By now Jane was feeling naive. Infidelity happened all the time, she knew, amongst the people you’d least expect it from. “The post office does have medical records of all employees, for their health plans. I guess you want to check and see what Bobby Weaver’s blood type is.”

  “In this day and age, we have to get a court order for that, and we’re in the process of doing that now,” Steve explained. “But it’s not Bobby Weaver we’re interested in checking.”

  “Who, then?”

  “A man named Carlton Spence.”

  Another door in the face. A big door. “Now, that, Chief Higgins, is inconceivable. I’ve known Carlton longer than I knew Marlene. He doesn’t belong to any cult.”

  “But didn’t he go through a severe tragedy recently?”

  “Not recently. That was a long time ago. His wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. He had an alcohol problem for a while but got over it.”

  Steve nodded again, not looking at her. “The information I have is a little different.”

  “What?” Jane paused. “Well, yes—the daughter. She wasn’t killed in the crash—”

  “No, she was abducted from the accident scene, according to the F.B.I. and Maryland State Police. The potential there, especially in this day and age, is pretty horrific: child pornography, child prostitution. Children are abducted for those pursuits all the time; that must take a tremendous toll on a parent, right? It would for me, I’m sure. And Carlton Spence was a devout Catholic. A tragedy like that? It must really challenge a person’s faith. If there was ever a reason to turn your back on God, that’s got to be it.”

  Jane reflected on that. How could she not agree? He’s right, but… “Not him, not Carlton.”

  “Your wife is killed, your daughter stolen for diabolical purposes. A nightmare like that would make a lot of people turn against God, wouldn’t it?” Steve proposed. “‘Hey, God, if this is how you repay me for a lifetime of faith, then to hell with you. I’m not going to worship you anymore. I’m going to worship someone else.’”

  “I get what you’re saying, but you don’t understand. Carlton isn’t capable of something like this. He just isn’t. If you want my opinion, you’re wasting your time even considering it.”

  “Really? Maybe. Tell me this, what exactly is his job here?”

  Jane sat back. This was going to be a long interview. “In the post office, we don’t have jobs, we call them crafts. Clerks, carriers, handlers, maintenance. Carlton went through the ranks in all those crafts, and recently—when the West Branch opened—he was promoted to delivery supervisor. His pay grade is level fourteen. You can think of him as part personnel manager and part operations manager. He basically makes sure everyone else is on duty and getting their individual tasks done. He maintains the route schedules, transfer deliveries, overtime assignments, and a lot more. He’s been a quality employee for as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Is he on duty right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about calling him in here.”

  Jane frowned. She didn’t have any worries that she might be wrong about this—she felt 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 mailboxes. 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 three a.m., a man pulled into the QWIK-STOP, 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-STOP. Follow me?”

  “No!”

  “The clerk at the QWIK-STOP 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 Spence.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  (I)

  Carlton enjoyed driving the LLVs. They looked cumbersome and uncomfortable but they actually rode well. Manufactured via contract by the Grumman Corporation, the van-like vehicle’s initials stood for Long-Life Vehicle, and that was no lie. They almost never broke down and when they did, service was efficient and easy. The only feature that carriers complained about was the steering wheel on the right side, for mailbox access. You either got used to it, or you didn’t. Most did. Those who didn’t caused many a fender bender. But driving it down Danelleton’s serene streets made Carlton feel like a genuine mailman again.

  It made him feel like a messenger.

  He drove almost as if someone else were driving, someone guiding him—a guiding dark light. He was beginning to understand that light now, a little more with each hour. It was as though his heart no longer beat solely for himself. It beat for someone else, someone great, with an important plan for the world. Knowing that this light was in his heart now made Carlton feel important. God never made me feel important, he reminded himself. No. God let my wife go fuckin’ psycho and get killed in a car wreck. And God looked the other way when a bunch of sick fucks took my beautiful daughter and put her in porn movies and made her turn tricks and then killed her. God’s done nothing for me. God is my enemy.

  I believe in someone else now.

  Someone who makes me important. Someone who will never turn his back on me…

  Carlton’s eyes stared ahead.

  I will worship him to the ends of the earth…

  The LLV coursed through more sedate streets. Tall trees—some palms, some Australian pines—threw down great, comforting blocks of shade. The houses lining each street all stood neat and bright, with vivid green lawns and front gardens bursting with delirious colors. Carlton saw Old Man Halm out for his daily walk. Amiable enough of a guy, always stopped to say hello, ask how you’re doing. Would even loan you money in a pinch. White hair shining in the sun, Halm hobbled happily down the street with his cane, then he looked up and waved to Carlton.

  Carlton waved back and thought, You crotchety old fuck… I could take your old head off with this machete, watch it roll down the street. Then I’d take that fuckin’ cane of yours and kill some people with it…

  Carlton even had a machete in the LLV. His hand reached down for it—he could see the head flying, blood sailing up from the stump in red strings—but then that increasingly familiar voice told him, No. That’s not the message for today.

  Carlton nodded.

  You’d get caught by the constables before you got to where I need you to be.

  Carlton nodded.

  He waved at Old Man Halm as he passed.

  Yeah, you’re lucky today…

  Next house, there was Margarita Poole, on her hands and knees in the garden. She was pulling weeds. What a fox, Carlton thought. I would do her up so RIGHT… Five-two, a hundred and ten, and tan, tan, tan. She could be a Hawaiian Tropic model with all that flowing bronze hair and grapefruit breasts. The gardening gloves didn’t mesh with the rest of the look: fluorescent green bikini top and jeans cut off so high they could’ve been a denim thong. Christ… Carlton wanted to take her down right there in the garden, put those dirty gardening gloves on and strip her and feel her up but good. Then he’d give it to her hard in the mulch. Yeah, those gloves are a nice touch, he mused. When he was done with her, he’d strangle her with them. Then he’d chop her up in the yard, play with her pieces. Let all the neighbors see him in his revel, wearing only her blood as he danced in the sun.

  Carlton waved at her when he passed, and she shot him a great big white smile.

  I work for the Messenger now, he reminded himself. I can’t let myself get distracted…

  No, the voice in his heart agreed with him. But there’s no harm in pondering.

  Pondering. Dreaming as he drove. What a luxury. He turned the LLV at the next corner. Somebody mowing their yard waved. Then a FedEx truck drove by in the oncoming lane, and the driver waved. Everybody knows me, Carlton felt secure. Everybody likes me. But they won’t for long…

  He was being manipulated. He was being guided. Someone else’s hands were on the wheel, someone else’s spirit sharing his psyche. It made him feel exultant, it made him feel elevated. Carlton’s heart just kept singing as he drove, not even consciously aware of his destination.

  At the corner a group of kids were waiting at the crosswalk, the old lady crossing guard holding up her hand for them to wait. The kids were all gradeschoolers, a little rowdy as kids would be, laughing, rejoicing in their youth. Good kids. Going places when they got older because they were diligent and they obeyed their parents and they did their homework every night. Yes, six of them, waiting for the guard to let them cross.

  Oh, it would be sweet, wouldn’t it?

  The guard held her hand up to Carlton’s lane. Carlton stopped, just ten feet from the line. The kids were coming across now.

  Time it just right…just right. He knew he could do it! His booted foot fidgeted over the gas pedal. If he waited two more seconds and then floored it—

  He’d get them all.

  There’s where I want you, kids. Under my wheels…

  He could mow them all down in one bunch, dribble their bodies under the chassis. Wouldn’t necessarily kill them all, but he could turn around, couldn’t he? Finish the job. Or maybe not. Maybe just drive away and leave some of them crippled.

  Carlton shook his head, but it wasn’t his own volition that initiated the gesture. No, no. He shook his head no.

  You have a more important message, the Messenger told him.

  Carlton knew the Messenger was right. He’d have to put his human weakness away and be strong…

  But just as God tested Job, perhaps someone else was testing Carlton, dangling temptations before his eyes.

  Carlton sighed at what he saw next.

  When he turned another corner, to the last road before he’d be heading past the town limits, he saw Joanne Malloy getting out of her Mercedes wagon. She was like a lot of the rich bitches out here: well-tended, well-jeweled. Her husband made a fortune suing nursing homes and convalescent centers. Oooh, Carlton thought, slowing down. And it looks like the twins are home from school—Harvard, of course. Joanna was cut from a familiar mold: forty years old but looked thirty from a distance. Kerchief around her head like she was Jackie Kennedy on vacation in Cape Fucking Cod. The facelifts from thousands of days lounging on the beach got rid of the wrinkles and crow’s feet. Augmentation from the best plastic surgeons in the county took care of the saddlebags and boob-sag. She looks like a million bucks, Carlton thought, which was probably what her husband had spent on her. Not very friendly, a stiff bitch. Nose in the air in her social elitism. Better than everybody else, everybody else was in a lower class. And of course, her spoiled-rotten nineteen-year-old twin daughters had the same disposition. Like mother, like daughters… They were in their first semester in college, and Carlton could bet they spent the whole time turning heads. And I’ll bet they fuck their professors for grades and pay them off with Daddy’s money.

  They’d just come back from the beach, all in matching designer bikinis and flowing sarongs, hundred-dollar flipflops and sunglasses that probably cost half a g-note a pair. Yeah, there’s a threesome, all right, Carlton mused again. He imagined the most debauched things, scenes that beggared description. All under force, of course, under the threat of death. Naw, I’m afraid there wouldn’t be much cuddling… He eyed their perfect contours, the outlines of their perfect breasts, six long tan legs all walking in unison around the half-circle driveway. The front door to the house could’ve been the front door to an embassy. You know, Carlton considered. I’ll bet that fucking door cost more than my car.

  It did, his guide replied. And there’s something you must know.

  What?

  They hate you. They think they’re better than you. They think you exist simply to serve them. You’re a servant to their falsehood and gluttonies.

  Oh AM I, now?

  Carlton waved as they passed.

  Joanna turned and looked at him, soulless in the sunglasses. She didn’t wave. She didn’t even smile. All that returned Carlton’s greeting was the blankest of looks—a look of non-acknowledgment—which Carlton deemed a worse insult than a frown. Hell, she could’ve given him the finger and it wouldn’t have been as mocking. The two snooty twins turned their heads, too, with the same looks. One of them shielded her eyes, gazing more intently: “Who’s that, Mom?”

  “Oh, it’s just the flunky mailman,” her mother said.

  Carlton heard that one. Oh? Just the flunky mailman?

  He’d go in there and show them the flunky mailman. Oh, yes. Carlton pulled over to the curb and stopped the LLV. He turned the engine off. In all the delectable musings of these past few minutes, one suddenly occurred to him that easily ranked superior to the others.

  I’ll go in there and bust them up. No, not kill them. Just give ’em all a good shot to the head to knock them out. Strip them all down—no, CUT their little bikinis off—then have a little party. After that, drag the three of them into the garage…

  And what then?

  Carlton knew in an instant. He’d hogtie the twins and wake ’em up. Then he’d hang the mother upside down by her ankles. He’d ensure that her legs were spread good and wide, like a wishbone. And he’d make the twins watch as he slit the mother open from crotch to sternum. Flap her guts out onto the floor. Maybe even put a bucket under her to catch the blood.

  Then drink the blood right in front of the twins.

  He’d only kill one of them. Real slow. Maybe put a wire wheel on her, or a soldering gun. Something to really get her making noise. He wanted it loud. Because he wouldn’t kill the other twin. Maybe he’d tourniquet her hands and chop them off, or wreck her face with the soldering gun. But, no, he wouldn’t kill her. He needed the other twin to remember her sister’s eardrum-ripping screams. Traumatize her for the rest of her life. Ruin her.

  He’d have a little more fun with her one last time—put a bun in her oven, too, if he was lucky—and maybe leave her sister’s head in her lap and dump the rest of her mother’s blood on her head, and then he’d leave, but before he left the house, he knew what he would say to her.

  He’d say this: Take a look, Miss Priss. Pretty good work for a flunky mailman, huh?

  Yes. That’s what Carlton would say to her when he was finished.

  He was looking at their front door. He was about to get out of the LLV and walk to the house, but before he could do so, something stopped him. He was about to step out of the vehicle when his legs pulled back inside as though someone else were controlling them.