The Bad Seed by William March

belly was small and hard; it had a taut, rounded quality, as though designed by nature as a background for the massive watch chain and emblem. Frank Billings, whom Monica always referred to as “Emory’s canasta friend,” said, “Well, where did you get that idea, Monica? What makes you think that?”
    “My opinion,” said Mrs. Breedlove, “is based on the evidence of pure association, and that’s the best evidence of all.” She sipped her wine, puffed her lips thoughtfully, and went on in an earnest voice. “To begin with, Emory is fifty-two years old, and he’s never married. I doubt if he’s ever had a serious love affair.” Then, seeing that she was about to be interrupted by Reginald Tasker, “one of Emory’s true-murder-mystery friends,” she raised her hand and said, “Please! Please!” in a placating voice; and then went on quickly. “Now, let’s look at things objectively. What are Emory’s deepest interests in life; what are the things that occupy his psyche? They are fishing, murder mysteries that involve the dismemberment of faithful housewives, canasta, baseball games, and singing in male quartettes.” She paused and then said, “And how does Emory spend his Sundays? He spends them on a boat with other men—fishing. And are there
ladies
present on such occasions? I can answer that question at once—there are not.”
    “You’re damned right there aren’t!” said Emory.
    Mrs. Breedlove looked about her, and then realizing for the first time the effect she’d created among her guests, she tossed her head and said in a surprised voice, “I don’t see why the idea shocks you so. A thing so commonplace as
that
! Actually, homosexuality is triter than
incest
! Doctor Kettlebaum considered it was all a matter of personal preference.”
    But it would be a mistake to think of this obsessed, garrulous old woman as a fool in most matters. She had taken the lumpsettlement that her husband had so cheerfully given her and invested it in real estate, following a system based both on sexual symbolism and the unalterable fact that if the town continued to grow, as everyone predicted, it had to go in the direction of her holdings. She had been successful from the first. She had written a successful cookbook; she was responsible for the city’s psychiatric clinic; she was thought of as the tireless civic worker, the logical, efficient chairman of the charitable drive for funds.
    On the day of the school picnic, Mrs. Breedlove telephoned Christine and asked her to lunch. One of Emory’s fishing friends had sent him a beautiful, seven-pound redfish. Emory himself had just called to say that, since it was Saturday, he was closing the plant at noon and would be home for lunch. He’d asked her to fix redfish Gelpi, which she hadn’t done in a long time, and she said she would. “Emory is inviting his friend Reggie Tasker, that true-crime writer you and Kenneth met last spring in our apartment, and he wants you to help entertain him. Now, why don’t you come up early, say around noon, and I’ll show you how to fix the redfish? It’s in the sauce, mostly.”
    Later, Mrs. Breedlove decided to serve lunch not in her gloomy, paneled dining-room, but in the little alcove off her living-room where she kept her ferns and African violets; and when her brother and his guest arrived, the table was set there, and ready. The men were talking about a recent murder, one which was being featured in the local papers. Reginald Tasker, it appeared, was going to do it for one of his murder magazines, and was now gathering his preliminary facts. Mrs. Breedlove, hearing fragments of the talk, laughed, tossed her head, and said, “We’re off to the races again!”
    The case concerned a middle-aged hospital nurse, a Mrs. Dennison, who had been indicted for the murder, on May first, of her heavily insured two-year-old niece, Shirley. It was then the town remembered that another niece, a sister of the 1952 victim,had died