Until You See Me
by Roberta Degnore
Why does a woman admit to a dismemberment murder so horrible the body can’t be identified as a man or a woman? Because it’s better than what she really did.
It was the crime of the decade in 1932. Grotesque. And it really happened, although not quite this way.
The dismembered, decomposing body is found stuffed in a steamer trunk. Pearl Tild confesses to it because it is a distraction. If everyone thinks about death, no one will ask about love… who she loves, and why.
This murder is a love story, or the end of one. The eternal triangle goes terribly wrong because these three people really love each other. But their love is too much. It ‘s what drives Pearl, her controlling husband, and the “other woman” to fight for their lives. They fight to the death for what they can’t live without…each other.
She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA, as well as three other Master’s degrees in subfields of psychology. Always impressed with the idea of being a Renaissance person there’s little she hasn’t tried, tasted and ultimately turned away from in boredom. Lucky accident of time, she has sought out pursuits that would have been deemed worthy of burning at the stake before instead of being simple quests for fun.
Always moving in broad arcs instead of straight lines, she travels widely and learns whatever she can wherever she is from whoever happens to be there. Africa, Eastern Europe, and travels especially to Rome, Florence, Milan (for opera at LaScala) and Amsterdam are her latest targets for chasing more of everything. Unfortunately, she has gone beyond Blondie’s suggestion to die young and stay pretty.
Ms. Degnore is based in New York City but returns frequently to Los Angeles.