Doug took the letter and quickly read it over. It described in detail the sexual torture and mutilation of someone named Cindy Howell. He grimaced. The description was so grisly and so disgusting that he could not finish reading it.
"Who is Cindy Howell?" he asked.
"My daughter,"Stockley replied.
Doug looked immediately up.
"She's fine. Nothing's happened to her. She lives in Chicago, and I called her right away. I called the Chicago police and told them, sent a photocopy of the letter to them, in fact. They're keeping a surveillance on her house as a favor."
"I didn't know you had a daughter."
"That's because I never told anyone in town. She was from my first marriage, and I never told anyone about that, either."
"How do you think the mailman found out?"
"I'm not sure it is the mailman. Read the postmark. It's from Chicago. It could be from enemies I made there or from some crazy who's after my daughter.
Or it could just be a harmless threat from some crank. Notice that it's written in the past tense. These are all thingsthat're supposed to have happened already."
"But you said you thought the mailman was --"
"I don't know. I'm not sure of anything." He hefted the pile of letters.
"These are all similar. They're postmarked from cities all over the country and involve people I've known throughout my life. They're not all sexually explicit like that one, but they're all equally sick. They could all be part of some organized effort to harass me, although I can't see a reason why; or they could all be part of some outrageously unlikely coincidence. I'm inclined to believe you about the mailman because I've noticed the same pattern in my mail as you have. And because other people have hinted about it to me as well. I don't know exactly what's going on here, but it does seem to be centered around the mail and it does seem to have started after this John Smith took over."
"Will you come with me to the police, then? They'll believe both of us."
"Believe us? Believe that one man sorts through and readdresses mail, writes forged letters to people all over town, well-researched letters at that, is responsible for two suicides as well as God knows what else? I'm not sure I believe it. I think that the mailman is somehow involved in this, but I don't know what the connection is. We're edging into _Twilight Zone_ territory here."
"You think I should tell the police what I know?"
"What you know?"
"What I think, then."
"I don't know how much good it will do at this point, without any proof "
"I have the letters from the creek."
"That's true." The editor leaned back in his chair. "Yes," he said. "I think you should talk to the police. I won't go with you, because my credibility's not my own, it's tied to the paper's as well, and that is something I will not jeopardize. You know Mike Trenton?"
"He was in my class several years ago."
"He's a good kid, and a good cop. Talk to him. He has an open mind. He might listen. Stay away fromCatfield ."
"Mike Trenton. Can I tell him about your letters?"
Stockleynodded. "Tell him." He sighed and leaned forward, withdrawing another fortune cookie from his desk. "I shouldn't be getting involved in this.
I'm supposed to report stories, not be part of them, but to be honest you've scared the hell out of me."
Doug smiled wanly. "I've been scaring the hell out of myself for a week."
"It's time to do something about it," the editor said. He bit into his fortune cookie.
Doug sat on the lowNaugahyde couch in the waiting room of the police station. Behind the counter, uniformed clerks and officers answered phones and completed paperwork. He felt old. Three of the five employees in the office had been his students at one time or another. That wasn't unusual. In a town as small as Willis, he was always running into ex-students. But seeing ex-students in positions of authority, their young faces hardened into adulthood, made him feel hopelessly old.
Mike Trenton emerged from one of the back rooms, smiling broadly. His hair was shorter than it had been in high school, but aside from that, he had hardly changed at all. His face was still openly honest, naive, and even in his dark blue uniform, he seemed young. "Long time no see, Mr.Albin ."
"Call me Doug."
"Doug." He shook his head. "It feels weird calling a teacher by his first name." He chuckled. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"
Doug glanced around the crowded office. "It's kind of busy in here. Is there someplace we can talk that's more private?"
"If this is about your case, you'd have to talk to Lt. Shipley. He's trying to track down those letters --"
"Well, it's related to that, but not exactly." He motioned with his head toward the hall. "Can we talk in your office or something?"
"I don't have an office, but I suppose we can use the interrogation room."
He waved to one of the clerks. "I'll be in the exam room," he announced.
The clerk nodded, and the two of them passed through a small security gate and into the hall. Doug followed Mike into the interrogation room, a small cubicle with barely enough room for two chairs and a table.
Now that he was here, Doug did not know where to begin. The chronology he had developed, the arguments he had worked out in his mind, withered in the just-the-facts environment of the police station. He had no proof, not really, only some strange occurrences and tentative connections. Connections that, it was obvious now, required great leaps of faith. The confidence he had felt while talking toStockley in the newspaper office had vanished entirely. He had not been expecting to get from the police the type of reception the editor had given his ideas, but he still had not been prepared for the lack of belief he now knew would greet his story. He had been stupid to come here at all.
Still, as he looked across the bare table at Mike Trenton, be saw not cynicism and disinterest in the young officer's eyes but an open willingness to hear him out.
This had better be good.
He started at the beginning, with Ronda's unlikely suicide and his initial impression of the new mailman at the funeral. He had an impulse to speed his story up, to relate it in the shorthand manner in which he'd seen witnesses talk on television, but he forced himself to take his time, to carefully go over every small detail, every emotional impression, believing that it would lend verisimilitude to his theory.
Mike stopped him before he was halfway through. "I'm sorry, Mr.Albin . No offense, but this has been a pretty hectic week around here. This isn't a big city police department. We have twelve cops working in two shifts. There's been a series of dog poisonings, a suicide we're still investigating, and the usual fights in the cowboy bars. We're seriously undermanned at the moment. I know we've been having a lot of trouble with the mail, but to be honest, you should be talking to Howard Crowell --"
"Look, you may think I'm crazy --"
"I don't think you're crazy, Mr.Albin ."
"Doug."
"Doug."
"I don't know exactly what's going on around here, but it seems to me that John Smith, if that is his real name, has the ability to . . . to somehow channel the mail in the way he wants it to go. He can separate letters from bills, good letters from bad. He can redirect a letter from its intended recipient to the person the letter is about. We got a note from Howard the other day that was supposed to be for Ellen Ronda. But the envelope was addressed to us. And this has happened to other people."
"So you're saying that Mr. Smith somehow opens all these envelopes, reads all these letters, and redirects them as some sort of perverse practical joke?"
"I don't know what I'm saying."
"Assuming that he would want to, do you know how long it would take for one man to do such a thing, even in a town this small?"
"I'm not sure he sleeps. Hell, I'm not sure he's even human."