Bea sat in the mailroom, she had so far received five pamphlets from the man and woman hanging around the lobby of the Foxberry. Maybe she should start keeping a tally. The excessive amounts of pamphlets didn't seem odd on it's own, people who were giving out pamphlets were going to give out a lot of them, the odd thing was that they all had the same point on a list of actions circled..

5. Life forms - Realize that life isn’t limited to humans. Care for an animal, plant, or insect.

She supposed Ackeridge counted, but what "boils" would she be getting rid of? the only thing she could think of that was festering was Mr. Evans' murder investigation.

 'Hah,' she thought, 'Maybe Ackeridge will solve the murder, save us all the trouble.' Then she was shaken from her thoughts as the mailroom door slammed open.

Stephanie Greene strode in.

"Hey, Stephanie. I've got some more of your mail in the back let me grab it for you before you take everything back upstairs." Bea got part of the way out of her chair before Stephanie Interrupted her.

"I'm not here for my mail. I want to know what you think you're doing meeting with Dorothy Rose all the time lately."

"Excuse me?"

"We're all trying to solve this murder and you're fraternizing with our number one suspect?"

"No of course we're trying to solve the murder, I brought up the idea that Dorothy might have something to do with it when Ack-, when I found some more mentions of Roses in Mr. Evans' letters. But I haven't talked to Dorothy more than a polite hello when she gets her mail."

"Not at all?"

"Not at all." Bea was baffled, for lack of a better word. Why would anyone think she had been meeting with Dorothy? Unless Dorothy was going somewhere that looked like she could be meeting Bea while Bea wasn't actually there.

"Oh no." Bea got all the way out of her chair now.

"Oh no what?" Stephanie asked.

"You thought I was meeting her in here, right?"

"Yeah."

"She could have been stealing mail I was holding from Evans' pile. His whole case got stolen from the police station."

"Oh no."

Bea and Stephanie burst through the door into the back room, and opened the drawer where Bea had been keeping Evans' mail.

It was empty.

        Bea lay on her bed surrounded by letters and envelopes addressed to Mr. Evans. She flipped absently through a few looking for anything she might have missed. Some of the letters she had lost the night of the circus had been returned to her in the mailroom, some just thinking that it was lost mail and the Foxberry mailroom was the best place for it, others with questions, and one with an invitation. She wanted to see if anything in the new letters connected to the old letters.

"Stop!" Ackeridge cried, slapping himself over the letter Bea had been about to toss aside.

"Get your slimy Frog Fingers off the paper!"

"Look! It says rose!"

Bea squinted at the word that had been under Ackeridge's leg, "Maybe it said rose before you smudged it. Besides, why would that be any sort of clue? rose is a noun and a verb, it could really mean anything."

"No this was capitalized, like a name! That's why it stood out!"

"Well thanks to your slime, we'll never know."

"Let's look for other mentions of roses."

"Ok just yell of you see something, don't touch it this time."

Bea flipped through some of the letters she had originally discarded. Unfortunately it was difficult to pick out anything among the mentions of knives the Old Friend had collected. The more Bea read about his knives, the more creeped out she got. 

"Wait." Ackeridge said.

"What is it?" Bea asked scanning the letter again to see if she had missed something.

"Weren't you complaining about some guy who was mad about roses?"

"Why would anyone come to me about roses, I'm a mail clerk not a gardener."

"No, that Salimov guy thought you had delivered a package to the wrong person because it was kinda weird, had a rose printed on it, he hadn't ordered it et cetera? You were mad because he was questioning whether you could do your job properly"

"Oh yeah."

"What if that rose is connected to Evans and hid Old Friend? It was a strange package right?"

"Yeah, the return address was blacked out. Someone else got a package that day with a blacked out return. One of the Stephanie's, maybe we should talk to her about the package she got. I wonder if the rose on Salimov's gift is connected to the roses in the letters."

"We can at least have something to show at this mysterious meeting."

  Bea snorted, "What makes you think you're coming?"

"Maybe they'll be the next to die. You delivered packages to them, maybe the connection is that whatever was in those packages will cause them to die which will, of course, be your fault."

Bea pressed the heels of her hands harder against her eyes. She had finally dealt with the rest of the mail from a few weeks ago so she had more free time. Unfortunately that meant spending it with Ackeridge.

"Can't you think about nice things?" She asked loudly. 

Ackeridge just blinked.

"Fine," Bea sighed, "I'm going down to the circus," It was in town for a few days, if she liked it maybe she would go back a couple times. There wasn't much to do in St. Abel.

Ackeridge hopped to the door.

"And you're not invited!" She picked him up and dropped him into the sink, possibly rudely but she wasn't sure about what frogs considered etiquette.

"No wait!" his voice sounded amplified now, "Take me with you please! I'll say nice things! I'll say nothing!"

Bea considered this for a moment. If Ackeridge was going to shut up it might be nice to have some semblance of company, but then it was unlikely he would shut up.

"Fine." She scooped the frog out of the sink and grabbed her yellow raincoat. It wasn't raining but the pockets would fit Ackeridge best.

The circus was loud. There were animals, vendors, performers, and everything else Bea thought could be at a circus. It was all very overwhelming, so Bea decided to stick her head into one of the tents. 

It was dim, and Bea had the distinct feeling this was not somewhere she was supposed to be. However, she had done more snooping in the past few weeks than the whole rest of her life combined and she decided just a little more couldn't hurt. She moved toward the desk, almost in a trance. The dim lighting and dulled circus smell was making her sleepy.

The desk was messy. there were some pens and lots of paper, but also an old inkwell and what looked like a feather quill. Someone must have a flair for the dramatic, Bea thought. Ackeridge shoved his head out of the jacket pocket.

"Someone's got a flair for the dramatic," He said.

"So, I'm not the only one thinking it,"

Bea looked closer at the desk. She sucked her breath in, the letter was addressed to Evans! She flipped through the papers on the desk and found three more letters like the first. This was the Old Friend. He was releasing information to Bea, or whoever he thought was receiving the letters, on a timeline.

"Grab 'em and let's go!" Ackeridge hissed

"Since when are you the Devil on my shoulder?" Bea asked.

"The game's changed!"

        "Game!?"

Bea grabbed the letters and shoved them quickly in the pocket Ackeridge was not in. then she spun on her heel and made her way out of the circus as quickly as she could without looking suspicious. Once she was out of the gates she broke into a run, so anxious to get home and read the new letters that neither she or Ackeridge noticed when the flew out of her pocket into the night.

        Bea stood in the mail room with her hands on her hips. It seemed like each time she solved a problem, a new one cropped up. Just last night she had managed to get the window above her kitchen sink to close. She had been thrilled, the cold had been becoming a problem. She thought back to the victory dance she had done, now looking at the piles of mail in the mail room she wondered if the frog had been right. He had said the dance was too much, over the top, not appropriate given the recent events in St. Abel. It was a remarkably rude frog, Bea thought, maybe I should give it a name so I have something more specific to direct my anger at than, 'The Frog'.

Bea picked up a package from on top of the nearest bin. The package was for Jackie Redford, but the return address was blacked out, all Bea could make out was 'Ackeri'. Maybe it was the street name, possibly Ackeridge, no way to know for sure. From then on Bea called the frog Ackeridge.

Looking around at the rest of the mail Bea thought it looked like an infestation, there was never this much mail at the Foxberry. She decided to go ahead and run Jackie's package up to her in an attempt to feel like she'd gotten something done that day. She looked around quickly and figured it wouldn't hurt to grab the other packages that had been strewn about as well. She dropped the six packages into a rolling bin and headed for the service elevator. She dropped the packages off in no particular order, usually she would go all the way to the top floor that needed a package and work her way down. However, today she wasn't in any particular hurry to get back to the sorting that awaited her in the mailroom, and she enjoyed riding the service elevator.

She dropped the packages off as she pulled them out of the bin. Bret, Jackie, Billy Bob, Ren, Azula, Evelyn. She thought it was odd that they had all mentioned for her not to come into the apartment as the accepted their packages, she never came past the threshold on a delivery. Today though each package recipient had mentioned that they had gotten lice and didn't want Bea to catch any. Azula had mentioned that she'd gotten it a few days ago, and it probably wasn't an issue anymore, but had warned her just to be safe Which was nice of them, but how odd that all of the people who had received packages also had lice?

        Bea sat back. She had been through Evans' mail at least three times and couldn't find anything straightforward about how he may have died. Everything from his 'Old Friend' was cryptic, or outright absurd. He spent so much time talking about all of the antique knives he had collected, and not only in one letter. Almost every letter had a mention of a new knife 'Old Friend' had acquired.

Bea sighed exasperatedly. Then it hit her. The cutlery museum. She leapt up, grabbed her coat, and was out the door in a flash with the most recent letter still clutched in her hand. She ran so quickly down the street that she barely had time to realize how there seemed to be fewer frogs about than usual before she was throwing open the museum door. 

Once inside the museum, Bea made her way directly to the knives. For the first time since racing out the door, Bea realized how unprepared she was to go searching for murder evidence in a cutlery museum. Even if she did find something, how could she tell the police when opening the mail in the first place was illegal? She took another deep breath and shook out the letter she had brought with her. The first knife mentioned was a simple one, so old it was brown with age and didn't have any sort of fancy metal work. Bea found the knife quickly, but there was nothing about it that seemed special or out of the ordinary. the same went for two of the other knives mentioned in the letter. The last one though, an old carving Knife, was nowhere to be found. Bea bit the inside of her cheek, she had had a theory that the 'Old Friend' might work at the museum, but now she supposed that she may not have been finding the knives mentioned in the letter at all, just similar ones. She decided to make her way home and sleep on it.

Now that she wasn't in a hurry, the frogs became much more obvious. She picked her way home trying to ignore them, but when she got back to her apartment there was a frog right at her door. It turned to her with almost human like movements, and spoke. With the same voice as the voice inside her head.

Bea thanked the mailman and bid him happy holidays as she took the day's mail bin. Only three packages today. The lack of packages had been evident to Bea ever since end of October. She'd come from a big city, and had been expecting to have more packages than surfaces to put them on. instead she pulled the three packages from the bin and placed them under the counter so no one would get any ideas about stealing them.

'Protecting mail now?' said a voice in the back of her head, 'Not squirreling it away to open for ourselves?' The voice had arrived after the police had questioned her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The voice was stupid, opening the mail hadn't hurt anyone per se since its owner was dead. 

'Death!' the voice chirped, 'Death just follows you everywhere!'

'That was just mean,' Bea thought, 'it wasn't my fault Dad died, I wasn't home and they never even found his body, just his blood.'

'What about at college?'

'That girl died of an overdose.'

'But you handed her the cup'

'No she grabbed my cup, downed it in two gulps, and screeched away to the dance floor.'

'Whatever you have to tell yourself.' said the voice. Then it retreated to the back of Bea's mind and kept its mouth tightly closed.

Bea sighed, she didn't like the voice to begin with, but bringing up her dad had been a dirty move. Especially because it reminded her of what Evans' mail had said. The letter hadn't had a return address but had been signed 'An Old Friend'. The letter had talked about some other friends first, and then dove into how the Old Friend knew Evans had been in danger, saying there was a plot. Bea had hoped opening the letter might answer some questions, but it only answered one 'who is this from, there's no return address, and it hadn't really answered that one.

Mostly it raised new questions. How could this friend know Evans was going to die? Why did they need to Hide their identity, was it an identity Evans would know from 'Old Friend'? And most of all, if the letter had been warning Evans about his death, why had it arrived three weeks later? Snail mail wasn't that slow anymore.

At the end of the day, Bea bent down and looked at the little basket full of Evans' mail. In a split second decision she grabbed it and stuffed it in the inside pocket of her yellow rain jacket. The owner was dead, and the town needed answers.

Bea turned and gave her room a quick once over on her way out the door that morning. The apartment was supposed to be two rooms, a kitchen/living room and a bedroom, but somewhere in the long past of the Foxberry one of the bedroom walls had been ripped out. It was an odd effect, looking at the apartment from the door, it was as though someone had taken a cross section of the room to be viewed under a microscope. From the door, Bea could see the entirety of her kitchen and the entirety of her bedroom, which would be a single room if not for the remaining bedroom wall pressed up against the side of the refrigerator.

Bea shook herself, 'I shouldn't be thinking of people watching me under a microscope, not after Evans's passing' she thought and closed the door with a snap. She made her way downstairs and unlocked the mailroom door. She placed her coat and bag on the counter and looked around, not much work to be done, as the mailman mentioned yesterday he wouldn't be in until the afternoon. She sat down behind the counter and her stomach grumbled. Suddenly she remembered the two for one deal at the pizza parlors, she hadn't been in town for a two for one deal yet, though she had heard the legends. Nothing wrong with pizza for breakfast, though she could imagine what her mother would say. Her mother would stroke her dark hair and say something rude disguised as health nut propaganda. Bea shook herself for the second time that morning, 'There's a reason you didn't go home after graduating' she thought as she grabbed her bag and slipped her arms into her yellow raincoat

Bea passed through the park slowly. It was a gorgeous day and she felt silly in a raincoat, but it was warm and had been on top of the stack by the door. She gave a smile to Dorothy, who was playing chess with Mr. Jenkins. Dorothy tried to smile back but it ended up being more of a grimace and Bea chuckled to herself, Dorothy obviously wasn't there for the chess. Somehow Bea almost missed Elwood, who was sitting not far away, but she offered a grin and a wave to try and make up for it though he probably hadn't noticed. Then her stomach growled again, louder than it had in the mailroom, and she hurried off towards the smell of freshly baked pizza.