Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998

Neither Rain nor Snow nor Pride nor Greed by William T. Lowe

“I don’t do stakeouts any more, Thelma. I’m too old.”

“Then I’ll do it tonight myself.”

“No way. You’re...” I stopped before I said, “You’re too old, too.” I finished with “You’re overreacting.”

She glared at me across her desk. “It’s my post office, and by God, I’ll not see it made fun of.”

She was right, of course. The post office in Fountain is her domain. Thelma Otis made postmaster about the time I made deputy sheriff, and that was light years ago. And Thelma is almost as old as I am. She has refused retirement since she buried her husband.

“Come on, Thelma,” I said. “The tin cans and the toilet paper and the soap on the windows — it’s just kid stuff. Stupid practical jokes.”

Her glare got worse. “Somebody could get hurt. You should have been here the morning we found some squirrels loose in the lobby. Old Mrs. Matthews damn near had a heart attack.”

She went on about the things that had been done to her post office, and I stared at the floor. You’re passing through town and stop to say hello to an old friend, and all of a sudden you get volunteered to babysit a post office.

“We could get sued if we don’t stop this bastard.” Arthritis may have slowed Thelma down, but it has sharpened her tongue. She glanced around to make sure nobody was near. “And on top of that, Hank, somebody’s trying to have me closed down.”

She reached into a drawer and handed me a postcard. It read:

The message and address were typed: U.S. Postal Service, 30 Old Karner Road in Albany. The postmark was Quartzville, another little mountain town in upstate New York about twenty miles from here, dated ten days ago. Thelma showed me two more cards:

and:

“There’ve been others,” Thelma told me.

“They ever say anything about you?”

“Nope. Never anything personal or libelous.”

“Who else gets these little editorials?”

“I don’t know.” She dropped the cards into the drawer and slammed it shut. “Just somebody with his nose out of joint. He’ll get tired of it.”

“Right,” I agreed. That’s when I should have picked up my hat and left. But Thelma and I go back to high school. She was on the first cheerleading squad the school had. Her parents were criticized for letting her wear a short skirt and jump around. I warmed the bench with some other not-very-fast linemen.

Her red hair turned to rust long ago, but Thelma still gets around. Last year she came over and talked to my Scout troop. Told the boys how the post office used camels to deliver the mail in the Arizona desert, and that William Faulkner had started out as a postmaster, down in Mississippi.

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.

Time was when one of our iron-producing towns almost became the capital of the state instead of Albany. But then competition and technology closed the ironworks. Later a disastrous fire in Fountain took most of the company houses and stores. But the little towns are still here, existing on forests and orchards and farms. And tourists in season.

My home now is in Keeseville a few miles downriver, closer to the county seat where I used to work.

I didn’t think I’d have much luck trying to trace the ready-mix concrete. It’s cheaper to get your sand and gravel and cement separately. But if you need just a small amount, like a wheelbarrow load, you can’t beat the convenience. Each little town has a hardware or building supply store, and I would try them later if I had to.

But I learned a long time ago that if you don’t know the town get a haircut. The local barbershop is a good place to troll for information. And I got lucky; I got a piece of the puzzle.

The shop in Fountain was a one-chair affair. It had the usual mounted deer head on the wall and some lethal looking bow-hunting equipment in a glass case. Eight folding chairs were occupied more often by spectators than by customers.

The barber’s name was on the wall, Charles Pike. I had known an uncle of his, so we got to talking right away.

The big news item was that Fountain was being considered for a QuickStop convenience store. Men had been in and out of town for a month looking at different locations, asking questions, making traffic counts.

The biggest thing that can happen nowadays in a small upstate town is a new prison, but a branch of a big convenience-store chain would be a fine addition to the local economy.

“A QuickStop would be a right nice boost for the town,” Charles said. “Ray Maples at the Citgo station is agin it, but the competition would do old Ray good. Everybody in town who has some property has been after the Quick-Stop people, but they haven’t signed anybody up yet, far as I know.”

I mentioned that I had heard about the concrete in front of the post office.

“Sounds like somebody’s got it in for the post office,” I ventured.

“Maybe, but he better not tangle with Mrs. Otis. She won’t stand for no foolishness. Give you the rough side of her tongue if you’re not careful. Old Lady Peaselee’s the only one that can give her a hard time.”

“How’s that?”

“Peaselee owns the building the post office is in. And about half of Main Street. A real skinflint. Her granddaddy was a manager when the mills were here.”

We agreed that it looked promising for the trout season and that the black flies would be here before long. I left with thanks and a sizable tip.

I decided to go back to the post office and ask some more questions. If Peaselee owned the building where the post office was, maybe she was the vandal’s real target. But the vandalism would have to be a lot more destructive to get her attention. And if she wanted the post office out of her building, there were better ways to break a lease than a timid little postcard campaign.

I walked down Main Street to Forge Street and turned right. The post office was a long block down, at the next corner.

Behind the row of stores on Main was a service alley, and between the alley and the post office was a good-sized vacant lot. A weatherworn For Sale sign was half hidden in the weeds.

Somebody, probably Nancy, had run the flag up the pole. It was moving gently against a clear blue sky. The sky is such a pure blue here in the mountains because the air is so clean. I’m glad I won’t be around when acid rain kills off all the lakes and vegetation.

When I went in the front door, a tall elderly woman was standing at the counter talking to Nancy. She was complaining in a loud voice that the windowsills were dusty, and she was wearing a hat.

That was unusual — the women here wear hats only to funerals and church weddings. This hat was a bowl-shaped affair with some scruffy linen flowers in front and two tails of faded ribbon in back. Nevertheless, the hat said authority. This had to be Mrs. Lucinda Peaselee, town matriarch and Thelma’s landlady.

I pretended to read the notices on the bulletin board and looked over the second person at the counter.

This was a young woman with the biggest head of hair I’ve ever seen. Bright yellow, puffed out and stiffened into waves and ringlets. She had enough hair for three people her size.

Every minute or so she would reach up and touch it gently; clearly it was her proudest possession. I found out later that it served as a walking billboard.

The blonde was about twenty-five with a pipe-thin figure. She wore heavy eye makeup and deep red lip paint to balance the sunburst above. She was Bonnie Mae Shalley, Nancy told me, a niece of Mrs. Peaselee’s. She carried a shopping bag in one hand and two letters in the other.

“Tell Mrs. Otis I expect to see a great improvement in her housekeeping for the rest of the time you’re here!” Mrs. Peaselee rapped on the counter, glared at Nancy, and started for the door. To Bonnie Mae she said, “Here, child, get the stamps.”

She handed her niece a dollar bill. Bonnie Mae hurried to the counter and bought two stamps from Nancy. She went back to her aunt with the change. Lucinda counted the coins before she dropped them in her purse. Only then did Bonnie Mae put the stamps on the letters and push them in the slot. A real tightwad, the barber had said of Mrs. Peaselee. I believed him.

The Hat swept out, Bonnie Mae a step behind her.

I waited while Nancy took care of another customer and then walked over to the counter.

“Was that Mrs. Peaselee, your landlady?” I asked.

Nancy nodded. “For now. She says she’s going to throw us out. The old witch gravels me,” Nancy muttered. “I’m going to deck her someday. You get a load of the hat?”

“Couldn’t miss it.”

“The pope has his ring, Lucinda has her hat. Never leaves home without it. Got half the money in the county but she squeezes every nickel. And proud as a peacock.”

She told me that Bonnie Mae and her brother Davie were poor relations. Bonnie Mae was Lucinda’s secretary, driver, housekeeper, and whatever.

“I’ll give her credit, though,” Nancy said. “Bonnie Mae just finished beautician’s school up at Clinton. Works part-time in Irene Townsend’s beauty shop. Wants to get away from the old bat and make something of herself.”

While we were talking the back door opened and. Davie Shalley came in. He’d finished his highway delivery run, his appointed round from which neither rain nor snow nor dark of night would stay him. I’d met him that morning when he cleaned up the concrete mess. He was in his thirties, beefy, wore his hair long, raised rabbits as a hobby.

“He might be a sandwich short of a picnic,” Nancy had told me, “but he’s cheerful and helps out around the place.”

Davie finished whatever he was doing and left. I had noticed his car in the alley. In addition to the U.S. Mail sign above the windshield, his car wore bumper stickers like FIGHT CRIME... SHOOT BACK and SAVE A TREE... EAT A BEAVER.

“You hired Lucinda’s nephew?” I asked Thelma.

“What the hell,” she said, “a little nepotism can’t hurt.”

Nancy filled me in on some of her paperwork. “We keep a log of money order purchases and packages sent C.O.D. If we see a pattern, it tends to make us suspicious.”

“It would make me suspicious, too,” I replied. I was hearing more than I wanted to know about how post offices are run. “How about some lunch?”

Thelma joined us at the counter. She had been on the phone reporting the concrete episode to the High Poom, the Post Office Operations Manager down in Albany. She told them that local authorities were working on it. “Big deal,” she growled. “They got more excited when I ran out of Elvis commemoratives a couple of years ago. Did somebody say lunch?”

I hadn’t planned to spend the day in the post office, but the postal inspector Thelma had been expecting turned up early in the afternoon and we sat around in Thelma’s tiny office. Clyde Kingston wore a suit and tie, which immediately marked him as a stranger in town. He was heavyset with retreating dark hair and a large bushy mustache. Thelma explained briefly who I was and why I was there.

Inspector Kingston had a “been there, done that” attitude; I suppose it comes with the territory. After all, the Postal Inspection Service is the oldest law enforcement agency in the country, even if most people have never heard of it. He wasn’t very impressed with the vandalism. He dismissed the series of pranks as strictly a local matter.

The postcards were something else altogether.

“Got another one,” he said, and handed Thelma a card. She read it and handed it to me.

“Same old thing,” she said.

Kingston shook his head. “Worse. He sent this little bullet to the governor and both state senators.”

Thelma stared at him. “The hell you say!” She looked at me. “This is serious. Big time.”

Her pen pal could send the postal department all the cards he wanted to; that was in the family. But adding governors and senators made it a political issue. And bureaucracy being what it is, Thelma was automatically on the hot seat.

Nobody said anything for a minute. I looked at Kingston. “Did your lab boys get anything off the cards?”

He shook his head. “Damn little. No fingerprints. No way to trace the cards, they’re even sold in vending machines now. We think he used a Smith Corona Model 600. A top-of-the-line machine but not an office model. And he can type; no strikeovers, no erasures.”

“No help,” I said.

Kingston turned to Thelma. “I’m not in the real estate section, but I looked up your lease. I see it’s due for renewal next month.” He consulted a small notebook. “How do you get along with Mrs. Lucinda Peaselee? You think she might be doing this?”

Thelma shook her head.

“Not her style. She’s an in-your-face old broad. If she doesn’t want to renew the lease, she’ll spit in Albany’s face. She might want to offer the building to a new convenience store that’s sniffing around town. Maybe she thinks she can get more money from them.”

Thelma’s temper was taking hold. “If she’s holding us up for money, give her the goddamn building and find me another spot. I started out as a clerk when the post office was in a hardware store. I sold more horseshoes than stamps, and I’ll be selling stamps long after Lucy Peaselee’s gone to...”

“Sure, sure,” Kingston said. “We’ll just move the office if we have to.”

That was the end of that. I never doubted that Fountain would continue to have postal service, no matter how tiny a town it was. In your really small towns the post office is a social and cultural center as well as a link to the federal government. It goes back to 1737 when the British colonial authorities appointed Ben Franklin postmaster. Pretty soon he had a network of seventy-five little offices throughout the colonies, all on the same wavelength.

But we still had somebody out there, trying to make trouble with a handful of postcards.

Inspector Kingston shot a look at his watch to remind us that his time was limited. He asked Thelma, “What about this mail fraud scheme you think you have here in Fountain?”

“It’s the dead man operation.” Thelma reached for a clipboard hanging on the wall. “We’ve got a guy out here on Route 10 who runs a wooden toy company. Cheap souvenirs. He comes in three or four times a month and sends a package collect. Twenty-nine ninety-five, plus charges.” She tapped the clipboard. “All here in the log.”

She took a small package from a shelf and handed it to Kingston. “This one came in this morning; going out on the truck tonight.”

The agent passed the package over to me. It was about the size of the box a book club uses and weighed only a few ounces. It had a colorful mailing label, UNCLE BOB’S WOODWORKING SHOP, decorated with a cartoon bird on one side and a grinning squirrel on the other. It was addressed to a man in Bethpage, Long Island.

Kingston looked a bit puzzled. “Most small toy companies do business by mail order, Mrs. Otis,” he said. “Of course, most of it is prepaid.”

“I know that,” Thelma shot back, “hut this outfit gets damn little mail.”

She rapped the package with her finger.

“I’ll bet a month’s pay this Mr. Whoever is dead. And that he died last week.”

There was nothing Kingston could say to that. He tried to be reasonable. “I’ll take a copy of your C.O.D. log and check all the offices for complaints. You may be right,” he said diplomatically; “you may have a fraud artist around here. These crooks love small towns. They think they can get away with what they’re doing because nobody will notice.” Thelma bristled at that. “But that’s certainly not true here in your office, Mrs. Otis,” he added hastily.

When I was on duty, I spent most of my time trying to nail the scum who peddled dope to school children, but I know how this scam works.

The operator gets the name of a deceased person from the obituary section of a paper. He picks someone who died suddenly in a hospital or in an accident, never from a long illness. He wants someone with a large family with grandchildren. He puts a high price on some cheap gift and mails it C.O.D.

Naturally the family’s upset, and they think the package is something Grandpa or Grandma ordered, maybe something for the grandchildren. So they accept it and pay the charges. The operator walks away with the money. If the family does refuse the package and files a complaint, the operator says it was a shipping error or whatever and hands back the money. This rarely happens. It’s an old scam. Probably the Pony Express delivered something for a guy in Boot Hill who never ordered it.

“What do you know about this Uncle Bob person?” the agent asked Thelma.

“His name is Donald Parks. He bought the Uncle Bob business a year or so ago. Located about four miles out on Route 10 toward Keene. I think he and his wife moved here from Ohio.”

Kingston shook his head. “We’ll have to wait for a complaint.”

I hated the idea of somebody’s being conned out of thirty dollars for a little piece of plywood. “Outside of a complaint,” I asked him, “what would you need to stop this guy?”

“We would have to prove intent to defraud.”

I picked up the package and took a penknife out of my pocket.

“Let’s open it,” I suggested, “Maybe there’s a note or something.”

Thelma leaned forward. “I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

Kingston held up his hand. “I can’t let you do that, Mr. Sessions,” he said sternly. “I would have to arrest you for interfering with the mail.”

I knew he meant it. I dropped the package and sat back. The mail must go through. Play by the rules even if it means another thirty bucks for Uncle Bob.

I think Thelma was disappointed that I backed down.

I wasn’t really surprised to see Trooper Lee at the counter talking to Nancy, conferring about the case no doubt.

“We were just talking about those postcards,” he said when I came up. “If this person thought his message was so important, why did he use a postcard instead of a first class letter?”

“Maybe for more visibility, more exposure,” Nancy said. “Everybody reads postcards no matter who they’re addressed to.”

“Or maybe he thinks a postcard is more democratic,” Frank said, “but in that case he would put his name on the message.”

“Maybe it’s none of the above,” Nancy said. “After all, postcards are cheaper than letters.”

“Bingo,” I said. I asked Frank to do something for us on the case. That’s how I put it, for us. “Find out who owns that vacant lot next door. Do it this afternoon, even if you have to go over to the county seat.”

“You got it.”

I went outside and looked at the small lawn between the door and the street.

Even Lucinda Peaselee could see there wasn’t enough room for the driveway and gas pumps a QuickStop store featured. But there was plenty of room in the lot next door.

I drove out to see Donald Parks. If Albany couldn’t do anything, maybe I could. At least give him the benefit of the doubt. I called first, said I had something important to ask him, that I wasn’t trying to collect money.

It was nice to get out in the fresh air and sunshine. In a month this road would carry a lot of traffic, tourists visiting the attractions and fishermen working both branches of the river.

The Parks shop and home were easy to find — in addition to the mailbox there was a large sign reading UNCLE BOB’S WOODWORKING SHOP. It was trash pickup day. I had to step around the recyclable material placed neatly at the side of the road; separate containers for tin, glass, and plastic. Two big bundles of newspapers, one of magazines.

A driveway led to a largish parking area. The shop was the size of a double garage with big doors that could be swung open in good weather. Inside were displays of Uncle Bob’s products, little shapes of animals and birds cut from half-inch plywood and painted. Each object bore a decal that read SOUVENIR OF THE ADIRONDACKS. I didn’t see a price tag on any of them.

Donald Parks was waiting for me; a bit this side of fifty, bright blue eyes, medium build, thinning hair. He wore a carpenter’s apron with pockets full of pencils. It was more like a costume than work clothes.

I admired the shop for a polite amount of time, and we moved into Parks’s office, a little room at the rear of the house. There I saw a desk with a typewriter, a couple of file cabinets, a stack of trade magazines, the usual furniture.

“Does Uncle Bob do much mail order business?” I asked casually-

“A good bit. I’ve got ads in a lot of catalogues.”

He was polite, curious about why I was there. He made no attempt to introduce a Mrs. Parks. What I could see of the house was neat and clean.

Over many years of talking to strangers informally, I’ve found an approach that is almost guaranteed to put a man off guard and let you size him up.

Being as sincere as I could, I looked him in the eye and said, “Mr. Parks, a group of men want me to ask you if you would run for town supervisor this fall.”

He was flattered, as I knew he would be.

We had a nice talk about the rewards of office and civic duty, with me doing most of the talking. Parks smiled and thanked me and said he didn’t think his work would permit it.

When I left, I was sure that Donald Parks would never be running for office. He had something to hide. When I had the time, I would find out whether it was personal or criminal.

When I walked back to my car, I passed the recyclables waiting to be picked up. On impulse I grabbed the bundles of newspapers and slung them in the back seat. The vet clinic in Keeseville always needs papers to line their animal cages.

I had to go through Fountain to get home, and I stopped at Ray Maples’ Citgo station for gas. I’ve never cared much for Ray. I know for a fact that a few years ago he left a wounded deer in the woods; wouldn’t take time to track it and put it out of its misery.

He was doing some construction work at the station, building an addition on the side opposite the service bay. He had to tell me all about it.

“I’m puttin’ in a deli department,” he said proudly. “That’s the only thing I don’t have that the QuickStop stores have. I had to go to Keene to get the money; what we need in this town is a bank. And I’m goin’ to start renting videos. They don’t have that, you know.”

It’s interesting to see what the threat of competition will do. I wished him good luck and left.

I drove home slowly. I enjoy looking at the river from this stretch of Route 10. Today the water was high and fast because snow was still melting in the mountains.

What this town needs is a bank, Ray Maples had said. I thought about that while I did chores.

A bank needs a downtown location, parking for its walk-in customers, room for a drive-up window, a long service counter. Lucinda Peaselee could offer a bank almost all of that. Maybe she already had.

After dinner I telephoned Ted Culpepper. He’s a loan officer at the Harvest Bank and knows more about people and things going on in the valley than I ever will. And he loves to fish for trout.

I told Ted I knew where some eighteen inch rainbow trout were hiding.

Sometime after midnight the phone woke me. It was Trooper Frank Lee. He had arrested Davie Shalley for malicious mischief. Davie had been spreading straw on the lawn in front of the post office.

He would have to be held overnight at Ray Brook headquarters and see a judge tomorrow. I said it was important that Frank have Davie at the post office in the morning so we could clear everything up.

Frank said he would bring him.

“All right, folks, let’s go see Lucinda Peaselee,” I said.

We were in the rear of the post office, Thelma, Frank Lee, and I. Davie had been brought in, white and shaken. The look Thelma gave him would have melted bone. He was waiting in the troop car, in handcuffs. Nancy was at the counter, her eyes dancing with excitement.

I told Thelma and Frank that we had most of the answers we needed. Mrs. Peaselee could give us the rest.

“Frank, bring Davie in your car. Thelma and I will take mine.”

“No,” Thelma said, “we can’t leave now.”

“Why not?”

“What about Davie’s highway route? Who’s going to deliver the mail?”

I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, goddamn it. The mail’s my responsibility.”

“We’ll be back in an hour. Can’t it wait?”

“No. It has to be handled now.”

And it was. Davie Shalley was what is called a highway contractor, which meant he sorted and delivered the mail to patrons outside of town. He had to arrange his own back-up for when he couldn’t do it. Like today.

Under Thelma’s supervision the mail was sorted and boxed. A man who knew the route was enlisted to make the run. Finally Thelma was satisfied. She left Nancy in charge, and we were on our way.

The Peaselee residence was on the edge of town; a big three story house with bay windows and lots of chimneys. It had escaped the big fire of seventy years ago.

Bonnie Mae saw us drive up. She had the door open before we were half way up the walk. Her eyes got enormous when she saw the handcuffs. “Davie, oh, Davie...”

Lucinda stood in the doorway of the front parlor, her hands clasped in front of her. Her grey hair was in a tight bun, and there was a grim expression on her face. She looked less formidable without her hat. Her face sagged when she saw Davie in cuffs and escorted by a state trooper. She paid no attention to Thelma or me.

“What is the meaning of this?” Her voice was not quite steady.

“I think we’d all better sit down,” Frank said. It was more of a demand than a suggestion. Without a word Lucinda turned and led the way into the parlor. Frank didn’t sit down. He put Davie in a straight chair and stood over him. Thelma and Bonnie Mae took chairs, Lucinda stood against the wall.

This was the chance I was waiting for.

Bonnie Mae was The Hat’s secretary. There had to be an office somewhere, I hoped downstairs. I’d told Frank to spell things out for Peaselee while I went looking for the office, and a Smith Corona typewriter.

“Mrs. Peaselee, your nephew here has admitted responsibility for all the acts of vandalism at the post office,” Frank said. “He has broken several laws, state and federal.”

“What acts?” Lucinda asked, her voice unsteady.

Frank named them off, finishing with “obstructing a public walkway, endangering public safety, interfering with the United States Postal Service.”

Apparently Lucinda hadn’t known about Davie’s nighttime activities. Her face got quite pale.

Davie looked up. “I was only trying to help, Aunt Lucy.”

“Be quiet,” she snapped. She raised her chin and glared at Frank, hoping the Peaselee money and position would solve the problem. “Well then, I’ll pay his fine.”

Frank was ready for that. “It’s more serious than that, Mrs. Peaselee. Davie may have to go to jail.”

Now family disgrace was staring her in the face. The haughty expression disappeared, and she sat down in the nearest chair. “To jail? Davie in jail?”

“It depends on whether Mrs. Otis here and the Postal Service want to press charges.”

I found a little room off the kitchen that might have been a butler’s pantry in the old days. Now it served as an office where Lucinda kept the records of her tenants and her rents. On the desk was a Smith Corona 600 typewriter.

I went back to the parlor and took a seat. I nodded at Thelma to let her know it was her turn at bat.

“Lucinda,” she said, “you’ve been playing a dirty little game. You’ve been trying to get my post office pulled out of Fountain so you can rent the building to somebody else.” Thelma was out of her chair and standing in front of Lucinda. She handed her some of the postcards. “And if these didn’t work, you were going to ask Uncle Sam for more money when the lease comes up next month. You can’t play both ends against the middle, Lucy. You try it and you’ll get your tits caught in a wringer!”

Lucinda Peaselee was speechless. Nobody ever used her first name, and nobody ever talked to her that way.

In a moment she found her voice.

“I never wrote those cards! I never did any such thing!”

I was looking at Bonnie Mae, at that monstrous head of yellow hair and the lavish makeup. Nancy’s words came back: “Bonnie Mae wants to open her own beauty shop.”

I stood up.

“Bonnie Mae, you typed those cards, didn’t you?” I asked casually. “And you had Davie mail them from out of town, didn’t you?”

A hand went up to pat her hair, and she looked at me defiantly. “What if I did?”

Lucinda tried to regain a little control. “Child, I will not tolerate that tone of voice in my...”

Her niece turned to her. “You said you wanted the post office out of there, Aunt Lucy. You said so yourself.”

“That was just business, child, you wouldn’t understand.”

“I think she does understand, Mrs. Peaselee,” I said. “But you never told her what you really have in mind for the building. As Mrs. Otis says, you’ve been playing both ends against the middle.

“You knew you would never get the convenience store. Your building isn’t on Main Street, and there isn’t room for gas pumps. You have been dickering with Harvest Bank to put a branch in Fountain. You’ve offered them the post office building. To sweeten the pot, you’ve offered them the lot next door so they can have a drive-up window or something.”

I lobbed the grenade Frank had found yesterday. “We know you paid two thousand dollars for a sixty-day option on that lot.”

Nobody said anything. The look on Lucinda’s face told me I had put it all together. “If the bank goes for your deal, you’ll cut the post office loose. If not, you’ll try to hold Albany up for more rent.”

Thelma made an impolite sound. “That’s be the day pigs fly and hell freezes,” she said.

I wasn’t quite finished. “But, Lucinda, Bonnie Mae did a good job with those postcards, and she saved you money on the postage. She’s a smart young lady, and she’s got her own reasons for wanting to see the post office out of that building.” Everybody except Davie looked at the girl. “Tell your aunt what you want to do with it.” I sat down to let her have the floor.

Bonnie Mae stood up and faced her aunt. She gave me a brief smile for my introduction. The big moment was here; her bid for independence.

“I was fixin’ to tell you, Aunt Lucy. I need that building for my new beauty shop. It’s going to be Bonnie’s Beauty Boutique. Don’t you like the name?”

“I know where I can get my ’quipment on time, and I’ll pay you rent just as soon as I get ’stablished. That’s a good location, easy for folks to get to. They taught us lots of good ideas in school, and I’ll give little Miss Irene Townsend a run for her money. I might even start givin’ men’s haircuts. It’s just old fuds go to that Charlie Pike’s place — no offense, sir — and I bet I can beat his price. Oh yeah, Davie did them things at night just to help us git the post office out of there, Aunt Lucy. Weren’t his fault, really.”

She paused and looked around at her audience.

“So,” she finished, “the sooner the post office is out of there, the sooner I kin get started.”

At first Lucinda had looked shocked — this was mutiny — but now there was something like pride on her face. Her nephew Davie would never hope for more than a blue ribbon for his rabbits at the country fair, but her niece was aiming higher. Bonnie Mae wanted to leave the nest, try her wings, take her chance.

I suppose in every generation a young Peaselee has wanted to strike out on his own. Each one has been asked the same question: “What are you going to use for money?”

I suspect that each budding businessman has given the same answer. Bonnie Mae lifted her chin and faced her aunt. “You got plenty, Aunt Lucy. You kin lend me some.”

In my book ambition always wins over elocution. I decided it was time to wind things up here and leave the Peaselees to what would be a long and private family talk.

“Mrs. Otis, do you want to press charges against Davie?” I asked.

Thelma shook her head.

“Davie,” I said, “tell Mrs. Otis you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Otis,” he said meekly. “Do I still have my job?”

“I’ll think about it,” Thelma said. “Be sure to clean up that straw.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Frank removed the handcuffs, and our little group was ready to leave. But I was still in my oratorical mode; I had two last thoughts to deliver.

“All right, Mrs. Peaselee, here’s what I think you should do. If the Postal Service offers you a satisfactory lease, take it. Then go to the bank and offer to build them a building on that vacant lot; built to their specifications.

“They’ll be happy with a modular type building like they have over in Ray Brook. That shouldn’t be too much of an investment for a woman like yourself, and you can be sure of a very long lease.”

Lucinda nodded slowly; the wheels were turning under that grey hair.

“Look, Bonnie Mae,” I said, “there’s a nice little house for rent right down on Willow Street. That’s a good location, and you could put your shop downstairs. I bet you and your aunt could get it real cheap.”

There was a smart kid under that king-size beehive. She gave me a wink and a nod.

That was all; Thelma and Frank and I moved towards the door. A voice from the other side of the room stopped us. “Just a minute, please.”

We turned around.

Lucinda Peaselee stood up. “I’m truly sorry for all this, Mrs. Otis,” she said formally.

Thelma gave a little wave. “No real harm done,” she said. She took a step toward the door but turned back. “Look, Lucy, if you really want more rent for that building, don’t beat around the goddamn bush. Go down to Albany and see the real estate section. Tell ’em I sent you.”

We drove back to the post office in silence; there wasn’t anything that needed saying. When we got there, Thelma told Nancy to take a break. Nancy and Frank Lee went outside to talk in the sunshine. They had a long conversation as young people are prone to do. Thelma and I drank coffee, and I told her I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have to pack up and move.

When Nancy came back in, Thelma couldn’t resist making a comment. “That Frank is cuter than a spotted pup.”

Nancy gave us both an innocent, wide-eyed look. In a little girl voice she said, “Mother, if he follows me home, can I keep him?”

The next afternoon I telephoned Thelma. “See how fast you can get your inspector back up here. Tell him you’ve got a mail fraud artist who’s ripe for picking.”

She didn’t ask questions. “I’ll have him here in the morning.”

Clyde Kingston was there by nine o’clock — Albany is only three hours away by car — and we were waiting for him. Thelma told him the governor could rest easy; there’d be no more postcards. The newspapers I’d liberated from Donald Parks’s trash were piled on her desk.

I had gone by the vet’s clinic yesterday to drop them off, but one of the papers caught my eye. It was the Long Island Newsday, I’d been down there once on a case. I leafed through it, and then I saw there were other out-of-town papers. I examined a few, and then I called Thelma.

I showed Kingston some of the papers. “Mrs. Otis was right about Parks,” I said. “He’s been using the mail to cheat people. He gets his prospects by combing the obituaries for the names of the recently deceased.

“Here are Newsday and the Northshore Observer from Long Island, the Bristol Press from Connecticut, the Star-Ledger from Newark.” I opened the latter to the obit page. “Here’s a notice about a man who died in an accident. It’s been circled with a blue marking pen. That name shows up on the C.O.D. log of three weeks back. I’ll bet Parks mailed him one of his thirty dollar pieces of junk. See the pattern here?”

Clyde was getting excited. He opened another paper to the obit page; there was a name with a blue circle around it. In another he found the same thing. He grinned at us. “I wonder where...” he began, but I was ahead of him.

“Look at the top of the first page. That’s where the mailing address is always printed for copies mailed out of town.”

The Long Island papers were addressed to Donald Parks, Keene, New York. The Connecticut paper went to E’town; the Jersey paper to Keeseville. It was mailed in a brown paper sleeve that had been discarded along with the paper.

“You get the picture? Parks has these papers sent to different addresses so he doesn’t attract attention.”

“Right,” said Kingston, “and he mails his junk from different post offices so nobody gets suspicious. Pretty smart.”

“Not smart enough,” Thelma snorted. “The son of a bitch.”

Clyde was opening more papers, finding more blue circles. “Some of these obits give the street address of the deceased, some don’t. How do you suppose he gets around that?”

“The funeral home’s name is always there. He could call, say he wants to send flowers, ask for a florist. Then he cons the florist out of the address.”

“Sure, he could do that.”

“He’s got a zip code directory in his office. I saw it.”

“You went to see Parks? What were you doing there?”

“We were talking politics.”

“Sneaky,” Thelma said. “I always said you were a sneaky so-and-so.”

Clyde was frowning, ruffling his big mustache with his fingers and staring at the floor. I could guess what he was thinking. No warrant, no probable cause, an unlawful search, no case.

Casually I asked, “You want to know how I came by these papers?”

“I sure as hell do.”

“I found them. Found them in the middle of the highway. Must have fallen off a truck on its way to the landfill. Now, I couldn’t just leave them there, could I?”

Clyde was staring at me, not quite convinced. “And littering is against the law, isn’t it?” I asked blandly.

“Damn right,” Thelma said.

“It was my civic duty to stop and pick them up, wasn’t it?”

“Sure it was,” Clyde replied. “Sure it was.”

That was that. “Well now,” I said. “Do you think you have enough here to prove intent to defraud? You think you can put Parks away?”

“Just watch me,” he said. “Just watch me.”

We shook hands. “Mrs. Otis, you’ll be hearing from me,” he said to Thelma. To me he said, “Nice work, Mr. Sessions. I hope we meet again.”

I helped him tie up the newspapers and put them in his car. I knew Kingston would check the C.O.D. logs in the other post offices; maybe even get Parks’s telephone bills. I went back into Thelma’s office to finish my coffee before I went home.

Thelma stood up behind her desk. “Hank,” she said, “you remember what you did after the homecoming game our senior year, when we beat the Peru Indians?”

That was a long time ago. I didn’t remember the game or the score or the year.

“What did I do?”

“You grabbed me and kissed me.” Thelma came around the desk.

“Now it’s my turn. Hold still.”