Curtis Dunaway followed her north on Dillard, as far as the Thriftway.  He continued on to Temple Grove Drive, pulled into Tommy Zeigler’s driveway, and stopped along the right side of the drive.

Tommy drove up almost immediately and parked the pickup truck along the left side of the driveway, in front of the cat room in the garage. He went into the garage and backed out the new white Toronado.

Zeigler helped Dunaway transfer some gifts and boxes of baked goods from the ’72 Olds to the Toronado.  Zeigler invited Dunaway into the house.  Eunice was there, with her mother, Virginia, and their cake was fresh out of the oven.  Eunice cut a slice for Dunaway, and they chatted while Zeigler went into the family room to check the cat, Silver.

Dunaway stayed at the Zeiglers’ house for about fifteen or twenty minutes.  He left shortly before 7:00, when he went home in the Toronado, driving carefully.  It was a beautiful new car, and he didn’t have to worry that it would leave him walking beside the highway on Christmas Day.

*

Edward Williams, too, had car trouble on Christmas Eve.  His Camaro sports coupe was already being repaired at a Texaco station on Route50 east of Winter Garden, and his pickup truck had a balky carburetor: the engine wouldn’t restart when it was warm.

 Williams later testified that he spent several hours nailing up paneling in the home of Boyd Holt, a Winter Garden barber.  Around four in the afternoon, he drove to Holt’s shop, and Holt gave him $20.  Williams stopped at the Thriftway, bought some soap, and went to his new apartment.  He hadn’t yet spent a night in the place.  He had actually rented the apartment the day before, on Tuesday the 23^rd, but the carpets were still damp from being cleaned.

Williams testified that he saw nobody and spoke to nobody while he was at the apartment in the late afternoon and evening of the 24^th.  He showered and—he swore—put on a black cardigan sweater and a pair of green pants and new dress boots, and then went out to meet Tommy Zeigler.

*

A few people got glimmerings of the tragedy as it erupted.

At about 7:20, a woman named Barbara Spencer heard three or four loud explosions, which she believed to be firecrackers.  She was sitting by a back window in her parents’ house, which was located about a block west of Dillard Street, near Route 50.  She was watching the clock, waiting for her brother, whom she had been expecting to meet her at 7:00.