d agreed to this. She passively sat still while Kendra affixed a mic to the bulky sweater.
As she sat across from Margie, Kendra tried to decide where to begin. What was the most important thing to know from this woman?
Kendra decided to be honest.
“I’m not sure about the right questions to ask,” Kendra said, “Or where we should start.”
“Most people want to know what kind of mother could let this happen,” Margie said. Maybe it was a question the woman tortured herself with. It would not be one Kendra would ask. In fact, despite her relationship with her own mother—push and pull—Kendra knew, deeply, that her mother wasn’t in any way to blame for Kendra’s kidnapping. She resolved again to tell her that.
That was the bridge, Kendra realized.
“Let me start here, with this. I was kidnapped when I was a little girl,” Kendra said, and Margie’s eyes widened a bit at the news. “I was lucky. I escaped. But I want to assure you that I never once believed my mother was to blame. Not once.”
Margie’s shoulders seemed to relax a little. Kendra did too.
“What were your days like, with Ethan?” Kendra softly waded in.
“I, uh, he was a sweet baby. I will tell you that, loved his naps. My friends were jealous because we had six-hour stretches of sleep from day one.”
“That is a luxury I hear, with newborns,” Kendra replied.
“He loved space stuff, astronauts, aliens. That was how we decorated his room when he grew out of the crib. I still have sheets I didn’t even open. They have stars and moons.” Margie said, and Kendra imagined the unopened package in the linen closet. Sitting there, in stasis, for over fifteen years.
“So, at Sand Point, had he ridden that Astro Blaster ride yet?” Kendra asked, out of the blue, she wasn’t even sure why.
“Uh, I wasn’t supposed to talk about that.” Margie’s jaw clenched.
The news reports had him on the Dune Buggy Bash, but seeing as he liked space, Kendra just guessed he’d want to go on the rocket ship ride, the Astro Blaster.
“Sheriff Meriwether said you can tell me whatever you’d like to,” Kendra said.
“Right, yes, well, the truth was, as sweet a little boy as he was, he’d had a tantrum. That was one of our last interactions. The Astro Blaster line was too long, so Doug insisted he go on that Dune Buggy thing. He made him, actually, a couple of times. And Ethan was starting to cry about it. I told him we’d do it next. The last thing I said to him was a lie, turns out.”
“I know you told reporters, police, and all that a million times, but…” Kendra started.
“You want me to walk you through it, sure, yeah, people love a train wreck,” Margie said.
“You know, I have to say, people do want to help. They want you to find your boy.”
“He’s a man now. I missed the boy stage. That is, if he’s still alive. If he made it out of the little boy stage, the odds are low. I know the stats,” Margie said.
“It was crowded at Sand Point?”
“Crazy actually, I hated it. Wall to wall people, sweaty people,” Margie said.
Kendra stayed quiet as Margie retold the same story. The one she’d told to sheriff’s deputies, to reporters, to psychics, to handlers of cadaver sniffing dogs, to anyone who would listen in the beginning. Kendra had read every account.
“I felt the moment he vanished, in my bones,” Margie said.
“What do you mean?” Kendra asked.
“Like one moment, I was standing there, bored, hot, impatient for the theme park day to be over. I was so ready to sit by the pool. That’s what I was focusing on. And then, in the next moment, the air shifted, or maybe I felt Ethan’s fear like it was a tangible thing. Doug was telling me it was no big deal. He was mad that Ethan had wandered off even. I knew, though,” Margie said. Kendra hadn’t heard this description in any of Margie’s previous interviews.
“You carry a baby in your body. Maybe your cells are still linked to their cells. I felt like that. It was a switch.” Margie snapped her fingers. “I went from impatience to stark terror. It didn’t dawn on me in a slow way that he was taken. It stabbed me in the gut. The moment he vanished felt like my skin was turned inside out.”
Kendra remembered witnesses, other park guests in line at the ride, people walking on the midway, describe Margie’s scream. That was the moment he vanished. And the moment the mother understood that her son was gone produced a keening sound, one that no one in earshot could forget.
“And in the next few days, what then?”
“Horror with no end, no answer, still,” Margie said. “We were at the resort for days and days. And finally, we had to come home.”
“Since then, what has kept you going?”
“The idea that he would unvanish, that he would be here in the same way he was gone. Poof.” She snapped her fingers again. “Also, I’m too much of a coward to kill myself.”
Kendra realized Margie Peltz was a shattered vase. The pieces were collected, maybe all there, but they were loose. The vase couldn’t hold water or flowers. It could only remember that once, before the shattering, it did.
“How’s today?” Kendra asked. The question “How are you?” wasn’t one she asked victims or their families. She just tried to get a sense of the moment. Since she knew grief came in waves, she asked where they were in that tumult.
Because they were never “okay.”
“It’s like falling off a cliff and seeing the ground hurtling toward your body, ready to break it. You’re bracing for it. But you never quite hit. It’s just always ready to smash you to bits. And the effort of holding yourself together, for the impact, rips you apart anyways.”
With that image in mind, Kendra broached the next subject. She would apply no pressure or judgment. What happened next was up to Margie Peltz.
“What do you want to do about this young man, Josh, who believes he is Ethan?”
“What do you think?”
Margie was now trusting Kendra for the next step. The trust was good, it was what she wanted to build with this eternally grieving mother, but at the same time, one more disappointment could be enough to kill her. She’d promised Meriwether she’d be careful with Margie. She didn’t want to be the source of devastating disappointment. But Josh was the whole reason she was here.
“I don’t think there’s a way forward unless you meet him. Let’s start there, and if he seems, uh, credible to you, well, then we let science take over.”
Margie rubbed her face, closed her eyes, and then opened them to stare at Kendra.
“Okay, text him and let him know he can come in. I think he’s out there, in that car.”
Kendra was shocked and slightly betrayed. She’d told Josh to wait, not to reach out until Kendra had given him Margie’s response. Josh had followed her right to Margie.
Kendra stood up and looked out the front window and discovered that Margie was right.
The man who claimed to be Ethan Peltz was ready to walk into Margie’s life.
Now, without delay, and whether Kendra said so or not.
“Tell him to come in,” Margie said.
Chapter 13
“You’re as short as I am,” Margie said to Josh.
“I was the second shortest in my senior class,” Josh said. Margie winced. Maybe it was the idea that, if this was her son, her Ethan, time had marched on in his life in a way that was tough to comprehend.
