Addressed to Kill Read online

  “Who’s cooking tonight?” she asked.

  As non sequiturs went, that one ranked high on the creativity scale. I didn’t try to fight it. Instead, I answered her question. I put my finger to my head. “Let’s see, Wednesday night? Quinn.”

  “Like every night. Can you get rid of him for one night?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Cefalu’s at seven? I’m buying.”

  I nodded, because I didn’t trust my voice to respond to this unexpected invitation. In fact, I thought I’d dreamed it.

  Somewhere in the distance a bell tolled. One o’clock. I gathered my tablet and woolens. “I’d better get back to work.”

  My walk back to the post office was uncomfortably cold. My cheeks burned; my eyes watered; my fingers and toes felt numb. I managed to take my hand out of my pocket once or twice to wave at another pedestrian across the street, but most people were smart enough to use their cars. I distracted myself from the pain by considering reasons Sunni might be taking me to dinner. One thought was that she was ready to deputize me. A smile was nearly impossible with my stiff cheeks, or I would have produced one of my widest. More likely, she was gearing up to warn me off and alert me to the fact that I was finished as a helper.

  It could go either way. Like all interesting relationships.

  * * *

  I opened the side door to the post office and, despite the delicious warm air, stamped my feet as if I’d walked through a foot of snow. I still had ten minutes before I’d unlock the front doors to customers at one thirty.

  I realized I had a lot to do before tomorrow morning’s lecture. I’d pushed it to the back of my mind, considering it part of the investigation—to hang around Dennis Somerville’s environment—not giving equal weight to the fact that I was expected to deliver a lecture. A presentation. A talk. No matter how I labeled it, I needed to prepare it, instead of thinking up ways that I could “accidently” run into Norah Sampson, the English major with incriminating handwriting.

  Another visit to the physics and math building, Patrick Henry Hall, might be possible, but it would be hard to come up with a convincing excuse for Gail, the gatekeeper extraordinaire, the second time around. I felt I’d made it out of there the first time with little room for error.

  As one thirty struck, so did a realization: Norah Sampson would likely have English classes tomorrow. I should drop in on that building. If the college was anything like mine, there were no special English department quarters. It was a good bet that their classes were held in the same building with history and other lab-free courses in Mary Draper Hall, where I’d be lecturing (in the loose sense) tomorrow. Could I be so lucky?

  I opened the front doors of the post office to the cold and the wind, but to no immediate customers. I had time to sneak in a call to the college. As I made my way through the empty lobby, back to my desk, I used my cell phone to look up the main number and hit DIAL.

  Once I got past a menu of number preferences and a couple of minutes of crackly music, I was able to ask my question.

  “I need to pick up my daughter after her English class this morning,” I said, trying to insert a sense of urgency. “I’ve forgotten the name of the class. Is there a special building for English classes?”

  “One moment please.”

  My “Sure” was followed by another minute or so of instrumental music that fell short of what the Ashcots could have provided.

  “Good morning,” said the next human. “Mary Draper Hall.”

  Yes. I repeated my request, though I felt I already had my answer. I was delighted to hear “All English department classes are now held in Mary Draper Hall, with the exception of the advanced seminars on gothic contemporary fiction.”

  I could live with that.

  When my first customer walked in, she might have wondered why I was smiling so broadly.

  14

  Luckily, it was a slow day. Not that I would ever use the words lucky and slow in the same sentence in front of Ben. I checked the small stack of to-do items and other notes he’d left me. Order more international forms. Destroy outdated registered mail forms. Check on new advanced shipping notice forms. And my favorite, a peek into Ben’s sense of humor: Look into the form for ordering forms.

  He’d also left me a couple of books on post office history that he’d picked up on his last trip to the postal museum in Washington, D.C. I’d visited that museum a number of times, as well as many other regional museums. In keeping with today’s merchandising practices, most had gift shops. I considered wearing a red and gray baseball T-shirt I’d bought in D.C. or the I DELIVER cap I’d bought in Boston instead of my uniform at tomorrow’s presentation, but I figured I needed all the help I could get from wearing something less frivolous.

  Ordinarily, I used downtime during the day for picking up around the office. I had a cleaning staff of one, a loyal and efficient retired letter carrier from Springfield, Massachusetts, Brenda Mallory, who came only once every two weeks for a couple of hours. A lot of dust, grime, and litter accumulated between her visits, and it fell to me to make sure the building was always neat and welcoming. Today, while I made a token attempt to dust the shelves and racks in the lobby and ran a hand vacuum in the corners of the expansive floor on both sides of the retail counter, my mind was cluttered with memories of Dennis Somerville on his last visit.

  I switched my attention to the stack of postal employee memos and bulletins Ben had left me. I wouldn’t want to miss an urgent news flash on an increase in first-class rates or changes in the budgets for supplies. The bulletin was online, but Ben liked the smell of the ink and the sound of paper crackling, he said, making us probably the only PO in the country with a paper version.

  I perused the newsletter, parts of which read like a tabloid newspaper. A worker had used her government credit card to put gas in her personal car. Among the thousands of extra postal workers hired for Valentine’s Day, one of them had driven onto a homeowner’s yard and was the subject of a damaged-landscape lawsuit. A dog running loose in a neighborhood put its mail carriers at risk; thus home delivery within a three-street radius would be cancelled until the problem was resolved by the dog’s owner.

  When I came to an article on yet another post office closing in a small town, this one in Pennsylvania, I took a break and began an outline of my talk in a notebook—the old-fashioned paper kind that Ben would favor—and browsed through the reference books he’d left me.

  When my cell phone rang, I could hardly tear myself away from a staged photograph of “Santa” and two armed guards loading sacks of mail into a postal vehicle. Apparently, the children in a small Kentucky town in the early twentieth century were close to having their Christmas wishes fulfilled.

  “Busy?” Quinn asked. When I admitted I wasn’t, he added, “I’m not, either. Where is everybody?”

  “Keeping warm.”

  “Good point. It’s supposed to snow later. I’m snuggled up to a sixty-year-old space heater.”

  “Did they have those things back then?”

  “They did and this one has a cord that appears to be the original, in mint condition. It actually looks more like a fan. The base is vintage green that a lot of appliances came in in the fifties and sixties. I picked it up at the estate sale last week, along with some cast-iron skillets.”

  Not a minute too soon, I remembered my plans for dinner with Sunni. I told Quinn about the surprise invitation. “I was hoping to invite Dyson Somerville to my house. Actually to your cooking, but it’s not going to work out now.”

  “Maybe it can still happen,” he said. “I know Dyson from when he played with us.”

  Of course. Quinn had been in North Ashcot a year before I returned. Dyson would have been in high school and would have had more time to join the Ashcots for their gigs. “I forgot. You’ve known Dyson longer than I have.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve be
en meaning to give him a call and express my sympathy. Can I use your kitchen?”

  “Consider it yours.”

  I put my thumb over the mic in my phone and gasped. I hadn’t meant to imply anything by the uncensored reaction. Quinn and I had never talked about the future and whether we wanted to share a kitchen, and all that implied for people dating in their thirties.

  “No problem,” Quinn said, and I let out the breath that had been stuck. Either my comment went over his head or he chose to let me off the hook.

  “I’ll see you later, then.”

  “Right,” Quinn said, suddenly also at a loss for words.

  My first engagement hadn’t worked out so well, but I knew I’d be forever grateful that whatever had caused the breakup between Adam and me, it was better before than after a wedding. Did I want to be engaged again? I liked things as they were with Quinn, recognizing that they probably couldn’t stay that way forever. But they could at least for this week.

  * * *

  I had only easy customers all afternoon. Stamp sales, small packages, domestic mail prevailed. No money orders demanding more cash than I had on hand; no complaints about the lack of Wi-Fi or the poor selection of greeting cards. I had plenty of time to flip through the postal history books and the Internet for my talk.

  I’d decided to take a chronological approach—probably the deadliest as far as level of boredom was concerned, but I didn’t feel confident enough to mix it up. I’d start with Sir Rowland Hill, about whom I had so much information already. Who doesn’t love a knight?

  In his day, Victorian England, the recipient paid the postage for a letter, often a large sum, since the charge was by the mile traveled and the number of sheets being sent. One story had young Rowland as an eight-year-old boy being dispatched to town to sell some of his clothes so his family could afford to receive a letter. Boring? Fascinating? I wished I could tell. I thought of the high school girls giggling over the valentine-related postmarks and was glad my audience would be more mature. Wouldn’t they? Was I at that age?

  If there was a way to share the excitement over the first prepaid stamp, I didn’t know what it was. With all the advances in communications that especially young people had at their fingertips, how could an adhesive-backed picture of Queen Victoria almost two centuries ago hold their interest?

  I found myself learning a lot, but not necessarily preparing a talk. Panic, in the form of regurgitation of my lunch, surfaced.

  I needed support. Taking advantage of the next-to-zero traffic in the lobby—a couple of people not needing assistance, dropping in for free Priority Mail envelopes and boxes—I slipped in a call to Linda.

  “Busy?” I asked.

  “Yes, thankfully. I have so much to learn in this new position.”

  “So I guess you don’t want to substitute-teach for me tomorrow.” Silence. As if she thought I was being serious. “It’s okay, Linda. I’m just kidding. I’m all prepared.” Why pass my anxiety on to someone one hundred and fifty miles away?

  Linda talked on about her new job. Not for the first time since I knew her had she gone from a low of two days ago to a high of today. I knew it would do no good to suggest that she try to hit the middle. But who was I to give advice? I was happy to hear her so upbeat about her new duties. She was not in the mood to hear about a murder investigation. I could live with that.

  “Nothing’s out of bounds for this job,” she said. “We’re looking at everything from sorting procedures, to migrating over to electronic stamps, to employees who accept bribes in exchange for expedited services.”

  “Surely, no one offered—”

  “Oh yes. Someone,” Linda said. “But I’d better not say any more.”

  “Any good stories for my class tomorrow?”

  “Let’s see. I think Jeannie got this off the Internet. A poet comes into the post office to mail a copy of his poetry somewhere and says he wants insurance.

  “‘How much do you want to insure it for?’ the clerk asks.

  “‘Well, it’s my heart and soul in that package,’ the guy says.

  “‘Okay, let’s go with one hundred dollars,’ the clerk says.”

  At which point Linda dissolved into laughter and I had to deal with a customer walking in with a package that might be a book of poems. We said a quick good-bye and I took care of business. Maybe on our next call, Linda would be open to hearing how the investigation was going. We hung up with a promise to talk later.

  Another break came around three thirty and I called Quinn this time. We usually texted through the day, but this called for phone contact.

  “We’re all set for tonight,” he said. “Dyson is going to come to your place around seven and we’ll have a little male bonding over dinner.”

  “You’re wonderful,” I said, and didn’t hear a denial.

  My last customer was a surprise. Not that she didn’t use our services on a regular basis, but this time Mercedes Davis showed up without a package to mail or stamps to buy. She walked through the lobby to my counter like a woman on a mission, her gray wool cape furling behind her, her white hair minus its highlights. She leaned on the counter as far as her short body would take her, lips tight, eyes wide.

  “Where’s the lighthouse?” she said.

  I stepped back, glad that I towered over her and could probably withstand an attack. As long as it was weaponless. “The . . . uh,” I stuttered, as if I didn’t know which lighthouse she meant. The miniature Annisquam Harbor, sitting on a bed of fake snow on the corner of my desk at home, seemed to be swinging its intense beam my way, settling on me, blinding me.

  “Gail Chambers told me you paid a visit to Patrick Henry and wormed your way into Dennis’s office.”

  Ah, I knew the hefty lady with the fifties pumps and a jeweled eyeglass chain was a serious gatekeeper. No surprise there. “I’m sorry, Mercedes. I didn’t realize it was yours,” I said, my voice sounding shaky and weak.

  “So what? Why would you take it in the first place? From someone’s office.” Her voice rose with each word, so that “office” was loud and an octave higher than “so what?” “Just because he’s . . .” Her voice was nearly back to normal now, ending with a deep sigh.

  I had no answer for her. What could I say? That I thought it would bring me inspiration, luck—something—as I tried to help with the Dennis Somerville murder investigation? I’d probably come across as more credible if I said I’d been a closet shoplifter since I was a kid. Or that I had a collection of lighthouse snow globes and the Annisquam Harbor site had been the only gap.

  But Mercedes didn’t need any response from me. Her body seemed to lose its stiff purpose and relax into another state. I broke a rule and invited her behind the counter, where not even Quinn was allowed, hoping Ben didn’t decide to make a surprise visit. She didn’t seem to notice but let me guide her through the STAFF ONLY half gate onto a chair near my desk.

  “I don’t know why I took the lighthouse, Mercedes. Maybe I just wanted a souvenir of Dennis.”

  “I want it back,” she said softly.

  “Of course. I’ll take it to campus tomorrow.”

  Her eyes teared up. She seemed to be focused on a framed print of a Civil War stamp that hung on my wall. “We had broken up,” she said, nearly choking. “And it wasn’t even about us. It was over some dumb issue he had at school. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. But we loved each other, and that weekend we drove to Gloucester, where there was this perfect view of the lighthouse. We decided we’d work it out.” Mercedes’s words came haltingly, threaded through with sniffles. “And then . . .”

  “I’m so sorry, Mercedes.”

  “We stopped at this shop. We both loved the globes.” She looked at me, where I was perched on my desk. “They were just the right amount of schlock, you know.” The corners of her mouth entertained a tiny smile. “We decided we had to have
them. Matching lighthouses. The symbol of light in the darkness. The beacon. Strength, guidance, safe harbor. We would always be that for each other.”

  It wouldn’t have taken much for me to run to my car, drive to my house, and bring the lighthouse back to its rightful owner. Fortunately, Mercedes made that unnecessary.

  “But I’m being selfish,” she said. She gave me a sad look, pushing her wiry gray hair in place. “Maybe you need to remember him, too. I’m glad you have the lighthouse.”

  What a roller-coaster day. Or was it a pendulum? First, Linda going from a low to a high, and now Mercedes making it from one end of the swing to the other within minutes. I waited until she was ready to get up, indicating the restroom behind us. She shook her head and walked out to the lobby.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, as if she hadn’t done a one-eighty with regard to the Annisquam Harbor Lighthouse snow globe.

  After she left, I sat at my desk for a time, thinking over Mercedes’s reaction.

  My first thought when she’d made her dramatic, accusatory entrance was that there was something about the globe that Mercedes didn’t want me to notice. A clue or a hidden message from Dennis that would reveal her as his killer. She was, after all, the closest thing Dennis had to a spouse, and wasn’t it the spouse who always “did it”? My expert opinion, formed from years of reading crime fiction, wasn’t worth the paper it might be printed on, as my dad would say.

  But Mercedes had changed her mind and suggested I could keep the globe. To lull me into thinking she was innocent? And what about the “issue” Dennis had at school? Was Mercedes trying to direct my attention to the nasty student letters and away from her?

  My final thought on Mercedes Davis, prime suspect, was that it was crazy to think that a highly educated professor could murder someone she’d played music with, and loved. A final final thought crept in as I recalled reading that anyone is capable of murder, given the right, or wrong, conditions.

  I wondered how my friend the chief of police ever slept with all these aspects to consider. Of course, she had facts. That probably helped.