Dead Letter

by Byars, Betsy

  “I wish you hadn’t given her those names, Chico,” her mother was saying.

  “Why?”

  “Herculeah takes too many chances—you know that. She gets too caught up in things that don’t concern her.”

  “I wonder where she gets that from?”

  “Both of us.”

  They laughed. In the hall, Herculeah smiled.

  “You don’t have to worry, Mim.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “One of the names I gave her was in Marietta, the other in Griffin.”

  “Well, that makes me feel a little better, though a matter of miles wouldn’t stop Herculeah.”

  “This is the one I didn’t give her.” Herculeah heard her father take a sheet of paper from his pocket—the other half of the sheet of paper, probably—and hand it to her mother.

  “Elm Street,” her mother read.

  Herculeah waited, her heart in her throat. How lucky it was that she had not told her mother the black car had been on Elm Street.

  “Amanda Cole.”

  Herculeah took a deep breath. She clapped one hand over her mouth to keep herself from whooping with triumph. She slipped quietly out the front door and flew across the street.

  “I got it, Meat! I got it!”

  Meat paused. Herculeah’s face was so flushed he thought she was talking about a disease.

  “What?”

  “The name! The name!”

  “What name?”

  “The murdered woman’s. Her name was Amanda Cole. Aren’t you excited, Meat? This means we’re almost there.”

  “Where?”

  “To the murderer, Meat, to the murderer.”

  17

  OBITUARY

  “I’m getting tired of looking at obituaries,” Meat said.

  “Well, I’m not,” Herculeah answered.

  “They’re depressing.”

  “Not to me.”

  “I bet they are to the people they’re about.”

  “The people they’re about can’t read them. They’re dead.”

  “Well, I’ve got to take a break. Let me know when you find something.”

  Meat’s break consisted of leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Still, he had to glance at Herculeah occasionally to see how it was going.

  Herculeah and Meat had come right to the periodical room of the public library after school. The city newspaper was on microfilm, and Herculeah was now threading in the reel for 1991, January-June. Herculeah was peering intently at the screen.

  “What month are you on now?” he asked.

  “Open your eyes and see.”

  “I’m on a break.”

  “January.”

  “What year?”

  “Ninety-one.”

  “How long are we going to keep this up?”

  “We’re going to keep it up until we find what we’re looking for.”

  Herculeah was getting ready to roll directly to the obituary page when an article caught her eye. “Noted Resident Dies in Accident.” Then she saw the sub-headline and read it aloud: “Amanda Forrest Cole, Sportswoman and Philanthropist, Dead at 45.”

  Meat opened his eyes. “Did you say, ‘Dies in accident’?”

  “Yes. Accident.”

  “What date?”

  “See for yourself.”

  Meat peered at the date.

  “Accident, Herculeah,” he said. “That means the killer got away with it. If the newspaper says—”

  “Be quiet, I’ve got to concentrate.”

  Meat leaned forward and began to read aloud, “‘Mrs. Amanda Forrest Cole, widow of Franklin Cole, was pronounced dead on arrival at Grady Hospital early yesterday morning, following a fall from her horse.”’

  “Meat, read to yourself.”

  He read: “Mrs. Cole, who had been in ill health for several weeks ...” to himself, but then he found he missed the sound of his own voice.

  He broke off reading to comment, “I just have to read one more thing aloud and make one comment.”

  “Oh, go ahead.”

  “‘Mrs. Cole, who had been in ill health for several weeks ...’”

  “And what’s your comment?”

  “My comment is that anybody would be in ill health if they were being poisoned. That’s about the quickest road to ill health there is.”

  “I agree.”

  Meat nodded as if he had made an important point and went back to reading to himself.

  “Mrs. Cole left the house sometime after lunch against her doctor’s advice. No one on the premises at the time—a servant, a stable boy, and Mrs. Cole’s nephew, Roger Cole—saw her depart. ‘If we’d seen her, of course we would have stopped her,’ Roger Cole said. ‘She was in no condition to be on a horse.’

  “Mrs. Cole was not missed until supper time, when one of the servants knocked on her bedroom door. There was no answer and the room was empty. An immediate search of the house was begun, and when it was discovered that Mrs. Cole’s horse was missing, the search widened to include the neighboring horse trails. Her body was found at 7:00 P.M. and she was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

  “A formal inquest into the death will be held on Friday.”

  “Well, at least they’re going to have an inquest.” Meat leaned forward. “Is there an inquest section?”

  “I hope so.”

  Herculeah turned through the film so quickly the ads and funny papers and TV listings and front pages all ran together in one gray blur. Suddenly Herculeah stopped and rewound the film.

  “There’s a picture of her,” Herculeah said.

  “How do you know that’s her? We can’t even see the caption.”

  “I know.”

  Herculeah rolled the rest of the newspaper page into view. “Mrs. Amanda Forrest Cole, shown at the Ben nington horse show in 1990, died last Saturday. Her death, which has left the community saddened, was ruled an accident yesterday.”

  “He did get away with it,” Meat said.

  “Not yet.”

  She was still staring intently at Amanda Cole’s face. “I think she looks like me.”

  Meat looked from the newspaper picture to Herculeah and back. “No, you’re younger and”—he leaned closer—“she doesn’t even come close to you in the hair department.”

  “Not in that picture. She wasn’t afraid there.”

  Herculeah leaned back in her chair.

  “That came later.”

  18

  FOLLOWED

  “There are a lot of suspicious things in this report about the inquest,” Herculeah said as she and Meat left the library. Herculeah had the printouts of the obituary and inquest rolled up in one hand. She shook them for emphasis.

  “Such as?” Meat said.

  “Well, for one thing, that housekeeper.”

  “What about her?”

  “The housekeeper said that Mrs. Cole doted on her nephew, that she ‘wouldn’t let anyone take up her meals but Mr. Roger.”’

  “What’s suspicious about that?”

  “Plenty. Anyway, I would like to have questioned the housekeeper myself. I’d like to know if Mrs. Cole told her that or ‘Mr. Roger’ did. I mean the whole time ’Mr. Roger’ was taking up her meals, Amanda Cole could have been locked away somewhere else. He could have been eating the meals himself.”

  “You’re too suspicious.”

  “You’re not suspicious enough. And the last time the housekeeper actually saw her was Monday. Monday! What was it the housekeeper said?”

  Herculeah unrolled the sheets of paper. “The housekeeper said, ‘Mrs. Cole didn’t seem herself.’ And she never saw her again. She left for the weekend. She offered to stay on, but ‘Mr. Roger’ said Mrs. Cole wouldn’t hear of it. ’Mr. Roger’ said she was feeling better and might go for a ride the next day. ‘Mr. Roger’ winked at her and said, ’But we aren’t going to let her do that just yet, are we?‘”

  Herculeah and Meat walked half a block in silence.
“You know what I think happened?” Herculeah asked.

  Meat waited.

  “I think she was locked up somewhere that whole time. I think she was ‘Mr. Roger’s’ prisoner. Maybe one of the servants was in on it with him. They took her prisoner after the housekeeper saw her on Monday, held her there until the housekeeper left on Friday, and then killed her. You know what else I think?”

  Meat waited.

  Herculeah gasped.

  “What is it?”

  “I just saw something in that store window.”

  “What?”

  “Promise you won’t turn around and look.”

  “I promise. What is it?”

  “Meat, I saw the reflection of a black car, the same kind of car that tried to run me down.”

  “Where?”

  Meat turned around at once, stepping back closer to the buildings. “I don’t see any black car.”

  “I told you not to look!”

  “I couldn’t help myself.”

  “I know it was the same car. Look how my hair’s beginning to frizzle.”

  “Well, it’s gone now.”

  “We don’t see it now. That doesn’t mean it’s gone. It could have circled the block and be planning to run us down at the next intersection.”

  Herculeah and Meat walked slowly, cautiously. At each intersection they paused, looking in both directions in a way that would have made their mothers proud, half expecting to see the black car, engine revving, waiting to catch them in the crosswalk.

  “Well, at least we’re almost home,” Meat said finally. “And we don’t have any more streets to cross.”

  They turned the corner onto the street where they lived. They stopped abruptly.

  The low, black car was parked in front of Herculeah’s house.

  “Is that it?” Meat asked, whispering although there was no one to overhear.

  “It looks like it,” Herculeah answered.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have to do something. He’s probably seen us. We can’t just stand here.”

  Herculeah’s head went up purposefully.

  “I’m going to do what I was planning to do all along: go into my house.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “It’s my only idea. Are you coming?”

  “Well, sure. I guess.”

  They walked the rest of the block quicker than they would have liked. They each showed their tension in different ways—Herculeah by slapping the papers she held against her leg, Meat by keeping up a steady stream of conversation.

  “We could cross over and go to my house, Herculeah, want to? Let’s do it. My mom’s probably home and yours isn’t. Come on, there’s no traffic. Now’s our chance. Only maybe we better not. He could back over us. It wouldn’t be easy, but—”

  Herculeah interrupted. “When we pass the car, don’t look at it.” She spoke through her teeth.

  “I’m not,” he said even as he sneaked a look out of the corner of his eye. “Anyway I wouldn’t be able to see anything through the tinted glass.”

  Side by side, shoulders touching, Herculeah and Meat turned and started up the stairs to Herculeah’s house. They heard a car door open and close behind them.

  “Excuse me,” a male voice called.

  Herculeah turned, her gray eyes dark with suspicion. “Are you speaking to me?”

  “I sure am.”

  The man getting out of the black car was tall and handsome, his smile Hollywood white, his eyes as blue as his cashmere sweater. These things doubled Herculeah’s suspicions, tripled them.

  The man came forward with easy steps. He parted his lips in another dazzling smile. He put out his hand.

  Herculeah smelled an after-shave that was probably called something like “After Tennis” or “After Golf,” or “After Attempted Murder in a Black Sports Car.”

  “Let me introduce myself,” he said.

  Herculeah looked at his outstretched hand warily. She made no move to take it.

  “My name is Roger—Roger Cole.”

  19

  MEGA-SLEAZE

  “What a sleaze! What a terrible sleaze!” Herculeah said as she closed the door of her house.

  “Be quiet. He’ll hear you.”

  “I hope he does.”

  Herculeah stomped into the living room. She crossed to the window and watched the man get into his car.

  “Multi-sleaze!” she called. “Mega-sleaze!”

  Meat said, speaking almost to himself, “Some of what he said made sense.”

  Herculeah swirled to face Meat. There was such fury, such disbelief in her expression that he wished he had not spoken at all. He took a step backward and added quickly, “But then again, maybe it didn’t.”

  Herculeah began to imitate Roger Cole’s voice. “‘I think I owe you an apology, young lady.’ Smile. Wink. I hate men who wink for no reason. It’s so gross.”

  Meat had been present during the entire conversation, but he could see that Herculeah wanted to tell her version.

  “‘I understand from the man who was driving my car the other day that you two had an unfortunate encounter. The driver’s the watchman on my Elm Street property, and we’ve had a lot of trouble with vandals and trespassers lately.”’

  “That was the part that sounded sort of true,” Meat said.

  “Are you telling this or am I?”

  “It’s all yours.”

  She went on in Roger Cole’s voice. “‘He just wanted to scare you.’ Huh, he wanted to kill me! ‘He’s not used to my car and didn’t realize how close he came. He stayed around to apologize but you ran off.’ You bet I ran off. I wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t.

  “Anyway, Meat, he didn’t come here to ‘apologize.’ The only thing he really came over to say was, ‘It would probably be a good idea if you stayed away from the property from now on. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.’ Wink. Smile. I HATE men who wink.”

  Meat had never winked at anyone in his life, but now his eye felt like it was getting ready to. Winking would be the worst thing he could possibly do. He was saved from this fate by Herculeah’s mom.

  “Who, besides me, doesn’t want anything to happen to you?” she asked.

  Herculeah glanced up in surprise. She didn’t answer.

  Meat did it for her. He said quickly, “The man in the black car, Mrs. Jones. Did Herculeah tell you about him trying to run her down?”

  “Be quiet, Meat,” Herculeah said, singing the words. “I’ll tell it in my own way.”

  “Actually,” Mrs. Jones said, “I’d like to hear Meat’s version.” She turned her cool gray eyes—Herculeah’s eyes, he realized with a start—on him.

  Meat always felt important when he gave information to Herculeah’s parents: a private eye and a police lieutenant. It was as close as he would ever come (he hoped) to giving real testimony.

  He glanced at Herculeah. She had turned her back on him. Mrs. Jones, however, was giving him her private-investigator look, the one that made people spill their guts.

  “Meat?”

  “Well,” he began, “the man who tried to run Herculeah down the other day on Elm Street, he—”

  Meat didn’t get to finish his testimony.

  “Elm Street! Elm Street!” Mrs. Jones cried, turning on Herculeah. “You didn’t tell me this happened on Elm Street. You said on the other side of Main.”

  “Mom, this was on the other side of Main Street. It depends on which side of the street you’re on.”

  “Don’t give me any of your double-talk. You were on Elm Street and you were looking for this woman you think was murdered.”

  “I don’t think she was murdered, I know she was.”

  “I am not interested in your opinions. I want one thing from you, young lady.”

  “I hate it when you call me young lady.”

  “I’m not interested in your likes and dislikes. I am interested in
one thing and one thing only. You are not to set one foot on Elm Street. Is that clear?”

  “Oh, Mom—”

  “I want your promise.”

  “Mom—”

  “I’ll get your father in on this if I have to. If I can’t stop you, the police can.”

  “Oh, all right,” Herculeah said quickly. “Don’t join forces with Dad. I will not set one foot on Elm Street again.”

  “That’s a promise?”

  “Yes.”

  She pointed at Meat. “I want you to promise me the same thing.”

  “I promise.” Meat spoke so quickly it sounded like one word.

  “Now, about this man in the black car, he came to this house?”

  Herculeah’s back was still turned.

  “Meat?”

  “Well, Mrs. Jones, the man who tried to run her down was the watchman—this man just wanted to apologize. He said the watchman didn’t mean to. He thought she was a vandal and wanted to scare her. But we don’t believe that.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Jones gave him another of those spill-your-guts-or-else looks. He spilled.

  “Because after Herculeah fell over onto the other side of the dirt, the black car stayed with her, creeping along, like the man was stalking her.” He hoped Mrs. Jones would be as impressed with the words as he had been.

  Herculeah turned. Her gray eyes burned like embers.

  “Well, that is what you said.”

  “I was being dramatic. Everyone knows I have way too much imagination.”

  “Did either of you get the license number?”

  Herculeah said, “No.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “But we got the next best thing,” Meat said quickly.

  “What’s that?”

  “His name.”

  “Meat!” Herculeah said.

  “Meat?” Mrs. Jones questioned.

  “Roger Cole.”

  “I’m calling Chico,” Herculeah’s mother said. She started for the phone.

  “I better go home,” Meat said. He started for the door, moving slower than Mrs. Jones, giving Herculeah time to call him back. At the door he unzipped his jacket and then zipped it back up, giving Herculeah one more chance.

  “Thanks a lot,” she said.

  The three words struck Meat like stones, but the hard look in her eyes was the bigger blow. He turned and fumbled with the doorknob.