That was nonsense, of course. When Selmi was a boy, Al Capone, John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Ma Barker gang had turned the Midwest into a free-fire zone, slaughtering citizens with the same ferocity as street gangs and drug cartels do now. Kidnapping had been a cottage industry. And sensational murders—Sigmund Freud explaining to a jury why a man would slice his wife into tiny pieces with a razor blade and feed her to the fish—occurred with the same numbing regularity that we see today. But I didn’t question Selmi’s recollections. Nor did I doubt that he actually believed the decade of his childhood was somehow safer, simpler, and less foreboding than our present era; lots of people who spend more time looking backward than looking forward—especially the elderly—have come to the same conclusion. Still, I wondered if it was the circumstances of his youth that he recalled or just his own optimism.
Arlen Selmi had adored Alison, loved her like she was his own daughter. I know because he told me so. Several times. His eyes glossed over and his throat tightened around the words as he spoke, and I thought about Hunter Truman and began to wonder what was it about Alison that made grown men all misty-eyed and introspective. Yet it soon became apparent that if I had asked, Selmi would not have been able to identify the color of Alison’s hair. Oh, he could’ve described in wistful detail the virtues of a WAC lieutenant he was sweet on when he was stationed in North Africa. Or the curves and lines of a female welder he’d shacked up with for three weeks following VE Day. But Alison, “that sweet child,” was only a blur in his mind’s eye. Time had zipped by Arlen Selmi like a comet, taking the present with it and leaving only the past.
“His senility—I’d guess you’d call it that—it became pronounced soon after Alison disappeared,” Sarah Selmi advised me. “I don’t know if there’s a connection; maybe so. He partly blames himself for hiring Raymond in the first place.”
Arlen still carried the titles of president and CEO at Kennel-Up, but it was Sarah, Arlen’s granddaughter, who actually ran the company, gladly taking on the responsibility when the rest of her family showed no interest. More than that, she lived with her grandfather, took care of him, brought him to work each day, and ferociously fought her family’s efforts to have the old man committed—despite the fact that she was not mentioned in his will, only her father.
“My father does not love his father,” she confided in me. “I understand that because I do not love my father, either. But I love that old man. Why is that? How can love skip a whole generation?”
I told her I didn’t know and quickly urged her back to the subject. It’s not that I didn’t care. It’s just that her problems had nothing to do with my problems. Okay, I admit I don’t always rate high on the sensitivity meter, but I make it a practice never to visit other people’s lives unless I’m paid for it. I don’t like to get involved.
I asked Sarah about Raymond Fleck. I still preferred the husband, but since I was already in Hastings, I decided to ask a few questions at Kennel-Up first and interview Stephen Emerton that evening.
“Talk about love and hate, I hate Raymond Fleck’s guts, yet I’ve never met him,” Sarah replied. “I hate what he did to Alison, and I wish they would put him away forever.”
“Do you think he killed her?”
“I don’t know. The papers say he did and so does Grandfather. But most of the people around here say no,” Sarah replied. “Yet, even if he didn’t kill her, he did stalk her. Men think they can treat women however they wish, and that’s crap. And they do it to all of us. All of us. I don’t know of a single woman who wasn’t frightened or harassed at least once in her life by a man. Not one. When I was going for my MBA, I had this professor; he called me into his office, said I should be nice to him, put his hands on me, tore my blouse when I pushed him away. I took it to the administration, but nothing happened, nothing changed. He’s still there, and I had to transfer to the U. Bastard.”
“Did Alison tell you about Fleck?”
“No, Grandfather did. Alison, she didn’t speak very much. After my grandfather fired Raymond, I tried to be Alison’s friend. Went out of my way to be her friend, mostly because she didn’t seem to have any other friends around here. One woman, a secretary, actually drew up a petition to have her dismissed. I intercepted it before it reached Grandfather. But Alison, she kept her distance. She didn’t even mention the phone calls or the dead roses; I didn’t learn about those until the police came to investigate. Poor Alison. Lord, I hate Raymond Fleck.”
“What about the woman, the secretary?”
“I hate her, too. Give me an excuse to gas her, any excuse that won’t piss off my other employees.”
“What’s her name?”
“Irene Brown.”
I recognized the name instantly. Raymond Fleck’s lover. His alibi.
Irene Brown reluctantly agreed to speak with me in the employee’s cafeteria, which was little more than a cramped one-window room filled with two round tables, a dozen chairs, and a bank of vending machines. She didn’t want to be there and probably would not have been if Sarah Selmi hadn’t hovered over her like a grade-school principal. As it was, she remained defiant, answering questions with questions, giving me the same story she’d given the Dakota County deputies, daring me to contradict her. And when Sarah left the cafeteria to attend to business, Irene announced, “I’m not talking to you anymore.”
I pumped a couple of quarters into a vending machine and pressed the button marked Dr Pepper. “Want anything?” I asked as the can rolled into the tray.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m not answering any more questions.”
I opened the can and drank a generous portion of the sweet liquid. When I finished drinking I asked her, “How big are your feet?”
“What?”
“How big are your feet?”
Irene looked at me like I was a few raisins short of a cookie.
“You love Raymond, don’t you?”
Irene Brown was a large woman, six feet and overweight, with about as much sparkle as a cubic zirconia that’s gone through the washing machine a few times. She took a chair and pushed it violently across the room, and for a moment the chair became Alison. “Yes, I love him,” Irene answered, the clattering chair punctuating her remark.
“And you would do anything for him?”
“Anything.”
I took another slow sip of the Dr Pepper.
“So tell me, how big are your feet?”
“Why is that important?” she asked, and when she did, I suddenly realized just how important the question was. I couldn’t even tell you where it came from except my wife used to wear my discarded Nikes when she worked her garden, and they fit her fine.
“After Raymond was fired, Alison began receiving harassing phone calls. She also received some rather unsavory gifts, like a dead cat—”
“Raymond had nothing to do with that.”
“One day she found dead flowers on her desk.”
“I told you, Raymond had nothing—”
“How did the flowers get there, Irene? Who put them there?”
“What are you saying?”
I drained the remaining Dr Pepper and tossed the empty can into a recycle bin. Wait for it, wait for it, I told myself as I surveyed the candy bars behind the glass face of a second vending machine.
“Are you saying I put the dead roses on Alison’s desk?”
“I never said they were roses,” I answered, feigning disinterest.
Irene didn’t miss a beat. “Everyone knows they were roses,” she told me.
“I guess,” I said taking the change from my pocket and counting it. “Do you have a dime I can borrow?”
“No I don’t have a fucking dime,” was Irene’s curt reply.
I sighed heavily and slid the change back into my pants pocket. “So, Irene,” I asked casually. “How big are your feet?”