everything she did was top secret…kept her mouth closed ’bout it all…how she made her money…habits…lovers…kept a bottle of vodka ‘hind the toilet in the downstairs bathroom…thought no-one knew ’bout it…that’s what she thought…

and if you’d confront her with anything she’d deny it…could spy on her smokin’ a cigarette every mornin’ out in the garage…don’t know what she was thinkin’…smell stayed on her for the longest of time…said she didn’t…but she did…

all these strange men would drop her off at night…past one o’clock in the mornin’…men with pick-up trucks and old Chevy’s…wearin’ cowboy hats…you could make out their outlines in the dark…wouldn’t walk her up to the front porch…doubt if she’d let ’em…

then she’d be gone all day…followed her one time…goin’ on these long walks through town and out to the edge of the county where she’d stop at a tavern…looked twice ‘fore she entered the place…I waited for her outside in the brush…hiding behind tall elms and thick oaks…wantin’ to see what she was up to…

stayed in there a good long time…couldn’t see inside…the red neon blinking was blinding…kept for hours out there just waitin’…wantin’ to catch her in the act…never did…wake up in the early hours of the mornin’ with the birds chirpin’ and the sun on the rise…parkin’ lot empty…and my baby girl gone…she was always gone…