Trail of Blood. Wanda Evans

him and did not object to Jessica’s dating him, although he was several years older than she.

      During the summer, their days were rather unstructured, she said. Jessica still was working a few hours a week and Scott worked on a contract basis, so they had free daytime hours to cruise in Scott’s yellow Camaro, “Yellow Thunder,” she called it, or go to the park. If Scott had to work, sometimes Jessica would go to the shop and talk to him while he worked. Other times, she said, they would go to his house and watch television or movies.

      The Simpsons was Scott’s favorite television show, Jessica said, and they often watched it together. There was one couple with whom they spent a great deal of time. The woman was neat and they had a lot of fun, but the man made Scott mad. Scott didn’t like the way the man treated his wife. He was violent and abusive and Scott couldn’t stand that.

      Scott also taught Jessica to play pool, she said. He was an excellent player and loved the game. Jessica said that they both had other interests and led busy lives, so they were not together all the time, but they did see a lot of each other.

      English asked Jessica if she knew Leisha, but Jessica had not heard of Leisha Hamilton until shortly before Scott disappeared.

      Jessica’s stepfather was an alumnus of Mississippi State University and it was because of him that she had applied to that university and had been accepted. When she told Scott she was going away to college, he had not been happy about it. In fact, he had asked her to marry him. She had told him she intended to go away to college, no matter what he thought. Scott wasn’t happy with her decision and they became estranged.

      However, they had seen each other briefly the next Christmas, when she came home on holiday break, and Scott had told her that Max Gianoli was planning to open a new store in Lubbock and he would be moving there.

      In mid-March, Jessica called Scott at work to tell him she was planning to come home for spring break and stay with her sister. The weekend she was to arrive coincided with the annual Rattlesnake Round-up, held in Sweetwater, Texas. Scott asked her to meet him there and they would spend the weekend together.

      “We fell in love all over again,” Jessica said. “I couldn’t resist him. He looked at me with those sweet puppy dog eyes and asked me to take him back and he sang romantic songs to me and I said yes.”

      A carnival atmosphere had prevailed, complete with amusement park rides and entertainment, in addition to the rattlesnake hunt. “After I went back to school, we talked on the phone all the time,” Jessica said. “Then one day just before the school term was over, I called him and a woman answered the phone.

      “I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked. And when I asked her who she was, she said she was Scott’s wife.”

      “You can’t be Scott’s wife,” Jessica answered. “I’m Scott’s wife and I want to talk to him.”

      “I don’t know who you are or what you are talking about,” the woman said. “I’m telling you, I’m Scott Dunn’s wife.”

      Jessica slammed down the phone. Who was this woman? She couldn’t be married to Scott. Jessica was certain of that.

      The next day, when Scott called Jessica, she told him about the woman who had answered his telephone, claiming to be his wife. He assured her that he was not married to Leisha and that he was moving out of that apartment. He told Jessica there was nothing to worry about. Jessica told English, “He just went on and on about how much he loved me and that we were going to get married and he described the ring he was having made for me.” Because she was in love, and because she wanted to believe him, Jessica accepted his explanation. Scott told her he really wanted to see her as soon as she got home from Mississippi, which would be the first week in May.

      Jessica called Scott when she arrived at her sister’s and told him she would be there for a while. He asked her if she would go to Pennsylvania with him in August, to meet his family. Delighted at the prospect, she agreed.

      Scott also told her that he had to make a business trip that week and would have a layover at DFW airport. He asked her if she would meet him at the airport. He said he had only one more payment to make on her ring and would bring it with him when he came. She agreed to meet him. He told her he would call her back and let her know the exact day, time and flight number. She never heard from him again.

      A day or two afterward, Jessica said, Leisha Hamilton had called her. “It was really weird. I already thought she was strange, because of what Scott had told me about her. She wanted to know if I had heard from Scott. She said he had left and had taken all his things and she thought he might have gone to Fort Worth because I was there.”

      Jessica confirmed what others had told English about the way Scott felt about his possessions. She said he loved Yellow Thunder so much that he would never let anyone else drive it. In fact, she said, she had never driven it and she could not believe he would have gone away somewhere and left it behind. Nor, she said, would he have left his tools. He would not even let other people use his tools, she said, unless the person was a “really, really good friend.”

      English went over and over in his mind all that he knew, trying to integrate the statement Jessica had given into the information the police already possessed. At this point he felt that Tim Smith was a promising suspect for several reasons. He had the opportunity and he had the motive. English believed that the roll of duct tape found in Smith’s apartment would, when tested, put him at the scene of the attack on Scott. He was anxious for the DPS crime lab to finish testing the tape and the green carpet fibers that had been stuck to the tape. He felt strongly that the evidence would show that those carpet fibers had come from Scott Dunn’s apartment. That would give the police solid, scientific evidence that Smith was at the scene.

      Smith also had a motive for wanting to harm Scott—his obsession with Leisha and his belief that with Scott out of the way, Leisha would be all his. Smith also knew that Scott was sick and could have known that Scott was home alone after Leisha went to work the morning of May 16, because he obsessively watched Leisha’s apartment.

      The question in English’s mind was how Leisha fit into the picture. He wondered how she could have lived in that apartment for two weeks without noticing the bloodstained, clumsily patched carpet in her bedroom. Had she been present when Scott was killed? If the attack on Scott occurred sometime after 1:00 AM, after Mike Roberts had left the apartment, then she had the opportunity either to kill Scott and persuade Tim to help her eliminate the evidence or to commit the killing with Tim. That made more sense to English. They could have killed Scott together and disposed of the body, then attempted to clean up the evidence. She knew more than she was telling; of that English was certain. The hole in that theory was lack of motive.