Honestly Dearest, You're Dead

Thirteen

My zip code directory showed the five reader envelopes had been postmarked in Cedar Ridge, Iowa.

The oldest envelope, handwritten with no return address, had been mailed on January 14, almost fourteen months before. Its flap was torn in several places and was finger worn, as though it had been opened a hundred times. The letter inside was written on the kind of three-hole, wide-ruled paper used by grammar school children. “Dear Honestly Dearest,” it read, in a big-looped, careful young hand, “My mom married my stepfather a year ago. We moved into his double-wide. Accidently, I was going through a storage tub. Underneath some fishing junk was a newspaper story. It was about a bank robbery. Over a million dollars got took. A bank person was killed. I think my stepfather did it. I don’t like him. I’m scared my mom knows. Should I tell. Your reader, Troubles.”

The letter hadn’t run in any of the Honestly Dearest columns enclosed in the big envelope, but the column clipped from the Windward Island Gulf Watcher of February 9 did end with a cryptic note: “Confidentially, Dearest, to Troubles. Just because someone keeps a newspaper story about a crime doesn’t mean they’re involved. Do you have a grandmother or grandfather, an aunt, or a teacher you can talk to? It would be good for you to discuss this with someone close to you. If not, you can always talk to me. Write Troubles on your envelope, so the people who get my mail will know to hurry it to me. I’ll keep everything a secret. Your friend, Honestly Dearest.” Carolina had seen something in the letter that made her take the child’s fear seriously.

The second envelope was postmarked February 10, the day after the column-ender appeared, and was marked “Troubles” on the outside. The letter read, “Dear Honestly Dearest, I can just talk to you. It is worse. A lot of money is in a golf bag on the underneath of the double-wide. I didn’t count it. My stepfather is looking at me strange. I am scared I must run away. I am awful young. Your reader, Troubles.”

The column-ender ran on February 26, probably the soonest Carolina could get it into print: “Confidentially, Dearest, to Troubles. Let me find someone in your town for you to talk to. Your friend, Honestly Dearest.”

There were no more envelopes from Troubles, but the loose letter that was with them, the one that had been folded several times to form a cube, was written in the same hand, on the same punched, wide-lined paper. “He won’t hurt me if I don’t tell where this is. You keep it until I say. Your friend, Troubles.”

Carolina answered that one at the end of her column of March 11. “I will do as you say, but this is the wrong way. You may be in danger. The police can help you. Let me get them to protect you. Your friend, Honestly Dearest.”

Carolina ended each of her next four columns in the Gulf Watcher, from late March through the middle of April, with the same note: “Confidentially, Dearest, to Troubles: WRITE TO ME.”

There were no more letters from Troubles.

The first of the three business-sized white envelopes, typewriter-addressed to New Jersey with “TROUBLES” typed in capital letters in the lower left corner, was postmarked April 12, also from Cedar Ridge. The letter inside was typed in caps, too, and read like a telegram: “RETURN WHAT DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU TO POST OFFICE AT ORIGINAL ZIP CODE, CARE OF T. ROUBLES GENERAL DELIVERY.”

Carolina’s column-ender on April 22 responded: “Confidentially to Mr. Roubles: Prove T is in safe hands and will be protected and I will.”

The next typed letter came right away: “RETURN OR T WON’T BE SAFE.”

She responded with “Prove T is safe” at the close of her next two columns, but Roubles didn’t respond until a letter postmarked May 4. As on the others, “TROUBLES” was typed on the outside of the envelope sent to New Jersey.

There were only four words typed on the sheet of paper inside.

“HONESTLY DEAREST, YOU’RE DEAD.”

An hour later, I sat in the overstuffed purple chair in the office Leo had built in the basement of the bungalow where he lived with his mother. I’d been there for fifty minutes, watching him examine the letters I’d brought.

He switched off the Luxo magnifying light, pushed its robotlike spring arms away, and slid the envelopes and columns into the envelope Carolina had mailed to herself. Dropping his cotton gloves on the light table, he went to slump into the wood-slatted chair behind the scarred wood desk. He picked up the stub of a yellow wood pencil and started working it between his fingers, end over end.

“Kid finds bank job money, sends it to Honestly Dearest.” He shrugged. “Evil stepdad finds out, threatens your Carolina.”

“What can you tell me about the handwriting on the first three letters?”

“I go to experts when I need that kind of expertise. For sure I can’t tell you if it was written by a boy or a girl.”

“Damn,” I said.

“At that age, it’s hard to tell.”

“What age?”

“Hard to tell that, too.”

“Damn it, Leo.” I pushed myself up from the depths of the sprung seat. His father had died in that chair, years before. Now it felt like it was grabbing for me, too.

The pencil stub paused between his index and middle fingers. “I’m guessing ten to twelve, but the kid could have been older.”

“At least now we know why Carolina came to Rambling.”

“Running from the stepfather.” Leo aimed the pencil at me. “You don’t need to be told that this is way over your head.”

“No.”

“He’s killed twice; the kid in Iowa, and then Carolina.”

Suddenly I felt like I’d been carrying bricks. I dropped back into the overstuffed chair. “Yes.”

Leo started up his pencil, waiting.

“Reynolds said the sheriff probably hasn’t done much investigating,” I said after a minute. “They’ll be interested now. I can show them motive and point them to a zip code in Iowa.”

“Slam dunk,” Leo said.

“Slam dunk for sure,” I said.

I had to call a couple of counties before I got the sheriff’s department that oversaw Rambling. A woman named Budzinski answered after I followed the required number of tape-recorded instructions.

“How would I find out who’s working on an investigation of a killing in Rambling?”

She paused half a beat. “Rambling, Michigan?”

“That’s the place. Happened a month, maybe six weeks ago, on County Road 12.”

“Give me the deceased’s name and I’ll have someone call you back.”

“Her name was either Louise Thomas or Carolina Dare.”

“Same woman?”

“I think the Louise Thomas name was an alias. Your people thought the killing was the result of a home invasion gone bad. I’ve got evidence that points to premeditated murder.”

“Your interest?”

“I’m the executor of the deceased’s estate.”

“And you’re not sure of her name?”

“I don’t even know how she knew mine.”

“I’ll have whoever’s in charge call you,” she said and hung up.

A lieutenant named Dillard did, in thirty minutes. “Give me those names again.”

“Louise Thomas and Carolina Dare.”

“We’ve got nothing under investigation for either of those names.”

“It’s probably the state police, then.”

“No, it would be us,” Dillard said slowly, sounding like he wished he could submit me to a Breathalyzer exam. “Are you sure about the town, and the names?”

“She left a will with a lawyer in West Haven, signed as Louise Thomas. He called me, said she’d named me her executor. The lawyer gave me her keys, which fit a house in Rambling, a house with blood spots in it. Both the lawyer and a local watchman say they got messages from your office, advising them of the death. Now I’ve received an envelope that might contain significant clues about it.”

“Before I called you back, I checked all the state’s databases, every municipality, every county. There’s been no reported death of a Louise Thomas or a Carolina Dare.”

“Any dead Jane Does in the Rambling area?”

“No unknowns in that area for years,” he said.

I stared at the turret’s limestone walls. A minute passed.

“Mr. Elstrom?”

“Do you want the envelope I’ve come across?”

“What’s in it?”

“Some letters from a frightened child in Cedar Ridge, Iowa, a few newspaper columns, and a very big threat from the killer.” Listening to myself, I realized I was coming across loud and stupid.

“The crime is murder?” he said.

“Of course.”

Dillard sighed. “And the victim is?”

“Carolina Dare.”

“Or Louise Thomas?”

“Of course.”

Dillard breathed into the phone.

“There might have been another murder victim,” I went on. “That kid in Cedar Ridge who wrote the letters.”

“What’s the name of the kid?”

“I don’t know.”

“Boy or girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Elstrom, what do you know?”

“That this information might point to the killer.”

“You mean for a murder for which there’s no body, or other evidence?”

“I told you, there is evidence: blood spots in a cottage.”

“How much blood?”

“A dozen spots, maybe more.”

“About the amount you’d get from a cut on a finger?”

“Sure, but…” I let the question fade.

He waited.

“Can I file a missing persons report?” I asked.

“Sure.” He paused, like he was signaling a drummer in a clown act to pick up his sticks. Then, “Who’s missing?”

I could almost hear the drum-and the laughter.