Dead Letter (Digger) Read online

  Digger looked at the letter again. The typewriter used appeared to have been a manual, rather than electric, because the darkness of the letters was uneven. It was a normal, large pica type, the only thing he noticed distinctive about it was that the O’s in the letter were slightly below the line of the rest of the message.

  He heard Allie sob next to him, and he put the letter back in his pocket, and placed his arm around her shoulders.

  "Take it easy," he said. "It’s just somebody’s weirdass sense of humor."

  "Yes. But they put Wally Strickland’s name on that list and then crossed it off. Like he was murdered. Like I wished it. Why did they send it to me?"

  "Who knows? Whoever did it might have sent out hundreds of them. Tomorrow, maybe everybody on campus’ll be chuckling about it."

  "But Wally Strickland. It’s like they sent it to me because they knew I wanted him dead. Somebody…it’s like…well, somebody saying they killed Wally for me."

  She looked up at Digger. He squeezed her and she let her head drop and rest on his shoulder.

  "Come on, Allie," he said. "You know his death was an accident. This is just a bad joke."

  "I guess so. It’s just…I don’t think it’s funny."

  "Neither do I," said Digger. "Neither do I."

  They were still sitting silently on the park bench five minutes later when Danny Gilligan joined them. The young man took Allie’s hands in his and said, "Easy now, it’s going to be all right."

  She smiled at him, then stood up. "I just want to walk for a few minutes," she said. "By myself."

  Danny stared at her as she walked across the field and kept watching her when Digger asked, "You got any ideas?"

  "Some whacko. You’ve got a campus full of them here. Any one of them’d be liable to do it. It’s a sick joke, though, even for this place."

  "Allie said something about there being a death list on the bulletin board," Digger said.

  "Yeah. People we could do without. There was a big list there. Rampler wrote down my name."

  "Who put the list on the board?" Digger asked.

  The young man shrugged. "I don’t know. One day, it was just there."

  "Was it handwritten or typed?"

  Danny thought for a moment. "Handwritten."

  "What happened to it?"

  Gilligan looked straight ahead at Allison who had squatted in the grass fifty yards away to pet a black Labrador who was frolicking in the field.

  "I don’t know," he said. "One day it was gone. I figured somebody from the administration saw it and took it down. They might do that."

  Digger handed him the clipping about Wally Strickland’s death. The young man glanced at it.

  "You know anything about this? Anything that wasn’t in the paper?"

  Gilligan shook his head and handed the clipping back. "No. If you mean, were the cops around and did they say anything, no. It was just an accident, I guess."

  "It’s sort of strange," Digger said. "First Allie puts his name on a list and then he dies. And then somebody sends her this letter."

  "The first, a coincidence. The second, a bad joke," Gilligan said.

  "I suppose you’re right."

  Allie walked back toward them and Digger thought that the only word for the young woman was phenomenal. She was smiling again as if she had pushed the upset of the past thirty minutes away from her and out of her memory.

  "Quite a woman," Digger said.

  "She sure is," Gilligan said. "She’s what I’ve been looking for all my life."

  "She’s what everybody’s been looking for all their lives," Digger said.

  Allie stood in front of them as Digger took one of his cards from his wallet. He scrawled a number on the back of it and handed it to Allison.

  "That’s the phone number of Dr. Arlo Buehler," he said. "That’s where I’m staying in Boston. He’s got an answering service that’s on twenty-four hours a day, so even if I’m out, they’ll know where to reach me. Call me if you need me for anything."

  "Okay," she said. He noticed she seemed to pause and she said, "Digger?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You’re not going to mention this to my father, are you?"

  "Nothing to mention," he said, and was rewarded with her warmest smile.

  "Thanks, Digger," she said.

  "I’m going to be in town for a couple of days," he said. "I’ll talk to you before I leave. Maybe we’ll all get dinner or something."

  "That’d be nice," she said, and Gilligan nodded.

  "Come on, Danny, let’s go for a walk," she said.

  Young Gilligan shook hands formally with Digger. The blond man towered over him by more than a foot. Digger watched them walk off across the grass, then strode back toward Allison’s dormitory.

  He stopped at the building next door with the small plaque, Dean of Students, next to the number. He walked lightly up the steps and pressed the doorbell. An elderly woman with gray hair answered.

  "Dean Hatcher, please. My name is Julian Burroughs."

  She invited him in, then left him in the hallway while she walked to a room in the back. She returned a moment later and waved him forward.

  He found Hatcher sitting behind his desk in a large, warmly-lit book-lined study. There was a pile of file folders in front of him and a yellow note pad.

  "Dean Hatcher," Digger said.

  "Oh, it’s you. I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize the name. We just met."

  "That’s right. I’m a friend of Allison’s."

  "Of course. What can I do for you? Sit down."

  "Thank you. I won’t be but a moment," Digger said. "I wanted that envelope."

  "Envelope?"

  "The one the letter for Allie came in," Digger said. "You just brought her the letter, not the envelope."

  "Oh. Sure." He turned and bent from view, then straightened up with an envelope in his hand. "Here it is. I threw it away."

  He started to hand it to Digger, then stopped. "Should I be giving you this?"

  "You forgot my name, Dean, but don’t forget the rest of it. I’m a friend of Allie’s. That’s how she introduced us, remember?"

  "Yeah. Sure."

  He gave Digger the envelope. It had been typed on the same typewriter as the letter. Ms. Allison Stevens, 215 LaPointe Walk, Waldo College, Boston, Mass. It bore a Boston postmark.

  "This was in with the rest of your mail?"

  Hatcher nodded and his light sandy hair flopped about his head. "I’m on every mailing list in the world. The mail came this morning. I just open everything automatically, when I get around to it. Then after I opened that letter, I looked at the envelope and saw it wasn’t for me. So I brought it next door to Allie."

  "What do you make of it?"

  "I don’t know," Hatcher said. "I guess nothing."

  "You seemed a little bit upset about it when you delivered it," Digger said.

  "Did I?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I guess I was. I wasn’t even going to show it to her. Allie is kind of a special girl, and I knew she was upset when that Strickland died. I almost didn’t give this to her because I thought somebody was an asshole making a sick joke like that. Then I decided I had to give it to her since it was her mail. She’s all right, isn’t she?"

  "Put her in a room of horsecrap and she’d be happy because she’d be sure she’d find a pony underneath it," Digger said.

  Hatcher nodded. "She’s that way," he said.

  "You have any idea who might have sent this?"

  "None. If you don’t mind my asking, are you a policeman? You ask questions like one."

  "No," Digger said. "But I’m in the business of asking questions."

  That was no answer at all, but Hatcher seemed inclined to accept it because he nodded.

  Digger put the small envelope in his jacket pocket. "I’ll hang onto this if you don’t mind."

  "Of course not. I threw it away. You keep it."

  Chapter Three

  Walking back to
his car, Digger stopped in a bar, ordered a Finlandia to wash away the taste of the beer he had with lunch, and telephoned Arlo Buehler’s number again.

  This time, he let the phone ring four times and the answering service picked up.

  "Doctor Buehler’s line."

  "My name is Julian Burroughs. Did you hear anything from that abortionist?"

  "Errr, Doctor Buehler called in, Mister Burroughs, and said that he would be home at five P.M. He said you should have a couple of drinks before meeting him."

  "Do I sound like the kind of person who would waste away a day in drinking?" Digger asked.

  "Well, I don’t really know."

  "I do," Digger said. "I’ve never been so insulted in my life."

  "I’m sorry, sir, I’m just passing along Doctor Buehler’s message."

  "How old are you?" Digger asked.

  "Twenty-seven."

  "Are you beautiful?"

  "Are you?"

  "In my heart, I am. I’m kind and gentle and never think a bad word. The reason I’m asking if you’re beautiful is I hate to drink alone, but I don’t want to sit at a bar with some fat woman, either. If you’re beautiful, meet me for a drink."

  "I’m sorry. I’m married."

  "Bring your husband. Unless he’s gay. Then leave him home. I don’t drink with fat women or gay husbands."

  "Maybe some other time," she said.

  "That’s all right. Just because I’m a member of a minority, I don’t think you’re prejudiced for not drinking with me. It’s all right. I’m used to it by now. I couldn’t have gone through these years of oppression without learning something."

  "No, it’s not that. Really."

  "Never mind. See if I ever call you again," Digger said. "What’s your name?"

  "Melinda."

  "This is it for us, Melinda. Good-bye."

  Digger sat at the bar with his drink and arranged in front of him the clipping, the envelope, and the letter Allison Stevens had received. He read the letter again.

  Someone was not very funny.

  He had another drink while he reread the clipping. Lt. Edward Terlizzi had investigated Wally Strickland’s accident. He called police headquarters and asked for him.

  "He’ll be in in another ten minutes," the detective bureau told him. "He’s catching desk tonight."

  Digger ransomed his car from the parking lot and drove over to police headquarters.

  Lieutenant Terlizzi was forty years old with a scowl that seemed so fixed it had left deep lines in his face from the corners of his nose to the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. His hair was soot-black but salted with thin streaks of gray. His eyes crinkled at the corners and, despite the scowl, they gave him the look of a man who was seeing humor where no one else could see it. He smoked a particularly vicious form of small Italian cigar and the index and middle fingers on his right hand were stained a deep yellow from the nicotine.

  "Yeah, sure, Strickland," he told Digger. "The saloonkeeper. What’s your interest, Burroughs?"

  Digger handed him his insurance company card. "My company handled the insurance," he lied. "Just a routine check."

  "Check on what?" Terlizzi said, after looking at the card and handing it back.

  "Whether it was definitely an accident," Digger said. "Just making sure there was no foul play involved."

  "Foul play? I haven’t heard anyone say ‘foul play’ down here in five years," Terlizzi said. "That’s what reporters say. ‘Foul play is suspected.’ Cops don’t suspect foul play. We suspect that some worthless fuck killed some other worthless fuck."

  "Strickland, too?" Digger asked.

  Terlizzi shook his head. "No. Accident, pure and simple. He closed up his saloon at about one-thirty. He’d been drinking. He was walking down the street toward his car when he stumbled and fell down some concrete steps, you know the kind that usually have a gate in front of them, that go down to some basement apartment. His luck, he didn’t just bash his head, he got it…stuck on some of the iron work from the railing. Come on, what’s the word?"

  "Impaled?"

  "Yeah, he was impaled. Spike went halfway through his skull. He didn’t have a chance. He was dead before anybody got there."

  "No way he was pushed down the steps?" Digger asked.

  "No. There was a witness. Some woman was coming home from visiting relatives. She was across the street and she saw him. He was kind of singing to himself, then he waved over at her and she saw him slip into the stairway. She’s the one that called us. He was all juiced up. The autopsy showed that. I wonder what he was singing."

  "‘I’ve Got A Feeling I’m Falling’?" Digger suggested.

  "You’re too old for me, Burroughs. I don’t know that song. You from New York?"

  "No. Used to be, though. My father was a cop in New York. He’s retired."

  "What rank?"

  "He was a sergeant. He couldn’t pass the lieutenant’s exam, and he was always busting chops, so they never put him in plainclothes."

  "If you want to get along, go along. That’s what they told me when I first got here," Terlizzi said. "That’s what I do. It helps around here. Only place worse than being a cop here is in New York, I guess."

  "What makes it bad here?" Digger asked.

  "Students. All of them have too much money so you never know whose toes you’re stepping on. And then the press. They make a big deal out of everything. Let some goddam mugger get shot and you don’t read about anything else for three months. I’m gonna learn to throw knives. If anybody ever attacks me, I’m gonna toss a knife in his throat and then wipe my prints off the handle. Let the goddam papers blame somebody else. They just figure that everybody who gets shot got shot by a cop."

  "If it’s any consolation," Digger said, "you sound just like my father." Which was true. Cops in every city, no matter how big or small, always thought the press and the criminals were engaged in some giant conspiracy against the minions of law and order. "Only thing," Digger said, "was that my father wasn’t into knives. He was going to get a bullwhip and use it. Never did, though. I think it was the big disappointment of his life. Besides my mother. I’ll be getting out of your hair. Thanks for your help."

  "Don’t mention it," Terlizzi said. "Give my best to your father."

  Riding back upstairs in the elevator, Digger wondered if he had done the right thing in not telling Terlizzi about the letter Allie had received. But what was there to tell? Some asshole’s idea of humor? A witness had seen Strickland fall. Accidentally. So much for Strickland’s name being on the list as first victim. Bullshit.

  "Where the hell have you been?"

  Dr. Arlo Buehler was sitting at a breakfast table in the corner of the glass-walled living room of the large apartment overlooking Boston Harbor. A newspaper and a bottle of Scotch were in front of him and he seemed to Digger to have been paying more attention to the Scotch than to the newspaper. He was almost six feet tall, but ten pounds of extra weight made him look shorter. His features were strong and Semitic, but his light blue eyes softened his appearance and gave him the look of a loving, benevolent hawk.

  "Don’t start, buster," Digger said as he closed the door behind him and walked toward the liquor cabinet.

  "The Finlandia’s in the freezer. The way you like it," Buehler said.

  Digger dropped his suitcase on the hardwood floor and went into the small kitchenette. He poured vodka into a water glass, watching it burble thickly from the bottle, then replaced the bottle in the freezer. "What’s the matter with you?" he called out. "A tough case of athlete’s foot at the office?"

  "Blow it out your nose," Buehler called back.

  Digger carried his drink back into the living room and for the first time noticed the apartment was cluttered. Newspapers were piled in spots on the floor and there was clothing on the couch. A pair of sneakers lay in the middle of the living-room floor and there were three coffee cups on the windowsill that looked out over the harbor toward Logan Airport.

  "
This place is a dump. What the hell’s going on here?" Digger asked as he sat down at the table.

  "Evvie left me," Buehler said. "She moved out."

  "Ah, come on," Digger said.

  "It’s true, Julian," Buehler said.

  "When?"

  "Four days ago," Buehler said.

  "Get her back. If the place gets like this in four days, in three weeks I won’t be able to find you under the rubble."

  "The hell with her," Buehler said. "Screw her."

  "I tried to. She preferred you. I always knew there was something wrong with that broad. Why’d she leave?"

  "Who knows? Doctors’ wives are always leaving them. They don’t like the hours. Or the tension. Or something. What tension? I’m a g.p. I treat colds and stomachaches and sore throats. Then the wives come back because they’re too old to get anybody who makes as much money as a doctor," Buehler said. He sipped and held his glass in both hands, staring down at it morosely. "Am I a bad person, Julian?"

  "You’re a pain in the ass," Digger said cheerily.

  "That’s funny. That’s just what Evvie said. Are you still living with that Sicilian fortune cookie?"

  "Koko?" Digger said.

  "How many other Italian-Japanese broads do you live with? Of course, Koko. How is she?"

  "She’s fine," Digger said. "Cruel, heartless, malevolent, and smart. She’s fine."

  "Is she ready to dump you yet?" Buehler asked. "I’m available." He had finished his drink and was pouring more Scotch into his glass. It was the kind of Scotch that sold for five dollars a fifth and had the grocery store’s initials for a brand name.

  "No. We’re coexisting, nicely," Digger said.

  "Tell her to call me when she dumps you," Buehler said. "I always wanted to give her an internal with my face."

  "I’ll have her keep your name on file," Digger said. "Why are you drinking that shit?"

  "To get drunk, why else?"

  "Can’t you get drunk on something that’s worth drinking? Do you have to drink Sears Roebuck’s Scotch?"

  "Don’t knock it. I can remember when you used to drink Russian vodka and then they invaded Peoria or something, and you wouldn’t drink it anymore," Buehler said.