'You never told me you had a brother.'
'He was killed in Vietnam when he was nineteen.'Hobie took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was filled with an uncharacteristic bitterness. 'He was only nineteen years old. Richard Nixon's going to burn in hell for that one. He'll join Lyndon Johnson, who's already down there.' He looked at Doug. 'But the point is, these are letters Dan wrote when he was over there. Letters we never got. Letters that somehow got lost.'
Doug didn't know what to say. He cleared his throat. 'They might not be real letters,' he said. 'We've been getting . . . fake letters, letters supposedly from friends but written by the mailman himself. I don't know how he does it or why he does it, but --'
'They're real. They're from Dan.'Hobie stared silently out at the trees, as if watching something. Doug followed his friend's gaze, but could see nothing there. When he turned back, he saw thatHobie was on the verge of tears. 'I
don't know where the mailman found those letters, but they're in Dan's handwriting and they have things in them that only he could know. The only thing is . . . I mean, I'm not a religious guy, you know? But I keep wondering if maybe those letters were supposed to be lost, if we weren't supposed to get them because . . .' He shook his head, wiping his eyes. 'I'm learning things about my brother that I didn't want to know. He's a completely different person than I
thought he was, than my parents thought he was. Maybe he changed in Vietnam, or maybe . . .' He looked at Doug. 'You know, I wish I'd never seen those letters, but now that I got them, now that I'm getting them, I have to keep reading. It's like I don't want to know, but I have to know. Does that make any sense to you?'
Doug nodded. 'How many have you gotten?'
'I get one a day.'Hobie attempted a halfhearted smile. 'Or one a night.
They come at night.'
The two of them were silent for a moment.
'The mailman's responsible forStockley ,' Doug said quietly. 'I don't know what he did or why or how he did it, but he did it. He drove him to murder. He somehow got him to go into that bank and start shooting. It sounds crazy, I
know. But it's true.'
Hobiesaid nothing.
'I'm not sure if Bernie Rogers killed himself, but I do know that if he did, he was pushed into it. The same goes for Ronda.' He reached over and put his hand onHobie's shoulder. The gesture felt strange, uncomfortable, but not unnatural. He realized that, in all the years he had known him, this was the first time he had ever touched his friend. 'I'm worried about you,' he said. 'I
want you to be careful. I don't know what's happening here, but it seems like the mailman's picking on you for some reason, that --'
'That what? I'll be next?'Hobie snorted derisively, and for a moment he seemed like his old self. 'You think I'd actually kill myself? Shit. You got another think coming.'
Doug smiled. 'I'm glad to hear you say that.'
'I'll admit, this thing's got me a little worked up, but I'm still playing with a full deck here. I'm not about to let a little mail drive me over the edge.'
'Okay.'
'But wegotta do something about that fucker, you know?'Hobie's voice was serious, intense. He looked directly into Doug's eyes, and what Doug saw there as he looked back frightened him. He glanced quickly away.
'You're with me on this, right? I mean, you're the one who first found out about him.'
'Yes,' Doug said. 'But. . .'
'But what?'
'Just don't do anything stupid, okay? We'll get him, but just don't do anything dangerous. Be careful.'
Hobiestood up. 'I have to go. I have to get back to the pool.'
'The pool's closed today,' Doug reminded him gently.
'Yeah,'Hobie said. He shook his head absentmindedly as he walked across the porch and down the steps. 'I been forgetting a lot of things lately.'
'Be careful,' Doug said again as his friend got into the truck. Tritia came out on the porch and stood next to him, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
Both of them waved asHobie backed up and swung onto the road.
Hobiedid not wave back.
24
Doug and Tritia walked out to the mailbox together.
It was strange how such a benign object, an inanimate hunk of hollow metal, could within such a short time have taken onsuoh a malevolent, threatening quality. They walked across the crunching gravel slowly, solemnly, with trepidation, as if approaching a gallows or guillotine. They said nothing, not speaking, almost afraid to speak.
The morning was overcast, unusual for late June, and Doug wondered if perhaps the rains would come early this year. The thought disturbed him somehow.
It was not unheard of, not even that unusual, but the fact that all of this strangeness was accompanied by a shift in traditional weather patterns gave the entire situation a broader, more cosmic quality. Ordinarily, he would have dismissed such an obviously ludicrous idea, but these were not ordinary times.
Both Trish and Billy had been withdrawn and uncommunicative the past few days, Billy downright sullen, and he suspected that each of them had seen something, though neither would admit it.
That was scary, Doug thought. They had always been a close family, had always shared everything, but now they were drifting apart, becoming more private, more closed with one another. And he didn't know what to do about it.
They reached the mailbox. As if it was a ritual they had performed before or an act they had practiced and worked out ahead of time, Doug opened the box and Tritia withdrew the envelopes.
There were two of them, one for each.
Tritia looked at him questioningly, handing him his envelope.
In answer, Doug tore it open. The envelope was empty.
Tritia 'sface was pinched, tense, as she opened hers. There was a letter inside and she took it out, unfolding it. She scanned the page, face blank, unreadable, then looked up at him. 'Who,' she asked, 'is Michelle?'
Doug was puzzled. 'Michelle?'
She handed him the letter and he read it over. Halfway down the page, he knew the Michelle to whom she was referring. Michelle Brunner, an old girlfriend from college, the only woman besides Tritia with whom he'd ever had what could be legitimately termed a sexual relationship. He frowned as he continued reading. The letter made it sound as though he and Michelle had been carrying on a hot and heavy affair for years, seeing each other whenever they could, though in reality he had not seen her since his Junior year in college, two semesters before he'd met Tritia .
'It's fake,' he said, folding the letter.
'Who's Michelle?'
'Michelle Brunner. I told you about her. The crazy one?'
'The slut?'
Doug smiled wanly. 'That's her.'
'She still writes to you?'
'You know who wrote this,' he said, his smile fading. 'And it wasn't Michelle.'
She nodded tiredly. 'So what are we going to do? This is just getting worse.'
'We've got to put a stop to this. After breakfast, I'm going to talk to Howard. And if I can't get him to do anything, I'm going to call the main post office in Phoenix. I don't know why I didn't do it before. I should have called them the first thing. I should have sent them samples of the letters we found in the creek --'
'They never would've got there.'
'That's true.'
