I’m glad I followed my honest feelings in my last letter and forgave that old man and told you truthfully how I felt about you. I wasn’t trying to do anything but be honest. And I’m sure glad I was. You say that a girl who could forgive the old man and expect never to hear from you again must be honest. Well, I was.
No, please don’t feel like you have to give that poor old soul a piece of your mind. He didn’t dishonor me. It was him that was dishonored. Let’s just let him be and maybe one day he’ll see what kind of person he is.
And don’t you worry none about what you said. I can’t forgive you, for there is nothing to forgive. I know I would feel bad if somebody told me a lot of black, dirty lies about you and I guess I would say a few things, too.
I’m going to tell you a teensy secret. You have stirred feelings in me I didn’t know I had. I think about you all the time. The more so, when I thought I had lost you. If you hadn’t written me again, I hate to think of it. I guess little old me would have just up and died. I’m going to move your darling picture—to my bedside table. So it’ll be the first thing I see when I wake up every morning, just like it’ll be the last thing I see before I fall into the land of dreams each night.
Take good care of my little old heart, darling.
Your slave,
Trudy
* * * *
RECEIVED YOUR TELEGRAM STOP WILL COUNT THE MINUTES UNTIL YOUR TRAIN GETS HERE STOP A WALL OF FIRE COULDN’T KEEP ME FROM MEETING IT STOP DEAR MOTHER IS STAYING AT SISTER IN GEORGIA SO YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO MEET HER STOP BUT I’M A BIG GIRL NOW AND I GUESS MY WAY OF ANSWERING THAT CERTAIN QUESTION YOU HINTED AT WILL BE ALL RIGHT WITH HER STOP PLEASE HURRY STOP PLEASE. LOVE TRUDY.
* * * *
Pine Tree Lake, N. Y.
September 2
Dear Cousin Ruel,\
Why don’t you come up and see us? Amos says it will be all right. We are living in a cottage, all alone. Our nearest neighbor is six miles away. We have a big lake practically in our front door, and it certainly is quiet and private up here.
The lake is real big and deep. Amos don’t swim much, but he insists on going in the boat every time I go on the lake. Isn’t that wonderful devotion, to risk his life possibly just to be with me? If there was to be an accident he couldn’t save himself, much less me. Why, I’d need somebody’s help to reach the shore, and as for Amos, why, he can hardly swim at all.
But we don’t want to think about things like that, do we, Cousin Ruel? You just come up here as soon as ever you can.
Amos is reading this over my shoulder and says any relative of mine is more than welcome and for you to feel more than welcome.
Sincerely,
Trudy
RIVALS
Originally published in Manhunt, October 1958.
In the deck chair Lissa stretched her long, slim legs before her and wondered why she loved Carl enough to kill for him.
He was at the helm of the speeding cruiser, his yachting cap at a rakish angle, his white t-shirt stretched tight across the muscles of his shoulders, back, and upper arms. He wore white trousers to match the shirt and white duck shoes to match the trousers.
As the cruiser sliced through the salty green water of the Gulf, Lissa studied Carl, knowing she would find no reason for her decision in the outer man. He was not a really handsome man. His features were all too pronounced and coldly blunt. His lips were heavy, his eyes almost cruel. He was a very dark man, and very hairy. The long black hair gleamed in the brilliant sun on the backs of his hands and arms.
Lissa felt the animal magnetism of the man even as she sat looking at him. And he became handsome. Feeling the inner power of him, his features took on a softer cut. But still, he was remote. And perhaps there lay the reason. He was a world unto himself. Lissa had felt that the first moment she’d met him. He could be completely selfish. He could make the slightest concession or gesture of tenderness to a woman seem like an act of earth-shaking importance. Somehow, he could make a woman weak with gratitude just for a gentle touch of his hand.
He was also very wealthy. But that was only a part of it. He had been born with money, and with his physical strength and the money to back him up, he could afford to be an arrogant, overbearing man.
But I could be his without so much money, Lissa thought, although it’s nice to live in a world of luxury.
He was generous, but he handed out his money only because there was so much of it. But his kind of generosity didn’t underline her reasons for committing murder.
He despised just about all people. He saw their weaknesses, where he had none. He met a great number of people who groveled before his money, and he had never groveled to any man.
He possessed no great humanitarian traits to inspire a woman to the supreme act for his sake.
The question was a knife in her mind now. Why do I intend to kill Jocelin?
Because he’s mine.
There the crux of the thing lay. There’d been a steady parade of women, like toys, in Carl’s life. He could have his pick. He’d never married and probably never would. Women like Jocelin were always seeking him out. He looked upon them with a mingling
