The Snow White Christmas Cookie

CHAPTER 17

They floored it tO Breezy Point, lights flashing and sirens blaring as they tore their way around the rush-hour traffic on the Post Road-Des in the lead car, Yolie on her tail with Tommy the Pinhead and Gigi Garanski handcuffed in the backseat of her cruiser. It took them ten minutes to reach the park turn-off on Route 1. When the road dipped under the Amtrak trestle, Des hit a pothole that was deep enough to rattle her spine. She slowed now as she drew nearer to the parking lot, her eyes searching the dusk for someone out walking. Someone large and Jewish who was desperately trying to find help. But she saw no one as she pulled into the deserted parking lot, her high beams sweeping the woods alongside of it.

If he’s dead then I’m dead, too. I’ll stop eating. I’ll stop caring. I’ll die. I’ll just curl up and die.

She left her engine running, jumped out and threw open the back door to Yolie’s cruiser. “Where are they?”

“On the beach,” Tommy the Pinhead answered. “Like I told you.”

“He’d better be okay. Because if he’s not I swear I will shoot you both and leave you here. The coyotes will eat your remains.”

“Tommy, she’s scaring me,” Gigi whimpered.

“Shut the hell up, will ya? The dude’s fine,” he assured Des. “I just gave him a little love pat on the head, that’s all.”

She slammed the door and zipped up her Gore-Tex storm jacket. Then she and Yolie started their way down the snowy, windblown path into the park. They needed their big Maglites to show them the way in the deepening darkness. And the walking wasn’t easy. Every time she put her foot down it kerchunked on the hard, icy surface left by last night’s rain and went plunging down into two feet of soft snow. Each footstep was serious work.

“MITCH?…!” she cried out, her ears straining for a response. She heard nothing over the wind. “Damn, I hope he didn’t wander off and get lost.”

“If he wandered anywhere it would have been back toward Route 1. We’d have seen him. Mitch ain’t dumb.”

“But he got whacked on the head, Yolie. He’s already had one concussion this year. And this is Mitch we’re talking about. For all we know he may think he’s on a lion hunt with the Ale and Quail Club.”

“The Ale and Quail who?”

“You never saw Palm Beach Story? I swear, that sequence on the train has to be the funniest ten minutes I’ve ever … Will you listen to me? I’m even starting to sound like him. I swear, if that man’s still alive I’m going to kill him.”

“Okay, here we go,” Yolie said as they reached the narrower path that snaked through the woods to the beach.

She could hear the surf washing up on the rocks as they made their way down the path. It was considerably windier out on the open beach. Blowing really, really hard. The windchill was something fierce. They waved their flashlight beams out along the water’s edge and spotted two large shapes out there in the snow. Two large, motionless shapes.

“MITCH?!.…” Des screamed over the howling wind.

Nothing. No response.

Des broke into a mad sprint through the deep snow, her legs straining, chest heaving as she gasped and gasped and gasped. “MITCH?!.…”

Still nothing.

The first person her flashlight beam found was Casey, who was curled up dead like a giant, frozen worm. Huddled a few feet away from him was Mitch, who lay on his side wearing only a Pats hoodie, a pair of white socks and a bloody shower curtain that had slid down around his knees. He was … blinking at her. Or trying to. His eyes were practically frozen shut. And he was shuddering so violently she could hear his teeth chattering. He had no pants on. Not even any underwear. The poor man’s genitals were fully exposed to the howling wind.

She whipped off her parka and fell to her knees before him, tears streaming down her cheeks as she wrapped it around him. “Oh, baby, baby…”

“D-Do you?…”

“Do I what?”

“Any c-clam chowder?”

“What’d he just say?”

“He wants some clam chowder.”

“Not a problem, big boy. We’ll get some in you right away.” Yolie took off her own jacket and put it over him.

“Can you believe they left him out here buck naked?”

“I can believe it.”

“Would have been nice if they’d mentioned it.”

“Girl, I think you need to accept that these are not nice people.”

“We’ll have to carry him back. I’ll take him by his arms. You take his legs. Be real careful with his feet. If he’s got any frostbite in those toes you don’t want to squeeze them or rub them.”

“Hey, I took the same lifesaving classes you did, remember?”

“Sorry, I’m just a tiny bit out of my mind right now.”

“No, you’re not. You’re fine. We’re all fine. Right, big boy?”

“K-Kids,” he croaked as they secured their jackets around him.

Des frowned at him. “Which kids?”

“Our kids.”

“He must be tripping.” Des shined her light on the back of his head. “Yeah, he’s been bleeding. Got whacked real good.”

Yolie worked the zipper of her parka up toward Mitch’s exposed genitals.

“N-Not sure I’m ready for our relationship to go this f-far,” he told her.

“I’ve seen a man’s tool before,” she assured him, zipping him up nice and snug. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen one so shriveled though.”

“From the c-cold. I–I don’t have frostbite there, do I?”

“Not to worry, stud. It strikes your extremities first. And, trust me, that ain’t no extremity. Girl, is it always so small?”

“We are not going to have this conversation right now. And no.”

“If you p-pop it into your mouth you’ll warm it right up.”

“He talking to me?”

“He’d better be talking to me.”

Now he was muttering something under his breath about a frog having wings.

“You following any of this?” Yolie asked her.

“Not a word. Let’s lift him on two, okay? One, two…”

They hoisted him up. Mitch was heavy, close to two hundred pounds. But not nearly as heavy as when she’d first met him. He’d taken off a good forty pounds of man-blubber since then. Which was a mighty good thing. It wasn’t easy horsing him back through that deep snow, step by step by step.

“How you doing at your end?” Yolie panted as they worked their way slowly back across the beach.

“Okay…” Her shoulders and back were already starting to scream. “But I think he’s unconscious.”

“Probably just as well. Another ten seconds and he was going to be proposing to both of us.”

They made it across the beach and started their way up the narrow, twisting path. By now every single muscle in Des’s body was in agony.

“Need a break?” Yolie asked her when they reached the main path.

“No, I’m good,” she gasped. “Let’s get him in my front seat. I’ve got blankets in my trunk. I’ll run him straight to Shoreline Clinic. Faster than waiting for an EMT.”

“Deal. I’ll secure this scene, then run those two pieces of human filth in.”

They could see their cars now. Just another fifty yards and they’d be there. Not so far. Not so far at all. Not when her man’s life depended on it. And, hell, the last twenty feet was plowed pavement. Easy-peasy. They set him down gently on the passenger side of her front seat. Des pointed all of the heater vents in his direction and got the blankets out of the trunk and wrapped them around him. He was still unconscious. Also exceedingly pale-except for his ears and nose, which were bright red. She jumped in behind the wheel and slammed the door.

He stirred, blinking at her from inside of his blanket cocoon. “Y-You found me.”

“Of course I did.” She backed the cruiser up, spun it around and took off. “Think I was going to let you freeze to death out there?”

“H-How?…”

“Rut called from the Rustic to tell me you’d vanished. We followed your trail from there to the Yankee Doodle, where we found a whole lot of blood in Bungalow Six.” She eased off of the gas as she dipped under the Amtrak trestle, not wanting to jar him, then hit the gas again. Also her siren. “I was afraid it was yours, to tell you the truth.”

“It wasn’t.”

“After that we convinced Tommy the Pinhead to tell us where you were. Two large, angry black women with semiautomatic handguns can be very persuasive-especially if one of them is Yolie.”

She made a left onto Route 1 and punched it, veering around anyone and everyone in her path.

“Why’d they take my clothes?”

“Gigi thought it would be funny.”

“She needs to work on her sense of humor.”

“She’ll have plenty of time at York Correctional.”

“They teach comedy there now?”

“That was a joke, mister.”

“Sorry, I’m not … real with it.”

In fact, he’d passed out again.

She hit ninety mph as she tore across the Baldwin Bridge and then up Route 9 to the clinic. Night was settling in as she pulled up at the ambulance entrance with a screech.

Mitch awoke with a startled yelp, his eyes wide with fright.

She put her arm around him. “You okay?”

“I–I thought I was back in that trunk again with Casey. It was like that scene in Out of Sight with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. After he escaped from prison, remember? Except it was pitch-black and he was dead. And I’d much rather have been stuffed in there with J-Lo. She was hot in that movie. Not Yvette Mimieux hot, but plenty hot.”

She smiled at him. “You’re jabbering. Have I told you recently how much I love it when you jabber?”

“Des, my head hurts.”

“I know.”

“And my toes really, really ache.”

“Good. That means the nerves are still working. You won’t lose them.”

“Lose them?”

She got out, charged through the double doors to the ER and hollered, “Get some help here!”

A doctor and a nurse started toward her at once. Des had been in and out of the clinic a million times and was acquainted with the doctor, a brisk, efficient Asian woman named Cindie Tashima.

“What have we got here?” Dr. Cindie asked as Des and the nurse hoisted Mitch into a wheelchair, his eyes blinking from the entrance’s bright lights.

“This man’s suffered a head wound and is in and out of consciousness. He was left for dead out at Breezy Point with no clothes on. We’re talking possible frostbite, especially to his feet.”

“Take him into room four and start re-warming him,” Dr. Cindie ordered the nurse, who promptly wheeled Mitch away. “Since they took his clothes I’m assuming he had no ID on him.”

“Probably threw his wallet in a Dumpster somewhere.”

“So he’s a John Doe?”

“No, he’s a Mitchell Berger.”

Des provided an administrative aide with Mitch’s address, date of birth and the name of his insurance provider. Dr. Cindie checked his body temperature and blood pressure while the nurse and an orderly unzipped the parkas Des and Yolie had covered him with and peeled off the bloody sweatshirt and shower curtain. Des watched them through the open doorway as they started re-warming his hands and feet in disposable basins filled with warm water. Not hot. Hot water could be such a shock to the system that it caused heart damage.

When the nurse handed Des the parkas Des said, “I’ll need the sweatshirt and shower curtain, too. How is he?”

“Conscious. And real anxious to talk to you about something.”

Des went into the room and said, “What is it, baby?”

“I–I forgot to tell you,” he murmured as Dr. Cindie examined his head wound. “When I was in Tommy the Pinhead’s trunk with Casey…”

“Is this about J-Lo again?”

“No, the tranny.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Which tranny?”

“Tommy drives a beat-up old black Trans Am, okay? And if you’re trying to find it here’s what to look for-he needs a new tranny real badly.”

“And you know this because?…”

“It kept revving and revving before it shifted into second with a real lurch. I smelled burnt rubber, too.”

Des didn’t bother to tell him they’d already located Tommy’s Trans Am. Just nodded and said, “A beat-up old black Trans Am with a bad tranny. Got it.”

“His Trans Am is toast, you know. When that tranny goes it’ll cost more to replace it than the whole car’s worth.”

She stared at him in disbelief, her pulse quickening. “I swear, sometimes you terrify me. You’ve got frostbite and a possible concussion.…”

“Definite concussion,” Dr. Cindie interjected.

“And yet you did it again.”

He frowned at her, his gaze slightly out of focus. “Did what?”

“Cracked my case.”

“I think I cracked a tooth. They were chattering so hard.”

“I’ll have a look at it in a second,” Dr. Cindie promised him.

Des bent down and kissed him. “I have to leave you for a little while. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

He didn’t answer her. Couldn’t. He was unconscious again.

The house was dark except for one light on inside. The porch light was out. Des rang the bell and stood there in the dark for a long time before she finally heard footsteps and the front door swung slowly open.

“Yes, what is it?” She peered out at Des from the darkened front hallway.

“I’m sorry to bother you again, Paulette, but I have more news for you. May I came in?”

Paulette stood there in taut silence for a moment before ushering Des inside, turning on lights as she led Des to the TV room, where Dr. Phil was in the process of stampeding his lame self into someone’s life. Des had always wondered who watched Dr. Phil. Now she knew. Dorset’s postmaster was still hard at work on the Carlo Rossi Chablis, a fresh gallon jug that was nearly full. The ashtray next to her recliner was crammed with cigarette butts.

“I seem to have lost track of time.” Paulette muted the TV as she slumped into her chair. “My phone rang a couple of times a while ago but I didn’t feel like answering it.”

“Paulette, have you eaten anything today?”

“I may have,” she answered vaguely, her eyes searching Des’s face. “What do you want to tell me?”

“This will be hard to take right on top of Hank’s loss but I’m sorry to say that we’ve just found Casey dead.”

The color drained from Paulette’s face. “Dead…” Her voice was a whisper. “What did … How did it happen?”

“He was stabbed to death at the Yankee Doodle Motor Court. We subsequently obtained information that his body had been left out on the beach at Breezy Point. We just found him there.”

“Oh, lord…” Paulette reached for a Merit and lit it with a disposable lighter, her hand trembling. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Tommy Stratton. We have him in custody.”

She shook her head, bewildered. “Why would he want to hurt Casey?”

“He claims that Casey’s been supplying him with prescription meds, cash and whatever else he could steal from Hank’s route. That Casey was our grinch.”

“And you believe him? That’s absurd. Hank was the grinch. You and I both know that.”

“Do we?”

“He confessed to it last night, didn’t he? I saw his confession with my own two eyes. He texted it to me before he killed himself.”

“He didn’t, actually,” Des said. “Kill himself, I mean. We were waiting for all of the forensics results to come back before we had this conversation with you but we believe that Hank was murdered last night-by a pair of killers who staged it to look like a suicide.”

“But he apologized to me. Sent me that text message.”

“Hank didn’t send it to you. His killers did.”

Paulette heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Des, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why would anyone want to murder Hank?”

“Because he’d discovered what was really going on. He even told me so at the Post Office. Only I was too dense to grasp it.”

“Told you what?”

“That Casey was in a deep hole. I thought he meant a psychological hole. He meant a financial hole-a huge gambling debt. Hank knew the real deal. That’s why he was killed. The only thing we haven’t been able to nail down is the identity of Casey’s partner.”

Paulette furrowed her brow. “I thought you just said Tommy the Pinhead was his partner.”

“No, Tommy worked for the loan shark who Casey owed the money to. Someone else was helping Casey steal all of that stuff from Hank’s route. The same someone else who helped him stage Hank’s suicide scene last night. Someone who’s careful and shrewd. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on Casey but he was more of a follower than a leader, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, yes. I suppose that he was a…” The doorbell interrupted her. “I wonder who that is.”

“I’m expecting company. Hope you don’t mind.” Des went to the front door and opened it. Grisky, Questa and The Aardvark were clustered out on Paulette’s front porch in the frosty cold, all three of them peering at her with mystified expressions. “Come on in, gentlemen.”

They came on in, Grisky’s eyes swiveling to take in the surroundings. “Shmokin’ hot train set,” he observed. “But what is up with all of those tubas?”

“Please follow me,” Des said, leading them back to the TV room, where Paulette sat, grief-stricken, staring at Dr. Phil on the muted flat-screen. “I’ve just informed Paulette that we found Casey. I was filling her in on what happened as best as I could.”

Grisky nodded grimly. “Terrible situation.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Questa said. “This must be an impossibly hard day for you.”

“Thank you,” Paulette said softly.

“If it’s any consolation,” Grisky said, “I can assure you that Lieutenant Snipes has both suspects in state police custody.”

Paulette looked at him curiously. “Both suspects?”

“Tommy had a helper,” Des explained. “Gigi Garanski.”

Paulette made a face. “I knew she was no good. I told him and I told him. But he wouldn’t listen. He just wouldn’t…” She trailed off with a sigh. “May I offer you coffee or something?”

“No, we’re good,” The Aardvark told her.

Then he and the other two men stood there waiting for Des to explain why she’d summoned them.

“I was telling Paulette that we don’t believe Hank committed suicide. Or that he was stealing his own mail. Hank was just an innocent bystander to this ugly mess. But he knew too much. He knew that Casey had a gambling problem. He knew that Casey owed Slick Rick Fontanella a lot of money. And he knew that to pay Slick Rick off Casey had resorted to stealing his mail. We’re positive that Casey was our grinch. But we don’t believe he acted alone. It’s simply not credible that Casey figured out a way to raid all of the mailboxes in the Historic District in broad daylight over a period of two weeks without ever being noticed. Casey was a part-time employee. He worked on Saturdays, period. And Inspector Questa has assured us that the Dorset branch of the U.S. Postal Service is a secure, well-run branch. Am I correct so far, Inspector?”

Questa nodded his huge head. “Correct. Casey Zander couldn’t have pulled this off on his own. We have too many security measures in place.”

Paulette stubbed out her cigarette, considering this carefully. “Then how could he have done it?”

“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought,” Des replied. “In my opinion the best way to steal Hank’s mail would be by pulling up a few minutes behind him in a second mail truck. Who better to steal the mail than another mail carrier? It would never occur to a resident or passerby that the second carrier was removing the mail as opposed to delivering it. Nor would they think twice if they noticed a second truck pulling up just after Hank went by. They’d just figure that you folks had so much volume during the holidays that you had to add an extra carrier.”

Paulette poured herself some more wine and took a sip. “I suppose they would,” she acknowledged.

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Casey must have had a partner on the inside, Paulette. And the only way that any of this makes sense is if that partner was you.”

Paulette stared at her blankly. “Me?”

“You,” she stated. “And you were awful damned clever about it, too. You and your year-end Grumman LLV fleet readiness review.”

Questa frowned at her. “What readiness review?”

“Oh, it’s all very official, Inspector. She even carries around a clipboard with printed forms that have to be filled out.”

Questa said it louder. “What readiness review?”

“According to Paulette, all ten of the branch’s trucks have to be road tested by the end of the year in order to qualify for the postal service’s budgeted retrofitting program.”

“There is no such program,” Questa said.

“Correct, it’s totally bogus. You know that. Postmaster Zander knows that. And Hank Merrill knew it, too, because he got real peeved when Paulette mentioned it to him in my presence yesterday. But her other carriers didn’t know it. Didn’t give it any thought either. I’m guessing from the look on your face, Inspector, that not one of them even bothered to mention it to your investigators.”

“You’re guessing right.”

“Why would they? It was just a stupid little bureaucratic annoyance. But to Paulette it was everything. It gave her authorization to road test all of the branch’s trucks while her carriers were taking their lunch breaks. No one questioned her authority. She’s the boss. Casey was just a part-timer. No way he could remove a spare set of truck keys from the safe in Paulette’s office. But Paulette could. And she did. Hank told me that three of the carriers have been going to the gym together every day on their lunch break. They leave their vehicles in the Post Office parking lot and walk to the health club at The Works. My guess? She’s been taking their trucks out over and over again. Who’d pay attention to whether she took the same truck out more than once? Who’d even care?”

“I want to make sure that I’m hearing you right,” Grisky said. “Are you saying that Mrs. Zander concocted a fake vehicle-readiness review so she could go out and steal the mail that Hank Merrill had just delivered?”

Des nodded her head. “No one suspected a thing. No one questioned a thing. Hell, it was such a petty matter that I didn’t even think of it until Mitch laid something on me just now at Shoreline Clinic.”

“Laid what on you?” The Aardvark asked.

“That Tommy the Pinhead’s car has a bad tranny. That’s when I remembered the little spat that Paulette and Hank had yesterday about the tranny on his mail truck.”

Paulette sat there grim-faced, saying nothing.

“Hank got way testy when Paulette asked him about it. Unusually so for such an easygoing guy. I couldn’t figure out why. Now I get why-because he knew what you two were up to, didn’t he, Paulette?”

Paulette still didn’t respond. Just reached for a cigarette and lit it.

“How did he know, Paulette?”

“You may as well tell us,” Questa blustered at her. “Your cooperation is all you’ve got going for you right now.”

Paulette let out a hollow laugh. “I have nothing going for me right now. Nothing and no one. So I’ll tell you. Why the hell not?” She drank down some more wine. “Hank came home early from basketball practice the night before last and overheard us arguing in the kitchen.”

“This was the night of Rut’s party?” Des asked, remembering how tense Paulette had seemed. Also how reluctant she’d been to call in the postal inspectors.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What did Hank overhear?”

“Me telling Casey that I couldn’t keep taking the same trucks out over and over again. That people at work would start to notice. And we’d have to find another way or…” Paulette broke off, her chest rising and falling. “That’s when Hank walked in. He got very, very upset. Told us he was going to call the postal inspectors. Have my boy arrested.”

“Not to mention you.”

“I didn’t care about myself. I never have. Casey was my son. He needed me. I couldn’t let those thugs hurt him, could I?”

“You didn’t have any money you could give them?”

“I’d already given Casey every penny I could lay my hands on. I didn’t have a cent left. So I did what any mother would do-I helped him. I pleaded with Hank to give us a chance. Hank could be such a Boy Scout sometimes. He said he’d have to ‘think it over.’ That was the best I could get out of him. He wouldn’t even look at me after that. Hardly spoke to me except at Rut’s party. And then, like you just said, he got real angry while you were at the Post Office yesterday.”

“And you got real nervous when you saw me giving him my card. Especially after I told you I’d be looking into the matter while you contacted the postal inspectors. You’d already done everything you could to hold them off. When the folks on Hank’s route started asking where their mail was you ran straight to Rut with it, figuring he’d do his best to keep it local for you. He’s fond of you and you took advantage of that. Tell me, why did you leave all of that torn-up mail on Johnny Cake?”

“Like you said, folks were starting to ask questions. I thought it created a plausible explanation-that maybe a couple of local teenagers were to blame. I was just hoping to buy some time.”

“But you couldn’t buy time with Hank.”

“I asked him what he was going to do,” Paulette recalled bitterly. “He told me that he intended to tell you people everything. He said he had no choice. Which left me with no choice.”

“So you staged Hank’s suicide and made it look like he’d been the grinch. You murdered him to save Casey. And Casey helped you do it. The two of you pulled it off together.”

“Yes,” Paulette admitted. “I got the idea after Bryce Peck took his own life. I thought that maybe we could make it look like Hank took his, too. And have him confess to stealing the mail.”

“Which would wrap the whole mess up in a nice neat bow. And that would be the end of it.”

“Did Bryce Peck have anything to do with stealing those prescription meds from Hank Merrill’s route?” The Aardvark wanted to know.

Paulette shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

Des said, “Casey was your son. You felt you had to rescue him. I get that. But you sacrificed Hank in the process. How could you do that? Didn’t you love him, too?”

Paulette took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Hank was nice to have around. Good company, handy. But I’ve only been in love with one man in my life-my ex-husband Clint. After Clint left me I’ve never let another man into my heart. It’s just been Casey and me.”

“Why don’t you tell us how you and Casey staged Hank’s murder?”

Paulette gazed out the front window at the darkened street. “When Hank came home from work all he wanted to do was play with his train set. He didn’t want to talk to me. I fetched him a beer, like usual. Only this time I added two ground-up Valiums. Within a half hour he was in la-la land. Casey and I walked him out to the garage and got him into the passenger seat of his Passat. I made sure he was slumped over when I backed out of the driveway, just in case one of our neighbors saw us leave.”

“One of your neighbors did. She saw Hank’s car pull out and head toward Frederick Lane. She couldn’t see who was behind the wheel. Assumed it was Hank. And saw no passengers in the car.”

“Casey left a few minutes later. He went in the opposite direction, like he was heading to the Rustic. He wasn’t. He met me at the boat launch on Kinney Road. It’s a remote spot. I figured nobody would come along for hours. I also knew that the Beckmans and the Shermans were both away.”

“Wait, how did you know that?” The Aardvark wondered.

“Because they’d stopped their mail.”

“Of course.” He puffed out his cheeks. “You’d be in a position to know that, wouldn’t you?”

“I had an unmarked prescription bottle full of Valium in my pocket. Also a pair of latex gloves. I’d already stowed the hose, the duct tape and box cutter in Hank’s trunk. And a full bottle of Jack Daniels.”

Des said, “When I asked if you kept any bourbon in the house you marched straight into the kitchen and came back with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Nice bit of playacting on your part. You bought yourself another bottle, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t have to. One of Hank’s firehouse buddies gave him one for Christmas. It was under the tree in the living room.”

“What’d you do after you parked at the boat launch?”

“I got out and asked him to move on over behind the wheel, which he did. He was very compliant. Or he was until I told him to drink down the bottle of Jack Daniels. He had a few sips but then he didn’t want anymore. He became extremely resistant, in fact. We had to force him to drink it. Casey gripped him by the neck while I-”

“You held a gun to his head,” Des said. “A Smith and Wesson.38 Special.”

Paulette looked at her in surprise. “Why, yes.”

“After he passed out you slipped on the latex gloves and got down to business. Tucked the Valium bottle into his jacket pocket and sent yourself that text message from his phone. Am I right?”

She nodded her head. “I left my cell phone here. I was careful to make sure I did that. Casey got the other things out of the trunk. We duct taped the hose to the tailpipe, then ran it in through the driver’s window and rolled it up.”

“You thought of every little detail. You even left my business card on the seat next to Hank’s phone. You were very clever, Paulette. But you weren’t smart. You left bruising on his neck and forehead when you forced him to drink that bourbon. You also failed to account for how Hank managed to rig up the hose to his tailpipe without ever getting out of the car. It was pouring rain out. Yet, somehow, his hair was dry. So were his shoes and his floor mat. The duct tape and box cutter were wet when I got there. The passenger seat, too. And the passenger-side floor mat was missing.”

“I panicked a little,” Paulette conceded. “Actually, I panicked a lot. I guess it was the … finality of it.”

“Yeah, death is pretty damned final.”

“I started shaking and couldn’t stop. So I sat back down in the passenger seat to collect myself. I wanted to make sure that we’d done everything right before I turned on the engine and we left him there. When I realized I’d gotten the floor mat all wet I took it along. Figured it didn’t matter if the duct tape and box cutter were wet.”

“And what about the seat?”

Paulette took a small sip of her wine. “There was nothing I could do about it. I hoped you wouldn’t notice. That was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t your only one. You also took the Jack Daniels bottle with you.”

“That was Casey’s doing,” she acknowledged glumly. “I told him to leave it there. The poor fool thought he was being thorough. He just didn’t understand.”

“Where is it now?”

“He tossed it in a Dumpster this morning when he went out to buy cigarettes.”

“And what about the.38 that you held to Hank’s forehead?” Questa asked. “We traced an identical weapon to one of your carriers, Abe Monahan. Abe is currently on vacation with his family. How did you get the weapon out of his house? Did Tina Champlain help you?”

“Tina?” Paulette blinked at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Where’d you get the.38, Paulette?” Des asked.

“Casey bought it last year from some lowlife at the Rustic. It made him feel manly to have a gun.”

“Where is it now?”

“In the bottom drawer of my dresser. Do you want me to get it?”

“That’s okay. We’ll do it.”

“Whatever,” Paulette said hopelessly. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now that he’s gone. I was his mother. When you’re a mother you do whatever it takes to protect your child. He was desperate. I gave him every penny I had. And when that still wasn’t enough I did what I had to do. What any mother would do. None of you are mothers. You don’t know what it means. Casey came from inside of me. He was connected to me. And he wasn’t strong. He still needed me. He never stopped needing me.”

“And now he’s dead,” Des pointed out. “And you got him killed. When you murdered Hank you wrote Casey’s death sentence. There was absolutely no way Slick Rick and Tommy the Pinhead could let him stay alive. Not once they knew that the postal inspectors were grilling him about Hank’s so-called suicide. Casey wasn’t strong, like you said. They were positive he’d rat them out to save his own skin. They had to create some daylight between themselves and Casey. You left them no choice, Paulette. By killing your own boyfriend to protect Casey you ended up getting Casey killed.”

“I did not,” Paulette insisted heatedly. “Don’t you dare blame me for what happened. It’s Josie Cantro’s fault. Every damned bit of it.”

“Are you implicating his life coach in these crimes?” Grisky asked.

“I’m saying she led Casey on. He thought she was in love with him. He thought they had a future together. That’s why he started betting so much money on football games. He wanted to make a fortune so that they could run away to Hawaii together. He did it for Josie. She’s the one who ought to be locked up. If it hadn’t been for that manipulative blond bitch, none of this would have ever happened.”

“She told me she was trying to help him be more assertive,” Des said.

“How?” Paulette demanded. “By filling his head with crazy fantasies? He was still a child. I should never have brought those two together. That’s what I regret. But after she helped Hank quit smoking I thought that maybe, just maybe, she could help Casey, too. Biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never forgive her. She’s supposed to be a professional. She should have known that he’d fall head over heels in love with her. Why, he even talked about her as if the two of them were actual lovers.”

Des didn’t touch that. None of them did. There was no point. Was Josie Cantro America’s sweetheart? Not really. Did Des approve of her methods? Not really. Did trouble seem to have a way of following her around? Yeah, it did. So did lucrative estate settlements. But was Josie legally responsible for anything that had just gone down? No, she wasn’t. Not unless the M.E. discovered that Bryce Peck’s death was something other than a straight suicide. So far, he’d found no evidence of foul play and Des’s gut feeling was that he never would. Bryce Peck was a burn-out case who’d taken his own life.

“Paulette, we can debate Josie Cantro’s ethics all night,” she said. “But it won’t alter the simple truth of this matter, which is that Josie didn’t steal the U.S. Mail or kill Hank. You did.”

Paulette said nothing in response. Just stared morosely out the front window at the street.

“Well, I guess that’s it then,” Grisky concluded, rubbing his hands together.

“Real solid work, Master Sergeant,” Sam Questa said.

Grisky nodded his jarhead in agreement. “Good job, girlfriend. If you ask me, your talents are wasted in this town.”

Des looked at Paulette, who was still staring out the front window, before she said, “You couldn’t be more wrong, Agent Grisky. This is where I’m needed. And I’m still not your girlfriend.”