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IDA BELLE SIGHED. “LOOK to your left,” she said. “See the woman wearing the red hat, sitting by herself? That’s Emma Peterson.”
Gertie looked and gasped. “Oh, my god, it is Emma Peterson,” she said.
“That poor dear,” Walter added. “Do you think we should ask her to join us?”
“No,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve tried to reach out to her many times. She will not socialize. There’s no reason to embarrass her. She’s obviously here in New Orleans because she doesn’t want to be recognized.”
“Who’s Emma Peterson?” I asked.
“She lives in Sinful,” Ida Belle said. “Her house is less than three blocks from where you live.”
I looked at her more closely. The woman was dressed neatly but plainly. Her face was heavily lined and careworn.
“I’ve never seen her before,” I said.
“That’s because she almost never comes out of her house,” Gertie replied, “except on Valentine’s Day.”
“Why only on Valentine’s Day?” I asked.
Ida Belle, Gertie and Walter all paused, as though my question had made them feel awkward. Finally, it was Walter who said, “It was on a Valentine’s Day when it happened. I remember that day well. It was horrible.”
My curiosity was killing me. “What... what? What was horrible?”
“Emma’s daughter,” Gertie said. “Glory Peterson. Someone killed her on Valentine’s Day over twenty-five years ago.”
“It happened in 1986,” Ida Belle corrected.
“My word,” Walter said. “I’d lost track of time. You’re right. It’s been thirty years now.”
“That poor child was only seventeen-years-old when she died,” Ida Belle added. “She was a beautiful girl, a high school senior, a cheerleader and a straight-A student. She was going to major in drama. She wanted to be an actress.”
“Glory’s death devastated Emma and her husband,” Gertie said. “She was their only child. Emma’s husband slipped into a deep depression and killed himself a year later. It left poor Emma alone.”
“How did she die?” I asked.
“Glory was murdered,” Walter said. “The authorities believed an out-of-town stranger committed the murder, but they never found the killer.”
“Oh, my god!” I gasped, looking again at Emma. “That’s horrible. Why did they think it was an out-of-town stranger?”
“She was last seen in the company of an unidentified man in his early to mid-thirties,” Walter said. “Witnesses described him as handsome and charming.”
“That’s right,” Gertie added. “It was said he was a well-built tall man wearing a suit with a red tie and a black Fedora hat. Witnesses spotted him talking to Glory on the day of her death in the soda fountain shop. They said the two of them spent over two hours talking with each other. They then saw them getting into his car and leaving together. That was the last time anyone saw her alive.”
“She went missing that night,” Walter said. “It was Valentine’s Day, a Friday night. When she disappeared, the town went crazy. I think every man, woman and child in Sinful was out looking for her. A volunteer discovered her body the following Monday morning, but forensic specialists said she had been dead since Friday evening about 10:30 p.m. The stranger vanished. They looked for that man for over three years and came up empty—never found him.”
“He disappeared?” I asked.
Walter nodded. “Into thin air.”
“Did they form a theory about motivation?” I asked. “Was she raped or robbed?”
“No,” Gertie said. “As I remember she was hit in the head with a blunt object like a bat. There was no sign of sexual assault. She had a little cash with her. They had not taken it—.it was not a robbery.”
“So, did they ever determine a motive of any kind?” I asked.
“There were many theories,” Walter said. “The most popular one came from a criminal psychologist. It was all over the news.”
“That’s right,” Ida Belle replied. “He believed the murderer tried to seduce Glory, but she resisted. According to the theory, the stranger was not accustomed to hearing the word ‘no.’ He became outraged at the rejection and killed her.”
“I guess that’s possible. Where was her body found?” I asked.
“There’s a patch of woods about two-hundred yards south of the high school football bleachers. There’s a walking trail there. The murderer hid Glory’s body about forty yards off the path, behind a rock formation. He covered her remains with loose dirt and branches.”
“The way he left the body showed the police that he did not plan the murder,” Walter said. “It looked as though she was killed quickly and then her body hastily dumped.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s intense.”
“Emma became a recluse after that,” Gertie interjected. “She lost her daughter and her husband and never got closure. It’s been rumored for years she is close to bankruptcy. I’m not sure how she lives.”
“I think she has a small monthly Social Security check coming in. She has her groceries and medications delivered to her home,” Walter added. “She almost never comes out of the house.”
“Except on Valentine’s Day,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve only seen her two or three times since then, all on Valentine’s Days. Other people have also told me they’ve seen her out and about on Valentine’s Day. It’s the day she honors her daughter’s memory. She gets dressed up and goes someplace to eat and then visits the gravesites of her daughter and husband. I’ve tried to reach out to her several times over the years. She always refuses. I finally gave up.”
“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said. I watched Emma as she ate a piece of cherry pie. Her expression was positively dour.
On the drive home Gertie tried to lighten the mood by telling us that Molly Ringwald had not only turned down the lead role in Pretty Woman, but also said no to Demi Moore’s part in Ghost. From there, the conversation dropped off for more than half an hour, that is until Ida Belle saw a Quick Mart on the side of the road.
“Walter, pull into the Quick Mart,” she said. “They sell MoonPies there.”
Gertie’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I’d love a MoonPie right now.”
“What the heck are you guys talking about?” I asked. “What the hell is a moo pie?”
“MoonPie,” Gertie corrected. “Not moo pie.”
“Moon... pie?” I repeated, incredulously.
“It’s a fantastic southern treat,” Ida Belle said.
“I’m not eating anything called MoonPie,” I said, emphatically.
“Why not?” Gertie demanded to know.
“Because when I thought you said moo pie, I thought of a cow, and that made me think of cow pies,” I replied.
“She makes a point,” Walter said. “You don’t have to eat a MoonPie if you don’t want to, Fortune. We’ll be back in a moment.”
Walter, Gertie and Ida Belle disappeared into the Quick Mart and returned with a giant bag of moo pies, or whatever they called the thing. The three of them ripped cellophane wrappings and took large bites. The appearance of the MoonPie did not help. It really looked like a small cow pie.
“Oh... my... god, this is wonderful,” exclaimed Ida Belle.
“What flavor do you have?” Gertie asked.
“Chocolate,” she said, making audible savoring noises that sounded suspiciously close to Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally.
“Chocolate is the classic,” Walter said. “Have you ever had the salted caramel ones? They’re new and they are delish!”
“I’m strictly a vanilla MoonPie gal myself,” Gertie protested.
“What are they made of?” I asked.
“Two round soft graham cracker cookies with marshmallow filling and then the whole thing is dipped in chocolate or vanilla or salted caramel,” Walter said.
“Marshmallow?” I repeated. “And chocolate? Hmm.” I looked at Walter’s MoonPie. “And you like it?”
Walter looked at me and smiled. He reached into the sack and pulled out a chocolate one. He unwrapped it.
“No, no, no,” I said. “Not for me.”
With one deft movement, he pinched off a large piece of MoonPie, reached across the seat and shoved it into my mouth. It was an aggressive action I was not expecting, and it caught me off guard. My first reaction was to spit it out but Walter placed his hand under my chin so I couldn’t open my mouth. Ida Belle and Gertie were chuckling in the back.
“What do you think?” Walter said.
I chewed the MoonPie. I tried to fight back a grin, but I was unsuccessful. The MoonPie was incredible.
“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. “No pun intended. Give me the rest of that.”
Walter handed over the rest of the MoonPie and started the car. I had eaten a chocolate MoonPie, and a salted caramel one before we were five more miles down the road.
“Holy Cow!” I exclaimed. “Again, no pun intended. How is this not the most famous thing in the world?”
“They make them in strawberry and banana, too,” Walter said.
“Jeez Louise,” I exclaimed. “Banana? Let’s go back.”
“We can’t,” Walter said.
“Why?” I protested. “Walter, you know how much I love banana.”
“They were out of banana,” Walter said. “I looked.”
“Now if only we had an RC Cola,” Gertie added.
“Why RC Cola?” I asked.
“It’s a southern tradition,” Ida Belle replied. “MoonPie got started when a coal miner showed up in a small bakery in Chattanooga, demanding a treat as big as the moon. The baker came up with the first MoonPie on the spot. They caught on in the south, so much so they are traditionally thrown into the crowd from the floats at...”
“Well, aside from the unfortunate name, I approve,” I interrupted somewhat unimpressed with Ida Belle’s detailed story and more interested in eating. “Does anyone else want that last vanilla one?”
Back at home, I took a short nap and then went for a jog, hoping to melt away a few of the 2,000 calories I had taken in at brunch, and the additional several hundred I consumed in MoonPies. After my run, I showered and made myself a cup of tea. I fired up my laptop and Googled Glory Peterson.
I studied her picture. She was movie-star gorgeous with long brunette hair, a tiny waist, and long tanned legs. She had a Jennifer Lawrence meets Taylor Swift kind of look.
I found several archived articles that followed the course of the murder and subsequent investigation. Her full name was Gloria Ann Peterson, but everyone called her Glory. The identity of the stranger was a complete mystery. Gertie had recalled correctly that witnesses described him as around thirty-five-years old, white, strongly built, tall, at least six-feet-four, wearing a black Fedora. Some people described his appearance as a throwback to the fifties, wearing the fedora, an older-styled sports coat and thin red tie. No one who saw him recognized him as being a resident of Sinful, but they saw him driving a late model white Honda with Louisiana plates. No one identified a plate number but several witnesses agreed that the car sported Louisiana plates. There were no car rentals made to white males fitting the description of the stranger. This led investigators to believe the vehicle was owned, not rented. They focused the manhunt within the state thinking the killer was a Louisiana resident.
It could have been an upstate drifter passing through on the way to New Orleans, I thought, but then why would someone like Glory spend time with an older man at a chance meeting? It made little sense. She may have known him. But if she knew him, the relationship would have been formed in Sinful, and that would have meant he’d been there before. If that were the case, why would no one else in a small town like Sinful, have recognized him?
That night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for three hours, wondering about the circumstances of Glory Peterson’s murder. There were so many things about what I heard and read that made no sense and I speculated about it all night. A stranger shows up in town out of the blue and attracts the attention of a popular teenage girl who doesn’t seem to date. The unidentified man tries to seduce her. Glory says no to sex, and the rejection sends the killer into a rage. He then murders her and dumps her body two hundred yards away from where she went to school and then disappears into thin air. None of it added up. At 5:00 a.m. I’d had enough. I got up and went to the kitchen. I baked.