Free Point No Point by Mary Logue Page B

saw was dirt. Which is what you should find on a beach in Wisconsin. Maybe an agate if you’re lucky.
    She walked over to the big green dumpster. Just on the odd chance there might be something of interest, she went on tiptoe and looked in. A slight squeal slipped out of her mouth when she caught a flash of red.
    “Bill, come here. I think I found something.”
    * * *
    When Rich got home he was happy to find Meg stretched out on the deck of the house in the shade with a book, wearing a bathing suit and listening to his old transistor radio.
    “You’re actually using that antique?” he asked.
    “Seems to fit my mood. Some songs sound better on it.” She smiled up at him, then wrinkled her nose. “Hey, what was up with you and Mom last night?”
    He realized he hadn’t told Meg what had happened to Chet. Somehow he felt like he could manage it now. He didn’t feel so completely thrown. Maybe it was not coming out of sleep,
    maybe it was even half a day’s time, but it might have been his successful confrontation with Bentley. He felt more able to take on what the world dished him.
    “Chet’s wife was killed last night.”
    Meg sat up, the book falling onto the deck. “You’re kidding. How did that happen?”
    “She was shot.”
    “Who did it?”
    “Not sure yet. She might have done it to herself.”
    “You mean like suicide.”
    “Yup.”
    “Doesn’t seem like her. I mean I didn’t know her very well or anything, but she always was so upbeat.”
    Rich didn’t want to go into it with her anymore, so he asked a question that she never got tired of answering. “Where’s your boyfriend today?”
    Meg glanced up into the woods. “Oh, I think he’s taking a hike. We might get together later, but he’s got to help his dad with the haying this afternoon.”
    “He’s a good kid.”
    “Rich, he’s not a kid. He’s going to be eighteen in two months.”
    “Old enough to join the army and get married.”
    “Neither of which he’ll do, I’m sure.”
    “I’m glad to hear that.”
    * * *
    “I want to see her.” The woman’s voice was blunt.
    The secretary had told Claire that the gravel-gray haired woman looking over the counter at Claire was Anne Baldwin’s sister. Looking at her more closely, Claire figured her older sister. Claire hoped so, because the woman looked a lot older than Anne had been.
    Claire guessed that the woman was in her fifties, which meant she had a good fifteen years on Anne. But then she also looked as if she had lived those years in a hard way, deep lines around her mouth from smoking, drooping eyes from drinking. But she wore a clean white shirt and jeans, and when she put her hands on the counter to plead her case, her long nails sported red polish.
    But there was a resemblance. Where Anne’s hair was short and blond, the sister’s hair was peppered gray, but they had the same wide mouth and light blue eyes. This woman was an older, tougher version.
    “There’s just me and my sister left around here. Our parents are gone. Brothers moved away. She’s all I had left,” the woman said in explanation of her request. At this point the woman’s voice trembled and she bowed her head and said, “I know you need someone to identify her.”
    “That really won’t be necessary, Ms… .”
    “Colette Burns. That was Anne’s maiden name too.”
    Claire continued, “She’s already been identified by her husband.”
    “Good enough, but I need to see her. I want to see my sister.” Colette hesitated for a moment, then added, “Please. I think it’s the only way I’ll really believe that she’s dead.”
    It was unusual to get such a request and when it happened, Claire tried to discourage the relatives from this kind of viewing, asking them to wait until after the funeral home had done their work on the body. Usually the families agreed to this. But Colette seemed particularly persistent. And there was something about the woman that touched Claire—probably her