Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

Then, when it was over and he let her body fall out of his grip, he knew that she was dead, without having to feel for a pulse or listen for a heart beat. He simply stepped over the corpse, went back to his bed, and lay down for a few moments. For a man already tired from a hard day’s work, it had been a strength-sapping task, choking Stella. For her neck had been fat and her ample lungs had contained a large supply of reserve air. So the strangling had taken some time.

But as he lay there, his mind was active. More active than it had been for years. Not since he’d had the farm, with all its responsibility of figuring how to battle enemies like weather, insects, crop diseases — had his mind been prodded to such activity as this.

He had a new enemy now, and he was aware of it. Stella had said there were laws against a man’s leaving his wife. He knew that there were also laws, sterner laws, against a man’s killing his wife. And he knew that the law does not forgive or forget.

He did not want to go to prison or to give his own life for killing Stella. What would he have accomplished, only to have exchanged this prison for another? No, he wanted to gain something, to be ahead in the long run.

Go back to the farm maybe. He was a practical man. It had always made more sense to him to grow wheat rather than roses. And with the machinery one can use on a farm, perhaps he could work without straining his back. Yes, to be a farmer, not a gardener, that would be progress, a step ahead. And this time without having to provide for Stella.

Only he was not yet free of the burden. Stella’s presence, her voice, her appetite, her nasty humor — they were gone, to be sure. But her body remained, still a burden to him. He wouldn’t be free till he’d rid himself of that last part of Stella.

He thought, and the solution came quickly and easily. If there was no body, there was no murder.

He raised himself from the bed, his weariness suddenly gone. It wasn’t yet nine, and he couldn’t be sure that Mrs. Kopping would be in bed till ten at least. But there was other work to be done in the meantime.

He spent the next two hours packing the pair of suitcases and the trunk that he and Stella had come to this place with. The trunk could be sent for later. He filled it, locked it, and left it sitting in a corner. He put into one suitcase things he might need immediately, and into the other, similar things for Stella. He felt he was shrewd in this... just in case someone might search those suitcases.

By ten-thirty he had erased from the two little rooms all evidence of his and Stella’s occupancy. Then he turned out the lights, lifted Stella’s body to his shoulder. She’d been getting fat, but she’d been a short woman. With his mind ecstatic in his new freedom, his back did not complain of the weight.

He carried her down the drive to the last bush he’d planted that afternoon. He was forty-five years old. Four... five. He would bury Stella between the fourth and fifth rose bushes.

He was glad now that the earth was already turned over. And the well-kept soil was soft and grainy, not hard-packed. It was a matter only of minutes to dig the grave. Three feet by three feet. Curled up on her right side, Stella fitted into it neatly.

He did not stop for any formal leave-taking. He covered her up, replaced the tools, and went calmly to bed.

...And in the morning he went to see Mrs. Kopping. The old lady would be wanting her breakfast, and it would be just as well to break the bad news to her before she’d worked up too great a state of impatience.

He found her in the dining room, sitting at the bare table, reading the newspaper which this morning she seemed to have fetched for herself. But the fact that Stella had not brought her the paper and the fact that here was no sign of activity from the kitchen had not as yet disturbed her. She received Anton in frosty silence. She was a tall, spare, bony woman, austere, unhandsome. She looked this morning as she had always looked.

“Stella and I are leaving,” he announced quickly, a little nervously. “In fact, Stella has already left.”

Harriet Kopping did not interrupt him.

“We had a long talk last night and decided the work was too much for me here. I am sorry we cannot give notice. I am sorry I cannot plant any more rose bushes. Stella has already left on the early morning bus to the city. I am going to see to the trunk, and then I will catch another bus as soon as I can, and will meet Stella. She forgot her suitcase, and I will have to take both suitcases with me...”

He stopped. He had expected her to give some evidence of anger, or at least of surprise. But she sat there silently, hearing him out, almost smiling. Yes, she was smiling!

So he stood there for a moment, silent himself, puzzled over her reaction, uneasy, suspicious. It was not like Mrs. Kopping to smile at any time, much less at a time when there was reason for her to be angry.