As he followed Butch, Dale grew more and more restless. He focused on his first victim, Marnie, and how he felt upon seeing her give another man her attention. It was Marnie who sent him over the edge, setting him on his path for murder. Dale was soon oblivious to the road as he relived his time with Marnie. She was a little shorter than Brooke, but other than that, she was the spitting image. He met her in the spring of 1988 while making a delivery to the Dairy Queen, just inside the Alma city limits. He was unloading his last dolly full of ice in the outside locker; she was clocking in for the late afternoon and early evening shift. Marnie made direct eye contact, smiled, and said, “Hello.” As he headed back to his truck, he looked back and caught her watching him. For the next few months, he made it a point to have lunch or dinner there when he knew she was working. As time went by, their conversations grew more intimate and lengthy. But as the anniversary of Brooke’s death drew near, Dale found himself consumed with conflicting thoughts of being attracted to Marnie and the guilt of what he had done to Brooke.
In the early evening of July 23, 1988, Dale dropped by the Dairy Queen, unannounced, and saw Marnie leaning over the counter, speaking to an attractive, younger male customer. He stood outside the front entry as she flirted, unaware that she was being monitored. Her body language told him she was attracted to the young man: touching his arm when he spoke, tossing her hair as she laughed, and playing with her necklace in her teeth. Jealous and enraged, Dale stormed back to his truck, still undetected. He stayed in the cab, watching from the cover of darkness under the metal awning, steeping in his bitterness. Almost an hour had passed by when he noticed both the boy and Marnie look at their watches. They made some small talk before the boy leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then exited. He left with a wave from his car as he drove away. Dale watched as she excitedly hopped up and down with her fellow female coworkers, clapping her hands.
As closing time approached, Dale entered the restaurant with a drawn-out “Hi!” to Marnie.
“Hey yourself!” she replied flatly, wiping down the malt machine.
“What’re you doin’ tonight?” he asked, leaning across the counter.
“Uh…uh,” she stammered, searching for an excuse.
“I got some Shiner chilled in the truck,” he eerily suggested. “We could go out and talk for a while.”
Marnie bit her lower lip as she glanced at her watch, looked outside, then back to Dale. “Um…okay… But just for a while,” she reluctantly consented. “I gotta get home. I got some stuff to do.”
“Yeah, sure!” Dale eagerly agreed, knowing she just lied to him.
He escorted Marnie to his truck, opened the passenger door, and aggressively helped her into the cab. He slammed the door and stared at her as he rounded the driver’s side front fender. He climbed inside the truck and leaned over to Marnie, smirking. “You ready for a night you’ll never forget?”
She pushed herself back against her door, uneasy with his tone and facial expression. “You know, maybe I should…” she nervously said as Dale started the engine and quickly engaged the transmission, throwing gravel as he exited the dark parking lot.
“Sure is a pretty moon out tonight,” he said, peering up at the sky.
Marnie remained quiet, looking out her window with her legs and arms crossed.
“You know,” he stated nonchalantly, “you’re such a pretty girl!”
She looked at him and faintly smiled as she fumbled with her watch band.
Dale reached over and placed his hand on her left thigh, then slid his fingers down to her knee. “You kinda remind me of someone I used to know real good!”
Uncomfortable with his touch, she pushed his hand away. “You know, it really is late and I should be—”
“Here we are!” Dale abruptly announced and slammed on the brakes. Marnie lunged out and locked her arms against the dashboard to keep from flying forward. The heavy truck came to a screeching halt on the shoulder of the road. “C’mon!” he instructed as he quickly exited the truck and walked around to the passenger side. He yanked open the door and extended his hand. “The night is young, the moon is full, and the beer is cold!”
Marnie regrettably took his hand, turned her legs toward the door, and placed her left hand on the door’s armrest. He gave a small tug and pulled her clumsily to the ground. She began crying as he helped her up to her feet, grabbed her by the elbow, and briskly walked her to the back of the truck. “Dale, please…what’s wrong?” she whimpered.
“What could possibly be wrong?” he asked sarcastically, throwing the latch open on the insulated, double metal doors. “You said you wanted a beer,” he answered smartly as he jerked open the doors to the freezing cargo compartment. The door swung just inches away from Marnie’s face and slammed against the outside trailer wall with a deep, echoing thud. She could hear the wind blowing through the mesquites, the crickets in the grass, a few birds chirping, and in the distance, some coyotes howling. More over all of this, however, she could hear her heart beat. “C’mon, let’s get a drink!” Dale urged with wave of his arm.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she crouched and pleadingly sobbed, “Dale…please…I just want to go home!”
As he followed Butch, Dale remembered how he gathered Marnie in his arms and lifted her into the freezer compartment then climbed in with her. He pulled on a rope to close the door behind him, trapping her inside in the process. For a moment all was quiet, except for Marnie’s heavy breathing and the deep, resonating sound of the slamming metal door. Two dull overhead lights suddenly flickered on and Marnie found herself standing between palettes of stacked bags of ice.
“Let’s have one of those beers!” Dale happily suggested. He gruffly pushed her out of the way and lifted one bag of ice to expose the top of the dark longneck bottles. “Here, have one on me!” he instructed, handing her a bottle from the almost frozen six-pack.
Shaking with fright and freezing temperatures, Marnie refused his offer.
“Oh c’mon! We drove all this way! You gotta have a least one,” he insisted, opening the bottle.
She crossed her arms, trembling, and again shook her head no.
“I said have a beer!” Dale demanded and grabbed her hair. He pulled her head backward and forced the bottle into her mouth. She tried to push his hands away, but he was much too strong. She choked and violently spewed beer from the sides of her lips, spraying herself and Dale in dark-brown foam.
“Guess you’re not a beer drinker!” he exclaimed as he shattered the beer bottle on the floor and released Marnie’s head. She fell to her knees as he pushed one door slightly open to take a peek outside. Quiet.
“Dale, please!” Marnie pleaded. “I want to go home! My mom is expecting me!” She covered her face and doubled over, wailing loudly.
As he heard her weep, Dale could only see Brooke, kicking and screaming in the back seat, begging to go home to her mother. “You remember when I said you reminded me of someone?” he sternly asked, circling around her. “She said the very same things! She said she didn’t want to be with me, either! She’d rather go home to her momma!” He reached behind him and pulled his .38 revolver from the back of his pants. “Why is it…” he inquired, lowering the gun in front of him, “…that both you and she didn’t give me a chance? Didn’t even try to finish things out with me? Huh?”
Marnie lightly gasped, “Momma!”
“All you had to do was let me love you!” He remembered how strong he felt when Marnie looked up to him with her mouth open wide, weeping in silent anguish, her face twisted and disfigured with fear. “Maybe you and she can talk it over?” he coldly suggested.
“Dale, you don’t have to do this!” she said, struggling to stand.
“Sure I do!” he contradicted as he raised the gun and cocked the hammer. “It’s the only way I can make you and her understand!” Dale pulled the trigger and sent a bullet careening through the top of her left breast, knocking her backward on the stack of ice. He cautiou
sly opened the door to take another peek outside; nothing moved but the wind in the mesquites. He tucked the gun into the back of his pants while stepping to look at Marnie. He waved his hand over her open eyes to see if she was still alive. “Well,” he said to the gradually cooling corpse, “your loss!”
He bent over and looked underneath her torso; bright-red blood slowly oozed from the exit wound in her left scapula and began collecting in a burgundy puddle at the base of the ice bags. He grabbed the remaining beer, jumped out of the truck, and closed the door behind him. Dale climbed in the truck cab, opened a beer, and took a long sip. After almost an hour and a half and consuming the remaining beers, he climbed back into the storage area and tossed Marnie’s frigid corpse over his shoulder. Dale hopped out of his truck, crossed the highway, and snuck off into the dark, chuckling a cruel laugh to himself.
How simple is this? he thought. Just to make sure she wasn’t discovered for as long as possible, he took Marnie to a thick, remote patch of mesquites with deep buffalo grass. He laid her on her back with her arms at her side, still looking out into space. He then pulled down a large, sprawling limb from one of the trees and walked back to where he placed Marnie’s body. He dragged the branch by its base from the opposite direction in which he walked, pulling the grass back to its original position.
Once the body was disposed of, he pulled his truck forward onto the asphalt, ran back to the shoulder, and dragged the branch across the dirt. Having made sure that all traces of tire marks were erased, he threw the tree limb into the rear of the truck, made a U-turn, and took off down the road. Feeling he was then in the clear on the opposite side of Alma, he tossed the beer bottles and branch behind a dumpster then pulled into a coin-operated power wash. He took the hose with him into the refrigerated compartment to blow out the frozen blood. He was safe. She was gone. Problem eradicated.
Whitney and Danny slowed as they approached a stoplight a few blocks away from Butch’s townhouse. Butch pulled up next to them in the left-turning lane and rolled down his passenger window. Two cars back, Dale patiently waited and placed his. 38 special in the seat next to him, rubbing the handle.
“What’re ya doin?” Whitney hollered to Butch.
Danny rolled his window down and sat on the ledge of the door.
“Gonna get some gas before we go to the storage room later,” Butch answered.
“Can’t ya get it later?” Danny yelled back, tossing his arms in the air. “Does it hafta be right now?”
“I’m scared, Danny!” she stated, grabbing his calf.
“It’s okay. Ya’ll go ahead,” Butch instructed. “I’ll be right behind you. Five minutes, that’s it.”
Danny climbed back into Whitney’s truck. “Geez!” he snapped. The fold, hovering above Whitney’s right shoulder, suddenly turned from bright red to a dark purple and green. “Hey! It’s…it’s not red!” Danny said. “It’s not red! It’s green! It’s back to green!”
“Huh?” Whitney replied in dismay and looked at her shoulder as if a bug was crawling on her shirt.
“You’re all green!” he again said. “Well, there’s a little purple, but you’re green!”
“Really? Green?” She hopped in her seat excitedly. “I’m green?” She lunged into Danny and squeezed him tightly with tears of joy filling her eyes.
Danny crawled out of the window, sat again on the door ledge, and hollered, “Butch!” But he had already rolled up his window. “Butch!” he again yelled as Whitney honked her horn. Danny watched in horror as the green fold above Butch’s right shoulder turned bright red. “Butch!” he yelled once more as the left turn signal changed and Butch quickly rounded the corner.
Danny climbed back in the truck as their light also turned green. Whitney accelerated and let loose with a high pitched, “Woohoo!” while honking her horn.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Danny said as he searched for his cell phone.
“What? What baby? What’s wrong!?” she asked, her mood changing abruptly at the tone in Danny’s voice.
Danny found his phone and frantically dialed Butch’s number. “C’mon, c’mon!” he mumbled, clenching his teeth.
“Danny, hun, what’s wrong?” she again inquired, rubbing his left shoulder. “You’re scarin’ me! Is everything okay?”
“Butch! Butch!” he yelled, pounding the phone in frustration. The phone showed almost no tower signal strength and flashed the weak battery sign.
“What? What?” she repeated anxiously. “Tell me so I can help!”
“You can’t help!” he screamed angrily. “He turned red!” Danny roared as tears began to flow. “Butch just turned red! You turned green! He’s red!”
Whitney started breathing heavily. Unbeknownst to her, Dale was still following one car behind her.
“I can’t reach him on my phone! The buildings are too tall and the battery is too weak!”
Dale accelerated and moved into the middle lane. As he pulled parallel to the car directly behind Whitney’s truck, he swerved to his left, knocking the small passenger car into the oncoming traffic. Dale didn’t stop, nor did Whitney or Danny notice what just happened behind them.
Dale laughed out loud and stepped on the gas, taunting Whitney as he prepared to smash into her rear bumper. “This is for you, baby!”
Whitney screamed at the force of the impact as Danny lurched forward and struck his head against the windshield.
Dale again accelerated and pulled up to Whitney’s pickup in an attempt to clip her.
In a white-knuckled panic, Whitney screamed, “Danny! Danny!” Blood slowly trickled from his forehead down onto his face.
Dale tapped Whitney’s right rear, sending her careening across her two right lanes of traffic. Dale overcorrected his truck and fishtailed to the right. At one point, the remaining ice in the back of the truck shifted; the sudden change in the vehicles rear center of gravity caused his truck to roll into the path of the oncoming vehicles. Whitney’s truck slammed between two parked cars, coming to rest against a light post.
A passerby with a cell phone immediately called 911 to report the accident. Amazingly, Dale’s and Whitney’s trucks were the only ones wrecked, minus the sedan Dale rammed the block before and the cars that Whitney’s truck plowed into. All other vehicles in both directions managed to avoid any type of collision.
As Butch pumped his gas a few blocks away, he heard of the accidents and the call for assistance on his police scanner. He quickly removed the pump handle from his tank, jumped in his truck, and answered on his radio, “Ranger two-two-nine-nine responding! Ranger two-two-nine-nine responding! I need all available emergency personnel! I need S.W.A.T., ambulance and reinforcement personnel, as well! This is a hostage situation! I repeat this is a hostage situation!”
As he raced to the scene of the accident, Butch began blaming himself for what had happened. Man, why did I leave? Why did I leave? This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t left!
He reached the intersection and sedan that Dale rammed and flashed his badge to the officer directing traffic. He then noticed the crowd gathered farther down the road. He turned the corner, flicked his headlights, and honked his horn, shouting, “Move outta the way!” He desperately tried to pass through the now jam-packed street. Growing more and more flustered, he hopped the median and drove on the opposite side of the street.
He finally reached the overturned ice truck, stopped, and jumped out with his gun drawn. He pulled out his badge chain and hung it around his neck for all to see as he crouched down and cautiously approached the ice truck. He peered through the windshield and found the cab empty, but noticed an empty box of .38 rounds. “We have a missing, injured, and potentially armed driver!” he yelled to one of the police officers.
Butch spotted the roof of Whitney’s truck through the crowd of onlookers and emergency personnel. As he hurriedly walked through the crowd, he was acutely aware that Dale could be lurking anywhere, ready to strike. He reached Whitney’s truck and th
e EMT assisting her.
“Ma’am, I need to get you stabilized and out of the way.”
“I don’t want to leave! I want to stay with Danny!” he heard Whitney say and ran around to the other side of the truck. Two hook-and-ladder trucks pulled up as he yanked another EMT out of the way and called out, “Danny! Can you hear me? Danny?”
Danny’s right arm, like his father’s left arm in ’78, was broken in three places; his face was streaked with trails of blood that flowed from the gash in his scalp. “Danny! Danny, c’mon! Listen to me,” Butch quickly said. “Is Whitney gonna be okay? Danny! What’s gonna happen now?”
Danny wearily raised his left eyelid to find that he could no longer see the red fold on Butch’s shoulder. He looked up to the EMT and noticed that he, too, had no fold on his shoulder.
“It was red!” he groggily explained. “Now…I can’t see! Whitney…”
Butch climbed on the hood of the truck to get a visual of where the medical assistant had taken Whitney.
“You were red…” Danny mumbled as the EMT turned his attention back to his wounds. “But now I don’t see…”
“Whitney!” Butch yelled from atop the truck, growing frustrated that anything at any moment could happen.
From across the street he heard a faint, “Butch,” and spied an arm waving over the crowd.
The paramedic helped Danny up and out of the truck as Butch turned and ordered, “I want a police escort with this man, now! No one gets near him! Understand?” He jumped off the hood and moved in the direction of Whitney’s waving arm.
While passing through the crowd, Butch heard a shrill, mournful cry. “Brooke!” But he couldn’t see where it came from. He drew his gun and looked all about him.
Just like the wreck in 1978, Dale managed to quickly mingle into the crowd and lose himself among the spectators. He ducked into one of the department stores on the opposite side of the street from where Whitney crashed her truck. He merely needed to wait for her to be exposed. With this many people, he rationalized, it would be near impossible for them to locate where a single shot came from. Dale limped out of the department store, envisioning the lifestyle Brooke once said she’d like to have: a little white house up north in the mountains, maybe in California or Oregon, near the ocean, with two little children playing in the front yard, rolling and laughing in the thick, deep-green grass. “Brooke!” he again called out, walking through the rows of onlookers.
The Folds Page 28