That fence separated the paved compound from the rear of the Winter Garden Inn Motel, which was adjacent to the south side of the Zeigler property.

The store’s rear compound was accessible only by a single swinging gate at the end of the driveway.  The gate was open now. Charlie Mays drove through, and when he had parked, he and Tommy Zeigler and Brian Nedd loaded the three rolls of linoleum into the van.

Mattie Mays asked Zeigler about a cot she had ordered a couple of weeks before.  Zeigler said that he might be able to deliver it later in the day.

Then according to Brian Nedd, Zeigler mentioned the console television.  He reminded Charlie that he should pick up the set between 7:00 and 7:30 that evening.

Charlie said that he would be there.

*

Curtis Dunaway was having car trouble that day.  His 1972 Oldsmobile 98—a two-toned car with a beige roof and a brown body—was making strange noises.  He planned to take it in for repairs on the 26^th, but he was going to drive into Orlando on Christmas Day, and he worried that the car wouldn’t hold up for the trip. 

Dunaway had worked for Zeigler Furniture for more than four years.  Tommy and Beulah managed the business; otherwise Curtis Dunaway did every job at the store.  He sold and cleaned and swept, he clerked behind the counter, helped Tommy with deliveries.

Dunaway was a quiet, diffident man in his forties, a lifelong bachelor who lived with his mother in a modest house less than a mile from the store.  He knew nothing about automobiles.  Dunaway asked Tommy to drive the Olds, to diagnose the problem.  Zeigler knew cars, and until October he had owned a ’68 Oldsmobile that was similar to Dunaway’s.

Dunaway and Zeigler were friendly during working hours, but seldom socialized away from the store.  Outside his family, Zeigler had seemingly hundreds of acquaintances, and a few very close friends with whom he felt completely comfortable. Most of those were married men with positions of influence in West Orange.  Dunaway did not belong to that tight circle. 

Around lunchtime, Zeigler tried the car.  Afterward, as he had done several times before, he suggested that they switch cars so that Dunaway wouldn’t risk a breakdown on the highway.  Zeigler’s new automobile was a white ’75 Olds Toronado.  This was the car that Eunice usually drove, and she used it that day to take the sick cat, Silver, to the vet.  Tommy and Eunice had no travel plans for Christmas Day—they lived next door to Tom and Beulah.  If Tommy did need transportation he could use Dunaway’s car, or the green Ford sedan belonging to