Addressed to Kill Read online

  Another disappointment awaited me. Monday regulars Carolyn and George Raley, keepers of exotic little animals, were not in the lobby. I remembered that they were scheduled to head south to Florida for a warm two weeks with their son and his family. No sweet Llarry the Llama to be weighed in today on my scale, the most accurate in town; no long-tailed baby genet with zebralike stripes to wiggle on the counter. Only grumpy Mr. and Mrs. Bertrand with complaints about their post office box.

  “It’s too high for me to reach,” the matronly Mrs. Bertrand groused this time. “And I can’t get my hand into the back corners to dust it out. And my, does that box need dusting! I guess the rental fee doesn’t include maintenance.”

  I put on my best apologetic expression. “I thought you didn’t want to bend down so much for the last box you had,” I offered, straining to remember that the customer was always right.

  “That one was way too low,” Mr. Bertrand said. “We’re not thirty years old anymore, you know.”

  I wondered if they were ever thirty. I tried in vain to picture the Bertrands young and happy. I gave them as much time as I thought reasonable with so many others waiting, then suggested they look at a list of the available boxes and choose the one they liked best.

  “I guess we have to do her work for her,” Mrs. Bertrand said to her husband, who was quick to nod, then shake his head in disbelief. I was sure “Young people today” was on the tip of his tongue.

  Dennis Somerville approached with a complaint of his own. He’d received a few crank letters in the past week, purportedly from students, and wanted me to put a stop to them. He plunked three envelopes on the counter. “These are all about my alleged unreasonable homework assignments or my tough grading policies with thinly veiled threats to report me to the college oversight committee.”

  Unlike the Bertrands, Dennis spoke softly, elbows on the counter, perhaps embarrassed to have the world know that he was perceived by some in his classes to be a less than stellar teacher.

  I looked at the plain white envelopes, all size ten, standard business size, all with appropriate stamps and postmarks. The handwriting on the envelopes was all in cursive, and in no way distinctive, unless you considered that cursive itself was on its way out. I pointed this out to Dennis. “There’s nothing I can do about these, unless you’re reporting a threat.”

  Dennis heaved a sigh. “I told you. They’re threatening.” He put special emphasis on the last word. “They’re making a case for the college grievance committee. They’re claiming I’m in violation of good instructional practices, or some other mandate.”

  “I think the threat has to be a little more—”

  “You think? Aren’t you supposed to know? Aren’t there federal regulations about this? Don’t you have a postmaster inspector general or something like that to investigate this kind of thing?”

  “We have a chief postal inspector,” I said. “But the threat has to be bigger. Like a threat to your person. Or to the country.” I stumbled through, hoping I was right. I’d never been asked to intervene in a college classroom dispute, but I couldn’t imagine typical student complaints constituted a case for our postal inspectors. I resolved to visit the U.S. Postal Inspection Service section of my handbook the first chance I had.

  Dennis stabbed a finger in turn to each of the conspicuously blank upper left corners of the envelopes, still keeping his voice to just above a whisper. “Isn’t there always supposed to be a return address? Aren’t you supposed to reject mailings with no return address?”

  “Only in special cases,” I said, again straining to recall that section of the USPS code. To the best of my knowledge, a return address was required for Priority Mail and other special services mailings. Not for an ordinary first-class letter.

  Another heavy sigh from the physics prof. I thought his attitude alone could be considered cause for grievance from his students, although I’d never known him to be out of sorts. “Okay, but I’m not through with this. I can read the postal code”—here he sneered and raised his voice—“as well as anyone.” He took out his wallet. “Just give me a roll of Forevers. I guess you can do that much for me?”

  I was relieved that Dennis didn’t open the envelopes and demand that I read the letters. I suspected he preferred to keep the exact contents to himself. I handed over stamps, a receipt, and change for a one-hundred-dollar bill. I didn’t dare perform the usual check for the acceptance of a Ben Franklin, lest Dennis start in again on post office policies. He left without checking the post office box he managed for the Ashcots. Something was definitely off. Dennis was usually a calm sort, and certainly never as belligerent as I’d seen him today. I guessed hate mail from your students could do that to a teacher.

  A few customers later, I was surprised to see Mercedes Davis in front of me. And no Arthur Chaplin, whom I’d seen enter the building, in the line. “Art held a place for me while I went to my car,” Mercedes explained, lifting a produce-type box onto the counter. “I had to stow my guitar and pick up our flyers and a mailing for my husband’s business.” Mercedes, the designated secretary for the musicians’ group, and for her husband, it seemed, was a frequent customer. Today an obviously grandchild-made knitted cap covered her wavy white hair. The bowl-shaped hat had been stitched together with yarns of conflicting colors, many of them neon bright, severely clashing with her otherwise carefully planned outfit.

  “Did everything go okay at rehearsal today?” I asked. I nodded in the direction of the community room, my hands busy with the mailing. After working with the USPS since college, many of those years at the service desk, I’d become a master at multitasking. I’d learned early on that there was a fine line between friendly banter with a customer and a conversation that meant the next person had to wait an extra thirty seconds for his turn.

  “Oh, you noticed the mood in there?” Mercedes asked, mimicking my nod toward the ad hoc music room. “Some days are like this, where everyone has some agenda that has nothing to do with the sheet music, if you know what I mean. Today, Brooke had to defend her bank for holding up Arthur’s son’s loan application; Joyce and Dennis were at it, as usual, over whether first-year calculus should be required before the physics class or vice versa, as if it mattered; and forget Greg—he’s been out of it ever since his wife left him.”

  More than I needed to know, but I mumbled a “Tsk-tsk” and decided to let her go on chattering until I checked out the last of her husband’s international forms. I wondered if all this intrigue and infighting had been going on in the background the last time Quinn and I heard the group play together at Mahican’s coffeehouse. If so, they certainly covered it up well and seemed to be at one with their music.

  Mercedes looked around, at the same time tucking away stray, curly strands of pure white and off-yellow hair, most of which was pulled back from her face. The grooming gesture was a diversionary tactic, I guessed, while she assured herself that there was enough distance between her and the next in line at the PLEASE WAIT HERE sign. She leaned toward me and whispered, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there’s a rumor that Missy left Greg for Touchstone. You know, the clown in As You Like It.”

  It took me a few seconds to remember that Greg Overland, the group’s drummer, was also the drama coach at the community college. Tall and well built, Greg had the powerful voice of a trained actor. Now Mercedes was letting me in on the not-so-secret news that one of the main characters in the college production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the lovable court jester, had wooed and won over Greg’s wife.

  I noticed some shuffling in the line and heard a few loud, heavy sighs, all code for “Hey, we’re waiting to do business here.”

  “Sounds like there’s a lot going on,” I said to Mercedes. I handed over her receipt. “I hope the day gets better for you.”

  “Thanks. Actually, I have a favor to ask, Cassie. Quinn says you’re an expert on post office history, go
ing back to the Victorian era in England and the early Pony Express days in this country. Would you be willing to give a talk to my class? I’m covering that period, and there’s only so much you can do with Victoriana that hasn’t been done a million times before.”

  I’d expected—hoped—the favor would be something like ordering extra stamps with images of musicians, or waiving the requirements for bulk mail so the Ashcots could use the service for its flyers. I wasn’t ready for a personal challenge like public speaking. “Sorry, Mercedes, no personal business at the counter,” I said, giving her a big smile and my most apologetic look.

  “Oh, right. No problem. As long as you’re willing, we can discuss the details over lunch. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Before I could qualify that I meant “Okay, let’s not do business at the counter,” not “Okay, I’ll give a talk,” Mercedes chimed in. “Great. I’ll bring sandwiches around noon.” She was gone in a flash, trailing wisps of bright pink yarn from her hat, leaving my smile in her wake for the next customer.

  If that next patron, a burly man in a red and black lumber jacket, noticed how overwrought I was, he didn’t mention it. He was too busy with his own complaint, and the effort of slamming a package on the counter. “This was shoved into my mailbox and, as you see, has been damaged by you people.”

  I examined the mailing label. “This was addressed to you in South Ashcot?” I asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “And it reached the correct mailbox in that town?”

  “That’s right. It was shoved into my box and damaged, obviously.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir. But I’m not sure why you’re bringing it here. As you know, we don’t even have home delivery in North Ashcot. This needs to be handled by your post office in South Ashcot. I’m sure they’ll take their responsibility very seriously and make this right.”

  He glared at me and waved his large arms around, encompassing the lobby and possibly out to the flagpole. “Isn’t this part of the United States Postal Service?”

  “Yes, sir, it is, and I regret that your package was damaged, but—”

  He leaned over and stabbed the cancelled stamps. “And are these stamps not part of the United States Postal Service?”

  “Yes, sir, they are, but—”

  “Then I expect you to make this right.”

  I looked at the line of frustrated customers and at the clock. If I was going to be able to fit in a corrective phone call to Mercedes, I needed to move the line along. I grabbed a form that could pass for a receipt of merchandise and scribbled my name on the bottom line. “Of course, sir,” I said, handing the lumberjack the slip of paper. “Leave it with me and I’ll take care of it.”

  He slapped his beefy hand on the counter, grinned in a way that made me cringe and several customers turn away, and walked out of the lobby. A young woman with a toddler in her arms covered her child’s eyes as the lumberjack walked by her, and collective grumbling began in earnest.

  Truism: When people witness rude and/or creepy behavior toward a clerk, they rally, expressing sympathy and support beyond what they would otherwise offer the person behind the counter.

  “Unbelievable,” said an older man.

  “Bully,” said another.

  “You might know he’s not from around here,” said a woman with a cane.

  “What do you expect from South Ashcot?”

  Others were more severe.

  “You should just trash the package,” I was advised.

  “Give it to me and I’ll crush whatever’s in there.”

  “Then he’ll really know what ‘damaged’ means.”

  I tried not to encourage the laughs that these suggestions brought.

  The truth was that I had no idea what I was going to do with the mystery shipment, other than pass the buck to Ben.

  I turned my attention to the line, but while my hands were busy stamping letters, weighing odd-sized packages, and answering questions about the next rate increase and the availability of a popular celebrity stamp, my head was swimming with other tasks I needed to do, impressions I needed to correct.

  The last guy in line was another man I was acquainted with. Hank Blackwood used to play acoustic guitar with the Ashcots, but left under unpleasant conditions according to Quinn. (Who was where today, by the way?) A falling-out with Dennis Somerville, if I remembered correctly. Hank had retired from teaching math at the college around the same time that he left the Ashcots.

  “Remember me?” Hank asked. His short frame disappeared behind the counter for a moment while he bent to pick up a stack of parcels.

  I smiled. “Good to see you again, Hank.”

  He seemed pleased that I remembered his name and took advantage of being the last in line to get me caught up with what he’d been doing since he left the group. The overall impression he wanted me to have was that he was better off now, playing with a group down in Pittsfield.

  “It’s more of a drive, of course, but the people are nicer.”

  I smiled and said how glad I was for him, and weighed his packages as quickly as I could.

  “The North Ashcot group takes things too seriously,” Hank said. “Over in Pittsfield, things are more relaxed.”

  “I’m glad it’s working for you,” I said again.

  “Yeah, it’s not rocket science, you know?”

  By the time Hank left, I felt my face would be stuck in a fake smile, never to return to its normal configuration. I also wished I’d paid more attention to the customer service training modules I’d been subjected to over the years.

  * * *

  Finally, around eleven o’clock, I had a break to call Mercedes. No answer, but I was able to leave a message and explain that I couldn’t meet her for lunch. I made a point to mention that I had a prior meeting with Sunni Smargon. I refrained from using Sunni’s title; everyone in the county knew that Sunni was the chief of police. Surely, Mercedes wouldn’t expect me to bug out on the highest-ranking cop in the NAPD. The fact that Sunni and I had planned to share quilt blocks during our important lunch was immaterial.

  Next I sent a brief text to Quinn.

  I left it at WHERE R U? since my real question to him was too long for a text: Why in the world would you suggest me for a talk on the history of the post office, or on anything, for that matter, since you know I hate public speaking? And is this why you’re afraid to show your face this morning?

  I did recall a conversation I’d had with Quinn when I was going through a reading phase that included post office history and lore. I’d been fascinated by a book on the once-eminent Sir Rowland Hill, whose pamphlet “Post Office Reforms” in the mid-1800s instituted reforms that opened the British postal system to the masses. Before that, an elaborate and expensive method of delivery was in effect. Sir Rowland had unleashed a revolutionary postal network for sending business and personal letters that allowed Victorians to transcend geographical boundaries and changed postal services around the world. Or so his biographer claimed.

  I loved to share bits of history with my friends, but addressing a group of strangers, albeit all college students, was outside my wheelhouse. I wasn’t an expert on postal history, and even if I were, I was anything but an expert speaker. I’d flunked debating in high school, begged off orals in college in favor of a written thesis, and lost a night’s sleep worrying about giving a maid-of-honor toast at my cousin’s wedding. I was the poster girl for fearing public speaking more than death.

  I had to admit I’d never expressed my fear explicitly to Quinn, but I felt he should know me well enough to have figured it out. Why else refer to him as my boyfriend?

  Before I finished my internal monologue on the day’s anxieties, my phone rang, startling me, since I’d already begun another text, to Linda. I wanted to set up a time when we could talk at length about our mutual not-qu
ite-midlife crises, and to pin her down for a visit to North Ashcot this coming weekend.

  Mercedes’s number came up on my screen. I accepted.

  “I’d love to join you and Sunni,” she said. “One of my favorite people. Well, two of my favorite people.” She chuckled at her wit. “I’m trying to line Sunni up for a talk, also, on the development of a Victorian-era police force. You know, ‘the peelers’ as they were called, or ‘bobbies,’ after the home secretary at the time, Sir Robert Peel.”

  No, I didn’t know. I did know that Mercedes was planning to retire at the end of this school term. Was she planning a de facto retirement sooner, by enlisting guest speakers for her classes?

  “We usually just bring our lunches and eat in my office,” I said.

  “That’s fine with me,” Mercedes said.

  Why was I having such trouble making myself clear to Mercedes? “I’m afraid we have some private business today, Mercedes. But another time. Oops, I’m getting another call. Talk to you later.”

  I couldn’t believe I pulled that on Mercedes. On anyone. But I needed time to check out what Quinn had told her and to find out whether Sunni was also on the roster. Mostly, I didn’t like Mercedes’s presumptuous attitude.

  I was happy to see a customer approaching the counter, as if that validated my fib to Mercedes. And, at last, I had a fun patron. I said hello to “Moses” Crawford, reputed to be the town’s oldest citizen, and accepted his mailing, in a large, decorated box, sold in the lobby, that weighed practically nothing. Moses sent a birthday balloon filled with helium to each of his far-flung great-grandchildren, amounting to at least one a month. I wondered if he ever checked on the condition of the balloons on arrival.

  “Thanks, Moses,” I said, and handed him change for a twenty. “This is the most fun I’ve had today.”

  “Poor Cassie,” he said, stroking his straggly beard. “Maybe you should come with me to the Valentine’s Day dance.”

  “Aw, too bad I’m booked, Moses,” I said, wondering if I was right. Quinn still hadn’t shown up.