Sunday, October 25, 1992. Near Alton, Illinois. James Edward Wood was on the run. This time, his fourteen-year-old stepdaughter had "caused" the problem. It was her own fault, dammit! She shouldn't have been wearin' them skimpy clothes around the house. I told her to change, but she wouldn't mind! It was her own fault!

Wood took his eyes off the road long enough to look over at his sullen passenger. She was leaning against the door, her head swaying lazily with the movement of the truck, the wind from the open windows swirling her disheveled hair around her face.

As the dark-brown pickup slipped along the empty highway, the night before came back into hazy focus. Started drinking pretty early in the morning with that ol' boy I spent the night with at the Holiday Inn in St. Louis. Later that afternoon, after he passed out, I drove over the river to Illinois. Met the gal in a biker bar in Alton. Had a few beers, then we went bar-hopping. Let her drive my truck for a while, but she kept popping the clutch. Then we got to that last bar. Must've had close to eighty dollars in my pocket when we went in. Ordered a round for everybody at the bar, but when it came time to pay, I couldn't find my money. The bitch must've taken it! She'd been talking about travelin' out west with me, too. Told me she had a court appearance next week, and said they was probably gonna lock her up, asked if she could travel with me. By God, she had to be the one that took my money. Nobody else got close enough to get it! Her dirty little trick almost caused some serious trouble, too.

Those two bikers followed us out of the bar after I couldn't pay. But they backed off pretty quickly when I told them, "If you ever want to see the inside of that bar again, just turn around and go right back in." Meant what I said, too, every word of it. Had my finger on the trigger. Didn't even have to show it. Just kept it in my pocket. "Don't crowd me, man, I mean it, don't crowd me!"

Then what? Passed out in the truck, right there on the main street of Alton, Illinois. Slept there in the truck all night. I know the bitch took my money! But I made her pay this morning, by God. Just turned off on that little road and stopped the truck right there in the middle of some farmer's field. "I want my money," I say, and she says she ain't got my money. So I just say, "Well then, if you ain't going to give it up, by God, I'm gonna take it out in screw. You mess with me, bitch, and I'm gonna mess with you." She wanted to hold off, kept asking why we didn't wait 'til we got to a motel room, it's better there in a bed. But I say, "Hell, no, I ain't waiting." And I didn't wait, either, by God. I did it right there on the seat!

They sped along the highway, the sun, now a little higher, filtered through the leaves of the big oak trees lining the road. The woman, hard-looking for her late twenties, had one long tattoo on her arm.

Wood couldn't stop thinking about the eighty dollars. "I want my fucking money, bitch!" Wood shouted, grabbing the woman's arm.

"I already told you, man," she said, snatching her arm away. "I didn't take your fucking money!"

"I had close to eighty dollars in my pocket when we got to that last place," Wood said, gearing down as they came to a traffic signal. "I didn't spend it, and you're the only one who had a chance to take it."

"Look, dude," she said angrily. "I don't know what your problem is, but for the last time, I ain't got your friggin' money!"

James Wood brought the truck to a stop at the traffic light. They were now near downtown Alton, and there were several cars at the intersection.

"If you don't believe me," she screamed, "just drive me to the police station, and we'll go inside and let 'em shake me down!"

"I ain't driving you nowhere, bitch!" he snapped, leaning across and throwing her door open. "I'm cuttin' you loose. Just get the fuck outta my truck!"

The woman stepped into the street and slammed the truck door behind her.

"You're crazy, man! You know that? You're fuckin' crazy!" she screamed at Wood through the open window. "I'm gonna get your license number and turn your ass in for rape!" she shouted, running toward the back of the truck.

Wood was seething. He scrambled out of the cab and rushed to the rear of the truck, blocking the woman's view of his license plate. In full view of the stunned drivers behind them, Wood shoved the woman backward. The two of them stood in the middle of the street, shouting obscenities at each other. Suddenly Wood moved toward her, rage showing in his eyes. The woman backed away. Wood glared at her. Then he got back in the cab and gunned the pickup through the intersection.

Bitches like her are always causing me trouble. For the first time in my life, I had it made! I was teaching art classes, I was painting, I had a future with Yvonne, I had a new life! I was the man of the house, and my own stepdaughter wouldn't mind me! She got what she deserved, by God! She should've changed out of those clothes like I told her! But then she has to run and tell Yvonne I did it with her! She betrayed me to Yvonne, and now I've lost everything! Yvonne should just forgive and forget. If that girl had minded me in the first place, nothing would've happened! And Yvonne, damn her soul, she had to go tell the law. And then some bitch comes along and rolls me for the last bit of money I had! Now I've lost everything, dammit, every single thing I had!

A few minutes after he tossed out the biker girl, James Wood drove across the Clark Bridge, heading back into Missouri. The Sunday morning traffic was light as the Ford Ranger pickup sped across the gleaming steel and concrete structure that spanned the Mississippi River.

But James Wood was in no mood to enjoy the view from high above the mighty river on that crisp, clear fall morning. Even after finding the money in his shirt pocket — the biker gal hadn't rolled him after all — he was burning with anger, as he had been for most of his life. His anger was directed toward women. Now his mind raged over the latest disobedience of his fourteen -year old stepdaughter. It was her fault that he'd lost his home and his two-and-a-half-year-old son. Up 'til now, life for Wood had been relatively good for the past five years. He had met and married Yvonne not long after his release from Louisiana's infamous Angola State Penitentiary. It had been his second stay at Angola, where he had served six years of a ten-year sentence for robbery and rape. Ironically, he was released early for good behavior.

A mutual friend had introduced Wood to Yvonne, the woman who would become his third wife. They had hit it off almost immediately, Yvonne knew the man who was soon to be her husband had been in prison at Angola, although Wood never told her that he had been there for rape. But Yvonne had been accepting, understanding, saying that everyone makes mistakes in life. Yvonne bore him a son, his third child from three marriages. Together, he and Yvonne built a modest house on several acres in the lush, green countryside outside Shreveport, Louisiana.

Damn! If only Yvonne's daughter would have obeyed him and changed out of those sexy, revealing clothes! He had made her pay for not minding, made her pay the same way he had made women pay all his adult life. He raped her. As far...