“They haven’t even gotten back any results of how she died. I asked Angela why she thought Piddy had been killed, and she said because she’d just gotten her yearly physical from Doctor Hunter. Piddy had zero health issues but a lot of personal issues with people over the last few days, which sent a red flag up.”
“Still, why would she be bringing you in for questioning?” None of what Angela was doing made sense.
“She said to get a jump on things because stuff wasn’t adding up in Piddy’s case.” Iris shrugged. “I don’t know what that means. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Don’t worry.” I shifted my eyes to the post office, where some of the LLVs were already pulling out of the parking lot, which meant I was late. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for giving Revonda Gail a job.”
“Yeah. We’ll gossip… um, talk about that later.” Iris took off in one direction, and I went in the opposite direction.
The LLVs were the small trucks driven by the mail carriers, and the letters stood for Life Long Vehicles, which meant the post office was too lazy to buy new ones. They just kept putting Band-Aids on the ones they already had.
Ninety percent of the time, I made it to work before the drivers had a chance to go around their LLVs before they started their route and point out everything that needed to be fixed. Every day before they left the parking lot, they took a clipboard and had to make a report about their LLV.
Luckily, my LLV was my two feet, and I liked it that way. Since I’d been knee-deep in this menopause stuff, I’d been able to keep my weight down by walking all those mail routes every day. Sometimes my feet ached at night, but nothing a good Epson salt foot soak or a good massage from Mac didn’t solve.
My phone chirped as soon as I made it into the sorting room. I grabbed it out of the pocket of my blue uniform jacket I had worn, since it was a little chillier this morning than normal, and walked over to the three stacks of mail Monica Reed, our mail clerk, had already sorted and put in piles for me.
The first pile was the first loop, which was the nursing home. The second pile was a little bigger, and my second loop was the entire downtown area and Little Creek Road, the few houses on my street.
“Hey, Monica,” I called over to her as she sorted the other mail carriers’ mail. She technically didn’t have to do this, but she was always the first one in the post office, and the inside didn’t open for a few hours, so she’d start sorting everyone’s mail for them.
“Mornin’.” She gave a slight chin nod. “I guess you’ll be hearing all the town gossip today, not only about Piddy’s death but about the book.”
“Mm-hmm. About Piddy, who delivers the Satterlys’ mail?” I questioned her.
Working at the post office was quite unique. People didn’t realize just how much we knew about them. Your mail says a lot, and especially the junk mail. People weren’t careful when they were online. They’d go to sites they didn’t need to be on and inadvertently click on something that signed them up to receive either mail or email.
You couldn’t imagine how many times I’d deliver something that would embarrass them and they’d not accept the mail when it clearly had their name on it. They insisted they never signed up for things.
It was always sad when I’d see a letter come in from a doctor, mainly an oncologist, when the customer hadn’t said they were sick or even divulged it to their family. Not that a letter meant they were sick, but it did mean they went there for a reason. And bills. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many times I’d delivered a shut-off notice and they’d try to keep me and explain how the electric company, or whatever it was, must’ve lost their payments.
It was an interesting job, and I didn’t have to do too much to snoop around for clues.
“They don’t have mail delivery. They have a PO box. And let me tell you, I hate to say it, but Piddy is better off where she is because Elton is a mean man.”
“I could kiss you right now.” I couldn’t stop myself from smiling knowing that Angela Hafley would be very interested to hear what Monica had to say since she worked in the building. “Did you witness him being mean to her?”
“What?” She stood there with a handful of mail in her hands and stopped sorting. “Are you looking into her case? Was she murdered?”
Monica might’ve helped me a few times when I needed some stuff figured out, so she was always game.
“Let’s just say Angela Hafley has been sniffing around, and Iris had been brought in for questioning.” I knew that would get Monica’s attention.
“A few times he’d beep the horn if she stopped and talked to someone. She was to walk straight in and go to the box, get her mail, and leave.” Monica put the mail down and walked over. Her voice lowered, she said, “She told me once that she wasn’t even allowed to open the mail. Everything was done by Elton.”
“No wonder she cheated on him.” It completely slipped out of my mouth.
“I know, and now the whole entire world knows.” Monica was talking about the book. “Yesterday Elton showed up instead of Piddy. I asked if she was sick, and he said he let her take a job at the bookstore because she always had her head stuck in a book. A perk for her working there was free books, and that saved him money.”
“He let her?” I asked, knowing this was language used in abusive relationships.
“Yep. Let her,” Monica confirmed. “Then he went to get his mail.”
“And?” I could tell by the way she was talking there was more.
“I fill the PO boxes, and I know he got a book from Harper Press, which is the same publisher Beyond Boundaries was published through.” Monica was still holding back.
“And?” I rolled my wrist in front of me for her to continue. My phone chirped another text.
“And there were several people who got the same exact package delivered to their PO
boxes and to their mail carriers yesterday. So when Sara Rammond came in to get the mail for the Leaf and Petal, she opened hers, and it was the book. Sara even asked Elton if the book was for Piddy.” Monica laughed. “He tried to tell her it was a fishing book, but I knew better.”
“Interesting.” I pondered it for a second and looked down at the phone to see who’d texted a few times. It was Grady. “I need to take this. I’ll see you in about an hour or so to grab my second loop.”
Instead of texting Grady back, I hit his name to dial his phone. I stuffed the first loop into my mail-carrier bag and took off out the door.
“Hey, Mom.” Grady sounded like he’d just woke up. “I’m heading to school to watch game film and wanted to know what you thought about Lucy Drake’s coffee chat this morning.”
“I’ve not listened to it. What happened?” I asked and listened to him while I walked behind the post office and along the sidewalk that would take me right up to the nursing home.
“I guess the sheriff’s department is looking into Piddy’s death as a murder or something, so when Lucy took a caller’s phone call, it was Elton Satterly. He sounded all drunk or something, and he accused her of killing Piddy. Apparently the affair of the news anchor in Stella Jane’s book is between Elton and Lucy.”