Dearly Departed (6 page)

E
ventually I made my way back to the house, stopping at the empty kennel. “What happened to the dogs?” I wondered aloud.

G
onna call me every time you have a brainstorm?” Teeters wanted to know.

“No, I just wanted—”

“Taylor, I read Sherlock Holmes, too. The neighbors did not report hearing the dogs bark the day Alison disappeared, but that’s not necessarily significant. The dogs were well trained, they rarely barked at anyone. A couple of the neighbors didn’t even know Alison kept dogs, they were that quiet.”

“Where are the Labs now?”

“Doggie heaven. Emerton put ’em down six months ago.”

five

“T
his sorta thing never happened when I was a boy,” Arlen Selmi informed me in his office at Kennel-Up, Inc. “People didn’t have to be afraid of strangers, didn’t have to lock their doors.”

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.

I
rene 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?”

“Goddammit, there you go again.”

“It’s like this, Irene,” I told her. “I think you’re lying about being with Raymond between five and seven the day Alison disappeared.”

“I don’t care.”

“The cops don’t believe you, either.”

“I don’t care!”

“But you see, unlike the cops, I don’t think you’re lying to protect Raymond, no ma’am. I think you’re lying to protect yourself.”

Irene didn’t have an answer for that.

“You hated Alison, didn’t you?”

Irene nodded.

“You hated her because she was so much more attractive and so much smarter than you are.”

“She was a bitch.”

“And Raymond wanted her, didn’t he?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“You and Raymond were lovers, weren’t you? And then Alison came along and that changed. Isn’t that why you hated her so much?”

“No! No, I hated her for what she did to Raymond.”

“What did she do to Raymond?”

“She ruined his life.”

“You mean she ruined
your
life.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“How big are your feet, Irene?”

“Go to hell!” she retorted and strode swiftly from the cafeteria.

I chuckled quietly and made a few notes in the pad I carry, enormously pleased with myself. I had made it up. All of it. Made it up as I went along without thought or consideration, and damned if I didn’t uncover a viable suspect both Teeters and Annie had missed.

“Must be divine inspiration,” I mused.

“B
eginning to annoy me,” Ed Teeters said over the telephone.

“Are you running surveillance on Irene Brown?” I asked.

“No.”

“Maybe you should put a team on her for a couple of days.”

“Why?”

“In case she tries to unload some incriminating evidence. A pair of running shoes, for example.”

There was a long pause on the other end, and I could almost hear the wheels turning inside the sheriff’s head. “Thought of that,” he muttered. “Tried to get paper for a search. Judge said no go. Said he doesn’t authorize fishing expeditions. I’m listening,” he said more loudly, and I told him of my conversation with Irene, told him that originally I hadn’t suspected her at all.

“I was trying to get her to open up about Fleck. Usually, you accuse someone of a crime they didn’t commit, and they’ll fall all over themselves trying to prove they’re innocent. I was hoping she’d talk about Fleck. She didn’t.”

“Means nothing,” Teeters concluded.

“I know. But here’s the thing. I pressed her for her shoe size. She wouldn’t tell me. Instead, she kept asking why I needed to know. I wouldn’t say, and that made her angry. Now, she’s going to think about it. She’s going to think about it long and hard. She’s going to realize we have a footprint.”

“Guilty, might try to dispose of the evidence. That the bet?”

“It’s a long shot,” I agreed.

He chortled. “Couldn’t possibly be that easy.”

six

I
found Raymond Fleck kneeling in the dirt with a knife in his hand. He was trimming a roll of sod and using the strips he cut to fill a hole next to the sidewalk. Laying sod, digging holes, clearing brush piles: grunt work for a landscaper in North Minneapolis. Apparently it was the only employment he could find.

The knife blade reflected the sun as I approached. Despite the knife, Raymond did not look like Mr. Stranger Danger. He looked small and harmless in his dirty T-shirt and jeans, almost childish. And although he worked every day in the sun, his face had a gray tint you don’t see on a well man.

“Raymond Fleck?” I asked.

His whole body sagged at the question. He dropped the knife atop the sod and wiped his hands on his shirt. “It’s never going to end, is it,” he said in a sad voice. It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration. He was a man resigned to his fate, more pitiful than frightening.

Raymond was calm but watchful. His eyes looked around me, never at me, as if he were expecting someone else to come for him. He assumed I was a cop, but I corrected that assumption right away. In Raymond Fleck’s world, the cops were bad guys. I wanted him to believe I was the Lone Ranger riding to his rescue. So after showing him my ID, I told him I was working for a client who was convinced that Stephen Emerton had killed Alison. Fleck’s demeanor brightened considerably. At last, someone who believed.