Grimhaven
A photocopy of the hand-typed manuscript is maintained in the Charles Willeford Archive at the Bienes Museum of the Modern Book in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
His spartan diet consists of cooking a pot of beef stew or chili every Sunday to last a week of dinners, with an apple each day for dessert.
Hoke's idyllic and simple life is brought to a sudden halt by the unexpected arrival of his daughters Sue Ellen and Aileen at his apartment.
Hoke's balanced life is starting to fray around the edges, as is evidenced by a tension headache emerging during his evening run, something he had not experienced since he was on the police force.
After a terrible meal of overcooked stew prepared by Aileen, he realizes that he has greatly over-estimated the maturity and abilities of both his daughters, that the situation is not going to work, and that he does not know what to do about it.
Aileen complains about her braces being uncomfortable, and rather than take her to a dentist, Hoke makes arrangements with his pilot neighbor, Bobby Stukes, to remove them that evening.
He ponders options for adjusting to this new situation in his life and makes careful plans on a legal pad before tearing the sheet up and disposing of it in the toilet.
His father blindsides him by having the local Riviera Beach police chief there to offer him a better paying job as a lieutenant in charge of the detective division.
In preparation, he turns the air conditioner down to seventy degrees and has a Aileen write a note in her own handwriting saying that they have decided to go live with their mother in California.
The day after the murder is spent visiting the Riviera Beach police chief to inform him that Hoke will not be taking the job since his daughters have decided to return to their mother in California.
He spends the afternoon having a casual meal at a restaurant and then goes to the see the movie Death Hunt before stopping by his father's house to turn the air conditioner down to sixty degrees.
He drives the bodies to his father's house and brings them in through the garage and seals them up as best he can under sheets in the master bed in order to suppress the smell.
What follows is an account of every meal Hoke eats, every hotel, motel, or boarding house he stays in, and several minor interactions with other people on his week-long drive to California in his truck.
Once in Los Angeles, Hoke arbitrarily picks a lawyer named Juan Peralta from an office building registry and hires him on retainer so that he will have someone to call when he is arrested.
After securing the lawyer's services, Hoke drives to a Sears store to purchase a double-barreled shotgun and some shells on his way to Glendale, where Patsy and Curly Peterson live on Eucalyptus Avenue in the Verdugo Woodlands.
His reasoning for the crime spree is the solitude he will find on Death Row until he is executed, enjoying the privacy of a single cell, working on his chess problems and reading, left to his own devices.
