The Devil Makes Three (6 page)

It was a plain brown envelope the size of a letter with a crease running down the middle. From the size of it, I would say it contained only a sheet of paper or two. No writing graced either side and the envelope seemed slightly discolored where someone had licked the seal. I figured the sealer had used a sponge rather than his tongue.

So how should I open it?

In my life of solitude I watched a lot of TV. During that time, I had become quite the aficionado of M*A*S*H. I owned every episode on DVD and could quote them by heart. This was usually a useless pastime, but today tidbits floated through my mind, speaking to me with a tone of devious excitement and a slight death wish.

Radar O’Riley, Iowa bumpkin and indispensable company clerk for the 4077, had frequently violated the sanctity of the mail by opening letters and reading them. One specific occurrence came to mind and I seized the letter, holding it as he had in his hands. Next to me, the group of girls giggled but I ignored them, intent upon my goal. Working at the seal by bending the envelope I tried to loosen the glue then flicked it with a violent finger, as O’Riley had. In the show, the envelope had popped open. I had no such luck.

Damn television. It never told the truth.

#

Weeknights are busy for me. My father usually has at least one burial during the day if not more. It was a rare occasion where there were none at all. Because of this, I’d made it a habit to get my homework done first, and then get down to business. Tonight was no different and I hurried through my studies in an effort to squeeze everything in. I liked to finish grave robbing by one o’clock and after that my mind was in no condition to indulge educator’s whimsical delights in busy work. In fact, my mind felt up for little more than vegetation and sleep on the office couch after a good grave robbery. Tonight however, I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I’d wait for him to come for his envelope.

He hadn’t said he would come by, but I figured this the most logical place for him to come, since he had approached me at the funeral home already.

Before I set out onto the grounds I took care to place my backpack in the file cabinet and lock it. It wouldn’t do much to keep the crazy trio out if they put their mind to it, but then they didn’t know where I had hidden it, so I felt confident they would at least have to hang out until I got back if they did show.

Not that I wanted to have another episode steeped in insanity and flirtatiousness. I just wanted to know how often I should plan on this happening, and couldn’t figure out any other way than talking to him. Them. Whatever.

My mind ached at the possible plural personalities. Why me? I wondered for the umpteenth time.

Outside I surveyed the terrain as usual then got to work. Digging went quickly since the dirt had been replaced only hours before and the vaults had yet to firmly set in their sealant. I collected a pair of diamond earrings, a ring and a set of cufflinks. When I finished I returned my equipment to the garage and made my way back to the funeral home, ready for anything.

It was empty.

He hadn’t come yet and I went down to the cooler to scout out my prospects for the next evening, then settled down on the couch in the office, flipping on the TV that sat, tucked away in an armoire in the corner. Hour after hour of the home shopping network slipped by and he never came. Finally, at six AM the senior mortician, a man by the name of Robert Taylor, showed up and I let him in the front gate.

“Everything all right? You don’t look too good,” he said, eyeing me.

“I’m exhausted.”

“Go home. Get some sleep.”

I grunted in reply and fetched my bag from the office then headed home. The bus wouldn’t stop nearby for another twenty minutes so every morning I got a mile and a half worth of exercise in before I got to sleep. This morning it felt like ten miles and I fell into my apartment, slamming the door shut behind me, tossing my bag on the table and shuffling into the bedroom. Stripping down to the essentials I collapsed onto the sheets and slept like a drunk.

Chapter 6

In which Gretchen test drives lingerie.

When I woke I found my bag had been rifled through, and a new envelope filled with five thousand dollars in cash had replaced it. Also, the jewelry I had stolen the night before lay on the table, a note underneath it.

None of this suits you like the necklace. Get rid of it. But if you happen across a pair of emerald earrings, hang on to them. I’ll make it worth your while. I love the way the emeralds in the necklace make your eyes shine.

I had two initial responses. The first was an undeniable urge to throw up. This was the most pressing of the two responses so I ran to the bathroom and emptied my stomach of a lot of excess acid. After that I ran to my door and checked the lock, then slid down the panel and sat on the floor, considering the implications.

He had come into my apartment.

No one else had ever stepped foot in my apartment. It was my safe zone, my hide-away. The one place I was certain nothing could touch me. I’d never even had the maintenance guy in.

Until now.

How he got in, I didn’t know. The chain was securely fastened along with the three other locks I had on the door. What I did know was that I would never sleep well again. If he could get me here, he could get me anywhere.

The consideration that he had waltzed in here while I slept came as an afterthought. My guard had been completely down. He could have done anything to me, and I never would have known. Wracking my brain, I tried to remember if I had eaten anything at the funeral home that he might have drugged if he had snuck in, but nothing came to mind. This consoled me somewhat, but I still felt antsy at the prospect and my resolve strengthened to never sleep less than fully clothed again.

#

My phone rang as I walked to my Crim class that afternoon and I flipped it open but said nothing.

“You’re breathing tersely this morning. Did you not sleep well?”

“How the hell did you get into my apartment?”

“Wouldn’t you rather know what I did while I was there?”

“You’re scum!”

“Easy. You’ll draw attention to yourself and we don’t want that.”

“What was in the envelope? I think you at least owe me that.”

“The less you know the more deniability you have, Temptress. Don’t ever try to see what’s in the envelopes.”

“What if I get arrested carrying them?”

“Arrested? For what? Have you looked at yourself lately? The most anyone could ever suspect you of is speeding. And you don’t even own a car.”

“I’m done. And don’t ever come into my apartment again.”

“Oh no. That’s not the way it works. But I’ll cut you a small break. I’ll make the drop off locations convenient for you, like yesterday. And I’ll retrieve them quickly. I recognize that one with so innocent a mindset might find the handling of plain brown envelopes a bit threatening, even if it’s only for a short while.”

“I don’t want a break. I want out.”

Students passing by on the walkway glanced back at me, probably due to my vehemence, but I ignored them. They could gawk all they wanted. It wouldn’t change the fact that I didn’t give a flying fig what they thought. I was too worked up to care.

He continued as if I had said nothing. “I’m having a slight issue with some of my other deliverers right now, so you’re my main go-to girl for a while. But don’t worry. Your bank account will love it.”

“Issues? Like they have issues with your management?”

“More like legal inquiry. I’d rather keep things low around them for now.”

“See? This could all lead me straight to prison.”

“Relax. No one’s going to prison. You just sit tight, spend a little money on yourself and learn to have a little fun in life. Get a massage; spend a day at a spa. Take a vacation even. Although you’ll have to give me a heads up on the dates so I can work out another deliverer.” He added the last bit as an afterthought.

“You really are crazy, aren’t you? I can’t take a vacation right now. I have too much to do. Classes don’t stop just because you say so.” Flipping my phone closed I stuffed it back in my pocket. I got to class just as Professor Cade did and he held the door open for me.

“I really didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.

“Yeah well, life deals us all rotten hands sometimes.”

“That’s encouraging.”

I wanted to punch him in the face, or maybe just kiss him, but I gritted my teeth and smiled. “Nothing personal.” With that, I took my seat at the back of the room and plugged in my laptop while he went to the front of the room and hooked his laptop up to the projector. Gratefully, Richard spared me the pleasure of his company.

At least one thing was going my way.

My phone began to vibrate in my pocket again. Repressing buggy eyes, I plunged my hand into my pocket, overly excited that I might actually verify the existence of a Corbin sibling, since Professor Cade wasn’t using his phone.

It was my mother.

In frustration I tossed it back in the bag. As I did, I couldn’t help but notice the envelope of money I had shoved into the bag’s front pocket on my way out of my apartment.

Five thousand dollars.

I could really use that. I thought. I didn’t know especially what for, but I could certainly find something to spend it on. Like an extended battery for my laptop so I could sit wherever I wanted in classrooms. And a pair of pajamas. Those would definitely get added to the shopping list if I continued having nocturnal visitors. Then there was always the prospect of opening a savings account for this ill-gotten money. Of course, I couldn’t deposit too much cash at a time, but I could always get money orders from local grocery stores to deposit.

“Lights please.”

Without thinking I reached up and flipped the lights off. Settling back down I began typing away, capturing the lecture verbatim. When the time came for discussion rather than lecture, I flipped the lights back on and finished typing the last few sentences stored away in my short term memory.

He began discussing the case studies, calling on students at random. The usual responses were produced, none of which shocked, pleased or penetrated into my deeper psyche.

“Gretchen what do you think about that?”

I grimaced when I heard my name. “What do you want me to think of it?”

“I’m wondering if perhaps you agree with your peers, in their interpretation of the law code, or if you have a different point of view.”

“I fail to have any opinion at all. It all sounds good to me.”

He stared at me for a moment then shook his head. “Alright. Rachel, how about you?”

The vapid blond in the front row was more than eager to share her minimal understanding and impress the professor. With her response, it became my turn to shake my head and I continued typing away, failing to really cognate anything discussed. That is, until he got to the crime surveys we had completed during the previous class. Once again he asked for me to dim the lights and a spreadsheet came up with our mostly benign results on them, and a pie chart.

He went through the various crimes and the statistical relevance for our class. As expected, we had numerous cases of property crime such as theft, pick-pocketing, white collar crime and vandalism. Also, unsurprisingly, drug use claimed a large chunk of the class’s now un-closeted skeletons.

“But, oddly, this class doesn’t fit the stats completely,” he said as a chart appeared on the screen. “Due to the small amount of students and the socioeconomic status of most people in the class, a large amount of violent crime will throw it off the statistical norm. I expected some cases of domestic abuse or something of that sort, perhaps some assault charges.” He eyed the males in the room briskly then pointed back to the screen. “But this class seems to have had a bit more.” He pointed to a smallish, purple slice on the pie. While by far the smallest on the graph, it looked big enough to make the violent crime section relatively comparable to the others. “Not only did abuse and assault get checked on the surveys, but there was also one case each of rape and murder.”

A few people in the class sucked in their breath and every one glanced around. It couldn’t be helped. Most of the glances fell on the testosterone holders of the class; the jocks who took the course for what they thought would be an easy credit. But I knew better. Instead of searching for the rapist in the crowd, my eyes studied Professor Cade, waiting for some sort of recognition from him, some sort of accusation for my crimes.

“Now before you start erecting gallows,” he said. “Let me remind you that these surveys were anonymous, and what’s more, they are somewhat suspect in their total validity. It would not surprise me to find these crimes to have been exaggerated or even completely fabricated out of disrespect for our discussion.”

Visibly, the class relaxed, most of all the jocks who knew they had experienced judgmental scrutiny.

“You can get the psychology behind such humor from another course, but for the sake of today’s class we’re going to discuss what these results might mean, for the general population of the school, as if completely legitimate.”

Half-way through the discussion I tuned him out, blindly typing again while he talked, absolutely appalled with the college population in general. He considered the surveys suspect, but I knew the truth. I hadn’t lied about the murder and if I was brave enough to admit to something that horrid, the rape probably wasn’t a fib either.

Humanity sucked.

At the end of the lecture I finished typing the last few thoughts and began putting my things away while the room cleared. When I looked up, the professor sat on the desk at the front of the room looking at me.

“You type pretty fast,” he said.

“Yeah. That happens with practice,” I replied. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for chit-chat from the crazy brigade. Especially when I knew that he knew who the class murderer was.

“Do you type verbatim, or your interpretation of what’s said?”

“Verbatim.”

“Tell me, what did we discuss today?”