by Jean Flowers
But it was too late to hide, since I’d already made too much noise, so I pulled the curtain aside and looked out. And into the face of Hank Blackwood.
21
I dropped the curtain and jumped back as if a bolt of lightning were about to strike me.
“Hey, Cassie,” Hank said, his voice cheery. “It’s freezing out here. My car is stalled and my phone is dead. Can you open up?”
Hank’s car was stalled in front of my house? What were the chances? On the other hand, what were the chances that Hank knew within seconds of my figuring out that he was the likely killer of his colleague and musical cohort, and had come to make me his next victim? Pretty low all around. But statistics were no help in my deciding whether to open my door.
“I’m ready for bed, Hank,” I said, striving to keep my voice steady, and counting on the fact that he couldn’t see through the curtain that I was in perfectly presentable jeans and a sweatshirt, not a filmy negligee or even pj’s. “I’ll call a tow company for you.”
“Come on. Can’t I get a cup of coffee while I wait? Nothing’s open downtown.”
I knew he was right about that, but it didn’t matter to me.
“Just throw on a robe,” he said. Still more pleading than threatening, but I wasn’t buying it.
“Hank, the best I can do is to call Bud’s Towing. You know he’ll come at any hour.”
Hank banged on the window. I flinched again and stepped back.
“You know what? Never mind. I should have known you’d be a”—and here I lost him, since the word he uttered was not in my regular vocabulary. “I’ll go next door. Maybe someone on this block is neighborly. Don’t expect any more business from me.”
With that, and a few more choice words that I did recognize, he stomped off.
I blew out a deep breath and moved away from the window, straining to hear his footsteps, descending my steps. When I was satisfied that he’d left, I sat in an easy chair in the dark living room. My heartbeat was still elevated, but I grabbed my cell phone and punched in Sunni’s number.
Voice mail.
Not what I wanted to hear. I tried her office number, and the recorded message told me that if I had an emergency, I should call 911. Was this an emergency? It all depended on whether I was right about Hank. What if I had just shown myself to be a poor neighbor in a friendly small town, perhaps jaded by big-city living for so many years? Not willing to help out a guy who was stranded on a cold winter night. I told myself that Hank wasn’t a well-loved citizen and probably wouldn’t be successful in ruining my reputation as well as that of the USPS.
I clicked my phone off and tapped it on my thigh. Where was Sunni? Why wasn’t she in her office working on the case as I’d been? I had a thought. I’d check my contacts for a direct line to the front desk. Someone had to be on duty all night.
I was so stressed that I didn’t immediately recognize Greta’s voice and thought I’d reached another recording.
“Is this Cassie?” she asked, apparently seeing my caller ID.
“Yes,” I stammered. “This may be nothing, but . . .” I stopped. What to tell her? That Hank Blackwood had rung my doorbell and frightened me? That I knew Hank killed Dennis and might now be after me? Too paranoid.
I opted out of that approach. I took a huge breath and told her that someone had come to my door and wouldn’t leave. “Can you possibly send a car around?”
“Are you okay, Cassie?”
“Yeah, I think he’s gone. I’d just like someone to check my property.”
“Sure thing. All the cars are out right now, called to South Ashcot of all things. Something must be up there. We got several calls from residents needing our help.”
“Is that common?”
“Not at all. Most unusual. Are you sure you don’t want me to get you nine-one-one? They’ll pull from wherever they have to.”
How foolish would I look? I’d heard Hank leave. What if some real 911 call came second to mine and someone died? “No, just put me on the list. Do you know where Sunni is, by the way?”
“She just called in. She was summoned to a briefing on the robberies at the station down in Stockbridge, but when she got there, no one knew what she was talking about. She’s on her way back. Very strange.”
“Okay, can you tell her to call me when she gets in?”
“Will do. Take care and call me if you need anything.”
What I needed was peace of mind and a briefing with Sunni about Hank Blackwood. A real briefing, not the one that didn’t happen in Stockbridge.
I sat back. What was going on? A flurry of incidents in South Ashcot that called North Ashcot’s resources away. A summons from Stockbridge that took our chief of police from her station. A call to Quinn that required a last-minute trip to Northampton. All just when Hank Blackwood’s car stalled in front of my house and he needed to use my phone. I questioned whether Dyson’s friend had called to invite him to pizza, or whether Hank had engineered that also.
I punched in Quinn’s number, an exercise that took three tries, thanks to my twitching fingers. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t disturb him while he was doing business, but I needed to check out what was happening to my support system.
“Hey, Cassie.”
“Are you finished with your business?” I asked. Calmed down a little after hearing his voice.
“Funny thing. I got to the area and it was an ordinary residence in a somewhat squirrely part of town and no one knew anything about—”
I gasped. “Quinn, please call nine-one-one for me. And hurry back. I—”
A loud crash at the back of my house took my breath away. I dropped the phone. I heard Quinn’s panicked voice. I hoped he recovered quickly enough to call for help.
“You need to do something about that flimsy lock on the back door.” Hank, with his stubby legs, nevertheless made it into my living room with record speed.
All my self-defense training became a blur. There was no advice when faced with a gun except to duck. My options were limited. My only advantage over Hank was that I was better able to maneuver in the dark living room.
How to stall him while I figured out how to save my life?
“I’m sorry, Hank. I should have invited you in. That was rude of me.”
He laughed at my silly, futile ploy. I almost laughed myself.
“You’re way too clever, Cassie. When Dyson told me you’d been in his father’s office, I knew you’d probably find something. The arrogant, self-righteous Dennis told me he had all he needed to go to the college board. He knew about my little moonlighting scheme with the less gifted but wealthier students.”
The headlights of a passing car illuminated his face enough for me to see a sinister smile. And to size up my attacker. Hank was shorter than me by several inches, but heavier. And armed. He stood about five feet away, I estimated, on the long narrow area rug that Quinn had delivered only a week or so ago. I remembered the oval rug, of a similar vintage to the one in Dennis’s home, the one I’d searched for bloodstains. Now I imagined my own blood on my rug. The front door was an equal distance behind me. No chance that I could turn, run, unlock the door, and make it outside alive.
“Can’t we sit down? Talk this over?” I asked.
“Too late, Madam Postmistress. I came here tonight to quiz you, that’s all.” He waved his gun at me. “Well, I did come prepared, just in case, but I had no idea you’d already figured it all out. And I knew that this time it wouldn’t be just academic sanctions, but a trip to the police station.”
“I haven’t figured anything—”
He shook his head. “If you hadn’t, you would have let me in.” He turned toward the kitchen table. “And I just happened to notice what you were working on out there. You saved me the trouble of looking for what Dennis claimed to have on me. Something I’ll scoop up on my way out the door. Fortunate
ly, I’ve amassed enough money for a clean getaway, in case there’s a loose end somewhere that I haven’t thought of. I’m thinking some place that’s warm all year.”
And where will I be? On the floor, dead? I realized I hadn’t mentioned Hank’s name to anyone. Not to Greta, not to Quinn. This seemed the ultimate unfairness. I had to do something, if only to leave a clue as to who had killed me.
I could tell Hank was finished talking, shifting his feet, getting ready to aim and fire. I took one step back, off the rug, leaving Hank at the other end of it, still posturing. I saw my one chance—when he had one foot in the air. I dropped to the floor and pulled on the rug with both hands, as hard as I could. Just in time to topple Hank. He ended up flat on his back, his gun flung toward my coffee table.
With his thick middle, it took him a few seconds to turn over and search for his gun in the shadows. I used the time to grab on to my only remaining defensive resource, the heavy metal bust of Sir Rowland Hill that had been sitting on my coffee table. The inspiration for my postal history presentation. I picked up Sir Rowland and sent him crashing down on Hank’s skull. I kicked the gun under the coffee table, out of reach. Even though Hank wasn’t moving, I ran to the door, tripped on the messed-up rug, righted myself, and made it out onto my porch as Sunni’s car was pulling up.
I crawled to the top step and pointed toward my front door. “Hank Blackwood,” I said, in case they were the last words I uttered.
22
A lot of people spent most of Friday processing criminals, delivering each one to the appropriate department for arraignment or whatever else had been agreed upon by all the law enforcement representatives. In spite of the overload of paperwork, Sunni’s office seemed brighter than ever, her officers and others of us walking around with big smiles.
The chatter was all about the many cases that had been solved this week.
Greta was happy because her two favorite people, as she called us, were alive and well. Once Quinn’s chain of information had reached Greta, she realized that my intruder had set her boss up. “What was to prevent him from attacking the chief, or having someone attack her?” Her worries over, Greta made countless cups of good coffee and more than one run to the bakery.
Officer Hirsch, from the South Ashcot PD, who had come to help process the bevy of crooks in our midst, was especially impressed by Morgan. “She managed to pull off her cons in eleven states—all of New England, plus five others.”
In the end, Morgan had been helpful, in that she ID’d Hank’s car, a classic Chevy Nova, as the one she saw leaving Dennis Somerville’s home around the time of his murder. “Putting him at the scene,” Sunni said. “Always handy for the prosecution.”
Greta summarized nicely. “Morgan was surveying her competition, following the other three crooks around town, and therefore she was able to finger our murderer.” She tsk-tsked. “You’ve gotta love this job.”
Mercedes and Joyce—who, I hoped, would never know that theirs had been initials in my suspect mnemonic—came to the station to give statements. If the case ever went to trial, character witnesses, or the opposite thereof, would be needed. The two women, and many others in the Ashcots and at the college, would be called on to testify to the animosity between Hank and his victim.
I’d assured Quinn the night before that Hank had never gotten to lay a hand on me. He was still reluctant to leave my side and, at the same time, delighted that his carpet had saved the day for me.
“And don’t forget Sir Rowland,” I said. “Heavy enough to knock Hank out but not lethal enough to keep him from facing a murder charge.”
“I know my antiques,” Quinn said.
Sunni gave me only a short lecture about meddling and safety, and then hugged me. “I don’t know whether to lock you up for obstruction or give you a medal for valor.”
Embarrassing as it was, I was happy to hear the vote from the station house full of my friends.
“Cassie. Cassie,” they shouted. Then, “Medal. Medal.”
I felt right at home.
* * *
Linda arrived in time to help decorate on Friday evening. In another last-minute change, the venue for the dance had been moved to the community center. Apparently, the senior center had a massive plumbing problem that would have made it inconvenient to host an event. The Ashcots had been rehearsing here anyway, and took the opportunity to fit in another brief practice session while we untangled beads and red lights and silvery garlands.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Linda said more than once while stringing hearts and roses across the walls. “Decorating for an old folks’ dance on Valentine’s Day weekend.”
“Be nice about it,” old Moses told her, “or nobody will do this for you when you need it.”
“Duly noted,” Linda said, trying to contain a grin. At which point, two-thousand-year-old (he claimed) Moses took Linda by the arm and waltzed with her to an old tune.
After a few turns with Moses, and a few more with Ben, who didn’t want to miss any action, Linda found me and reminded me, “Shopping tomorrow. New dresses for all. I can hardly wait.”
Just when I thought the worst of the week was over.
23
The Valentine’s Day dance on Saturday evening seemed anticlimactic compared to the celebration at the NAPD the day before and the decorating party in the evening. Shopping for dresses wasn’t bad, either, as Linda and I took breaks for lunch and snacks, and nonstop talking.
Talk of love and romance took a backseat for a while to the scandals at the college, particularly in the math and sciences department. A woman masquerading as a math major as a cover for her robberies, and a professor taking money in exchange for good grades. As far as anyone could tell, there was no overlap. Two separate rings of crime. I had the thought that Gatekeeper Gail must be overwrought, even blaming herself for not picking up on what was going on in her department.
Dyson came by in time to hear the tribute to his father. His friend Chrissy had driven down from Maine to be with him, and had been coaxed into a solo with the Ashcots when it became known that she was a voice major. Her rendition of “Un Bel Di Vedremo”—“One fine day we’ll meet again,” I’d been told—had never been so moving.
It was strange to be in the room just one thin wall from my place of business. I pushed away feelings of guilt about my week as absentee postmistress and accepted the thanks of my friends, some old, some new, for whatever I’d contributed to the restored peace in North Ashcot.
* * *
“You look beautiful,” Quinn said as we twirled around, neither of us very good at dancing.
“Thanks to Linda,” I said, fingering the shiny red fabric she’d chosen to clothe me in this evening.
“No, thanks to you.” Quinn maneuvered us into a corner where we’d established a makeshift coat check station. We stopped dancing. “I’ve never been more worried about you than when you cut off that call last night.”
“I know.” Because he’d already told me a dozen times.
“And never happier to see you. I never want you out of my sight.”
I laughed. “That can be arranged.”
“I hope so,” he said, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a small red box.
I drew in my breath, ready to agree to a new arrangement.
POST OFFICE STORIES
Cassie’s connection to the U.S. Postal Service goes way back to when she was a kid and loved to see envelopes addressed to her. She admits to sending away for things just to receive letters or packages with her name on them. “Send for more information” was an invitation she never refused. As a result, she acquired items a little girl had no other use for than to display them. In her room were stacks of seed catalogues, brochures from the army and navy, surveys from the airlines and financial institutions, and pamphlets from colleges and universities from all over the world.
He
re’s a small collection of her favorite postal stories and facts—some funny, some strange, all very interesting.
POSTAL HISTORY
The Post Office Department issued its first postage stamps on July 1, 1847, first in New York, then in Boston, then in other cities. Previously, letters were taken to a post office, where the postmaster would note the postage in the upper right corner. The postage rate was based on the number of sheets in the letter and the distance it would travel.
The B. Franklin Post Office in Philadelphia is the only active post office in the U.S. that does not fly the American flag—because there was not yet one in 1775 when Benjamin Franklin was appointed postmaster general.
The envelope-folding machine was invented by Warren de la Rue and Edwin Hill at the 1851 Great Exhibition. The machine was displayed at Thomas de la Rue & Co.’s booth.
During the late nineteenth century, letter carriers’ bands were organized and became very popular. Wearing special uniforms, the bands would play at conventions and at public events.
The first woman to be featured on a U.S. postage stamp was Queen Isabella in 1893. The first American woman featured was Martha Washington in 1902.
In the days after the Great Depression (1929–1939), murals were commissioned to be displayed in post offices around the country, to boost morale. Examples include a mural of “Paul Revere’s Ride” in Lexington, Massachusetts, and one of “Cowboy Dance” in Anson, Texas. The USPS houses more than fourteen hundred murals and/or sculptures from President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.
From the late 1800s to the early 1950s, mail was sent via a complex series of pneumatic tubes, whisking cylinders full of mail at thirty-five miles per hour to its various destinations. For the inaugural event, a few chosen objects were sent: a Bible, a large fake peach, and, for reasons unknown, a cat. According to witnesses, the cat was slightly dazed but unharmed.