On the morning of Saturday, November 23, Blanca left a message on Sue’s phone. When Sue returned the call, she asked if Blanca had seen Rick. Her husband, she said, had not returned until midnight the night before. When she asked him where he had been, he refused, at first, to answer. Later he told her he had been at the neighbors’, but did not specify which ones.
About 9:30, dressed in gray sweats, Rick pulled his white minivan up to a gas pump at the Texaco service center. He asked Raymond Ross to pump $10 worth of gas. Then, he asked to look at the Suburban. Ross went to the office and grabbed the key off of the board.
While Ross pumped the gas and checked the air in the tires, Rick opened the driver’s-side door and the hood. He walked back and forth between the two several times, then went to the office and grabbed the key to the restroom. In ten or fifteen minutes, Rick returned to the office, had a drink of water, fixed a cup of coffee and paid for his gas.
Ross asked, “Do you need anything else?”
“No,” said Rick sitting down on a chair. “I’m just killing some time.” He sat quietly, sipping on his coffee. Five minutes later, he left.
Ann called Sue on her cell phone and caught her in Sam’s Club picking up food and supplies for Margot’s party on Sunday. Ann asked why she was throwing a party at a time when so much else was going on in her life.
“I feel sorry for Doug,” she said. “It’s his wife’s fiftieth birthday and he doesn’t know what to do. Besides,” Sue added, “I don’t want to be home alone with Rick, and the party keeps my mind off waiting for it all to be over.”
Doug was running his own birthday-related errands that day, but he had a co-conspirator on hand to keep Margot off the scent of his plans. Her college buddy Tom—a frequent visitor to their home—had flown in to keep Margot looking the other way at all times. Margot knew Doug was up to something, but she couldn’t quite figure out what.
On this weekend before Thanksgiving, plans were all in place for another boisterous Christmas celebration in San Antonio. This year as always, the multi-cultural spirit of this former mission town turned the urban center into a jubilant city of lights.
The Fiesta de Luminarias brightened the Riverwalk. Yards and yards of light strings hung from the 100-foot cypress trees that spread their branches across the water—180,000 colorful, twinkling lights in all. Thousands of luminarias—candles in sand-filled paper bags—lined the walkways as a symbol of the lighting of the way for the Holy Family.
Festive boats cruised the river filled with carolers, bell choirs and performers for the hearing-impaired—groups from churches, corporations, civic organizations and schools. The Riverwalk was also home to Las Posadas, a reenactment of the search for shelter by Mary and Joseph on the night of the birth of the Baby Jesus. Bearing candles, the actors were joined by a mob of spectators that followed them to the end of their journey.
San Antonio, like nearly every city, had a holiday parade, but it boasted of one big difference—San Antonio’s procession floated on the river. It began when the mayor pulled the switch to illuminate the thousands of lights on the Riverwalk. The one-hour parade draws 150,000, who watch while dining at sidewalk restaurants or peering out the windows of offices towering over the river or sitting on the grass-covered rows at La Villita’s outdoor Arneson River Theatre. Millions more watch the live television coverage from the comfort of their homes.
Near the Riverwalk, a forty-foot tree was erected at the Alamo and festooned with lights and enormous decorations. At the Market Square, people and pets arrive for the annual blessing of the animals. Near the Justice Center, the San Fernando Cathedral stood like a beacon with every architectural line detailed in white lights. The Riverwalk and its surroundings—always a special place—was transformed into a vision of magic for the holidays.
The first event that put all these plans in motion this year—as every year—was the Seventeenth Annual Light the Way at the University of the Incarnate Word. Sue took her boys to observe this long-standing tradition with Molly Matthews and Blanca Hernandez and their children. She told Molly that she had not invited Rick to come along.
The event began at 7:30 in the McDermott Convocation Center with guests of honor Archbishop Patrick Flores and Singer Patsy Torres. After carols were sung by a children’s choral group, a candlelight procession wended its way through the campus grounds now aglow with endless strings of lights. Around the trunk of every tree, white lights twinkled round and round and up into far-reaching branches. Student volunteers strung the grounds with more than 850,000 lights. The whole campus glowed like the doorway to heaven.
In sharp contrast to the serene, sanctified celebration at the University of the Incarnate Word, the SBC Center up Interstate Highway 35, was rocking and raw. The Rolling Stones were in town and Rick McFarland was there.
From Keith Richards’s opening riff on “Street Fighting Man” to the encore performance of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” Rick grooved in the raucous retro night. The high point for many in the audience that evening was “Satisfaction.” Keith Richards shared a mike with Deborah Harry of Blondie to wail out the frustrations of not being able to get any satisfaction, while behind them the famous Stones tongue logo was set on fire.
In just two days, Rick would take action to find his own personal satisfaction, heedless of the impact on others. And when he did, the flames would light the night again.