It was an ordinary day. I sat at the table and glanced through the paper. Bosnia, Kosovo. The statue of Vulcan was falling apart. The crack in his butt had widened some more; he would have to be taken down to be repaired. I tried to imagine Red Mountain without Vulcan’s bare rear end mooning us everytime we drove anywhere on the south side of the mountain. They couldn’t take him down. Surely there was some other solution.

It was still an ordinary day when Sister came in the back door and said she was going over to Debbie’s and did I want to go.

I did.

Well, let her run to the bathroom a minute. She had so much to tell me about last night, I wouldn’t believe.

The first inkling that it was not an ordinary day was when she came back into the kitchen holding up a brown leather wallet.

“Whose is this? It was on the floor in the bathroom.”

“Don’t know. Look inside and see. You want some coffee?”

“Okay.” She handed me the wallet. “You look. I’ll get the coffee.”

And then I remembered. “I’ll bet it’s Albert Lee Packard’s. He used the hall bathroom when he came by here to bring the soup.” I opened it and saw the picture on his driver’s license. His beard hung below the camera’s head shot, so it was impossible to see how long it was.

“That’s one more ugly beard,” Sister said, looking over my shoulder. “How old is he, anyway?”

I looked at the date on the license. “Forty-six.”

“He ought to do better than that. Makes him look like a troll. Billygoat Gruff.” Sister sat down and reached for the sugar. “What else is in there?”

“None of our business.”

“Well, of course it is.” She put down the sugar and took the wallet from me. “It was on your bathroom floor.”

Sometimes Sister’s reasoning defies reason.

“Let’s see. Forty-eight dollars. A Visa and a library card. Blue Cross. And a whole pack of pictures.”

“Put that up,” I said. “I’ll call his mother and tell her it’s here. I’ll bet he’s worried to death about it.”

“Hmm. Mouse, all of these pictures are of the dead girl.”

Maybe that was the moment that the day really ceased being ordinary.

“What? Susan Crawford?” I reached over and grabbed the insert of pictures. Sister was right. There was Susan Crawford in a bathing suit, Susan Crawford pregnant, her hands folded on her large belly, Susan Crawford in a glamour pose, one made in a studio, her red hair pulled over her shoulder provocatively. I pulled it from its plastic cover and looked at it closely. What a beautiful girl she had been. Betsy was pretty, but Susan had been a knockout.

“There’s something written on the back,” Sister said.