Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

According to the testimony of witnesses, George Conte had been “irrationally” jealous of his wife’s friendship with other men in their social circle; he’d quarreled publicly with her upon several occasions, and was known to have a drinking problem. On the afternoon of July Fourth, the day of the murder, the couple had been drinking with friends at the Lake Champlain Club for much of the afternoon, and had then set out in their boat for their summer home, three miles to the south. Midway, a quarrel erupted, and George Conte shot his wife several times with a .32 caliber revolver, which, he later confessed, he’d acquired for the purpose of “showing her I was serious.” He then pushed her body overboard, and continued on to the cottage where, in a “distraught state,” he tried to take his two-year-old daughter Sybil with him, back to the boat — saying that her mother was waiting for her. But the child’s grandmother and aunt, both relatives of the murdered woman, prevented him from taking her, so he returned to the boat alone, took it out a considerable distance onto the lake, and shot himself in the head. He collapsed in the idling boat, and was rescued by an emergency medical team and taken to a hospital in Burlington where his life was saved.

Why, why did they save his life? — Sybil thought bitterly. She’d never felt such emotion, such outrage, as she felt for this person George Conte: “Mr. Starr.” He’d wanted to kill her too, of course — that was the purpose of his coming home, wanting to get her, saying her mother wanted her. Had Sybil’s grandmother and Aunt Lora not stopped him, he would have shot her too, and dumped her body into the lake, and ended it all by shooting himself — but not killing himself. A bungled suicide. And then, after recovering, a plea of “not guilty” to the charge of murder.

A charge of second-degree murder, and a sentence of only twelve to nineteen years. So, he was out. George Conte was out. As “Mr. Starr,” the amateur artist, the lover of the beautiful and the pure, he’d found her out, and he’d come for her.

And you know why.

13. “Your Mother Is Waiting For You”

Sybil Blake returned the clippings to the envelope so conspicuously marked “MEDICAL INSURANCE,” and returned the envelope to the very bottom of the unlocked drawer in her aunt’s desk. She closed the drawer carefully, and, though she was in an agitated state, looked about the room to see if she’d left anything inadvertently out of place; any evidence that she’d been in here at all.

Yes, she’d violated the trust Aunt Lora had had in her. Yet Aunt Lora had lied to her too, these many years. And so convincingly.

Sybil understood that she could never again believe anyone fully. She understood that those who love us can, and will, lie to us; they may act out of a moral conviction that such lying is necessary, and this may in fact be true — but, still, they lie.

Even as they look into your eyes and insist they are telling the truth.

Of the reasonable steps Sybil Blake might have taken, this was the most reasonable: she might have confronted Lora Dell Blake with the evidence she’d found and with her knowledge of what the tragedy had been, and she might have told her about “Mr. Starr.”

But she hated him so. And Aunt Lora hated him. And, hating him as they did, how could they protect themselves against him, if he chose to act? For Sybil had no doubt, now, her father had returned to her to do her harm.

If George Conte had served his prison term, and been released from prison, if he was free to move about the country like any other citizen, certainly he had every right to come to Glencoe, California. In approaching Sybil Blake, his daughter, he had committed no crime. He had not threatened her, he had not harassed her, he had behaved in a kindly, courteous, generous way; except for the fact (in Aunt Lora’s eyes this would be an outrageous, unspeakable fact) that he had misrepresented himself.

“Mr. Starr” was a lie, an obscenity. But no one had forced Sybil to model for him, nor to accept an expensive gift from him. She had done so willingly. She had done so gratefully. After her initial timidity, she’d been rather eager to be so employed.

For “Mr. Starr” had seduced her — almost.

Sybil reasoned that if she told her aunt about “Mr. Starr,” their lives would be irrevocably changed. Aunt Lora would be upset to the point of hysteria. She would insist upon going to the police. The police would rebuff her, or, worse yet, humor her. And what if Aunt Lora went to confront “Mr. Starr” herself?

No, Sybil was not going to involve her aunt. Nor implicate her in any way.

“I love you too much,” Sybil whispered. “You are all I have.”