Such Devoted Sisters/Rules of Encounter/The Love Child/American Gothic-The Story of the Booth Tragedy [antikvár]

Prologue California: 1954 Dolly Drake got oiF the bus at Sunset and Vine. In the heat-shimmery air the sidewalk seemed to heave as she stepped down onto it in an almost seesawing motion, as if she were standing on the deck of a ship at sea. Her stomach pitched and her head throbbed. Before her the great curved flank of the NBC building reflected the sun back at her in a blast of white light that struck her eyes like hot needles. Must be coming down with something, she thought. A touch of flu . . .or maybe the curse. But no, she wasn't sick, she realized with a pang. This was no flu bug. It was a whole lot worse. She felt sick in her soul. Dolly thought of the letter in her purse. Looking down at the shiny patent leather bag looped over her arm, she saw the letter as clearly as if she'd had Superman's X-ray vision—the long white business envelope folded in half, then again for good measure. Inside was a single mimeographed sheet, minutes of a meeting of the Common Man Society. The date at the top was June 16, 1944. Ten years ago. So what? she thought. A fellow-traveler club that broke up years ago, with a bunch of members nobody ever heard of. Except for one. A faded but still legible scrawl on the bottom line. A name almost as famiUar to milhons of good Americans as their own. A name Senator Joe McCarthy, back in Washington, D.C., would surely want to pounce on. The bottom lines read "Respectfully submitted, Eveline Dearfield, Recording Secretary." 9