Shots in the Dark (7 page)

“Here's today's mail,” she said, handing me a thick stack of envelopes and catalogs. The holiday mail was always twice what I normally got, making me feel sorry for the mail carriers who had to hoof all that extra stuff through the cold and slush.

The stack was a large one, filled with the usual holiday catalogs and flyers, as well as my standard bunch of bills. I waded through them, tossing the catalogs and sorting the bills into a pile.

The letter was tucked in between my electric bill and a Lands' End catalog. I recognized the neat block printing right away and froze as I stared at it. After a minute or so of feeling my heart pound, which triggered a tiny pulsing red light in the periphery of my vision, I threw the catalogs in the trash and hobbled with the letter back to the couch. I stared at it for the longest time, turning it over and examining every inch of it, every nuance in the printing, the postage stamp . . . all of it. It looked so innocuous and ordinary, but I knew it wasn't. I wanted to open it but knew I shouldn't, at least not yet. I needed to preserve any evidence that might be in it, and thought about waiting until Duncan came by tomorrow. But I had no idea what deadline might be waiting for me, so time was of the essence. I thought about calling Duncan back, but he'd already said he couldn't come by tonight.

And then providence called.

Providence literally called . . . on my cell phone. I dug it out of my pocket, and when I saw Mal's name come up on the screen, I felt an instant sense of relief.

“Mal, your timing is perfect.”

“That's not what my last girlfriend used to say,” he said with a little chuckle. There was a pause and then silence. “You didn't laugh,” he said eventually. “Not a funny joke, or is something going on?”

“I just got another letter.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

“Have you opened it?”

“Not yet. I'm in my office and thought I should probably carry it upstairs to my apartment.” I envisioned doing just that in my mind, knowing it would be trickier than usual, thanks to my crutches and my broken leg.

“I'm on my way over there,” Mal said. “I can give you a hand if you want.”

“That would be great.”

“How's the leg doing? Is it still pretty painful?”

“It's not bad today,” I said, realizing then that Duncan hadn't bothered to inquire about my condition. I put a mental check mark in Mal's column on the little scorecard I was keeping in my head. It wasn't something I was proud of, but my mixed feelings regarding Duncan and Mal of late had me doing some oddball things.

“I'll be there in five. Meet you in your office?”

“That will work,” I said with a smile. I disconnected the call and sat there, marveling at the relief I felt knowing that Mal was only minutes away. The letter sat on my lap, the block-printed address facing up, mocking me.

Time seemed to drag as I waited, but eventually, there was a knock at the door. I hobbled up and went over to open it. These days I kept it locked all the time, even when I was in the office, to prevent any nosy reporters or other thrill seekers from making an unexpected and unwanted entrance. As soon as I saw Mal on the other side, I tucked one crutch into my armpit and used that arm to give him a big hug. The return hug he gave me felt wonderful, comforting, reassuring. My eyes were closed initially, as I was relishing all the other synesthetic reactions I had to Mal's presence, but I eventually opened them and saw Clay Sanders standing about ten feet behind Mal, watching us.

“Come in,” I said, finally letting Mal go. I finagled my crutch back into place and managed an awkward turn so I could head back to the couch. Mal followed me inside and shut the door behind him, blocking Clay's view.

“That reporter is certainly persistent with his nosiness,” he said.

I maneuvered myself through another turn, put both crutches on one side of me, and eased myself down onto the couch. “Yes, he is,” I said, tucking the crutches off to the side. “I'm thinking about bringing him on board with the Capone Club.”

Mal stared at me as if I'd lost my mind. “You're not serious.”

“As a heart attack,” I said. Then I shared my thought processes with him on the matter. He listened, settling in next to me on the couch.

When I was done, Mal shrugged and said, “I have to admit, you're making some sense with the idea. But you're going to have to be very careful about what information he gets access to.”

“I thought we could test him with some tidbits,” I told him. “We have another case to look into, and we could use it to feed him information and see if he'll stick to an agreement to wait until we have something concrete, assuming we ever do, before he prints anything in the paper. If he plays fair with the test stuff, maybe I'll consider bringing him in on this case.”

I picked up the letter from the arm of the couch, where I'd left it, and handed it to Mal. He hesitated, unwilling to touch it. “I don't think it makes a difference if you touch the envelope,” I said. “It came through the mail, so it's been handled by any number of people already.”

The cop in Mal wasn't so easily convinced. “You're probably right, but all the same, I'd rather have some gloves on before I handle it.”

“Suit yourself,” I said, and then I nodded toward the boxes of gloves I had on the bookshelf behind my desk. Mal got up, grabbed a pair from one of the boxes, and donned them. Then he took the letter and looked it over.

“Does Duncan know yet?”

I shook my head. “I finished talking to him on the phone right before the mail came. And you called a few minutes after that.”

“We should call him and see if he can come over so we can open it.”

“Don't bother. He told me he was tied up for the rest of today and wouldn't be able to come by until tomorrow.”

Mal considered this, frowning. Then he said, “Let's take it upstairs so we can have some privacy, and we'll open it there. Maybe we can get Cora to come with us, and she can arrange another video hookup with Duncan on her computer.”

“Good idea.”

A couple of text messages and one awkward trek upstairs later, Cora, Mal, and I were settled around the dining-room table in my apartment. I had Cora go into my father's old office and grab a single sheet of white paper to put on the table, with the idea of opening the envelope above it. That way we would hopefully catch any minute trace evidence that might be inside the letter.

Mal called Duncan and was able to reach him, but we had to wait a bit for Duncan to get somewhere private before we could arrange the video chat. While we waited, Cora and I filled Mal in on the most recent case the Capone Club was considering.

“I'm hoping to make another visit to Waupun tomorrow,” I told Mal. “I figure it makes sense to talk to this Middleton guy to see if I can get a feel for his innocence or lack thereof.”

Mal smiled. “Do you mean that literally? When you say ‘get a feel for,' do you mean you actually get a sensation or a feeling about whether or not someone is being honest?”

“Sort of, though voices trigger tastes for me rather than a feeling. Men's voices do, anyway. Sometimes women's voices manifest as a visual sensation.”

Mal gave me a funny look and shook his head. “It must be very busy up there,” he said, reaching over and tapping my head.

“You have no idea,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

Cora's computer chimed, and she said, “There's Duncan.” She tapped a key, and Duncan's face appeared on the screen.

“Hello, everyone,” Duncan said. “I don't have much time, so let's make this quick if we can. Is everyone wearing gloves?”

“Mack and I are,” Mal said. I had donned a pair from the boxes I'd kept on my dining-room table ever since the letters started arriving. “Cora is manning the computer.”

“Then let's do it.”

I let Mal have the honors this time. He picked up the letter opener I had brought to the table, and slid it beneath the flap on the envelope. Then he carefully sliced it open. He pried the two sides apart and peered inside before turning the envelope upside down over the sheet of paper. A single folded sheet of paper slid out—one that looked identical to the sheet on the table—and he gave the envelope a couple of taps to make sure it was empty. Nothing else fell out, so he set the envelope aside and picked up the letter. Carefully, he unfolded it, still holding it over the paper on the table. As he unfolded the letter, a long, narrow leaf and a single dried flower fell out.

“There's a leaf and a flower inside here,” Mal said to no one in particular, though given that Cora and I could easily see them, I assumed his remark was addressed to Duncan. Mal gingerly picked up the flower and held it in front of the computer screen for Duncan to see. It was blue in color, though faded, with a circle of yellow in the middle, dozens of tiny narrow petals emanating from the center.

“That's an aster,” Cora said. “It's a relatively common wildflower that blooms in the fall.”

A moment of silence followed as we all contemplated the flower and tried to discern what meaning, if any, it might have.

When no one offered anything, Duncan said, “What about the leaf?”

Mal did the same thing with the leaf. “I think it's a weeping willow leaf,” he said. “I have one in my yard.”

Duncan said, “Let's have a look at that letter.”

Mal set the leaf down and picked up the letter. I leaned in close so I could read it along with him. It was written in a calligraphic style with green ink, and I stuck my nose close to the page and took a whiff. The ink on this letter smelled essentially the same to me as that on the previous calligraphic letters, but with one subtle difference. I assumed the difference was due to whatever had been added to the ink to color it green. I said as much to the others, reminding them that the previous inks had been homemade.

Cora craned her neck, trying to read the letter, and Mal obligingly tilted it her way just enough so she could see it. For Duncan's benefit, he read the letter aloud.

Mal lowered the letter, and we all exchanged puzzled looks.

“This guy is really starting to piss me off,” Duncan said irritably.

“I think we all feel that way,” I said. “But let's not let our anger cloud our vision. What does the letter mean? Does anyone see a message in there somewhere?”

Another silence ensued, and Mal held the letter up to the computer camera so Duncan could see it.

Cora said, “Things having to do with death are mentioned several times, though that may simply be an attempt at sounding menacing. But there's a reference to six feet under, deadlines carved in stone, and the sign-off of ‘gravely.' Could it be referencing a cemetery?”

It seemed as reasonable a guess as anything else at this point, but it certainly didn't narrow things down much. “That makes sense, Cora,” Mal said. “It does sound like references to a cemetery, but which one? There must be dozens, maybe hundreds in the city.”

“I don't think it's an accident that the ink used on this letter is green in color,” I said. “Are there any cemeteries with the word
green
in the name, Cora?”

Cora started tapping away on her smartphone. After a few seconds she shook her head. “I can't find one named Green, but there is a Green Tree Meadows Cemetery and a Greenwood Cemetery.”

“Well, that narrows things down with regard to the general location,” Duncan said, “but it doesn't tell us which one of those it might be, or what to do and where to go once we get to them.”

I said, “Based on past experience, I'm guessing I have to speak to someone in order to get the next clue. And dead people don't speak. So that means a caretaker or an office employee of some sort.”

“What about the flower?” Mal asked. “It must be significant somehow.”

“Maybe it's a reference to a name,” I suggested. “Aster could be a last name.”

“I have another idea,” Cora said, still working on her phone. “When I searched for the words
green, cemetery
, and
Milwaukee
, Forest Home Cemetery also came up. It's a city landmark, and it has a special section for green burials called Prairie Rest. And Greenwood Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery, is adjacent to it. According to the Forest Home Web page, the Prairie Rest area is filled with naturally growing wildflowers, chief among them, blue asters. And the Greenwood Cemetery also has a green burial area, called Prairie Green, which contains wildflowers, prairie grasses, and trees.” Cora looked up at us. “Like a weeping willow perhaps?”

“What the heck is a green burial?” Duncan asked, ignoring her suggestion for the moment.

“It's a burial involving biodegradable coffins or urns,” I said. The others looked at me curiously. “I looked into it when my father died,” I explained with a shrug. “The bodies are allowed to decompose naturally, so there is no embalming involved. Sort of a return-to-nature philosophy.”

“Is your father buried there?” Duncan asked. “That might be why the writer targeted that cemetery.”

I shook my head. “In the end I had him cremated. His ashes are in an urn in his office.”

Both Mal and Cora turned to look in that direction, as if they expected my father to come strolling out of the room at any moment.

“I intend to scatter them one of these days,” I said, feeling awkward. “I just haven't decided where yet.”

The others refocused and turned their attention back to the letter.

“It seems we have several options to explore,” Mal said. “Where should we start?”

“I think Cora is on the mark with the Forest Home and Greenwood cemeteries,” I said. “It fits all the clues the best. I think we should start there.”

Cora had returned to her phone, and she said, “It looks like Forest Home Cemetery handles the grounds keeping and the day-to-day business activities for Greenwood. So that's where you should probably start. But if you're hoping to hook up with any of the staff there, you're going to have to wait until Monday. According to their posted hours, they're already closed for today, and they're closed all day Sunday. On Monday they have hours from eight to four thirty. The grounds, however, are open from sunrise to sunset every day.”