The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald

getting out soon, and if he wants her back, you better not be in the way. Now I'll tell you something else I happen to know, and I hope it turns your stomach. I'm not making it up because I haven't got the kind of sick mind that can make up something ugly. It happened on a Sunday afternoon last December. Roddy Barramore broke down on Route 112 down by where Shell Ridge Road turns off. A water hose busted, and he decided the best thing to do was walk into Shell Ridge Road to the Perris place, figuring Mr. Perris would have some hose and clamps or at least some tape. It was a warm Sunday and when he got near the house he could hear through the screen in the open windows that Mr. Perris had the football pro game on turned up loud. So he thought instead of ringing the door, he'd go holler in the window, and he had his mouth open to holler and then he saw Lilo and Mr. Perris on the couch, making out like mad, all their clothes in a pile on the floor. Roddy scrunched down quick before they seen him, and walked back and first he told Rhoda there was nobody home, and she said he was quiet for a while and then he told her what really happened. What do you think of a girl who'll make out with her stepfather knowing her own mother is there helpless in the bedroom maybe fifteen feet away, unable to speak or move much since she had the stroke over two years ago which some say was the judgment of God, but I say we aren't to judge because we don't really know what reasons she had for breaking up her own marriage the way she did. Rhoda told me about it, it made me want to throw up. I hope it does the same for you. I don't care that you aren't seeing me anymore, really.
    I wish the best for you always, Lew, but you won't have anything but heartache and bad trouble if you run around with Lilo. Always your friend, Betsy
    I went through the Polaroid prints. Amateur nude studies. Thirty-two different poses. Many different girls. A lean blonde with an insipid leer and huge meaty breasts figured in ten of them, prone, supine, standing, reaching, kneeling. Five were of a woman with a superb body, a body good enough to overcome the incompetence of the photographer. In each she kept the lens from seeing her face.
    Then there were thirteen different females, which I suppose could be thought of as trophy shots, Page 36

    all head-on, naked, some taken by flash, rome by available light, some indoors, some outdoors.
    Estimated ages, eighteen to thirty-two. A variety of expression, from timorous uncertain smile to dazed glaze of sexuality, from broad grin to startled glance of herself surprised, to theatrical scowl. The sameness of the pose removed all erotic possibility. They became record shots, and could have been taken in the anteroom of the gas chamber after a short ride in a cattle car.
    It was the remaining four shots which gave me a prickling sensation on the backs of hands and neck.
    Solid, shapely, dark-haired, suntanned chunk of girl. Evenly and deeply tanned everywhere, except for the surprisingly white bikini-band, low slung around the functional swelling of the sturdy hips. One of those pretty, engaging, amusing little toughy faces. An easy-laugher. A face for fun and joy, games and excursions. Not at all complicated unless you looked more closely, carefully. Then you could see something out of focus. A contradiction. There was a harsh sensuality in that face which was at odds with the merry expression. There was a clamp-jawed resolve contradicting that look of amiable readiness for fun and games.
    I had seen that face, for a micro-instant, several busy seconds before Miss Agnes squashed into the canal. I felt sure of it. And this chance for a more careful examination confirmed the fleeting feeling that my young volunteer mechanic, Ron Hatch, had to be related to her by blood.
    Though his face was long instead of round, doleful rather than merry, the curves of the mouth, the set of the eyes, the breadth and slant of forehead were much alike.