"Hell, no."

Doug felt a little better.Hobie still looked awful, but the shocked incoherence of last night and the dissolution of the past few weeks seemed to have disappeared. He seemed more confident now, closer to his normally abrasive self.

"Doug?" Stevens turned toward him. "I would like to speak to my client alone from here on. I may need your testimony in court, and I don't want to jeopardize its validity by allowing you access to privileged information."

Doug nodded. "Okay. I'll be waiting right outside."

"Fine."

"Thanks,"Hobie said.

"I'll be by to see you later." Doug knocked on the closed door and it was opened from the outside. He was walking down the hall toward the front office when he heard a familiar voice behind him. "Mr.Albin ? Can I talk to you for a moment?"

He turned to see Mike Trenton beckoning him from the doorway of an office.

"Doug. I thought I told you to call me Doug."

"Doug?"

He followed Mike into a small room dominated by a huge desk. Two walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with textbooks and bound case studies. "This used to be the police library," Mike explained, noticing his glance. "Well, it still is, but now it doubles as my office."

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Mr. Beecham."

"I thought you were off all mailman cases."

Mike shrugged. "It's a small department. A lot's been happening. We're shorthanded. Besides, this is not a 'mailman case.' "

"It is too, and you know it."

"I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Mr. Beecham."

Doug began pacing up and down the length of the tiny crowded room. "Come on, Mike. You know damn well thatHobie didn't kill that girl."

"I know no such thing. I'd like to help you, I really would, but Mr.

Beecham's fingerprints -- bloody fingerprints, I might add -- were found all over the murder weapon and all over the room. And those photos on the wall . .

." He shook his head. "They're not proof of anything, but they're certainly a sign of a sick mind --"

"Those photos were sent to him by his brother."

"His dead brother?"

"What's the matter with you, Mike? What's happened? A week ago you had an open mind about this, now you're just . . ." He groped for the right word.

"Facing the facts," the policeman finished for him.

"Hiding," Doug said. "Grasping at any answer that fits into your police logic, that can be easilycatagorized and catalogued and filed away and forgotten. I know you're scared. Hell, we're all scared. But you're looking for reassurance, and you're not going to find it. You want to believe that we're crazy, that none of this is happening, that life is going to go on as normal.

But it's not going to go on as normal. People are dying here, Mike. You might not want to admit it, but everyone knows it. I know it, you know it, everyone in town knows it. People are dying because of the fucking mailman. Call it supernatural, call it whatever you want, but it's real, it's happening."

"His prints were on the weapon," Mike repeated tiredly.

"Be serious with me, Mike. Level with me. Don't hand me that official line crap. Be straight with me."

"It's an open-and-shut case --"

"Come on. I'm not your enemy here, Mike. Jesus, if we all just spent a little more time working together and a little less time trying to keep all of our goddamn roles so virginal and separate, we'd get a hell of a lot more done."

The policeman smiled slightly. "You were always a good talker. That's why you were one of my favorite teachers."

"I'm not just talking here."

"As far as I'm concerned, you are. We have proof, Mr.Albin . His prints are on the weapon. Blood was found under his fingernails, on his clothing, in his hair."

Doug opened the door. "Fine," he said, pointing an accusing finger at the young policeman. "Toe the party line, hide your head in the goddamn sand. But the next one's on your head. You could've done something about it. You want to talk to me aboutHobie ? Get yourself a subpoena." He slammed the door behind him, strode through and out of the police office, and stood in the open air, breathing deeply, trying to calm down. The warm morning air filled his lungs, tasting clean and fresh and good, reminding him of happier, far more different summers. His eyes scanned the small parking lot and found the shiny metal mailbox standing on a post at the juncture of the parking lot and the road, next to the low ranch fence. Sunlight glinted off the box's curved top.

He hated those aluminum pieces of shit.

He waited for Stevens by the car.

38.

"Let me in! Let me in,goddammit !" Tritia stood on Irene's front porch alternately ringing the doorbell and banging on the door itself. She knew the old woman was home. The car was in the driveway and she had seen movement behind the lace curtains. Irene just didn't want to talk to her.

The cooler weather of the past few days was gone, and the hot afternoon sun beat at her back. She was already sweating, dying of thirst, and that gave her another idea. She decided to try a different tack. "Just let me in for a minute!" she called through the closed door. "All I want is a glass of iced tea!

Then I'll be out of your hair for good!"

She waited a moment and was getting set to launch another pounding barrage when she heard the metal jingle of the chain being unhooked from inside, the sound of the deadbolt drawing out. A few seconds later the knob rattled as the lock was undone. The door was slowly pulled open.

Tritia barely recognized her friend. Irene appeared to have shrunk three or four inches and to have lost at least ten or fifteen pounds since the last time she'd seen her. She had never been a big woman, but now she appeared definitely small, shriveled. Her thin wiry hair was uncombed and spread out from her head in tangled wisps. Her face looked frighteningly gaunt, and she was wearing what looked like her pajamas. She glared at Tritia accusingly. "I told you not to tell anyone," she said.

"I'm sorry," Tritia apologized. "But I was worried about you. I knew what was happening, and I wanted to help --"

"You made it worse," the old woman said. She jumped suddenly with a cry of fright, whirling around, looking behind her as though searching for someone, but there was no one there. She turned nervously back toward Tritia , her eyes haunted. "Leave me alone," she said. "Please."

"I'm your friend," Tritia said. "I care."

Irene closed her eyes and sighed. She stepped aside, pulling the door open, and Tritia walked into the house. It was a shambles. Closet doors were open, their contents tossed into the center of the living room, cardboard boxes overturned on the Oriental carpet. Broken glassware could be seen through the doorway of the kitchen. Irene, cheeks sunken, staring eyes hollow, backed quickly away from the door, her hands nervously folding and unfolding.

Tritia swallowed heavily, feeling an ache of sadness in her breast as she looked at the frightened pitiful woman before her. A month ago, she would not have thought this possible. She would have said death, and only death, would be able to break Irene, and even then the old woman would go out kicking and fighting. But obviously the mailman had been able to do it just as well. She spoke softly to her friend. "Irene, what's happened?"

The old woman blanched visibly when Tritia spoke, cringing as though she were being yelled at, as though afraid of being hit. She suddenly cocked her head, listening to a noise that wasn't there, then dropped to her knees and righted one of the boxes on the floor, throwing in some of the small knickknacks that were lying on the carpet.

Tritia knelt down next to her. "Irene?" she said softly.

The old woman stopped picking up items off the ground and began to cry.

Her voice was thin and reedy, the powerful assured voice Tritia remembered long gone. Tritia reached out and hugged her friend. Irene stiffened noticeably at first, tensing as if preparing to be attacked, but she did not pull away, and gradually her muscles relaxed, giving in. She continued to sob, a seemingly endless flood of tears, and Tritia patiently held her, murmuring soothing noises in her ear.

When her crying finally stopped, she pulled away, wiped her eyes, and looked up at Tritia . "Come here," she said, standing up.

"What is it?"

"Come here."

Tritia followed Irene down the hall to her husband's den. She tried not to think of the toe, the severed toe, lying in the box, as Irene opened the door.

Tritia peeked over her friend's shoulder. The room was filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes. They had been thrown into the room and left where they'd landed, right side up, upside down, on their sides. All were wrapped in brown butcher paper.

Tritia stepped around Irene into the room.

"Don't touch them," Irene screamed.

Tritia jumped. She turned around. She hadn't been planning to touch anything. "What's in them?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"Jasper."

"Your husband?"

"The parts of his body."

Tritia felt suddenly cold, chilled to the bone. She backed away from the open door. "None of the boxes are open," she said. "Maybe you're wrong."

"I don't have to open them." Irene pointed toward a square box big enough to contain a stack of hardback books. "I think that's his head."

Tritia closed the den door, pulling her friend away. "You have to get out of here," she said. "Why don't you come home with me?"

, "No!" The old woman's voice was still capable of surprising sharpness.

"At least tell the police. Have them get these boxes out of here. You can't live like this."

Irene's face clouded over. "I'm sorry, I have no tea. You'll have to leave now." She jumped, crying out, and instantly looked at the floor behind her, but there was nothing there.

"Please," Tritia begged.

"It's my house. I want you out of here."

"I'm your friend."

"You _were_ my friend."

"I'll call the police and tell them what I've seen and they'll come in here anyway."

"You do what you have to do."

Tritia felt like crying with frustration. She yelled at her friend. "Can't you see what's happening here? Can't you see what the mailman's doing?"

"I see better than you. Please leave now."

Tritia allowed herself to be pushed out the doorway. She remained on the porch for several minutes after the door was slammed shut, after she heard the sounds of locks and latches being drawn. She thought about the boxes in the den.

The mailman might just be trying to scare her. They might not really contain body parts.

But they might.

What were they going to do? They couldn't just sit around until they were all knocked off or driven crazy. Something had to be done. But what? The police were no help. Apparently the higher-ups in the Postal Service weren't either.

Maybe someone should kill him.

The thought came, unbidden, but though she tried to push it away, tried to tell herself it was wrong and unmoral and illegal, the idea stayed with her.

And by the time she had driven home it was starting to sound pretty damn good.

39.

The phone rang, and Doug was awake instantly. He reached over Tritia 's sleeping body and picked it up in the middle of the second ring. A feeling of heavy foreboding had awakened with him, and he glanced at the clock on the dresser as he brought the receiver to his ear, thinking with the fading vestiges of dream logic that he needed to remember the time of this call.

Two-fifteen.

"Hello?"Dpug said. His voice was tired, tinged with annoyance at being disturbed, but there was an edge in it as well as he prepared himself for bad news. No one called at two-fifteen in the morning if it wasn't bad news.

"Mr.Albin ?" It was Mike Trenton. Doug's throat felt constricted, his chest tight, and he had to force himself to swallow. The policeman sounded strange. Not exactly frightened, but something very close to it.

"What happened?" he asked.

"It's Mr. Beecham. He's, uh, he's dead."

Doug closed his eyes, letting his head fall onto the pillow, unwilling to make the effort anymore to keep it up.

"We found him on the floor of his cell," Mike continued. "His forehead is completely caved in, and there's blood all over the wall and floor. It's hard to tell, but it appears as though he butted his head against the wall until he smashed open his skull.

"We took away his clothes and shoelaces when we admitted him, but he didn't seem dangerous or self-destructive and we didn't think there was any need to restrain him or --"