CHAPTER 3

Thursday, April 16, 1992, 10:30 A.M.,
Dairy Queen Restaurant Drive-thru,
6707 Westview Drive,
Houston, Texas.

 

Douglas Jackson wheeled his old beater into the Dairy Queen drive-thru. He and his coworker, Isaac Houston, had been bagging diapers on a local assembly line. The men had only worked three hours of a long twelve-hour workday, yet they were already famished. So, as was Jackson’s daily routine, the two men took an early lunch at Dairy Queen, the world-famous fast-food ice cream and hamburger joint that Texas claimed as its creation. (Though, it originally did open in 1940, in Joliet, Illinois.)

After the two men placed their orders, Jackson threw his car into drive and pulled forward to the restaurant window, where the food was served piping hot.

Again, Jackson shifted his car into drive and slowly pulled forward. After only a few feet, he was forced to turn left, as there was a wooden fence to the right and a chain-link fence in front of him, but something caught Jackson’s eye next to the concrete back wall of the Dairy Queen.

It was a half-naked body of a young woman.

Houston was staring at the girl’s dead body, his mouth agape. Jackson looked back at the girl, but instead of stopping, he hit the gas pedal and took off.

They drove on, speechless.