she badgered him for details; did he have pictures of the girls he’d gone out with? – expecting them to be the most beautiful, the most sought after – Did he belong to this club, to that club? – expecting him to be the president of each – What was his standing in philosophy, in English, in Spanish? – expecting him to be the leader in all. One day he lost his temper. ‘It’s about time you realized I’m not the king of the world!’ he shouted, storming from the room.
He took a job for the summer; partly because he needed money, partly because being in the house with his mother all day made him uneasy. The job didn’t do any good towards taking his mind off things though; it was in a haberdashery shop whose fixtures were of angular modern design; the glass display counters were bound with inch-wide strips of burnished copper.
Towards the middle of July, however, he began to slough off his dejection. He still had the newspaper clippings about Dorothy’s death, locked in a small grey strongbox he kept in his bedroom closet. He began taking them out once in a while, skimming through them, smiling at the officious certainty of Chief of Police Eldon Chesser and the half-baked theorizing of Annabelle Koch.
He dug up his old library card, had it renewed, and began withdrawing books regularly: Pearson’s Studies in Murder , Bolitho’s Murder for Profit , volumes in the Regional Murder Series. He read about Landru, Smith, Pritchard, Crippen; men who had failed where he had succeeded. Of course it was only the failures whose stories got written – God knows how many successful ones there were. Still, it was flattering to consider how many had failed.
Until now he had always thought of what happened at the Municipal Building as ‘Dorrie’s death’. Now he began to think of it as ‘Dorrie’s murder’.
Sometimes, when he had lain in bed and read several accounts in one of the books, the enormous daring of what he had done would overwhelm him. He would get up and look at himself in the mirror over the dresser. I got away with murder, he would think. Once he whispered it aloud: ‘I got away with murder!’
So what if he wasn’t rich yet! Hell, he was only twenty-four.
ONE
Letter from Annabelle Koch to Leo Kingship:
Girls’ Dormitory
Stoddard University
Blue River, Iowa
5 March 1951
Dear Mr Kingship,
I suppose you are wondering who I am, unless you remember my name from the newspapers. I am the young woman who loaned a belt to your daughter Dorothy last April. I was the last person to speak to her. I would not bring up this subject as I am sure it must be a very painful subject to you, except that I have a good reason.
As you may recall Dorothy and I had the same green suit. She came to my room and asked to borrow my belt. I loaned it to her and later the police found it (or what I thought was it) in her room. They kept it for over a month until they got around to returning it to me. By that time it was quite late in the season so I did not wear the green suit again last year.
Now spring is approaching again and last night I tried on my spring clothes. I tried on my green suit and it fitted perfectly. But when I put on the belt I found to my surprise that it was Dorothy’s belt all along. You see, the notch that is marked from the buckle is two notches too big for my waist. Dorothy was quite slender but I am even more so. In fact to be frank I am quite thin. I know that I certainly did not lose any weight because the suit still fits me perfectly, as I said above, so the belt must be Dorothy’s. When the police first showed it to me I thought it was mine because the gold finish on the tooth of the buckle was rubbed off. I should have realized that since both suits were made by the same manufacturer the finish would have come off both buckles.
So now it seems that Dorothy could not wear her own belt for some reason, even though it was not broken at all, and took mine instead. I cannot
He took a job for the summer; partly because he needed money, partly because being in the house with his mother all day made him uneasy. The job didn’t do any good towards taking his mind off things though; it was in a haberdashery shop whose fixtures were of angular modern design; the glass display counters were bound with inch-wide strips of burnished copper.
Towards the middle of July, however, he began to slough off his dejection. He still had the newspaper clippings about Dorothy’s death, locked in a small grey strongbox he kept in his bedroom closet. He began taking them out once in a while, skimming through them, smiling at the officious certainty of Chief of Police Eldon Chesser and the half-baked theorizing of Annabelle Koch.
He dug up his old library card, had it renewed, and began withdrawing books regularly: Pearson’s Studies in Murder , Bolitho’s Murder for Profit , volumes in the Regional Murder Series. He read about Landru, Smith, Pritchard, Crippen; men who had failed where he had succeeded. Of course it was only the failures whose stories got written – God knows how many successful ones there were. Still, it was flattering to consider how many had failed.
Until now he had always thought of what happened at the Municipal Building as ‘Dorrie’s death’. Now he began to think of it as ‘Dorrie’s murder’.
Sometimes, when he had lain in bed and read several accounts in one of the books, the enormous daring of what he had done would overwhelm him. He would get up and look at himself in the mirror over the dresser. I got away with murder, he would think. Once he whispered it aloud: ‘I got away with murder!’
So what if he wasn’t rich yet! Hell, he was only twenty-four.
ONE
Letter from Annabelle Koch to Leo Kingship:
Girls’ Dormitory
Stoddard University
Blue River, Iowa
5 March 1951
Dear Mr Kingship,
I suppose you are wondering who I am, unless you remember my name from the newspapers. I am the young woman who loaned a belt to your daughter Dorothy last April. I was the last person to speak to her. I would not bring up this subject as I am sure it must be a very painful subject to you, except that I have a good reason.
As you may recall Dorothy and I had the same green suit. She came to my room and asked to borrow my belt. I loaned it to her and later the police found it (or what I thought was it) in her room. They kept it for over a month until they got around to returning it to me. By that time it was quite late in the season so I did not wear the green suit again last year.
Now spring is approaching again and last night I tried on my spring clothes. I tried on my green suit and it fitted perfectly. But when I put on the belt I found to my surprise that it was Dorothy’s belt all along. You see, the notch that is marked from the buckle is two notches too big for my waist. Dorothy was quite slender but I am even more so. In fact to be frank I am quite thin. I know that I certainly did not lose any weight because the suit still fits me perfectly, as I said above, so the belt must be Dorothy’s. When the police first showed it to me I thought it was mine because the gold finish on the tooth of the buckle was rubbed off. I should have realized that since both suits were made by the same manufacturer the finish would have come off both buckles.
So now it seems that Dorothy could not wear her own belt for some reason, even though it was not broken at all, and took mine instead. I cannot
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