thing. People like my son treat their wives and children-especially their daughters-like chattel. They make all the decisions and no one else is allowed any input. They marry them off to men twice and three times their age, and the girls have no say whatsoever.”
“You said wives?” Joanna interjected. “As in plural?”
Again, Edith nodded.
“And your son has more than one?”
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“He had three the last I heard, but that was a long time ago. He could have more by now. The last one I knew about was thirty years younger than he is.”
“The same age as Kelly?” Joanna asked.
“Younger,” Edith answered. ‘And that’s what he was going to do to Carol-marry her off to an old buzzard in his sixties who already had four or five wives and a whole raft of children. Eddie told the guy Carol was good at looking after other people’s kids. Somehow Carol overheard the conversation. She must have been eavesdropping.
That’s when she wrote and asked for my help. Not just for herself, but for her sisters, too. She was afraid her father would send her away and the three younger girls would be left completely unprotected-as much as she could protect them, that is.”
“So you made arrangements for the girls to come live with you.”
“That’s right. I managed to wire money to her. She bought train tickets and away they came with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.”
“But Kelly wouldn’t leave,” Joanna added.
Edith nodded. “Kelly was the baby and she truly was spoiled. She refused to come along, and it broke Carol’s heart. I don’t believe she ever forgave herself for going off and leaving Kelly there alone.”
Daisy delivered their plates of food. “Sorry it took so long,” she said. “The kitchen was a little backed up.”
In fact, Joanna and Edith had been so deep in conversation that they hadn’t noticed the passage of time. And, considering the subject under discussion, the arriving food no longer seemed nearly as appetizing as it had appeared on the menu.
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“Tell me about those other two dead women,” Edith said at last “You say they were going to interview Carol and put it on television?”
“That’s what we believe,” Joanna returned. “One of my investigators is checking on that right now.”
‘And they were going to pay her for doing this interview, whatever it was?”
Joanna nodded. “That’s right. They had brought along a check for five thousand dollars.”
“Carol must have known that payday was coming,” Edith mused. “That’s why she no longer needed my help.”
Joanna nodded again. “But I don’t think the interview ever took place, or, if it did, the money never changed hands. Pamela Davis and Carmen Ortega left California with a company check payable to Carol Mossman in their possession, but no such check has been found-not at your granddaughter’s mobile home and not at the crime scene in New Mexico, either.”
“But who were they?” Edith asked. “What did they want with Carol?”
“Before they came here, they had been in northern Arizona looking into The Brethren,”
Joanna said.
“Oh,” Edith Mossman said.
“Diego Ortega, Carmen’s brother, said something about a group called God’s Angels.
Have you ever heard of them?”
“Oh, yes,” Edith said. “Of course, I know about them. They’re wonderful.”
“What do they do?”
“They’re a support group, sort of like the old Underground Railroad. When women run away from those situations …”
“From their bigamist husbands,” Joanna supplied.
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“… they leave with nothing. They have no money, no job skills, nowhere to go. They’ve left everything familiar behind-their families, their homes, and often their own children.”
“Their religion?” Joanna asked.
“That, too,” Edith agreed. “And they need a lot of help as they start over. For one thing, they’ve led terribly sheltered and mostly isolated lives, so they don’t know much about the outside world. That’s where God’s Angels come in. They have programs for fleeing wives and for fleeing children, too. I believe that’s the one Andrea is most involved with-the one for children.”
“Your granddaughter is part of this group?”
‘Andrea has always been the smart one in the family. She has a full-time job and goes to school part-time. But on the side, she volunteers as a God’s Angels sponsor.
