Free Death Takes Priority by Jean Flowers Page A

postal service.
    My cell phone rang. Linda Daniels, with perfect timing. In spite of my attempt at bravado, I wanted nothing more than to discuss the letter to Scott/Quinn with her.
    We set up a Skype call and after a bit of juggling, we were face-to-face, or computer-camera-to-computer-camera.
    â€œI’m working late, subbing out here in South Station and I need a break,” she explained.
    I surveyed the scene behind Linda on my laptop screen. Her back was to her window, overlooking a T station, part of the oldest mass transit system in the country, and a convenience I’d taken for granted nearly every day I’d lived in Boston.
    â€œAnything new in North Ashes?”
    I ignored the timely slur and told her about my disastrous lunch and the subsequent discovery of a murder victim atthe edge of town. I heard and saw her gasp and immediately clarified that it wasn’t I who’d found the body.
    Linda gasped again anyway. “Still, that’s a lot more than petty theft. Or even grand theft. How are you holding up? You should have called right away.” Linda’s words came out in a rush, her face moving closer and closer to her camera. I could feel her concern and was sorry I hadn’t called the one person I knew would always be there for me.
    I took a breath and told her the rest of the Scott James/Quinn Martindale story. “So now I have this letter. Well, it’s in my desk at work.”
    â€œAnd it’s calling to you. You have to make a decision, Cassie, and get it off your mind. Not that I think there’s an easy answer. But in this case, you actually know the destination of that letter. And the general policy is, if you can deliver it, do so. You’re probably the only postal employee who knows where it was meant to go.”
    â€œThat’s my point. Can I just call this a fluke of circumstance and deliver it? And if so, to whom? To Scott or to Sunni, since he’s in her custody?”
    â€œI’m thinking,” Linda said. Though she wasn’t there now, I had a mental picture of her in her shiny office in downtown Boston, her red-soled designer shoes on the floor under her desk, her perfect navy blue jacket on the chair behind her. Unlike me, Linda could look as put-together and sharp at the end of a day’s work as she did at the beginning. “If Ben were still running the office by himself, or had chosen not to call the letter to your attention, he’d have sent the letter off to a recovery center, to be dealt with by designated postal staff, right?”
    â€œRight, but what if there’s some evidence in the letter ormaybe the letter itself is evidence, whether exculpatory or incriminating. You know how much volume the recovery office gets; it could take forever for this letter to come to the top of their list. Meanwhile, anything could happen to Scott. Shouldn’t I bring it to the attention of the police who are holding him?”
    We went a few more rounds on the protocol for letters written to people in interrogation rooms. Was Scott technically a prisoner, whose correspondence, in either direction, was up for grabs? Unless it was from his lawyer. But Sunni had told me he didn’t have a lawyer. The questions made my head hurt. I needed to call it quits until the morning. Tomorrow, I’d look more carefully for a return address or informational postmark on the ordinary, size ten, white business envelope; there was nothing more I could do tonight.
    Linda and I ended with a meeting of the minds—I should take the letter, unopened, to the police, in the person of Chief Sunni Smargon, and let her take it from there. Only the police knew Scott’s official status and rights.
    We signed off with the familiar Skype chirp.
    I had one more task to see to before bedtime: Search for Scott James and Quinn Martindale on the Internet and see if the names collided. And a related task, search for a mother accused of murder.
    Usually,