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THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THIS SEVEN PART STORY

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Fort Stockton had seen strange endings before, but the conclusion of the Melba Duncan affair managed to land somewhere between Biblical justice and a county commission meeting that ran too long. Folks who had followed the trial closely agreed on one thing: nobody would have written it that way if they’d been trying to make it believable. But Fort Stockton had never worried much about believability. It preferred results.

The moment that changed everything came quietly enough.

Helen Hermleigh finished her testimony on the stand just after lunch. The courtroom had grown warm the way Pecos County courtrooms always did when the air conditioner had been working hard all morning and decided it had earned a break. The gallery was still packed with townspeople who had come to see what they assumed would be the final act of Howie Hermleigh’s murder trial. Most of them expected the jury to deliberate for a while, maybe go home overnight, and return the next day with a verdict.

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Instead, the courtroom got something entirely different.

Ballistics results had arrived while Helen was still testifying.

The revolver she said she kept in the glove compartment of her black Oldsmobile had been tested. The results were unmistakable. It was the weapon used to kill Melba Duncan.

At first the information circulated quietly between the sheriff, the district attorney’s office, and the judge. Then one of the deputies who had examined the Oldsmobile earlier that morning mentioned something else. The interior of the car was so immaculate that he had actually complimented Helen on it. The upholstery looked almost untouched, the dashboard polished, the chrome bright enough to shave in.

Someone opened the ashtray.

Inside sat a necklace.

Melba Duncan’s housekeeper identified it without hesitation.

The revolver itself carried only one set of fingerprints.

Helen Hermleigh’s.

By the time the judge finished speaking with the attorneys, the entire direction of the trial had shifted like a windstorm rolling down from the Davis Mountains.

The charges against Howie Hermleigh were formally dismissed.

Moments later, the sheriff approached Helen Hermleigh where she still sat calmly on the witness stand.

Then he placed her under arrest.

The Stockton Telegram-Dispatch managed to get an extra edition onto the streets before sunset. In Fort Stockton that counted as lightning speed journalism, considering the paper usually moved at the pace of a retired mule.

Helen later gave a short interview from the county jail. Her explanation for the murder was blunt and delivered without much drama.

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“He’s a good boy,” she said of her nephew. “Everyone in town knows that. That horrible excuse for a person was turning him into something I almost didn’t recognize. Greedy. Mean. Calculating. I couldn’t stand watching it happen.”

Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “Someone had to put a stop to it.”

That same evening, Howie admitted to investigators that he had walked in shortly after the shooting. The shock of seeing Melba Duncan lying dead had apparently scrambled his judgment.

So he did the only thing that occurred to him in that moment.

He hid the body in the freezer.

His explanation was surprisingly simple.

“I didn’t want my aunt spending the rest of her life in prison.”

Fort Stockton spent the next three days debating whether that act made him the most loyal nephew in Texas or the dumbest man in Pecos County.

Most people eventually settled on both.

With the murder charge against Howie gone, attention quickly shifted to the matter that had quietly been sitting behind the entire case like a banker waiting for his turn to speak.

Melba Duncan’s estate.

Seventeen million dollars.

Howie Hermleigh had been listed as the primary beneficiary. But Melba’s son, Douglas Duncan, had legal claims of his own. He also had lawyers who billed by the minute and seemed perfectly willing to keep billing for the next decade.

It looked like Fort Stockton was about to host the longest legal battle in county history.

Then Franklin Danbury stepped in.

Danbury had built his reputation by solving problems that involved large sums of money and people who preferred not to see their names printed in newspapers. His approach was refreshingly direct.

Instead of fighting, he proposed a settlement.

Within three weeks the matter was resolved.

The seventeen-million-dollar estate was divided between three parties. Douglas Duncan received a portion that allowed him to return to his already comfortable life elsewhere. Howie Hermleigh received a share that instantly made him one of the wealthiest young men in town.

And the city of Fort Stockton received the rest.

Mayor Goodman agreed not to pursue a separate civil action and quietly ensured that any remaining charges connected to hiding the body disappeared like a dust devil on the highway.

Douglas Duncan left town the same afternoon the agreements were finalized. As far as anyone knows, he has never returned.

Most residents considered that a perfectly acceptable outcome.

Fort Stockton’s portion of the settlement consisted largely of Melba Duncan’s real estate holdings in Pecos County.

Her six-thousand-square-foot home became the focus of a heated town discussion that lasted nearly four hours and included two shouting matches, a motion to table the entire issue, and one lengthy argument about handicap parking.

Eventually the property was converted into a senior citizen center.

Nobody felt comfortable naming the facility after Melba Duncan.

Mayor Goodman briefly suggested naming it after himself.

That suggestion died a quick and merciful death.

A naming contest held by the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch eventually produced the winner.

Silverado Senior Center.

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The surrounding acreage turned into something more exotic.

In cooperation with West Texas Baptist A&M, the land became the site of a feral hog irradiation research facility. The program was designed to address the exploding population of wild hogs that had been tearing through ranch land across West Texas like drunken bulldozers.

The project was never given an official name.  But before long, people started calling it Camp Razorback.  The name stuck.

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Danny Mercer did not take the trial’s outcome well. What should have been his first clean murder conviction had collapsed in spectacular fashion.

“I ended up spending more time chasing Mayor Goodman’s political enemies than practicing actual law,” Mercer complained during one interview.

Within six months he resigned as District Attorney.  For a brief period he accepted a job running Camp Razorback, but eventually admitted that the smell reminded him too much of politics.  He left town soon afterward. The last anyone heard, he had moved to Colorado and was searching for investors to finance a wind farm.

Fort Stockton wished him well.

Mostly.

Deuce Cameron remained in town just long enough to visit family members and give a handful of interviews to reporters who had suddenly discovered Fort Stockton on their maps.

Then he boarded a flight to Houston.  His next client was a fast-growing energy company called Enron.  Nobody in Fort Stockton had heard of it yet.

That would change.

Parker McHale stayed considerably longer. She rented an apartment at the Alamo Arms and began writing what would become the true-crime book Cold Revenge.

The book landed on the New York Times bestseller list for several months, briefly turning Fort Stockton into the most famous town in West Texas that didn’t have a military base.

The movie adaptation fared less well.  Jack Black played Howie Hermleigh.  Shirley MacLaine portrayed Melba Duncan.  Critics were unimpressed.

Siskel and Ebert called the performances flat and the story unrealistic.

Rusty Hammer disagreed.

“Well of course it’s unrealistic,” Rusty said while reading the review aloud at the Grounds for Divorce. “They filmed the whole thing in Canada.”

He shook his head.

“You can’t capture Fort Stockton by filming north of Minnesota.”

The regulars agreed.

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During Parker’s stay at the Alamo Arms, several people noticed Mason McCullough coming and going from her apartment. It looked suspiciously similar to a pattern that had existed fifteen years earlier.

When Parker finally left town, she departed in Deuce Cameron’s bright yellow Range Rover.  Before leaving, she tied Mason to the bed, just for old times sake.  Rusty Hammer eventually found him and cut him loose.  Rusty told the story to anyone willing to listen.  Which in Fort Stockton meant everyone.

Helen Hermleigh never lived long enough to stand trial.  She passed away in the Fort Stockton jail several weeks later.  Doctors revealed she had been diagnosed with a terminal illness months before the trial.

That discovery sparked an entirely new debate across town.  Had Helen truly killed Melba Duncan?  Or had she confessed to save her nephew during the short time she had left?  The argument continued for months.

But eventually most residents reached the same conclusion.  With Silverado Senior Center thriving and Camp Razorback hosting regular school field trips, the town had come out ahead either way.  “Let God sort out the details,” Trixie noted, effectively ending the debate so the conversation could move on to who Jim Bowie High would be tapping to be quarterback in the fall.

Howie Hermleigh moved back into the home Melba Duncan had once gifted him. He continued donating to local causes just as he had before the murder.

The alley behind the Piggly Wiggly was beautified with Texas native shrubs that could tolerate grease runoff.

A new press box appeared at the football field for Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern.

Eventually the scoreboard was electrified for night games, and the phrase “The Trojans Are Rolling On To Victory” glowed in neon visible all the way down to K-Bob’s.

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Widows continued bringing baked goods to Howie’s house in hopes of securing a dinner invitation or possibly a cruise.

The story finally returned to where it had begun.

Oil Patch Cadillac – John Deere.

Franklin Danbury walked into the showroom with a small portion of the fee he had earned negotiating the estate settlement.

Waiting on the showroom floor sat a brand-new 1998 Cadillac Eldorado Touring Coupe.

Black over black.

The Northstar 4.6-liter V8 under the hood produced three hundred horsepower and enough torque to make the highway feel shorter than it really was. Sixteen-inch chrome wheels gleamed under the lights. Rain-sensing windshield wipers, Magnasteer speed-sensitive steering, road-sensing suspension, and four-wheel disc brakes made the car feel like the future had arrived slightly ahead of schedule.

Inside, black leather seats wrapped around woodgrain trim and a Bose stereo system that promised to make any country song sound like a concert.

Danbury studied the gauges behind the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

A 150-mile-per-hour speedometer.

A Northstar V8 waiting patiently for open road.

The salesman slid the purchase agreement across the desk.

Danbury signed it without hesitation.

The sales manager quietly backed away from the desk while he did so.  Not out of fear exactly.  More out of habit.

When Franklin Danbury signed paperwork, people preferred to give him a little room.

Just in case.

Later that afternoon the Eldorado rolled out of the dealership, quad exhaust tips glinting in the Texas sun as Danbury steered toward the highway leading back to Fort Stockton.

Cadillac might not be the Standard of the World anymore.

But in Fort Stockton?

It was still the Standard of Fort Stockton.

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If you enjoyed this series, or having a fresh story delivered to your In-Box every day to enjoy with your morning Folgers, consider throwing something in the tip jar to help keep the lights on and pay the rent for the office space above the Ben Franklin.

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