The Snow White Christmas Cookie

somebodys.”

“Wait, why two?” Toni asked.

“There would have to be two,” Yolie answered. “One to ride along with the victim. The other to follow in a second car.”

“There had to be a second car,” Des said, nodding her head. “That’s how they fled the scene after they staged this. They picked themselves a perfect spot. No one around to see them drive away. I’d classify them as clever but not smart. They think they know what they’re doing but they don’t.”

“A pair of real amateurs.” Yolie glanced around at the wet pavement surrounding the Passat. “Were there any shoe prints or tire tracks when you got here?”

Des shook her head. “The rain washed them all away.”

“Let’s get us the hell out of it,” Yolie said, starting back toward the shelter of their slick-top. She and Toni climbed into the front seat. Des got in back. “So talk to me, girl. Was Hank Merrill into anything stanky?”

Des was about to answer her when she felt a major sneezing fit coming on, the kind for which there was only one possible explanation. “I’m sorry, but is one of you wearing patchouli?”

“That would be me,” Toni said. “Why?”

Yolie let out a laugh. “Girl, I have tried to set her straight but she won’t listen to me. You tell her.”

“I like patchouli,” Toni said defensively. “It smells sexy.”

“Actually, it smells like the lobby of a massage parlor,” Des sniffled. “And I don’t mean the day-spa kind. Will someone please crack a window so I can breathe?”

Yolie lowered the windows enough to let some fresh, cold air in.

“Hank Merrill was a postal carrier here in town,” Des informed them as the rain beat down on the car’s roof. “He was also assistant fire chief, coached the high school girls’ basketball team and played tuba in the town band. He was divorced, no kids. Lived with the village postmaster, Paulette Zander.”

“Have you notified her yet?” Yolie asked.

“Was just about to when you showed up.”

“Why would anyone want to kill him?”

“Hank may have been mixed up in something. Stuff has been going missing on his route for the past couple of weeks. At first glance, it looked small-time. Someone swiping his Christmas cookies, tips and-”

“Wait, people in Dorset bake cookies for the mailman?” Toni shook her big hair in amazement. “Who lives here-the Keebler Elves?”

“But the deeper I got into it the more it started to smell like something for the postal inspectors. Items of real street value have been disappearing. We’re talking about retail gift cards, DVDs, iPods and-brace yourself because this is going to hurt-shipments of prescription meds.”

“Oh no, you didn’t,” Yolie groaned.

“Oh, yes, I did. Hank’s route was the Historic District. That’s the highest concentration of people in Dorset. A lot of them are older people who get all kinds of meds and those meds are being stolen.”

Yolie took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “The Narcotics Task Force broke up a black-market meds ring in Bridgeport a few months back. It’s big money stuff. You think he was into it?”

“Either that or he stumbled onto someone who is. I spoke to him at the Post Office this morning. He was very forthcoming and cooperative, but he also asked if we could speak later in private. I gave him my card. It’s sitting right there on his passenger seat. He had something more he wanted to tell me, Yolie. And now he’s dead.”

“And we’re going to be in a world-class pissing contest,” Yolie fumed. “You do not bump off a mailman. By tomorrow morning the postal inspectors will be all up in my grille. So will the FBI. And you just know they have to be in charge because they are the FBI. Our Narcotics Task Force will want in, too. Plus it’s the week before Christmas.” She glowered across the seat at Des. “Thank you large for this.”

Des smiled at her sweetly. “Yolie, I do what I can.”

“Did the victim have any money troubles?” Toni asked.

“I hear he was into his ex-wife big-time. Mitch is the one who got wind of it-by way of a friend who didn’t have much use for Hank.”

“Any chance this friend might have killed him?”

“No, he’s over eighty years old. Can barely get around.” Then again, Des reflected, if Rut Park wanted someone to take care of Hank he had dozens of loyal friends who owed him favors. Would they do him this kind of a favor?

“Something’s bothering me, Loo…,” Toni said slowly.

“Then spit it the hell out, Sergeant,” Yolie barked. She rode the kid hard. Was supposed to. Plus it amused her. “Don’t waste the resident trooper’s valuable time by telling me you’ve got something to tell me. Just say it.”

“Right, Loo. Sorry, Loo. If the victim brushed up against a black-market meds ring then we are talking about some real bad boys. The kind of boys who’d put a bullet in your head. They wouldn’t bother to stage a suicide. Someone went to a whole lot of extra trouble here. Why?”

“Good question, Sergeant,” Des said. “I wish I had an answer for you. All I know is that Hank was one of my people and I let him down.”

“You’re taking this kind of personally, aren’t you?” Toni said.

“Miss Desiree Mitry takes everything personally,” Yolie lectured her. “Miss Desiree Mitry cares. That’s why she’s good at her job. You feeling me, Sergeant?”

Toni nodded her head convulsively. “Absolutely, Loo.”

Yolie gazed at Des curiously. “Sorry, did you say this was your second suicide of the day?”

“First one was Bryce Peck, Mitch’s neighbor out on Big Sister.”

“Any chance that one wasn’t a suicide either?”

“To me it played suicide all of the way. But given what’s happened here we certainly ought to take a…” Des’s cell phone interrupted her. She glanced down at its screen. “Paulette Zander’s calling me. I’d better take this.”

“Go for it.”

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Des,” Paulette said when Des answered. “But I–I’m a bit … I’m worried about Hank.” Her voice was faint and halting. “He went out before dinner and he hasn’t come back and I–I don’t know where he is. This … isn’t like him.”

“What time did he leave, Paulette?”

“It was about 5:30, I think. But he doesn’t have band practice tonight. It was cancelled. Everything’s been cancelled. And he sent me the strangest text message. I was downstairs doing laundry and I didn’t notice it until just now.”

“What does his message say?”

“Here, I can read it to you … It says, ‘It’s all my fault. I messed up. Sorry for everything. Take care of yourself.’”

“And what time did he send this?”

“I got it at 7:13.”

About thirty minutes before Paul Fiore phoned 911 from Kinney Road.

“I’m probably overreacting,” Paulette went on. “But I just wondered if there’ve been any accidents on the road tonight or-or…” She trailed off into uneasy silence. “Have there?”

Des didn’t like to break this kind of bad news to a loved one over the phone. Doing it in person was much more humane. “Paulette, how about if I stop by and we talk about this, okay? I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Then she rang off and said, “That cell phone on the seat next to Hank just got a whole lot more interesting. He texted a suicide note to his girlfriend.”

Yolie frowned at her. “So maybe it is a suicide.”

“Or maybe he texted her at gunpoint. Then again, maybe he didn’t text her. Maybe one of his killers did.”

“We don’t usually have much luck getting developed prints off of those teeny-tiny buttons. But we might get one off of the phone itself.” Yolie sat there in brooding silence for a moment. “Damn, where were we?…”

“Today’s first suicide, Loo,” Toni reminded her.