She leaned across her desk. “I’m expecting a postal inspector in here tomorrow to talk about mail fraud, Hank. I don’t want the place to be a mess. I know you’re retired, but keep an eye on the place, will you? Please?”
I hate to give up a night’s rest without a good reason, and I still thought the vandalism was mindless adolescent pranks.
“All right. I’ll give it a shot. But just tonight.”
“Thanks, Hank,” Thelma said. “Lighten up. You’re not old if you’re seventy.”
“Yeah, right. Not if you’re a tree.”
The street where I was parked was as dark as a cave. The bulk of Whiteface Mountain hid half of the few stars that were out. The only streetlights in town were a block away on Main Street. I tried to ration a thermos of coffee while I waited to see if the Phantom of the Post Office would show up.
Maybe he’d run out of things to do. He had dumped garbage on the lawn, smeared soap on the sidewalk, pulled the flowers out of the windowboxes, spread glue over the big blue drop box out front. Childish stunts that had given the town something to talk about and infuriated Thelma. But she was right to be concerned; she was responsible for government property.
Then I saw him. A figure — a man — at the corner of the post office. There for an instant; then he stepped back into the shadows. I eased my door open — the dome light is fixed so it doesn’t come on. I’d taken about three steps when the man reappeared.
He was pushing something, a wheelbarrow; it looked heavy. He was moving along the concrete walk that straddles the flagpole and widens out at the front door of the post office.
I watched him lift the wheelbarrow’s handles and empty it in front of the door. I heard a scraping sound, faint but clear. Then he turned and hurried away, pushing the wheelbarrow in front of him.
I was moving forward, but he was gone in the darkness before I reached the corner. I heard a car engine start in the alley behind the post office, and then it too was gone. No headlights. I waited a minute. No sound, no shadows.
I walked the few remaining yards to the post office and used my flashlight to see what the man had dumped at the door.
It was a big pile of wet ready-mix cement.
I stood there and looked at it. By morning it would harden into concrete, blocking the entrance. No customers could get into Thelma’s post office until it was broken up with a sledge hammer. Uncle Sam’s postal service in Fountain would be out of business. Unless I did something about it.
The chance of anyone’s stumbling over the concrete in the dark was the same as my hitting the lottery, but if I’d gone home, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. I keep a short-handled snow shovel in my trunk. I brought the car up and left the headlights on while I shoveled and scraped. I couldn’t haul the mess away, but I did get it away from the door and off the sidewalk.
I phoned Thelma first thing next morning and told her to call the state police. The concrete would have interfered with government business, and it was still a public nuisance.
I hurried back to town and went in the back door of the post office. Thelma had her temper under control. A young state trooper named Frank Lee had arrived and snapped pictures of the heap of concrete.
Trooper Lee was a cleancut young man in his late twenties. Stocky build, dark features. I thought he might be a Mohawk. I knew the St. Regis Mohawks had their own police force, but some of them are members of our state police.
He tried not to show it, but he was very taken with Thelma’s clerk, a young lady named Nancy Courtney. She did look very attractive in her regulation gray blouse and red tie. Nancy has a figure that reinvents the word cute. I don’t apologize; once you have an eye for the opposite sex, you never lose it.
Thelma’s rural route man, Davie Shalley, was standing by with a pick and shovel. Thelma posted Nancy at the door to field questions and comments from the crowd, and we went back to her little office behind the parcel post racks.
Thelma briefed Trooper Lee on the events of the past couple of weeks and showed him the postcards. He asked the questions I had in mind myself.
“Mrs. Otis, you probably have some idea of who is doing these things. What can you tell me?”
“I’ve been asking myself that for over a week now,” she said. “Joe Casey lost a package last Christmas. Something special for his daughter. It wasn’t insured and got lost. Joe blamed us, got really steamed. Months ago and he’s still chewing about it.
“A little while back Stan Baldwin and his wife wanted to set up a handicrafts table in the lobby. I wouldn’t let them. Against regulations. They made a big scene. May still carry a grudge.
“There’s Floyd Randolph. I threw him out last month for taking a leak in one of the wastebaskets. I’ve warned him about that. He’s not too bright, but he can be spiteful. Nancy caught him tearing up a zipcode directory.” Thelma paused. “I think I saw him out there in the crowd this morning.”
That wasn’t much to go on. Frank Lee closed his notebook and stood up to leave. “I’ll see what we can do about your problem, Mrs. Otis. We can have a patrol come by every now and then at night. Let me know if anything else happens.”
Frank and I left by the back door after he said goodbye to Nancy. I think he was already planning to come back. We walked down the alley to his troop car. I gave him credit for not parking in front and giving the town something more to talk about.
It was going to be another hot day — spring in the Adirondacks was early this year. Frank made no move to get into his car; he was waiting for me to say something. He knew I had a law enforcement background although technically I’m a civilian. I appreciated his deferring to me; some young people aren’t so polite.
“What do you make of it?” I asked. I didn’t say “son” or anything patronizing.
“I figure two people,” he answered.
“That’s the way I see it, too,” I agreed. Anyone smart enough and literate enough to write those postcards wasn’t the type to run around at night throwing garbage on the lawn.
“Working together?” he asked seriously. “We got a conspiracy here?”
“I dunno. Maybe we can find out.”
We leaned against the fender of the car. There were spurts of conversation from the radio inside. A log truck rumbled by on the main street at the north end of the alley.
“Another thing, Mr. Sessions,” Frank said. “Those were pretty tame stunts this guy pulled.”
“Right,” I said. “He’s only a pussycat.”
“Why didn’t he put a brick through a window or spray-paint the walls?”
“Maybe he was afraid to,” I answered. “Criminal mischief is one thing, but when you start playing around with a federal post office, you could wind up looking at a felony charge.”
It was time for me to declare myself; did I want to be in or out of the investigation?
“I’ve got some time,” I said. “I’ll nose around town a bit.”
He straightened up.
“Fine, sir. I’ll check with our Special Crimes Division about those postcards. See if there’s a poisoned-pen specialist around here.”
We shook hands, and he drove away. I walked down the alley to Main Street. Like a lot of small towns here in upstate New York, Fountain was a busy company town back when the iron mines were working. Ore wagons rumbled down the street all day and most of the night to feed the smelters. Whole mountainsides gave up their trees to the furnaces. You could hear Swedish and German spoken on the streets as well as English. Immigrants were recruited right on the docks in New York to work here.