| |
Later that day, after I’ve finished my second afternoon postal run in North Albany, I drive past the crime scene once more. What I witness is exactly what I anticipated. I see a big black van parked on the soft shoulder, just a dozen or so feet north of where the Perez brother’s killings occurred. The van has FBI printed on the side panels in big white letters. Several people are working on the scene. They are dressed in plain clothes, but they are also wearing identical windbreakers with the same FBI lettering printed on the backs. The scene has been cordoned off with more yellow crime scene tape. Some of the federal cops are working inside the woods.
I drive by slowly, getting a really good look at what’s happening. When I go past the dirt road that leads down into the Little’s Lake property, I see something else I expected, but not so soon. Detective Danish’s unmarked police cruiser is parked outside Mark’s cabin. Curiosity gets the best of me, and I come to stop at the top of the drive. With the steering wheel located on the passenger side, I’m able to get a glimpse of what’s going on down by Mark’s cabin without my having to get out. The FBI detectives are also a good enough distance away inside the woods not to notice me. As it is, I’m forced to strain my neck to see around the tall oaks and pine trees.
But when Detective Danish emerges from out of the scrub that conceals the lake bank, I feel my heart jump into my mouth. I didn’t expect him to appear out of thin air like that. What the hell is he doing down by the lake and not at the Caretaker’s cabin? From the bottom of the gravel drive, he turns and shoots me a look. For a second or two, but for a time that seems to last forever, our eyes lock. The skin on his clean-shaven face goes tight, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. I’m frozen in place. But I’m also tempted to do something like wave or say hello. And yet all I can think of is throwing the transmission back in drive and fleeing the scene.
It’s exactly what I do. Hit the gas and pull back out onto the road in the direction of the city. I don’t even bother to look into the mirrors to see if there’s any oncoming traffic. I just pull out and pray to sweet Jesus that I don’t sideswipe another vehicle and kill somebody in the process.
“You stupid jerk!” I scold myself.
I’m actually shouting at myself like I want nothing more than to kick the living shit out of my own ass. And I do.
“What the hell were you thinking?!”
The door to the driver’s side is wide open. The air is slapping me in the face, but I can’t feel it. As I slow up at a red light, I pass by a man and woman walking the boulevard. They both give me a look like I’m insane, screaming at myself the way I am. But that’s when I quickly rein myself in. I force a smile at them as they pass me by. The light turns green, and I hit the gas once more.
“Calm down, Bradley,” I say to myself. “Maybe Danish didn’t even realize that was you. Or maybe you caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been, like taking a piss in the brush. Maybe he thought you were simply doing your job. Delivering the mail or some packages that happened to arrive in the afternoon. He already knows Little’s Lake is a part of your delivery territory. So why should it be so strange for him to spot you parked at the top of Mark’s driveway?”
As I head back towards the city and the New Karner Postal Center, I start to feel a little bit better about my impromptu run-in with the new homicide detective. But as quickly as I begin to feel better, the dread also comes back to haunt me. Maybe they knew it was me who called them with the anonymous tip after all. Maybe Danish didn’t go to Mark’s cabin to interview him as a suspect, but instead, to gather information on me as the number one suspect. Me and my wife. After all, it’s mine and Joanne’s face on the FBI Wanted poster.
Breathing in and out, I try my best to calm myself down. No choice but to wait the whole thing out, see what happens with the FBI investigation. They are bound to have uncovered Mark’s cigarette butt by now; bound to have found his cable TV bill. When they match it all up with Mark being the caretaker of Little’s Lake, they will have no choice but to point their fingers at him and his wife, Melanie. Danish will have no choice but to point his finger at them, that is, the anonymous phone call I made truly remained anonymous.
Only time will tell. But right now, time is moving at a tortuously slow pace.
Pulling into the big lot of the postal facility, I park the truck, gather my empty bins, and head back inside. The three young men, including Martin, the short, stocky guy I belted earlier, are hanging outside the public entry smoking cigarettes. All three give me a look, not like I’m their friendly old man co-worker, but instead, like I’m the one man in the cell block who all the other inmates wish to avoid. Have I become that much of a monster? Am I changing that rapidly before everyone’s eyes?
Maybe it’s possible these men do believe I am the killer in the FBI Most Wanted poster tacked to the bulletin board. Maybe my defending myself against their insults didn’t prove that I possess a stiff backbone after all, but that I’m a psycho all wrapped up nice and neat in sheep’s clothing. Or a US Postal Service uniform anyway.
One thing’s for sure. As Joanne, Sean, and I get deeper and deeper into this business, the more I am going to change. Some of those changes will be for the better (money, riches, lifestyle), and some for the worse (anxiety, rival gangs, police). Sooner or later, we will have to buy protection, and that means not only guns for us, but hired guns to watch our backs. Will it all be worth it? At this point, I can only tell myself, I hope so.
But hanging around the post office and delivering the mail is probably not the best course of action going forward. There are just too many eyes on me lately, too much suspicion, too many words being spoken about me behind my back.
Heading inside the building, I see that Carol is helping an old lady at the customer counter with applying packing tape to a square box. Carol’s eyes and mine connect, and I offer her a wink. She winks back. As I head through the swinging doors into the distribution center, something dawns on me. No, that’s not right. It doesn’t dawn on me so much as hits me upside the head, just like I hit Martin upside the head. It’s what’s called a moment of realization.
Rather than going directly to my locker, I head up a metal staircase to the second-floor administrative offices. I pass by a few closed doors until I come to one that has the words New Karner Postmaster printed on it. I wrap my knuckles on the door and wait for a response.
“Yeah, come in,” says the deep, loud voice.
Taking hold of the doorknob, I turn it, and slowly open the door. I do one of those things where I don’t step right inside, but instead stick my head inside the partially open door.
“This a good time, boss?”
The Postmaster is sitting far back in his swivel chair, the heels on his two feet resting on the corner of his metal desk. He’s got his smartphone in his hands and he’s resting it on his round belly. He appears to be texting someone and having a difficult time getting his message across with his thick thumbs. He looks up at me, runs one of his hands across his mostly bald scalp.
“Yeah, what is it, Jones?” he says. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“I can come back,” I say.
He shifts his feet to the floor and sits up fast, the phone still gripped in his left hand.
“Jesus, Jones,” he says, “have you been this timid your entire life?”
He’s half smiling when he says it, but I sense he’s being one hundred percent serious. I guess I just chose to remain in the shadows for the bulk of my thirty-plus year career as a postal worker. He’s only known me for three of those years, but that’s long enough for him to have figured me out. Or so I assume. Stepping inside, I close the door behind me.
He’s back to working at sending a text.
“Goddamn text messages,” he gripes. “Remember when you picked up the phone and called someone when you needed to talk to them, Jones?”
I make a fake laugh and try to fawn a pleasant, Gee, the boss is always right, expression.
“I don’t text a whole lot,” I say. “I’m not even sure I know how to.” It’s a lie but what the hell.
“Good for you,” he says, finishing up his message and tossing the phone onto his red, white, and blue plastic United States Postal Service desk pad like it’s a dead rodent he just found under his chair. “My kids insist on texting, or I don’t hear from them at all. Even then all they do is ask me for money. Who the hell do they think I am, Bill Gates?”
I’m immediately reminded of Bradley Junior and how very soon he won’t ever be asking me for money again. It sort of warms the soul just contemplating that. The boss sits back in his chair again, locks his sausage fingers at the knuckles, uses the attached hands as a headrest.
“So, what’s on your mind, Jones?” he says.
Standing tall and stiff, my hands crossed, one over the other, I say, “I think the time’s come for me to call it career, boss.”
His name is Lester O’Brien, but he loves it when you call him Boss. He’s the kind of uniformed postal chief who thinks of himself more as a federal cop than a mail slinger. If it were legal for him to carry a gun and a badge, he surely would. As it is, he refers to the Postmaster General as General Patton, like delivering the mail on time, in all sorts of bad weather, is akin to storming the beaches of Normandy.
He stares not at me for a long beat, but into my eyes. He doesn’t blink and neither do I.
“You suddenly come into some money, Jones?” he says out the corner of his mouth. “Not that it’s any of my bees wax.”
He is, of course, right on two counts. I did come into money, and it isn’t any of his business. I squint my eyes as if to feign a quizzical expression.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Boss,” I say.
He lays his palms flat on the desk and sits up in his chair again.
“Come on, Jones,” he says. “I know what you make every week. It’s pretty much what you’ve been making for the past three decades. You can’t have saved up a whole lot. You’ll have your pension and some social security in a few years and correct me if I’m wrong since I haven’t known you all that long, but I don’t think your wife is employed or ever has been.”
“She works at the library on occasion,” I say.
He grins slyly and nods. “Oh, that’s lucrative, I’m sure.”
“Not at all,” I say. “She does it for free. She likes books, especially mysteries and crime novels.”
“Okay, so why are you retiring then?” he says. “You looking for a raise? Is that what this is all about? Because I can put you in for one.”
“I’ll never get it and you know it, Boss,” I say. “How much of a deficit does the US Postal Service run on an annual basis?”
He stuffs his tongue in his cheek and sets his still folded hands on his desktop.
“Ninety-four billion and change to be precise,” he admits.
“And therefore?”
“You’re right, Jones,” he says. “Jesus Christ could put in for a raise and even he would be denied.”
“So will you process my papers?” I ask.
“If that’s what you want,” he says. “But I gotta say, I’m gonna miss you, Jones. You’re not like the younger generation. They don’t work nearly as hard, and they don’t do what they’re told without question like you do. You never speak out of turn or create waves or trouble like the new kids do. You’re exactly the kind of mailman we need but rarely get anymore.”
In other words, I’m exactly the kind of happy idiot, fade into wallpaper pushover he wishes he had more of.
“I appreciate the kind words, Boss,” I say. “I’m happy to give you two more weeks. I think that’s what’s supposed to happen.”
He stands, comes around the desk, his big stomach leading the way. He’s a good deal shorter than me but he raises his hand and slaps my shoulder hard.
“Tell you what,” he says. “You got what, like six weeks’ vacation coming? Consider this your last day.” He glances at his wristwatch. “Hell, your last day officially ended thirty-three minutes ago.” He slaps my shoulder again. “Bradley Jones, consider yourself a free man. A new man. So, what are you going to be doing with the rest of your life?”
He removes his hand and crosses his arms over his barrel chest.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I was thinking of maybe getting into the illegal drug trade, make hundreds of millions of dollars, and buy a patch of beachside property in Mexico to spend the rest of my days.”
He stares into my eyes for a long beat. Until he slowly forms a grin. This time he slaps my arm. I nearly fall over from the force of it.
“Haha,” he says. “I never knew you possessed a voice until today, Jones, much less a sense of humor. Too bad you never spoke up before, you could have joined some of the guys and me in our Tuesday night bowling league.”
I’m guessing he never saw the FBI poster tacked to the wall downstairs, or if he has, he hasn’t made the connection.
“Yeah, too bad,” I say. “But I suck at bowling. I guess the only thing I’ve really been good at is delivering the mail.”
He leads me to the open door.
“Now’s the time to pick up a hobby buddy,” he says. “Fishing, traveling, jogging, whatever. You’ll find something to do. And hey, now you and the missus will have more time to, you know what.”
He shoots me a sly wink.
“I’ve almost forgotten what you know what is like,” I say.
He laughs again.
“You’ll get back in the swing,” he says. “Viagra does wonders, take it from me. One pill and it’s off to the races.”
He holds out his hand. I take it in mine. He squeezes it hard and shakes.
Releasing his grip, he says, “I’ll get all the paperwork in tomorrow including your pension stuff. You might have to come in and sign a few documents. I’ll give you a call or an email when the time comes. Maybe you can even do it all from home.”
“Thanks, Boss,” I say.
“Hey, it’s Lester,” he says. “I’m not your master anymore, Jones.”
“Okay, Lester,” I say. “Thanks again.”
Turning, I start for the stairs. Until he calls out for me.
“Hey, Jones, aren’t you forgetting something?”
I stop, turn.
“What’s that?”
“The keys to your truck?”
He’s right. I did forget.
Approaching him, I pull the key ring from my belt, and remove the key to the truck and also the key that unlocks the facility’s Employee entrance. I hand both to him.
“Thanks, buddy,” he says. “You’re still invited to bowl with us, even if you are a retired old geezer now.”
I force a fake laugh.
“Maybe I’ll buy a new bowling ball,” I lie.
Turning back around, I walk away, knowing I still have an extra key to the facility. In my new line of work, it just might come in handy one day.