Alice Isn't Dead

by Joseph Fink

1901. Chicago. Thirteen missing children over one summer. Disappearances traced to a new shop. Thistle Goods and Butchering. Staff and owners disappeared before questioning but were described by neighbors as a crew of oddly shaped men acting under the orders of a small, frail woman who called herself Madam Tile. The evidence found in the shop required the complete demolition of the structure, as the horrors there made it beyond rehabilitation. 1955. Missoula. The only synagogue in town burned down by a group of men with faces that no one would admit they recognized as their friends and neighbors. A federal investigation of the crime was cursory, and most of the witnesses were deemed unreliable due to their repeated insistence that a woman was seen walking through the flames in the building, passing through the heat and singing. The case was closed with little investigation. Most of the Jewish community moved away. People didn’t talk about the burning much, and soon even the witnesses wouldn’t say that they had been there. Many saw the woman from the fire again and again, drinking in local bars, talking in low tones with groups of local men.