Alice Pfeifer proved to be an astonishingly effective spokesperson for Salsa Girl Salsa. At least I was astonished. Never mind that her big brown eyes gave off an innocent, I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening vibe. The young lady managed to answer all of the media’s questions as succinctly as possible and yet told them nothing at all. It’s exactly what the media wanted, too. Good storytellers know that it isn’t the answers that keep the audience engaged, it’s the questions.
From the questions they asked, you could tell which story the reporters wanted to pursue. One asked about disgruntled employees in a down economy. Another asked about the number of immigrants and people of color employed by Salsa Girl Salsa. Yet most of the outlets were clearly interested in the protest angle. I don’t know if Alice had planted the seed off camera, if they had been tipped by a source at the SPPD, or if they had come to it on their own. Alice rebuffed the suggestion, however. While she had no idea who would engage in such a terrible crime as bombing the truck, she was pretty sure it wasn’t one of their neighbors. Besides, she said, the company was apolitical. It didn’t pollute the environment, hire illegal immigrants, promote gun control, oppose minimum wage, or tell people how to educate their children.
“All we do is make good salsa,” Alice said.
I used the remote to silence the TV.
“I like her,” I said.
“Do you think sales will go up because of all of this or go down?” Nina asked.
“Go up. Absolutely. At least locally. People will want to know what the fuss is about. My question: Why isn’t Erin speaking for herself?”
“I doubt she’d appear as sympathetic as Alice.”
“I think Erin can make herself appear any way she wants.”
“How’s your shoulder?”
“Hurts like hell.”
I was tired. I had gone to bed soon after Salsa Girl dropped me off in front of the condominium, but I had slept fitfully, the pain in my shoulder jerking me awake every time I turned in my sleep. I gave it up at eight A.M. and took a shower. It wasn’t easy, because I was keen to obey Lilly’s instructions about keeping the dressing dry; I ended up wrapping a plastic trash bag over the bandage. I dressed and put on the sling. Its off-white color clashed nicely with my gray sports jacket. Breakfast was a couple of English muffins with cream cheese and coffee. Nina joined me at about ten. She ate yogurt. Afterward, she went out to get my prescriptions filled while I watched a rebroadcast of On the Fly on the NHL Network. She returned just as I switched over to watch the local news at noon.
“Take your pain pills,” Nina said.
“They’ll make me nauseous and lethargic at the same time.”
“You know this because…?”
“Remember the last time I was in the hospital?”
“Vividly.”
“Because of that.”
“Why didn’t you tell the doctor?”
“Lilly has enough to worry about. Besides, I can take it.”
“McKenzie, are all men as dumb as you?”
“Just hockey players.”
“How’s your head?”
“F-I-N-E.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Usually you’re off to Rickie’s by now. I hope you’re not hanging around on my account.”
“Of course I am.”
“That’s sweet of you, Nina, but it really isn’t necessary. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s debatable, too.”
“I need to run over to Salsa Girl in a little bit anyway.”
“C’mon, McKenzie. Give yourself a break.”
“Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.”
“Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. For a guy who claims he doesn’t like poetry, you seem to know an awful lot of it.”
“I’m just saying lying around here isn’t going to make me heal any faster.”
“Yes, it will.”
“In any case, Erin wants me to sit in on her meeting with Bruce Bignell. It shouldn’t take long. Afterward, I’ll come back home and crash.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“I’ll be home early.”
I liked the sound of that. Only when I twisted my body without thinking and felt a stiletto of pain slicing through my shoulder I thought, Maybe not. On the other hand, what was it my first hockey coach used to say—no pain, no gain?
Nina was the first to leave. As she was heading for the door she spoke to me.
“Don’t forget to call Marshall Lantry and have him fix Salsa Girl’s cameras,” she said.
“Oh, sweetie,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with the cameras.”
* * *
I read somewhere that Mary, Queen of Scots, wore a bright red dress when she climbed the scaffold to meet her executioners. Erin Peterson wore dark blue as she waited for the Bignell clan. It was an attractive dress, and while you could argue that it was office appropriate, if the workday included a cocktail hour, no one seeing her in it would believe for a moment she was an innocent little girl. It made me think that Erin had decided to draw on a tool in her Swiss Army knife to deal with Bruce that was different than the one she used before.
We were sitting in Erin’s office, her chair swiveled so she could look out her window at the parking lot and the bridge beyond. She was drinking coffee. I would have asked if she had mixed it with anything besides cream but thought it would be impolite. Instead, I asked her about Central Valley International.
“They take their own sweet time when dealing with these matters,” Erin said. “Apparently Ripley has to bring it to a committee that meets every two weeks. He doesn’t think what happened to my truck will be a problem. CVI has had incidents of its own to deal with over the years. The way he looks at it—you were right about that, by the way. The way he looks at it, if we can’t make Salsa Girl Salsa here, we’ll make it somewhere else. We’ll decide that later, though. In the meantime, I have to wait eleven days before we get a final decision. Not the way I would run a business, but hey, I’m just a naïve little girl from—”
“Stop it.”
Erin’s head snapped toward me.
“You’re the least naïve person I’ve ever met,” I said. “In fact, I look at you and I think—what’s the antonym for naïve? Clever? Cunning? Devious?”
“Sophisticated. The antonym for naïve is sophisticated. Look it up.”
“What was on the camera, Erin?”
“Nothing. You saw. There was a malfunction of some sort.”
“Or you could have watched the footage late last night after Bobby and Shipman dropped you off before heading to my place and erased it. When I told them about the cameras later, you agreed to meet them here, waiting in your parking lot instead of your office so you could feign surprise when we all saw that the memory was empty.”
“That’s one explanation, I suppose.”
“I’m open to alternatives.”
“I like you, McKenzie. You have a broad-minded worldview.”
“Is that what it is?”
“Also, I can trust you. You’re one of the few of Ian’s friends who haven’t hit on me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. Some were more straightforward than others, but—Bobby Dunston doesn’t like me, does he?”
“He’s never said. I take it he’s also among the few who haven’t approached you.”
“I almost wish he would. The man has a suspicious nature. I suppose it comes from being a police officer all those years.”
“Nah. He was the same way when we were kids.”
“He wasn’t here this morning, but his partner was.”
“Jean Shipman?”
“Detective Jean Shipman. She and a couple of other investigators with the St. Paul Police Department were here early this morning. They interviewed every single employee I have. Most of them were pretty upset.”
“The detectives?”
“No, my workers. Some of them are immigrants, some of them—I don’t blame them for being suspicious of the police or the government, especially the way things have been going on in Washington lately. It didn’t matter how courteously the detectives behaved, my people were left feeling that they’re being blamed for what happened, for setting the bomb. I had to call a meeting to explain that it wasn’t true.”
“You said they were upset. Any one employee more than the others?”
“Don’t you start, McKenzie—here we go.”
A black Buick Regal pulled in to the lot and parked in the handicap zone closest to the door even though it carried no handicap sticker.
Erin called, “Alice.”
Alice Pfeifer appeared at the office door seconds later.
“The Bignells are here,” Erin said. “When they say they want to see me, ask if they have an appointment. They’ll say they don’t need one. When they do, you call my phone. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Off with you now.”
I watched as the driver’s side door of the Buick opened. Marilyn Bignell-Sax slid out from behind the wheel. Apparently Bruce didn’t have a chauffeur, unless that was Marilyn’s daytime job. Randy came out of the front passenger side of the car while Marilyn opened the rear passenger door. I saw Bruce Bignell’s cane before I saw him. He tapped it against the asphalt parking lot as if he were claiming it for the Crown. Marilyn helped him from the car and then he shook her hands away.
The three Bignells approached the front entrance. I lost sight of them. Erin sipped her coffee, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes.
“Anyway, I don’t think Bobby likes me,” she said. “Shelby’s a sweetheart, though. So are her girls, Victoria and—what’s the other one’s name? Karen?”
“Katie. Well, Katherine, but everyone calls her Katie.”
Erin’s phone rang. She let it ring three times before she answered.
“Yes.”
I leaned close enough to hear both sides of the conversation.
“Bruce Bignell to see you,” Alice said.
“Tell him I’ll be out in a moment. Alice? I’m going to wait exactly seven minutes. It will seem longer. Bruce will become impatient. If he says anything, and he will, tell him that I’m very busy and remind him that he didn’t make an appointment. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Erin hung up the phone and leaned back again. She glanced at her watch.
“Are we having fun yet?” she asked.
“I think we were discussing naïveté.”
“You know how many men have done this to me over the years? Kept me waiting and waiting and waiting because they were too busy to see me, even though they’re the ones who scheduled the meeting? Including Bignell. Especially Bignell.” She glanced at her watch again. “It’s not that they’re all misogynists, although there’s a lot of that. They need to make sure you know who’s important, who’s in charge. They need you to know that they have the power. Well, now I do.”
“You do?”
Erin glanced at her watch yet again.
“Yes,” she said. “For the first time in a long time.”
What exactly did the security cameras catch, anyway? my inner voice asked.
After exactly seven minutes passed, Erin stood up.
“Wait here,” she said.
I loitered near the open doorway so I could hear what was going on in the foyer.
“Mr. Bignell, a pleasure to see you,” Erin said. “Randy. Mrs Bignell-Sax.”
“Never mind them,” Bignell said. “No one keeps me waiting, young lady.”
“I appreciate that it can be very annoying, sir, especially if you had scheduled an appointment. Oh, wait. You didn’t. You just barged in and expected me to drop everything to accommodate you.”
“Erin,” Randy said. His voice sounded nervous. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do. If you care to follow me to my office…”
I was leaning against the wall and hugging my damaged arm against my body when they trooped in, Erin first. She circled her desk and sat down while Bignell moved to a chair in front of the desk. He seemed offended that Erin sat before he did.
“Have a seat, Bruce,” she said. She gestured at the chairs. There were only two of them. Bignell took one and Randy took the other, leaving Marilyn to stand next to me in the suddenly cramped office. “You all remember McKenzie.”
Bignell and Randy both glanced at me but said nothing. Marilyn said, “Good afternoon,” followed by, “McKenzie, your arm.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“Were you hurt—” Her eyes grew wide. “The bomb?”
“It’s okay.”
Bignell tapped his cane vigorously against the floor. Because it was carpeted, all he could generate was a dull thud-thud-thud.
“The bomb,” he said. He tapped some more. “The bomb.”
“What about it?” Erin said.
“Certainly you must be aware of the ramifications.”
“Ramifications?”
“I was afraid of this. I told you that the company had become too big for a young woman to control. I told you that—”
“How dare you?”
From the expression on his face, I got the impression that no one had ever asked Bignell that question before.
“Salsa Girl belongs to me”—she pointed her finger at her partner across the desk—“and Randy. You have no standing here whatsoever, yet you come into our place of business and presume to dictate to us? You can cease distribution of our product anytime you like. You have that option. If you wish to exercise that option, then by all means do so. But don’t tell us what to do. Don’t tell us how to run our business unless you wish to make an offer. Let’s say sixty-five percent of Salsa Girl. We retain thirty-five percent and management responsibilities for three years. After that time, you may have the option to buy us out entirely, payments spread out over three years. Yes? No? Maybe?”
I was surprised by Bignell’s reaction. He had been in business a long time, built his empire from scratch, and from what I saw of his guests at the party the other day, he had imposed his will on a lot of people. Yet he seemed both confused and disconcerted by what Erin had to say, as well as the eerily calm manner in which she said it. It made me wonder how much of himself he had lost as he’d grown old.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, young lady,” he said.
“I’m not a young lady and I’m not playing. McKenzie.” Erin looked up at me. “Perhaps you will be kind enough to escort Mrs. Bignell-Sax to the employee lounge while my partner and I discuss business with Mr. Bignell.”
No, no, no, my inner voice chanted. I felt like a child told to leave the room because the film his parents were watching was rated R. I wanted to stay to see what happened.
“Please,” Erin said.
I nodded at her and then at Marilyn. She stepped out of the office, and I followed her.
“Close the door,” Erin said.
* * *
Marilyn and I followed the corridor to a large room with plenty of tables and chairs, vending machines, cabinets, a refrigerator, several coffeepots, and three microwave ovens. I knew there was a camera and microphone in there, too, but I couldn’t find them.
“Do you get the impression that the adults don’t want the children to see them arguing?” I asked.
“Actually, I thought you planned it to separate me from the others so we could speak privately.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Marilyn went to a hot plate where a half-filled pot of coffee stood warming and poured herself a mug. She took a sip.
“Oh my God,” she said. “That’s awful.”
“It’s probably been sitting there since this morning. Let’s brew a fresh pot.”
I went about making that happen while Marilyn found a chair at a nearby table.
“I received a call from Schroeder Private Investigations early this morning,” she said. “Mr. Schroeder told me what had transpired the evening before. He was very apologetic.”
“I’m sure he was, but only about getting caught following Salsa Girl, not about his man whacking me on the back of the head with a .38.”
“He didn’t mention that, the whacking. I believed he called only because he feared you would confront me.”
“Would I do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know. You’re a bit of a mystery to me, McKenzie.”
By then I had put all the pieces together and hit the START button. Water was heated and began pouring through the grounds into the glass pot. Voilà, coffee. I managed to fill two mugs without spilling much and handed one to Marilyn. She took a sip.
“It’s still pretty bad,” she said.
“You’re spoiled.”
“That’s very true.”
“Why did you have Erin followed?”
“The usual reasons.”
“Why not have Schroeder follow your husband, then? It seems to me your issues are with him, not her.”
“I did. Should I tell you what he found out?”
“What’s between you and your husband is none of my business.”
“I’m not talking about Brian. I’m talking about Erin Peterson.”
“What about her?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Schroeder couldn’t find out anything more about her past than I did. Don’t you think that’s strange, McKenzie?”
Yes, my inner voice said.
“Not necessarily,” I said aloud.
“She’s left a very tiny footprint. That’s what Schroeder told me.”
How tiny?
“Erin’s a very private person,” I said. “She lives for her company. If you investigated my girlfriend, Nina, I bet you wouldn’t learn much more about her.”
I bet we would.
“Why do you care, anyway?” I asked aloud.
“I’m jealous, though not for the reasons people think. Yes, Erin’s pretty, but I was pretty once, too. She’s young, but so was I. I’m jealous because she’s doing what I wanted to do. Did you know that I went to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota? Graduated summa cum laude. Do you know how many students earned that honor the year I graduated? Six. Yet when I took the degree to my father and told him I wanted to become involved in the family business, he told me that business is no place for a woman. He even quoted Bible verses at me. My mother agreed with him. So did my two sisters. Because that’s what they were taught. If that’s what you truly believe, I asked him, then why did you allow me to attend Carlson in the first place? My father said he thought the school would do more to discourage women from entering the business world so he wouldn’t have to; he was disappointed that it hadn’t. That’s when I did a stupid, stupid thing, McKenzie. I did nothing. What I should have done was leave home and find a job working for someone else, prove myself that way. I don’t know why I didn’t. Was I a coward or too conventional?” Marilyn held up her coffee mug and stared at it for a moment. “Or too spoiled?”
She drank the coffee without complaining about it.
“I was encouraged to marry,” Marilyn said. “I was encouraged to bring forth male heirs because dear old Dad was loath to leave his businesses to his daughters. I chose Brian Sax. He was one of my father’s up-and-comers at the time.”
“Why him?”
“Because I loved him. Unfortunately, all he loves is Minnesota Foods.”
“You signed a prenup,” I said.
“Yes, I did.”
“Now you’re looking to challenge it. That’s why you hired Greg Schroeder.”
“My father hates divorce, thinks it’s an affront to God. Do you know what he hates worse? Adultery. That, after all, is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments. Number six, if I remember correctly.”
“Do you think that your husband is sleeping with Erin?”
“No. I wish he were. Instead, he’s been sleeping with one of our reps in Chicago. That’s where he is now.”
“Your father actually hired a female to represent his company?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I don’t—oh.”
“Apparently Brian likes to play for both teams.” Marilyn chuckled at the reference. “I heard a comedian say that once—both teams. I don’t know why I thought it was funny.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I decided on the what a long time ago. Now it’s just a matter of when and how. My father’s not only a misogynist, he’s a raging homophobe. With Brian out—and he will be out—I’m hoping I can convince my father. McKenzie, Bignell Bakeries and Minnesota Foods is a privately held company, one of the biggest in the state. I think we’re only a couple of billion dollars behind Cargill.” Marilyn laughed at her own joke. “We have no debt and no outside investors. Even so, my father assembled a diverse independent board of directors many years ago. He wanted objective input into the direction of his company as well as other corporate matters. Whatever you think of Bruce Bignell, he’s a good businessman. What I need to do is convince him to make me chairwoman of the board when he steps down. My mother passed ten years ago, and my sisters have all escaped to domestic bliss with husbands who are decidedly not businessmen. That leaves me. Dad will need to make a decision soon. He’s still very robust and very active, but for only about four hours a day.”
“What if he taps Randy for the job?”
“What if? McKenzie, you’re Salsa Girl’s friend. I need you to know that I’m not interested in hurting her or her business. Truth is, I love her salsa, especially the new fire-roasted tomato flavor. All I’m trying to do is protect my son, my family’s business, and me.”
Not necessarily in that order, my inner voice said.
“I think you can help,” Marilyn said.
“How?”
“Are Erin and my son … intimate?”
I tried not to laugh. “No,” I said.
“But they could be.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Are you?
“She seems to have some kind of hold on him,” Marilyn said.
“She seems to have some kind of hold on most men. She’s good at that.”
“Including you?”
I wagged my hand.
“Randy doesn’t listen to me the way he used to,” Marilyn said. “He does listen to Erin, though. He seems devoted to her.”
I wagged my hand some more.
“There are many things that Minnesota Foods can do to promote Salsa Girl Salsa that it’s not necessarily doing now. Provide funds to develop sales and marketing campaigns. Establish more favorable terms with customers such as discounts, stock levels, selling prices. Expand distribution to include smaller outlets and not just the larger chains. A lot of things.”
“What would Erin need to do in exchange for this favorable treatment?”
“All I ask is that she remember who her friends are.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll deliver your message.”
“Can I rely on your discretion?”
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
* * *
Bruce Bignell’s words rolled down the corridor to the employee lounge where Marilyn and I were sitting. “Marilyn,” he said. “Where are you, woman?” There was distress in his voice that caused her to jump up from her chair and move quickly toward it.
“Dad?” she said.
I followed her down the corridor. Bignell was standing outside Erin’s office. He was looking right and left as if he didn’t know where he was. He seemed smaller than before, as if someone had removed all the padded linings from his clothes. Randy reached for his arm.
“Grandfather,” he said.
Bignell pulled his arm away. He waved his cane; the tip struck both walls.
“Don’t ever talk to me again,” he said.
“Grandfather,” Randy repeated.
Bignell tried to hit Randy with the cane and missed. The momentum propelled him forward. Marilyn caught him before he fell.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Marilyn?” Bignell said.
“What is it?”
“Take me away from here. Take me home.”
“What happened?”
“Did you not hear me? Take me home.”
“Grandfather,” Randy repeated.
“You, you…”
Bignell looked as if he wanted to strike at Randy with his cane again. The younger man backed away. Marilyn took Bignell’s arm and spun him until he was facing the correct direction.
“This way,” she said.
Marilyn led Bignell down the corridor and into the foyer. Alice Pfeifer watched as if it were the most amazing television show she had ever seen. Marilyn held open the front door and helped Bruce pass through it. Randy followed behind.
“Will you at least let me explain?” he said.
“No, you, you bastard,” Bignell said.
They stepped outside and moved to the Buick.
I went into Erin’s office. She was still seated behind her desk. Her Woodford Reserve was out and she was pouring a glass.
“Want some?” she said.
“Sure.”
She filled a second glass while I watched the scene unfolding outside her window. Marilyn helped Bignell into the back seat on the driver’s side and closed the door. Randy was on the other side of the Buick. Marilyn said something to him. He shook his head. She pounded the roof with the flat of her hand and shouted. I couldn’t hear her words, but I was enough of a lip-reader to know what she said—“Get in the goddamn car.”
He did. Marilyn opened the driver’s door, slipped behind the steering wheel, and closed the door. It took longer for them to drive off than you would have supposed.
“What just happened?” I said.
Erin held up her glass up to the light and examined the rich brown liquid inside as if she had never seen it before.
“We have reached a mutually satisfying conclusion to our negotiations,” she said.
“Bruce didn’t seem to think so.”
“After being top dog for how many years, to suddenly lose that position seems degrading to him.”
“Does that mean you’re the top dog now?”
“Hardly. In any case, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
“What have I done for you, Salsa Girl? I’m not entirely sure.”
“I asked you not to call me that.”
“Sorry.”
“Tell me about your conversation with Mrs. Bignell-Sax.”
“She’s trolling for allies. She thinks you’re just the girl she needs.”
“Allies?”
Erin stared at my face as if it were an equation written on a chalkboard in a physics lab. It took her about ten seconds to figure it out.
“Marilyn’s going to make a move on Minnesota Foods,” she said. “She thinks I can help by asserting my influence on Randy.”
“You never cease to impress me.”
“Bignell will never cede control of his company to a woman. But Randy … No, Brian Sax is the designated successor.”
“Brian is on his way out. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Huh. That’s an angle I hadn’t considered.”
This girl has so many angles they should name a new branch of geometry after her, my inner voice said. Like Euclid and Pythagoras.
“Well, that’s somebody else’s problem,” Erin said.
“You’re not interested?”
“I’m not that greedy, McKenzie. I’m going to sell Salsa Girl and poof, I’ll be gone.”
“I like a girl who keeps her eyes on the prize.”
“Woman. I’m not a girl. I’m a woman.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I think my problems are behind me, but you can never be sure. I’d appreciate it if you hung around for, say, eleven days.”
For a moment I felt like I had on Saturday night when I moved my last chips into the center of the table, betting my ace-high against Bobby Dunston’s full house.
“Sure,” I said.
* * *
I went home as I had promised Nina, had a bite to eat, sat in front of my TV, and crashed. My aching shoulder wouldn’t allow me to get comfortable, though, so fifteen minutes later I sat down in front of my computer. I Googled “Erin Peterson” and found doctors, teachers, financial advisers, communications directors, scientists, productivity experts, and one woman who was a victim of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. I had no idea that it was such a common name. As far as I knew, I was the only Rushmore McKenzie in the world. I didn’t find Salsa Girl until the fourth page, and that was only because she was mentioned in a couple of magazine articles that I had already read.
What exactly are you looking for, anyway? my inner voice asked.
The answer was I didn’t know. I was intrigued by the idea that Erin had such a “tiny footprint,” according to Schroeder, and that she has revealed so little of herself to Marilyn Bignell-Sax. And me.
I Googled “Erin Peterson University of Wisconsin” and was surprised again by the number of women that popped up—twenty-seven in all. I clicked on IMAGES and went down the list again, this time checking out the blondes one by one. I found a financial officer, music director, teacher, health support worker, nursing student, senior epidemiologist, lab assistant, materials planning specialist, and events planner, yet no one who made salsa. One woman that intrigued me was a horticulturalist who took a summer internship at the Boerner Botanical Gardens near Milwaukee thirteen years ago. They liked her so much that they offered her a job when her internship expired. She left the University of Wisconsin shortly after starting her junior year, like Salsa Girl had, to accept it, although she took night courses at Wisconsin-Milwaukee to finish her degree years later.
Her story forced me to ask two questions that I realized I didn’t have answers for. One—when did Erin leave Wisconsin to start Salsa Girl out of her mother’s kitchen? Two—how old was she? Marilyn said Salsa Girl was a full decade older than Randy. Randy was at least thirty, which would make Erin forty. Except then the dates didn’t match up, I reminded myself. Let’s say Erin was twenty when she left Wisconsin and that she spent two or three years working the farmer’s markets before she met Randy. That would make her thirty-three-ish.
By then Nina had returned home.
“How old do you think Salsa Girl is?” I asked.
“About our age. Maybe a little younger. Say forty.”
“Not thirtyish?”
“Please. I mean, she looks great: perfect petite figure, not a ripple of fat. You could bounce quarters off her backside. I’m not saying she had work done, either. But thirty? No. Men might believe it. But women—I think we have a better sense of age. Why? Does Erin say she’s thirty?”
“I’ve never heard her mention how old she is. I’ve never heard her mention a birthday.”
“Why is that a thing?”
“Let’s say that Salsa Girl is forty years old. That means she met Randy when she was thirty years old. She was developing Salsa Girl Salsa for three years before that. She left school in her junior year when she was twenty or twenty-one. When you do the math, that leaves a seven-year hole in her story.”
“So?”
“So what did she do during those seven years?”
“Maybe she married a man who abused her and she doesn’t want anyone to know because she’s embarrassed and ashamed even after all this time.”
Like Jason Truhler had abused Nina, my inner voice said so I didn’t have to.
“Maybe she finally freed herself of the bastard and found the strength to not only rebuild her life but to build a thriving business as well,” she added.
Again like Nina.
“In that case, she would be a remarkable woman,” I said. “And I would love her with all my heart.”
To prove it, I left my place behind the desk and went to where Nina was standing. I slipped my damaged arm out of the sling, wrapped both of my arms around her, and pulled her tight against me. She sighed into my collarbone. I kept holding her.
“This can’t be doing your shoulder any good,” Nina said.
“It’s not. In about thirty seconds I’m going to start whimpering because it hurts so much.”
“Let me go.”
“Never.”
“Boy oh boy.”
Nina wrestled out of my grip and pushed me away. She watched as I winced while slipping my arm back into the sling, stepped forward, and gently cupped my face with both of her hands. She kissed me.
“Boy oh boy,” she said again.
“Yeah, I think so, too.”
“Should I tell you what I think? I think Erin did what she did when she was young and then went back to school and started Salsa Girl Salsa. Her origin story remains intact—it’s just that we all assume she started college when she was eighteen like most of us did, and she never bothered to correct the assumption. Why would she?”
“That still leaves those seven years.”
“Why are they important?”
“Someone has been sabotaging her business, blew up one of her trucks. We all assume that it’s connected with her attempt to sell Salsa Girl to Central Valley International. But what if it isn’t? What if it’s all about revenge? A vengeful ex-boyfriend like you once suggested. How ’bout a vengeful ex-husband?”
“Like mine?”
“Like yours.”
“You asked her about it once before and she said no, remember?”
“Yes, but I didn’t believe her.”
“So now what?”
“Keep looking, I guess.”
I did, too, and discovered exactly what Marilyn Bignell-Sax and Greg Schroeder had discovered—nothing. I thought about giving it up and decided that would be injudicious.
Injudicious? my inner voice asked. How would Salsa Girl, a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, know what a professor at DePaul University in Chicago tells his inattentive students?
I Googled the DePaul yearbooks and discovered that the Minerval served as a journal and chronicle of life at the university until it was replaced by the DePaulian yearbook in 1924. Unfortunately, it ceased publication in 1997. The entire yearbook was posted online, though, and I went through it page by page looking for an image of Erin Peterson. I found several women who could have been her, but her name wasn’t listed anywhere.
I decided to stop wasting my time and go to the source. I picked up my landline and dialed the number that I found on the DePaul website. I told the woman who answered that I was checking on a resume I had received from a job applicant who claimed she had attended DePaul University.
“What year did she graduate?” I was asked.
“You tell me.”
The woman sighed as if I were being overly dramatic and put me on hold. I was bounced from one phone to another until a man with a young but earnest-sounding voice told me that Erin Peterson graduated from DePaul with a degree in business administration in June 1988. Unfortunately, that would have made her over fifty unless she was some kind of prodigy, which I wouldn’t have put entirely past her.
“I don’t believe that could be my job applicant,” I said. “Too old.”
“Just a moment, sir.”
The young man returned to the phone five minutes later. He said, “The only other Erin Peterson to graduate from DePaul did so in 1966.”
“Yeah, not her, either. Could you tell me if there was an Erin Peterson who attended classes at DePaul but who did not graduate?”
“No.”
“No you can’t or no there wasn’t?”
“No, there were no other women named Erin Peterson who attended DePaul.”
That surprised me. Not because there was no record of Salsa Girl attending the school, but because there were only two Erin Petersons altogether. Wisconsin had a boatload.
“Is there anything else, sir?”
“If it’s not too much trouble, could you check on the name Christine Olson?”
“Just a moment.”
As it turned out, three women by that name had attended DePaul, only none of them fit my timeline. I thanked the young man and went back to my computer. I Googled the name. Wow, there were a lot of Christine Olsons in the world, and Salsa Girl had been right: At least half of them had a Scandinavian appearance.
I clicked on some of the names at random, including a Christine Elizabeth Olson who was last seen in Chicago fifteen years ago. Her physical description was close enough to Salsa Girl: RACE white, GENDER female, HGT 5′ 6″, WGT 115, HAIR blond, EYES blue. But the three separate photographs of her posted on the Illinois State Police missing persons web page bore no resemblance to Erin Peterson at all.
After four hours I came away with exactly what I had started with—an aching shoulder.