Point No Point by Mary Logue Read Free Book Online Page A

Could there be that many men out there sporting a tree tattoo?
    Age parameters: Dr. Davis said he was probably between thirty-five and forty-five. She had looked at his teeth as she said that. Just like with horses, Amy had thought, looking for the wear pattern. Then there was the dental work. To be on the safe side, Amy entered 30 < >50, even though that was a pretty large range.
    She was counting on the tree tattoo to help winnow down the possibilities.
    Two hits. A forty-eight-year-old pharmaceutical rep from Green Bay, way on the other side of the state. Didn’t seem likely. The other was a thirty-one-year-old homeless vagrant. Again, the healthy, strong man that Amy had seen on the medical examiner’s table didn’t look like he had been missing any meals lately.
    She started scrolling through the other recent missing persons and noted how most of them were under thirty and female: a nineteen-year-old girl, scholarship student at UW-Green Bay, pregnant, missing for five years; a twenty-eight-year-old woman who had diabetes that could render her unconscious; a fifty-year-old woman named Bethany, whose husband had been beating her, he had since been hit by a car; a twenty-one-year-old
    girl who had left a bowling alley after closing, made a phone call at two-thirty in the morning and was never seen again.
    Amy pulled herself away from the computer screen. It was addictive, this dipping into all these strangers’ lives, wondering where they might be, if they were even still alive. Some of them, she got a very strong feeling, had probably not survived the night of their disappearance. For all of them the end of the story might never be written. How horrible for the families.
    It made her all the more determined to track down their John Doe. Even though his end was awful, at least his family would know what happened, could bury him, weep over him and lay him, and all their worries, to rest. Hopefully finding out who he was would help them figure out who his killer had been.
    She found Claire at her desk, staring at some report but not really reading it, her eyes unfocused, her hand tapping an odd, nervous rhythm.
    “Hey, Claire,” Amy said quietly, not wanting to startle her.
    Claire looked up with a ready smile, but Amy was surprised to see how tired she looked. The skin around her eyes looked bruised. She was wearing no make-up, not that she ever wore a lot. For the first time since Amy had worked with her, Claire looked vulnerable and raw.
    “They say he’s going to live,” Claire told her.
    Amy knew she was talking about Chet Baldwin.
    “Glad to hear it. That’s good news.”
    Claire shook her head. “You don’t really know Chet, do you? I hope you’re right—that it’s good news. It’s always hard to know when someone wants to die what kind of favor you’re doing them by bringing them back.”
    Amy didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t really thought about suicide that much. She just knew what her job was.
    “I just wanted to tell you how it’s going with our John Doe. I checked the Wisconsin Missing Persons database and didn’t see anyone who resembled our guy. But if the medical examiner’s right about the date of death, he might not even be reported missing yet.”
    “You know, Amy, I want you to run with this one. You’ve been working with me for a couple years now and I think you’re ready to take this one on. I’ll be here if you need me, but I need to focus on this case.”
    “Really?” Amy felt pleasure and fear shoot through her system, kind of like the way she felt about skydiving, which she’d never done but thought about doing. “You think I’m ready?”
    “Only one way to find out.”
    “Can I ask you one more question? What if this guy’s from Minnesota? Is he still considered in our jurisdiction?”
    Claire gave her a half smile. “Depends on where he died.”

CHAPTER 6
    C laire walked down the hallway, hearing the hollowness of her own footsteps, and smelling the