Addressed to Kill Page 6

“Wow.”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  * * *

  It was closer to fifteen minutes by the time I gathered my February outerwear and made my way to the antiques store that Quinn managed for its nearly retired owner. Geography was in my favor, since his store was on the way to campus. The way I was scheduling my morning off, you might think I was a busy executive instead of a simple postmaster who at times took on the role of detective.

  Ashcot’s Attic, housed in a two-story, two-toned green building with a front right on Main Street, offered a broad range of antiques. Cluttered was the operative word for any antiques store, I imagined, and Quinn’s place near the edge of town was no exception. Large mahogany and walnut glass-fronted cabinets butted against each other, vying for attention for their contents: metal toys, novelty salt and pepper shakers, elaborate ceramic figurines, trays of costume jewelry. A row of bone china cups sat precariously along the ledge of a bookcase that towered over nonmatching, plush easy chairs. I imagined the dust of centuries weighing them down. I spied a small pine end table with a shelf and single drawer, which I’d contributed to the inventory, from Aunt Tess’s estate. I told myself once more that I didn’t need it.

  Neatly printed signs throughout the store advised that the professionals of Ashcot’s Attic would happily conduct an on-site home sale, taking full responsibility for categorizing, staging, cleaning, appraising, and displaying items attractively, to help maximize sales. They would do all the advertising, including Internet and local newspapers, and an extensive customer and client e-mailing. Such a deal.

  I’d already taken advantage of the Attic’s services. I’d returned to my hometown after all those years in Boston to take care of the aunt who raised me. I now owned that house, where I grew up. When Aunt Tess died soon after my return, Quinn had helped me sort through her belongings, keeping what had sentimental value, passing on the rest.

  “Still thinking about that pine table?” Quinn asked, startling me from behind.

  I recovered quickly and shook my head. “Just visiting it.”

  He was dressed in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt that could have come from his own racks, near the back of the store where a closet served as a dressing room. Never a suit-and-tie kind of guy, in his words, he enjoyed his comfortable sweatshirts and corduroys. Quinn invited me to a corner of the store where he had what he called an office, defined by a desk and chair on an area rug. He moved a second chair onto the rug and pulled out a large, leather-covered volume from a shelf, an illustrated encyclopedia of all things Victorian. When we were seated, he opened the tome to a page he had bookmarked.

  “I found something I think you’ll like. It’s a reference to an amusing article entitled ‘Valentine’s Day at the Post-Office,’ written in part by Dickens for an issue of a weekly magazine he founded.”

  “A perfect title,” I said.

  “Listen to this. ‘Swains in very blue coats and nymphs in very opaque muslin, coarse caricatures and tender verses.’” Quinn read the passage from a page that showcased Dickens’s sense of humor as he discussed the image of Cupid peering from behind paper roses. “There’s more on darts, also,” he said in closing.

  “It’s great, Quinn. But I’m going to try to fit in more about U.S. postal history.” I brushed nonexistent lint from the sleeves of my navy blue USPS jacket—I always felt dusty in Quinn’s shop. I’d dressed prepared to head for work after my Attic visit.

  “Maybe you’ll like giving a talk so much that you’ll do more of them.”

  I sneered. “I doubt it. Can you copy part of that article for me?”

  “Already done.” He turned to another bookmarked page and read a passage about other images, like flaming hearts, all in the name of St. Valentine. And there was more, going back even further to the fifteenth century when a duke mailed his fiancée a love letter while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

  When he started rattling off figures on the expansion of postal services in the United States—from about twenty-eight thousand post offices in 1860 to more than sixty thousand thirty years later—I gave out the loudest “ahem” I could manage.

  “I thought you wanted data on the United States during that period.”

  “I did. I do.” I looked at my watch.

  “Had enough, huh?” he asked.

  “For now. I have to get to the campus.”

  “Will you be back for lunch?”

  I held up a protein bar. “On the road, I’m afraid.”

  I left the Attic, promising once again to be careful and to report on any progress I might make. Quinn walked me to my car and handed the Victoriana volume to me through the window.

  “Carry this around. It will give you some gravitas on a campus.”

  “I thought my uniform would do that,” I said, smoothing out the postal seal on my sleeve.

  “You can never have too much gravitas,” he said.

  I agreed.

  6

  I entered the campus at the parking lot on the north side, closest to the X that Mercedes had drawn on her sketch. I hadn’t been on the community college campus since I toured it with my class when I was a junior at Ashcot High. The school had prospered since I visited. At the time, only three plain redbrick buildings around a quad accommodated all the classes, science labs, and administrative offices.

  Now I saw from the poster-size map at the entrance that three additional buildings had been added, all with blue solar panels; plus a swimming pool, a tennis complex, an environmental science center, and an arts center. I was confused by the presence of green dollar signs here and there on the map until I read the legend. The money symbols identified the locations of ATMs. A lot had changed in twenty years.

  All the buildings were named after Revolutionary War heroes and heroines, not unusual throughout Massachusetts. I’d grown up thinking the War for Independence was the most important in history. I could remember writing essays in grammar school on General Nathanael Greene and the Battle of Brandywine; on nighttime messenger Paul Revere; and on revolutionary propagandist Thomas Paine of “Common Sense” fame. To say that the former thirteen colonies, and Massachusetts in particular, were parochial in outlook might have been taken as a compliment by my grammar and high school teachers.

  Not many other souls were strolling the pathways on this cold morning, most of them seeming not much older than high schoolers, but once I passed thirty I no longer trusted my ability to guess ages with any accuracy.

  The few students I did encounter were stuck to their phones. No one nodded or greeted me. I wondered if any of them had the new app Ben’s niece had shown me—an app that had to do with personal safety.

  “All my roommates have one,” Natalie had said, zipping her fingers over her phone’s screen. “It’s worth the peace of mind when you’re jogging, or on a blind date, or a late movie. One of my friends uses it even if she’s getting in a cab alone. You get to choose contacts and messages, like ‘I’m walking to my car’ and then a time frame.”

  “And if you fail to check in, some kind of alarm goes off?”

  Natalie had confirmed my guess, adding much more about “guardians” (the contacts you choose), GPS trackers, panic buttons, and direct links to emergency help lines; all features that came with a subscription.

  Times had changed even more than I thought.

  I located Mary Draper Hall on a sign at an intersection and followed the arrow. Mercedes had explained that the great Ms. Draper was famous for harboring, feeding, and providing clothing for American soldiers. She was said to have torn up her blankets and bedsheets and used the fabric to make jackets and shirts for the boys in the army. I figured she deserved at least a college building named after her.

  My head down against a chilly wind, lost in thoughts about times when Dennis Somerville had walked these paths, oblivious of any danger coming his way, I nearly bumped int
o someone coming in the opposite direction. In a minute, it was clear that it was no accident—the person meant to get my attention. I looked up into the suspicious eyes of the chief of police.

  “Special delivery mail?” Chief of Police Sunni Smargon addressed me with a smirk.

  I couldn’t quite suppress a laugh. “It’s part of a new outreach program by the USPS, to improve customer relations, reaching out to the community.”

  “Funny, I thought we were the ones who protect and serve the community,” Sunni said, running her hand over the patch on her jacket.

  If I weren’t so intimidated, I would have run my hand over my own patch. So intimidated, in fact, I almost forgot I had a legitimate reason for being on campus. “I’m scheduled to give a talk in a history class this week. I’m a guest speaker for Professor Mercedes Davis,” I said, cocking my head in a faux pompous way.

  “Of course you are.”

  “Really. I’m headed to Draper Hall”—I pointed to the building at the end of the path—“to check out the facilities. It’s where I’ll be giving my talk.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We seemed to be at a stalemate, so I decided to waste no more time. “I suppose you’re interviewing Dennis’s coworkers here? Have you found anything that helps with the investigation?”

  “Besides protecting and serving, we’re also the ones who ask the questions.”

  My mouth went dry. I saw only the tiniest glint of amusement in Sunni’s eyes and I didn’t want to be ushered off campus, an unseemly sight for a prospective guest lecturer. “I probably should get going,” I said. “I have a meeting with Mercedes in a few minutes.”

  Sunni cleared her throat and shuffled her feet. Her expression had turned pleasant. “Cassie, will you do me a favor?”

  “Anything,” I said, then realized the favor might be for me to beat it off campus.

  “See if you can find out, without being too obvious, who else has seen the letters Dennis received. The ones he showed you in the post office, and especially if they have any idea who might have sent them. I’m getting this town-versus-gown feeling, where I represent the town and the faculty gowns are zipping up when they see me.”

  “Do you have those letters? Did you find them among Dennis’s things?” Oops. There was that frown again. It was never a good idea to ask a police chief, or any other detective, a question. I should have known better. “I mean, of course, I’ll do my best to find out and let you know.”

  I stopped short of saluting, and Sunni and I parted company.

  * * *

  I waited for Mercedes in the small lobby area at the front of Mary Draper Hall. Young men and women sat reading or talking on sofas and wide chairs. I couldn’t hear conversations, but it was clear that a kind of pall had settled over the gathering. Faces were solemn; voices were soft. The only signs of ordinary life were the unmistakable rings and pings of cell phones and the reboot noise of computers.

  When Mercedes arrived, we began a trek down a long well-lit hallway toward her classroom. It was clear that she was proud of her school and this relatively new building. “A whole building for classrooms,” she said. “We’ve needed this for years. One semester, I taught an advanced seminar on the Enlightenment in the waiting room outside the admissions office.”

  We passed rooms of various sizes on both sides of the corridor, most with seating that was more flexible than the usual rows of desk-chair combinations that I was used to in college. I noted roundtable-style arrangements as well as some rooms that were tableless, with circles of chairs only. Most rooms had students, probably waiting for class to begin, all talking in more hushed tones than I would expect on a normal day.

  “Have the students been informed about Dennis’s death?” I asked.

  Mercedes nodded. “The dean called an assembly at ten fifteen this morning. She’d notified the faculty first. I was a little late for that, but I knew what the announcement was.” She paused to catch her breath, as if we’d been sprinting down the hall. “A lot of the students had heard about it already, too, but the ones who come a distance didn’t know.”

  “Is that why it’s so quiet in here?”

  She nodded. “I stopped at the bookstore and found everyone whispering. There were no details given, but you could tell people were sober, and also relieved that the crime hadn’t happened on campus.”

  How considerate of Dennis’s killer, I thought, choosing not to turn an entire campus into a crime scene. I was conscious of my need to query Mercedes about the letters Dennis had received, but it hadn’t been easy to interrupt. I took advantage of a pause in her narrative. “You know, Dennis came to the post office yesterday, after your rehearsal.”

  I hoped she’d chime in with having seen him in line and heard him grumbling about his letters. Instead, she gave no indication that she’d heard me.

  “A lot of the eleven o’clock classes have been cancelled,” Mercedes said, continuing her own thread. “I’m going to keep my students for only a few minutes. Unless they want to talk about it. About Dennis. I think Thursday is soon enough to pick up on our course content.” She turned to look at me. “That’s you.”

  How well I knew. Since arriving on campus, I’d made an effort to notice the students, to try to see what they were reading or focusing on, as if to make friends with them before my talk. I tried to recall what I’d been like at their age. Not a happy kid. I’d lost my parents in a car crash before my sixteenth birthday and had managed to remain depressed and unsociable for a long time after. I didn’t get my bearings until at least a couple of years into college. Although I maintained a decent GPA, it would have been hard to interest me in being a guest lecturer of any kind.

  Mercedes and I had come to the end of the corridor, to a large tiered lecture hall, and entered on the bottom level. Steps led up to rows and rows of desk-chair combinations that filled the equivalent of another floor. The twenty or so students chatted in low voices, looking lost in the vast room. I couldn’t help thinking that their professor’s murder was the reason for their muffled tones.

  “This room is our largest,” Mercedes said. “It has all the modern features. Retractable folding wall, highly rated sound partitions, projection screens.”

  As Mercedes waved her arms to point out various features, more students filed in, chatting at the same hushed levels I didn’t expect. I noted about an equal number of males and females, practically all in jeans and heavy jackets. They swung their backpacks, hats, gloves, and scarves over chairs and attached desktops.

  “And, of course, the podium is smart,” Mercedes said.

  “Like a smartphone, with apps and all?”

  “Pretty much. And so is what looks like an ordinary whiteboard.” She pointed to a large board at the front of the room. “It’s smart, also. Any program that works on your computer or phone can be used on the board, audio included.”

  “Impressive. Where’s your classroom?”

  “This is my classroom.”

  I felt my stomach clutch. By now the room had filled up. I tried to estimate how many students were present but lost track in my nervousness. “How many people does it hold?” I asked.

  “Two hundred or so.” Mercedes must have noticed my distress. She quickly added, “But there are only eighty in my class.”

  I drew in a gaspy breath. “I was thinking more like eight. Maybe eighteen.”

  Mercedes laughed, a dramatic laugh befitting her cape, which she now swung off her shoulders. “Oh my. You’re not bothered by the numbers, are you?”

  “No, not at all.” I always stutter this way, I said silently.

  “They’re a very friendly group. Let me introduce you.”

  “That’s okay. I really need to get to work,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”

  I left the room before Mercedes knew what was happening. Lucky for me, at the same time, a small group of student
s had come down the steps and made their way to the smart desk to talk to her.

  I slipped out and ducked into the nearest women’s room. I was impressed and relieved that this one had an anteroom with a couch. Just what I needed. But what was I going to need before lecturing to eighty people? Or after?

  * * *

  Who knew that an institutional couch could be so comfortable? I woke up, afraid I’d overslept and left Ben alone at work all afternoon, but I’d nodded off for only ten minutes. A peculiar reaction to my stress.

  I’d come close to asking Mercedes where Dennis’s office was, but I lost my nerve. So far, my trip to campus was as useful as if I’d slept in, in my own bed instead of a restroom couch. I hoped the directory would be some help. I walked back to the poster-size sign at the edge of the parking lot and looked on the map. I found that faculty offices were in Patrick Henry Hall, at the opposite end of the campus. My car, on the other hand, was right in front of me. I could be home in a half hour, have lunch with Quinn, and get started on my talk. Or I could seek out Dennis’s office on the off chance that I’d even be able to enter it and the still smaller chance that it would give me a clue about Dennis’s death.

  Decision time.

  I left the building and took a seat on a wooden slatted bench near the directory. I was sure the landscape planners didn’t expect much loitering on the bench in the middle of February, but it served my purpose.

  Decision made.

  I called Ben. “Are you about to close for lunch?” I asked.

  “Yup. Going to put the sign up.”

  “Yes, can you use the one that says one thirty?”

  “Okay. Sure you don’t want me to come back?”

  “I’m sure. One thirty will be fine for me. Thanks a lot for this morning.” I would have loved for Ben to finish off the day behind the counter, but I knew it would be hard on him, and, more important, I wanted to save the favor for a time when I might need him more urgently.

  “Did you get some rest?” he asked.