David Handler - The Snow White Christmas Cookie

Questa shifted around unhappily in his chair. “I’ve had two teams of investigators on the ground since approximately nine o’clock last evening,” he said grudgingly. “One of my teams is presently up in Norwich working the supply chain. The other’s at the Dorset Post Office conducting interviews. I personally interviewed Postmaster Zander at her home early this morning. The victim, Hank Merrill, was her live-in lover. She’s grieving and extremely upset. I also spoke with her son, Casey, who’s a part-time carrier. I found him to be reasonably cooperative, although I did think he gave me an attitude.”

“It was nothing personal,” Des said. “He gives that to everyone.”

“At the present time,” Questa continued, “there is no reason to suspect Postmaster Zander has been complicit in any wrongdoing. But, based on my experience, the odds are good that she knows more than she was willing to admit about what’s been going on.”

“Which is what?” Grisky asked.

“High-value parcels have been disappearing from Hank Merrill’s route for the past two weeks-retail gift cards, choice little Christmas presents from the likes of Amazon and, most notably, prescription meds.”

“How much are we talking about? Can you give us a dollar figure?”

Questa shook his giant head. “We’ll have to canvass each resident on his route before we know that. Frankly, I’m still not entirely certain why Postmaster Zander didn’t contact us immediately when she became aware of the situation.”

“I may be able to help you with that,” Des said. “Dorset’s a small town with small-town traditions.”

Questa stared across the table at her. “What kind of traditions?”

“Folks put Christmas tips in their mailboxes for Hank. Some of them bake cookies, others leave him cash. Hank donated the cash to the Food Pantry.”

“I don’t care who he donated it to,” Questa blustered. “Mail carriers are prohibited from accepting holiday gratuities.”

“I know this. I also know that the boxes aren’t supposed to be used for anything other than official U.S. Mail. But in Dorset they are. Lem Champlain, our busiest private plowman, conducts his business by mailbox. That’s how he bills his customers and that’s how they pay him-mostly in cash. Lem told me he’s short about two thousand dollars this month in payments that his customers swear they put out for him, although I’m not one hundred percent sold on his credibility.”

Questa gazed at her sternly. “Sounds to me like you know an awful lot about this case. Was Postmaster Zander in contact with you?”

“Let’s just say I got wind of it, okay?”

“Homegirl keeps her ear to the ground,” Grisky said admiringly.

“ When did you get wind of it?”

“Yesterday. I spoke to Hank Merrill about it at the Post Office.”

“That’s not your job,” Questa fumed. “It’s mine.”

“I’m aware of the protocol, Inspector. But Paulette was highly resistant to contacting you. She was worried about how it would look. I told her that I’d be willing to make some informal inquiries on the matter if she’d agree to contact you. I was making a concerted effort to move the investigative process your way. She promised me she’d reach out to you.”

“Well, she didn’t.”

“Well, that’s not my fault.”

“Well, it’s somebody’s fault.”

Des let out a sigh. “Inspector, do you want to throw down or do you want to figure out what happened to Hank Merrill?”

Questa didn’t respond. Just glowered at her.

“So you spoke with the victim yesterday?” Grisky asked Des.

“Informally,” Des reiterated.

“And now he’s formally dead. What do we know about this gee?”

“We know that he had financial problems stemming from his divorce,” she replied. “We know that he texted Paulette a suicide note in which he appeared to confess to stealing the mail himself. The trouble is…”

“Okay, I need for you to stop talking now,” Grisky broke in. To Questa he said, “Tell us what you’re doing about this.”

“We’ve brought in a temporary supervisor from Norwich to take over for Postmaster Zander. He’ll assign a part-time carrier to Hank Merrill’s route until this matter resolves itself. We have to keep the mail moving. That is, and always will be, job one for the USPS. Meanwhile, we work our fundies.”

Grisky peered at him curiously. “Work your what? ”

“Our fundamentals,” Questa said, louder this time. “We acquaint ourselves with every aspect of the operation at this individual branch. Interview each and every carrier and clerk. Determine if anyone has recently transferred, retired or been terminated. Determine when the keypad lock in the office was most recently updated. We undertake a top-to-bottom investigation of the security procedures that are in place. Check the padlocks and deadbolts, the safe where the scanners and vehicle keys are kept. According to Postmaster Zander, only she and her senior clerk know the combination to that safe. We’ll have to see about that. We’ve encountered these types of thefts numerous times before. Maybe we’re looking at a dirty carrier. Maybe not. There are other possible scenarios. One is that the theft of these valuables occurred before they got to the carrier. A dirty clerk or clerks can divert them as soon as they come off of the truck, repackage them and send them on to a complicit third party. I’ve seen it happen.”

Des considered this, wondering if Hank had accidentally seen something going on in the back room. Wondering if this was what he’d wanted to talk to her about.

“If that’s how it went down,” Toni said, “then wouldn’t parcels have been disappearing from more than just Hank Merrill’s route?”

Grisky raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Snooki makes an excellent point.”

“Thank you, Agent,” she said, blushing. The poor girl was totally gaga. A temporary and treatable affliction, Des hoped and prayed.

“Not necessarily,” Questa responded. “Hank Merrill had the choicest route in Dorset. And if stuff from all over town started disappearing that would have set off too many alarm bells. Besides, that’s just one possible scenario. Another is the supply train, by which I mean the trucks that bring the mail to this branch from the distribution hub in Norwich. The postal service outsources the trucking to private contractors these days. We perform background checks on all of the drivers, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have ourselves a bad apple. So we work that, too. Interview each and every driver who comes in contact with the Dorset-bound mail. Review the security procedures that are in place in Norwich, then keep on backtracking from there. The Norwich hub gets its mail from Hartford and Wallingford. If mail comes into this state by air it arrives at Bradley International and is trucked to Hartford. We’ll follow it every step of the way. And if we turn up a bad apple I assure you we will prosecute him to the full extent of the law. We’re the US Postal Service. We take our responsibilities seriously. We were on the front lines in the War Against Terror from day one, in case you’ve forgotten the anthrax scare. Because we haven’t. We’re professional investigators who do a professional job. We’re not clowns.”

“It never occurred to any of us that you were,” The Aardvark assured him.

“What he said,” Yolie agreed, nodding his head.

“Kind of thin-skinned, aren’t you, Inspector?” Grisky asked.

“Maybe I’m just sick of you gung-ho frat boys from the bureau taking over our cases.”

Des found herself starting to like little Sam Questa, even if she did keep expecting him to let loose with a yabba-dabba-doo.