I didn’t lock up the white envelope. I wanted to show it to Myra.
By the time I walked back out, the parking ticket guy was out the door.
“So did you give him the small-town rent-a-cop break?” I asked Myra, using the insult he’d last thrown at her.
“I gave him the small-town hospitality of not throwing him in jail for being an ass.”
Roy chuckled. He was working on his newest Rubik’s Cube, which looked tiny in his hands. He had a collection of them. I had no idea why.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“He signed. So I expect him to swing by for his welcome packet in the next day or so.” I dropped my jacket across my chair and sat.
“What does he look like?”
“Thin. Meticulous. Pale. Black suit and eyes. Elegant undertaker sort. I think he’d be hard to miss.” I dug the envelope out and handed it to her.
She scanned the name. “Typewriter?”
“Yep.”
“Did he give this to you?”
“No. It was left at the drop. Delivered by normal means. The cashier said it arrived like all the others: in a sealed, prepaid postal box.”
“Weren’t you just out there Friday?”
“This showed up today. Same route driver.”
Myra pinched it so that the envelope yawned open. She tugged out the paper and read it.
“What in the hell does that mean?”
“I have no idea. Thoughts?”
“Thanatos?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t strike me as the type who would go through the mystery of whatever this is. I think he’s the kind who would enjoy telling bad news to someone face to face.”
She scanned the back of the envelope and held it up to the light. “Could it have something to do with the explosion?”
“I don’t know. Did you find anything?”
She replaced the letter in the envelope and handed it back to me. I dropped it into my In box.
“It was dynamite. About a half a stick.”
I nodded. That wasn’t going to do us a lot of good for narrowing down who the suspect might be. Plenty of people in this area had dynamite. Especially anyone with land that needed clearing.
“I’ve gone through the photos. Can’t see any evidence of who might have snuck into his backyard to blow up the garden patch, but it was a direct hit. Only his rhubarb was destroyed.”
“And his burn pile,” I added.
She nodded. “That was a favor, if you ask me.”
“So who in town doesn’t like Dan Perkin?”
“I think the shorter list is who in town doesn’t hate Dan Perkin.”
