Joanna squeezed her daughter’s shoulders and held her tight. “No,” she declared, “but up to us to prove it.”

‘‘Can we?”

Joanna shook her head. “I don’t know if we can for sure, but we’re certainly going to try.”

“And then those boys will have to take it k, won’t they.”

There was a tough ferocity about Jennifer’s loyalty to her father that made Joanna smile in spite of herself. “Yes,” she agreed. “They’ll have to take it back, and so will Adam York.”

“Who’s he?” Jenny asked.

“Never mind,” Joanna answered.

“Will I have to stay here in the office until the bell rings?”

“No. You’re corning with me. I have lots of errands to run, and you’ll have to come along.” Joanna handed her daughter a tissue. “Here,” she said. “Blow your nose and dry your face. Did I ever tell you about the time I got sent to this very same principal’s office?”

Jennifer blew her nose with a bellowing, foghorn effect that belied her small size. “You?” she asked disbelievingly. “I didn’t think you ever got in trouble.

“It was in the fourth grade,” Joanna told her. “During arithmetic. The boy behind me was new to town. He didn’t stay long, but I never forgot his name-Kasamir Moulter. He copied all the answers off my paper. Mrs. Fennessy gave us both F’s.”

“How come she did that? If he copied your paper, he should have been the one in trouble, not you.”

“She thought I gave him the answers.”

“Even though it wasn’t true?”

“Even though.”

“Couldn’t you prove it was his fault?”

“How? It was his word against mine. Mrs. Fennessy believed him.”

“That wasn’t fair,” Jennifer protested.

“Two against one isn’t fair,” Joanna countered.

Jennifer looked up at her mother for a long time before nodding in understanding. “I’m ready to go,” she said. “Will I come back to school tomorrow?”

Joanna shook her head. “I don’t think so. Mrs. Evans doesn’t want you in school for a day or two. She seems to think you’re a menace to society.”

For the first time, a hint of a smile played around the corners of Jennifer’s mouth. “I am, too,” the child said stoutly. “I did it just the way you taught me. You would of been proud Inc.”

“Would have,” Joanna corrected. “Come on.”

They found Nina Evans in the hall. “I’ll take Jenny home for now,” Joanna told the principal. “And I may keep her home tomorrow as well, but when she comes back, you might spread the word that if anyone else hassles her about what happened, they’ll end up dealing me.”

Holding jenny by the hand, the two of them marched down the hall. “Where are we going?” Jenny asked in a small voice.

“Did you eat any lunch?”

“No.”

“First we’ll go by Daisy’s and split a pasty,” Joanna said. “Then we’ll start working our through the list.”

Daisy Maxwell, the original owner of Daisy’s Cafe, had been retired for twenty years and dead for ten, but the restaurant she started still reflected her initial menu as well as the ethnic diversity of Bisbee’s mining camp origins when miners from all over the world had flocked to Arizona’s copper strikes. Along with the usual standbys of hamburgers and sandwiches, Mexican food, Cornish pasties and Hungarian goulash were featured as daily specials at least once a week. Grits were usually available, upon request, with breakfast.

Between the two of them, Joanna and Jenny wiped out most of the huge platter-filling pasty with its flaky outside crust and steaming beef-vegetable stew interior. Afterward they made a series of stops-at the mortuary, the florist, Marianne and Jeff’s-making sure the arrangements were solidified for the funeral on Saturday afternoon. They went by the Sheriff’s Department and spoke briefly with Dick Voland and Ken Galloway, both of whom readily agreed to be pallbearers. Joanna had wanted to speak to Walter McFadden about doing a eulogy, but they were told he had taken the afternoon off and had gone home early.

Everywhere they went-in shops and offices, on the street-people stopped them to murmur their condolences and to ask if there was anything they could do to help.

“Most people are pretty nice, aren’t they?”

Jennifer commented after the fifth such encounter.

Joanna nodded. “Most of them are,” she agreed.

It was late in the afternoon before they finally stopped by First Merchant’s Bank. Sandra Henning, the manager, was working with one of the tellers when Joanna and Jenny walked into the lobby. She looked up when they came through the door and then looked away again, but not before Joanna noticed a crimson flush creep across Sandy’s stolid features.

That’s odd, Joanna thought. She and Sandy weren^’t especially good friends, but they had lunched together on occasion and had worked various school and civic committees together. Joanna led Jenny over to the two chairs in front of Sandy’s desk.

‘We’ll sit here and wait for Mrs. Henning to finish,” Joanna said.

It was several minutes before Sandy Henning came out from behind the tellers’ line. She approached her desk uneasily, nervously smoothing her skirt and putting her hands in and out of the pocket on her fuchsia blazer.

“I’m so sorry about Andy,” Sandra Henning said as she eased her heavy bulk into her chair. “And the thing about the DEA, too. We to give them the information they asked for, Joanna. They had a court order. My hands were tied.”

“Don’t worry about it, Sandy. I know how those things work, but I did want to talk to you, one bureaucrat to another, to see if you can help me figure out where that ninety-five-hundred-dollar deposit came from.”

At once the flush returned, and the color of Sandra Henning’s face soon matched the brilliant hue of her blazer. “You mean nobody’s told you?”

“Told me what?” Joanna asked.

Sandy’s eyes swung away from Joanna’s face to that of the little girl who was sitting in the chair with her legs swinging free listening to their conversation.

“Why don’t you go ask one of the tellers for a Candy Kiss, Jenny?” Sandra Henning suggested. “Peggy, the lady down at the end of the counter, usually has a dish of them at her window.”

Jenny looked to her mother for permission, Joanna nodded. “Go ahead,” she said, “the go on outside and wait in the car. I’ll be they in a minute.”

With a shrug, Jenny did as she was told, Both women watched until the child was safely out the door then Joanna turned back to Sandra Henning. “What is it?” she asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”

Sandy ducked her chin into her ample breast. “When Andy brought the money in, Joanna, he had a woman with him.”

“What woman?”

“I don’t know. He never introduced us. Well, that’s not exactly true. He told me her name was Cora.”

“Cora who? I don’t know any Coras.”

“He didn’t tell me her last name, Joanna, but…”

“But what?”

“I thought somebody else would tell you,” Sandy said miserably. “I didn’t want to have be the one.”

A light came on in Joanna’s head. “But you told Ernie Carpenter about her, didn’t you.”

“Yes. And the man from the DEA as well. They asked.”

“Well, now I’m asking,” Joanna said, fighting to stay calm. “Maybe you’d better tell me, too.”

“She wasn’t a nice woman, Joanna,” Sandra said quickly. “And not from around here, either. We don’t see women like that very often.”

“Like what?”

“You know, short leather skirt, boots, big hair, lots of makeup. She was laughing and hanging on Andy, whispering in his ear.”

“They came to the bank together?”

“No. Actually, she was here first. She drove up and waited outside. He came a few minutes later. When he got out of his truck, she hurried over to him, gave him a big hug and a kiss and the envelope.”

“What envelope?”

“The one with the money in it. The ninety-five-hundred dollars in cash. They counted it all out together, right here at my desk.”