Mystery fiction; Trials (Murder) -- Fiction; United States -- Fiction
Emma Beales, forty, housewife. Smooth round conscientious face, all hell
on civic duty. Never plagued with an original idea, capable of talking
both arms off at the deltoids, but not a bad old girl. Edith estimated
that she must have made about twenty portraits of Emma every year; it
was only in the bad moods that they all looked alike.
Stella Wainwright, thirty-seven, grade school teacher. Her brown hair
curved in what Edith decided was a natural wave, not helped by her dowdy
muddy-brown dress. The kids probably liked her; she would not be
expected to teach them much about the passion and confusion of the
world: not for Stella the sweat and garbage, the sunrises and the music
of moon-drenched nights, the labors of love, the fields of cornflowers,
the screaming in the disturbed ward. They had people to take care of all
that stuff while Stella taught social studies. But on this jury Stella
would do her best, and it might be good enough.
Elizabeth Grant, twenty-six, housewife. How could life write on a face
of dough? Unfair, maybe; nevertheless Edith distrusted Mrs. Grant,
reflecting what atrocious cruelty can be accomplished by well-meaning
souls devoid of humor and imagination. The woman was opaque, her
simplest answers under voir dire examination sounding like quotations
from a wholesome family magazine.
Ralph LaSalle, thirty-one, shoe-store clerk. Cecil Warner and Hunter,
Edith supposed, would both have recognized the minority he represented.
His mask was good, the too-long blond hair and somewhat mannered accent
betraying it. Cecil Warner might be counting on LaSalle to show fairness
toward a white crow of another sort; Hunter possibly expected him to be
hostile toward all women. Both lawyers could be wrong; Edith expected
LaSalle to act and think simply as a human being with a good
intelligence and rational sympathies.
Rachel Kleinman, housewife, forty-eight. They would be needing Mother
Rachel at home; Edith hoped there was a daughter old enough to cook. But
Rachel would stay with it; warmth and gentleness were in her; she would
not knowingly burn another woman for a witch. And when Edith took the
stand, she might look for this woman Rachel to understand why Callista
Blake had smashed the heater and poured ice-water into her tank of
tropical fish when she knew she was to be arrested.
Emmet Hoag, hardware salesman, twenty-nine. A little bit handsome, Edith
noted--like a healthy pig. He would consider himself hell on the women
until snared and housebroken by some broad-beamed breeder who knew what
she wanted. A born No. 12 sure to go along with the majority: what else
could he do? Well, Edith thought in a gust of weariness, he could drop
dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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