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The relationship between Max and Mary Helen continued in frequency and intensity.  It was purely physical, the pair had nothing else in common.  Max had a gift and she wanted to unwrap it and enjoy it every chance she got.  If she wanted to talk, she could call a girlfriend.  Max understood his role and played it well.  The Pontiac Streamliner wasn’t the only thing that made their opportunities to copulate like wild animals more convenient.  In November, Mary Helen bought two acres of secluded wooded land on Lake Leon.  The property was only reachable by a dirt road with a barbed wire gate and a padlock strung across the opening.  She put the land in Max’s name, a real estate friend handling the transaction.  The 1953 Silver Dome travel trailer she bought was registered to one of her husband’s businesses and listed as a construction trailer for one of his projects on the balance sheet.  Max took up residence in the trailer.  The two of them found it much more comfortable for their trysts than the back seat of a car, even a Cadillac convertible.

They still didn’t talk much when they shared time.  Mary Helen had thought about telling him the troubles she was having with her adulterous and overbearing husband. But the last thing she wanted was pity.  One time she nearly revealed the fact that her son was playing for the other team.  But she didn’t want anyone to know that fact, nor did she want the relationship with Max to be burdened with personal details.  Not any that hadn’t already been revealed in the inside the confines of the Silver Dome trailer, anyway.  Secrecy was all important with such things in Fort Stockton.  She darn sure couldn’t risk explaining the awkward agreement she’d come into with the daughter of her husband’s corrupt business partner in order to cover for her son’s sexual preferences.

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Yet, there she was.  Cheating in a double axled den of iniquity on wheels with a two tone paint job.  Those double axles were given a workout every time she walked through one of the porthole-adorned doors and stripped off her clothes.  The only thing she felt guilty about was the fact that she didn’t even feel guilty.

It was sometime in December of 1953 when things took a turn.  Mary Helen’s husband was going to be in Houston for three days, negotiating the next big project.  Or so he said.  She had seen nothing of the details, hadn’t been told who the customer was, nor heard even a whiff of what the project might be.  She suspected it was a ruse, but one that was timed well for her own benefit.  Having made arrangements for her son, Joel, to spend a couple nights at his new friend’s house, Mary Helen and Max spent Friday night in the Silver Dome.  It was the first time they’d spent an entire evening together and it was all she had hoped it would be.

The following morning she made breakfast and they lounged around the trailer naked.  Max built a fire and they even ventured out to the campfire in the buff, warming beside the hot flames, and creating their own heat next to it.  Max’s refractory period was quite a bit shorter than Mary Helen’s, a function of the difference in their ages.  As much as she desired another go at it, by later afternoon she needed time to regroup.  “Here’s a twenty.  Go into town and get us some takeout.  Get whatever you want.  But bring back a bottle of wine to go with it.”

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She tossed him the cash and watched the Streamliner pull away from the Silver Dome and head down the dirt path that would take him to the highway back to town.  Staring out the triple window towards the water, Mary Helen saw a wooden runabout out on the smooth surface of the lake.  The wooden boat had stopped in the water. The two people on board were animated.  She could tell based on the silhouettes in the evening light that one was male.  He was bigger.  The other was female.  Probably younger, based on her size.  Their voices were carrying across the lake and she could determine the tone, but not make out the words.  The girl’s voice was familiar enough for her to realize it was that of Becky, the girl her son was pretending to be involved with.  Of course, Mary Helen had arranged that relationship in order to solve immediate problems resulting from her son’s sexuality and her husband’s reaction if he were to find out.  She was sure that it was Becky on the boat.  But who was on the boat with her, apparently arguing, remained a mystery.

Looking closely, she could see the man attempting to force himself on Becky.  Mary Helen was helpless to do anything.  She thought about shining the headlights of the Cadillac that direction, or honking the horn to startle whomever it was.  But she was naked and the car was twenty yards away from the trailer. The last thing she wanted to do was to give away the location of the Silver Dome and the secrets it held.

Before Mary Helen could think of anything else,  Becky was over the side of the boat.  She couldn’t tell if the girl had jumped or been pushed.  Rather than extend a hand to help her back in, the man reached over the side and held her head under water.  Her body eventually went limp and floated next to the boat, face down.  The man didn’t seem to panic.  He looked around, then jumped into the water and swam all the way to shore.

The whole episode she watched lasted maybe 15 minutes.  She saw the man much closer as he got to shore.  He was middle aged and fit.  Obviously a good swimmer.  Rising up out of the lake and walking up the shore, maybe 50 yards away.  Through the trees and brush Mary Helen saw him do his best to dry off and then get in his car, a new navy blue Ford Ranch Wagon.  Mary Helen was shaking as the car drove down the paved road back to the main road.  The two round tail lights grew small and dim in the dusk light.  And then disappeared.

Mary Helen came to grips with the fact that she’d just witnessed a murder.

While she had no idea who the killer was, she knew what he drove.  She noted the Ranch Wagon didn’t have Texas plates, they were a different color.   Mary Helen knew the color, make and model of the car as well as the general description of the man driving it could have eventually led police to the perpetrator.  Of course, it would have led them to a lot more than that.

Explaining what she saw would have given away the details of the Silver Dome Travel trailer she’d bought with company funds from her husband’s business for the immoral trysts she and her young companion carried out all too frequently.  They would have quickly uncovered her own relationship with Becky.  It could have been argued that she was essentially blackmailing the young girl to keep her own son’s sexuality covered up.  The investigation would have led to the financial illegalities involved in the businesses jointly owned with Becky’s father and Mary Helen’s husband.  A crime she had nothing to do with could eventually uncover all the other sins that were unrelated.

The number of families destroyed and lives ruined the minute she went to the police, she figured, was disproportionate to the benefit of justice for the murder of one girl.  And it wouldn’t bring her back to life. The fact that the murder, whether premeditated or an act of passionate rage, seemed to have something to do with a middle aged man wanting something he had no right to was ironic.  Max was returning in the Streamliner with dinner as Mary Helen rationalized her silence.

She had no appetite for the pizza he brought back to the Silver Dome.  The wine?  The wine was another matter. She drained two glasses while Max consumed the pizza by himself.  While he sat on the edge of the bed finishing his meal, she pushed the TV tray to the side, reached down and stroked him till she had the response she was looking for.  It took no time at all.  Mary Helen mounted Max like he was a show pony, which in a sense he was.  She licked the tomato paste from the pizza of his face on the down strokes.

The next morning she and her son Joel went to church together.  Brother Bob preached a sermon on sin, and that no one sin is worse than any other in the eyes of God.  Somehow, Mary Helen took comfort in that, probably not the message Brother Bob intended to convey.  After the service was over and the string of congregants made their way through the line to shake Brother Bob’s hand, Mary Helen and Joel walked out to the parking lot.

Arriving at the Cadillac, they bumped into Joel’s new friend, Matt.  Joel introduced Matt and Matt’s family to his mother, explaining they’d recently moved to Fort Stockton from Bakersfield, California and he’d met Matt through Becky.  Matt’s father shook her hand and was pleasant, but a chill ran down Mary Helen’s spine.  She quickly got in the convertible and told her son to do the same.  Two cars away, Matt and his family got into the family’s navy blue 1953 Ford Ranch Wagon.  Mary Helen noted it still had California plates on it.  

Becky was found in the shallows near the shore of Lake Leon a day later.

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