February was a mimic, a soft pretender to spring. Houston’s temperature rose to the high seventies and stayed there. Nights were still cool and the winds often gusty, but the days sparkled. Marjorie was buried on one of those fake spring days, her father shuffling his feet in embarrassment at the graveside. He stared at the ground and wished he was home in San Antonio, away from the curious, pitying stares of the strangers attending his daughter’s funeral. Though he was introduced to Marjorie’s friends, they were not his friends, and during the service he suffered, knowing the strangers knew of his daughter’s mutilation. They knew she had to be buried headless. It was such a total embarrassment that he left before the end of the service, jumped into his rickety ’69 Chevrolet, and headed back to his apartment, where he could feed the mongrel dogs he collected and pretend he had never been a father. Five days after Marjorie’s burial the killer left his home at seven in the morning.
