Addressed to Kill

by Jean Flowers

  I hadn’t made it back to the building in time to beat the first customers of the afternoon. Fortunately, they were friends—two women from my quilting group and the daughter of one of them.

  “Don’t worry, we won’t tell Ben,” Fran said.

  But it was too late. I was sure the blinking message light on the answering machine was the notice that Ben had called, making sure that the citizens of North Ashcot would have the services of the USPS this afternoon.

  “I’m back,” I said when the phone rang again. I cradled the phone in my neck while I opened the cash drawer.

  “Heard it went very well.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Friend of a friend,” he said.

  I didn’t doubt it. “Thanks for everything this week, Ben,” I said. “Stop by and pick up a little something I have for you.”

  “No need. I’m glad to help.”

  “Well, this is something only you can use.”

  “One of them sporting goods gift cards?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You’re scaring me.”

  * * *

  I should have known there’d be a last-minute rush of afternoon customers with valentines for Express Mail. At least, no one wanted cards rerouted to towns with romantic names. But it would be a while before I could take a break and open the folded piece of paper shouting at me from my pants pocket.

  In between a priority package to Michigan and a stack of flyers for the Albany area, I took some wild guesses about the content of the paper. The sheet of paper might concern a possible romantic issue with regard to Mercedes. A Dear John letter either to or from Mercedes. I had no clear idea about which of the two instigated the breakup.

  Maybe Dennis had a new love and secreted a letter from her to keep it from Mercedes. Or vice versa. I considered the blackmail angle—something Dennis held over Hank Blackwood’s head, as Sunni and I had discussed. Dennis might have uncovered proof of a misdeed. I couldn’t eliminate the students, either. It was possible that Norah penned more than just the three letters I’d seen, and Dennis was holding back a more serious threat with the intent of following through with the police. Or the USPS, I thought, with chagrin.

  It wasn’t until three o’clock that I had a break in the line. I poured myself a cup of coffee—better than the weak liquid in the college cafeteria, but not as good as Sunni’s—and sat in the chair behind my desk.

  I pulled the folded sheet from my pocket with the care a surgeon might use to remove an organ, if they ever did that. I could tell that it was new paper, not some rare specimen that had been trapped in the base of a snow globe for a century, or even decades. Nothing Quinn would be interested in for Ashcot’s Attic. Still, I opened the folds carefully.

  No handwriting analysis would be required for this project. It seemed that four separate notes, each a couple of inches long, had been placed on a photocopier and copied onto one sheet. The lines were not all square with the edges of the machine’s glass platform, and the quality of the copy was poor, as if the operator was in a rush. I read the slightly angled messages.

  Professor—1 K is steep. LJ.

  Prof. One week to finals How much? B.

  Professor ~ Merci! Such a bargain. C.

  Prof.—You can’t stop now. A. Mc.

  How to interpret the set? Were the notes to or from Dennis? Or did Dennis happen upon notes that he neither authored nor received? The fact that they were in Dennis’s snow globe didn’t clarify who sent them, who received them, who copied them, and most important, why.

  I could only speculate, something I’d been doing too much of lately. But I had no other choice. High on the list was that either Dennis had been involved in an illegal operation or he had uncovered one. The sale of stolen merchandise, perhaps. The designation “1K” had to be one thousand dollars. Didn’t it? Never mind that “LJ” might have been talking about scaling a one-thousand-foot slope. Or that “1K” was the answer to a math problem. What’s five hundred times two? Something more sophisticated, of course.

  Then why hide the paper? Dennis’s lighthouse games with Dyson were over now that his son was an adult, though I probably should check that with Dyson. It was possible that Dennis suspected an unfortunate end, and had been counting on Dyson to alert the police to a possible clue to his murderer. He wouldn’t have been counting on my supercurious, interfering nature.

  Since Dennis had been murdered, it seemed more likely that he discovered evidence against his killer and was protecting it until he could go to the police. Maybe the student mail he’d brought to me was related, or maybe it was sent as a distraction from his mission to expose the criminal activities revealed in the copied notes from LJ, B, C, A McC. If there were any criminal activities. If, if, if.

  This case was one of initials, it seemed, from my TMHJ to LJ and the others.

  I couldn’t rule out the three thieves as murderers after all, in league with a professor to get rid of the merchandise they stole? I had to ask Sunni if any of the three people in her custody had initials LJ and so on.

  A customer with a bin of mail came into the lobby with the usual sigh of relief as she hit the warm air. I knew the young woman as part of the clerical staff in the real estate office downtown. I smiled to myself—the nerve of her, expecting service, interrupting important police work.

  Before I greeted her, I read a quick text from Sunni.

  Meeting 5-ish?

  Sure, I wrote.

  I took care of the hundreds of flyers in the bin while we chatted about the upcoming dance, whether there would be many from South Ashcot or other surrounding towns, what the predominant fashion would be. Long and elegant or short and chic? It occurred to me that I’d better pay attention to my own fashion statement that evening. I knew I’d never buy a short dress with one long zipper up the back and hoped it would go out of style soon. It was a good thing Linda would be around to help. In fact, why didn’t I delegate the whole project to her? Like in the old days of clubbing in Boston.

  I completed the transaction for the flyers, wondering why the real estate office, and so many other businesses, bothered to send full-color brochures through the mail. Most of them also had Web sites and sent regular e-mail ads. If my personal in-box was any example, there was a constant, daily barrage of merchandising. Not that I was complaining—I told an absent Ben—about a practice, like sending out physical flyers, that kept us in business.

  Another break, and back to the notes. There was no end to the possible interpretations of the hidden notes. This time I focused on Dennis’s behavior toward Hank Blackwood—the H in my TMHF—which seemed common knowledge. He’d been responsible for Hank’s banishment from the Ashcots, and allegedly had something to do with Hank’s early retirement from the community college math department. It wasn’t a leap to think that Dennis had found out something damning and that Hank Blackwood killed him to protect whatever the something was. How much better it would have been if the pseudo signatures had included HB or the greeting had been to Professor HB.

  I thought back to Dyson’s report on the last conversation he’d had with his father, over the weekend. I recalled something about a teacher who accepted bribes for good grades. Hank? Joyce? Mercedes? Another dead, or multiple, end.

  No other break came until closing. The last customer out the door took the prize for bringing me the most unusual shipment of the month: a set of four tires. No box, just a tag with a mailing label.

  “I don’t trust anyone else with these,” the burly man said.

  “I appreciate your confidence,” I said, wondering how my pickup manager was going to react tomorrow morning.

  Once the tires were safely locked in the delivery room, I dressed for the outdoors, first to lower the flag, then to head to the police station.

  Each time I raised or lowered the Stars and Stripes, I felt a renewed sense of patriotism an
d responsibility toward the citizens I served.

  Today, however, with the chief of police waiting for me, I felt my real work was just beginning.

  * * *

  I decided to walk to the police building. It wouldn’t hurt to clear my head, plan my approach to informing (or not) Sunni about the notes I’d found in Dennis’s lighthouse globe. I tried to make some sense of the texts from, and perhaps to, LJ, et alia, but came up with nothing new. Just as well that I simply let Sunni talk.

  I wished I knew if the gun that killed Dennis had been found, or if ballistics information on it had come back. I wished I knew Hank’s alibi, and whether the thieves had come through with a confession or a lead.

  I pulled my scarf, a present from Linda and therefore very fashionable, up over my nose and increased my pace. How could I have forgotten how much colder it would get once the sun was down? Once again my cold-weather head-down stance caused me to nearly run into an oncoming pedestrian. This time: Joyce Blake.

  We both apologized and then chuckled. “Women,” Joyce said.

  “Huh?”

  “I read somewhere that women always say ‘Sorry’ when they bump into someone. Men say ‘Watch out.’” Joyce repositioned a red scarf that clashed mercilessly with her burgundy down coat. I thought Sunni and my newfound quilt group must be rubbing off on me as they taught me the elements of design and color.

  I couldn’t believe that Joyce’s observation was true for every guy. I’d have been willing to bet that Quinn would apologize in such a situation. I wasn’t so sure about Hank Blackwood. As for my former fiancé, I was sure his response would depend on how high up on the ladder the other person was. “Well, I wasn’t watching where I was going,” I said, “so it couldn’t have been all your fault.”

  “I’m just coming from the police station,” Joyce said. “I’m a little flustered.”

  “Oh?” Even though Joyce was the J in my TMHJ, her potential as a suspect in Dennis’s murder had faded as that of the thieves and Hank had risen. Petty squabbles about course schedules paled in comparison to fighting over the loot from a possible gang of thieves or some underhanded operation Hank might be running.

  “I’m not sure why, but the chief needed to question me again. She said it was routine, but it was intimidating anyway.”

  I almost shared how Sunni could be intimidating when in her building, but I held back in favor of defending a friend.

  “She has a tough job,” I said. “Did this have to do with some of your majors?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” A light seemed to dawn in Joyce’s mind. “Wait a minute. Did you do this? Hassle those students I pointed out to you in Mahican’s? Is that where the chief is getting her information?”

  It was good to know that Sunni kept her sources to herself as much as possible. It wasn’t her fault that I wasn’t as good at maintaining anonymity.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Joyce stiffened. “I think you are. You’re something else. Maybe you should just leave the post office and go to the police academy. At least then we’d know to watch out for you.”

  Her reprimand reminded me of Norah’s, except at least Joyce didn’t blame me for the possible demise of the USPS. Joyce stomped away, her red scarf drooping over her shoulder. I was losing friends faster than an overnight delivery service. Hank, Norah, now Joyce. I hoped I still had one in the office of the chief of police.

  * * *

  I was deposited in Sunni’s office by an intern while Sunni and Greta were busy in a back room. I did my best to sit still, holding a mug of delicious coffee. This was not a campus office or a home office. It was a place unique unto itself and I resolved not to so much as look with curiosity at anything in it that was remotely official.

  That left a few photos and odd knickknacks. To keep my eyes from wandering, I studied a formal picture of Sunni’s daughter, Avery, in her high school photo. She had her mother’s coloring, with auburn highlights in long, straight hair. And her mother’s eyes, which in life alternated between a soft green and a hard gray, depending on circumstances. Next to Avery’s photo was one of her and Sunni at a mother-daughter event at Avery’s sorority, and a clunky ceramic frog that held pencils in its wide mouth. I suspected this was also thanks to Avery a few years ago, since Sunni had no grandchildren that I knew of.

  I did my best to assume a relaxed posture in the chair, though the back was too short to support my neck. My goal was to close my eyes so I wouldn’t be distracted by the files in Sunni’s in-box, the stack of papers at the corner of her desk, and handwritten notes on yellow paper, the sign of suspects’ statements everywhere. Surely, Sunni wouldn’t have left such important matter out. Since I couldn’t rest it, the only option for my neck was to strain it and try to read the sheets of paper. No luck.

  I took out my phone, always a good time filler. I thought of giving Dyson a call but didn’t want to be engaged when Sunni returned. I texted him instead.

  Nice to have lunch with u.

  I was surprised to get a phone call in reply.

  “Thanks, Cassie. I appreciate all your help.”

  “Are you keeping busy?”

  “I guess. There’s not much I can do until . . .”

  I knew that the medical examiner hadn’t released Dennis’s body yet. I rushed to change the subject. “Do you want to come by for dinner tonight?”

  “Sure. That’d be great.”

  I remembered too late that Quinn and I had planned to go out this evening. I knew he’d be okay with the change, for a good cause. “I’ll let you know the time later.”

  “Okay. I had some company today after you left, which was nice.”

  “Some of your old friends?”

  “Nah, more like my dad’s friends. A couple of teachers, and his friend Mercedes. Well, she’s a teacher, too, I guess, but I know they were, like, more than colleagues.”

  One question answered: Dennis hadn’t kept his relationship with Mercedes a secret from his son. It made sense. It also made sense for Dennis’s colleagues to visit their friend’s son to offer special condolences. But that didn’t mean that my investigative ears didn’t go up. I wanted more. “Oh, which teachers came by besides Mercedes?” I asked.

  “The math teachers, Dr. Blake and Dr. Blackwood.” That would be Joyce and Hank. “Not together, though. They just all stopped in and brought me food.”

  “Very nice of them,” I said, meaning What did they want from you?

  “They’re all very concerned about finding out who did this. I told them I don’t know anything that isn’t already on the news.”

  “I’m sure it’s frustrating, Dyson, but Chief Smargon is working very hard on this.”

  “And you are, too, right? That’s what they said.”

  “They said?”

  “Yeah, all of them. Mercedes, Dr. Blake, Dr. Blackwood. And I remember Ben at the post office said that, too. They all said you know more than anyone because you’re investigating on your own.”

  “They said that?” I was aware I was parroting but couldn’t seem to break the rhythm.

  “Yeah, I forget who said what, like, you were on campus searching my dad’s office or you’ve been to the police department a lot and the chief visits you. It sounded like they wanted me to ask you what you’ve come up with and then let them know. But I probably have that wrong. I think they just wanted to show they’re interested and they think whoever did this should be caught as soon as possible.”

  “Your father was very well liked, Dyson, and many people are eager to see his killer in jail.” Though I didn’t believe for a minute that Dennis’s “friends” didn’t have an ulterior motive for their questions. One of them might very well have been worried that the police were closing in. Or that I was, which would have been great if it were true.

  “You’d tell me if you really know any more, right?�
� Dyson asked.

  “Of course.” I paused while I phrased a key follow-up question. “Dyson, did you by any chance get the feeling that one of the teachers knew something about the case? You know, maybe Mercedes or Professor Blake or Professor Blackwood has been doing some investigating also?”

  “Huh. I didn’t think about that. You mean, maybe they wanted to help, too?”

  “Yes. I’m just wondering. It would certainly be wise for all of us to share.”

  “I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is that they wanted to check out my dad’s office. Like, Professor Blackwood asked if my dad left anything for him, something with his name on it.”

  What? Hank was using the same ploy I’d used to get into Dennis’s campus office? “Did you take them up there?”

  “Not Professor Blackwood because then actually Professor Blake came by and we got interrupted. But Mercedes wanted to go up, too, when she came by later, and I did take her. She just looked around and got kind of weepy and left pretty quick. Maybe I should have asked them if they needed me to do anything else for them.”

  “Dyson, don’t think about that. You just need to take care of yourself right now. Make sure you’re resting and eating and even doing classwork if you can. I think that’s what your dad would want you to do.”

  I nearly screamed out loud at the memory of hearing those words when my parents died. What had I been thinking at the time? Nothing rational. What made me repeat them to Dyson?

  “I guess,” Dyson said, in a squeak.

  “Dyson, I’m sorry. I must sound like I’m preaching, and that’s not what I mean to do.” The noisy appearance of Greta in the doorway prompted a rushed ending to the call. “Just promise you’ll let me know if you need anything.”

  “Okay. And please promise you’ll tell me if you find out anything, you know?” Dyson asked.

  I managed to sound as if I were promising without actually doing so. No mean feat.