Ashes and Bones (21 page)

“Whatever, Auntie. Say, did you want to hear about what my friend the graphologist had to say about the letter?”

“You got it already?”

“Sure. The most interesting thing that happens to me all week, you think I’m going to sit on it?”

I let the potential double entendre slide. “What did she say?”

He paused dramatically. “It’s a fake.”

“Yeah? I could have told you that.”

“No, you don’t understand. Someone was trying to imitate your handwriting, as well as cover up their own.”

“Right. That makes sense.”

“But why not just type it? Add a signature? Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

“Only if you think I’d type mash notes.”

“Dear God in heaven. ‘Mash notes?’” Michael sighed, disappointed in me again. “What century is that from?”

“I’m sorry, Michael. I haven’t got your experience with pornographic literature. Or love notes, for that matter.” Ouch, Emma, that might have been a little much. “I mean, well, what do you call it?”

“A solicitation? Invitation? Exhortation? Invocation? Sure as hell not a mash note.”

“Whatever.”

Michael was curious now. “So. Would you? Type them?”

“I’m not in the habit of—no.” I sighed. “Short answer, no. Did she give you anything else?”

“Just that it was a good job, for an imperfect forgery. While it wasn’t an exact copy of your handwriting, there was enough attention to detail to get things like the spacing and drops correct. There was one thing, however, that reminded her of your Tony’s handwriting.”

“What was that?”

“The distance from the margins. That seemed to be very like the sample you sent me. It is, however, significantly less than conclusive as to identity. But whoever it is, is strange about the past. Connected and disconnected all at once.”

I couldn’t help asking: I wondered what my writing said about me. “And mine?”

He didn’t answer right away. “How old is the sample you sent?”

“Pretty recent. Earlier this summer, I think.”

“You’re much more interested in the future, right now. Looking to make a change, maybe? But you’re agitated, something’s up, is what she said.”

“That’s a surprise?” It sounded like nonsense to me. “I couldn’t tell you.”

“Thanks for trying. And you’ll send those right back to me? I don’t know which is safer. Send it to my house I guess. Request a signature, okay?”

“Okeydoke. Just as soon as Trish the Ink gets the outline of my tattoo done.”

The doorbell chimed the next morning. Artie, I thought. I went downstairs with an odd mixture of triumph, dread, and reluctance: No one likes confrontation.

After I let him in, he glanced hopefully at the coffeepot. Thinking that I’d catch more flies with coffee than vinegar, I’d made a batch and now invited him to sit. Artie looked chuffed. Finally, I was starting to appreciate the way he deserved to be treated. I was only sorry I didn’t think to get donuts for him.

“So. Artie,” I started, after he’d settled in. “There have been some strange goings-on around here.”

He stopped in mid-slurp. “Oh yeah? What kinda strange?”

“Someone’s been into my mail. You haven’t noticed anyone lurking around here, or down by the mailbox, have you?”

“Oh, no. No.”

The answer came a little too fast for me. “See, I think someone stole some of my mail, and the problem is, they might have grabbed a few bills along with it. The phone company, the electric—I’m getting second notices and stuff.” I kept it something he might be able to relate to. “Are you sure you haven’t seen anyone?”

“Like I said. I didn’t see anyone.” He seemed much more confident now.

“Okay. Just checking.” I took a sip of my coffee, not tasting it, trying to feign casualness. “Hey, last week and a half or so? You didn’t happen to leave the house when I went out to run some errands, did you?”

He took a big swallow of coffee. “Why would I do that?”

Aha! “Maybe to get some more supplies,” I said, trying to hide my impatience and my growing excitement. “It could happen to anyone as busy as you are. There’s a hardware store, not five minutes away. It wouldn’t have taken you long to run out, run back.” Grab a cruller. Grab a dozen.

“Well. Let me think.” He glanced away, drank noisily.

I gave him a few moments, smiling, wishing I could shake him.

“You know, now that you mention it, I might have needed some outlet plates. I might have run out and picked up a few of those. And—”

“What?” He’d stopped so suddenly, I knew he’d thought of something.

He proceeded nervously. “I thought it was nothing. I figured it was a neighbor, maybe. Leaving something in your box. I didn’t see him take anything.”

I felt my pulse speed up. “What did he look like?”

“I dunno. A guy. Medium height, medium build. Older, I guess, but not too old. I didn’t see him take anything. He waved at me,” he finished, as if that was significant.

“Oh. Well, that helps. It sounds like my neighbor,” I lied. “I’ll check with him, see if he’s had any problems.”

“And I wasn’t gone all that long,” Artie said.

“Well, you see, it helps. If you’d been working, you wouldn’t have seen him, and then I wouldn’t know to ask him.”

It was weak, but more than enough of an excuse for Artie, who set about finishing his coffee and bustling about his work with a focus and efficiency that I hadn’t seen before.

I went down to the post office and let them know about the
mailbox being rifled. I hadn’t noticed anything else was missing, no, I explained as patiently as I could, but then, I hadn’t known about Sophia’s picture coming either, so I didn’t know what else might have gone missing. I was concerned about recurrences.

They gave me the appropriate form to fill out, told me that the supervisor would be notified, and if anything else happened, it would go to the Post Master, then the Postal Inspector, if necessary, for investigation. Until then, I had a choice of doing nothing, renting a post office box, or getting a lock for the mailbox we had.

I figured since Tony had never really hit the same place more than once, he wouldn’t be back, but wasn’t going to take the chance and promised them I’d get a lock and give a key to my letter carrier. I’d wait until he started blowing up the mailboxes to apply for a post office box.

The next evening, I came down from my office to answer the doorbell: it was the overnight guy with the original letter and picture back from Michael. He must have had someone else—an assistant, an adoring undergraduate intern—do the label, because it was legible. I opened the envelope, and found another envelope, and a note.

I recalled that Michael’s scrawl was nearly impossible to read, and I had to wonder what his friend had made of
his
writing, but perhaps out of courtesy to me, he’d typed his note. It read: “Auntie, here’s the pic and the letter. My friend handled it carefully, with gloves (she’s used to working with me), and as little as possible, so the cops shouldn’t get anything else but my fingerprints on it. Sorry about that. Let me know when you catch this freak; I’m worried about me now. Michael.” The signature was barely recognizable as such.

The graphologist was used to working with Michael? Was that some kind of euphemism? Or was she merely used to handling historical documents?

I found a pair of disposable latex gloves in the kitchen and opened the interior envelope carefully. When I pulled the image out, I turned away out of habit, but the thing’s fascination and my own need to know what was going on overtook prudishness.

Michael was right; it was a good job. There was an egregiousness to the breasts, and too much perfection; even so, I thought, mine were better. But if my legs had been that long, I’d have given up archaeology for the stage, and there was a slight awkwardness to the neck where the image of my head had been attached. I didn’t recognize the picture itself, but the hair was long, so it had to be from a while ago. Years, maybe. And why was my head back, eyes closed…I dislike having my picture taken, so I usually try to compose myself. This was a candid; I was laughing. But in this context, it looked like sexual ecstasy.

I put the picture aside and picked up the note, which Michael had been cautious enough to put in an acid-free document holder. I pulled it out, and read it. Again, he’d been correct; there were elements that one could argue were stylistically similar to mine—whoever had written this was familiar with my work—and there were certain quirks of punctuation and word use that were reminiscent of my writing. I seriously doubted, however, that if I’d written this note, I would have been quite so…rooted…in my academic persona.

And the porn wasn’t anything like my personal fantasy life.

That cheered me up. Whoever was doing this might know a lot about me, might know that I favored certain words, but didn’t know diddly about the real me, inside me. What was private—really private—was still safe.

I thought about giving Marty a call, telling her about this, and then realized that I couldn’t. I still hadn’t heard back from her. Ditto with Bucky. I actually thought about calling Michael back, but it wasn’t really the kind of thing I could talk about with him.

Brian came in from work and glanced at the pile of papers. “What’s that? Holy—!”

As his eyes widened, I resisted the urge to cover up the picture. After all, if several total or near strangers had already seen it, then who was I to hide it from Brian?

I handed him a pair of gloves. “This was sent to Michael Glasscock. You know, the guy from Shrewsbury a couple of years ago?”

He looked at the gloves, then shrugged and put them on. His eyes went straight back to the picture. “The one who came over, just as we got the news about Sophia being born? Yeah, I remember. We left him, he almost set fire to the house trying to cook a hotdog, and then he drank all the good bourbon. But why—?”

“The same reason someone would send flowers to your mother, meat to my father, and chocolates to my mother. Screw with me.”

Brian looked thoughtful. “Yeah, but…why couldn’t this all be from Michael?”

“Huh? Because it isn’t, that’s why.”

“Hell, Em, the guy’s a flake. Remember the first time I saw him? He was sleeping on the floor of the living room, in his raincoat. I mean, he’s not normal. And you’ve always said he was a bit of a pervert.”

“I said he was obsessed with women. Pervert is different.”

“Okay, tell me the difference.”

“Brian, will you stop peeing on my parade? It wasn’t Michael. He’s living with Sasha—”

“How do you know?”

“He told me.”

Brian let that hang between us for a while.

“He wouldn’t do something like this,” I repeated, but then I remembered what Michael’d said about stalking women years ago…he was the outlier in all these occurrences, after all. And what if he’d sent the image to himself as a matter of indirection?

Brian shrugged. “Why not? You told me he was spending all his time looking at nude images in the library. I wouldn’t cross him off your list so easily.”

I tried to find the reasons. “I’m not his type. I’m too…ordinary. And besides, he’d be way more obvious. He’s not the sort to do something…as coy as this.”

“I still think you’re giving him too much credit. It’s a possibility, isn’t it?

“Fine. I know Michael better than you, that should count for something. And I can call up and talk to Sasha. Find out if he’s actually with her.”

“Like living with someone would prevent him from doing this.” He picked up the cellophane envelope. “Why all the shrouds? Covers? A bit like a striptease, isn’t it?”

I looked at him; it was not the sort of thing he’d come up with on his own.

“Hey, I took English in college,” he said defensively. “I know how those guys think. All layers and revealing and stuff.”

“He put it in the envelopes so that there wouldn’t be any more fingerprints.”

“Any more? So his are on there? Emma”—he looked at me doubtfully—“look, you are going to give this stuff to the cops, right?”

“I want to, but I suddenly wondered…who? I mean, what jurisdiction?”

“Maybe you should leave that up to them. I bet Bader would be willing to hold on to it, until we sort this out.”

“Probably.”

“You’re embarrassed to show this to them, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t you?” I answered. I could feel my face going red.

Brian shrugged. “I don’t like it. But I know it isn’t you, and I’m not going to keep evidence from them just because I’m embarrassed.”

“Maybe.” I was still mad at him for trying to blame Michael. It just wasn’t Michael’s style, any more than that
letter was mine. And yet, I could hardly fault him for trying to find a ready solution to this.

Brian picked up the letter and read it. I watched interest and curiosity cross his face, and finally he frowned and put it down. “It doesn’t sound like you.”

“I didn’t think so.” That was something, at least. I needed to feel close to someone, I needed to know that Brian still was there, that he still knew me, no matter what was going on. What ever problems there might be between us, our relationship was only strained, not broken.

“I don’t know. If you really felt this way about someone, you’d send them something…Shakespeare. And you’d only do it if whoever was going to get it knew just exactly how much passion that meant for you. It wouldn’t matter if they got the poem or the reference, or whatever, it would matter that they knew you knew.” He looked at the letter, then straight at me. “You’d save the hot stuff for the bedroom.”

I leaned over and kissed him hard. “Yes. Exactly.”

I spent the next afternoon dropping off the materials at the Stone Harbor police department. Bader’s face didn’t change much when I told him what was in the envelope, but it was the fixedness of his expression that told me he was disturbed. After, I returned home and went up to my office. Tried to get into my office, anyway: I realized that the end-of-season clutter had merged disastrously with the new semester’s piles of papers and files. If I did nothing else today, I would have to clean a path to my computer, maybe put some of the summer’s work back in the barn.