The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed by Charles Runyon

reached me I was calm enough to say: “I was wishing I’d brought my knitting.”
    He sat on the ground beside me. “I checked to see if you might have been followed. Took me some time to find your car. Good job.”
    I felt a faint thrill of gratification. “I could take up bird-watching, carry binoculars and a bird book. That would give me some excuse to prowl the hills alone.”
    He studied me narrowly, then: “You’re kidding, but it’s something to keep in mind.” He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water. “Gaby said you’d changed your mind.”
    I looked down and stirred the dead grass with my foot. “It’s not that cut and dried. I want to know more. Particularly about Sandy, whether you think she was one of his victims.”
    “I’m almost sure. I checked with Stubb Dixon at the tavern. He said she left at eight o’clock, about forty minutes after I left. She wasn’t drunk then, so she must have met a man with a bottle.”
    I nodded. “Sandy had a habit of riding with whoever made an offer. Marriage didn’t change that.”
    “Yes, it could have happened this way: the guy took her home, waited until George left the house, then went in and set the house afire. Or it may not have been the killer who took her home, just a guy who happened to see her. The killer could have been watching the house, waiting for his chance. I looked around, but the crowd had wiped out any sign of tracks. Her body was so badly burned there was no way of knowing how she’d died.” He shook his head. “That couldn’t be luck. The guy is smart as hell….”
    “Why were you with Sandy?” I asked.
    “Gaby drew a blank. Sandy kept hinting that she knew something….”
    “She’s been hinting for twelve years.”
    “Yes, anyway I met her, and she was still playing coy, wanted me to meet her the following afternoon. We made a date, but she was killed that night.”
    “I think she was playing you along,” I said.
    Curt shrugged. “Maybe. But she had certain things in common with Bernice and your sister. Married, playing around on the side. The guy might choose married women because they’ve got as much reason to hide an affair as the man. Unless they fall in love, that is, then they’re likely to say the hell with everything and bring it all into the open. That would give him a motive for murder.”
    There was excitement in being near a man who burned with a purpose aside from making money and having fun. I wondered if I was really interested in finding the killer or if I just wanted to stay close to Curt and absorb some of his fire; I also knew that I had to give him something in return.
    “You seem so certain of murder, Curt. I’d like to know why.”
    “Got it right here.” He tapped the manila envelope. “But let’s get out of the open.”
    I followed him away from the lake shore. Bending down, we entered a crab-apple thicket; the lake was hidden by tall dry grass. We were screened overhead by the brushy twigs of the crab apple. I laid down my sweater and sat on it, drawing my legs up beneath me. Curt sat down beside me and for a moment I wished there were no murders, that we were just lovers who’d come out into the woods with a picnic lunch and a blanket. Curt gave me a curiously penetrating look—as though he’d caught my thought—then bent his head and opened the envelope:
    “It’s kind of dry and statistical. Are you sure—?”
    “Yes. But one thing I’m curious about first. Where were you last night when I called?” He looked off into the distance. “Searching Gil Sisk’s house.” I gasped. “Gil’s
house?”
    He nodded. “The night Sandy was murdered … well, let me go further back. There’s a hill about a quarter mile away from our house. It’s the only one nearby which has a view from a higher level than our house, a natural lookout if somebody wanted to spy on me. So I took some black thread and fastened it to trees and bushes so it ran around the top of a hill at waist