Born to Lose (19 page)

Southwestern Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, with Pittsburgh as its hub, is more populous and has greater political and business clout than western Maryland's county of the same name with a different spelling—Allegany. Perhaps the origin of both counties' names was the Allegwie people, who inhabited the region thousands of years ago. All along the southern border of Maryland's Allegany County, separating it from Virginia, is the long, flowing snakelike path of the Potomac River. The county seat, Cumberland, lies in a beautiful valley in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. Area residents are hours away from anything like a large city. In fact, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., are equally distant, leaving big-city problems likewise far away. In their valley, surrounded by mountains, close to rivers and lakes, and near an immense state forest, is it any wonder that Alleganians would feel blessed by such natural wealth? Two-lane roads connect the county's well-kept villages and small towns, ornamented with stone pathways, trellises, backyard vineyards. Countywide, there is the down-home feel of the old gristmill, maple syrup tapping, and apple festivals. The county is a good place to live. For the younger set, it was a great place to grow up.

. . .

Before and during the Great Depression, Harold Stewart, with his parents and twin brother, lived in and around the northeastern parts of West Virginia. Like those of most of his generation, Harold's life was spare and hard—and that was before his father died of pneumonia at age thirty-seven. Harold Stewart recalled those years as “too hot, too cold, or too wet. We worked farms dawn to dusk, diggin', haulin' rock, fencin'. No electric, no privy, no food—twenty-five cents a day we got. Well, it was lean like this for years, right up to the outbreak of war. Most of us fellas signed up right away or as soon as you came of age or lied your way in. Everyone was swept up. I spent two years in Europe, Third Army. It was damn hot, cold, and wet there, too. Got discharged on Christmas Day in '45.”

When Harold Stewart got home to Keyser, West Virginia, he entered the hardware business. Around this time he met Edna Dayton, a divorcée with a son, Gary. They married and moved ten miles north across the Potomac to Westernport, Maryland, in Allegany County. Here they operated a hardware store, living above it on the second floor. In time, with the postwar economy picking up, Harold and Edna were making a decent living, and on March 28, 1948, Edna gave birth to the couple's only child together, a daughter named Linda Mae.

Although Harold and Edna's marriage failed in 1953, when Linda was five years old, the situation turned out pretty well. Harold remained a close and loving father. Edna eventually remarried, to William Thompson, a fine man and good stepfather.

In time, William Thompson, a railroad foreman, was able to move his family to the comfortable setting of Bel Air, a neighborhood made up of ranch houses and split levels on half-acre lots. When Linda Mae got old enough, she babysat for neighborhood families, hung out with friends, and read voraciously, particularly biographies and stories set in far-flung places.

“In high school, Linda was very active and smart; everyone knew that,” recalled good friend Vickie Mullen.

She probably didn't have to work so hard at schoolwork but she did. Linda earned, oh, I don't know what-all laurels, but she made National Honor Society three years straight, sang in the chorus, was editor-in-chief of our yearbook, class plays, cheerleading … On top of all this she was so pretty— beautiful smile, greenish-blue eyes, with lovely blonde hair reaching her shoulders. With one person so favored, you'd think she could be resented, high school kids being what they are, but that was impossible, really. Once you met her, you liked her. She was a friend. And oh, yes, Linda was our class valedictorian, and I'll tell you a little story about that.

It must have been the spring of her senior year. Linda and I were on my back patio. I had to hang the wash, so we dragged out a record player and played Beatle albums. She said to me, “Vickie, you'll never guess what!” Linda was referring to her biological father Mr. Stewart when she said, “Dad said if I made valedictorian he'll buy me a car.” Knowing her father had been as generous as he could be all along, often at sacrifice, Linda said she hugged him around the neck but told him he would do no such thing. Mr. Stewart waved this off, saying how proud he was of her and that he wished things could have been different.

On graduation day at Bruce High, June 6, 1966, the accomplished Linda Stewart gave her valedictorian speech. She could look to a bright future. Hadn't her classmates voted her “Most Likely to Succeed”?

Harold Stewart's pledge materialized as a two-seater MGB, which Linda spent an inordinate amount of time washing and waxing. It was a good time, this summer. Linda held down a part-time job, but, with the studies and activities of school over, she was as carefree as she had ever been. In the autumn, Linda would enter Potomac College in Keyser, West Virginia—but then Linda fell in love.

In July, after graduation, Linda and a girlfriend took a weekend trip to boat and relax at Deep Creek Lake State Park, twenty miles west of her home. Here she met a good-looking, slender young man named Gerald Peugeot, taller than she by six inches and with neatly combed hair of a color exactly matching her own. The two canoed and shared dinner before Gerald Peugeot had to head back to Beaver, Pennsylvania, twenty-five miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Gerald had a good job at Babcock and Wilcox Steel in Beaver Falls and had recently joined the Navy Reserves.

It wasn't long before Linda and Gerald saw each other again, then again. Each was introduced to the other's parents. As September rolled around, Linda began classes at Potomac College, but her heart was elsewhere. She missed Gerald and wanted to marry him, so when he proposed it took no thought at all for her to nod and say yes, her tears flowing.

After the wedding, the couple found an apartment in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Gerald carried on at the steel mill while Linda did office work. Both were delighted when Linda announced she was pregnant. In 1967, on September 23, daughter Lori Mae was born.

Such a whirlwind courtship and marriage would worry any parent, but Edna Thompson knew her daughter to be sensible and grounded. Further, the young man who took her daughter's hand was a hard worker, a military man, too, and showed his new wife every affection.

Linda knew her mother was concerned that she wouldn't follow through with college now that she was married with a child, but Linda told a relieved Edna that once Lori Mae got a little older and Gerald was done with the Navy, she planned to go back for her degree.

In the spring of 1969, Gerald was called to active service, to be stationed in Jacksonville, Florida. Gerald went to Jacksonville first, in April, to take up his post as boatswain's mate, third class. Linda and Lori Mae joined him in May. Since Gerald's car was becoming unreliable and Linda's MGB, while
dependable, was too small, the Peugeots sold both cars to make a partial payment on another in early June. Wanting a car solid and safe enough to transport their baby, they purchased a 1969 GTO from Platt Pontiac in Jacksonville.

Gerald, Linda, and Lori Mae moved into a small place near the naval base. They thought living together in Florida would be cheaper, allowing them to save money, but the opposite proved true. Housing was expensive, as were other essentials. It did not take long before the family budget was strained. Since Gerald would soon be going to sea for two months, wouldn't it make sense for Linda and Lori Mae to return to Maryland to stay with her mother? They had already concluded that after Gerald had completed his stint with the Navy they would not stay in Florida but go back home to be near family and Gerald's job in the mill.

Edna Thompson was ecstatic. Of course her daughter could come home and stay as long as she wanted. Truth be known, Edna hadn't wanted Linda to go to Florida in the first place but she'd held her tongue, not wanting to meddle. In mid-August, Gerald and Linda packed the GTO. A plush car seat made the long trip home as comfortable as possible for little Lori Mae. The couple planned for Gerald to come up for Labor Day weekend via military flight before the start of his extended sea duty.

Edna couldn't get enough of having her granddaughter in the same house, and the family dog, Duke, a miniature poodle, became Lori Mae's constant companion. Meanwhile, Linda looked for a part-time job. Staying with her mother was better financially for Linda, but she would not accept her parents' accommodations without contributing.

Linda's job search led her to Fred Warner. Everyone knew of Warner's Deutsches Restaurant. Though located in out-of-the-way Cresaptown, Warner's German Restaurant was a favorite spot for people from miles around. The restaurant had been opened by Fred's parents in 1928, and its dishes were created from recipes taken from Warner's private collection of over seven hundred cookbooks, some dating back to 1865 and others from as far away as Berlin. It is folklore now, but true, that President John F. Kennedy had a craving for one of Warner's marvelous Bee Sting cakes. Since the president could not come personally, Senator Jay Glenn Beall from Cumberland brought the cake to him, flying to Cresaptown by helicopter to pick up the cake and then delivering it to the Man of Camelot.

Fred Warner's “strong right arm,” his wife Marian, hired Linda, who was an immediate success. She liked the restaurant's old stone and timbers, its
century-old relics, and the steins on its walls and shelves. The waitresses usually wore traditional German garb, and Linda delighted in making her own. Seeing Linda arrive at work with her blonde hair braided and wearing a colorful dirndl was the same as watching a pretty girl emerge from a Bavarian village.

Linda felt so at home there that she would occasionally stop at the restaurant with Lori Mae on her day off, catching up on the local news, laughing over gossip, and imparting the latest information about Gerald, her “handsome sailor-man.” Forty-six-year-old Nellie Blauch, who had been a cook for some years at Warner's, would go home to tell her husband, Ken, of the wonderful girl who had started at the restaurant: “very attractive, so nice and energetic, and she has the most beautiful little girl on God's green earth.”

After working the night of September 21, Linda Peugeot was looking forward to two days off. Early on the morning of the 22nd, Edna Thompson was up and about with Lori Mae and seeing her husband off to work. Edna recalled that morning: “The baby went into Linda's room and woke her up. Linda came out in her long nightgown, her hair mussed up. She put her arms around me, as she would do, smiled, and asked me if I loved her. All she had for breakfast was a cup of coffee. She asked if I wanted to go to Cumberland with her but I had to clean my stove.”

In mid-morning, Linda and Lori Mae left the house to shop, for the next day was Lori Mae's second birthday and Linda was planning a party. Linda first went to a bank in Cresaptown to cash a check, a gift from her mother-in-law in Toledo. She then decided to go to Kings Department Store in LaVale.

. . .

About five hours earlier, just as Linda was being nudged awake by Lori Mae, Stanley Hoss was carefully but quickly making his way out of Wheeling in the white Impala Super Sport he'd taken from the hospital parking lot. Hoss headed to Uniontown in southwestern Pennsylvania and there connected with Route 40, the scenic national highway, which he followed into Maryland. Hoss kept a nervous eye on the gas gauge, which showed near-empty. He had no money and could ill-afford the car cutting out in some spot which could draw attention if he had to abandon it and walk off. He passed through Frostburg, and nearly reached Cumberland, but Hoss could not risk going any further. At the moment, Hoss was driving through the small community of LaVale. Noticing a parking lot on his right, he decided to pull in, think things through. The asphalt sloped down
fifty yards to Kings Department Store. Hoss parked the Impala midway down, making sure he had a good view of those entering and leaving the store. It was 11:30 A.M. He waited.

Minutes past noon, Linda Peugeot turned left off Route 40 into the Kings lot. She parked, got Lori Mae from the car seat, then walked to the store's entrance, her daughter toddling along at her side, holding mommy's hand.

Straightening from his slouch, Hoss watched a slim, good-looking woman cross the parking lot with a little girl in tow. After they disappeared into the store, Hoss looked at the woman's car. He
appraised
the car, not believing his luck. A GTO—the Gran Turismo Omologato. The Goat. Best of all muscle cars. And look at this one … dual exhaust, hood scoop, mag wheels, redline widetrack Goodyears. Hoss knew the stats by heart … engine 400 cubic inches, 350 horses. Yes, this would get Hoss where he wanted to go. The woman didn't look bad either, her hair reminding him of his sister Betty's. He'd take her and the Goat. He could do without the kid, but what the hell.

Inside Kings, Linda walked the isles, browsing. She ran into Jim Knott, a friend from high school, home on leave for two weeks from the army. He told Linda he had been drafted two days after graduation and had served eighteen months in “the Nam” but was now posted at Fort Bliss in El Paso. After goodbyes, Linda went to the bike section, where she talked to employee Larry Wilson for about ten minutes, then chose a red Radio Steel wagon, the smallest one in stock. Wilson placed a boxed one in her cart.

Outside, Hoss was impatient. It had been forty-five minutes since the woman and baby had gone into the store. What the hell was in there that would keep anyone in a store that long? He was worried, too. About twenty other cars were in the lot, people coming and going. He didn't want anybody to get a good read on his face or notice him sitting there forever and maybe call the cops. Besides, he thought, if she's in there that long, is she spending all her money? Where is the bitch?

At 12:50 P.M., Shirley Clites drove onto the Kings lot and parked beside a light green, white-top GTO. Clites was twenty-nine years old and pregnant with her fourth child. Her three-year-old son, Robert, was with her as well as her sixteen-year-old brother, Luther Piper. Shirley and Robert stayed in the car while Luther went in to buy a gallon of paint. “As I sat there waiting on Luther,” Shirley related, “I looked to the side behind me, farther up on the lot. I saw a man in a white Chevy looking at me. He kept staring. I noticed he needed a shave. I glanced back every now and then and he'd be looking my way, or so it seemed.”