Return To Sender

by Merline Lovelace

  “What do you know about Paul Gunderson?”

  The curt question snapped her attention back to Deputy Marshal MacMillan.

  “Only what Inga told me. That he’s a sales rep for an international firm and that he travels a lot. From his postcards, it looks like his company sends him to some pretty exotic locales.”

  MacMillan dropped his hands from his hips. His well-muscled body seemed to torque to an even higher degree of tension.

  “Postcards?” he asked softly.

  “He sends her bright, cheery cards from the various places he travels to. They come to her box at the Monzano branch. We—my friends at the post office and I—thought it was sweet the way he stayed in touch with his aunt like that.”

  “Yeah, real sweet.” His face tight with disgust, MacMillan shook his head. “We ordered a mail cover the same day we tracked Inga Gunderson to Albuquerque. The folks at the central post office assured us they had the screen in place. Dammit, they should have caught the fact that she had another postal box.”

  Sheryl’s defensive hackles went up on behalf of her fellow employees. “Hey, they’re only human. They do their best.”

  The marshal didn’t dignify that with a reply. He thought for a moment, his forehead furrowed.

  “We didn’t find any postcards here at the house. Obviously, Inga Gunderson destroyed them as soon as she retrieved them from her box. Did you happen to see the messages on the cards?”

  Sheryl squirmed a bit. Technically, postal employees weren’t supposed to read their patrons’ mail. It was hard to abide by that rule, though. More than one of the male clerks slipped raunchy magazines out of their brown wrappers for a peek when the supervisors weren’t around. Cosmos and Good Housekeeping had been known to take a detour to the ladies’ room. The glossy postcards that came from all over the world weren’t wrapped, though, and even the most conscientious employee, which Sheryl considered herself, couldn’t resist a peek.

  “Well, I may have glanced at one or two. Like the one that arrived this morning, for instance. It—”

  The marshal started. “One came in this morning?”

  “Yes. From Rio.”

  “Damn! Wait here. I’m going to get my partner.” He spun on one booted heel. His long legs ate up the distance to the hallway. “Ev! Bring the woman down!”

  Sheryl heard a terse reply, followed by a series of shrill yaps. A few moments later, she recognized Mrs. Gunderson’s distinctive Scandinavian accent above the dog’s clamor. When she made out the specific words, Sheryl’s jaw sagged. She wouldn’t have imagined that her smiling, white-haired patron could know such obscenities, much less spew them out like that!

  She watched, wide-eyed, as a short, stocky man hauled a handcuffed Inga Gunderson into the living room.

  “Get your hands off me, you fat little turd!”

  The elderly lady accompanied her strident demand with a swing of her foot. A sturdy black oxford connected with her escort’s left shin. Button connected with his right.

  Luckily, the newcomer was wearing slacks. As MacMillan had earlier, he took several dancing hops, shaking his leg furiously to dislodge the little dog. Button hung on like a snarling, bug-eyed demon.

  The law enforcement officer sent MacMillan a look of profound disgust. “Shoot the damned thing, will you?”

  “No!”

  Both women uttered the protest simultaneously. As much as Sheryl disliked the spoiled, noisy shih tzu, she didn’t want to see it hurt.

  “Button!” she commanded. “Down, boy!”

  The dog ignored Sheryl’s order, but its black eyes rolled to one side at the sound of its mistress’s frantic pleas.

  “Let go, precious. Let go, and come to Mommy.”

  The warbly, pleading voice was so different from the one that had been spitting vile oaths just moments ago that both men blinked. Sheryl, who’d heard Inga Gunderson carry on lengthy, cooing conversations with her pet many times before, wasn’t as surprised by the abrupt transition from vitriol to syrupy sweetness.

  “Let go, sweetie-kins. Come to Mommy.”

  The shih tzu released its death grip on the agent’s pants.

  “There’s a pretty Butty-boo.”

  With his black eyes still hostile under the lopsided rhinestone hair clip, the little dog settled on its haunches beside its mistress. In another disconcerting shift in both tone and temperament, Inga Gunderson directed her attention to Sheryl.

  “What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re working with these pigs, too?”

  “No. That is, I just stopped by to make sure you were all right and I—”

  “She’s been telling us about some postcards,” MacMillan interrupted ruthlessly.

  Inga’s seamed face contorted. Fury blazed in her black eyes. “You just waltzed in here and started spilling your guts to these jerks? Is that the thanks I get for baking all those damn cookies for you and the other idiots at the post office, so you wouldn’t lose my mail like you do everyone else’s?”

  Shocked, Sheryl had no reply. Even Button seemed taken aback by his mistress’s venom. He gave an uncertain whine, as if unsure whom he should attack this time. Before he could decide, MacMillan reached down and once again scooped the dog into the tight, restraining pocket of his arm.

  “Get her out of here,” he ordered his partner curtly. “Call for backup and wait in the car until it arrives. I’ll meet you at the detention facility when I finish with Miss Hancock.”

  The older woman spit out another oath as she was tugged toward the front door. “Hancock can’t tell you anything. She doesn’t know a thing. I don’t know a thing! If you think you can pin a smuggling rap on me, you’re pumping some of that coke you feds like to snitch whenever you seize a load.”

  Yipping furiously, Button tried to squirm free of the marshal’s hold and go after his mistress. MacMillan waited until the slam of the front door cut off most of Mrs. Gunderson’s angry protests before releasing the dog. Nails clicking on the wood floor, the animal dashed for the hallway. His grating, high-pitched barks rose to a crescendo as his claws scratched frantically at the door.

  Sheryl shut out the dog’s desperate cries and focused, instead, on the man who faced her, his eyes watchful behind their screen of gold-tipped lashes.

  “She’s right. I don’t know anything. Nothing that pertains to uranium smuggling, anyway.”

  “Why don’t you let me decide what is and isn’t pertinent? Tell me again about these postcards.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, really. They come in spurts, every few weeks, from different places around the world. The messages are brief—from the little I’ve noticed of them,” Sheryl tacked on hastily.

  “Can you remember dates to go with the locations?”

  “Maybe. If I think about it.”

  “Good! I want to take a look at the card that arrived this morning. If you don’t mind, we can take your car back to the branch office.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “But I have an appointment.”

  “Cancel it.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m supposed to meet my fiancé.”

  The marshal’s keen gaze took in her ringless left hand, then lifted to her face.

  “We’re, uh, unofficially engaged,” Sheryl explained for the second time that day.

  “This shouldn’t take long,” MacMillan assured her, taking her elbow to guide her toward the door. “You can use my cell phone to call your friend.”

  His touch felt warm on her skin and decidedly firm. They made it to the hall before a half whine, half growl stopped them both in their tracks. The shih tzu blocked the front door, his black eyes uncertain under his silky black-and-white fur.

  “We can’t just leave Button,” Sheryl protested.

  “I’ll have someone contact the animal shelter. They can pick him up.”

  “The shelter?” Her brows drew together. “They only keep animals for a week or so. What happens if Mrs. Gunderson isn
’t free to claim him within the allotted time?”

  “We’ll make sure they keep the mutt as long as necessary.”

  A touch of impatience colored MacMillan’s deep voice. He reached for the door, and the dog gave another uncertain whine. Sheryl dragged her feet, worrying her lower lip with her teeth.

  “He doesn’t understand what’s happening.”

  “Yeah, well, he’ll figure things out soon enough if he tries to take a chunk out of the animal control people.”

  “I take it you’re not a dog lover, Mr....Sheriff... Marshal MacMillan.”

  “Call me ‘Harry.’ And, yes, I like dogs. Real dogs. Not hairy little rats wearing rhinestones. Now, if you don’t mind, Miss Hancock, I’d like to get to the post office and take a look at that postcard.”

  “We can’t just let him be carted off to the pound.”

  The marshal’s jaw squared. “I don’t think you understand the seriousness of this investigation. A law enforcement officer died, possibly because of Inga Gunderson’s complicity in illegal activity.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But that’s not Button’s fault.”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  “We can’t just leave him.”

  “Yes, we can.”

  With her sunny disposition and easygoing nature, Sheryl didn’t find it necessary to dig in her heels very often. But when she did, they stayed dug.

  “I won’t leave him.”

  Some moments later, Sheryl stepped out of the adobe house into the suffocating heat. A disgruntled deputy U.S. marshal trailed behind her, carrying an equally disgruntled shih tzu under his arm.

  She slid into her car and winced as the oven-hot vinyl seat covers singed the backs of her thighs. Trying to keep the smallest possible portion of her anatomy in direct contact with the seat, she keyed the ignition and shoved the air-conditioning to max.

  With the two males eyeing each other warily in the passenger seat, Sheryl retraced the route to the Monzano station. She was pulling into the parking lot behind the building when she realized that she’d forgotten all about Brian. She started to ask Harry MacMillan if she could use his phone, but he had already climbed out.

  He came around the car in a few man-sized strides. Opening her door, he reached down a hand to help Sheryl out. The courteous gesture from the sharp-edged marshal surprised her. Tentatively, her fingers folded around MacMillan’s hand. It was harder than Brian’s, she thought with a little tingle of awareness that took her by surprise. Rougher. Like the man himself.

  Swinging out of the car, she tugged her hand free with a small smile of thanks. “We can go in the back door. I have the combination.”

  Button went with them, of course. They couldn’t leave him in the car. Even this late in the afternoon, heat shimmered like clear, wavery smoke above the asphalt. Stuffed once more under MacMillan’s arm and distinctly unhappy about it, the little dog snuffled indignantly through his pug nose.

  Sweat trickled down between Sheryl’s breasts by the time she punched the combination into the cipher lock and led the way into the dim, cavernous interior. Familiar gray walls and a huge expanse of black tile outlined with bright-yellow tape to mark the work areas welcomed her. As anxious now as MacMillan to retrieve the postcard from Mrs. Gunderson’s box, she wove her way among hampers stacked high with outgoing mail toward her supervisor’s desk, situated strategically in the center of the work area.

  “You do have a search warrant, don’t you?” she asked Harry over one shoulder.

  He nodded confidently. “We have authority to screen all mail sent to the address of Inga Gunderson, alias Betty Hoffman, alias Eva Jorgens.”

  “Her home address or her post office box?”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  At MacMillan’s frown, Sheryl stopped. “You need specific authority to search a post office box.”

  “I’m sure the warrant includes that authority.”

  “We’ll have to verify that fact.”

  Impatience flickered in his eyes. “Let’s talk to your supervisor about it.”

  “We will. I’d have to get her approval before I could allow you into the box in any case.”

  Sheryl introduced Harry to Pat Martinez, a tall, willowy Albuquerque native with jet-black hair dramatically winged in silver. The customer service supervisor obligingly called the main post office and requested a copy of the warrant. It whirred up on the fax a few moments later.

  After ripping it off the machine, Pat skimmed through it. “I’m sorry, this isn’t specific enough. It only grants you authority to search mail addressed to Mrs. Gunderson’s home address. It’ll have to be amended to allow access to a postal box.”

  Sheryl politely kept any trace of “I told you so” off her face. Harry wasn’t as restrained. He scowled at her boss with distinct displeasure.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Marshal, I’m sure,” Pat drawled. With twenty-two years of service under her belt, she would be. “But you’re welcome to call the postal inspector at the central office for confirmation.”

  He conceded defeat with a distinct lack of graciousness. “I’ll take your word for it.” Still scowling, he shoved Button at Sheryl. “Here, hold your friend.”

  He pulled a small black address book out of his pocket, then punched a number into the phone. His face tight, he asked the person who answered at the other end about the availability of a federal judge named, appropriately, Warren. He listened intently for a moment, then requested that the speaker dispatch a car and driver to the Monzano Street post office immediately.

  Sheryl watched him hang up with a mixture of relief and regret. Her part in the unfolding Mrs. Gunderson drama was over. She certainly didn’t want to get any more involved with smugglers and kindly old ladies who spewed obscenities, but the trip to Inga’s house had certainly livened up her day. So had the broad-shouldered law enforcement officer. Sheryl couldn’t wait to tell Brian and Elise about her brush with the U.S. Marshals Service.

  MacMillan soon disabused her of the notion that her role in what she privately termed the post office caper had ended, however.

  “I’ll be back in forty-five minutes,” he told her curtly. “An hour at most. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to wait for me here.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “I want you to take a look at the message on this postcard and tell me how it compares with the others.”

  “But I’m already late for my appointment.”

  He cocked his head, studying her with a glint in his eyes that Sheryl couldn’t quite interpret.

  “Just out of curiosity, do you always make appointments, not dates, with this guy you’re sort of engaged to?”

  Since the question was entirely too personal and none of his business, she ignored it. “I’m late,” she repeated firmly. “I have to go.”

  “You’re a material witness in a federal investigation, Miss Hancock. If I have to, I’ll get a subpoena from Judge Warren while I’m downtown and bring you in for questioning.”

  She hitched Button up on her hip, eyeing MacMillan with a good deal less than friendliness.

  “You know, Marshal, your bedside manner could use a little work.”

  “I’m a law enforcement officer, not a doctor,” he reminded her. Unnecessarily, she thought. Then, to her astonishment, his mustache lifted in a quick, slashing grin.

  “But this is the first time I’ve had any complaints about my bedside manner. Just wait for me here, okay? And don’t talk about the case to anyone else until I get back.”

  Sheryl was still feeling the impact of that toecurling grin when Harry MacMillan strode out of the post office a few moments later.

  Chapter 3

  With only a little encouragement, the Albuquerque police officer detailed to Harry’s special fugitive task force got him to the Dennis Chavez Federal Building in seventeen minutes flat. Luckily, they pushed against the rush-hour traffic streaming out of downtown Albuquerque and
the huge air force base just south of I-40. The car had barely rolled to a stop at the rear entrance to the federal building before Harry had the door open.

  “Thanks.”

  “Any time, Marshal. Always happy to help out a Wyatt Earp who’s lost his horse.”

  Grinning at the reference to the most legendary figure of the U.S. Marshals Service, Harry tipped him a two-fingered salute. A moment later, he flashed his credentials at the courthouse security checkpoint. The guard obligingly turned off the sensors of the metal detector to accommodate his weapon and waved him through.

  Harry took the stairs to the judge’s private chambers two at a time. Despite his impatience over this detour downtown for another warrant, excitement whipped through him. He was close. So damned close. With a sixth sense honed by his fifteen years as a U.S. marshal, Harry could almost see the fugitive he’d been tracking for the past eleven months. Hear him panting in fear. Smell his stink.

  Paul Gunderson. Aka Harvey Millard and Jacques Garone and Rafael Pasquale and a half-dozen other aliases. Harry knew him in every one of his assumed personas. The bastard had started life as Richard Johnson. Had gone all through high school and college and a good part of a government career with that identity. His performance record as an auditor for the Defense Department described him as well above average in intelligence but occasionally stubborn and difficult to supervise. So difficult, apparently, that a long string of bosses had failed to question the necessity for his frequent trips abroad.

  While conducting often unnecessary audits of overseas units, Johnson had also used his string of aliases to establish a very lucrative side business as a broker for the sale and shipment of depleted uranium, a byproduct of the nuclear process. As Harry had discovered, most of the uranium Johnson illegally diverted went to arms manufacturers who used it to produce armor-piercing artillery and mortar shells for sale to third-world countries. But recently a new type of handgun ammunition had made an appearance on the black market, and the U.S. government had mounted a special task force to find its source.

  When he was arrested a little over two years ago, Johnson had claimed that he didn’t know the product he brokered was being used to manufacture bullets that shredded police officers’ protective armor like confetti. The man who gunned down the marshals escorting Johnson to trial certainly knew, though. He left one officer writhing in agony. In the ensuing melee, Johnson finished off the other.