The Snow White Christmas Cookie

CHAPTER 7

W hat in the hell am I doing?

Des pulled around behind the firehouse and used her key to the back door. She went directly up the stairs to the meeting room, which had a window that offered a panoramic view of the entire Dorset Street Historic District buried under its blanket of pure white snow. The village’s highest concentration of mailboxes was situated directly across from her-the boxes for the Captain Chadwick House condo colony and the four houses that adjoined it on Maple Lane. More than a dozen mailboxes bunched together right there. The flags on three of them were raised, meaning the residents had left something for Hank to take.

Des set a folding chair in front of the window and parked herself there, testing out the zoom lens on her Nikon D80. It was so powerful that she could make out the words Approved by the Postmaster General on the boxes halfway to Town Hall. She’d brought her lunch-a container of steaming-hot clam chowder from Mitzi’s fish market. Des opened the container and helped herself to some. It was chilly in the firehouse. And the wind was starting to pick up, rattling the windows. She kept her jacket on as she settled in.

Why am I doing this?

Because this was her town. These were her people. If someone was preying on them then she wanted to be the one to handle it. True, the jurisdictional boundaries were pretty clear. If a crime involved the U.S. Postal Service then it was a job for the postal inspectors. If an illegal prescription drug ring was targeting Dorset, then that was a job for the state’s Narcotics Task Force. But Des didn’t like the idea of reaching out for help. So she was giving herself this day to see what she could see. If nothing jumped out at her then, okay, she’d play it by the book. But she needed to do this her way. If she didn’t then she’d just be an empty uniform.

She spotted Hank as soon as his white Grumman LLV turned onto Dorset Street from Big Branch. The mail truck was pretty hard to miss with those red and blue stripes and postal insignias stamped all over it. Especially when it was the only vehicle out on the road. Through her zoom lens she watched Hank nose it slowly from curbside box to curbside box. The LLV’s steering wheel was on the right-hand side. Hank used his right hand to open the mailbox, his left to grab the mail from the tray next to him. Then he reached across his body to stuff the mail in, closing the box with his right hand before he moved on. It was not an easy or natural repetitive motion. She wondered how many carriers developed rotator cuff problems from doing it hundreds of times every day. She also wondered how they dealt with the monotony of performing the same exact task the same exact way, day in and day out. Then again, she supposed that someone could say the same thing about her job or Mitch’s or a brain surgeon’s. Every job had its share of sameness. The challenge was to find a way to keep it fresh.

So what was Hank’s way?

Now he pulled up directly across from her at the Captain Chadwick House. Her zoom lens gave her a straight-on close-up view of Hank filling the mailboxes with the catalogues, junk mail and packages that had arrived on the early truck from Norwich. As he inched his way forward, box by box, Des watched his every move, snapping pictures in case she needed them. When he reached a box with a raised flag he paused to remove two unstamped envelopes. One he held on to. His Christmas tip, Des figured. The other he returned to the box. Lem’s plow money, she assumed. Maple Lane’s residents were still leaving cash out, grinch or no grinch. That was Dorset. Cranky Yankees did not, would not, change their ways.

Now Hank stopped and got out and went around to the back of the truck. He opened it and removed a carton from L.L. Bean. A big one, at least two feet square, though it didn’t weigh much judging by the way he was handling it. He locked the truck, just like he’d told Des he did, and clomped his way through the snow to Nan Sidell’s little farmhouse next door to Rut Peck’s. He set the box down on the front porch under the overhang and rang the bell. He was starting back to his truck when the front door opened and Nan, a middle-school teacher, called out to him. Hank stopped to accept a paper plate of cookies from her. They chatted there for a sec, both of them very animated.

Meanwhile, back at the Captain Chadwick House, one of its elderly residents was waddling through the deep snow down to the curb-none other than her good friend Bella Tillis, looking like Nanook of Nostrand Avenue in her hooded down jacket, fleece pants and duck boots equipped with bright orange Yaktrax snow grippers. The old girl must have been watching for Hank. Didn’t want to give that damned grinch a chance to snatch her mail. She collected it and went tromping back inside, her precious bubble-wrapped packages of meds clutched to her chest. Des couldn’t help smiling.

Hank had unlocked his truck and moved on. As he neared Town Hall a red Champlain Landscaping plow pickup turned onto Dorset Street from Big Branch and began working its way slowly along in Hank’s wake. It wasn’t there to plow-its blade was raised high up off of the ground. No, its driver was there to check out the contents of each and every mailbox, leafing carefully through the mail Hank had just delivered before returning it to the box. Sometimes all of it, sometimes not. Sometimes he held on to an envelope and took it with him back to his truck. Des sat there watching him through her zoom lens. He was incredibly calm as he stood there rummaging through other peoples’ mail. So damned calm she almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

She went back downstairs to her cruiser. Pulled it around to the street and caught up with the red truck, flashing her lights at him. When he came to a stop she got out, big Smokey hat planted firmly on her head, and approached him.

Pat Faulstich, the thick-necked young Swamp Yankee with the reddish see-through beard, sat there behind the wheel looking nervous. Same as he had at McGee’s Diner earlier that morning.

“How’s it going, Pat?” she asked, tipping her hat at him.

He cleared his throat, swallowing. “Was I speeding or something?”

“Nope.”

“Then why’d you pull me over?”

“You tell me. What in the heck are you doing?”

“Picking up Lem’s money.” He grabbed a dozen or more envelopes from the seat next to him and showed them to her. “Lem’s the one who usually picks ’em up but he’s at the hospital on account of Kylie so he told me to. I didn’t take anything. It’s all there, I swear. And I don’t have a thing in my pockets except my own money, which is like maybe seven dollars, okay?”

“You seem a bit defensive, Pat.” Agitated was more like it. “Why is that?”

He colored slightly. “I’m not. I just … why are you hassling me?”

“Mind if I look behind your seat?”

He shrugged his big shoulders. “Go right ahead. I got nothing to hide.”

The storage area behind his seat was a messy tangle of food wrappers, work gloves, sweatshirts, tools and jumper cables. She saw no U.S. Mail parcels back there. Nor on the floor beneath the dashboard. Nor on the seat next to him. There was a sheet of paper on the seat that appeared to be a computer printout of addresses. Several had been crossed out with a pen.

“Looking for something special, ma’am?”

Des showed him her smile. “Just looking.”

“I do what Lem tells me to. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

“Thank you, Pat. I just may do that.”

“I got like forty-three driveways to do. Can I go now?”

“I don’t see why not. Are you planning to visit Kylie?”

Pat frowned at her. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I heard you two were tight.”

“We’ve hung out a few times. But she’s the boss’s daughter, you know? Plus Tina doesn’t like me.”

“Is Kylie tight with anyone else?”

“You’d know that better than me.”

“Would I?”

“Well, yeah. Nothing goes on around here you don’t know about, am I right?”

“Some days you are totally right, Pat. But then there are other days, days like today, when I realize that I haven’t got the faintest idea what’s happening.” She tipped her hat at him again. “Drive safe, okay?”

It took her nearly an hour to make it to Lawrence and Memorial on I-95. The state’s plow crews were doing their best to keep an emergency lane open in each direction, but a good fifteen inches of snow had fallen and the howling wind was starting to blow it right back into the freshly plowed and sanded lane. If she tried to push her cruiser up over twenty mph she could feel it start to fishtail on her.

She found Lem and Tina seated in the surgical waiting room, a big room that on most days was crammed with relatives and loved ones. Today there were only a few families there. When hospitals got advance warning of a major blizzard they postponed most elective procedures. The only patients who were in surgery right now were emergency cases like Kylie.

Tina’s dark, protruding eyes grew wide when she saw Des approaching them. Quickly, she lowered her gaze and went back to doing what she’d been doing, which was texting. Lem sat and stared right at Des like a hulking, menacing bear. He must have rushed there straight from work. He was wearing a pair of filthy tan coveralls and oil-stained work boots.

“I’m probably the last person in the world you want to see right now.”

“I’m not blaming you,” he grumbled. “It was Kylie’s own stupid fault.”

“I tried to get her to stop. I got out of my car and begged her to stop.”

“I’m sure you did,” Lem said.

Tina said nothing at all. Just kept on texting.

“How is she doing?”

“Her ankle’s busted into a million pieces,” he replied, running a thick hand over his shiny shaved head. “The orthopedic surgeon said he’d have to insert titanium screws and plates and stuff like that. She’s only eighteen years old. This’ll bother her for the rest of her life.”

“I’m real sorry to hear that. Can the three of us talk somewhere for a few minutes?”

“Why not? She’ll be in surgery for at least another hour.” Lem got his huge self up out of the molded plastic chair and looked down at Tina, who was still sitting there texting. “Could you stop doing that for thirty goddamned seconds and come with us?”

“I’m telling my mom what’s going on, you mind?” she huffed at him. But she did get up and join them.

Down the hall was a small room that used to be the smoking lounge. Now it was used for private conversations between physicians and families. Nobody was in there. There was a table with a half dozen chairs set around it. The three of them sat down. Tina immediately glanced down at the screen of her cell phone. Lem immediately glared at her. There was definite hostility between them. Part of it was the strain of Kylie’s not-so-excellent adventure. Part of it was that same sour vibe that Des had picked up on at Rut’s party.

Des took off her hat and set it on the table. “Talk to me. Why did Kylie try to steal those Ugg boots?”

“Because we took away her charge cards,” Lem answered.

“We had to,” Tina explained. “The girl’s a shopaholic. She becomes totally obsessed with this jacket or those boots and she will not think about anything else. Or do anything else. She won’t work. Won’t go to college. She just sits around the house all day dreaming her stupid dreams. Wants to be like that Kim Kardashian or one of those ‘Real Housewives’ who lives in a big mansion somewhere and spends all day getting pedicures and planning fancy parties. I keep telling her, sweetie, that’s television. It’s not real. You got to work for every little thing you get in life. But she doesn’t want to hear that.”

Lem tugged uneasily at his long beard. “Is she in bad trouble?”

“Possibly. There’s the shoplifting charge. She also shoved Joanie Tooker to the ground and dislocated her elbow. Joanie can call that criminal assault if she chooses to. And then she fled the scene of a crime and engaged me in a pursuit that endangered the lives of several drivers before she plowed into that building. We’re talking hit and run, reckless endangerment…”

“Are you saying she may go to jail?” Tina’s dark eyes searched Des’s face apprehensively.

“That’ll be up to the district prosecutor.”

Lem let the weight of this soak in for a moment. “We’ll have to get her a lawyer, won’t we? Damn, this is just what I don’t need right now. I can barely make my payroll. You don’t suppose if she apologized to Joanie and, say, we offered to repair the building that maybe that’d do the trick, do you?”

“Like I said, it’ll be up to the district prosecutor.”

Tina’s cell phone vibrated on the table in front of her. She squinted at the screen and said, “It’s my mother again. Back in a sec, okay?”

“Whatever,” Lem growled.

She was already thumbing out a text as she took off down the hall.

Des sat there with Lem, growing increasingly aware of his powerful scent. The man smelled as if he’d been marinating in beef broth for a week.

“I ran into Pat Faulstich on Dorset Street before I came here. He was collecting your money from your customers’ mailboxes.”

“Yeah, I asked him to. Was he leaving those flyers, too?”

“I didn’t see any flyers.”

He looked at her in disbelief. “He didn’t pick up the flyers? I told the damned mo-ron to get ’em from my house. They’re right there on the dining table. Big stack of yellow flyers saying we got to tack on an ten extra bucks from now on. It’s because my supplier keeps jacking up the price of road salt. Pat promised me he’d put ’em in the boxes. And he’s my best man, can you imagine?”

“Does he have any money problems that you’re aware of?”

“He hasn’t got any of it, if that’s what you mean.”

“How about drugs? Is he into drugs?”

“Smokes a little weed now and then. All of those boys do. But he’s never been in trouble with the law or had an accident on the job. And he shows up every morning, which is more than I can say for a lot of them. They stay up half of the night boozing at the Rustic and some of ’em are still so wasted when they show up that I have to send ’em home. You got to have your head on straight when you’re manning a plow truck. If you don’t you’ll sideswipe a telephone pole. But those boys just don’t give a damn. I call ’em boys but they’re not. Pat’s twenty-six. When I was his age I already had a wife and an eight-year-old daughter.” He peered across the table at her. “Why are we talking about this?”

“You have routine access to the mailboxes on Hank Merrill’s route.”

“So?…”

“So someone’s been stealing from those boxes. They’ve taken mail, small packages, Hank’s tips…”

“And my money.” He stabbed himself in the chest with a blunt thumb.

“Do you know anything about this, Lem?”

“You bet I do. I know that some bastard’s taking food out of my mouth. I know that if I ever get my hands on him I’m going to-to…” Lem broke off, glowering at her. “You think I’m the thief? Why would I do something crazy like that? No, don’t tell me. I already know the answer. You think I’m hiding money from Tina so I can spend it on Debbie, am I right? That is total bull. How does this stuff even start? I’ll bet it’s Rut Peck. That old geezer’s always flapping his gums. Especially after he gets a glass of stout in him. Let me ask you something-why is my marriage any of your business?”

“It’s not.”

“Damned right it’s not. Debbie’s husband left her for a younger woman last summer, okay? And she called me out of the blue. I hadn’t heard from her in ten, twelve years. Debbie was the first girl I was ever with. We were each other’s first. And she was feeling kind of sad and sentimental, so I met her for lunch in Mystic. She’s way out of my league now. All frosted and polished. Designer clothes, fancy perfume. She sure smells good. You know what Tina smells like? Tina smells like Windex. Anyhow, we ended up taking a room at the Mohegan Sun-strictly for old times’ sake. It was just that one time, I swear. That one time and then another time two weeks later. But I’m not carrying on some kind of love affair with her. Us being together, it was just something Debbie needed. And I was happy to help her out. I mean, she and Tina are the only two women I’ve ever been with in my whole life. First Debbie, then Tina. There are still folks in Dorset who think Debbie was my true love and that I only married Tina because I knocked her up. That’s bull. Tina and me have had a lot of good years together.”

“And how are things between you right now?”

Lem narrowed his gaze at her. “Why are you asking?”

“You seem a bit snappish with each other.”

“We’ve hit a rough patch,” he acknowledged. “It happens. Hell, we’ve been together almost twenty years. And I still love that little peanut, too. Trouble is that she doesn’t feel the same way about me. She used to call me her big poppa bear. Now I come home from work and she’s on me, yap-yap-yap. Telling me I ought to lose weight, shave off my beard, grow my business, yap-yap-yap. She’s just not happy anymore. I don’t know why. Maybe her mom does. Tina’s on that damned phone with her day and night.” He glanced up at the doorway as Tina returned now. “I need a smoke,” he said abruptly. “Do you mind?”

“Go right ahead,” Des responded.

He got up and lumbered out of the lounge, digging a rumpled pack of Camels out of the pocket of his coveralls.

Tina sat back down and set her phone on the table in front of her, gazing down at its screen every few seconds. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of it. “I guess you want to talk about Kylie.”

“That would be great.”

“I wish I could get through to her,” Tina said with a shake of her frizzy head. “All she thinks about are clothes and boys. I keep telling her, sweetie, you have got to figure out who you want to be. Otherwise you’ll end up like me-cleaning other people’s toilets for a living. Mind you, I make as much in a week as a lot of my customers do. And I could tell you some things that nobody else knows. Trust me, if you really want to find out what’s going on, ask a cleaning lady. But this isn’t the life I wanted for myself. I wanted to be a nurse. I want Kylie to be a nurse. Now I don’t know if that’ll even be possible with her ankle all busted up like that. A nurse has to be on her feet all day.” Tina looked at Des curiously. “What did you and Lem talk about?”

“He told me that you two have hit a rough patch.”

Tina bristled, her nostrils flaring. “If by that he means he’s mixed up again with that fancy tramp, Debbie, then I guess we have.”

“He said he isn’t mixed up with her.”

“And you believed him? He’s a man. Men lie.”

“Are you seeing someone else, too?”

“What gives you the right to ask me that?”

“I’m trying to assess the stability of Kylie’s home life for my report. My general impressions can be a determining factor in whether the district prosecutor decides to prosecute her case. But if you don’t want to talk to me…”

“No, no, I’ll talk to you.” Tina shot a furtive glance over her shoulder at the door. Lem was still outside having a smoke. “Yes, I do have a male friend. He’s sensitive and caring. He respects me. He loves me. Lem doesn’t anymore.”

“Want to tell me a little bit about him?”

“His name’s Matt. He works for Verizon. He’s married to someone else, too. A woman who doesn’t love him or understand him. Matt is here for me emotionally. He listens to me. And he’s incredibly affectionate. I don’t just mean the physical part. Although that’s been amazing. I swear, every time I think about him my heart starts beating so fast. Me and Lem haven’t exactly been burning up the sheets lately. And even back when we were he never took my needs into consideration. Matt does. He’s so romantic and nurturing.”

“Where did you two meet?”

“On a dating site. It was like he was my best friend instantly. Right away, I was telling him things that I’ve never told anyone. And so was he. It was totally amazing. He’s…” Tina hesitated, reddening. “Matt’s my soul mate. I’ve never been this close with anyone in my whole life. We must text back and forth a hundred times a day. Lem thinks I’m texting my mom. I’m not. It’s Matt. It’s always Matt.”

“Where does he live?”

“Just outside of Tacoma.”

“Tacoma, Washington? How often are you able to be together?”

“We’re together constantly.”

“I mean in the flesh, Tina.”

“We haven’t been together that way yet. But real soon, we’re hoping.”

“Are you telling me you’re in love with a man who you’ve never met?”

Tina sighed at her impatiently. “Matt and I have an intense bond.”

“Meaning, what, you sext back and forth a lot?”

“You’re making it sound smutty. It’s not like that. What we have is romantic and intimate and so hot. I’ve done things with Matt that I’ve never done with Lem. He’s just so loving and tender. Know what he said to me just now while I was out in the hall?”

“Really can’t imagine.”

“He said ‘Every time I’m inside of you I feel like I’m where I was meant to be all along.’ Lem’s never felt that way about me. Not even when we were a couple of sex-crazed teenagers. And now he doesn’t even want me. He wants Debbie, who’s not even that good-looking anymore. Which Matt is, by the way. He’s tall and slim with good shoulders and strong hands. He has the most amazing blue eyes.”

“And you know this how?”

“He sends me pictures of himself.”

“Nude pictures?”

Tina reddened again, nodding. “And I send him pictures of me. I take them in the bathroom mirror with my phone.”

“You’re not worried that he might show them to someone else?”

“Matt would never do that to me. Our relationship is built on trust.”

“And what about Lem? Aren’t you afraid he might find a nude photo of Matt on your computer?”

“Lem doesn’t want me anymore, I told you.”

“That’s right, you did,” Des said with a twinge of profound sadness. Not because what Tina Champlain was telling her was shocking, but because it wasn’t. The Champlains were just a typical modern Dorset family. None of them were participating in their own lives. Instead of working toward a genuine career, Kylie wanted to be a reality TV star. Tina was more emotionally and sexually involved with her cell phone than with her husband. And Lem was reliving his glory days with his first girlfriend while Champlain Landscaping seemed to be circling the drain. Kylie had stolen a pair of four-hundred-dollar Ugg boots to keep her dream alive. Tina was sending and receiving pornographic text messages and photographs. What was Lem resorting to? Was he siphoning off money from his own business to pay for those trysts with Debbie at the Mohegan Sun? Was he stealing prescription meds, gift cards and Hank Merrill’s Christmas tips? “Tina, this is the part where I have to tell you something you won’t want to hear.”

Tina frowned at her. “About Kylie?”

“About Matt. You have no idea who he really is, okay? Matt could be some sleaze in Croatia who’s peddling those pictures of you on a porn site. Matt could be the online identity of a half-dozen horny sophomores in a frat house somewhere. Matt could be a predator who’s looking to steal your identity or nuke your credit.”

Tina’s eyes hardened. “Why would you say something horrible like that?”

“Because it’s my job to look out for you. I’ve seen what can happen. I’ve seen an innocent blond schoolgirl who thought she was meeting up at West Farms Mall with this nice high school boy she’d met on Facebook. There was no nice high school boy. She was abducted and gang raped by a wolf pack for forty-eight hours straight before they left her for dead.”

“Des, I’m not fourteen years old. I know what I’m doing. But I get where you’re coming from.”

“Do you?”

“Absolutely. You think I’m stupid.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do,” Tina said angrily. “So stupid that I can’t even tell what’s real. What I have with Matt is real. The way we make each other feel is real. He’s the best thing that’s happened to me in years and don’t you tell me otherwise. My daughter may never walk normal again. And she may go to jail. How dare you show up here and crap all over the one good thing I have going on in my life? Who in the hell do you think you are?”