The Dead of Night by Jean Rabe

Author:Jean Rabe [Rabe, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boone Street Press

19

Nineteen

Piper was on 62 when Sylvia D radioed.

“Sheriff Blackwell, where are you?”

“A few miles past Dale.” The time read 11:44, and she was thinking about stopping down the road at a little café in Chrisney to look at the threatening email again.

“Then you’re real near Gentryville.”

“Yeah.”

“Better get over there, Sheriff. JJ just called. Just. Like a half-minute ago. She’s at the Mailbox Mauler’s place. Gretchen has a gun, and JJ’s looking for backup. You shouldn’t’ve let Gretchen out of jail the other day.”

“She made bail.” The words came out flat. Piper remembered that Sylvia D had criticized her at the old fart’s club for having Gretchen arrested. The tune had changed apparently.

Piper called JJ on the cell, not wanting the chatter over the radio.

“Five minutes,” Piper told JJ. “I’ll be there in five.” She resisted the notion to call for additional backup. The department’s two women could more than handle Gretchen. She didn’t need one of her men shooting the crazy octogenarian.

“Excuse my sexism, Sheriff Blackwell,” the State Police officer had said, “but violence is a male pursuit.”

“Unless you’re an old woman with a vendetta against mailboxes,” Piper muttered.

Gretchen’s place was on a blacktop road where the houses were spaced far apart, the yards each covering an acre or a little more. On the approach she saw three mailboxes on their sides, posts broken. One of the yards had a new post, but hadn’t yet put on a box. The destruction was from Gretchen’s latest spree. A few houses later Piper spotted two more postal fatalities, a stout middle-aged man at one of the busted posts waving frantically to get her to stop. He was holding a mailbox that had been bent to resemble a Chinese fortune cookie.

She rolled down the window and pulled over. He had a t-shirt with a big wolf on it stretched tight across his middle. His face was pale, sweat beaded up on it, his hair straggly and hanging to his jawline. He looked ill.

“Damned old woman. Second time this year. Look at the box? I’m gonna have to replace all of this again. Again! Can’t you keep her locked up? I’m home sick with the flu and I gotta deal with this crap. And why? Just ‘cause the mailman accidentally put my package on her stoop yesterday. This is her retaliation! Somebody misdelivers something and she goes on the warpath. She should take it out on the post office not me.” He slammed the mailbox down and kicked it. “Hell, I ain’t gonna replace this. I’m gonna leave it this way and mow around it and get a P.O. Box. Then she can’t ram my property again.” He coughed and waved dismissively, turned and headed toward his house, kicking the mailbox one more time.

Piper cruised farther and saw JJ standing by her Ford, which was parked off the side of the road across from Gretchen’s. Piper edged in behind her.

“This is nuts,” JJ said as Piper got out. “I will so not miss this effin’ backwater county.

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