The entire town was talking about The Suicides. For that was how they thought of them now. The Suicides. In big capital letters. It had been easy in the aftermath of the funeral and the outpouring of public sympathy for Bob Ronda's family to focus on the mailman's life rather than his death, to dwell on his good points. But the fact remained that he had killed himself. He had blown his brains out with a double-barreled shotgun and had, in the process, pushed his wife over the edge of sanity and let down an entire town that had loved him, cared about him, believed in him.
And now Bernie Rogers had done it as well.
It was all Doug and Tritia heard about at the grocery store. The Suicides.
Willis had had suicides before --Texacala Armstrong had shot herself last year just after her husband had been finally taken by cancer -- but the deaths had been isolated and understandable: people dying of disease, people who had recently lost a loved one, people with no hope. Never, in anyone's memory, had there been two suicides within two weeks of each other. And by seemingly normal people for no good reason.
The bizarreness of the coincidence was not lost upon anyone, and shocked grief was mixed with both morbid curiosity and superstitious fear as people talked in hushed whispers about what had happened. Even the worst gossips in town seemed to approach the subject reverently, as if suicide was a communicable disease and by not trivializing or sensationalizing the deaths they could somehow vaccinate themselves against it.
The afternoon before, after returning from the meeting, Doug had told Tritia about Bernie Rogers, about seeing the body, about his suspicions. She, in turn, had told him about the call from Ronda's wife and about the letter from Howard, although she still, for some reason, could not bring herself to tell him of her nocturnal experience with the mailman. He wanted to go immediately to the police, to explain to them that he thought the mailman was somehow behind or responsible for both deaths, but she convinced him, after a heated name-calling argument, that as a teacher and supposedly respected member of the community, he could not afford to damage his credibility by making wild accusations. He still had the envelopes they'd retrieved from the creek, but he realized that everything else was entirely unsubstantiated and required not only a tremendous leap of faith but also a belief in . . . what?
The supernatural?
Maybe he was crazy, but he didn't think so, and he knew that behind Tritia 'slogical arguments she didn't either. He still thought he should go to the police and tell them what he knew, or what he suspected, but he was willing to hold off for her sake. She was right. News spread in a small town, and if he happened to be wrong, if the mailman was just a normal man with pale skin and red hair, he would forever be branded a nut. In the back of his mind, though, was the nagging thought that someone else might be in danger, that by remaining silent and passive he might allow something else to happen, and he was determined to keep his eyes and ears open for anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary, and to report everything to the police if he suspected that anyone was going to be hurt or injured. Or killed.
They moved up and down the aisles of the store, Tritia going through the coupons, reading aloud from the shopping list, Doug taking the items from the shelves and putting them into the cart.
'Mr.Albin !'
Doug put a box of cornflakes into the cart and looked up. A tan young woman wearing tight shorts, a tight T-shirt, and no bra waved at him from down the aisle. She smiled, radiant teeth lighting up her pretty face. He knew she was an ex-student, though he could not immediately place her, and he tried desperately to connect a name with the face as she walked up the aisle toward him.
'Giselle Brennan,' she said. 'Composition. Two years ago. You probably don't remember me --'
'Of course I remember you,' he said, and now he did, although he was surprised at himself. Giselle had been one of those fringe students who had shown up for class only when she felt like it and had barely eked out a C for the semester. Not the type of student he ordinarily remembered. 'How are you doing?'
'Fine,' she said.
'I haven't seen you around for a while.'
'Yeah, well, I moved to Los Angeles, worked as a temp in a law office while I went to school part-time, but I didn't really like it much. Los Angeles, I mean. Too crowded, too smoggy, too everything. I'm back here visiting my parents right now.' She smiled brightly at him. 'The place seems to haveweirded out since I left.'
Was it that obvious? Doug wondered. Could even an outsider sense it?
Giselle gestured toward Tritia . 'Is this your wife?'
'Yes. This is Tritia .'
Tritia nodded politely. 'Hello.'
'Hi.' Giselle beamed. 'You know, your husband's a really good teacher. I
bet you're really proud of him. I never liked English much -- I was always more of a math person -- but I sure enjoyed his class.'
'But did you learn anything?' Doug joked.
'I did. I really did. I learned the difference between 'that' and 'who.' '
Doug chuckled.
'Don't laugh. I'm serious. That's something that always stuck with me.
Before I had your class, I used to say, 'The person that went to the store,' or 'The guy that sold me the car.' But ever since you gave us that lecture, I say 'The person _who_ went to the store,' 'The guy _who_ sold me the car.' '
'I'm glad I got through to somebody.'
'You did. And it's helped me a lot. Now I'm a real snob about it, in fact.
Once I went to this party and there was a guy in really trendy clothes playing the serious intellectual. Only he kept saying 'that' when he should have said 'who.' , It made me feel so superior! Here was this man who should have intimidated the hell out of me, and I wasn't intimated by him at all. I felt sort of embarrassed for him, if you want to know the truth. It was great!'
Doug wasn't sure what to say. 'Thank you, I guess.'
'You're welcome.'
'You're giving him a swelled head,' Tritia said. 'Now it's going to be even more impossible to live with him.'
Giselle didn't pick up on the humor. 'He's the best teacher I ever had,'
she said seriously. 'Even though he gave me a C.' She looked toward her shopping cart at the end of the aisle. 'Well, I've got to get going. I'll be around for a while, though. Maybe we'll run into each other in town somewhere.' She looked shyly away. 'Maybe we can meet for lunch or something.'
Doug nodded. 'Maybe. Nice seeing you again.'
The girl returned to her cart, retreating down the aisle, and Tritia raised her eyebrows. 'Ha,' she said.
'What does that mean, ha?'
'You know exactly what it means.'
'The poor girl obviously came to the store to get herself a quarter-pound Hoffy, and you're picking on her.'
'You're nasty!' Tritia laughed and hit his shoulder, and he felt a little better. He put an arm around her waist. They continued down the aisle and up the next one to the produce department and didn't hear a single word about The Suicides. When they reached the checkout stand, however, he heard snatches of words from various conversations, and the words 'killed himself and 'death' seemed to pop up an awful lot. His eyes rested on the _Willis Weekly_, displayed on its stand next to the counter, and he thought of BenStockley , the editor of the paper. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of the editor before. If anyone in town would listen to him, hear him out, perhaps even believe him, it would be Stockley. He said nothing to Tritia , but he decided then and there that he was going to pay the editor a visit later in the day.
They moved forward in line.
The Bronco seemed to hit every bump and chuckhole on the road home. There were eggs and other fragile food items in the back of the vehicle, and Doug tried to drive slowly and carefully down the dirt road. They drove over the creek and around the turn, and were heading along the straight stretch toward home when they saw, in the distance, what appeared to be two figures kneeling in the middle of the road. As they drew closer, they saw that the figures were Ron and Hannah Nelson and that they were crouched on the dirt before the unmoving form of
