18 The Man who Shot Snapping Turtles by Edmund Wilson

Narrator has a weird neighbor named Asa M. Stryker. He lived with a cook and a man in Hecate County. He had no visitors and sometimes had short visits to relatives. He had a pond where he kept his "pet ducks" or wild ducks. There were snapping turtles in the pond which ate the ducks, so he began shooting the turtles. Once he tried draining the pond to kill all the turtles, but his neighbor complained and the turtles were still there. He asked why God allows mud-turtle to eat the beautiful ducks? Is it because He is old now? Then he poisoned the pond, but the poison killed everything in the pond including the ducks. A female snapping turtle appear, so he fenced all his estate. He had a New Orleans neighbor called Clarence Latouche who worked in an advertising business. He proposed that Stryker should shoot the ducks instead of the turtles and make turtle soup and sell them. Stryker started eating turtle soup at breakfast. Latouche made advertisement for canned snapper which the women were cured of anemia and tuberculosis by eating these. Soon, Stryker created a small cannery with shallow tanks to farm the turtles. He employed people by paying their housing and feeding them, so they feel in debt to him and never leave. He had his gardener as a foreman and a middle-aged woman as the secretary. He gave 10% profit to Clarence. Clarence had an affair with a married woman, but she thought it was too troublesome to divorce her husband and refused to marry Clarence. Clarence went to Stryker's study one Sunday afternoon and detected that Stryker was going to kill him. Stryker treated him friendly which is odd. Stryker offered Clarence to take a trip to the South. Many of Stryker's wealthy relatives died regularly. Clarence shot Stryker and sold his estate in Hecate County to buy a ticket to Europe, but Hitler's war began, he moved to southern California where he drank to death. He was constantly afraid of the foreman getting caught. The foreman organized strikes against Stryker and disappeared after Stryker was murdered, so he was suspected to be the murderer. Clarence was willing to tell the truth if the foreman was caught, because he has a soul of honor. He will not let innocent man die.