"Mr.Albin ," the chief said, nodding in acknowledgment.

Doug glared at him, pointing toward the kitchen. "So, tell me, Chief, did she kill herself too?"

"That's not funny, Mr.Albin ."

"You're damn right it's not funny. I told you assholes about the mailman weeks ago. I told you something like this would happen. I warned you. Are you happy now? Now do you believe me?" He slammed his palm angrily against the table in front of him. "Shit!"

"For what it's worth, I believe you, Mr.Albin . But it's not as simple as you seem to think it is. Of course, we're going to question Mr. Smith. But unless we find some prints or threads of clothing or other physical evidence, or unless we can find a witness who can place him at the scene of the crime, there's no way in hell we'll be able to detain him for more than an afternoon."

"Ellen told my wife this was going to happen! She said the mailman was going to kill her! Isn't that proof enough? Doesn't that count for something?"

The chief turned toward Tritia . "What exactly did she say, Mrs.Albin ?"

Tritia stared at him dazedly for a moment, then shook her head as if to clear it. Her voice, when it came out, was rational, lucid, and completely normal. She looked from Doug to Mike to the chief. "Actually, she did not say the name of the man who was after her. She just said 'he,' although I knew immediately who she was talking about."

Doug ran an exasperated hand through his hair. "Can't you get the federal authorities involved here?"

"How?" Mike said. "This doesn't involve interstate commerce, international terrorism, or anything else the feds would ordinarily investigate."

"It involves the mail."

"Easier said than proven," the chief said.

"What about the state police?"

"We'd prefer to tackle this on our own,"Catfield explained. "This is a local matter, and I think we can handle it better without any outside interference."

"Yeah, I can tell. You're doing a hell of a job."

"For your information, Mr.Albin , even if we did want to get the help of an outside agency, the state authorities require more than just a phone call before they get involved in a matter that clearly should be under local jurisdiction. Documentation must be provided, forms must be completed --"

"All of which are sent through the mail," Mike said.

"Shit!" Doug stood up. "There has to be something we can do."

The chief turned back toward the kitchen. "We'll do what we can."

The electricity was on, and Billy was upstairs watching his usual Thursday-night shows. The television was off downstairs, and both Doug and Tritia were reading -- he an old JohnFowles novel, she a new JosephWambaugh book. They'd told Billy what had happened, in simplenongruesome terms, but they had not spoken of the afternoon since then, and dinner had been marked by long silences and irrelevant conversation.

The phone rang and Tritia got up to answer it. "Hello?" She turned around and offered the receiver to Doug. "It's for you."

. He put down his book, stood up, and took the phone from her hand. "Who is it?"

"Mike Trenton."

He held the receiver to his ear. "Hello?"

"Doug? Mike. We found the bat. It was in a ditch down the street." There was a pause, a beat. "It was covered with bloody fingerprints."

Doug frowned. The news was good, exactly what they'd wanted, what they'd been looking for, hoping for, but the policeman's voice was neither excited nor happy. It was flat, unemotional, devoid of any feeling. Something was wrong.

Things hadn't worked out the way they were supposed to. "What's the matter, Mike?"

"The fingerprints are Giselle Brennan's."

Doug was silent.

"You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"We took him in and held him, but there's nothing we can do. We had to let him go."

"He did it, Mike."

"I know," the policeman said. He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was low, conspiratorial. "Is it all right if I come over?

There's something I'd like to show you."

"Of course. When do you want to come by?"

"Would right now be okay?"

"Fine."

"I'll see you in a few minutes."

Doug hung up the phone and turned toward Tritia . "They found the bat used to rape Ellen, but the fingerprints on it were Giselle Brennan's."

"Oh, my God."

He nodded. "They're going to throw her in jail. Mike's coming over right now. He said he has something to show us."

She closed her book, dropping it on the floor next to her. "When is this all going to end?"

"Soon I hope."

Tritia was silent for a moment. "What if someone kills him?"

Doug was shocked. "What?"

"I've been thinking about this for a while." She stood up excitedly. "What if someone cuts his brake lines or shoots him or --"

"Trish!"

"Why not? Can you think of any reason why not?"

"Because . . . because it's wrong."

"That's not much of an argument."

"Killing is not an option," he said. "I don't want to discuss it anymore."

"Fine." She picked up her book from the floor, turned to the page she had marked, and began reading. He stared at her as she read, but there was no anger in her face, no defiance, no resignation, nothing but a relaxed ease. He realized that he was worried about her, about what she might try. He didn't entirely trust her. He was going to have to watch her very carefully from now on.

True to his word, Mike pulled up in the drive fifteen minutes later. He was wearing not his uniform but his street clothes, and under his arm he carried a large photo album.

Doug met him on the porch. "Hi."

Mike looked around. "So this is where you live. I always wondered what a teacher's house looks like."

"The same as everyone else's." Doug pointed toward the boarded-up window and the splintered holes in the wall. "Compliments of some of our mailman's rock-throwing friends."

"Did you report that?"

Doug shook his head. "What's the point?"

"Well, if we can ever find a way to tie all these together, we can nail his ass once and for all, put him away for good."

Doug smiled wryly. "Yeah. Right." He opened the door. "Come on in." Mike followed him inside. "So you have the weapon."

"That's right."

"What does Giselle say about it?"

Mike shook his head. "We don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? Don't you have her in custody?"

"We can't find her," the policeman admitted. "Her mother says she hasn't been home for three days. Smith claims he hasn't seen her since the afternoon of the murder."

"You think he killed her?"

"Who knows?" Mike shrugged. "Anything's possible."

"Why don't you hold him on suspicion of murder?"

"Without a body?"

"Kidnapping, then."

Mike sighed. "We're doing what we can."

"I've heard that before."

Tritia stood up and Mike nodded to her. "Hello, Mrs.Albin ."

She smiled back. "Hello." She glanced at Doug. "I'm going to bed. You don't need me for anything out here, do you?"

He looked over at the clock. "It's only eight-thirty."

"I've had a busy day."

"Yeah," Doug said. "We all have."

"I'll see you later." She waved to Mike. "Good night, Mr. Trenton."

"Good night."

Doug pulled a chair next to the coffee table and motioned for Mike to sit down on the couch. The young policeman sat down tiredly, placing the photo album on the table before him. "Did you know Mrs. Ronda painted?"

"What?"

"She painted. You know, art. She was like an amateur artist."

Doug shook his head, puzzled. "No, I didn't. But what does that have to do with anything?"

The young policeman reached for the photo album. "We found some paintings in her closet. She kept them secret." He opened the book and Doug suddenly knew what was coming next. "I'm not supposed to show you this. This is police evidence. The chief said these paintings mean nothing, that if anything they're merely signs of a disturbed personality, but . . ." He looked up at Doug and pushed the open album across the table.

The paintings were indeed disturbing, done in bright garish colors, executed in an angular expressionistic style. Doug stared at the picture of the first canvas. A blue-uniformed man, carrying a jagged baseball bat, was treading on a field of anguished screaming faces. The sky was an apocalyptic red, the same color as the man's fiery hair. The man's face was a grinning white skull.

The next picture was of a monster, a hideous creature with a sharply fanged mouth that took up a full half of its malformed face. The monster held in its obscenely twisted claw a white letter. The street down which the creature was walking was an off-center path dividing identical rows of mailbox houses.

The pictures were all variations on a theme, personal and highly idiosyncratic depictions of a horrific mailman.

In the last, unfinished painting, the mailman was dressed as the Grim Reaper, and the blade of his scythe had shishkebabbed several women between their legs.

"She knew," Mike said.

Doug closed the album. "So what? Who doesn't know?"

"But she knew what was going to happen to her. Did you see those women?

Did you see that baseball bat?"

"Yes."

"Well, my idea is that if she knew, others do too. We just have to find them. It'll be tough. People aren't being real cooperative right now. But if we can find his next victim, we can stake him or her out and catch Smith with a sting operation."

It sounded good, but Doug did not think that the mailman was a killer who was methodically murdering people in town. He was something far worse than that.

Murder was merely one tool he used to get what he wanted. For all they knew, he had killed all the people he needed to kill and now he was moving on to something else.

Or perhaps he was going to kill them next.

"I think it's a good idea," Doug said. "I hope it works."

Mike frowned. "But I need your help. I was hoping you'd --"