The Mourning Mail (FINAL)

Chapter 12

With my growing confidence that Brian Pierce could be the author of the letters, so many tasks revealed themselves. I wanted to google Brian, his family, and anything I could learn about his situation. I would need to treat the work like I would research for a piece—follow every lead and rabbit trail to its ultimate resolution, which could take several days.

But I was also eager to read the letters Bubba had left since the last one Dad had seen. The Internet could wait. Reading the letters would be a better fit for the time I had remaining today and might tell me what led to Bubba's demise—if, indeed, he was Brian, the newest piece to the puzzle. I headed back to my place and the collection of odds and ends I'd gathered from Dad's home after he'd passed.

I retrieved Dad's 24-inch fluorescent black light from the box he'd marked "CEMETERY LETTERS." It hummed and flickered a moment after I plugged it in before settling into a steady purplish glow. I had no clue what the PVC framework Dad had made was for, but I grabbed it anyway. He'd included it in that box, so I assumed it had something to do with reading those letters.

Since the last letter Dad read referenced a crime, I needed to make working copies of the new batch. I wanted to read them but not disturb any trace evidence still left on the originals. Setting up a production line, I scrubbed clean the top of the kitchen table. Putting on some latex gloves. I laid each page next to the other. The original idea was to darken the dining room and turn off the cell phone camera's flash. I'd hold the black light in one hand and take photos with the other. That proved cumbersome, and the focus and size of the results were uneven.

I suddenly realized what Dad designed the PVC framework to do. The homemade stand held the black light perfectly for evenly illuminating the page, allowing my camera to center and focus on the entire sheet of paper. I set the black light on the parallel tubes. By placing the camera next to the nearest cross-member when I snapped the photo, I could quickly shuffle the pages in and out between the legs of the frame. The process produced perfectly uniform images. Once I'd captured the pages digitally, I shared them to my computer as e-mail attachments. I'd print each one off as needed, making the letters easy to read while sitting crossways in my recliner enjoying a cup of coffee.

The last two letters were the most relevant. I was assuming, now, that Bubba was Brian. The next-to-last letter described the repercussions that Bubba was experiencing from spray painting the wall and rug of Doc's home. He'd intended to call out the presumed murderers, but things had gone awry.

"The popo aren't doing a damn thing about Doc or his dead wife. I finally called in a tip on my burner, and they still haven't arrested him. Maybe they thought I wasn't serius because I used a voice changer."

I had to empathize with that, at least a little, because of Dad's experiences trying to get the police to listen.

I found a one-week gap in Brian's letters. The one that should have been next in the series was missing. I'd have to check with Gary to see if anyone might have turned in another letter since I last saw him.

The next letter I had from Brian reflected increasing paranoia, probably appropriate under the circumstances:

"Doc must have some jiuce or a lot of money. There's a bunch of faces in the old naberhood who don't belong, and there asking a lot of questions. Nobody you or I know. These guys look like hired goons—mostly x-military, with shaved heads, buzzcuts, and army tattoos. They aren't too bright, and they're not being quite about it. Thugs muscleing fokes around. They kept throwing Bennie against the brickwall outside the strip club until they knocked him out cold. They said he better snitch on anyone who said they saw a murder or someone hiding a body but he wouldn't.

"I don't know how they figured out someone from our naberhood saw them move the dead lady. Could have spotted my car leaving the block where they killed her, maybe followed me part way home but I don't think so. Maybe they tracked some goods back to my fence—I shouldn't have used my regular guy. He always dumps the stuff that isn't worth much at a pawnshop where people can see it. I should have thouht about that.

"There flashing badges—the ones I saw looked like they came out of a cereal box. No way they are real cops, not undercover anyways. There calling themselves detectives but the sheilds they show are tin not gold. Two goons rented your old place, where you lived when Mikey was born.

"3 turned up at Johnny Roccos without an invite and then asked for a menu. If you have any bisness being in Roccos, you should know exactly what Johnny serves. Cannoli - pizza - lasagna, that's the deal. If they dont know you and specially if they dont like you—you take a pretty good chance of getting your stomach pumped. And unless your a made man, you don't walk into Roccos without an appointmint. You forsure don't ask questions of fokes you don't know. And threatening them?!?"

That would help pin down the general location where Brian lived—though it wasn't familiar to me, Johnny Rocco's shouldn't be too hard to find.

"No, these wasn't locals. They damn sure wasn't cops—didn't have a clue about the naberhood. You know half the regulars at Roccos are Confidential Informants for legit feds or local cops. They feed information to their handlers to get rid of their competetion. The other half are paying off the cops to protect their varius activities. And we always know which is which and who is who and they have some style, like Letti says, Panashe. These new guys don't know who they are messing with and have no class. If they keep it up then Frankie's crew will have to explain the lay of the land to these clowns. I want to be a fly on the wall when that goes down—the last time something like this happened they pulled body parts out of the tumble dryers at the landromat for a week.

"But until there gone, Ime shut down, can't do nothing, can't have a life. Your the only person Ive told about the docter and his people moving that body. But now I can't go out for a joint or a drink with my buddies—I'm scared I'll let down my guard and say something might get back to those asswipes. And now there asking who specialises in B&E's in the neighborhood. They want to know who got popped for vandalising houses. Ive got one on my sheet from when I was a stupid kid. I did that Helter Skelter thing spraying serial killer shit on the walls with red paint. Remember? You got so mad at me when I told you I was the one who did it."

Brian's fear and sense of entrapment were palpable and came through in his writing. The loneliness must have been incredibly intense if he had to pen all this to his dead sister just to feel heard. Now I, too, shared his apprehension and immediately moved on to his last letter. It was dated three days before the engraving on his headstone said that he died:

"Sis, I have got to fix this. The cops aren't checking out nothing about the dead lady. They woudn't beleive me if I told them - if I did, Ime back inside for the braking and entering. I can't go back to prison. This shit has made me too paronoid, and Ime not on my game anymore when I go out. I'm afraid I'll make some idiot mistake and get busted. And Ime not safe in the naberhood nomore. These mercenarie assclowns look like they aren't here to spread a message - there here to kill somebody. I need to get these hired goons out of the pickture. Dammit I shoudn't have painted that message on the docter's wall—live and learn I guess.

"My only way out is to set things up to put them away for good. Maybe the cops won't do anything about the lady getting killed. But if another body shows up tied to the same fokes, that shoud get the attention of the police - specially if its 1 of the 3 that was there that night. Sis you know Ime no killer, but the stakes are getting too high. If I don't get them first, they'll get me. I can hear you telling me not to, but I'm seriusly out of options here."

"Awww, Brian," I said out loud, "couldn't you have found someone else to tell and get them to talk to the cops?" I guessed he didn't feel he had anyone he could trust not to give him up to the goons. I had the clarity of hindsight on my side, of course, but if he'd written just one of those letters to law enforcement, just maybe...

But I could see that maybe wasn't good enough.