The Dead Letter by Finley Martin

chair framed a space in front of a brick fireplace. A china cabinet fronted a wall to the kitchen. A drop-leaf dining table and two padded straight chairs stood alongside another.
    Anne didn’t sit. Instead, she looked over the framed photos on the mantel over the fireplace. Staggered among the old black-and-whites and a sepia were two faded colour pictures of Bernadette and her husband. They looked happy. She was young and pretty. Her husband was sturdy and sandy-haired. His arm draped over her shoulder. One hand held a beer, and he mugged for the camera. A photo next to it showed Simone with her arm around a girlfriend. Another shot captured her alone on the pier at Rustico.
    â€œThat’s Simone,” said Bernadette, pushing through the door with a tray of tea and sugar cookies. “She had just turned fourteen.”
    â€œShe looks older,” said Anne.
    â€œIt’s the curse that every young girl wishes for…and every mother dreads. When she was fourteen, she looked seventeen. When she was fifteen, she passed for twenty-one. The cookies are homemade. You must try one. You said on the phone that you wanted to talk about Simone?”
    â€œI don’t mean to dredge up troubling memories, but I’m investigating a case. A few of the details overlap Simone’s death, and I thought you might be able to help me understand them.”
    â€œI’ll help if I can. What would you like to know?”
    â€œWell, first, can you tell me a little about Simone? What was she like?”
    â€œI suppose the polite gossips in the community would call her ‘a wild child’…and they wouldn’t be far from the truth, I s’pose. But she comes to it honest enough. She took after my husband in some ways. Luc, my husband, god luv ’im, was a rebellious and independent young man. He was a carpenter from North Rustico; I was a farm girl from Kelly’s Cross. He drank a bit. He got into trouble from time to time, but he wasn’t a mean man, and he was exciting. Maybe that’s what drew me to him. He worked hard, joked a lot, and most people liked him in spite of his faults.”
    â€œWas Simone well-liked, too?”
    â€œWhen she was young, sure, but as she got older, she changed. We never had much, you see. That never bothered Luc and me, but Simone was different. I think we embarrassed her. Eventually she moved out. She wanted more than we could give her.”
    â€œMore?”
    â€œMore money, more things.”
    â€œDid her boyfriend, Jamie, fill that need?”
    â€œJamie was handsome, and funny, and being a policeman he had a touch of glamour to him. But I couldn’t see Simone waiting for a young cop to get her what she wanted. Now have a cookie, dear…and your tea’s getting cold.”
    She poured Anne a second cup of tea, and Bernadette chatted blithely about her old life in Rustico with Luc. She recalled fond memories of community lobster boils, dancing at the Legion hall, buying fresh cod and herring at the wharf, and being cheered by the houses all lit with Christmas lights. Then she turned to sadder memories—Luc’s fall through rotten planks in a roof he was reshingling, catching his neck on a ragged edge, and bleeding to death.
    â€œTwo tragedies within a few years must have been devastating. Did family and friends help you through it?”
    â€œThe community was good to me. Luc had no insurance, of course. But I was offered a job as bookkeeper in a local store. I was always clever with numbers. I got by. After Simone died, I moved to Stratford, a better job.”
    â€œI don’t see a picture of Jamie and Simone together,” Anne said, pointing to the mantelpiece.
    Bernadette thought deeply for a moment, then looked baffled, and said, “I don’t recall her having one.”
    â€œHave you kept in touch with Jamie since?”
    â€œHe took a place in the receiving line at Simone’s wake and visited