The Labyrinth of Blue Towers:
The Disappearance of Jack Arneson
(A Sewing Box Mystery)
Chapter 1: Friday, June 10, 2011, 7:21 pm
Chapter 2: Saturday, June 11, 2011, 8:38 am
Chapter 3: Thursday, June 28, 1984, 10:10 am
The others had long since departed, their treasures and keepsakes in tow. Seated on the worn beige couch amidst the aftermath, Missy and Jeanette continued to ponder the crudely drawn map; the layout of some imagined place. Turning it over, they reviewed the list of things on the back. None of the items made any sense to either woman, but the handwriting was definitely Jean’s watery script.
Two, not three—Twin Statues
Triangle-Shaped Blue Glass Ashtray, Chipped Frontier Cigarettes
Brown, Full-Length Skirt
TredecarMSRE
Jack’s Window
Heavy Blonde / Heavy Metal Missing Mallet
Brother’s Bread Matches
White Delivery Trucks
Chanting Latin
St. Peter’s Bird
The Labyrinth of Blue Towers
Missy shook her head. “I don’t get it. What does any of this stuff have to do with anything? Did Grandma ever talk to you about this?”
Jeanette rolled slightly toward her niece and snatched the piece of paper from her hands. “Not really, hon. Honestly, the older she got, the more she kept her thoughts to herself. I don’t know if you noticed that, but she did.” Jeanette sighed, as if the effort required to conjure up these memories was more than she possessed. She stared at the list and continued, "She’d mention different things -mostly stories that were in the news at the time, and claim to know something or other about them. like this Arneson thing. She and your mother used to discuss it occasionally, but Dorie... She was awful mean about it and that put your grandma off it, just enough to where she wouldn’t talk about it with me. Though, she did show me this map once. At the time, I just shook my head and told her I couldn’t help with that sort of thing. It made about as much sense to me then as it does now.”
Missy was troubled. She felt like she only had part of the story. Why had her grandmother been so obsessed with this? What had she known? “Why was my Mom so opposed to Grandma talking about this?”
“It wasn’t so much that she couldn’t talk about it; she did. But Dorie really got bent out of shape anytime your grandma wanted to go to the cops. Or approach one of the Arnesons. Remember that time we came up to see you at college and the boy’s mother was on campus? Your grandma actually brought that map with. That was the first and only time I saw it. But once we got there, she lost her nerve. She wanted to say something, but didn’t. We didn’t talk about it on the way home, though I know it bothered her.” Jeanette shook her head. “It bothered her for a long time... not being able to do anything about it.”
“Well, what’s stopping us?” The question flew out of Missy’s mouth before she knew it, but her commitment felt sure none the less.
Jeanette eyed her warily, “What do you mean?”
Sensing her aunt’s trepidation, Missy plowed ahead, “Aren’t you intrigued by this... just a little? Makes me want to figure it all out, for Grandma's sake.”
Remaining guarded, Jeanette countered, “How in the world are you going to be able to figure things out? She’s not here to fill you in, and she wasn’t able to figure it out when she was. What makes you think you’re going to do any better?"
She had a point. Missy mulled it over for a moment before offering, "Well, things have changed There are lots of tools at my disposal, tools Grandma never knew how to use or had access to. For starters, we can Google all the items on this list and see what comes up." Missy looked expectantly at her aunt. Surely Jeanette would want to honor the memory of her mother. “What do you say? It could be fun.’’
Jeanette snorted derisively. “And exactly when are you planning on doing this? Sounds like a lot of work.”
“It’s not, it’s fun. You’ll really get into it,” Missy promised. Of course, she wasn’t sure how tech savvy her aunt was. “Haven’t you Googled before?”
“Just to get maps and directions. Oh, and how to get rid of viruses.” Jeanette leaned in, shaking her head. “Those memes your Aunt Helen forwards all the damn time? They just kill my machine.”
“Oh, I know what you mean.” Aunt Helen seemed to have nothing better to do these days than hit the forward button. Missy was fed up with angels offering blessings if you send it to twelve additional people and pictures of kittens promising to bring love into your life. “I don’t even bother with them anymore. That’s what the delete key is for.” To illustrate. Missy curled her index finger and began hitting an imaginary key. “Delete, delete, delete.” Jeanette, begrudgingly smiled at this, which Missy took as a good sign. Sidling over to her aunt, in a husky voice she suggestively asked, “So, whattya say? You wanna Google with me?”
Jeanette roared with laughter “Missy! You make it sound so dirty.”
Missy’s nose crinkled up as she giggled, nodding her head in agreement, “Oh, you’re right, it does It sounds dirty.” She thought about trying out the phrase again, just for the taste of it, but then decided against it. Reaching over, she ordered, “Gimme that list!” She smoothed the paper on her thigh and made a mental note to have both sides Xeroxed in order to save wear and tear on the original “Okay, where do you want to do this?” Missy raised her eyebrows and adopted a masculine, seductive tone, “Your place or mine?’’
Pursing her lips and rolling her eyes, Jeanette slapped Missy’s thigh, “Neither. You’re laptop has wireless, right? I say we hit a coffee shop and have us some lunch.”
Missy’s eyes lit up. “Oooo. Good idea. There’s a Dunn Brother’s on Hennepin. Let’s go there.” Up off the couch in a flash, she was halfway to the front door when she froze in place. “Oh... hang on a sec. My laptop... it’s at home. I’ll have to go back and pick it up.”
Jeanette, who had a little more difficulty getting up from the old couch than her niece, had no problem with that. “Cool. I have to go to my house and let the boys out. They’ve been alone all morning.”
Missy’s heart sank just the tiniest bit. 'The Boys’, as Jeanette always referred to them, were a pair of mix-breed mongrels named Pancho and Lefty, adopted moments before they were to be put to sleep. Jeanette pampered and doted on them like they were her kids, which in a way they were. Some in the family thought it was a little too-too much, but Missy understood. Everybody needs love and sometimes it comes in strange-looking forms susceptible to fleas.
“How long do you think that will take you?” Missy had to ask, because sometimes her aunt could a bit on the putzy side, especially when it came to her dogs. Jeanette was the type to get home, feel guilty about leaving the dogs alone again so soon, and change her mind. Missy wanted to make sure that didn’t happen, so she volunteered, “Why don’t we take my car, swing by my place first, pick up my laptop, and then swing by your place for a few minutes so you can let your dogs out?”
Missy could tell her aunt was struggling with this option, for the dogs were not the only things drawing Jeanette home. She'd become something of a homebody lately. It was a relatively recent change, one that could be traced to the day her mother died. Since Jean's passing, Jeanette kept up appearances, but those closest to her could tell her mother’s death had taken a toll on her. In its wake, she had become a bit of a recluse. The energy and exuberance that had once come so effortlessly now carried a distinct undertone of strain. Something told Missy this little project of theirs was just what Jeanette needed to break out of her funk, though she didn’t want to be too pushy, so she offered her aunt an out: “Unless you can think of another way you’d like to approach this?”
“Well, you could start by talking to your mother... but you might get your head bit off. You know Dorie really had no patience for this... dream stuff, or for anything to do with your grandmother, really. Or... wait a minute... I have a better idea!” Jeanette padded off toward the kitchen and began to rifle through a drawer near the phone. She pulled out a leather bound address book, opened it and then let out a laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Isn’t this just like your grandma? I bought her this address book over five years ago and do you think there is single address written in it? No. Not a phone number. Not a name. Not one entry.” She placed the book back in the drawer and closed it with a sharp push. For a moment, she seemed lost in thought, concentrating as if solving a difficult riddle. Then, her head and index finger shot up at the same time with an, “Oh!” Jeanette’s posture changed dramatically. “Wait here.” She quickly shuffled off to the spare bedroom, and began pillaging through a box previously hauled out of the closet. This went on for a quite awhile, prompting Missy to check her watch and wonder if they were ever going to get to that coffee shop. But Jeanette's search came to an end with a triumphant, “Aha! Got it!” She reappeared with an envelope in her hand.
“Your grandma never sent a Christmas card to anyone unless she received one from them the previous year. In her younger years, that was due to the cost of stamps, but as she got older it was on account of her not wanting to accidently send season's greetings to a bunch of dead people. And rather than use an address book and have to cross out names on occasion, your grandma would keep the card with the envelope it came in. Anyway, I remember her showing me all the cards she got last year and one of them just happened to be from Terri Nelson'”
Missy remembered Terri; a short, broad-bodied woman who lived a block away from Grandma's house. Grandma spent many an afternoon over at her house, drinking coffee. She always thought of Terri as a really sweet, effusive woman who continually chattered on about something or other, rarely at a loss for words. She’d been a good friend to her grandma and had always been there when needed. The last time Missy had seen her had been the funeral.
“I’m confused. What does she have to do with anything?”
Jeanette looked up from the card and was about to speak. She then thought better of it, her face scrunching up, before beginning anew, “Your grandma may have stopped sharing a lot with me and the rest of the family, but the one person she always confided in right up until the day she died also happened to be the biggest gossip in our neighborhood.”
Missy had forgotten that about Terri, but it was true. Terri was a terrible newsmonger. Ironic that Jean would choose her to confide in, but... isn’t that just the way life worked out sometimes? Not wanting their mission to get off track, Missy pushed for clarification, “Are you saying you want to go visit Terri instead of hitting the coffee shop and get lunch? Or? What?”
The mere mention of lunch brought Jeanette back into sharp focus. “Definitely the coffee shop," she said decisively. “I’m starving. Besides..." and with this Jeanette began to gather up her belongings: the empty pan from the coffee cake and a couple of grocery bags with handles containing select keepsakes “...we really need to call ahead if we want to see Terri. Your grandma said Terri had become quite the social butterfly since moving into that assisted living facility by The Dollar Store in Robbinsdale. Always busy with something. So we’d be wise to make an appointment."
Her aunt regrouped, "Let’s go Google and get lunch today, then plan on visiting her tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday and maybe she'll have some time for us.” Suddenly her aunt was all decisive precision. “We’ll take your car. You follow me in yours to my place now, so I can let the dogs out. Then we’ll grab your laptop on the way to Dunn Brothers.” She was almost out the condo's front door, when she suddenly thought to check in with Missy, who was still standing in the middle of the living room. “Cool?”
Missy’s mind raced to catch up; she wanted to make sure she understood all that she was about to agree to before agreeing, amazed by the motivational power the promise of a little food possessed. She made a mental note to remember that in the future. “Cool.”
With a smile, she grabbed her own box of treasures and her clutch before heading toward the door.
An hour later they arrived at the coffee shop. It was just after lunch, so the place wasn’t too , crowded. They took a table tucked next to the large palm plant which stood in front of the giant coffee roasting machine.
The shop was a favorite of Missy’s. Housed in an old, brick building with high ceilings, the front had been retrofitted with plate glass windows which allowed plenty of natural light to filter in. The various wood tones throughout the space gave the place a warm feeling, one abetted by the intoxicating aroma of freshly roasted coffee. She also loved that they had kept and refurbished the original tin ceiling, it’s ornate, stamped pattern now painted a brilliant brick red.
Before starting to work their way through the mysterious list, both Missy and her aunt ordered sandwiches, chips, and lattes. They also grabbed a big blonde brownie to split later.
While waiting for their order, they fired up Missy’s laptop and took time to reacquaint themselves with the particulars of the Jack Arneson case. Both were surprised to learn that in all these years the police still had very little to go on. It was as if the boy had vanished into thin air.
“It's so sad,” Missy sighed, as she stared at the main page of the official website devoted to Jack's memory. Jeanette wordlessly shrugged her shoulders. Both women felt a bit daunted by the task ahead of them, especially in light of how little was known about what happened. However, seeing pictures of the boy, his youthful potential forever frozen, made them all the more determined to see this through. Once the food was ready, happily munching away, they began to tackle the list.
It was slow going. And more than a little disappointing. Nothing they put in the search engine brought up anything conclusive. The results all seemed as vague as the list itself. An hour into it, they were thinking about giving up altogether, especially after learning that St. Peter's hands hold a set of keys, not a bird. Turns out St. Francis is the one always depicted with a bird. Had Jean simply been mistaken? Or was there something else to it?
Defeated, Missy began hitting the backspace key in order to delete the search entry “St. Peter’s Bird”. Just as she finished deleting the apostrophe in ‘Peter’s’, the search result screen changed and, for a fleeting moment. Missy’s eyes caught sight of something that begged her attention. She quickly retyped the original search and began hitting the back space key again to see if she could get the same result to reappear.
“Look!” Missy pointed to the screen.
Jeanette turned her head and looked at the screen with tired eyes.
“Watch this.” Missy repeated the whole process for Jeanette, who, by this point, had lost all interest in their quest and had begun working her way through her half of the brownie. Missy got a sense that her aunt felt that this was going nowhere fast, but in order to keep the peace, she feigned interest for Missy's sake.
The search result “St Petersburg, MN" appeared on the screen.
Now, Missy was really excited. “Don't you get it? Don't you see?” Jeanette narrowed her eyes and looked directly into Missy’s. Missy, sensing a small victory in the making, took both of her aunt’s hands in hers “Okay, say it with me 'Saint Peter's Bird, Saint - Peter's - Bird.’ The two women began repeating ‘St. Peters Bird’ over and over until, like the dawn turning to daylight, it morphed into ‘St. Petersburg’!
Saint Peter’s Bird/Saint Petersburg.
St. Petersburg, MN!
Maybe that was what Grandma Jean meant? But Jeanette was not sold.
“So what? There's a town in Minnesota named St. Petersburg. What does that have to do with the Arneson boy?”
Releasing her aunt’s hands, Missy held up her right index finger to buy a bit of time. “It's just a hunch, but..." Turning back to the keyboard, she began clicking away, working some magic. “A quick search of Google maps... and... we will see... that…”
And with that, Missy turned the laptop screen in her aunt’s direction. “... St. Petersburg is a matter of a few miles from the town of Jasper, MN, which is where Jack was headed on the day he was abducted.”
Jeanette had to admit, it looked promising. “Well...” she drawled, sitting back in her chair and stuffing the last bit of brownie into her mouth.
“It looks like you got yourself a clue, Nancy Drew.”
--- ---
Next Week: Chapter 10
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2 comments:
I like the end of the chapter.
Wait, Jean passed away?
Did I miss something? In any case, I can't wait to see what Missy comes up with!
XOXO
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