“We’ll see,” the old woman grunted, still weighing her options with Becky’s perverted father.
***
Henry planned to catch Sarah when she was in town. He often drove by her office to watch her and had even followed Sarah to her home more than once. But he hesitated to go to the door, as that could expose him a little too much. He felt sure Sarah Sears was blinded to his charms, but other people might be saner.
He drove once more by the sheriff’s parking lot, but her car was not there. “She must be roaming around this place looking for criminals,” Henry thought and drove on, watching for her. He spied the patrol car in the high school parking lot. Henry liked high school girls. They were so dumb and trusting, and Henry had tortured and killed several in his 40-plus years.
Sarah was walking toward her car when she noticed Henry pulling up beside her, this time in his sedan.
“Hey madam,” he greeted her. “How about a drive to the river? I ain’t never been.”
Sarah grew up near Red River, and she knew little good ever came from the muddy waters. She winced, remembering being raped there by the two thugs she’d killed in Oklahoma.
“Okay,” she said warily. “But I can just let you take a look there, and then I have to get back. I have to catch a rapist.”
“What?” Henry said, his nerves on high alert. “A rapist?”
“Well, one of the high school girls got pregnant,” Sarah told him, feeling oddly at ease entrusting him with this information. “And her mother insists it was rape. She says there’s no way her baby girl would want to have sex with anyone, and someone must have forced her.”
Henry laughed and joked, “Don’t young girls fuck in Nocona, Texas?”
Sarah frowned on Henry’s crude language, and he changed directions fast.
“Just a short drive and back,” he promised her. And Sarah got in the passenger seat.
Lots of mischief happened on the Red River banks: all night beer busts, drugs, and sex—mostly unprotected and sometimes forced. No highway reached the water’s edge, just muddy roads with tree overgrowth hanging overhead. Farmers liked to plant watermelons along the sandy fields near the water, and several pecan orchards provided the little Texas river towns with plenty of pecan pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
When the narrow country lane ended and the sand started, Henry shut the motor off. He turned to look at Sarah. She was intimidated but stimulated.
“Tell me about yourself, Sarah Sears. How did you get here?” Henry wanted to know.
Sarah had never once told a man anything about herself. Pete knew all he wanted to know when they got married and had hardly said a kind word in decades. No other man dared to communicate with her and most likely didn’t want to, Sarah presumed.
Sarah began telling Henry about growing up in rural Texas and how she’d gone to community college before she married. She told him about her daughter. Even though Olivia was foul-tempered like her dad, she’d brought Sarah the only joy she’d known until recently. She explained how much she loved her job. Sarah kept some information to herself. The killings were to rid the community of sinners, and only God and Zach knew Sarah was doing God’s work.
She, in turn, asked about Henry. He took sinister pleasure in spinning his life’s lies. A jilted husband with a drunken, drug-addicted wife, he’d decided to rescue his daughter and flee to Texas. He wasn’t sure where he’d settle. “But I like where I am at this minute,” he told Sarah, and she smiled back.
Henry reached over to take her hand, and she pulled it back gently.
“You scared of me?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But I’ve never been with any man but Pete.”
“Son of a bitch,” he murmured loud enough for Sarah to be aware of his concern. “What are you gonna do about him beating you?” he asked, remembering what Sarah had told him the other night.
“I don’t know,” Sarah answered. “God says you can have only one husband, and I’m afraid I picked the wrong one.”
Henry reached across the seat and kissed Sarah on the lips. She didn’t stop him and put her hand in his. He started kissing her on her neck and chest.
She was breathing rapidly and didn’t resist his lips and wandering hands. He unbuttoned her uniform and kissed her breasts, softly at first and then harder. She was quivering. He started unbuttoning her pants. Her holster was in place, and Henry gently unbuckled the leather, laying the gun on the floorboard.
He was sliding her pants down and pushing her panties to the side as his fingers entered her vagina. The other hand rubbed her nipples. Sarah was overwhelmed with his desire, and her own was raging. She couldn’t believe she was letting a stranger make love to her in a car on the Red River not far from the site where she was abducted earlier in the year.
Henry thrust his penis inside Sarah, and she let out a little sound.
“It’s okay, Sarah,” he told her. “God wants you happy. I can make you happy.”
A killer in a killer, they heaved together. Sarah Sears was fucking a raging maniac.
“That SOB better never touch you again!” Henry said after they finished. He was firm, making himself out to be Sarah’s savior. “You are special, and I will take care of you.”
Henry knew sheltered women like Sarah often mistook sex for love, and he was saying all the right words. Henry had a willing fuck buddy, and he decided to let her live a while longer. This was Henry’s mistake.
7
Like a wayward teenager, Sarah was embarrassed that she had given her body to Henry, a man she hardly knew. What was happening? Guilt overwhelmed her, and she began to cry. Henry hated nothing more than a crying woman.
His psyche was growing weary. Maybe rape and murder suited Henry Lee Lucas much better than wooing some God-fearing female. Patience was not Henry’s asset; rage and demonic acts seemed more his forte’.
Henry started the car and backed the tires through the muddy bottom land adjacent to the river. “I bet this river has a lot of secrets,” Henry muttered as much to himself as Sarah.
She nodded, remembering her rape last year.
Sarah silently vowed to stay away from the wet clay banks of the river from now on and focus instead on whoever raped Amber. This was her job, not having afternoon sex with a stranger. Praying for forgiveness was her first priority, and Sarah hoped God would listen to someone who had strayed from her husband and from her savior. Sarah Sears wanted God’s graces desperately.
The demented duo drove in silence, each entertaining their own thoughts. When they got back to where she had parked at the high school, Sarah bounded from Henry’s car, making sure to make no future commitments. Henry smiled and drove away, pleased with his performance. Henry fancied himself as a puppet master, taking what he wanted when he wanted it.
Shaming and berating herself, Sarah hurried to her office, hoping for solitude. She closed the door to be alone. With little regard for Sarah’s privacy, Zach entered and laid a fax on Sarah’s desk. It had a grainy picture of a criminal, underscored by the message, “Please keep a look out for this accused killer, Henry Lee Lucas. White male, five-foot-ten inches to six feet in height, thin frame. Dirty blonde hair that may be colored now. Perhaps traveling with a teenaged white female accomplice.”
Sarah’s breathing stopped. Staring at the blurry photo, Sarah saw the man who had kissed her passionately only a few hours earlier. A stranger who stirred Sarah’s sexuality. “Surely this is not Hank,” she whispered to herself. She willed her eyes to see someone else. Had she, Sarah Sears, had sex with a killer? She instinctively knew it was true.
Sarah felt faint. She excused herself and vomited in the bathroom toilet. Then she took off her uniform pants. With paper towels and soap, Sarah dug inside her vagina, trying to scrape away any semen left inside her. She must cleanse herself of any traces of that man. She vomited again from the pain she was inflicting on herself and the disgust of succumbing to a possible killer.
Sarah was ashamed and
remorseful. The only way to get even was to catch and kill her brief lover, never letting anyone but God know she had been duped. Sarah had to think of something. She must talk to her only true friend and protector, God.
***
Henry slowly drove out to the Mooney place, thinking tomorrow might be the time to kill the old lady, get the cash she had from her government check, and head west. And the cop lady he just fucked? “Better kill her too,” he thought. She seemed pretty clever and might decide to try to do her job: finding and arresting Henry Lee Lucas.
Henry preferred to hate his prey, pretending they needed for him to kill them. This state of mind was easy to maintain regarding the old lady; he sensed her growing dislike for him since he’d turned out to be an unskilled handyman. But the lady cop...she was kind and loving, attributes that confused Henry. Too bad she was already in Henry’s web. It was a case of wrong place, wrong time for the cop lady. She must be dealt with, and Henry acknowledged to himself that he would have to kill her.
Other than the dim light shining through the old lady’s bedroom, darkness consumed the night when Henry let himself in at the Mooney place. Henry cursed to himself, “Where the hell is the girl?”
Becky Toole was an obstinate little bitch, just like her uncle. Henry briefly thought of Ottis, locked up somewhere in Florida and probably cursing the guards and God. Henry knew Ottis was pure Satan, but he was also Henry’s friend and had easily accommodated Henry’s most morbid sexual acts.
Startling Henry, Becky stepped into his room on the porch.
“I’m not staying here another minute,” she said. “That old woman is making me iron clothes now. I hate her.”
Shut up,” Henry hissed. “Tomorrow we will leave, but we need some money.”
“Tomorrow the old lady is supposed to get some,” Becky whispered. “I heard her mention her check was coming.”
“That’s when we leave then,” Henry said. “Now shut up and go to bed.” Becky made a crumpled face at Henry and stuck her tongue out at him. He declined to slap her but had the urge to do so.
“I can’t fuck this little bitch enough to keep her quiet,” he thought. “She’s dangerous.”
Henry laid across the bed and had a conversation aloud with himself.
“If I kill the old woman, I guess I’ll throw her body in the river.”
“Shit, that don’t work cause the water is low. She’d wash up in a day or two.”
Henry considered the old garage but knew the police would check for her body there. He remembered seeing an old iron pot-bellied stove in the ruble behind the barn.
“I can cut her up and stick her in there. I’ll burn her body to ashes and then throw on some water to cool them off.”
Henry was happy with his plan.
***
Sarah prayed on the way home that night. At times, she felt she didn’t understand God. Why would he allow her to sin in such a heinous way? But Sarah never questioned God’s plan for her.
Pete Sears was growing more reclusive, spending all his waking hours in his office. Rarely nowadays did Sarah rile his temper but instead was ignored. Pete would sometimes try to engage Olivia but got little response.
Sarah and Olivia had always had a distant relationship throughout Olivia’s childhood, but Sarah sensed that thawing lately. She suspected Olivia respected her more now than when she was a compliant wife accepting her husband’s abuse. Children’s eyes see the truth, and Sarah had been growing stronger ever since she started working for the county.
Olivia was home alone in her bedroom that night, the music loud, and the door locked. Her childhood long gone, she was dressed in short black leather skirts and thigh-high boots when she came to the dinner table later. Pete didn’t like the daughter she had become.
Never shirking her wifely duties, as promised, Sarah prepared the nightly dinner, and the Sears ate in silence. Sometimes Pete would look at Sarah, shaking his head, not uttering a word.
Sarah’s mind chose to craft its own reality that night, accepting only that the man in the police flyer was not the same man who had made love to Sarah. She would inspect the picture again, the knot in her stomach telling her head the truth.
Around 7:30, Sarah left fried eggs and bacon for Pete on her way to the office. She was never late for work, preferring to be with her office family, Zach and Ruby. Life offered little to Sarah, but she was grateful that God had provided her a meaningful job.
Zach was at his usual post, drinking a large Slurpee. Ruby was on her way to a funeral in a neighboring town. Funerals provided ample gossip networks for weeks afterward. Ruby never missed one.
“Good morning, Zach,” Sarah said.
“Hey, what’s up?” Zach said, happy to see Sarah. “Think you oughta look for Amber’s rapist today? Or maybe that killer man on the handout yesterday? God, this place is gettin’ busy.” Zach seemed happy about the activity.
“I feel kinda sick,” Sarah confessed. “I think I’ll stay around the office this morning.”
Zach looked at Sarah, a little surprised that she didn’t have the enthusiasm she typically had when a criminal was on the loose.
Sarah’s heart pounded as she eyed Henry’s photo again. Gazing at pure evil is difficult. Her hatred of criminals caused her to kill, but she felt God cleansed her soul after every murder. She wasn’t sure how God felt about her having sexual intercourse with a killer. She must go to God’s house and pray. Sarah Sears was no longer pure in her heart. Henry Lee Lucas had soiled her forever, and only God could remove the stain.
***
Sarah sat in her patrol car, crying uncontrollably. Having driven across town to her church, hoping to pray her sins away, she was deterred by a couple of skinny white guys painting the steeple and the doorway of the chapel.
Sarah saw this interruption as a sign, believing God was ignoring her desperation. Still, she made her way inside and settled on a cushioned pew alone.
Choosing to remain with a husband who abused her and a daughter who resented her, she now had a lover who was the devil’s son. Sarah had little hope. The Colt .45 pistol suddenly weighed heavy on her hip. The cold steel could serve as an instrument of salvation only after God forgave her.
Sarah began to pray, “Dear Lord, I humbly ask your forgiveness of my sins. I have sinned, Jesus, and for that I ask that I be forgiven. I want to be with you in Heaven. Thank you, Jesus, and God. Amen.”
After she was sure she was forgiven, she went back to the car. Once this was over, Sarah Sears would seriously consider ending this hell on earth and shooting herself with her sheriff’s department revolver. She again touched the steel resting in her leather holster. Sarah jolted as a blue vehicle honked and pulled in beside her.
It was Henry.
“Hey, pretty cop lady. What are you doin’? How about meeting up after your work and having some fun?” he teased. “I thought about you all last night. Just laying there wishing I could touch you, kiss your breasts, and take off those policeman’s pants.” Henry was smiling.
Sarah looked at Henry, stunned that this accused killer would talk to her in this overly-familiar manner. Had she lost her mind, allowing him to make love to her? She felt her life was over, but maybe she should do one last righteous deed. Maybe God wanted her to kill Henry Lee Lucas.
She forced a smile back at Henry and said, “I’m swamped today. I have to go home right after work.”
Lucas was immediately suspicious. This cop lady was not the same as she was yesterday. Henry wondered if she knew who he was. If she did, he’d have to kill her. He looked at Sarah, squinted his eyes in the hot sun, and said, “Well, that’s no good. Maybe tomorrow.”
Backing his car out of the church driveway, Henry noticed the men painting the steeple. “What a waste of time,” he thought. “Who cares if the cross is bright white?” God was never on Henry’s mind.
Her heart pounding, Sarah had to clear her mind and devise a plan. She wanted to know more about Henry and his victims. Did he jus
t kill once? Was it many times? Were his victims men and women? Any blacks? Children? She had to know what made him kill or satisfy herself with the knowledge that he was simply just a suspect.
Sarah knew how lazy law enforcement officers could be, and they might have just conveniently tagged Henry because he was a drifter. He would not be the first person to be convicted because he was poor and disenfranchised from society.
Sarah determined to find out more about this man before she either arrested or simply killed him in revenge. Her mind would guide her actions. She needed time to think and a good distraction. The best way for her to focus was to find Amber’s rapist. That case was cut and dried. Sarah would kill the asshole.
***
Cautiously driving toward the old river bridge that she swore she’d never visit again, Sarah felt dread, fear, and strange exhilaration. She’d agreed to meet with Henry again—and might still succumb to his advances, allowing herself to have sex with this man.
Throughout her married life, Sarah had read hundreds of women’s magazines featuring stories about affairs. They usually told of women finding men other than their husbands attractive, even at times fucking them. But she never considered herself as a willing partner to such sin. “It happened only once,” she told herself. “And maybe again today.”
Sarah believed God would forgive her one more time for allowing sex with this man, as much as God had forgiven her the murders she had committed. Sarah was, after all, an imperfect human. She was helpless because God had chosen her to rid the world of rapists, child molesters, and brutalists.
Sarah had a strong sense of fate and intended to further befriend Henry by spending some time alone with him. If he indeed were a killer, God would implore Sarah to kill him. She was resigned to this plan.
“Hey, gorgeous cop lady,” Henry said when she got out of her car and sat beside him on the hood of his Chevy. “Come here and give me some lovin’.” Henry invoked faint rage mixed with sexuality within Sarah. She hated how he demanded her to comply with his wishes, yet she felt strangely attracted to his commands.
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