"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."

EPILOGUE.

(ONE DAY LATER).

THE WORLD-CLASS PISSING CONTEST didn't stop after Paulette's arrest for the murder of Hank Merrill. Since Hank was an employee of the U.S. Postal Service his murder constituted a federal crime and the Department of Justice wanted to take the case away from Connecticut's prosecutors and try it in a U.S. Court. What with Casey Zander being a postal service employee, too, the feds also wanted their hands on Tommy the Pinhead, hoping they could persuade him to flip on Slick Rick Fontanella and the Castagno crime family.

The case got a lot of media attention in the days leading up to Christmas. Mitch followed it online when he was feeling well enough. Mostly, he stayed in bed with his two cats and his ten toes that ached beyond belief. His fingers weren't so terrific either. He also had a wicked headache, blurry vision and got so dizzy whenever he tried to stand up that he had to lean against the nearest piece of large furniture. But Dr. Cindie had assured him his head would feel a little bit better every day. Also that he'd suffered no permanent nerve damage to his fingers or toes. He just had to take it easy for a while.

Des stopped by regularly to fuss over him and to remove her yellow string bikini from his Chanukah bush. Much to Mitch's delight, she'd found his wallet and his grandfather's Omega in the trunk of Tommy's Trans Am. Tommy hadn't bothered to dispose of the stuff after he and Gigi left Mitch on the beach with Casey to die. Apparently, he'd been more interested in scoring a pizza and boinking Gigi.

They didn't call him Tommy the Pinhead for nothing.

When Mitch started to feel a bit more alert he logged on to the NOAA Web site and computed the temperature, wind velocity and windchill factor out on Breezy Point when the sun was falling that day, to determine just how long he could have survived out there. Near as he could tell, if it had taken Des and Yolie longer than twenty more minutes to find him he'd now be hobbling around with no toes-if he was lucky enough to be hobbling around at all. If being the operative word. If Rut Peck hadn't called Des from the Rustic when he had. If she and Yolie hadn't made a beeline to the Rustic, then the Yankee Doodle, then Tommy the Pinhead's apartment. If Tommy the Pinhead and Gigi hadn't been home in bed. If ...

He was stretched out on the loveseat in front of a roaring fire when he got a phone call from Rut Peck, who was back in residence at Essex Meadows.

"Glad to hear that you're on the mend, young fella."

"Rut, I sure do apologize for abandoning you that way at the Rustic."

"No apology necessary. Liveliest afternoon I've had in ages."

"I also want you to know how sorry I am about Paulette."

The old postmaster fell silent, breathing heavily in and out. "Me, too."

"Did you have any idea what she was up to?" Mitch asked, recalling how uneasy the old fellow had seemed that night in his cellar, when he first told Mitch about the grinch.

"I knew that Casey was no good. I figured if things were going missing he had to be mixed up in it somehow. But I never imagined that Paulette was in on it with him. That she'd betray the job and do something so awful to Hank. No sir, not in a million years. But you never think that way about the people who you're fond of-no matter how old and wise you get. Not that I feel very wise right now. Just kind of sad."

"I guess Paulette felt she had no choice."

"We always have a choice, young fella," Rut said. "Always."

Josie stopped by a few minutes after that toting a blender full of something that looked a lot like purple diarrhea. "I'm so happy that you're up and about, naybs," she exclaimed, all bright eyed and pink cheeked. "I made you one of my smoothies. It's got bananas, raw kale and a bunch of Big Sister wild blackberries that I found in the freezer. Just what you need right now. Go ahead, taste it."

Mitch forced himself to take a small sip, swallowing hard. "Yum, it's as good as it looks. I'll have the rest of it later. I'm kind of full right now."

Josie tilted her blond head at him. "I'm not going to find another stash of Cocoa Puffs in your fridge am I?"

Right away, Mitch flashed back to Casey hurling his Cocoa Puffs in the parking lot of the Rustic after Tommy the Pinhead punched him in the stomach. It was one of the last things Mitch remembered before Tommy K.O.'d him with that snow shovel. "Naybs, I won't ever eat Cocoa Puffs again."

"Wow, I actually believe you." Josie perched on the edge of an overstuffed chair, clearing her throat. "So now you know everything sordid and awful about me, don't you? Des must have told you."

"She told me a bit," he acknowledged. Actually, she'd told him all about the life that Josie had led before she arrived in Dorset. Des had done so in a flat, emotionless voice. Had taken no pleasure in the telling. Des Mitry wasn't wired that way. "For starters, that your father didn't abandon you and your mother when you were twelve. He was killed in some kind of a hunting accident."

"It was no hunting accident," Josie said quietly. "My mother shot him. The police gave her a pass because they knew he'd been beating the crap out of her for years. Also that if they put her away there'd be no one to take care of me. Not that she was much good at the mothering thing. All she ever did was get loaded every night. I told you the truth, Mitch. I've been on my own since I was sixteen. I've done whatever I had to do to survive. Plenty of things that I'm not particularly proud of. But I'm not any kind of evil, scheming bitch. Just someone who's been trying to make my own way." Her big blue eyes locked on to his pleadingly. "Is that so horrible?"

"No, it's not."

She gazed into the fire now. "I know how it looks. I've lived with two older men, James and Bryce. They both killed themselves. And they both made sure I wouldn't get kicked out of the house after they died. I didn't ask either of them to do that for me. I didn't even know that they had. James and Bryce were messed up. They needed help badly. I tried to help. I failed them. I failed Casey, too. That doesn't make me a rotten person. But now everyone in Dorset thinks I am, just like they did in Castine. Because I'm an outsider. Because I'm different. I had to leave Castine, you know. People started spray painting the word whore on my car. They drove me out of there and now they'll drive me out of Dorset. Preston Peck will see to that. Glynis told me he's prepared to offer me a 'generous' cash settlement if I'll clear out. That's pretty much what I've decided to do. I'm just waiting for the medical examiner's office to release Bryce's body. I promised Bryce I'd cremate him and scatter his ashes on the beach here. I intend to keep that promise. And I don't give a damn what Preston thinks."

"I'd like to be there when you do it, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind. I'd like you to be there."

"I'd also like you to reconsider your decision. Don't let him drive you away. Stay here and slug it out."

Josie looked at him curiously. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely. I've gotten used to having you around. I'll miss you. You're not the only person in the world who's different, you know. I've been different my whole life. My idea of a good time is sitting in a dark room staring at a wall. Normal people think I'm completely crazy. But normal people are total bores. They're also the ones who're responsible for pretty much everything that goes wrong in this world. I think you should stay, Josie. You've made a home for yourself here. You have clients who need you. Don't go."

"A certain resident trooper wouldn't like it very much if I stayed."

"Who, Des? She'll be fine with it. Lots of people will. Dorset is changing fast. This isn't the same place it used to be. She's living proof of that. We're living proof of that. Besides, you can't keep running away your whole life. You have to put down roots."

Josie shook her head at him. "No, you don't."

"Where will you go?"

"Somewhere warm. Anywhere warm." Josie let out a mournful sigh. "Anywhere but here."