The Underground Lady

by JC Simmons

  "Well, Miss Sunny Pfeiffer, what is it that you and Rose English think I can do for you?"

  "I want you to help me find my mother."

  "Then there has been a huge mistake. I'm an aviation consultant, not a private investigator. I don't do people searches."

  "I know what you are, Mr. Leicester. I have researched your background thoroughly. When you hear me out, I think you will be more than willing to help."

  She was an intelligent lady. I could imagine men being afflicted by her very presence; not by what she said, but what she seemed to be thinking behind her smile. Then there was the way she spoke, slowly pronouncing each syllable, her green eyes fixed on yours, as if she fathomed all your secrets.

  "I'm listening."

  "You know, Mr. Leicester. You remind me of a man I knew in Alaska who hunted grizzly bear with a spear."

  "Yeah. What happened to him? He get eaten by a bear?"

  "No, he just got to looking like he'd seen too many of 'em."

  "Tell me why I would help you look for your mother."

  "This land where you have built this lovely little cabin once belonged to my mother, along with eight hundred acres of land. I inherited it after she disappeared."

  "I only have two hundred acres, and there was no Pfeiffer on the deed."

  "No, I divested myself of the farm many years ago. I was only six years old when my mother went missing. My grandparents lived in Arkansas. I was spending the summer with them when it happened."

  "You want me to help you find someone who's been missing over what – twenty something years?"

  "Twenty-five to be exact."

  "Look, even if I…"

  "You know that level piece of land along that fence row just to the south of this cabin?"

  "What about it?"

  "Did you know it was used as a landing strip for my mother's airplane?"

  "I did not."

  "My mother took off from that grass runway one morning twenty-five years ago and was never heard from again. She and her little Piper Cub vanished into thin air as if they never existed."

  At least now she had my attention. I had never heard this story. Rose never mentioned any of this, even though she knew all about my business. We will have to have a talk, Rose and I. It has always amazed me how time makes people forget history. My great grandparents owned a ten thousand-acre plantation with a three-story mansion in south Mississippi near the town of Osyka. They died; the land was divided between ten children. Eventually the house burned, the kids sold off the land, and they themselves died. When I drive by that location today it is as if nothing was ever there. The place is fenced for cattle grazing and the only thing left to say that the land belonged to my family is the mineral rights to five hundred acres that I own. Though virtually worthless, I vowed never to sell them.

  "No crash site? No body recovered?"

  "Nothing. She just vanished. I have an old newspaper clipping that tells about a search for the airplane. Nothing else."

  "Why now, after all these years?"

  "I have my reasons. Here is a check for five thousand dollars as a retainer. You can bill me at your usual aviation consultant rate. Here is the newspaper clipping." She handed me the check and a yellowed piece of paper. "I want you to find out what happened to that airplane and my mother."

  "You realize the odds are…"

  "I don't care about odds. I want to know what happened."

  "You'll have to give me some time to think about this."

  "Very well. I will be staying with Rose for the next two days. Let me know what you decide, and soon." She brushed B.W. off her lap like a piece of lint, stood, and headed for the door.

  "Would you like for me to drive you back to Rose's house?"

  "I want you to decide whether or not to find my mother." She walked out the door and disappeared into the fog.

  Chapter two

  Picking up the phone, I dialed Rose English's number. "I am not a lonely man."

  "Sunny made it to your cottage. Are you going to help her find out what happened to her mother?"

  "Do not be telling people, especially strangers, that I am lonely. I am not."

  "You've been mopping around them woods like an old bull with his testicles lopped off ever since that woman dumped you and ran off to the northwest with that loan shark. So don't tell me what you are or are not. I know you better than your own mother, who I assume was a wonderful woman except for that one terrible mistake she made forty-four years ago."

  This was Rose English, my neighbor, and for the last ten years, my trusted friend. There are few people in this world that I can truly depend on. She is one of them. The others, I can count on one hand. The second time I saw Rose, she was holding a bloody kitten that had been viciously attacked by a male cat. As she watched life ebb away from the small animal, she said, “I hate the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horribly cruel works of nature." Tears rolled down her face, and I knew then that we would be friends.

  Somewhere in her sixties, Rose has lived on her farm all of her life and, I suspect – though I have never asked – that she was born in the house she lives in. Highly intelligent, she is stocky built with no fat on her body. Never married, she claims not to have family in the area, and few friends, though friendly to all. She welcomed me as a neighbor, and I think the common thread that forged our friendship is that we are both loners by nature and prefer to be left alone. She is well read and has a vast and remarkable library in her home, of which I avail myself often. There is a collection of Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour, surpassed only by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. She prefers Faulkner to Hemingway, disdains Fitzgerald, and tolerates Steinbeck and Welty. She loves a contemporary writer named Jim Harrison, and thinks John Grisham should be shot at dawn, not because he is an evil man, but because he wasted a God-given talent for the almighty dollar. Who am I to argue with her literary suppositions?

  "So you felt it prudent not to tell me, of all people, that an airplane took off from my farm and may very well have crashed somewhere in my woods?"

  "It wasn't your farm then, and sometimes there are things that are simply none of your business. Besides it was a long time ago. Are you going to help Sunny?"

  "Maybe. The disappearance does intrigue me. I'll do some research today, make up my mind by tonight."

  "Good. Be at my house for dinner at seven o'clock. You can get to know Sunny a little better. It will be good for you."

  "How much do you know about this? Were you friends with her mother?"

  "In due time, Jay. Don't be late for dinner, and if you want some decent wine, I suggest you bring a bottle."

  "It's hard to pair fine wine with fried chicken and turnip greens."

  "There is a boneless leg of lamb marinating that I intend to grill over mesquite. Bring B.W., he needs the company of other cats."

  "It won't do him any good. I had him fixed, remember?"

  "I didn't say he needed sex, he needs company other than yours. God, men! Maybe getting 'fixed' is something we should consider for you."

  "I love you, Rose."

  "Piss off, Leicester. Don't be late for dinner."

  Maybe some company would do me good. I've been alone for a couple of weeks and realize I'm starved for conversation. I have felt directionless like snowflakes in a swirling wind. There has been a feeling of unhappiness since my failed relationship. But then I can always trust unhappiness. Her face never changes. However happiness, ah she's slick, can't be trusted. She has a thousand faces, all of them just ready to turn into unhappiness once she has you in her grasp.

  Pouring more coffee, I sat on the couch in the place that Sunny Pfeiffer had so recently occupied. I imagined that I could still feel her warmth. The check was made out on a bank in New Orleans and the newspaper clipping was from the Union Appeal, a local weekly now owned by an old friend. I can research their archives for more on the disappearance of the airplane. After the date and time is established, a check with air traffic control in Meridia
n may turn up the controller who worked the flight and a tape recording or a transcript of the conversation. It was a long shot, but one worth trying.

  Rose. I wanted the full story from her. But once upon a time I wanted to be Johnny Weissmuller and swing from jungle vines and call elephants with a primal yell only African animals could understand. Life is a bitch.

  An old friend owns a flying service in Meridian. Dialing his number, I thought that he might remember the missing plane.

  "Sanders Flying Service."

  "Hello Earl, Jay Leicester."

  "Jay, how you doing? I haven't heard from you since that Mexico thing."

  "Finally made the permanent move to the country. You and Annie must come up for a visit. Let me show you around God's country."

  "That sounds like a plan. So what's on your mind, Jay?"

  "Back in eighty-two, a PA-18 took off from a grass strip in Union, in fact from the farm I now own, and went missing. Never showed up, no wreckage ever found. You have any memory of that happening?"

  There was a moment of silence. Then, “Hadley Welsh, I taught her to fly, sold her the PA-18. A real mystery. Why are you asking about her disappearance?"

  "I have no memory of it happening. Everyone seems to know about it but me. Where was I when that happened?"

  "Why don't you check your logbook, maybe you were out of the country. Or that daily journal you've been keeping for thirty years."

  "Good idea, haven't thought of looking there."

  "So, I say again, why are you asking about Hadley Welsh's disappearance?"

  "Her daughter wants me to find out what happened."

  "Sunny? I often wondered what happened to that little girl. Pretty thing, and so outgoing and full of energy."

  "Well, she grew into a good-looking woman."

  "You remember John Roberts? He worked her flight that day. He's retired, but I have his phone number."

  "Thanks. Give Annie my love. I may come for a visit in a couple of days."

  "Look forward to it."

  John Roberts was an air traffic controller, and a good one. As a pilot for Southern Airways, I used to land at Meridian twice a day, five days a week. Roberts worked most of my flights. We got to be good friends. A true professional, I am glad he made it to retirement age. His was a high-stress job, and a lot of his contemporaries died early from heart attacks and other stress related illnesses. I would contact him later, but first a trip to the Union Appeal for some research was in order.

  After a quick shower, I sat on the couch and read the yellowed article Sunny Pfeiffer provided. The disappearance occurred on Friday, the ninth of April, 1982. It went on to tell about Hadley Welsh, a widower who had lived in the community for a few years. Her plane mysteriously disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from her farm west of Union. A large air and ground search was conducted with no discovery of a crash site. The search was called off after three days. It was assumed, and rightly so, that a hunter or farmer would eventually find the wreckage somewhere deep in the woods. There were unconfirmed rumors her plane was spotted in Wiggins, Mississippi, and on Chandeleur Island in the Gulf of Mexico. There was no mention of a daughter, a fact that I found strange.

  Leaving B.W. to tend to the cottage, I headed for my truck and the town of Union. It was mid-winter and cold. The fog had dissipated, the sky an aching blue. The wind had picked up and cut through my clothes like an icy blade. It was still early, and the shadows of the trees, cast by the winter sun, lay like splash-marks of black paint on the terrace row and gravel road and across the roof of my truck.

  ***

  Bill Graham, the Managing Editor of the Union Appeal, looked through giant ledgers holding copies of the paper dating back to the thirties and found the article. We looked through several weeks, but there was no further mention of the disappearance of Hadley Welsh and her little yellow Piper Super Cub. He suggested checking with the Meridian Star, a daily publication that may have follow up articles. It was a good idea.

  On the drive back to the cottage, it dawned on me that Hadley's last name was Welsh, Sunny's was Pfeiffer and, if I remember, she'd said she had never been married. A good question for dinner tonight.

  Nearing the terrace row, which serves as the driveway to the cottage, I observed a tractor in my field across the gravel road. It moved deliberately under a sky empty of cloud, over hard ground from a dry winter. High overhead vultures circled patiently waiting for nature to claim their next meal. The tractor stabbed a huge round bale of hay with the front fork then turned around and backed into another bale with the rear fork, raised it up off the ground and moved away with the two bales whose combined weight would be at least a ton and a half. This would be Shack, the cattle farmer who lived a few miles to the north and mowed my fields for the hay. He insisted he needed the extra bales, but I knew better. He cut the fields to keep me from spending endless hours pulling a bush hog in order to keep my little farm from becoming overgrown. Shack was the kind of neighbor everyone needed. Ten years my junior he was stoic, lucid, caustic and courageous, generous with his friends, and unyielding to his enemies. He was a man comfortable kicking cow shit with dirt farmers and other cattlemen, or surrounded by philosophers, academicians, and learned men or women who treasured his wit and his company. He sometimes needed a clear direction pointed out to him or else he could become dangerous.

  Shack, like Rose, accepted me into this close-knit and sparsely populated community shortly after moving onto the farm and building the cottage. I have no idea why they "took-a-liking" to me, maybe they didn't want it on their consciouses if a city slicker made some fatal error in what can be dangerous country. One has only to remember the recent past in this part of Mississippi to understand. For the most part, they have managed to keep me out of trouble. I waved at Shack, who waved back, and continued on with his business.

  Parking beside the cottage, I observed B.W. worrying a field mouse, teasing it, batting it around, the fear oozing from the mouse like the gray fog from this morning. I hated watching the killing. Picking up a pinecone, I threw it at B.W., whacking him on the head. He glared at me, then lifted his tail and stalked off in such a high dudgeon that it made me laugh. The mouse ran under my truck and hid behind a rear wheel. I did not blame B.W. for wanting to kill the mouse. It was only his way. Nature is a cruel lady.

  Inside the cottage, I stoked the fire, went to my flight bag and retrieved an old logbook. Every minute of a pilot's life is carefully recorded in his personal log. It is required by the government. A line was drawn through the entire month of April, 1982 with a notation that read: VACATION/TRAINING. Putting the logbook back in the flight bag, I went to a bookcase in the back and picked out a book with a stamp on the spine that read, 1982. The journals went all the way back to 1970. A wise man once told me that if you keep a daily journal, one-day it would keep you. There is enough ink used in these journals to fill a wine vat. It is a daily record of my life: smells, food, wine, flowers, weather, sex, people, art, friends who have died. All memories from the deep past best visited while sober.

  Looking at the week Hadley Welsh's plane went missing, I found that I was on vacation and moonlighting, flying a doctor to Aspen, Colorado, in his personal airplane for a two-week stay on Snowmass Mountain. As soon as I got back from this trip, Southern Airways sent me to Atlanta for upgrade training on the newly purchased Douglas DC-9 aircraft. This was the reason I had not heard about the missing woman and her plane. I continued looking through the journal until I came upon a notation about a close friend who had crashed into Mobile Bay during a spring thunderstorm killing all aboard his airliner. That crash made me feel as if my own existence was a privilege with unknown obligations. Slamming the journal closed, I returned it to its place among the others. Back in the living room, I sat in a recliner. All was silent except for the little trance-inducing sounds of the wood fire, and I thought about the fact that we are all doomed to die. As an honorable act of defiance, I simply refuse to fear these general term
s of existence.

  Throwing another red oak log on the fire, I could not stop thinking about my friend who died in the crash into Mobile Bay. I was sad when hearing about it, and as with one's own death, grief cannot be shared. I could only think that a library closed the day he died, an immense library. Then another death of a true airman came to mind. My mentor and I stood on the ramp watching a Lockheed PV-2 take off with a load of Mirex fire ant poison. At the controls was a pilot with whom I shared a cockpit for many hours. Just before liftoff speed, an engine failed. The Lockheed, full of high-octane gasoline veered off the runway and exploded, burning the pilot and copilot beyond recognition. Later, standing beside the wreckage watching the removal of the charred remains, I heard my mentor utter, "God grant you and I, though we must be at our own death, and worm eaten at last, a more civilized exit." I have a hand scribbled list of twenty-nine airmen with whom I have flown that are now deceased. The list continues to grow.

  I needed to get out of this funk, stop thinking of the recent dead. B.W. stretched and yawned in front of the fire. Going to a glassed-in bookcase where I keep my most precious collection of first edition books, I pulled out the only pristine copy of Hemingway's The Green Hills of Africa that I have ever seen. It is a wonderful book about big game hunting, and illustrated by Edward Shenton. Due to some flaw with an ink process during production, the spine of the book tends to fade into an ugly green/yellow color. This copy is not faded and is inscribed by Hemingway to his friend from Key West, Charles Thompson, who had accompanied him on a safari to Tanganyika in 1934. This made the book even more valuable. Though I have never bought a book for its resale value, this copy is worth an incredible amount of money.

  A friend once pointed out to me that of the thousands of writers from the last century the works of only four would survive; Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck. I tend to agree, and have added Welty to the list. Time will tell.