The Messenger (2011 reformat) Page 7

  And her smile glimmered like newly honed cutlery.

  These were the details Bobby noticed in those first few seconds. Then he fainted and collapsed to the floor. What he hadn't noticed, though, was the bizarre design scrawled on the floor at Marlene's feet: something that looked like a bell.

  After Bobby fainted, Marlene Troy's arms fell limp at her sides, then the cadaver collapsed right on top of Bobby.

  Chapter Five

  Jane imagined what it must be like for some to, for instance, be standing on a street corner in broad daylight and suddenly witness a fatal car crash just yards away in the road. Instant death and calamity right before her eyes. That's how she felt at that moment in her office. The initial shock was gone now, leaving something worse, something like a colossal mental hangover, her disbelief colliding with the horror of what someone-someone in this same town-had done.

  This...is...crazy, she thought.

  Steve Higgins, the police chief, sat grimly opposite from her, a notepad on her desk, leaning over, jotting things down.

  "This is absolutely disgusting. How could somebody do something like that? Digging up a dead woman and propping her body up in the lobby? What kind of a sick prank is that?"

  "It could be more than a sick prank, Ms. Ryan," Steve said. "And it's pretty clear that Marlene Troy was into some stuff that no one knew about-some pretty off-the-wall stuff."

  "Stuff," Jane repeated. She still couldn't believe it. "You mean occult rituals, satanism, demonology. Stuff like that."

  "That's what it's looking like, isn't it? This isn't like some punk egging a bunch of cars or knocking over garbage cans. Somebody exhumed a corpse, brought it here, and drew occult markings on the floor."

  "And they did it here, they brought the corpse here, to my post office," Jane said. First, the tragedy at the main branch, and now this, here. It's crazy."

  Steve nodded. "Calm down. At least we'll be able to keep this one out of the papers. The evidence team got the body out of here before any residents showed up. It's possible for the body to have been seen through the front window, but that early in the morning? If somebody had seen it-some guy walking his dog or out for a jog-then he would've called the police immediately. That didn't happen, so it's very important that all parties keep quiet about this."

  "You sound like the mayor," Jane said with some bitterness. "Worried about the beautiful town of Danelleton getting a bad reputation."

  "I couldn't care less about that, Ms. Ryan. It's simply that the fewer people who know about this, the better. We don't want to have to deal with the media; all that'll do is reduce the effectiveness of our investigation."

  When Bobby Weaver had regained consciousness in the vending cove, half out of his mind, he'd shoved Marlene's body off and called the police. Steve and some subordinate officer arrived at once. The body was removed before any other postal employees had arrived. Steve had called Jane directly and now here she was, at 5:30 in the morning, just when the carriers and processing staff were coming in. When she'd arrived, Bobby was still being interviewed by a lieutenant, and Jane couldn't help but overhear some of the conversation.

  "What's your explanation," she asked, "about what Bobby was saying before he left? He said the corpse fell on him. He said that Marlene's eyes were open, she was grinning at him. She was standing there holding her hands out, like she was still alive."

  "She was in the ground for over twenty-four hours, Ms. Ryan. I guarantee you, she wasn't alive. She was killed by multiple gunshots-one of the bullets destroyed the left ventricle of her heart."

  "But Bobby said she was standing there," Jane countered. "On her own. Then she collapsed on him."

  "Let's not go off the deep end here. The medical examiner will be getting back to me later with a list of physiological prospects, but there are a lot of possible explanations right off the bat."

  "Like what?"

  "Postmortal rigidity, rigor mortis, things like that. Things like temperature, humidity, length of time that's passed since death, even ingredient concentrations of embalming fluid can determine the extent and duration of rigor mortis."

  "You're saying that the body was still stiff and somebody propped it in the corner of the cove and it just stood there like a storefront mannequin on its own? Eyes open? Arms out? Grinning?"

  "It's possible. Then the rigor wore off and the body collapsed."

  "It collapsed on top of Bobby?"

  "Why not? He'd already passed out from the trauma, he was already on the floor."

  Jane frowned.

  "Then we have to consider the reliability of the witness in the first place. That's quite a scare, isn't it? Wouldn't you be scared, wouldn't you be terrified, if you walked in here by yourself one day, turned the corner, and saw a dead body propped up in the corner? Wouldn't you be terrified?"

  "Of course, but..."

  "Traumas like that can do strange things to the human mind. Bobby was terrified. Bobby thought she was standing there with her arms out. Bobby thought her eyes were open and she was grinning. Some kind of trauma-based hallucination. Maybe the body had simply been left on the floor."

  "Bobby said it was on top of him when he came to!"

  Steve pitched a brow. "Bobby probably just thought it was. He was stressed out to the max, he was close to a clinical state of shock. The mind plays tricks on people in situations like that."

  Jane eased back in her office seat. "I don't know. Maybe you're right. I guess I'm still not over the shock myself. Marlene killing her family then going on a shooting spree? Now this."

  "I know." Steve seemed to be uncomfortable in his seat. "But let's talk about something else right now, okay?"

  His tone and poised bothered her. "All right."

  "For one thing, Marlene's body was exhumed. And the county forensics people knew right away that it was done with a shovel. That's hard work. That's a lot of effort for someone to go through, so that's how we know this isn't just a prank. And look what happened after that: The body was then transported from Winter Damon Cemetery to your post office. That's a lot of risk."

  "What are you getting at?"

  "The body wasn't just dropped off out front, it was brought inside the building, supposedly before Bobby Weaver came on duty"

  "Yes?"

  "There are no signs of a forced entry. We've checked top to bottom. So that can only mean one thing. The person had access to the building's keys."

  Something snapped in her mind. "I didn't think of that..." Another snap, and some alarm. "No, no way. You don't think it was Bobby Weaver? He's harmless. He's a little flighty sometimes, but I just can't see him doing anything like this."

  Silence for a moment, then: "Let me ask you something. Is it possible that Marlene may have belonged to some sort of religious cult?"

  The comment pissed Jane off. "I told you the other day. No. The idea is totally absurd. She was a mother, a resident in good standing, and a diligent, hard-working employee. She was probably the most normal, level-headed person I've ever worked with. A cult? What makes you ask that? The drawing of the bell you found at her house? It sounds to me like, if anything, she was the victim of some kind of cult. Maybe somebody abducted her, gave her some psychedelic drug that made her do those things. And as far as that design goes, do you even know that she was the one who drew it?"

  "No, not yet, but we're checking. The Danelleton police department is pretty small; we're a municipal department, so we don't have our own crime-scene units and evidence techs. We have to rely on county and state services for that, and it takes a while. But the county graphologists are examining the first sketch right now. And don't forget, the same bell-shaped design was found here, too, this morning.

  Drawn on the floor in blood."

  Jane couldn't help a little sarcasm. "Well, I guess we know she didn't draw that one, huh?"

  Steve smiled faintly but just for a moment. "Yes, we definitely know that. But there are a lot of things we still don't know. For instance, who was the
last person to have sex with her."

  More sarcasm. "Well, I do know for fact that she was happily married, so-I don't know-I'll gamble here and say that her husband was the last person to do that."

  "So it's inconceivable to you that Marlene Troy was seeing other men?"

  "Yes. Very inconceivable."

  "According to the county medical examiner, there were abundant traces of seminal fluid in her vaginal vault."

  Jane pursed her lips as if she'd just sucked a lemon. Seminal fluid. Vaginal vault. "God, you really have a way with words, Chief Higgins."

  "Sorry. What do you want me to say? But we know she had sex on the morning she murdered her family and killed everyone at the main branch. With two men."

  Jane felt like a door had just been slammed in her face. Two men? "Are you sure about that?"

  "The evidence doesn't lie," Steve remarked. "There was semen in her, two different secreter types. Two different men. The Medical Examiner says he's sure she'd been with both men within hours of her death. Marlene's husband was in the Naval Reserves; since 1990 all military personnel have DNA profiles put in their medical records. One of the seminal types matched her husband. All we know about the second semen traces is that they're from a person with A-negative blood."

  By now Jane was feeling naive. Infidelity happened all the time, she knew, amongst the people you'd least expect it from. "The post office does have medical records of all employees, for their health plans. I guess you want to check and see what Bobby Weaver's blood type is."

  "We have to get a court order for that, and we're in the process of doing that now, Steve explained. "But it's not Bobby Weaver we're interested in checking."

  "Who, then?"

  "A man named Carlton Spence."

  Another door in the face. A big door. "Now, that, Chief Higgins, is inconceivable. I've known Carlton longer than I knew Marlene. He doesn't belong to any cult:

  "But didn't he go through a severe tragedy recently?"

  "Not recently. That was a long time ago. His wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. He had an alcohol problem for a while but got over it."

  Steve nodded again, not looking at her. "The information I have is a little different."

  "What?" Jane paused. "Well, yes-the daughter. She wasn't killed in the crash-"

  "No, she was abducted from the accident scene, according to the FBI and Maryland state police. The potential there, especially in this day and age, is pretty horrific: child pornography, child prostitution. Children are abducted for those pursuits all the time; that must take a tremendous toll on a parent, right? It would for me, I'm sure. And Carlton Spence was a devout Catholic. A tragedy like that? It must really challenge a person's faith. If there was ever a reason to turn your back on God, that's got to be it."

  Jane reflected on that. How could she not agree? He's right, but... "Not him, not Carlton. He isn't capable of something like this. He just isn't. If you want my opinion, you're wasting your time even considering it."

  "Really? Maybe. Tell me this, what exactly is his job here?"

  Jane sat back. This was going to be a long interview. "In the post office, we don't have jobs, we call them crafts. Clerks, carriers, handlers, maintenance. Carlton went through the ranks in all those crafts, and recently-when my west branch opened-he was promoted to delivery supervisor. His pay grade is level fourteen. You can think of him as part personnel manager and part operations manager. He basically makes sure everyone else is on duty and getting their individual tasks done. He maintains the route schedules, transfer deliveries, overtime assignments, and a lot more. He's been a quality employee for as long as I've known him."

  "Is he on duty right now?"

  "Yes."

  "How about calling him in here."

  Jane frowned. She didn't have any worries that she might be wrong about this-she felt certain that Carlton would never have anything to do with cults-but she supposed she had no choice. After all, Steve was the chief of police. It's my civic duty to cooperate-and prove him wrong. "One second." She picked up the phone, hit Carlton's office extension, and waited. Then she hit another extension, and waited. "Hmm. Can't find him," she muttered. "Let me try the service area." One more extension. "Doreen, is Carlton up there? I need to see him. ... Oh, okay"

  Jane hung up. "Carlton's not here right now. He's out on a delivery."

  "I thought you just said he's basically a personnel manager. You mean he also walks a mail route?"

  "In emergencies, everyone in the pecking order has to go out," Jane explained. "If the service area is crowded with customers and all the handlers are busy in back? Sure. There are times when even a station manager like me, or even a postmaster will have to grab a mailbag and pick up a route. Anyone in management. Other times we have to go out and empty relay boxes and the regular mail boxes. Especially in emergencies, like this."

  "Oh, I see. With the main branch closed for the time being, your branch has to do extra duty and pick up all their slack."

  "That's right, Chief. And right now, Carlton is in the field. We got a late Express Mail package and all the carriers are out. So he took it."

  Steve looked right at her, quite serious. "I need to know where he is. As in right now!"

  Jane's impatience smacked into her confusion. She made another call out to the front, jotted something down, and hung up.

  "It's in the scan log. Carlton left a half hour ago to take that Express Mail to the Seaton School for Girls."

  "Great. Thanks." Steve rose, gathering his things. He seemed distracted.

  "Chief Higgins! What's going on?" Jane blurted. "You're wrong about Carlton, I'm telling you-"

  "I hope I am," he said.

  "There's something you're not telling me."

  Steve looked down at her, a look of total skepticism. "Yeah, there is. It's not definite proof of anything, but we have to check it out. And it's probably cause for a search warrant."

  More shock. "What are you talking about?" Jane almost shouted.

  "It was just a basic incident report, Ms. Ryan. In a quiet, laid-back town like Danelleton, not a whole lot happens. So we notice even the most minor incident reports, stuff that in a big city like Tampa or St. Pete would be overlooked because it wasn't deemed crucial."

  "What incident!"

  "Last night at about 3 a.m., a man pulled into the Qwik-Mart, walked in, got a coffee, and left. The man was acting peculiar, so the guy at the register called us to report it. Just a routine suspicious persons report. We get them a lot, and ninety-nine percent of the time they're nothing. Just someone mad at someone else, or someone overreacting. You know what I mean?"

  Jane's face was getting warm from aggravation. "No, Chief Higgins, I don't. I don't have any idea what you mean. At this point, you're practically driving me nuts, so would you please get to the point?"

  "When I came in this morning, first thing I do is look and see if there are any incident reports filed by the night shift," he continued. "There was only one, this one. Then I get the call about what happened here, so I'm juggling two things at once but it occurs to me that the two could easily be connected."

  Now Jane was just plain mad. "What was the incident?" she seethed.

  "Look at what happened, Ms. Ryan. Last night somebody dug up Marlene Troy's corpse and put it inside your post office. And last night, we get an incident report about a suspicious person at the Qwik-Mart. Follow me?"

  "No!"

  "The clerk at the Qwik-Mart said the guy was "peculiar." 'Want to know why?"

  "Not if I have to wait till I'm fifty to find out."

  "The guy was covered in dirt. It was all over his clothes, smudged on his face, his arms, had dirt in his hair."

  "Dirt," Jane said.

  "As in soil. Covered in it. Anyway, the clerk at the store recognized this man. It was Carlton Spence."

  Chapter Six

  I

  Carlton enjoyed driving the LLVs. They looked cumbersome and uncomfortable but they actual
ly rode well. Manufactured via contract by the Grumman Corporation, the van-like vehicle's initials stood for LongLife Vehicle, and that was no lie. They almost never broke down and when they did, service was efficient and easy. The only feature that carriers complained about was the steering wheel on the right side, for mailbox access. You either got used to it or you didn't. Most did. Those who didn't caused many a fender bender. But driving it down Danelleton's serene streets made Carlton feel like a genuine mailman again.

  It made him feel like a messenger.

  He drove almost as if someone else were driving, someone guiding him-a guiding dark light. He was beginning to understand that light now, a little more with each hour. It was as though his heart no longer beat solely for himself. It beat for someone else, someone great, with an important plan for the world. Knowing that this light was in his heart made Carlton feel important. God never made me feel important, he reminded himself. No. God let my wife go fuckin 'psycho and get killed in a car wreck. And God looked the other way when a bunch of sick fucks took my beautiful daughter and put her in porn movies and made her turn tricks and then killed her. God's done nothing for me. God is my enemy.

  I believe in someone else now.

  Someone who makes me feel important. Someone who will never turn his back on me...

  Carlton's eyes stared ahead.

  I will worship him to the ends of the earth...

  The LLV coursed through more sedate streets. Tall trees-some palms, some Australian pines-threw down great, comforting blocks of shade. The houses lining each street all stood neat and bright, with vivid green lawns and front gardens bursting with delirious colors. Carlton saw Old Man Halm out for his daily walk. Amiable enough of a guy, always stopped to say hello, ask how you're doing. Would even loan you money in a pinch. White hair shining in the sun, Halm hobbled happily down the street with his cane; then he looked up and waved to Carlton.

  Carlton waved back and thought, You crotchety old fuck. I could take your old head off with this machete, watch it roll down the street. Then I'd take that fuckin' cane of yours and kill some people with it...