“I’ll be by to see you later.” Doug knocked on the closed door and it was opened from the outside. He was walking down the hall toward the front office when he heard a familiar voice behind him. “Mr. Albin? Can I talk to you for a moment?”

He turned to see Mike Trenton beckoning him from the doorway of an office.

“Doug. I thought I told you to call me Doug.”

“Doug?”

He followed Mike into a small room dominated by a huge desk. Two walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with textbooks and bound case studies. “This used to be the police library,” Mike explained, noticing his glance. “Well, it still is, but now it doubles as my office.”

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Mr. Beecham.”

“I thought you were off all mailman cases.”

Mike shrugged. “It’s a small department. A lot’s been happening. We’re shorthanded. Besides, this is not a ‘mailman case.’”

“It is too, and you know it.”

“I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Mr. Beecham.”

Doug began pacing up and down the length of the tiny crowded room. “Come on, Mike. You know damn well that Hobie didn’t kill that girl.”

“I know no such thing. I’d like to help you, I really would, but Mr. Beecham’s fingerprints—bloody fingerprints, I might add—were found all over the murder weapon and all over the room. And those photos on the wall…” He shook his head. “They’re not proof of anything, but they’re certainly a sign of a sick mind—”

“Those photos were sent to him by his brother.”

“His dead brother?”

“What’s the matter with you, Mike? What’s happened? A week ago you had an open mind about this, now you’re just…” He groped for the right word.

“Facing the facts,” the policeman finished for him.

“Hiding,” Doug said. “Grasping at any answer that fits into your police logic, that can be easily catagorized and catalogued and filed away and forgotten. I know you’re scared. Hell, we’re all scared. But you’re looking for reassurance, and you’re not going to find it. You want to believe that we’re crazy, that none of this is happening, that life is going to go on as normal. But it’s not going to go on as normal. People are dying here, Mike. You might not want to admit it, but everyone knows it. I know it, you know it, everyone in town knows it. People are dying because of the fucking mailman. Call it supernatural, call it whatever you want, but it’s real, it’s happening.”

“His prints were on the weapon,” Mike repeated tiredly.

“Be serious with me, Mike. Level with me. Don’t hand me that official line crap. Be straight with me.”

“It’s an open-and-shut case—”