Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  The next town north, Berlin, had come and gone. The man remained uncommunicative. He had pulled out a map and was studying it. The gun was on the floorboard at his feet, but Linda had no chance to make a successful grab at it, even if she had been able to muster the courage for the attempt. “Where do you want to go?” she asked.

  No answer.

  “Can I ask you your name?”

  Hoss then answered both questions. “Canada, and no, you can’t ask me my name.”

  Linda sensed that the man was less agitated, less threatening. Maybe he too was scared over all of this and was himself looking for a way out. Linda, by no means sure of herself and barely able to control her own fear, thought it would be better to talk with him than not.

  “I don’t understand this,” Linda began. “We were only shopping … tomorrow’s Lori Mae’s birthday. She’s two, and I was getting some things for the party …” Lori Mae began crying again in the backseat, and Linda lost it up front, bursting into tears herself. She knew her words made no sense. What would a man like this one care about shopping or birthday plans? No longer trying to placate her captor, Linda instead cried out, “Why me? Why us?”

  Both females crying at once got on Hoss’s nerves. He told Linda to shut up and to do something about the baby. Earlier, not far out of Frostburg where the gasoline was purchased, Hoss had rifled through Linda’s purse. In the parking lot at Kings, noticing that both the woman and her baby were dressed nicely, he’d figured there could be a fair amount of money in her purse, but he found less than ten dollars. Still, the getaway car was the right choice. If it came to it, the Goat’s powerful engine would outrun a cop car.

  To quiet Linda, Hoss said, “All right, cut the cryin’ an’ I’ll let you go in Johnstown.” This news brought considerable relief to Linda. She wondered if her kidnapper was lying, but why would he be? After all, it made perfect sense to drop her and Lori Mae off somewhere. He’d taken her car and money and she did not know his identity. What point would there be in keeping them any longer? With this in mind, Linda did all she could to calm herself and her confused daughter.

  Hoss forced Linda to do all the driving. More than once, he cautioned her to drive carefully, stick to the speed limit. Occasionally, when she felt it was safe to do so, Linda would ask a question.

  “How close is Johnstown?”

  “’Bout an hour up the road.”

  “Will you keep the car?”

  “Why, do you want it back?”

  “No, no I don’t. I want my baby and me to be safe. We’ll walk. We’ll be fine.”

  Now and again, Hoss would absently pick up the gun, sometimes tracing a trail on his map with the barrel. When he laid it down, it was always out of Linda’s reach. Hoss could not see his hostage making a bold move anyway. She was very nervous, eyes filled with tears, and worried over her daughter. She would grip the steering wheel to keep her hands from shaking. Even in this condition, Hoss thought, this Linda girl was as pretty up close as she’d been at a distance, when he first saw her in the parking lot. Yeah, he mused, real pretty.

  “What will you tell the cops?”

  “Nothing. I won’t call them. Nothing at all. I’ll call my Mom. She’ll come to get me and then if I have to say anything, I’ll say I, uh, was driving and got lost and wound up in Pennsylvania. Then I’ll say I took Lori Mae into a store and when we came back out, the car was gone. Someone took it. I don’t care if you get away. Nothing matters like that. I promise, I won’t say a thing.”

  At the time of utterance, Linda may have believed her fantastic statements, but Hoss knew for sure that, once out of his clutches, she’d be spilling her guts to the first citizen or cop she laid eyes on, remembering every detail of his dress and appearance and giving, of course, a perfect description of her car.

  At the southern reaches of Johnstown, with high hope of release from this nightmare, Linda tendered a suggestion. “Here we are. Here’s Johnstown, where you’re going to let us off. Can we drive close to downtown? Then you can go, and I’ll call home.”

  “No, I don’t want to get too close to town. There might be roadblocks up.”

  At first, Linda thought he was referring to road construction, then it hit her like a slam in the stomach. She’d already figured he was on the run from something, from the law, that he’d robbed some place and couldn’t get back to his car or it wouldn’t start, so that’s why he’d forced her to drive him away, but surely roadblocks wouldn’t be set up in Pennsylvania for a crime in Maryland—unless what happened was so serious … Oh, God, what has he done?

  “I want you to take this next road coming up on the right, to Scalp and Elton. We’ll get on 160 and that’ll take us up around north of Johnstown till we can get back on 219.”

  Panicked, Linda said loudly, almost a yell, “But what about Johnstown?” Hoss told her not to worry, that he’d let her off a little further north.

  After going through the tiny communities of Salix, Sidman, and Saint Michael, the GTO reunited with 219, the same road they’d been on since minutes after the kidnapping, while still in Maryland. Hoss again pulled out his map. He noticed that Pittsburgh lay directly west about 70 miles. He wondered what was going on there. He thought of Jodine. He wanted to see her, but that would have to wait. He’d talk to her soon, though. He’d have to, just to hear her voice for a minute or two.

  Linda screamed out of frustration, snapping Hoss away from his thoughts. “You liar! Why aren’t we stopping? Take the car and go! I’m pulling over.”

  “You stop an’ I’ll kill ya!” Hoss yelled. Linda kept braking. Only when the gun barrel poked hard into her ribs did she relent.

  This shouting match scared Lori Mae into an incessant wail which further shortened Hoss’s temper, making him spew more threats in Linda’s direction. After a very unsettling ten minutes, Lori Mae’s wails subsided into crying, then whimpering. Finally she fell quiet.

  Hoss kept his voice low. “If you go off screamin’ again and get that kid goin’, I swear …”

  On edge, exhausted, Linda pleaded, “Let us go. I don’t know what you’re running from but I’m no good to you and you don’t like children around you. Lori Mae’s just scared, you should know. We’re only holding you back. We have to go home.”

  “I’ll think about it, but you have to shut up and keep your kid from cryin’ every damn mile.”

  . . .

  In and around Cumberland, Maryland, it was a gorgeous day of 70 degrees. There was not a whiff of anything awry save for that little scraping in the mind of Shirley Clites, who’d thought she’d seen something amiss in Kings parking lot.

  Edna Thompson had cleaned her stove and finished other housework. She looked at her watch. It was 3:30 P.M. Her husband would be home in two hours, while her daughter and little Lori Mae ought to be home any minute.

  Driving all this time at a criminal’s mercy had strained Linda close to the breaking point. She had never been this far north into Pennsylvania. Also, since bypassing Johnstown, Linda had seen no other towns of note. Seeing virtually nothing but fields, hills, and woods made her feel all the more isolated. Hoss’s refusal to release them in Johnstown had been a crushing blow to Linda. Then her captor’s promise to drop them off “a little further north” came to nothing. When Linda brought it up, Hoss would tell her to relax, it would just be a little bit more, or he’d become volatile and wave the gun, making the atmosphere inside the GTO unbearable, hideous.

  It was sometime past 5:00 P.M. when Linda could take no more. They had just passed through, in quick succession, the hamlets of Bells Landing, Hepburnia, and Grampian. Linda was increasingly frantic about Lori Mae. It broke her heart when her daughter would hold her little arms out, wanting to be picked up. A greater burden, though, was when Lori Mae, instead of crying or otherwise acting out, sat quietly, stupor-like, puffy eyes showing profound incomprehension.

  Forced to pursue a relentless drive to … To where? Canada? Somewhere else? Well, he could go to the North
Pole for all Linda cared, but she wouldn’t be driving him. She was so very tired of his demands, and she needed to hold her baby.

  Out of desperation, Linda pulled off Route 219 onto a gravelly berm and came to a hurried stop. She did not know how the man running from the law would react, but, like Hoss’s previous kidnap victim, Karen Maxwell, Linda could not face another minute as a hostage. The same argument ensued that they’d had a few times before. Hoss wanted her to “keep the hell movin’”; Linda wanted to go no further.

  With words flying between them, Hoss finally said, “Okay, I’m done with you, but you’re not gettin’ out on the main road. Pull up some and turn down that little road right ahead.”

  Staying on the berm, Linda eased her car forty yards further, then turned onto a single lane of gravel and dirt. A quarter-mile away, Linda could see a barn and, sitting lower, the roof of a farmhouse. Heart beating in anticipation of imminent freedom, Linda moved the car forward. Oh, to be on that farmhouse porch, knocking on the front door!

  The narrow lane slanted down and they’d gone around a slight bend. Behind them, Route 219 could no longer be seen. Still a long way from the barn and house, Linda was told to stop the car. Doing so, she turned to see Lori Mae and gave her child an encouraging smile. “There, there, sweetheart, Mommy’s going to get you now.” She then faced the man who had ripped her from all harmony to endure hours of threats, deceit, and peril. On tenterhooks but with rallying hope, Linda sat quiet.

  Hoss peered in all directions before turning toward her. He appraised her a moment before saying, “I think I’ll keep you awhile longer,” the words tantamount to a gavel slammed to tabletop after a terrible verdict. Linda’s hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles bloodless, her beautiful face contorted. With complete exasperation, Linda yelled out, each word distinct, “You can’t do this!”

  The bullet ripped through her flesh and bore into her ribcage. She put her hand to her side and felt warm blood soaking her sweater. More from shock than pain, Linda screamed, which jolted Lori Mae to cry out wildly from the backseat. Then Stanley Hoss took deliberate aim before firing again.

  11

  Taking the wheel of the GTO for the first time, Stanley Hoss briefly continued north on 219 before heading west on 322. Here he came to dot-on-the-map Rathmel in rural Pennsylvania. At a gas station there, Dallas LeRoy Douthit was bent over some repair work in one bay when he heard a car pull in. Straightening up and rubbing his hands with an old cloth, he walked toward the customer.

  “Evenin’,” Douthit said, still wiping grime from his hands.

  “Listen,” said the driver, smiling, friendly-like, “I need to ask ya something, a favor really. I just come in from Franklin, took my wife to her mother’s.” Throwing a thumb toward the backseat, the customer continued, “We’re goin’ back to Franklin to get ready for a birthday party.” Bending down a bit to look inside, Douthit’s eyes followed the thumb’s direction to see a little girl with long blonde hair sitting in a car seat. “Now, guess what?” said the driver. “My wife told me the credit card was in the glove box but, wouldn’t ya know, can’t find it. Don’t have any money on me, so I was wonderin’ if I could leave you my spare tire for a tank of gas? If that’s all right I’ll be back soon with the money an’ get my tire.”

  Douthit appraised the man: mid-twenties, brown hair cut short, army fatigue jacket, three or four days’ of beard—a “workin’ guy,” who wouldn’t be pulling a scam, not with his daughter with him.

  “Sure,” said Douthit, “reckon we can do that.”

  “Great, this is a big help. What time do you close?”

  “In three hours, at 9 o’clock.”

  Douthit watched the man get the tire from the backseat of the automobile and roll it into the service station. Douthit filled the tank, then made out a charge slip for $6.50. The jacketed man signed the slip “Bill Young.” He then mentioned to Douthit that his daughter was hungry and asked if there was anything to eat at the station. Douthit told him there were some crackers. “Bill” went inside and bought some cheese crackers. He told Douthit all he had was thirty cents.

  “Bill” waved at Douthit before hopping behind the wheel. Douthit noticed that during the whole ten-minute encounter, “the little blonde girl remained in the car seat. She had her hand up to her mouth and was silent the whole time.”

  Douthit gave no thought to why the spare tire was in the backseat, but he would have been dumbstruck to know the tire could no longer fit in the trunk, not with the little girl’s mother thrown back there, growing colder by the minute.

  Hurrying out of Rathmel, Hoss did indeed drive to Franklin, as he’d told Douthit. A mile south of town, about 8:15 P.M., Hoss pulled up to the Idle-wood Motel. Inside the office, he asked assistant manager Bonnie Engels the price of a room, adding that he’d been working on a car in the area but would need lodging since the work wasn’t done and promising to return shortly with the money. During their conversation, Engels noticed the man had left his car’s motor running. She saw no other individuals in the car.

  Hoss had made a plan to get money, but first he had to steal another car. He drove through Franklin until he found a suitable place to strike.

  Earlier in the day, Hazel White had returned to her home at Franklin’s Terrace Garden Apartments. She parked her 1963 white Chevy in stall 7, then went inside. Every Monday night, Hazel watched her favorite show, Laugh-In, which began at 8:00 P.M.

  Somewhere in the middle of Hazel’s TV show, Stanley Hoss walked into the parking lot of the Terrace Garden Apartments. He’d left the GTO parked in an isolated spot several blocks away. He did not know what had yet been reported in Cumberland, Maryland, but he did not want to risk exposing his location by any sightings of the car.

  William Howard stopped at the Minut Man Service Station in Franklin to grab a Coke and shoot the breeze with two friends, Terry Wymer and Robert Smith, who were the station’s attendants. At 9:00 P.M., a ’63 white Chevy pulled up and stopped in front of the office, the car engine left running.

  The next thing Howard knew, the driver

  was standing behind me and I heard him say, “This is a holdup. Everybody in the back room.”

  I turned around, and there’s this guy, holding a revolver. Well, I, Terry, and Bob started laughing at him, thinking he was someone else’s friend, but the guy pushed me, then shouted, “I said move!” So we walk into the back room with the gun held on us. We were ordered to lay on the floor.

  The guy yelled, “I want all your money.” We fished around in our pockets and gave him three or four dollars. Next, the guy asked where the rest of the money was, so Bob said it was out front. Bob had to get up and open the cash register, so the guy took all that money. He shoved Bob back in with us. Everything up till then happened so fast, but we’re wondering if now’s the time we’ll be shot, but what we hear was, “Don’t anybody move for five minutes or I’ll come back and blow your heads off.”

  Winding his way back to the Terrace Garden Apartments, Hoss parked the Chevy in stall 2, then trotted away. When he got back to the GTO, parked in deep shadow off the beaten path, he walked around the car, listening carefully. He heard nothing. He unlocked the driver’s door and sat inside, counting his loot from the robbery: $144, plus a $10 roll of quarters. He then walked behind the car and opened the trunk, lifting out Lori Mae, away from her dead mother.

  By 10:00 P.M., Hoss had returned to the Idlewood Motel, again greeted by Bonnie Engels.

  “I’ll take that room now, and do you have a cot or something for my little girl?”

  “Why, of course. We keep rollaway beds on hand for people who need them.”

  Hoss sat Lori Mae down on the countertop to get out his wallet. Bonnie Engels gently poked Lori’s tummy, exclaiming, “Aren’t you a princess?”

  “Yes, she is,” Hoss replied. “Her mother—my wife—was recently killed in an auto accident, so that’s why she’s with me now.”

  Bonnie’s mother-in-law, Gertrude, had g
otten up from an easy chair to help by opening the registration book. Bonnie said, “Gert, did you hear that? This little one’s just lost her mama in an accident.” Both women clucked sympathy. “Oh, for goodness sakes, what is her name?” Bonnie asked.

  In the role of grieving but stalwart young father, Hoss replied, “Lori, Lori Mae.”

  Hoss signed in as “Bill Young,” then asked about eating places. Bonnie pointed to the adjacent Idlewood Restaurant where, Gertrude piped in, “You’ll not find better meatloaf anywhere.”

  “While you’re at the restaurant, Mr. Young,” Bonnie thought to say, “I’ll have my husband get the rollaway set up, so when you get back everything will be all ready for you.”

  Inside the restaurant, Hoss took a table where he could observe the intersection of routes 8 and 62, as well as the motel parking lot. Hoss told the waitress, Zeedith Hoover (Zeda, to her friends) that his wife had stuck him with the kid and asked Zeda what a two-year-old wants to eat. Zeda suggested mashed potatoes with gravy and chocolate milk. Hoss ordered a roast beef sandwich, mashed potatoes and gravy, and two cups of coffee. After bringing the meals over, Zeda sat beside the little girl to help feed her. As she did so, she noticed that the man, presumably the child’s father, was “extremely unkempt, inasmuch as his hair was ungroomed and he needed a shave and a good shower.” Conversely, recalled Zeda, “the child did not appear to be dirty at all but her hair did need a combing. When I was feeding her, she called me ‘mommy’ several times.”

  It was late, past 11:00 P.M., when Hoss turned the key to his motel room. The proprietors had set up the separate bed for Lori Mae. He’d situate her shortly, but first he’d lie down, close his eyes for a minute. It had been a long day.

  Not to mention earlier misdeeds, the past twenty-four hours had seen Hoss in four states, staying ahead of the law. He had raped Karen Maxwell, stolen the Impala in Wheeling, stolen the GTO in LaVale, kidnapped Linda and Lori Mae Peugeot, murdered Linda, scammed an attendant for gasoline, stolen the white Chevy in Franklin, and pulled an armed robbery. Yes, quite a day.