Mail Carrier 06 - Post Mortem, page 4
A bike ride was a good workout, and walking the route was awful. I’d done that a few times when I first went back to being a mail carrier after Richard had died. I’d needed to get some insurance for myself and Grady. I’d only ever been a mail carrier and worked at the Wallflower Diner. I certainly didn’t want to work at the diner.
Plus I had that big farm to take care of. But when Julia and Grady had gotten pregnant, I knew the apartment above the diner would be too small, so I deeded the farm over to them like my parents had done to me and Richard once I was pregnant with Grady.
Every Sunday growing up, my mom and dad had supper for my family. I continued that on when Richard and I owned the farm. We would have my parents and Mac—Uncle Mac, as Grady had grown up calling him.
Now that Grady and Julia were there, I was happy that Julia still continued the tradition of having us all for supper. Of course, Mom and I didn’t let Julia cook. We brought all the food and were just happy to be invited and there to spend time with our sweet granddaughter. Or great-granddaughter, in my mom’s case.
A girl. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. It was amazing to have Grady, but Clara blessed us far beyond words.
I pulled off on the edge of the road before I pedaled into the neighborhood where I would be running into customers who just wanted to chitchat. Over the years, I’d had the honor of getting to know them outside of the mail they received, even though mail could tell you a lot about the person getting it. It was the mail for special occasions that I loved best to deliver. The birthday cards, anniversary cards, and little rewards.
I steadied the bike and put down the kickstand, not letting go until I made sure we were on steady ground and the bike wouldn’t tumble over with Rowena in the basket.
The sun was beaming down, and I was starting to sweat. Or maybe my hot flashes had kicked in, but it felt better blaming it on the sun. I peeled off the knit cardigan I’d worn over the top of my short-sleeved uniform shirt.
“You doing okay?” I also took out the portable water bowl I had put in the basket with Rowena and untwisted the lid of my water bottle to pour a little in the bowl for her to take a drink.
I put the bowl in the basket and let her drink while I tied the cardigan around my waist and looked around. This was an in-between area where the downtown and residential area were separated by the woods. The country club was located beyond the wooded area to the right of where I’d pulled off, and the neighborhood was about fifty feet away on the right.
Rowena took a drink and sat up, letting me know she was finished.
“Oh no, you don’t.” I pushed on her paws when she stood up on her hind legs and planted the front ones on the edge of the basket as she looked into the brush. “You stay right there until we get to the dog park. Maybe it’ll be free of them and we can get a quick walk in.”
The neighborhood had a great dog park that was rarely used when I was there. When I did take Rowena on my route, it was a good place for me to walk her. Since she was leash trained, it was nice exercise.
“Rowena!” I yelled, and as if in slow motion, she jumped over my arm, the leash dragging across my hand and down the basket before I grabbed the end just in time. “Stop it.”
The leash was pulled taut, but she was still forging ahead.
“Meow, meow.” She stopped and stood still.
“What are you looking at?” I wasn’t about to tug on the leash in fear it would hurt her little neck, so I decided to walk over and pick her up since she was preoccupied by something. “Leave the birds alone.” I tsked, knowing good and well it was a bird or maybe even a little field mouse she’d noticed.
Cats did have great senses when it came to rodents, and she was always good at keeping them away when we lived on the farm.
“What do you see?” I stood next to her and went down to pick her up, stopping midway. “What is that?” I picked her up and snuggled her up under my arm before I leaned in to get a closer look at something shiny.
I took a step forward into the knee-high weeds that desperately needed to be mowed by the county workers so I could see what little treasure was in there and getting Ro’s attention.
The closer I edged, the more the shiny object came into focus.
“Is that a golf shoe?” I asked her like she was going to answer. I looked at the shoe and shook my head. “It has to be from one of the high school kids,” I told her since I knew the high school golf team used the golf course. I turned, stopping short when I noticed something.
I squinted against the sun and noticed the body lying a little farther in the woods. It just so happened to be missing a shoe. The match was the one that had caught Rowena’s eye.
Chapter 5
The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. I’d like to say I handled it with grace and ease, but the facts were the facts. I ran to the road and screamed, flailing the only arm I had free in the air.
I was sure I looked crazy with Rowena, a cat, on a leash in my other arm, with my cardigan falling off from around my waist. I kicked it out of the way once it made its way to the ground.
Who had time to deal with a piece of clothing when there was someone in the woods?
“Colvin.” I was never so thankful to see Colvin Batty in my life. I hurried up to the window of his truck.
“Bernadette, you okay?” His eyes shifted to Rowena and then back to me. I saw the judgment, but I couldn’t even address it. “If you need your truck back, I got it up and running. I’m more than happy to toss your bicycle in the bed of the truck and take you and the cat back to the post office.”
“Body.” I gasped for a breath and turned to look at the woods. “There’s. Body.”
Oh Lord, not now, I thought to myself as the panic attack set in. My body felt tingly. My mind drifted into space, making my eyes feel like we were in a bubble, and the fog set in, confusing me on what was real and what was not.
Then the fear of having a panic attack joined the initial reaction and made my pores open up. I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead and in my armpits as I tried to formulate a sentence.
“Bernadette, are you having a stroke?” Colvin asked and shoved the gear shift of the truck up to park.
“Don’t get out,” I managed to feebly say and pushed Rowena through the window where she happily made herself a comfortable spot on the dashboard in the direct sunlight. “Phone.”
I made a grabby hand when I saw his phone sitting on the seat next to him.
“Bernadette, let me call someone for you,” he suggested, hesitant.
“Police,” I gasped and straightened my shoulders with my nose to the sky to suck in a deep breath so I could start to collect my senses. “The sky is blue. Colvin’s truck is green. Rowena is orange. This ugly uniform is grey.”
“Bernadette, honey, are you having yourself a nervous breakdown? I know life has been hard on you and all, but honestly, honey, right here ain’t the place to do it. Can I please take you to the hospital?”
I kept saying the items that I knew were true in my head, which was what the therapist had taught me to do when I was in the midst of a panic attack and fearful, thinking that would help bring me out of my foggy mind.
My chin fell, and I looked back into Colvin’s truck through the window. I took one more big deep breath.
On the exhale, I said so calmly, “There’s a body in the woods. Please call Angela.”
Colvin blinked a few times before what I told him registered. Without having me back up, he flung the arm of the gear shift into drive and stepped on the gas, pulling the truck over to the side of the road in front of my bike.
He jumped out and bolted around the front as fast as his elderly self could carry him.
All I could do was point in the general direction before I felt the sudden shift in my breathing become more rapid. Tears stung my eyes.
“Well, I’ll be. It sure is.” Colvin pulled off his John Deere cap and rubbed his head. “I reckon we better call the sheriff.”
“Isn’t that what I said?” I questioned but didn’t get an answer from him.
“Get in the truck. We’ll wait for her here.” He motioned with his cap for me to get inside and walked around the truck to get in himself. He picked up the phone and, with his thick fingers, punched in the sheriff’s number. “This here is Colvin Batty. I need the sheriff to come to Main Street on the outskirts of downtown going toward the high school. There’s a body in the woods.”
There wasn’t much conversing going on after he said that. We sat there, and the only thing we could hear was Rowena purring while she slept. She didn’t have a care in the world that she’d found the dead body. Technically she liked the shiny thing that led me to the dead body.
“Sheriff is here.” Colvin was looking in the rearview mirror.
I looked at the broken mirror on the passenger-side door and watched as Sheriff Angela Hafley drove closer with the lights of her sheriff’s car turned on but not the siren. I kept my eye on her, and when she got close enough to park behind us, I got out, and so did Colvin.
“Mr. Batty.” She took off the big round sheriff’s hat and gave a polite nod to Colvin. “Bernie.”
“The body is right over there.” I lifted my dead-weight arm and pointed in the general direction. “Rowena found a shiny object, and I went to see what it was. It’s the cleats on the bottom of a golf shoe.”
Angela swung her head around and looked at me for a moment, as though she were assessing the situation, then walked over to the edge of the woods, me on her heels.
“Right there.” I pointed over her shoulder. “See the shiny thing? It’s a cleat. Right there.” I poked.
“I see, Bernie.” She twisted her head to look back at me. “Why don’t you go sit in Colvin’s truck, and I’ll be right with you?”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Fine.” I gulped. Looking back over my shoulder to see what she was doing, I stumbled back to the truck.
“What did she say?” Colvin asked. He was leaning up against the door.
“She told me to go back to the truck.” I went to open the door.
“Not about that, about the body.” He shook his head.
“Oh. Nothing. Just going to assess the situation.” I took my hand off the handle and decided to follow him to the back of the truck, where he had gone to sit on the tailgate.
We sat there for a little bit. Angela had gone into the woods and come back out, talking on her phone. I figured she must’ve been calling in some other deputies.
I played the scene over in my head while I swung my legs back and forth before Colvin busted out laughing.
“What?” I asked.
“I thought you’d up and lost your mind when I saw you standing in the middle of the road with that cat up under your arm while you were flagging me down. I said to myself, Colvin, she did it. Just like everyone thought. She’d gone and lost her mind. It took her a few years, but she did it.” Colvin didn’t make me feel better about the rumors that’d been floating around about me for years.
The ones where people waited to see how long it would be before I did go crazy after Richard died. Then, when I’d found out a short while ago, years after he’d been dead, that he’d had a girlfriend during our entire marriage, the rumors continued.
Of course, I’d heard all the rumors from Iris, but never out of someone’s mouth, especially an elderly man’s.
“You can tell everyone you know that if I’ve not gone crazy yet, I’m not going to.” I stopped talking when Angela Hafley started to approach us.
The other deputies had gotten to the scene, and they were doing the usual things like taping the area off and directing the few cars that’d gone by, mostly driven by rubberneckers.
“Bernie, Mr. Colvin called in the murder. Said you found the body. Is that right?” Angela asked, pulled out a little notebook from the pocket of her shirt, and got out her pen to write down what I was saying.
“Yeah. I was having a hot flash—well I think it might’ve been the sun, but I bet it was a hot flash,” I rambled.
“Bernadette, the facts.” Angela gave me a hard stare.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m kinda nervous.” I rubbed my hands together. “I pulled over to take off my sweater before I headed into the neighborhood, where you know everyone and their brother is going to stop me.” I looked at Colvin. “Because you know they’re all gonna ask me if I’ve heard about Jeff Faulkner skipping town.”
My head jerked back to look at Angela. My jaw dropped. Without moving my head, I glanced over to the woods where the dead body was and then back to Angela.
“Is that. . .” My voice trailed off. My mouth became dry.
“I’m afraid so.” Angela looked down at the pad of paper. “It appears you’ve found Jeff Faulkner. Let me get this straight. You pulled off, and how did you see him?”
“Rowena did. You know my cat.” Colvin was right. I sounded like I’d lost my mind. “When I pulled over, she jumped out. She loves anything that glistens and shines, you know, to chase it.” I waved my hand to get back on track. “That’s when I noticed she was after the cleat on the shoe, and when I picked her up to get back on the bike, I noticed the body. But I didn’t see who and didn’t even think it could be Jeff until now.”
My shock at finding a body immediately went to thoughts of Rachel, Jeff’s wife, and Les, their son. Though it wasn’t a similar situation to Richard and me, it was still a dead spouse and father, which made me relate more than I wanted to.
“I ran into the road when I saw a truck driving along, and it was Colvin. I flagged him down and told him. He went to see for himself, and that’s when he called you.” It was as simple as that, so I knew she wouldn’t bring Colvin and me in for a formal statement, which would’ve taken place down at the department.
“No one touched the body or the shoe?” she asked and looked between us. Both of us shook our heads.
“Nope. I figured Bernie was having one of them nervous meltdowns.” He pinched his lips like he’d said too much. “I sure hate hearing it’s Jeff Faulkner.”
“Yes. I’m asking the both of you to keep it under your hats until we can contact the next of kin.”
“Oh, dear. I’ve got some mail for them too. I guess I could skip their house.” I caught myself talking out loud. “I would never skip their house. I’m just hoping she’s not there.”
I’d totally skip her house, even though it wasn’t ethical. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold it together if I saw her. That would be really hard for me. I knew the struggles of losing your spouse didn’t stop at the death. It was the stuff that came after, like the bills, or even just the daily life of not hearing your spouse pull into the driveway. The times you fussed at him for walking into the house with mud on his feet from the barn. My mind drifted to the memories.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Angela put her hat back on her head when Jigs Baker pulled up in his hearse. That was a sure-tell sign there was a dead body, and he would be able to give a quick time of death as well as the cause. “You two stay here for now.”
Again, there was silence between Colvin and me. Both of us taking it in, and probably for the same reasons: to tell people.
Jigs Baker walked up, his big belt buckle polished to a high shine and his bag in his grip. The toothpick in the corner of his mouth wiggled up and down as he talked to Angela. He leaned around her and focused on Colvin and me. Both of us waved.
He lifted his chin and then followed Angela over to the woods. I watched as Jigs took careful steps as he approached the scene. I paid extra-special attention to his body language and facial expression.
Over the past couple of years—maybe it’s my age that causes me to pay attention more—I’d found you could learn a lot from people’s body language. For instance, Jigs was giving Angela a slow nod, which told me he was interested in what she had to say before he looked back over at Colvin and me. This told me she was telling him who and how I happened upon the body.
Then he covered his mouth. This told me that he didn’t want Angela to see his emotions, which also told me that he and Jeff might’ve been friends, or better yet, gambled at the joint.
From what I’d heard—and this was all hearsay, which was what most of the talk was around Sugar Creek Gap—Jigs Baker was known to throw down a wad of cash during some gambling games.
My phone beeped, announcing a text. I was torn between watching what was unfolding and seeing who needed me. At least I liked to think someone needed me. If I didn’t look and it was Julia asking me to babysit Clara, then I’d be upset if I didn’t look. Or it could possibly be Grady needing something. Or what if it was Mom and Dad and something bad had happened?
Yep. I looked at it. It was Iris.
Told you I had a feeling. I overheard on the scanner someone found a body. I listened for a while and now I’ve heard from the scanner it’s Jeff Faulkner. Hmmm…I’m waiting to hear if he was murdered. Keep you posted.
Iris didn’t know it was me that found the body, and this was a good thing. This meant that I could go on my route and not get bombarded with questions surrounding what I’d found, and I could deliver Sable’s mail without her knowing. Yet. When she did find out that I was the one who found her husband’s body, I’d have already delivered the mail. She wouldn’t put two and two together that I’d found the body before I delivered the mail. At least, I hoped not. Then I could claim that Angela had yet to identify it was Jeff. That would be a big lie, but wasn’t it okay to lie when it was for the sake of not hurting someone?
I didn’t know the answer to that, but I guessed you could turn any situation around to make it in your favor. And in this instance, I didn’t have the emotional capacity to let anyone know that I’d found Jeff, yet.
“What happened?” I asked Colvin after I put the phone back in my pocket when I decided not to text Iris back.
