But I Trusted You…and Other True Cases. Ann Rule’s Crime Files: Vol. 14
By Ann Rule
Published November 24, 2009 (Paperback) Pocket Books
I adore Ann Rule. Let’s just get it out there. She is the slightly-older female relative who always tells the truth. I’ve interviewed her in person at least a half-dozen times, maybe more, and every time, I am spellbound by her stories. These cases that she profiles that — to me — are psychologically mysterious. As in, how could that man do that, and how could that woman believe him?
There was one December, I recall, in the back of a chilly bookstore, after our interview, I told her about a relationship I was deeply embedded in. And, she said, run, honey, if he’s not a sociopath, he’s close enough. Get out of there. And I did. She was right. And I’ve noticed, through the years, that I tend to be attracted to sexy, self-centered, manipulative men that I get wound around. Men Ann would call sociopaths. Men incapable of real love. This familiar brain chemistry I am untwisting these last few years.
It is with this history that I read But I Trusted You And Other True Cases. I can hear the title in my head, a pleading, almost whiny “but I trusted you…”
This cuts both ways. Ann Rule’s meticulous reporting reveals a woman not to be trusted, as in the cover story, and men not to be trusted in several other stories. In the first, a middle-school counselor, long-single, takes up with a much-younger woman at an out-of-state educational conference. She is not who she seems to be, and he winds up dead.
Other stories profile ordinary people trusting strangers in small ways — allowing them into their inner space, or accepting a ride, or just being friendly. The cases — all but one — snap closed with a resounding answer. In that final story, Ann Rule supposes what happened, and leads the reader to a satisfying conclusion.
Another point Ann, perhaps, leaves up to the reader — why do certain people find each other? Fate? Foolishness? Over the years I’ve read Ann Rule’s books — seeing both male and female sociopaths — I’ve come to my own conclusion. That vulnerable, psychologically-injured people are drawn to sociopaths, as moths are drawn to flame. And they’re burned as badly.
