David Handler - The Snow White Christmas Cookie

Paulette flicked off the TV and flopped down in one of the recliners, motioning Des toward the other one. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m all set, thanks.” Des perched on the edge of the recliner while Paulette took a big gulp of wine, then lit a cigarette, pulling on it deeply. “I don’t recall seeing you smoke before.”

“I quit two years ago,” she said with a casual wave of her hand. The lady was more than a bit tipsy, Des realized. “Found these down in Casey’s room. Not my old brand, but who gives a crap. You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”

“It’s your house, Paulette. Where is Casey?”

“At the Rustic, same as every night. He and all of the other boys. It’s their little clubhouse.”

“When did he leave?”

“After dinner, same as always.”

“You were saying on the phone that Hank didn’t come home from work?”

“No, he came straight home.” She flicked her cigarette ash in the general direction of the ashtray. “Fiddled around with his train set for a while. He drags the silly thing out of the attic every Christmas and sets it up and watches it go around and around. He’s had it ever since he was a little boy. You wouldn’t believe how happy it makes him. Then he put on his coat and told me he had to check on something at the firehouse before dinner.”

“Such as what?”

Paulette let out a hollow laugh. “How would I know? He’s in and out of there all of the time. They all are. The firehouse is their little clubhouse. It’s where they go when they want to get away from us. That’s how men are. But Hank’s Mr. Reliable. He’s always back in time for dinner. You can set your watch by Hank.” She stubbed out her cigarette, her face tightening. “I gave Casey his dinner at 6:30 so he could take off for the Rustic. When Hank still wasn’t back by 7:00, I started to get ticked off. It’s a rotten night out there and I’m sitting here all by myself. I tried his cell phone, but it was turned off.”

“Did you leave him a voice message?”

“I sure did. And when he didn’t call me back I started getting worried. I was going to try him again when I noticed the text message that he’d sent me. It sounded so unlike him. Also kind of … scary. That’s why I called you. Maybe I’m making something out of nothing. If I am I’m sorry to drag you out like this.”

Des cleared her throat. “Actually, you didn’t. I was already out. There’s no easy way to say this, Paulette, but we’ve found Hank’s Passat by the boat launch at the end of Kinney Road. He hooked up one end of a garden hose to the tailpipe, stuck the other end through his window and-”

“Oh, no…” Paulette’s eyes bulged with fright. “Are you telling me he’s dead ?”

“I’m afraid so. I’m sorry.”

Paulette groped for another cigarette and lit it, her hands trembling. “That’s why you didn’t say anything on the phone, isn’t it? I knew it. As soon as you told me you were coming by I knew it was going to be bad news. I–I thought maybe he’d been in an accident. The roads being so bad and all. But not something like-like this .” She shook her head slowly from side to side. “That text message … that was his suicide note, wasn’t it?”

“It certainly appears that way. Shall I call Casey for you at the Rustic? Have him come home?”

“No, I’m fine,” Paulette said softly, reaching for her wineglass.

“Was Hank acting unusual this evening? Did he seem depressed?”

“He’s been upset about those thefts on his route. I wouldn’t say he was depressed. Hank doesn’t … didn’t get depressed. He was real even tempered.”

“And how were things going between you two? Were you happy?”

Paulette stared at her blankly. “ Happy ? You’re kidding me, right? I haven’t met anyone who’s happy in a really, really long time. But I thought we were doing okay. We enjoyed each other’s company. Laughed a little. Made love a little. Not as much as we used to but that’s to be expected, right?”

“Was Hank a big drinker?”

“He liked his beer.”

“How about bourbon?”

“Not real often. Why?”

“He smelled strongly of it when we found him.”

Paulette furrowed her brow. “There’s a half-bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the kitchen cupboard, I think. It’s been in there for at least a year.”

“Would you mind checking to see if it’s still there?”

Paulette got up out of her recliner and went into the kitchen. “Still here,” she called out, returning with it. “I guess … he must have bought a bottle somewhere.”

“Must have.”

Paulette put the bottle of Jack Daniel’s down on the kitchen table and retrieved her wineglass, swaying slightly as she stood there. “Hank was the grinch, wasn’t he? That’s why he did himself in-because you were closing in on him. That text he sent me, when he said, ‘ It’s all my fault. I messed up .’ That was him confessing.”

“It’s too soon to know at this point. Anything I say would be speculation, and I don’t like to speculate. May I see the text message?”

Paulette fetched her cell from the arm of her recliner, found Hank’s text message and held it out to her. Des studied it carefully. It was just as Paulette had reported it, word for word. “ It’s all my fault. I messed up. Sorry for everything. Take care of yourself. ” All very neat and correct. No typos. No text speak. And she’d received it when she’d said she had-at 7:13.

“You said you left him a voice message?”

Paulette nodded. “It should be on my call log. There it is, see? I called him at 7:07.”

“Paulette, I’m going to need to borrow your phone for a day or two.”

“Fine.” She sat back down in her recliner, sighing morosely. “It’s not much to grab on to, is it? He didn’t say he loved me or he’d miss me. He just said ‘ Take care .’ Like I was one of his firehouse buddies.” Paulette gulped down some more wine. “What happens now?”

“The postal inspectors will be contacting you in the morning, I imagine. They’ll no doubt want to look into what’s been happening on Hank’s route. Try to determine if, say, he had money troubles.”

“Tell them to talk to his bitch of an ex-wife,” Paulette said angrily. “Her and that lawyer of hers. They tormented the poor man constantly about money. All because his mother committed the cardinal sin of dying. He sold her house and made a few dollars. Worked day and night and made a few dollars more. And for that they hounded him and hounded him.…”

“Paulette, do you think Hank was stealing his own mail?”

Dorset’s postmaster considered her reply for a long moment. “It wasn’t like him to pull something sneaky. Hank was the ultimate Boy Scout. His friends and neighbors felt safe having him coach their teenaged daughters. That’s saying something, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“But it sure looks like he was up to no good,” Paulette admitted. “I’d have to be an idiot not to see that. I just find it hard to believe, that’s all.”

“If Hank was stealing prescription meds then he must have had a buyer. Do you have any idea who he might have been dealing with? Did he make regular trips to New Haven or New London during the course of the week? Mention a friend who he visited? Anything like that?”

Paulette shook her head. “Nothing like that. But he did know a lot of people here in town. Maybe one of his firehouse or marching-band buddies put him in touch with someone. And he worked at John’s barber shop every Saturday. God only knows what sort of riffraff slithers in and out of there.” She heaved a pained sigh. “We could have licked it together. Taken out a second mortgage on this place. Sold one of our cars. Who cares? It’s only money. But Hank wouldn’t let me help him. He just kept saying, ‘It’s my baggage, not yours.’ He was a stubborn bastard. They’re all stubborn bastards.”