Murder at Fire Bay (6 page)

“Sure, you’re the boss.”

“I’ve found it’s easier to talk away from this hallowed place.”

She smiled at that, and something told me I had won some more points.

* * *

We drove off in my Jeep with Martha making appropriate noises about whether I liked my new car, etc. I decided to keep this little get-together as professional as possible. I had no desire to have the townspeople wondering about the new postmaster squiring women about the town.

“Martha, where’s a nice quiet place that has good food?”

She put her finger alongside her nose, lost in thought.

“I think the Early Riser’s Café ought to do. It’s out toward the dock.”

“Good,” I said, “that’s where we’re going. How do you get there from here?”

She gave me the directions and it took all of five minutes to get there. That’s one reason I liked living in small towns. My personal time was too valuable to be wasted traveling point to point. I actually pitied the poor devils that lived in big cities—and sincerely hoped they all stayed there.

We pulled up in front of a small wooden building and went inside. Martha immediately made for a table.

“I bet you’ve been here before,” I said, trying to crack a small joke.

She smiled her acknowledgement. “Oh, yes, many times. The food is good and the owners are friendly.”

I nodded and sat down. One of the women owners came over and cracked a joke with Martha about bringing in all these good-looking guys.
 

After we ordered our breakfast, I began the small talk. “So tell me about yourself, Martha. Are you married? Kids?”

She sighed and I wondered if I had already gotten too personal.

“I was married a few years ago, but it didn’t work out. We were certainly old enough—in our thirties. Maybe we were too old, I don’t know, too set in our ways. I wanted children and I thought he did, but as time went on, I realized he didn’t.”

I, too, sighed. “Sorry if I got too personal, but I’ve found in the past it’s good to know something about your employees.”

There was a moment’s silence as we got used to each other.

“And you, Leo?”
 

“Huh? Oh, I’m married to a wonderful woman out West at Howes Bluff. My second try, but I think this one will work, despite the fact she’s native and I’m white.”

“And your first marriage?” she asked.

There it was. I had to answer, but I decided to give only a little information. I’m sure I frowned when I said, “My first wife and daughter died in a car accident.”

No need to tell her I had run into a bridge abutment while drunk. She didn’t need to know about all my baggage.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I gave her a small smile. “It was a long time ago, but yeah, it still hurts.”

Our food came, thank goodness. We’d had enough personal talk. I began laying out in my mind how I was going to ask her about the death of the supervisor. I decided to be direct. This woman was nobody’s fool.

“One of the reasons I asked you out for a late breakfast, Martha, was to find out about the previous supervisor.”

Her fork, with its dripping egg yolk, paused in mid-air. She stared at me a second with narrowed eyes; then the fork continued on its way. She chewed and swallowed, still staring at me. Just when I thought I had lost all my points with her, she spoke.

“Why do you want to know?” The icicles in her voice could not have been frozen harder. I tried to sound indifferent. “Oh, just curious about the recent death of a Postal Service employee and about all those grievances that were filed against her. I guess I’m trying to get a handle on morale and what undercurrents there might be. Maybe I don’t want any filed against me. Bad for my resume.”

I hoped that last remark about my resume would lighten the situation, but it didn’t. The look I got from her went from friend to foe.
 

She was now the union steward, watchful, and using only well chosen words. “The grievances were legit.”

“I don’t doubt it. But sometimes they can cover up even worse problems.”

Her eyes moved back and forth over my face. “Are you a postal inspector or are you working for them?” she asked.

“Neither. I am what I seem. A temporary O.I.C. flown in from Howes Bluff way out in Western Alaska. You call there and talk to the temporary O.I.C. if you don’t believe me. She is my wife. Better yet, call the commercial store, I know the manager by first name. On the other hand, I would like to know if I’m walking into a buzz saw. That’s why I’m talking with the union steward. Have I . . . Martha? Walked into a buzz saw?”

She looked away at this last question and bit into a piece of toast. After chewing a few seconds, she cleared her throat. “I don’t think so, as long as you play by the rules in the contract.”

I smiled. “I darn near have the contract memorized.”

“Oh, really? What’s section C cover?”

I told her, and her fork fell to her plate right into the middle of the remaining over- easy egg yolk.

“Ha! A manager that actually knows the contract.”

“Don’t they all?” I asked.

It was her turn to smile. “Yeah, sure they do. You’re the first one who could tell me anything. Most managers just pass grievances along to somebody else.”

I nodded. There was some truth to what she said.

“Martha, one thing I have learned the hard way, and that’s to be as direct and truthful as I can when dealing with Postal Service matters. Especially with my stewards.” I took a deep breath. “What can you tell me about the previous supervisor?”

“Her name was Gloria Plinski.”

“Polish?” I asked.

She shook her head. “That was her married name. She kept it after her divorce. The husband remarried. She chose to remain single.”

“Meaning she could have remarried?”

“Oh, yes. She was nice looking. She simply never quite trusted men after her divorce.”
 

I nodded. It was an old story.

“Why all the grievances?” I prodded.

Martha drew a deep breath. I’m sure she was wondering where my questioning was headed.

“Gloria was your above-average postal employee. When the supervisor before her quit, the O.I.C. made her the temporary supervisor. That’s when she began to change. I’m sure you’ve seen how power can do that.”

I nodded.
 

She went on. “She began hounding everybody. She trailed me around sometimes two hours at a time. If a person made a misstep, they would get a letter of reprimand, instead of a talking-to. So of course I became involved in negotiations, which soaked up a lot of time. Sometimes she’d pull in a part-time flex person and then tell them she didn’t need them. As you know, when this is done, a person is guaranteed at least two hours whether they work or not. There were other things, too numerous to mention. I had no choice but to start papering the walls with grievances. She got after me with letters of reprimand. One of them stated I had a bad odor problem. That was so stupid and untrue. The letter was withdrawn because she had no witnesses.

“Sometimes, I’m sure that bastard of an O.I.C. put pressure on her to try to get me to say or do something wrong. He didn’t like it when he came on to me and I told him to take a flying leap.”
 

While Martha went through this litany of problems, I realized there were a lot of people who might carry grudges. But were the grudges serious enough to commit murder?

“Uh, Leo, why all the questions about Gloria? She’s dead.”

“Just trying to get a handle on this place and what makes it tick.”

“Well, I can tell you that deep down, underneath it all, people are relieved she’s not supervisor anymore. People actually like to come to work now. Before she died, the tension in the air was pretty bad.”

I took a sip of coffee, more to keep from talking than anything.
 

Martha looked directly into my eyes. “Some say her drowning was no accident, that she was murdered. What about it, Mr. Postmaster? Do you know?” 
Holy crap! How was I supposed to answer that? I had just talked about being honest and direct. I took another sip, but I couldn’t keep on drinking coffee; I had to answer. I set the cup down and returned her look. “There are those that say that. But I don’t know if it’s true or not.”

“Well, Mr. Postmaster, it wasn’t me. Not that I didn’t think about it, but no manager is worth killing.”

I smiled. “I haven’t seen one yet that is worth it.”

She daintily wiped at her mouth with her napkin and gave me a lukewarm smile in return. I hoped I might be back in her good graces. A well-run shop needs to have good relations between the steward and manager. They don’t have to be lovey-dovey, but they do have to have respect for each other. And that’s all I wanted from her.
 

I changed the subject. “By the way, I need a place to stay for a while. Like a month, I’m guessing.”
 

She laid her napkin down. “You know, with tourist season about over, you might try a bed and breakfast. The High Bluff is a great place. It’s quiet and the scenery is beautiful. I know the owner from church. She runs a first-class operation. All the way from serving good breakfasts to having a fax machine.”

Chapter 6

I laid my head back on the pillow and reviewed my day. The breakfast meeting with Martha had gone well, I thought. True, she might report to the troops I was just another manager, but at least we had established a tentative dialogue. I made certain she understood my door was open at any time for her and that I would listen. Maybe I would be powerless to do anything, but I would listen.
 

The rest of the day had been quiet, other than a complaint or two about the mail being slow. Of course, the mail from Paraguay is always a little slow. When I heard the country’s name, it was all I could do to keep from smiling. To my credit, I maintained a serious face.

If there was a fly in the ointment, it was my appointment the next day with a local newspaper reporter. I hoped it would be somebody at least forty-five or so, because that usually meant less aggression than from say, a twenty-something bent on clawing their way up in the journalistic field. I could probably get by just giving out a few facts about myself. My worst fear was questions about Gloria’s death.
 

Martha had been right; the High Bluff Bed and Breakfast had turned out to be a good choice. Cheaper than a motel and with a family atmosphere. The two-story house was light grey with a blue metal roof. There were five bedrooms and a large dining room with a table that could seat twelve. The house was perched a couple of hundred feet back from the edge of a bluff a thousand feet above the ocean. What was really good for me was that I was given a corner room on the second floor with an ocean view. And talk about luck, I was the only tenant!

A Mrs. Mordant ran it. A bright-eyed divorcee in her forties with short, graying hair, she was a wee bit on the plump side. She not only took care of the day-to-day activities, but also cared for her father, who actually owned the place. I gathered the old boy had recently had a stroke. Mrs. Mordant said he’d made some slight improvements, but would never walk again. His brain was okay, but he mumbled when he talked, and his hands shook so badly he couldn’t write. Life has a way of handing out real clinkers sometimes. I earnestly hoped I was not looking at myself, in say . . . fifteen years.

My thoughts drifted to Jeanette. I loved her, pure and simple. She was so self-reliant. No problem was too big for her. I had a feeling we’d make an unbeatable team here at Fire Bay. As it was, I felt I was operating on seven out of eight cylinders, traveling down the road okay as long as it was level, but having a few problems on the hills.
 

When I’d told her about the upcoming visit from the reporter, she said, “Don’t worry, Husband, just be your likable self. If you can charm a grizzly on a crowded trail, you can charm a reporter. If the reporter is a woman, be careful how much you charm, okay?”

I had laughed and said I doubted there was much danger in that.

She had retorted in all seriousness, “Leo, life is where you find it. In addition, you have always walked close to the edge. Please be careful; there are people out there with their own agendas.” With that we said our “I love you’s” and hung up.
 

I rolled over and stared at the other pillow. Jeanette should be lying there. I reached out and touched it, wishing her to be, staring back at me with those brown eyes. As I had on other nights, I whispered, “Jeanette, what am I doing here?”
 

I could almost see her smiling back at me in that all-knowing way of hers. “Leo. You know. You’re here to see how close you can walk to that bluff without falling off. Go to sleep, my love. Go . . . to sleep. I’ll be here.”

Chapter 7

After a sumptuous breakfast that, if I didn’t watch it, would put the fat on, I drove down the hill to work. To be quite honest, I was looking forward to it. Maybe that’s what sleeping eight hours will do for a person. After checking the desk for anything important, I called Abby in and told her it was time for a stand-up meeting.