7When Josette returned home from work that Thursday, she changed into a pair of shorts and went outside. The thing she disliked the most about working for the mayor was that she was inside almost the whole time. She walked to the chicken coop and talked to the birds, telling them what her day had been like, and then went into the back field hoping to find that some mushrooms had spouted up after the night’s rain.
Madame Barbeau watched her daughter through a grimy window. She did not know what went on at the mayor’s house, though she had her suspicions. Josette might be an ignorant fool but Madame Barbeau was more sophisticated, at least in the ways of men. Adolph Barbeau had been a brute and she had not shed any tears when he dropped dead while cutting down a tree next to the house, and
