'What about the dress?'
Billy buried his face in the pillow. His voice was muffled. 'I'm tired now,' he said. 'Stop asking me questions.'
'What about the dress?'
'He wanted me to wear it, okay? He wanted me to put it on.'
Doug patted his son's back. 'Okay,' he said. 'All right.' He stared at the headboard of the hospital bed and tried to recall whether or not he had ever seen the mailman touch anyone. He had not.
The reason the mailman could not be implicated in any of the murders, Doug realized, was because he had never performed any of them. Ronda and Bernie really had killed themselves, as had Irene.Stockley andHobie had themselves been driven to murder. Unimaginable as it was, Giselle had actually raped and killed Ellen Ronda with the baseball bat.
John Smith's only power was the mail.
What was it Howard had said? The mailman spent all day Sunday hibernating in his room? And when he came out on Monday, he was tired, like he'd been sick?
Doug remembered how pale and weak the mailman had seemed after the Fourth of July holiday.
He needed to deliver the mail to survive.
Tritia pushed Doug away and stroked Billy's hair. 'What's the matter with you?' she asked angrily. 'Hasn't he been through enough without his own father making him relive it?'
'I have an idea,' Doug said. 'I think I know how to get rid of the mailman.'
Her eyes met his, and he saw in them a spark of hope. 'How?' she asked.
'It's crazy and it may not work.'
'If it doesn't, we can go to Phoenix and never come back.' Her expression darkened. 'If he doesn't follow us and find us.' She held his gaze. 'What is your idea?'
'We cut off his power supply. We stop the mail.'
'What?'
'That's the only way he can get to us. You heard Billy. The mailman couldn't touch him. And what about you? He didn't touch you either, did he?'
Tritia recalled with sickening clarity the feel of his hardness beneath his uniform as she'd shoved her waypasfьim in the bathroom. She slowly shook her head.
'You see? All he can do is manipulate people through the mail. That's it.
If we can just stop people from reading or sending mail, we can get rid of him.
But we have to get everyone in town together. Every last damn one of them. If this is going to work, it'll require the cooperation of every person in Willis.'
'I was talking to one of the nurses,' Tritia offered. 'I don't think that will be a problem. They all know what's going on. They're all scared. They'll do anything.'
'We have to get the word out fast. I'm going to ask the police to help me, call some of the other teachers. If we can, I want to have a meeting of everyone in town tonight.'
'Tonight's too soon. Word doesn't travel that fast.' Dr. Maxwell stood in the doorway. He walked into the room. 'I heard what you said, and I'm willing to try it.'
Doug looked at him, smiled. 'Thanks.'
'I think you'll have to make it for tomorrow night. I can't be there, and neither can most of my staff, but you can talk to them beforehand. I think they'll go along with you on this.' He looked at Billy, who was still facedown in the pillow. 'We have to stop him.'
'If he can be stopped,' Tritia said.
'I think he can,' Doug said.
Billy's voice was muffled by the pillow, but it was clear. 'I think he can too,' he said.
Doug grabbed Tritia 's hand and squeezed it tight.
48
They drove to the meeting together. Tritia had wanted to stay with Billy, but Doug said he needed her for this and she agreed to go along. They would return to the hospital afterward.
They had both stayed with Billy the night before, and although he was plagued with nightmares so powerful that twice Doug had to wake him up, he was unsedated, and in the morning he was lucid and cognizant of what was going on.
He even made specific requests for breakfast, and by late afternoon he seemed almost like his normal self.
Dr. Maxwell got in touch with a friend of his in Phoenix, a psychiatrist specializing in childhood trauma, and he agreed to drive up and see Billy tomorrow.
Maybe things would be okay.
They drove past the post office on their way to the meeting. The character of the small building had changed completely from the days in which Howard Crowell and Bob Ronda had happily worked behind its doors, from the days in which the entire town had purchased stamps and dropped off mail between its walls. The staid nondescript structure now appeared decidedly malevolent. The windows had been smashed, their openings hastily covered up with irregular lengths of board nailed from the inside. Piles of ripped and dirty envelopes, as well as broken pieces of the mail-sorting machine, were scattered over the concrete steps. In a defensive line directly in front of the post office a row of rural mailboxes had been placed upside down, the metal boxes on the ground supporting their inverted posts.
On top of the posts were nailed the severed heads of town dogs, the animals' glassy eyes staring, unseeing, toward the street.
The dogs' headless bodies, ten or fifteen of them, littered the small parking lot.
Doug shivered as he and Trish sped by. The mailman was inside there, he knew. Probably peeking out at them. He felt suddenly nervous. Maybe he shouldn't have made Tritia come. Maybe he should have had her stay with Billy.
No, Billy would be all right. The hospital staff and Dr. Maxwell would look after him.
The street in front of the school was already jammed with cars. Someone had opened the gym and turned on the lights and people were filing in. Doug and Tritia parked on a side street and walked, rather than trying to find a closer parking space. They were greeted at the door by Mike, who told them that everyone who could would be there. The police had combed the town for two days, spreading the word.
Doug thanked him and stepped inside the gym. He and Tritia made their way through the crowd by the door and stood near the entrance to the boys' locker room. All four walls of bleachers had been brought down, and three of them were nearly full. There would not be enough space in here for everyone, he realized.
Many people would just have to stand or sit on the floor.
He glanced around, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd. People seemed tentative, hesitant with one another. Awkward. Grudges had been formed and fanned through the mails, words of hate had been received and responded to, acquaintanceships had beenreforged and realigned on the basis of faulty information, misdirected emotions, lies. Everyone knew that now. Everyone realized that the hate o mail they'd been receiving, all of the gossiping innuendo, had not been sent by their neighboring townspeople but had been forced upon them by the mailman.
Still, feelings formed during that troubling period could not be instantly discarded, and there was tension among many members of the crowd. Arguments erupted. A small shoving match started in the stands, but was quickly stopped by a policeman.
And still people continued to arrive. People who had never before attended any civic function, people whose faces Doug did not even recognize, took seats on the bleachers. There were lone men in dusty hats and cowboy boots, impeccably dressed old couples, trendy young newlyweds, average families with children.
By eight o'clock, the appointed time, the gym was full, and Doug felt a little overwhelmed when he saw the size of the crowd. It was not speaking before so many people that daunted him -- he was a teacher and was used to speaking in front of groups -- it was taking the responsibility of leading so many individuals, of making the decisions for so many people.
