Addressed to Kill Page 11

  I’d finally gotten to sleep around three in the morning, after tossing and turning, trying to chase away thoughts and images of the shadowy figures that seemed to be stalking me, if not in reality, then in my mind. Only after making a list of things to do and another list of questions to ask Sunni could I nod off.

  Besides trying to find out if the police had any more information on the three suspected burglars, I needed to ask Sunni to let me take a look at the letters Dennis showed me, or tried to show me. I cringed inside when I thought of how I’d brushed his mail aside when he presented the envelopes to me himself, and brushed off his request for help. Responding now would hardly make up for that behavior, but I had to keep trying.

  Third on my list was to seek out details on the crime scene. All I knew from the news was that Dennis had been shot; what I knew from Dyson was that he’d most likely been shot in his second-floor home office. From the chief of police, I knew nothing extra. My information added up to very little.

  Fourth, and last for now, I needed to determine what if anything the Ashcots had to do with Dennis’s murder. The musicians all seemed close, their arguments trivial. But it wouldn’t hurt to check them out.

  Thus my entrance that morning into the community room that shared the building with the post office. The room, one large hall with a tiny kitchen, ran almost the whole length of the building, taking up most of the east side. The door that led to the inside of the post office itself was always kept locked; the other door led to the outside, opening onto Main Street. The musicians were there because their regular rehearsal venue was undergoing repairs. The acoustics weren’t the best, but it was just as well they got used to the situation, since the dance itself would be there.

  Musicians and their instruments were arriving at the same time as I did. Joyce and Shirley with their guitars, Brooke with a kazoo this time, Greg needing a couple of trips for his drums, Arthur with a bass instead of his banjo, since the bass player was no longer with us.

  I lifted a chair from a stack by the window and dragged it to the front of the hall while the musicians assembled. When Quinn came in with his dobro, he looked surprised to see me. Although I’d stopped in before to hear them rehearse, I’d seldom arrived this early.

  “Burning both ends of the candle, huh?” he asked, after a publicly acceptable embrace.

  “I guess so.”

  “I called a few times last night after my meeting, but it went to voice mail.”

  “I was . . . out.”

  “Can’t wait to hear about it.” My boyfriend’s tone was challenging.

  I pointed to the assembled band. “You’d better take your place.”

  Mercedes, who was even later than Quinn, interrupted us. “Cassie,” she said, “just the person I wanted to see.”

  “I’m almost ready for tomorrow,” I said.

  “Terrific, but I needed you for another reason. It’s about our post office box. Dennis was the only one with a key, and now . . .”

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, tight, as if to hold back tears.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. “Stop in next door when the rehearsal is over. If I’m not there, I’ll make sure Ben has your key.”

  “Thanks.” She sniffed and carried her guitar to her place at the front of the room, where there was a great deal of tuning up going on. I’d always enjoyed music but never studied it seriously. My childhood piano lessons were no more meaningful now than the ticket stubs and programs I used to paste into my scrapbooks. Maybe once I mastered quilting, I’d take up an instrument. The kazoo seemed the easiest.

  With little chatting, the group lit into the lineup of songs on its Valentine’s Day list. A soft ballad with a vocal by Brooke, then a more fast-paced one, and so on for three or four numbers, mixed well together.

  “So, what shall we talk about this fine Valentine’s Day?” Arthur asked. I always enjoyed it when the group ad-libbed a skit in between songs, and I liked it especially on days like today when they played it to an audience of one.

  “Do we really want to do that this time?” Greg asked. Everyone knew what Greg meant by “this time.” At our first concert without Dennis Somerville? “I think we should skip it.” Greg wore his gray hair in a long ponytail and usually punctuated any remarks with a corresponding beat of his drums. He ended his comment about Dennis with a few strokes of his soft brushes.

  “I disagree,” Mercedes said. “We either do this gig or not, but I can’t see holding back. That doesn’t honor anyone.”

  “Me, too,” Shirley said. A petite, curly-haired woman with a soft voice, she was often hard to understand. Like today, when I didn’t know what she was agreeing with. I found it hard to picture her with enough energy to teach high school all those years, but maybe biology was inherently interesting to teenagers.

  “I’m with Mercy,” Joyce said, leaving no doubt. “Let’s polish up the skit we’ve been working on, on getting dumped, as we planned.”

  I thought I’d heard wrong—getting dumped? As a Valentine’s Day tribute?—but the group seemed to know what they were doing. There were a couple of mournful strains from someone and then Joyce began the narrative, with more achy-breaky music in the background.

  “Here I go,” Joyce said. “My most embarrassing breakup.” She strummed a few low notes on her guitar, and half recited, half sang the story. “It was graduation day and while our hats went into the air”—her voice was joined by other sad notes from her guitar—“our love burned out like a flare.”

  First, I heard a few well-placed groans, and then a vocal chorus followed, echoing Joyce’s words, “Our love burned out like a flare.”

  Shirley came alive when she was playing or singing. No holding back with her enthusiasm or her voice. She followed Joyce, with a story of an actual Valentine’s Day breakup “many years ago.” Her chorus of “A black arrow to my heart” rhymed with her last line, “My lover broke us apart.” I guessed, unlike me, some people were better onstage, and maybe that was the energy she brought to her classes.

  I could hardly wait until it was Quinn’s turn to share.

  “I’ll pass,” he said, earning “boos” from everyone, including me. Only Brooke stood up for him.

  “Give the guy a break,” she said. “His valentine is sitting right there.” She flung out her arm toward me, as befitted a former cheerleader, and everyone turned. Worse, Greg pointed his drumsticks at me, then beat out a drumroll that echoed through the hall.

  I felt my face grow as red as the big box of chocolates I expected from Quinn this weekend, and was sure someone had kicked up the heat in the community room.

  Though the stories were sad, the deliveries were humorous. Just when I thought everyone was having a good time, Greg, possibly miffed by having his suggestion overruled, and possibly still raw from having his wife leave him for Touchstone, a clown in a theater troupe, called out to Mercedes.

  “Mercy, tell us about the darkness in the lighthouse.” He used his drumsticks to create a dark mood, sounding almost like a thunderstorm.

  Mercedes glared at him. “Knock it off, Greg.”

  “Come on, be a sport. Something must rhyme with Annisquam.” He kept up a low drumbeat. “Maybe my love is warm.” More drumbeats. “Or not warm.”

  Mercedes stood and gathered her things, knocking over her music stand in the process, and stomped the length of the hall to the door.

  But the damage had been done. I pictured the Annisquam Harbor Lighthouse snow globe, formerly in Dennis’s campus office, now sitting on my desk at home.

  Here was a new twist—Mercedes and Dennis a couple, or a former couple? But so what? Mercedes had been divorced for many years; Dennis was a widower. Could Dennis have dumped Mercedes at an outing to the North Shore? And then kept a souvenir to remember the day?

  It didn’t make sense. But one thing was for sure: Rehearsal w
as over.

  * * *

  “I’m just glad no one asked me for a dumping story,” I said to Quinn as we grabbed a few minutes in a corner at Mahican’s before my flag-hoisting time.

  “They wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “I had an alternative story ready, just in case.”

  “You have another dumping story? Besides Adam?”

  I nodded. “Funny that I thought of it before I thought of Adam and his cruel texts. This one happened in fifth grade when our class took a field trip to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown.”

  “Boston, right?”

  “Actually, it’s on Breed Hill, and the British won that battle, so don’t ask me why there’s that famous obelisk and June seventeenth is a holiday in some New England counties.” I took a healthy swallow of coffee and continued my dumping story. “Johnny B. and I had been having lunch together, which, of course, for ten-year-olds meant we were going steady. Then, at Bunker Hill for our field trip, I was one of the few unfit kids who couldn’t climb all two hundred and ninety-four steps. After that, Johnny wouldn’t have lunch with me.”

  “That’s a lot of steps. No wonder you couldn’t make it,” Quinn said. “I’ll bet they have handicap access now.”

  Quinn, always on my side. How nice.

  * * *

  At times like this, making last-minute plans, I wished Ben used e-mail. His lovely niece, Natalie, had set him up for it, but he checked it only about once every couple of weeks. “Whether I need to or not,” he was fond of saying. I decided the punishment for that would have to be an early-morning phone call, though I knew he liked to sleep in. I waited until just before opening the doors at nine.

  “I know it’s last minute,” I said.

  “Now or this afternoon?” he asked, sounding not as groggy as I’d feared.

  “Ten o’clock, I’m afraid.”

  He grunted. “No problem. Dyson Somerville’s in town, right?”

  My turn to grunt. “How do you know that? You don’t live anywhere near Dennis’s place.”

  He laughed. And why not? I’d just given him two gifts: the satisfaction of being summoned to his old job, desperately needed; and the pleasure of hearing my surprise at the extent of his knowledge of everything that came or went with respect to North Ashcot.

  Ben always refused to take money when he subbed for me, but this week I was going to force it on him. It was only Wednesday and I already owed him big-time for Tuesday and a promised Thursday stint. Who knew what the rest of the week would be like?

  I hung up with Ben and prepared for a rush of morning customers. As I went about my routine, getting supplies ready, I went over my meeting with Dyson. It occurred to me that I was the closest he had to a mother figure at the moment. I did the math. Dyson might be twenty or twenty-one at most, which would have made me a pretty young mother, but not impossible. A sobering thought.

  I’d hoped to be able to call Sunni before the morning rush. I didn’t want to show up at her office, unannounced, with the murder victim’s son on my arm. I had enough explaining to do as it was. But I prided myself on opening on time, and today was not going to be an exception. I’d be in her presence soon enough.

  As it happened, my first customer, Mrs. Peters, needed help closing up a padded envelope after she inserted a gift card she’d bought from our kiosk.

  “I’m so glad you carry these now,” she said, waving toward the array of gift cards for coffee, clothing, dining, electronics, school supplies, and dozens more. “You know, when these cards first came out, I swore I’d never use them. I thought it was cheating, instead of buying or making a real present and wrapping it and all.” Another hand wave, this one in front of her chest. “Now that’s all I ever give is gift cards. Do you think I’m being callous?”

  I shook my head vigorously, stapling the envelope at the top and covering the sharp pointed edges with red, white, and blue sealing tape. “Not at all. Times change,” I said, “and most people would rather choose a present than receive something they can’t use.”

  “Do you think so? Do you think my nephew will like this instead of a shirt or a sweater that I pick myself?”

  I would almost guarantee it. “I’m sure he’ll know that your thoughts and wishes are equally heartfelt with this specially chosen card.”

  “Thanks, Postmistress Miller. Have a wonderful day.”

  Postmistress as advice giver. Who would have thought? But Mrs. Peters left happy, and that couldn’t be bad.

  Soon after, I saw Ben Gentry, long legs, shiny belt buckle, and all, shuffling around the front of the lobby, straightening the Flat Rate boxes in their slots, neatening the stacks of forms—return receipt, international post, and a few seldom-used ones—picking up bits of trash. He was tall enough to reach across to the shades on the windows and adjust them to exactly the same height. I guess I’d been sloppy this morning.

  He chatted with longtime customers, eventually making his way through the gate and behind the counter, earlier than requested.

  “Ben, I owe you this week,” I said when the line was gone.

  “You sure do.”

  “How can I make it up to you?”

  He pulled a newspaper section from his back pocket and slammed it on my desk. Our desk. I picked up the paper and read the headline. POST OFFICE CLOSING IN WEST BRANLY. “You can prevent this from happening here, is what you can do.”

  Not good news. West Branly housed probably twice the population as North Ashcot. “There’s not much I can do about it, Ben.”

  “Well, there are a few things.” He pointed to the kiosk of gift cards, the brand-name stores displayed in living color. “Like that.”

  “I thought you were against that. Something about ‘preserving the purity of postal service’? Or was that some other guy who helps me out?”

  Ben had been unhappy about the new merchandising trend. Besides the gift cards, we now offered gift wrap, a few trinkets with the USPS emblem, and a small number of greeting cards. One-stop shopping. I’d reminded Ben that the greeting cards especially were good for the local economy in that we sold them by arrangement with Olivia’s card shop across the street. Many were handmade by local residents, some at workshops in the same store. He’d reluctantly ceded my point.

  Now he grinned. “Okay, okay, I did have misgivings about those prepaid gift cards to the big stores. And maybe a few other changes you’ve slipped in. I hoped you’d forgotten. But this article explains why this kind of expanding is actually good for us.”

  Ben took off his jacket, under which was the same regulation sweater he’d worn for years. Somehow it always looked freshly laundered and I wondered how he managed that. My guess was that he’d bought a case of them years ago.

  I looked at the statistics in the first lines of the article. “The volume’s dropped thirty percent in West Branly. I don’t think ours is that bad. And first-class mail, like bills and cards, has dropped fifty percent. That’s huge.”

  “There’s online bill paying to blame,” Ben said. “Online everything. Like those electronic cards people send. How can you compete against an animated card that jumps off the screen at you and practically serves you cake? And they’re cheaper than what we’re selling.” He shook his head as if there was no hope.

  I thought of Mrs. Peters and her nephew’s gift card, certainly less expensive to mail than a bulky sweater. I hated to think in those terms rather than what was good for customers, but that was the reality. When every customer was choosing less expensive options, the retailer’s bottom line suffered.

  I’d continued to scan the article. The writer had presented startling numbers of closings and consolidations across the country. Many of the facilities were part of the legacy of historic properties, beautiful buildings of architectural significance and beauty.

  “Customers are joining workers in the protests,” I pointed o
ut to Ben. “I guess you saw the photos about the sorting plant closing in the south.” One of the photographs showed a fleet of enormous semitrucks with the postal logo, a graveyard of abandoned vehicles.

  “Yeah, people complain about us, but when the chips are down, they want their local post office to stay open.”

  “But it’s out of their hands, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is. You can’t count on anything.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” I said, and gave the incoming customer my best smile.

  11

  At ten o’clock sharp, Dyson arrived in the lobby. He looked as though he hadn’t gotten much sleep, or the long walk had been too much for him. The way I looked. Hard as I’d tried, I couldn’t get the image of the three shadowy figures out of my mind. I went back and forth in my mind between It’s my imagination and I’m being stalked. I didn’t dare ask Dyson if he’d noticed the figures last night when I left his house. He had enough to worry about. Now he had his hands in his pockets, his posture that of an old man. I recognized the signs. It was astonishing how much a person could age in a day when personal tragedy struck.

  He gave me a nod and a half smile and said, “Hey,” a word that seemed to have established itself as a full-on greeting. He looked around the neat (thanks to Ben) lobby. “Wow, I remember this place. Hey, Mr. G.”

  Ben pushed through the gate and took Dyson in a half-hug, half-handshake embrace.

  “We’re going to find the sons a’ guns who did this,” Ben said. “And make them pay.” His voice was soothing, his meaning sharp.

  “Cassie is coming with me to the police station,” Dyson said. “I don’t think I want to face it alone.”

  “She’s a good one to have with you.” Ben crossed his index and middle fingers. “Cassie and the chief are thick.”