Rob Collier fought his way through a traffic jam to deliver his mail.
“Goddamn!” He chucked the bags on the floor, quickly shutting the door behind him as one reporter in a seersucker jacket tried to come through.
“Maybe we’d better bolt the windows,” Harry remarked.
Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter scratched at the back door. Officer Cooper let them in. “I think your children have relieved themselves. Pewter’s in tow.”
“I refuse to stay in the market another minute!” Pewter bitched loudly. “You can’t move in there.”
Mrs. Murphy noted, “You stayed long enought to push your mug in front of the TV cameras.”
“I did not! They chose to highlight me.”
“Girls, girls, calm yourselves.” Harry poured crunchies in a bowl for everyone and returned to the front.
Rob stared out the window. “I heard on the radio that the killer leaves a mark, a momento. That’s how Rick knows it’s the same fellow. Bob Berryman . . . well, ladies, at least he exited this life with speed.”
Officer Cooper joined him at the window. “Strange country, isn’t it?”
“We’re more excited by bad news than by good news. Think these reporters would be here if you’d saved a child from drowning?”
“Locals, maybe. That’s about it.” He turned to Harry. “See you this afternoon. Might be late.”
“Take care, Rob.”
“Yeah. You too.” He pushed open the front door and shut it quickly behind him, then sprinted for the truck.
The phone rang.
“Harry,” the familiar voice rang out, “I just saw the Today show. Bob Berryman!”
“Mrs. Hogendobber, the world’s gone mad,” Harry said. “Don’t come home. Whatever you do, stay put.”
“The times. The morals. People have abandoned God, Harry—He hasn’t abandoned us. It’s time for a New Order.”
“I always suspect that under a New Order, women will be kept in their old place.”
“Feminism! You can think of feminism at a time like this?” Mrs. Hogendobber was both aghast and furious at being out of the center of events.
“I’m not talking about feminism but who runs your church. The women?” Harry would prefer to talk about anything but this latest murder. She was more frightened than she let on.
“No—but we contribute a great deal, Harry, a great deal.”
“That’s not the same thing as running the show or sharing in the power.” Susan rapped on the window. Harry cradled the receiver between shoulder and ear and made a T for time sign with her hands. “Mrs. Hogendobber. I apologize. I’m so upset. The reporters have parachuted in. I’m taking it out on you. Forget everything I’ve said.”
“Actually, I won’t. You’ve given me something to think about,” she uncharacteristically replied. Travel seemed to make Mrs. H. more liberal. “Now you watch out, hear?”
“I hear.”
“I’ll call tomorrow. Bye-bye.”
Harry hung up the phone. Officer Cooper let Susan in.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. If the killer has any heart maybe he’ll fire on these reporters. What are we going to do? I had to walk over here. It’s gridlock out there.”
“You know”—Harry shoved a mail sack in Susan’s direction; to hell with rules—“I think the killer is loving this.”
Officer Cooper grabbed a mail bin. “I think so too.”
“Well, I’ve got an idea.” Harry motioned for Susan and Coop to get close. She whispered: “Let’s give him a little zinger of our own. Let’s put graveyard postcards in everyone’s mailbox.”
“You’re kidding.” Susan’s hands involuntarily flew up to her chest as though to protect herself.
“No, I am not. No one knows about the postcards but me and you, and Rick and Coop. They know there’s some telling sign, but they don’t know what it is. Think Rick told anyone else?”
“Not yet,” Coop answered.
“We won’t scare anyone but the killer,” Harry said. “He won’t know who sent the postcard. But he’ll know we’re playing with him.”
“You’d better damn well hope he doesn’t figure out who we are.” Susan folded her arms across her chest.
“If he does, I guess we’ll fight it out,” Harry replied.
“Harry, forget fighting. He’ll blindside you.” Coop’s voice was low.
“Okay, okay, I shouldn’t sound so cocky. He’s killed three times. What’s another one? But I think we can rattle his chain. Dammit, it’s worth a try. Susan, will you buy the postcards? I know there are postcards of Jefferson’s grave. Maybe you can find others.”
“I’ll do it, but I’m scared,” Susan admitted.
41
Rick went through the roof. A third murder on his hands, the press tearing at him like horseflies, and Mary Minor Haristeen hit him with a crackbrained idea about postcards.
He screeched into Larry Johnson’s driveway and slammed his squad car door so hard it was a wonder it didn’t fall off. The retired doctor, tending his beloved pale yellow roses, calmly continued spraying. By the time Rick joined him he was somewhat calmed down.
“Larry.”
“Sheriff. Bugs will take over the world, I swear it.” The hand pump squished as the robust old man annihilated Japanese beetles. “What can I do for you? Tranquilizers?”
“God knows I need them.” Rick exhaled. “Larry, I should have come to you before now. I hope I haven’t offended you. It was natural to interview Hayden because he’s practicing now, but you’ve known everybody and everything far longer than Hayden. I’m hoping you can help me.”
“Hayden’s a good man.” Squish. Squish. “Ever hear that line about a new doctor means a bigger cemetery?”
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
“In Hayden’s case it isn’t true. He’s catching on to our ways. Not like he’s some Yankee. He was raised up in Maryland. Young man, bright future.”
“Yes. We must be getting old, Larry, when thirty-eight seems young. Remember when it seemed ancient?”
Larry nodded and vigorously sprayed. “Banzai, you damned winged irritants! Go meet the Emperor.” He had been a career Army physician in World War II and Korea before returning home to practice. His father, Lynton Johnson, practiced in Crozet before him.
“I’m going to ask you to break confidentiality. You don’t have to, of course, but you’re no longer practicing medicine, so perhaps it’s not so bad.”
“I’m listening.”
“Did you ever see signs of anything unusual? Prescribe medications that might alter personality?”
“One time, I prescribed diet pills, back in the 1960’s, to Miranda Hogendobber. My God, she talked nonstop for weeks. That was a mistake. Still only lost two pounds in two years. Mim suffers a nervous condition—”
“What kind of nervous condition?”
“This and that and who shot the cat. That woman had a list of complaints when she was still in the womb. Once through the vaginal portals, she was ready to proclaim them. What put her over the top was Stafford marrying that colored girl.”
“Black, Larry.”
“When I was a child that was a trash word. It’s awful hard to change eighty years of training, you know, but all right, I stand corrected. That pretty thing was the best, the best thing that coulda happened to Stafford. She made a man out of him. Mim teetered perilously close to a nervous breakdown. I gave her Valium, of course.”
“Could she be unstable enough to commit murder?” It occurred to Rick that Mim could have slashed her pontoon boat herself, so as to appear a target.
“Anyone could be if circumstances were right—or maybe I should say wrong—but no, I think not. Mim has settled down since then. Oh, she can be as mean as a snake shedding its skin but she’s no longer dependent on Valium. Now the rest of us need it.”