Now she was six stories above the street. This, then, was the ultimate torture…
“You’ll never talk him down, Lew,” I said. “There’s only one way—let him know he isn’t guilty of actual murder. I’ll have to go up, alone—”
A trooper was standing near me. I slid the carbine he was holding from his hand.
Lew made no move to stop me. He knew that Shoffner might kill, me, but he knew too that this was something I had to do. For myself. For Vicky.
The stairs upward were long, silent, manned by patrolmen who sucked in breath when they saw me, a man they’d believed dead. The last flight of stairs was steeper and narrower, leading up to the radio tower on the roof. I saw Shoffner and Vicky the moment I pushed my exhausted body out on the roof. The spotlight limned them, Shoffner behind Vicky, waving a gun, yelling threats.
Shoffner must have been dropping quick glances behind him to make sure no one else was coming on the roof, for he saw me.
“Don’t take another step,” he shouted, and his full intent was in his voice. “I’ll push her!”
“I came to help you,” I said. “I don’t want you getting yourself into any worse trouble.”
My voice brought a little cry from Vicky’s throat, and a startled gasp from Shoffner.
“You can’t be Townsend!” he said in a thick, fearful voice.
“But I am. Move away from her, Shoffner. And I’ll come toward the light. You can see for yourself.”
I took another step. A little of the light caught my face. The old man screamed and started shooting. Vicky crawled aside. I hated to do it, but I squeezed the trigger of the carbine. The bullet hit him high in the chest. He stumbled back against the parapet.
And then he was suddenly gone.
The gun slid from my fingers as Vicky stumbled toward me. The boys who came to the roof found us locked in a tight embrace, Vicky’s face burrowed into my neck, hard sobs racking her. She was trying hard to tell me something about being a fool, about never having let a pipsqueak gigolo turn her head for a moment, but about having been lonely. But until I’d gone she’d never known what loneliness meant. She’d told Pryor that and he had understood; he had been willing to help her in any way he could in bringing her husband’s murderer to bay. Did I believe her?
Her question echoed in my mind. Yes, I believed her. I knew that I would never doubt her again. I led her toward the stairs.
“Darling, it’s time,” I said, “that we were going home.”
DEAR MR. LONELYHEART
Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1958.
643 Elm Ave.
Centerville, S. C.
July 9
Dear Mr. Singleton,
I have read your description in the cute little news letter put out by the Orange Blossoms Friendship Society.
I, too, am a lonely person, Mr. Singleton. So please don’t think me forward. I’m just ever so lonely, and that is why I’m writing to a man I’ve never seen before. I’d like to correspond with a mature gentleman, and I am sure it would be like a beautiful light in my dreary existence.
I’m a whole heap younger than you, being an ignorant 23 years of age. But I’m sure that years don’t really determine age, aren’t you?
I don’t find much in common with the boys of my age. They’re so silly. And all the 65 year old men in my little town are married.
But oh how I long for real intelligent, mature talk with someone. So I’m not forward, Mr. Singleton. Really I’m not. I’m just real lonely down here in this little town in the sands of South Carolina.
I thought your face, in that little picture in the news letter, was the sweetest, kindest, most intelligent I have ever seen.
Dear me, now I know you will think I’m a forward girl, but really I’m not. My poor old mother says I carry my honesty beyond the point of virtue, and I suppose that’s true. I just can’t be dishonest. It hurts me inside. So I had to tell you honest how I felt about your picture, and feeling that way, I picked you of all the men in the news letter to write to.
I don’t make a practice of this kind of thing. Really I don’t. But we’re both members of the same lonelyhearts club and that makes a difference, doesn’t it? I mean, it isn’t just like writing to a stranger, is it?
Your friend (?)
Trudy Bell
P.S. It must be awfully exciting, being the retired owner of a big fertilizer factory. I’m just dying to hear all about you, how you had all those hundreds of people working for you and gobs of salesmen out on the road selling your products.
* * * *
2643 Elm Ave.
Centerville, S. C.
July 14
Dear Mr. Singleton,
I’m ever so grateful you answered my little old letter so fast. After I mailed my letter, I almost wished I hadn’t done it. I couldn’t help but think that I had written to a strange man. I didn’t sleep a wink the whole night through. Honest I didn’t. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand my writing a strange man, and I was purely fearful you’d think my letter plumb silly.
I feel much better now, thanks to you. I have to be honest. So I’ll say that yours was the sweetest, nicest letter I ever had from any body. Not that the mailman breaks his back with letters to me, ha, ha. Especially with letters from strangers. Yours was the first of that kind I ever had. But what I mean is, letters from my own darling mother were never so sweet and understanding as yours. I know you must be a great man, and I’m humbly thankful for your friendship. I was real pleased that you enjoyed my letter so much. I sure enjoyed yours. My, I know you’re a strong spirited man to have borne up under all the responsibilities of your business life. Why, the way you started out as a young man with nothing and built up that fertilizer factory reads just like a story book.
I truly feel sorry that you lost your wife three years ago. I know what you mean by that statement that you feel like you’ve been living “in a vacuum”. Loneliness is such a terrible thing. What a shame your wife never had any children. Like you say, you’ve felt that there is just you on an island of loneliness in the midst of the whole world.
I feel like I know you real well. We have a feeling in common, and I know it was a lucky day for me when I wrote you, if you get what I mean.
I am honestly flattered that you’d want a picture of little old me. I am not bad looking, if I do say so myself. Course I don’t claim to be a raving beauty, but these silly boys, with only one thought in their empty heads, seem to think I’m sexy. That’s why I want the friendship of a mature gentleman. Not that I’m a prude, but a lady doesn’t like to fight a wolf every time she has a date, and it’s my one desire to be everything he wants when the right man comes along. I’d die before I’d be anything less.
Oh, how embarrassed I feel, pouring out my heart to you this way. But in you I feel I have found understanding, and I’m sure so fine a gentleman will take my comments as they’re meant.
To get back to the picture. I don’t have many pictures of myself. I think someone who has a lot of pictures made of themselves is kind of self-centered, don’t you? Maybe I’m wrong. Just one of my little old ideas.
I do have a picture taken of me at the beach last summer. It isn’t in color, so I have to tell you that my hair is blonde and my eyes are blue. I had to take my dear mother to the beach for her health, and that boy lolly-dallying in the background is my cousin Ruel. He’s a sweet young man, always looking after me. It was him that drove me and mother down to the beach. She felt ever so much better after her little vacation.
I really have to run now, for I’m a working girl. I work because I feel young people should have a sense of responsibility.
I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you again, Mr. Singleton.
Warmly yours,
Trudy Bell
* * * *
2643 Elm Ave.
Centerville, S. C.
July 19
Dear Amos,
It was so nice of you, Mr. S
ingleton, to ask me to call you by your first name. I think Amos is the sweetest, nicest name ever. It makes me think of wisdom and gentleness.
I have read your letter over and over. At first I didn’t know how to take your remarks about the picture of me in my bathing suit. Then, I have to admit, I got a little thrill by the warmth of what you said, and I decided that I rather liked the compliments. You tease you, I’ll bet there are many sides to your fascinating character. A great man, filled with sublime thoughts who nevertheless has a touch of the wolf in him. I do believe that you’re one of those rare, truly exciting people that are not often found in this world.
And now, how about a big, clear, framed picture of you?
Your
Trudy
* * * *
2643 Elm Ave.
Centerville, S. C.
July 25
Dear Amos,
No, I don’t mind if you call me your Little Bunny. I think it’s real cute and it took somebody like you to think up the term. To be honest, it makes me feel cuddly and wanted. Dear me, I’m blushing—but I can’t help feeling the way I do, can I? And I don’t care—I want you to know how I feel, because I suspect the way you feel, and my life was so drab before I wrote to you, but now it isn’t.
I certainly appreciate the picture, and you didn’t have to apologize because your hair is white and thin on top. I think your hair is just right. I looked at your picture a long time. And you know what I decided? Honest, I know that my first impression of you was correct. Those small eyes would peer deeply, but they are offset by the cute little pouches your flesh makes along the sides of your jaw. In short, I know you have real character. Nobody could take you in, no, sir! And that is the kind of friend I want with all my heart.
I’m going to place your picture right on my bureau. It will be the last thing I see each night. I’ll tell you a little secret. I think your picture is so nice, so much like you, that each night after I get into my nightie I’m going to blow a little kiss to the picture and make believe you’re beginning to care for me as I’m beginning to care for you.
Goodbye for now—darling.
Your,
Trudy
P.S. Dearest, please don’t think poorly of me if I don’t answer your next letter the very minute I get it. I have to take dear mother to Florida for a few days rest. She needs it, but I haven’t been able to afford it. We are not moneyed people. I’m just a little old southern girl who has more than money, my virtue and good name. Cousin Ruel, bless his heart, is going to drive us down. He borrowed some money. Oh, I know the value of a dollar and mother says I can squeeze a nickel until the buffalo stampedes, ha, ha. I hate to think of spending money in those hotels, but it’s all for dear mother.
* * * *
2643 Elm Ave.
Centerville, S. C.
August 15
My darling,
I write this with tears in my eyes. If there are stains on the paper, it’s from the bitterest tears I have ever shed.
How could that person have said those things about me? When the old gentleman overheard my name, he introduced himself and said a man in his home town was corresponding with a girl named Trudy Bell. What a small world, he said.
Well, I tried to treat him real nice. And he isn’t such a friend of yours as he lets on. His dirty old eyes practically took my clothes oft there in the hotel lobby, if you want the truth. And he tried to date me up. So that’s the kind of friend he is to you.
And if he said me and a boy friend was lolly-gagging and burning up the town, he was wrong. This “boy friend” was Cousin Ruel. He stayed pretty close to me because I’m just a small town girl and he said I needed protecting and I’m glad I have somebody like that. And if that old man said his inquiries revealed that Cousin Ruel was a shady small time gambler and punk and not my cousin at all, I can just say that he was speaking a falsehood. And if he said further that I didn’t have a mother in evidence, he just didn’t see her, that’s all. Dear mother stayed in her room most of the time and rested. And wasn’t that the purpose of the trip? I think that nasty old man was taking a lot on himself. He wasn’t doing all that snooping just for friendship for you either. He was mad plumb through and through because he practically drooled all over me and I wouldn’t even give him a date. I’m not interested in people like that.
My heart breaks as I think of the evil he might have done us. In you, dear Amos, I truly believed a dream had come true. I guess if I never hear from you again, I’ll at least have a short memory to treasure all my life. I just can’t write any more.
I can’t believe that you’d listen to that old man. But I guess you’ve known him longer than you have me. And the only thing I’ll ever feel for you, Amos, is what I have come to feel. I can say that at least I loved once in my life. Maybe it sounds strange. I’ve never seen you. But oh, I feel I know you. Even with this one weakness of listening to malicious gossip, I love you. I love you more than ever, because a little weakness makes you human. You seemed so perfect and strong and I was afraid I could never confess how I felt. But now that it’s all over, I can say it and I’m glad I have.
Goodbye, dearest one, and tell that old man I forgive him. I guess when a devil possesses you, you just can’t help yourself.
Once your
Trudy
* * * *
2643 Elm Ave.
August 19
Centerville, S. C.
My own Sweetheart:
Again I write with tears in my eyes, but now they’re tears of Joy. I have read your last letter until the sweet handwriting has just about been erased from the paper, ha, ha.
I had never expected to hear from you again, after what that old man said. I was going around like a half dead person, then your letter came, then the skies opened up, then I felt so good I wanted to run out and hug somebody.
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 t
ime 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.
The Talmage Powell Crime Megapack Page 10
