The Messenger (2011 reformat) by Edward Lee Page B

certain
that Carlton would never have anything to do with cults-but she supposed she
had no choice. After all, Steve was the chief of police. It's my civic duty to
cooperate-and prove him wrong. "One second." She picked up the phone,
hit Carlton's office extension, and waited. Then she hit another extension, and
waited. "Hmm. Can't find him," she muttered. "Let me try the
service area." One more extension. "Doreen, is Carlton up there? I
need to see him. ... Oh, okay"
    Jane hung up.
"Carlton's not here right now. He's out on a delivery."
    "I
thought you just said he's basically a personnel manager. You mean he also
walks a mail route?"
    "In
emergencies, everyone in the pecking order has to go out," Jane explained.
"If the service area is crowded with customers and all the handlers are
busy in back? Sure. There are times when even a station manager like me, or
even a postmaster will have to grab a mailbag and pick up a route. Anyone in
management. Other times we have to go out and empty relay boxes and the regular
mail boxes. Especially in emergencies, like this."
    "Oh, I
see. With the main branch closed for the time being, your branch has to do
extra duty and pick up all their slack."
    "That's
right, Chief. And right now, Carlton is in the field. We got a late Express Mail
package and all the carriers are out. So he took it."
    Steve looked
right at her, quite serious. "I need to know where he is. As in right
now!"
    Jane's
impatience smacked into her confusion. She made another call out to the front,
jotted something down, and hung up.
    "It's in
the scan log. Carlton left a half hour ago to take that Express Mail to the
Seaton School for Girls."
    "Great.
Thanks." Steve rose, gathering his things. He seemed distracted.
    "Chief
Higgins! What's going on?" Jane blurted. "You're wrong about Carlton,
I'm telling you-"
    "I hope I
am," he said.
    "There's
something you're not telling me."
    Steve looked
down at her, a look of total skepticism. "Yeah, there is. It's not
definite proof of anything, but we have to check it out. And it's probably
cause for a search warrant."
    More shock.
"What are you talking about?" Jane almost shouted.
    "It was
just a basic incident report, Ms. Ryan. In a quiet, laid-back town like
Danelleton, not a whole lot happens. So we notice even the most minor incident
reports, stuff that in a big city like Tampa or St. Pete would be overlooked
because it wasn't deemed crucial."
    "What
incident!"
    "Last
night at about 3 a.m., a man pulled into the Qwik-Mart, walked in, got a
coffee, and left. The man was acting peculiar, so the guy at the register
called us to report it. Just a routine suspicious persons report. We get them a
lot, and ninety-nine percent of the time they're nothing. Just someone mad at
someone else, or someone overreacting. You know what I mean?"
    Jane's face
was getting warm from aggravation. "No, Chief Higgins, I don't. I don't
have any idea what you mean. At this point, you're practically driving me nuts,
so would you please get to the point?"
    "When I
came in this morning, first thing I do is look and see if there are any
incident reports filed by the night shift," he continued. "There was
only one, this one. Then I get the call about what happened here, so I'm
juggling two things at once but it occurs to me that the two could easily be
connected."
    Now Jane was
just plain mad. "What was the incident?" she seethed.
    "Look at
what happened, Ms. Ryan. Last night somebody dug up Marlene Troy's corpse and
put it inside your post office. And last night, we get an incident report about
a suspicious person at the Qwik-Mart. Follow me?"
    "No!"
    "The
clerk at the Qwik-Mart said the guy was "peculiar." 'Want to know
why?"
    "Not if I
have to wait till I'm fifty to find out."
    "The guy
was covered in dirt. It was all over his clothes, smudged on his face, his
arms, had dirt in his hair."
    "Dirt,"
Jane said.
    "As in
soil. Covered in it. Anyway, the clerk at the store recognized this man. It was
Carlton