He and they would probably suspect a con game of some sort, and they would follow the trail of the letter to my post office box, where the postmistress would certainly give them a description of me. She's seen me several times, so the description would probably be a good one.
Also, since the letterhead would lead them into Connecticut, how long would it be before it connected them with Detective Burton, the man investigating the coincidental murders of two unemployed paper mill midlevel managers? Come to think of it, what are the odds that HCE applied to Willis & Kendall for that can-label job? Which would mean Detective Burton has already interviewed him.
But the telephone number is the only problem. The meeting I've arranged isn't unheard of, and shouldn't raise suspicion. Personnel directors do sometimes go on the road, to meet with a number of applicants in the same geographical area, and one of the appointments each day will include lunch, or otherwise lunch is a waste of time.
I've made the personnel director a woman, with a name that suggests she's young, and I'm hoping that the prospect of a good meal (the Coach House has a first-rate reputation) with an attractive young woman (he'll naturally assume she's attractive), one that could lead to a prime job, will throw enough dust in his eyes to keep him from thinking about telephones.
Still, it's frightening. At this point, so many things could go wrong. For instance, I've told him to countersign the letter and send it back, so it won't be found among his effects after I kill him, but what if he makes a copy, what if he's that kind of completist? (I reassure myself that, if he's that kind of completist, there'll be so much paper bumf stored among his effects that no one will ever look through it all.)
I've also done the best I can with both envelopes, the one I'm mailing to him and the one included for his return. I had a few sheets of my fake letterhead copied onto extra-heavy paper, and then, carefully, with a straight-edge and a razor blade, I cut out the letterheads from three sheets and glued them as the return address on both envelopes and the destination address on the inner envelope. They do look like printed labels.
This whole move scares me. I've been very careful up till now, I've done my best to control the situations, to keep myself anonymous and separate. Now I'm, at least potentially, leaving a trail. But what can I do? I'm so close to the finish, so close. HCE is all that stands between me and Upton "Ralph" Fallon, who will be easy, easy, easy.
Now I'm desperate. I can't use the gun, and I can't get at, or even find, HCE. I have to try something, anything, and this is all I can think of. So I drive up to Wildbury, to the mailbox outside the post office, and I send the letter, and I'm terrified.
B. D. INDUSTRIAL PAPERS
P. O. BOX 2900
WILDBURY, CT 06899
June 11, 1997
Mr. Hauck Exman
27 River Rd.
Sable Jetty, NY 12598
Dear Mr. Exman:
Three months ago, we ran a help wanted ad in The Paperman, to which you responded. At that time, I must admit, you were not our first choice for the position. However, since then, to our chagrin, it has become apparent that our initial decision was in error.
If you have not as yet found other employment, would you be available on Friday, June 20th, to meet with our Personnel Director, Ms. Laurie Kilpatrick, who will be interviewing in the western New York region?
We would suggest lunch at one PM at the Coach House in Regnery, which I believe is not too far from your residence. The reservation will be in Ms. Kilpatrick's name.
Please fill out and return this letter in the enclosed stamped envelope, to let us know your availability. Since the gentleman to be replaced is still on the premises, a phone call might create unnecessary distress. If we do not hear from you, we will understand that you are no longer interested in the position. Thank you for your time.
Benj Dockery III, Pres.
x I am available.
□ I am not available.
□ I must suggest an alternate date.
Signature: H Exman
BD/VK
From time to time, the next few days, I'll drive over to Sable Jetty and go past HCE's house. And if I see a police car parked outside, I don't know what I'll do.
35
I sit in front of the Wildbury post office, Tuesday, the 17th of June, at the wheel of the Voyager, and I hold the letter in my hands. It has orbited back to me. I look at what HCE has written there, along the bottom, and the letter feels warm, heated by his hunger.
He sent it back immediately, the instant he got it. Clearly, he didn't worry about telephone numbers or anything else.
Another possible snag, I'd realized after I sent the letter, was that he might cut off the bottom part of it, the part for him to fill out, and just send that back, retaining the main body of the letter for himself — and the police. But HCE wants this job; he snapped at the bait like a trout.
Now that my gamble seems to be paying off, I can admit the other aspect of this move that I don't like. I have killed people. I've hated doing it, but I had to do it, and I did it. But I haven't been cruel to them, I haven't toyed with them. In a way, I'm toying with HCE, I'm tantalizing him with a nonexistent job interview with a nonexistent attractive woman. I'm sorry to do that, I wish there'd been some other way.
The letter got back to Wildbury yesterday, but I couldn't check the box until this afternoon, because yesterday was Billy's day in court. We had to be there, Marjorie and I, of course. We were scheduled for ten, and we arrived a few minutes early, with Billy, to find Porculey the lawyer waiting for us. His suit this time was not maroon, thank God, but a neutral gray. It was his tie that was maroon, with little white cows jumping over little white moons. He shook our hands, Marjorie's and mine, and said, "We think it will work out here," and took Billy away for a discussion with the judge.
A lot has happened in the two weeks since Billy's arrest. It turned out that Billy's partner in crime, somebody named Jim Bucklin, had been less quick-witted than we, and so had his parents. In the police car after his arrest, he'd said things that might be construed as confessions that he'd robbed that same store several times before, and apparently he'd said similar things to other detectives at the police station, and kept blabbing away until finally, the next day, he met the lawyer his parents had hired (unlike Billy's poor needy folks, the Bucklins didn't qualify for Legal Aid). That lawyer finally got Jim Bucklin to shut up.
The general feeling was that all of Bucklin's earlier loose talk would not be admissible in court, and after the lawyer arrived, Bucklin too started to claim that this burglary was his very first, so that he and Billy were at last telling the same story.
Which broke down when the police searched the Bucklin house (the same time they were searching ours) and found all that computer software.
Of course, they hadn't found any illicit software at our house. So, if finding stolen goods at Bucklin's house meant Bucklin was lying, then not finding them at Devore's house must mean Devore was telling the truth, or at least that's what Porculey was maintaining, and why he was doing his best to sever the two cases. Let Bucklin, the long-term master criminal, fend for himself, while Billy, the innocent youngster lured into a life of crime by Bucklin, faced the judge alone.
In chambers. We weren't there for it, having to sit out in the corridor, but apparently it went well. Over the assistant district attorney's ferocious objections — I saw her, from a distance, a hawklike woman in her thirties, thin and sharp-faced and ruthless — the judge did agree to separate the two cases, and to proceed in chambers with Billy's case.