That was something of an understatement. Joanna’s in-laws’ idea of social intercourse was limited to staying after church long enough for a post sermon coffee hour once or twice a month or going to a church-sponsored evening potluck.
“I’ll check on that,” Joanna said. She glanced at her watch. Time was flying. “I’ve gotta go, Mother,” she said.
“Okay,” Eleanor replied, “but don’t forget to vote. I’m on my way to the Get-Out-the-Vote phone bank as soon as I get off the phone here.”
When talking on the telephone, Eleanor Lathrop was in her natural element-a situation Joanna’s campaign manager had wisely utilized to the campaign’s very best advantage.
“I won’t forget,” Joanna assured her mother.
“And thanks for the appointment with Helen. That was very thoughtful of you.
After putting down the phone, Joanna returned to the closet. The gray blazer and blouse were promptly returned to their respective positions on the clothes rod. Out came a navy-blue coat-dress, double-breasted with two rows of large gold buttons. She would have preferred the gray blazer, but since that was her mother’s first choice, she’d be damned if she’d wear it.
Joanna was finishing drying her hair when Jenny tapped on the bedroom door. Jenny, already fully dressed and followed by the two dogs, flopped dejectedly on her mother’s bed, while the dogs settled on the floor nearby.
“That was Grandma Lathrop on the phone,” Joanna said.
“She wanted to know if you’re coming to the party tonight, the one uptown.”
“Do I have to?”
Looking past the reflection of her own blue dress in the mirror, Joanna saw that Jenny resembled her blond, blue-eyed father in looks, but in the personality department she definitely took after her mother.
“Of course you don’t have to,” Joanna returned.
“But you are my daughter, and I’d like you to be there.”
“Even if you lose?”
Joanna sat down on the bed to put on her shoes.
“I don’t think we’ll lose,” she said, trying to sound far more confident than she felt. Her two opponents, Frank Montoya, the Wilcox city marshal, and Al Freeman, the assistant chief of police from Sierra Vista, hadn’t cut her any slack. The results of the election were by no means guaranteed.
“And even if we do lose,” she continued, “we have to go to the party anyway. No matter what, we should go there to thank our supporters.”
But then, in the brief silence that followed, something from Jenny’s voice perhaps a quaver of doubt in the way she spoke registered tardily on Joanna’s brain. She turned to her daughter “You do want us to win, don’t you, Jenny?”
“I guess,” Jenny whispered.
“Good.”
Joanna rose to her feet, pulling the child along with her. For a long moment, they stood there next to the bed in Joanna’s small bedroom, clinging together in a fierce and mutually protective hug.
Eleanor Lathrop had always claimed to have eyes in the back of her head. Her daughter made no such assertions, so while she and Jenny hugged each other, Joanna didn’t see that, behind the child’s back, Jennifer Ann Brady’s fingers were tightly crossed.
On both hands.
Traveling DOWN Tombstone Canyon, Harold was tempted to drive right by the Canyon Methodist Church. At the last minute he swung into the parking lot. This was, after all, Election Day. From the time he first became eligible, Harold’s voting record had been absolutely perfect. He had never missed a single election.
Now, though, with the trial due to start the next day and with Bisbee’s gossip mills churning out stories about his family troubles on an overtime basis, Harold actually wanted to skip it, to let this relatively unimportant election pass by without his vote. But that would have been perceived as cowardly. Harold Lamm Patterson was no coward.
He doffed his rain-stained Stetson and shook the water off it as he stepped inside the basement social hall of Canyon Methodist Church, the place where his precinct had voted for the last thirty two years. He had hoped the hall would be fairly empty except for the usual band of election-board workers, but that wasn’t the case.
The enterprising ladies of the United Christian Women’s Prayer Fellowship were holding a bake sale. Several of the town’s leading female citizens were clustered around a huge coffee urn, chatting and laughing.
None of the women were strangers to Harold, and he did his best to stay out of their way. One - in particular, Tottie Galbraith, had cut him dead the last time Harold had encountered her in the post-office lobby. That had been right after the People article.
Tottie had almost broken her neck, crashing into the revolving door in her haste to avoid him.
This time, her behavior was somewhat more subtle but no less disapproving. Although she must have glimpsed him out of the corner of her eye, she gave no hint of recognition. Instead, she raised one eyebrow and shifted her position so she could continue standing with her back turned in his direction. Meanwhile, the previously energetic hum of the women’s voices dropped to the merest of whispers.
Harold didn’t have to hear what they were saying to know they were talking about him. His ears flamed red, but he didn’t cut and run. In fact, he thought wryly, anything that kept him from having to speak to Tottie Galbraith couldn’t be all bad.
Harold was almost safely past the group when, at the last moment, Marliss Shackleford broke free from the
