Henry had successfully driven unnoticed through several other Texas border towns overnight. It was morning now, and he was too tired to go on. He pulled in the Nocona Dairy Hut drive-thru to order a sausage biscuit sandwich for breakfast and to ask directions to a motel nearby. This spot would suffice for a night so Henry could sleep.
***
Sarah was in the same drive-thru line at the Nocona Dairy Hut in her unmarked state vehicle, waiting on her Diet Coke with vanilla. Sarah could nurse her soft drink all morning. After the blue Chevy sedan in front of her pulled away, Sarah was next in line and greeted the kid working the window. He handed her a large drink, and she headed to the office.
Main Street, Nocona, Texas, was virtually non-existent—just a few remaining stores from a bygone era carrying sparse merchandise. One building boasted a bed and breakfast. It was basically a hotel connected to a café next door, the product of a poorly concocted renovation. One clerk worked the front booths, while also providing the hotel reception duties.
Although disheveled in his appearance, Henry could still deliver crude charm when a lonely woman was nearby. When he walked into the hotel to see about getting a room, Henry sensed the buxom blonde clerk was a willing sexual partner, yet was mostly ignored by the townsmen. She would welcome a stranger, but his sleep was too vital right now. Henry paid in cash and said that he and his daughter would be leaving within a few hours. The woman seemed disappointed by this news and offered coffee to the killer. Henry declined.
The tiny room had a twin bed and one small chest of drawers. Henry ordered the girl to sleep on the floor, and he sprawled across the mattress. He pushed open the window, allowing the Texas heat to fill the room. The open window gave Henry both a bit of air and the ability to hear the street sounds.
Henry tried to sleep but grew angry that the tiny room was so hot. A breath of air blew the dingy curtain but provided little relief. “Dammit,” he said. “I need a beer and some grub. Shit, I’d better get some money somewhere.” Two five dollar bills would buy a hamburger and beer. The girl, he reasoned, could get by on a candy bar from the little convenience store Henry saw at the edge of town.
He left Becky napping and went down the creaky stairs. Approaching the same clerk he met earlier, Henry turned on the charm again. She was wearing shorts and a loose blouse that tried to hide the rolls of fat she acquired from eating too much fried chicken and too many fried pies. Henry leaned across the little counter separating them, staring at her generous breasts. A sick mind but a healthy libido, Henry briefly considered fucking her but decided that could wait. He was too hungry to get it up.
“How ‘bout one of them burgers and a beer next door, young lady?” Henry smiled toward her. She smiled back.
“Yes, sir, how was your nap?” she asked. “Where’s your daughter?”
“Still asleep, gorgeous,” Henry said. This one would be too easy. “Maybe I’ll stay a day or so and fuck her brains out,” he thought as he stared at the woman.
“Got any idea where I might pick up a few bucks, maybe an odd job or two?” Henry touched the young girl’s shoulder. “Say, what’s your name anyway?”
“Lysette,” she said. “But everyone around here calls me Lee.”
Henry grunted thinking about how he was gonna have his namesake suck his dick later. He laughed out loud at the thought.
“Well, little Lee, I’m Hank. I hope we can get to know each other better,” he told her.
She winked and said, “I bet we can” before leading Henry next door to fix him some lunch at the café.
The greasy hamburger and beer helped put Henry in a better mood. Shoving the two fives toward Lee, he was ready to drive west. But Lee wanted this new man to stay longer. She remembered that a customer had tacked a note on the hotel bulletin board asking about a handyman. She hoped he might fit the bill and stay in Nocona. Lee wanted a boyfriend, and this guy was good enough for her.
“I think there’s an old lady named Rose Mooney who was needing a handyman. Are you handy?” Lee was flirting now.
“What do you think, little girl?” Henry was flirting back. “How do I find the old lady?”
Lee excused herself to go next door and find the note. Henry followed her into the empty hotel lobby. Pulling the young lady into the men’s room, he grabbed her ample tits and started kissing them, chewing on her nipples. Lee was compliant when Henry unzipped his pants and pushed his cock in her mouth. She had tasted a man’s cum before and happily drank the killer’s juices. He decided he liked this country girl and wanted more of her favors.
“I’m gonna find the old lady, and I’m gonna fuck you again,” he said to her. Henry zipped up his pants and left Lee in the men’s room.
“See ya around, bitch,” he thought.
Opening the door to his room, Henry’s traveling companion was waiting for him on the bed completely nude.
“Where you been?” she asked flirtatiously.
“None of your business, you little slut,” Henry said. “Get dressed! We gotta find some money.”
***
A few miles west in the blinding Texas sun, Henry looked for the address Lee had given him. He eyed an unpainted shack with a small flower bed overrun with weeds and climbing red roses.
He saw a rocker on the porch with two wooden chairs and a small table nearby. Henry pulled in the graveled drive, rocks crunching under his worn tires and observed that the house sat close to Highway 82, providing a getaway efficient and likely if necessary. The porch, which was barely clinging to the little frame house, led to a front door with a torn screen and a loose frame. Rabid-looking dogs kept out anyone who chose to enter.
“Mrs. Mooney?” Henry called.
He heard a woman’s grunt.
“I’m here. What do you want?” the old woman’s voice crackled. Cigarette smoke billowed through the sunlit front room, illuminating a hunched elderly woman’s frame in a starched apron. Her mouth was caved in yet somehow managed to hold a Camel straight between her gums. Henry’s demented mind questioned how much money the old lady might have stashed somewhere in the hovel.
“Ma’am, I believe Miss Lee down at the hotel called you to say I would be coming by to see about doing some handiwork around here,” Henry explained.
“You’re Hank, are you?” the woman asked, eyeing him.
“I can see you’re looking for someone to help,” Henry said convincingly.
Mrs. Mooney could hardly see the killer through the west sun pouring in through her windows. He seemed nice enough. If she planned to continue living in her home for the next few years, she would need to keep it up. Her kids had vanished, scattering to distant jobs and lives, but Rose Mooney had stayed put. Montague County was her home.
“Where’d you come from?” she asked.
“Texarkana, ma’am,” Henry said, happy he remembered the name of the East Texas border town and briefly thinking of the two dumb cops he’d fooled.
“What’re you doin’ in Nocona, Texas?” she said, peering at him.
Henry was getting angry, wondering why the old witch was questioning him. He took a breath and answered, “I broke up with my wife and decided to leave town. I brought my daughter with me, and we decided to go west. We like this little town and the hills. It’s nice.”
“Huh,” the woman grunted. “I don’t know how nice it is, but it is my home. My husband is dead, and I’m by myself. You wantin’ a job, are ya?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Henry said. He detested questions.
“Well, I guess I could let you stay here a while and get some things done. Are you good using tools and a paint brush?”
“Why sure!” Henry said, hiding the fact that he was even more agitated. He considered snapping her neck but decided spending a few days in one spot would be okay. Henry was just plain tired of running.
“Well, you can sleep on the screened-in porch, and put the girl in the little bedroom,” Mrs. Mooney explained. “No drugs and no drinking, ‘cept maybe on Saturday ni
ght. A beer won’t hurt. My old man drank himself to death, and I don’t want to see that again.”
Henry nodded gratefully.
“If you need to wash up, go ahead,” the woman said and opened the screen door to welcome him in. “I’m making some fried eggs and sausage for dinner. Are you hungry?”
He nodded and smiled at the old lady, knowing he’d win her over in no time. Henry Lee Lucas turned on his charm again.
***
“Ma’am, did your husband leave any extra clothes after he passed?” Henry asked the woman after dinner. He pointed to his dirty trousers and shirt. “I sure need to wash these up,” he added.
The woman was beginning to like this traveler. He was polite to her, which was more than most of the townspeople ever were. In town, she was known as “white trash” and her old man no better. This man reminded her a little of her husband.
The Mooneys had come to North Texas as a young couple 60 years ago looking for work. They settled outside the little burg of Nocona and started farming as sharecroppers in the cotton fields. They later scraped together a little money and bought twenty acres and the old house where she still lived. The junkyard started naturally as they both were pack rats, and selling old car parts became their business.
The Mooney kids grew up and left town, ashamed of their parents. Their father drank cheap whiskey and slept most days and nights. He wasn’t mean, just weak and addicted. Rose ran the used parts business, raised a few chickens, and tended to a cow and calf in the little pasture. Once a week, she’d drive three miles into Nocona and buy a few groceries. Life became a lot easier when Rose collected her social security checks.
She became more haggard and unkempt through the years and was mostly misunderstood by locals. Kids thought she was a witch, and men only went to the Mooney place to find car parts or deposit an old vehicle onto her land, and she paid them a little money for it. She was a businesswoman by necessity and seemed destined to die on her small plot outside Nocona.
She agreed to find Henry some clothes. What was left of her dead husband’s clothing was piled in a small chest in the closet. Bending over, Mrs. Mooney let out a little groan, steadying herself on the side of the chest. She grabbed a handful of items and walked back into the kitchen where Henry was sitting.
“Here,” she said and pitched all of it on the floor. “Take anything you want. I don’t know why I even kept them.”
Mrs. Mooney grabbed at her back and struggled to stand upright. “Throw your dirty stuff on the back porch, and your girl can wash them. I got a washer and a clothesline.” Henry agreed to come back in the morning with his daughter to start working.
***
When Henry went back to the hotel that evening to pack up and grab Becky, he warned her not to say a word to Mrs. Mooney. “Act like you’re my daughter,” he instructed her.
“But what about us fucking each other?” Becky said and touched her pussy underneath her skirt.
“Shut up, little cunt, or I’ll kill you. Act like you’re my kid, you hear me,” Henry growled.
Becky looked down, afraid of this maniac. She knew what he was capable of doing to her or to anyone he chose.
In the morning, they packed quickly and drove in silence to the Mooney place.
“Becky, this is Mrs. Mooney,” Henry said when Mrs. Mooney opened the front door to welcome them inside. “We’re gonna help this nice lady around the house,” he told Becky.
“How long will we have to be here?” Becky asked, looking around at the mess. Henry frowned at her and then smiled at Mrs. Mooney.
“As long as she needs us,” he scolded Becky.
“Well, hell,” Mrs. Mooney interrupted. “Can we quit jabbering and get you some food and clean clothes?”
Henry smiled again at Mrs. Mooney.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and closed the door behind them.
Henry dropped off their belongings and headed to the bathroom to wash up.
Clean shaven and with combed hair, Henry was a fairly good-looking man. He had a young man’s body and youthful smile, although he needed dental work badly. Poor hygiene and crooked teeth were common and accepted among country people. Money for a dentist was sparse, and most people only visited the dentist for painful teeth extractions. As he sat down to eat with Becky and Mrs. Mooney, Henry decided he was going to like North Texas.
***
The next day he left the Mooney place and drove to town to get some supplies to work on Mrs. Mooney’s porch. He met a man named Donnie at the hardware store. The only danger was that Henry was new in town. Small towns loved to spot a newbie, their curiosity taking control of all the small talk. Who’s the new guy? What’s he doing here? Where’d he come from? The questions were never-ending until answered. Henry knew this was a potential problem. He explained to Donnie that he was Mooney’s nephew doing some work around her place.
He kept a low profile in town, but he felt strangers’ eyes were on him all the time. He carefully approached Mrs. Mooney that evening to attempt to rectify the situation. “Ma’am, I don’t like a bunch of chatter,” he began. “I don’t want Becky to have to tell about her momma, who is a drug addict and slut. Would it be alright if I said you’re my aunt and you wanted us to live with you a little while?”
Mrs. Mooney was a little taken aback but liked this man and girl. “It’s okay with me, but I don’t expect anyone to ask. The folks around here would rather gossip behind your back.”
Mrs. Mooney spat her snuff in a jar and continued, “I’d tell them to shut up. But suit yourself.” The old woman had turned crusty to most people in the county and wanted nothing to do with anybody except the occasional junkyard customer.
Satisfied with this arrangement, Henry knew the lie he’d tell if anyone asked how he ended up in Nocona. And Becky would say anything once he instructed her. Deep down, the girl was frightened of Henry. They both knew it.
5
The next day the sheriff’s office was quiet when Sarah arrived. Zach was looking at a magazine, and Ruby was making oatmeal in the kitchen. Sarah could hear the microwave running. Ruby ate often and took her breaks in the office kitchen. She liked to talk to her daughter on the phone and set aside mornings for this ritual.
Sarah brought up Cynthia Stevens’ death when Ruby came back. She explained that she’d go to the funeral tomorrow. Zach and Ruby were interested in why a young girl like Cynthia would die suddenly. Sarah said her mother thought it was a drug overdose. If she did not want an autopsy, no one would be certain. Sarah pulled out her notes on Mrs. Stevens’ statement and asked Zach to record it for the sheriff’s records.
“Zach, do you know any drug dealers in our county?” Sarah asked.
“Not personally. But I got some friends who do a lot of pot. They may know someone.” Zach seemed edgy about answering Sarah’s question. “Why are you asking me?”
“I just thought you might know since you’re young,” she explained and added, “Zach, do you believe someone should sell drugs to young girls, making them targets for overdose?”
Zach shook his head. “No, but there are people who do sell all kinds of drug,” he explained. “I don’t have anything to do with them.”
“Good, Zach. That’s what makes you a good employee of the county sheriff’s department,” Sarah told him and smiled. “What do you say we catch the dealer?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Zach said, grinning.
Ruby was back in the kitchen talking to her daughter again, complaining about her son-in-law.
“Ruby, can you handle the phone?” Sarah called out. “I need Zach to go with me. I’ve never been through the druggy part of town alone.”
Ruby was slightly disturbed by the interruption but agreed, shaking her head up and down without breaking stride on her phone conversation. Sarah put a jacket on over her uniformed shirt since she was going to need to be incognito for a while. Zach and Sarah headed out the door to the patrol car, and he seemed pleased to slide into the passenger side. The
vehicle did give its occupants a sense of power, Sarah recalled.
“Go out south of town, that’s where most of the thugs stay,” he instructed. “There’s a trailer park out there, and there’s probably lots of drugs in those trailers.”
Sarah knew that park and always warned Olivia to stay away from that part of town.
Criminals can spot a cop car immediately, Sarah thought as she pulled her unmarked car into the middle of the collection of mobile homes. Ruddy-faced little kids were playing with dirty dolls and sticks in one of the yards. They were too young for school and too young to be left alone, but their mothers were nowhere in sight. A skinny, grease-covered man was hunched over an old car working on the engine. Sarah and Zach parked close by.
Not knowing exactly how to question this man, Sarah rolled down the window and tried a direct approach. “Sir, do you know anyone I could talk to about getting a fix?” she asked.
The man smiled through black and broken teeth. “No, ma’am,” he said. “The only thing I fix is old cars like this one.”
Sarah thanked him and rolled up her window.
“Sarah, let’s go back to the office. I need to come out here alone,” Zach said. “We stand out like a sore thumb. I can get you the name of the dealer, but I can’t have you with me.”
“You’re right,” Sarah said, disappointed. She was afraid it would take a long time to identify the dealer. Other girls might die before she could eliminate him from this earth.
***
Reverend Thomas was especially kind and approachable during Cynthia’s funeral service. He seemed genuinely sad and empathized with the family. With Sarah’s permission, Olivia had skipped school to be there, and about fifty people were in attendance. Sarah watched from several rows back as Reverend Thomas hugged Olivia afterwards and whispered something in her ear. What had he told her? Sarah then saw Mr. and Mrs. Stevens and Cynthia’s two younger brothers wearing their best Sunday clothes. Mrs. Stevens had wailed during the reverend’s service and muffled a scream when the casket lid was closed.
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