Children Lost on The Darkest Of Nights:
The Legend of Peg Powler
(A Sewing Box Mystery)
Chapter 1: Friday, November 1, 1991, 1:51 am
Chapter 2: Saturday October 29, 2011, 11:37 am
Chapter 3: Sunday October 30, 2011, 10:30 am
Chapter 4, Monday, October 31, 2012, 8:01 am, Halloween
It was Libby, Libby, Libby (on the label, label, label), in all her perky blonde, cheerleading waitress glory. Same uniform, same cascading mound of curiously yellow curls. Missy resisted the urge to point out that the correct tense would be ‘what the cat dragged in’, but when in Rome, or in this case St. Petersburg, it’s always a good idea to go with the flow and file such vernacular under ‘local charm’.
Libby expertly, if a tad awkwardly, steered them to the furthest booth on the right side of the diner, dropping off three over-sized, laminated menus in the process. Jeanette insisted that Missy sit on the side facing the door. When Dorie tried to slide in next to her daughter, the older sister pointedly told the younger to sit with her on the opposite side, forcing her to sit on the inside, next to the window. Dorie was now trapped, giving Jeanette a little more control over her and ample opportunity to torture at will. The ever-present giant purse sat between them like a great wall, which suited both women just fine.
Dorie’s head swung about, her eyes wide, trying to take in their new surroundings. Without much thought (and a tad too loud) she asked, “Is it safe to eat here? This place seems a bit… seedy.”
Unruffled, Jeanette replied, “Well, then, you should be right at home.” She flashed an insincere Cheshire cat grin in her sister’s direction before assuring her, “Yes, Dorie, this place may look a little ‘lived in’, but the food kicks ass, and you should seize the opportunity to enjoy some true home cooking.”
“Home cooking, huh?” mused Dorie. “That sounds like a lot of carbs and fat, to me. Something obviously you’re no stranger to, Jeanette.”
Jeanette took the high road for once and put her sister on ignore.
Libby swung back in record time, placing a trio of cloudy, stout plastic glasses filled with water and ice on the worn speckled Formica tabletop. She rattled off the specials in a rapid-fire manner before promising to return shortly for their order. Surprised that she didn’t ask for their drink orders, Missy figured she must be slammed. Scanning the interior of the tiny luncheonette, she saw that all the regulars were in place at the counter and the five other booths were also occupied. If anyone else showed up for lunch today, it looked like they were either out of luck or would have to sit next to her. Missy had one scenario in mind where the latter of the two options would suit her to a ‘T’.
Dale, Libby’s mountain of a mother, and the diner’s namesake, stood behind the counter, her arms crossed over her ample bosom, surveying those gathered like a commander inspecting the troops. Dressed in the same quaint maid’s uniform as her daughter, Dale’s face was a mask of disapproval… or perhaps, disappointment? Missy couldn’t tell. This must be a hard life; the day-after-day drudgery of it. Or maybe not. Maybe it was a joy and Dale was simply incapable of showing it. Perhaps life had worn away her happy.
Missy’s gaze fell upon a few of the ancient advertisements that adorned the diner’s walls. Dorie was right. The diner had seen better days. Missy was always amazed that the owners of such establishments failed to reinvest in their property, shoring up the infrastructure in order to keep things modern and clean-looking. Any attempt that had been made to improve things at Dale’s struck Missy as haphazard, or what Grandpa Tom used to refer to as ‘half-assed’. For example, the bare plywood entryway, an attempt to keep heat in during winter and contain the air conditioning during summer, looked makeshift at best, leaning, buckling and unpainted. The fliers and posters which lined its interior seemed the sturdiest thing about it. And the cinderblock restrooms that jutted out from the east side of the building appeared more a peevish bow to compliance, than a sincere effort at renovation. Still, the place was not without its charms.
A plastic smile pasted on her face, Libby lurched before them. Missy had been watching her navigate the diner, looking for signs of further debilitation, but, nope; she seemed to be maintaining well. She searched the woman’s expertly made-up face for any signs of additional droopiness. She looked the same. Being a waitress with your right side so disabled had to be a struggle. Missy was amazed that Dorie hadn’t commented on Libby’s paralysis, but then, perhaps she hadn’t noticed; Dorie tended to be myopic when it came to any and all environments.
“So, what you thinking today? You all need some coffee? Pop? We got Pepsi products now. How about you, hon?”
The question was directed to Dorie. Clearly, Libby was trying to figure out just who the new arrival might be in relation to the other two women, but Libby seemed to be keeping her inquisitiveness close to her chest. Dorie let out an exasperated sigh. “I… I… have no idea. Do you have anything that’s not deep fried or dripping in grease?”
Missy’s horrified expression mirrored Jeanette’s. How had her mother navigated the world without acquiring the grace of tact? But, perhaps, that’s what comes of living a privileged existence; so used to getting exactly what they want, such people lose the ability to censor their disdain for things which leave them wanting. Rather than allow Dorie’s question to hang in the air a moment longer, Missy rushed to the fore. “I’d love a cup of coffee, Libby. How about you, Aunt Jeanette?”
“That sounds lovely.”
Libby was about to move away from the table and grab a coffee pot, when Dorie, mindless of her rudeness, held up her glass and asked, “Is this tap water? I don’t drink tap water.”
Jeanette interceded. “You do if you want to drink water here.” She then turned to Libby, offering up a beatific smile before requesting, “Give us a few minutes, will you? Don’t worry,” she said with a wink. “We’ll get Princess Diana here on board.” Libby moved from the table without betraying any reaction to Dorie’s cluelessness. As soon as she was a safe distance, Jeanette lit into her. “Dorie. Get a grip. You’re in St. Petersburg.
Dorie shuddered dramatically, as if to say that she could not believe she was being attacked. “What does that mean?”
“Maybe you need to adjust your expectations,” Jeanette reasoned. “This is a small town in the Midwest, not the Riviera. For chriss sakes, you grew up in North Minneapolis, not Buckingham Palace.”
If Dorie felt chastised, she wasn’t going down without a fight. “Well, excuse me for having standards. I don’t think it hurts to ask a few questions. You guys have been her before, I haven’t.”
“True,” counseled Missy, “but try to come across a little less… judgmental, okay? People can take offense.”
Once again, Missy was caught off guard by Dorie’s reaction. “Hmmm. Okay. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a killjoy. Know what? You’re right. I need to get into the spirit of this trip. When else am I going to get the chance to eat a pork fritter the size of my head? It’s not really, is it? They mean ‘face’, right? I could never eat something the size of my head.”
Missy reasoned that living off the good fortune of others rendered a person more flexible than she might have imagined. It was probably a survival tool her mother had acquired during her travels.
Libby returned to the table and sat a harvest gold thermo pot of coffee on the end of the table before turning up the cups in front of Missy and Jeanette. As she poured, she spoke. “It’s so good to see you two.” She stressed the ‘you two’ while shooting a look in Dorie’s direction. Dorie, who was now absorbed studying the menu, missed the dig. “It’s been awhile. But then I suppose you have no reason to visit St. Petersburg now that all that nasty Jack Arneson business is over.”
Missy wanted to point out that was not the case at all, but held her tongue, deciding whatever Sheriff Muntz wanted the community to believe was not hers to contradict. Realizing there was no reply forthcoming, Libby prattled on, “You know, after all that stuff hit the news, we saw a lot of traffic come through here. Tons of press and people who were curious as hell swarmed the town. Every one of them stuck out like a sore thumb. You know…” and again, her eyes settled on the oblivious Dorie, “the way some folks do.” Tongue firmly lodged in cheek, the word ‘do’ all but dripped down and wound its way across the table to sit in front of Missy’s mother like a pool of hot, sticky syrup. Libby was definitely an effective communicator.
Taking this in, Jeanette decided to refocus the conversation. “Yeah, I suppose all that commotion was a bit much for the town, huh? But not our fault.”
Libby laughed. “Oh, no, not at all. Nobody said it was. My goodness. That’s not what I was saying at all. It was good to get all that… 'business'... out in the open. Resolved. It is resolved, isn’t it?”
Sensing that she truly wanted an answer, Missy decided to try to put the topic to rest. “Sure it is. Are there onions in the meatloaf, Libby?”
“Yep, but,” and with this she stole a sly look over her shoulder at her mother before continuing, “If I were you, I’d steer clear. How about a nice Patty Melt, instead?”
Missy grimaced. “That sounds a tad heavy.”
Jeanette hmph’ed. “And the meatloaf isn’t?” The other three had a laugh at Missy’s expense. Okay, she’d let them have that one.
At that moment, someone entered the diner. Missy’s head craned automatically to catch sight of who it was. Libby, not missing anything, took note. “You expecting someone else?” Missy was about to say ‘no’, when Libby continued, “Oooohhhh, I get it. I know who you’re looking for. Awww, sorry to tell you this, but he’s eating lunch elsewhere these days. Ever since he got engaged.”
Engaged?
Missy felt her heart hit the vinyl seat beneath her with a resounding thud. What?
This last bit of information got Jeanette’s full attention. “Who? Peter?”
“Yes ma’am.” Libby now looked like the cat that ate the canary. “A couple of weeks ago. A summer romance that became an autumn blaze. It would be romantic, if it didn’t make the rest of us single gals sadder than hell, ain’t that right?” She was looking at Missy. A moment of silence passed, broken only by the clinking of cutlery on china.
“Who’s Peter?” Dorie was now paying attention, too. Missy felt her face go flush. Her first instinct was to get up out of that booth and run outside, but she didn’t want to call attention to herself, so instead she went into a sort of trance. When an answer did not appear forthcoming, Dorie repeated, “Who’s Peter?”
Jeanette was about to shut her down, when Libby decided the question was hers to answer, “He’s the groundskeeper up at the Monastery. Quite the looker, too. A number of us have had a thing for him for a long time now. Of course, some of us managed to get our hands in the cookie jar, too, if you know what I mean.”
Looking stupefied, Dorie muttered, “What?”
Under her breath, Jeanette told her sister, “Never mind.” And then a bit louder, but not much, “Dorie, give Libby your order. She has other people to wait on.”
Picking up on this, Libby volunteered, “Oh, don’t mind me. You want me to come back? Again? I can do that. No problem.”
But Jeanette put an end to that notion. “No, let’s order. Pork Fritters, all around. Fries and coleslaw, please. Thanks.” As she spoke, she snatched up the menus and handed them back to Libby, whose face was a combination of professionalism and derision. Was she enjoying this? Missy couldn’t tell.
“All right, then. I’ll be right back with your slaw.” Once she’d hobbled away from the table, Missy made a grab for her purse - she needed a tissue – but Jeanette was a full step ahead of her.
“Here,” she thrust a single tissue in Missy’s direction. Missy took it without a word and silence fell over the table once more.
“She’s jealous, Missy. That’s all,” offered Jeanette, after a bit.
“Jealous of what? Who is this Peter person? What’s he to you? And why are you sad?” Clearly, Dorie was not going to stop asking questions until she got some answers.
Again, Jeanette was about to put a cork in her, when Missy interceded. “Just a guy. We met last spring. I thought…” Her voice broke. What? She thought what? Missy shook the words from her head. “Nothing. Not important. Let’s talk about something else. Please.”
Something in Missy’s demeanor got through to Dorie, because, for once, she respected her daughter's wishes. “You know… you two still haven’t told me what we’re doing down here. What is this research you’re doing? Are you writing a book or something?”
Libby, who just happened to be approaching the table as Dorie was talking, placed a small ramekin of creamy coleslaw in front of each woman before asking, “Research? Really? What you looking into this time? We don’t have no Lochness monster in these parts.” No one laughed, so she queried, “No, seriously, what you up to now?”
Missy knew better than to share, and Jeanette really should have, but blabbed anyway. “Peg Powler,” she blurted. Maybe it slipped out before she had a chance to think, for that is all she said on the subject, and her eyes told Missy that was indeed the case. Still, the damage was done.
“Oh, get out of here,” Libby crowed dismissively. “What do you want with that old swamp legend? You writing a children’s book or something?” Her laughter trailed behind her as she moved to the next booth.
Jeanette was immediately contrite. “Sorry.”
Missy eyed her coolly, “Yeah, I know you are. You know better.” And that should have been the end of it, except now Dorie’s curiosity was piqued.
“Who’s Peg Powler? Is that who you’re doing research on? What did she do? She kill someone?”
Missy decided to share with her mother the little she knew. It beat talking about… the other thing. Fishing through her purse, Missy found the Xeroxed poem and handed it to Dorie, explaining that it had been found, tucked away, in Grandma Jean’s sewing box. She then related what she’d learned on the internet, about the hag that grabs the ankles of little children who walk by the River Tees. Dorie took all the information in, though her next question seemed to come out of left field. “How come you got the sewing box?”
Taken aback, Missy answered, “Aunt Jeanette gave it to me.”
Dorie spun sharply in her seat to face Jeanette, “Didn’t you think that I might want something to remember her by? I didn’t get anything. Not a thing!”
Oh, boy. Missy had opened a kettle of worms. But Jeanette took it in stride, replying calmly, “That would be because you were too busy vacationing in Mexico at the time. You made a choice, Dorie. Now live with it.” Her words were simple, quiet, and to the point.
Dorie was about to protest, but then thought better of it. Instead she turned her head and stared out the window with a pout planted on her face. A minute went by. They say any emotion has a 90 second shelf life and if you don’t continue to feed it, it will subside. That’s about how long it took Dorie to process Jeanette’s words. Again, Missy chalked up the ability to shrug stuff off as a survival skill her mother picked up during her travels. If only Missy possessed that same skill. The thought of Peter being engaged was eating away at the back part of her brain. She could keep it at bay, but was unsure exactly how this news was going to eventually manifest itself. Remaining stoic had a limited shelf life, too, she supposed.
Dorie picked up the condensation-covered water glass in front of her and took a sip before speaking. “Your grandmother had a lot of very strange dreams, didn’t she? I never knew what to make of them. I wrote it off as pre-menopausal nonsense. I suppose that’s why, after a point, she stopped sharing them with me. That, and… the fact I wasn’t around much.” The weight of her words hung in the air between them. Pretty heady stuff from someone Missy had assumed unaware. “So, your saying she dreamed about this Peg Powler person?”
“Just what we learned from Terri Nelson.”
“Oh.” Dorie’s hand flew to cover her mouth, as if to stifle a laugh. “Yep. Those two. Thick as thieves. To tell you the truth, I never cared much for her,” she added dismissively. “Too highly strung. And a gossip. What did she have to say?”
“Not much,” Jeanette chimed in. “Something about a girl in a blue dress searching for something along the river. It was all pretty vague.”
Missy added, “And then something about a circle of people and a preacher in a field. The preacher’s yelling. That’s all we got.”
“Yeah,” her aunt chuckled, “she flew off the handle and ran out of the room after that. It was so weird.”
“How come?”
“All I was trying to do was give her something…” Jeanette dug into her enormous purse and retrieved the beady-eyed kitchen witch. “This. You would have thought I was trying to hand her a bunch of poisoned ivy.”
“I remember this!” Dorie exclaimed. She took the doll from her sister. “Mom showed it to me once. Wow. A long time ago. Oh! Can I have it? Please?”
Jeanette shot a glance in Missy’s direction. “Ummm… not sure. I mean, I suppose so….”
“Yay!” Dorie was so excited, she almost knocked over her water glass, but Jeanette came to the rescue and caught it in the nick of time. “Hold on now.... Maybe… maybe wait until after? Why don’t I hang onto it, in my purse until we get home? Cool?”
“All right, ladies, it’s pork fritter time!” Libby sidled up to the table with three plates expertly balanced on her good arm. With little flair or commotion, each plate landed squarely in front of its intended woman. Her eyes then fell upon the kitchen witch still in Dorie’s clutches. “Oh my God!” she squeaked. “Where in the world did you get that? I haven’t seen one of those in ages. Where’d you find it?”
Libby’s voice was so loud it grabbed the attention of everyone in the diner. All eyes were now on their booth. Jeanette, her back to the rest of the diner, remained oblivious. “It was my mother’s. We found it when we were cleaning out her condo.”
“And now it’s mine,” Dorie added proudly.
“Yeah,” Jeanette reminded her sister, “but I’m going to keep it in my purse until we get back home, okay?”
The fact that Libby had recognized the doll puzzled Missy, so she had to ask, “Do you know what it is? You’ve seen it before?”
Libby cocked her head and smiled. “Well, I can’t remember exactly what it is… but I’ve seen it somewhere before. I just remember wanting it. It’s a doll, isn’t it? Can I see it?” She reached out to take the doll from Dorie.
Dorie pulled it back and held it against her chest. “No.”
Jeanette laughed. “Dorie! Let the woman see the doll.”
Petulantly, she looked at her sister and reminded her, “It’s mine.” She then handed the doll to Libby.
She turned the doll over as she examined it. “It is so sweet. I just can’t remember where I saw it before. Like, from when I was in grade school, or something. Here you go.” She was about to hand it back to Dorie, when Jeanette intercepted it.
“Hey!” Dorie cried.
“I’m putting it back in my purse. I don’t want you to get grease all over it, okay?” she explained. Her words dawning on her, she looked up at Libby and added, “No offense.”
Again Libby smiled. “None taken. Those things are saturated with so much hot oil, you'd think they just came from a wrestling match. Enjoy your fritters, gals.” And, with that, she handily spun on the heels of her orthopedic shoes, and got back to work.
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1 comment:
OMG
The description of the little diner had me in stitches!
Also, Peter WAS quite the looker, no? Poor Missy.
XOXO
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