The Cold Days of Summer - Episode 13
Drew occasionally sees and hear things and people that no one else sees or hears and another woman in west Texas disappears.
Previously in The Cold Days of Summer a wife and mother of two disappears in west Texas and Drew might be too smart for his own good. See Episode 12 - A murderer walks among us; Other things did happen that month for the details.
Imaginary friends and voices
I guess all kids have imaginary friends, and no one thinks strangely about it. For most kids the imaginary friends disappear before the first grade. My imaginary friend's name was Stan. He showed up when I was about four, as best as I can remember. He was older than me and was wiser to the ways of the world than I was. He never steered me wrong. Then, at the end of the summer between first and second grade he disappeared. He disappeared, but the voices remained. Sometimes I’d be doing what I was doing, I would hear a voice, I would look around, trying to figure out who had said what, but there would be no one there. Sometimes I would just hear a sound, a whine, a hum, the sound of a dog barking, that kind of thing.
I didn’t think much of it until I started noticing that others didn’t hear the same things. I would be in class, hear a high pitched hum and I would cover my ears or shake my head trying to get the noise out, because the noise hurt, it hurt like hell.
Someone sitting next to me would look at me and say “Drew, what’s going on?”
“Man, that hum, I can’t stand it.”
“Hum, what hum?”
“That high pitched hum, it’s about to break my ear.”
“Drew, Drew, what are you talking about, I can’t hear any hum.”
“How the heck can you say that? It’s so darn loud! What do you mean you can’t hear it?”
“Drew, there is no sound.”
Luckily I’m not real dumb. You complain about sounds no one else hears too many times people start staring at you. After about the third time it happened to me and no one else heard a thing I learned not to tell people I was hearing things. And after about the second time of asking “Hey, what did that voice say?” I learned not to tell people about the voices either. So, just as I learned to look at the world through a mirror so I could see things as others saw them, I learned to not listen, to not acknowledge the sounds and voices I heard that no one else seemed to.
In a sense, you can say I was learning yet another way to lie just so I could fit in a little better with the world the rest of the folks seemed to live in. I watched as others acted, and I learned to act like them, even though what I sometimes saw and heard was far different from what they saw and heard.
It wasn't that hard to do, but from time to time I let my curiosity get the best of me and listened to the voices. No harm done, sometimes it was just nonsense, almost like a kid singing a song, sometimes what the voice said made a little sense given the context of the situation, but usually I had to think about what I heard and figure out how it made sense.
There was one voice I didn't like hearing. It spoke to me in my worst times, my darkest hours and days. It was a low, deep, guttural voice and it always said the same thing: “I'm not done with you yet.” To me it seemed like a bully leaning over his victim, ready to deliver a few more punches.
“I'm not done with you yet.”
Man, I hated that voice. I only heard it when I was in a dark place, when things weren't going well, when the events of the hours and days had just about worn me out, when I had nothing left and was ready to give it all up. That's when I heard it. Like a bully getting pleasure out of the pain of their victim, that's what that voice meant to me.
“I'm not done with you yet.”
Damn, when I heard that voice I wished he would get it over with and be done with me.
A murderer walks among us
With Nancy Miller disappearing from her house in September, woman in West Texas no longer felt safe. One wouldn't think it could get much more intense, but it did on January 9, 1971 when Ruth Maynard, a wife of an Odessa policeman, went missing.
A couple of days later the article “Wife Of Police Officer Missing” was on page B1 of the Odessa American. A statewide search for Mrs. Ruth Maynard, the young wife of an Odessa Police officer, had been launched. She was last seen at a north Odessa night spot around 10:15 pm Saturday night. Her car was found at the Shadows Club on north Andrews Highway about 10:00 am Sunday. Detectives said she had planned to meet a friend from work at the Stardust Club, also on north Andrews Highway, but her friend went to the rodeo instead. A waitress at the Shadows Club reported serving a beverage to Mrs. Maynard Saturday night. That was the last anyone had seen of her.
It was one thing to feel unsafe, it was something else when a wife of a policeman was no longer safe.
Sales of small pistols went up across the area. The women of West Texas had decided to arm themselves. Behaviors changed, women were reluctant to go our on their own, even to the grocery store. A stranger walking through a neighborhood or an unfamiliar car driving down the street generated multiple calls to the police. Everyone was on edge.
The West Texas Murders story returned to the front page of the Odessa American on Tuesday, February 16, 1971. The main headline read “Woman's Death Marks Third Unsolved Case in Two Years – Clues Are Few In Latest Slaying.” Just below the major headline a second article titled “Psychopathic Killer Feared Responsible” carried on the story.
Ruth Maynard's body was found on February 15, 1971 in a field northwest of town, just a few miles from where Linda Cougat's body was found in 1968. The decomposed body had been found northwest of Odessa by two ranchers on horseback. The body was found off a dirt road dressed partially in a black pants suit and lying face-up with a nylon stocking tied tightly around her neck. Her bra was off and lying beneath her head. A second nylon stocking was found near her feet. Officers said the second stocking was torn and they theorized it had been used to tie the woman's hands or feet. Her pants were unzipped and pulled halfway down her hips. Her panties were still on. A three inch piece of mesquite was stuck through the knot as if it had been used as a tourniquet to choke the life from Mrs. Maynard. A preliminary autopsy report indicated there were no bullet or knife wounds and that death was caused by strangulation. Though it would be difficult to confirm, experts suspect that Mrs. Maynard had been killed shortly after her disappearance and then placed in the field.
Mrs. Maynard was the third young and attractive Odessa woman to be brutally slain in the last two years and a half years. Two of them worked in local taverns, the third was last seen in a tavern sipping a beer. These coincidences and the fact that Mrs. Maynard's body was found approximately four miles from where the body of Linda Cougat had been found led the Odessa Police to theorize that all may have been the victim of a psychopathic killer. Also in the article was the first mention of another missing woman, Mrs. Oleta Fuller, 28, who had been missing since February 10, 1970. All that was known about Mrs. Oleta Fuller was that on Wednesday night her car quit running at 10th and Grant in Odessa. Her 11 year old daughter and Mrs. Fuller entered the Kon Tiki Lounge to obtain help. The daughter said a man named “Don” drove them home and her mother then left with him. That was the last time Mrs. Fuller was seen.
Mrs. Nancy Siler Mitchel, who had disappeared in September, was still missing.
Episode 14 is now available - Drew’s mother tries to teach him a lesson in forgiveness but Drew may not be listening, one woman’s body is found and another woman is missing.