Free The Messenger (2011 reformat) by Edward Lee Page B

Bobby noticed in those first few seconds. Then he fainted and collapsed
to the floor. What he hadn't noticed, though, was the bizarre design scrawled
on the floor at Marlene's feet: something that looked like a bell.
    After Bobby
fainted, Marlene Troy's arms fell limp at her sides, then the cadaver collapsed
right on top of Bobby.

Chapter
Five
     
     
    Jane imagined
what it must be like for some to, for instance, be standing on a street corner
in broad daylight and suddenly witness a fatal car crash just yards away in the
road. Instant death and calamity right before her eyes. That's how she felt at
that moment in her office.  The initial shock was gone now, leaving something
worse, something like a colossal mental hangover, her disbelief colliding with
the horror of what someone-someone in this same town-had done.
    This...is...crazy,
she thought.
    Steve Higgins,
the police chief, sat grimly opposite from her, a notepad on her desk, leaning
over, jotting things down.
    "This is
absolutely disgusting. How could somebody do something like that? Digging up a
dead woman and propping her body up in the lobby? What kind of a sick prank is
that?"
    "It could
be more than a sick prank, Ms. Ryan," Steve said. "And it's pretty
clear that Marlene Troy was into some stuff that no one knew about-some pretty
off-the-wall stuff."
    "Stuff,"
Jane repeated. She still couldn't believe it. "You mean occult rituals,
satanism, demonology. Stuff like that."
    "That's
what it's looking like, isn't it? This isn't like some punk egging a bunch of
cars or knocking over garbage cans. Somebody exhumed a corpse, brought it here,
and drew occult markings on the floor."
    "And they
did it here, they brought the corpse here, to my post office," Jane said. First,
the tragedy at the main branch, and now this, here. It's crazy."
    Steve nodded.
"Calm down. At least we'll be able to keep this one out of the papers. The
evidence team got the body out of here before any residents showed up. It's
possible for the body to have been seen through the front window, but that
early in the morning? If somebody had seen it-some guy walking his dog or out
for a jog-then he would've called the police immediately. That didn't happen,
so it's very important that all parties keep quiet about this."
    "You
sound like the mayor," Jane said with some bitterness. "Worried about
the beautiful town of Danelleton getting a bad reputation."
    "I
couldn't care less about that, Ms. Ryan. It's simply that the fewer people who
know about this, the better. We don't want to have to deal with the media; all
that'll do is reduce the effectiveness of our investigation."
    When Bobby
Weaver had regained consciousness in the vending cove, half out of his mind,
he'd shoved Marlene's body off and called the police.  Steve and some
subordinate officer arrived at once. The body was removed before any other
postal employees had arrived. Steve had called Jane directly and now here she
was, at 5:30 in the morning, just when the carriers and processing staff were
coming in. When she'd arrived, Bobby was still being interviewed by a
lieutenant, and Jane couldn't help but overhear some of the conversation.
    "What's
your explanation," she asked, "about what Bobby was saying before he
left? He said the corpse fell on him. He said that Marlene's eyes were open,
she was grinning at him. She was standing there holding her hands out, like she
was still alive."
    "She was
in the ground for over twenty-four hours, Ms. Ryan. I guarantee you, she wasn't
alive. She was killed by multiple gunshots-one of the bullets destroyed the
left ventricle of her heart."
    "But
Bobby said she was standing there," Jane countered. "On her own. Then
she collapsed on him."
    "Let's
not go off the deep end here. The medical examiner will be getting back to me
later with a list of physiological prospects, but there are a lot of possible
explanations right off the bat."
    "Like
what?"
    "Postmortal
rigidity, rigor mortis, things like that. Things