The Underground Lady

by JC Simmons

  Pulling onto the terrace row that leads to my cottage in the woods, I saw a car pulled up close behind my Thunderbird. Someone stood on the porch in front of the entry door. I fingered the magnum in the pocket of the leather jacket, and continued on to the cottage. Parking behind the car, I saw something I never want to see again.

  Sunny Pfeiffer turned from the door and looked at me with the most horrifying expression a person could have. B.W. ran to meet me.

  "Oh, Jay, it's so terrible."

  Hanging from the door facing by its neck was a coyote. The scratch marks on the door indicated it was alive when put there. A rusty, ten penny nail was driven into the doorframe and a worn, frayed grass rope was used to hang the coyote. Another nail held a hand-written note.

  "Sunny, what are you doing here?"

  "I arrived from St. Louis this morning. Rose said you would be back this afternoon. I drove here to wait, hoping to play with B.W. I've only been here for a minute." She pointed to the coyote. "That animal was hanging there, it's horrible."

  "Did you touch anything?"

  "No, I tried to read that note, but it was too high."

  Cutting the coyote down, I put it in the back of my pickup. I would haul it off later. Retrieving a claw hammer, I carefully pulled the nail that held the note. It was written in pencil, printed in neat, straight lines on what appeared to be a five by nine unlined note pad. I read it slowly.

  CEASE LOOKING FOR HADLEY WELCH

  THE COYOTE IS A WARNING

  YOUR CAT WILL BE NEXT

  AFTER THAT YOUR LESBO NEIGHBOR

  THEN THE DAUGHTER

  THEN YOU

  The letters were all in caps, and there was no punctuation. Carefully holding it by one corner, I took it inside and slid it into a plastic freezer bag.

  Sunny Pfeiffer followed me into the cottage. "Here, I brought this."

  She handed me the original letter intimating that her mother was murdered. I put it in another freezer bag, and sat down to think.

  B.W. assumed his royal pose on Sunny Pfeiffer's legs. "What does this mean, Jay?"

  "It means we have opened an old wound. There are two factions working here, one wants you to know what happened to your mother, the other will go to any length to keep you from finding out, even to the extent of threatening your life, Rose English's, and mine, not to mention B.W. What do you think about that, old boy?" The big cat switched his tail in angry jerks, as if he understood. "We've got to go and inform Rose, then I must put things into motion to protect all of us."

  "You really think this is something more than idle threats. Someone would actually harm us?"

  "Believe it, Sunny. Whoever we are dealing with is an evil being. They hung that coyote while it was still alive. It takes a vicious person, an uncaring, unfeeling human being to inflict that kind of pain on any living thing. In my book, this makes them dangerous, and I will deal with them in the same manner."

  Loading B.W. into my truck, I followed Sunny to Rose English's farmhouse. It was dark now, but Rose looked the coyote over carefully with the use of a flashlight.

  "That's an old hemp rope, Jay. Keep it."

  "Good idea."

  Rose switched off the light. "Come on in, I've about got supper prepared. We can talk."

  It was a simple meal, turnip-greens, fried country ham, mashed potatoes and field peas – the brown Crowders that I like so well – and hot, fresh cornbread.

  "There was a note, Rose. Whoever this is threatened to kill B.W., you, Sunny, and me, in that order."

  "You are going to need some help, and do not leave that cottage without bringing B.W. to me. I will not have some S.O.B. hanging one of my cats."

  "You gave him to me when he was a kitten. He is not your cat."

  "I will take better care of him. Just do it."

  "The note referred to you as my 'Lesbo' neighbor," I said with a sly grin. "I did not know that about you, Rose."

  "Ha, my parents were never members of PFLAG. Just because I never married, lived alone, didn't screw every man who drove up to my door, they think I'm a lesbian. What do I care?"

  "PFLAG?"

  "Never you mind."

  Sunny sat listening to our exchange. "Oh, Rose, I'm so sorry to have gotten you in the middle of this."

  "It's not your fault, little one. Jay, here, will handle things. He's been involved in worse, I can assure you."

  "I'll see if Hebrone is available."

  "Where is he?"

  "Key West. Been there ever since Katrina destroyed the coast."

  "Good, and you need to tell Shack there's a bad one in the neighborhood hanging coyotes from people's door frames."

  "He will be delighted to know. He is a tough man, and one to have on our side if it gets rough."

  "Who are these people you two are talking about?"

  "Hebrone Opshinsky is an old friend, ex-soldier, outstanding sailor, and an even better aviator. He is also one of the deadliest human beings on the planet. A close second to Opshinsky is Shack, a local cattle rancher who lives a few miles north of here. It is not good to anger the man."

  "I feel better already."

  "What about your business, Sunny? Is there anyone from this area that has investments in any of your companies?"

  "No, not to my knowledge. No one has ever lost money in any of our companies. Why? You think this could be related to some business deal my mother had with this person?"

  "I'm grasping at straws. Your mother went missing, and if it's murder, there has to be a motive."

  Rose poured coffee. "Sunny, there was a rumor about your true biological father. It came up the other day. Tell Jay what you know about it."

  "What do you mean, it came up?" There was a flash of anger in her green eyes.

  "A banker, man by the name of Pushkin, denied parenthood without being asked. I thought maybe it was an added reason for you looking at your mother's disappearance."

  "Not true. There was a record of a blood test done that proved who my parents were. I discovered it among my mother's papers ten years ago."

  "It's interesting that they needed to have that done. However that was their personal business and probably has no bearing on her disappearance. I'm glad that's cleared up." I bent down and picked up B.W. "Well, we'll leave you ladies for the night. I want to study the note and the letter. There are phone calls to Hebrone and Shack, and to our local sheriff who can help with running the documents through a forensics lab. There is also another man, a retired airline pilot who knew your mother that I need to talk with. I just found out about him this morning. You may want to accompany me, Sunny. I'll be in touch in the morning. Come on, B.W., let's go dispose of a dead coyote."

  Back at the cottage, I looked at the time. It was nine p.m. B.W. and I had disposed of the coyote carcass on the back eighty at a place designated as a dump. The rope used to hang the unfortunate animal lay in the back of my truck.

  Shack answered on the first ring. "Yeah?"

  "Someone hung a live coyote on my front door and threatened to kill me."

  "I'll be there in five minutes."

  "Not necessary. The threat is not imminent. It was meant as a warning to cease my current endeavors."

  "Does it involve a woman?"

  "It does, but not the way you think."

  "I'm listening."

  After explaining the situation to him, he offered to help anyway that he could. Shack was that kind of a man. He thought that all things would end badly if a friend tried to go it alone, but that one should never forsake the journey. He promised to come by tomorrow and we would discuss the matter.

  Suddenly I was tired, and felt like Hemingway's voice in For Whom the Bell Tolls, that of an individual struggling against a hostile world. There was one other person that I knew who would make this struggle a little easier, Hebrone Opshinsky.

  Looking through my desk, I found his last letter. There was a phone number in Key West.

  "Captain Tony's."

  "Trying to locate
Hebrone Opshinsky. Name's Leicester. We sometimes work together."

  "Never heard of 'em." The line went dead.

  Captain Tony's bar, Key West, Florida. It's located in the site of the original Sloppy Joe's Bar, the one Hemingway made famous. The Sloppy Joe's of today had little, if anything, to do with Hemingway. Joe Russell, the owner and close friend of his, moved to the current location after Hemingway moved to Cuba. Captain Tony's is a low-ceiling, dingy bar with a sunken room off to the side that now houses a pool table. In the twenties and thirties it was a room used for gambling, drinking, and other sordid activities. I have downed enough gin in that joint to float a battleship, and carried on many conversations with Tony's ex-wife whose skeleton hangs behind the bar next to the cash register. She is a friendly old gal when one is drunk. Skinner, the six foot six inch, three hundred pound, black, Conch bartender would make me leave when I became too cozy with Tony's ex-wife. He knew I'd had enough.

  The phone rang. "Leicester."

  "The wolf welcomes you."

  "Someone has taken a dislike to my current investigation."

  "Lot of people don't like you, Leicester."

  "This one hung a live coyote on my front door frame and threatened to kill me."

  "People shouldn't treat animals that way. I'll be on the next plane."

  "Where's Smash?"

  "He's delivering a boat to St. Thomas. Won't be back for a month."

  "Take a direct flight out of Miami to New Orleans. I'll pick you up at Atlantic Aviation day after tomorrow. Let me know your arrival time."

  "Keep your head down, Leicester. I'd hate to miss out on the fun."

  "Shack's gonna back me up."

  "He's a good man."

  We hung up, and I retrieved the note and letter. The one that hung by the coyote offered nothing new. The letter, however, was typed on what appeared to be an old manual typewriter with a well-worn ribbon, as was the plain white envelope. It was addressed to Sunny Pfeiffer in St. Louis, and simply said that her mother was murdered, not killed in an airplane crash as was reported.

  Laying both documents on the desk, I dialed the county sheriff. "Is this the High-Sheriff?"

  "I heard. A twenty-five year old missing person. Get the notes to me tomorrow and I'll send them off."

  "How could you possibly know?"

  "That's why I'm the High-Sheriff."

  He would never reveal his source. It could have been Rose, Shack, Annie or Earl Sanders. The sheriff delighted in his network of information. His name was John Quincy Adams, and we went back a long way. I did some flying for a state-wide drug task force that he headed about ten years ago. The end result was two crooked pilots and a dozen crack-cookers off the street. Adams was an honest sheriff, something that cannot be said for a lot of rural county law enforcement.

  It was time to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

  Chapter Eight

  I opened my eyes to dazzling sunlight cut by diamonds of shadow. For a moment I'm not sure where or who I am. I just am. I simply exist. There is a dead tree outside the window. Looking up at the shabby shaggy branches, they appear like a wrought iron sculpture spreading motionless against the chill of the early morning. Then B.W. nudges me with his tuna breath. It was time to get up.

  Gathering the hand-written note and the typed letter, I picked up the big Siamese and headed for Rose's house. My plans were to drop off the documents at the sheriff's department, then pay a surprise visit to Gerald VonHorner with Sunny Pfeiffer in tow and see what reaction we would get out of him.

  Deer sausage, hot homemade buttermilk biscuits, fresh-ground coffee, and scrambled eggs greeted me in Rose's kitchen. Sunny was nowhere to be seen. Hand feeding B.W. some sausage, which he ate with relish, I asked her whereabouts.

  "She's sleeping late. The dead coyote and the threats upset her. She paced the floor until past three a.m."

  "Well, get her up. I need to be on the move."

  "Then let's move." Sunny entered the kitchen, sat down at the table. "I had a rough night worrying about getting you two involved in something dangerous. This was not my intention."

  Her eyes were that green gemstone color, and in them one could see a shadow of a suspicion and a belief that the world and all the people in it were forever trying to deceive her.

  Rose poured her a cup of coffee. "Don't you fret yourself about us, Sunny. Just do what Jay tells you and all of this will work out."

  I was glad Rose had such confidence. For some reason it seemed kind of hollow to me. It would be good to have Hebrone around and Shack up the road.

  "We will drop the documents off at the sheriff's department, then pay an unannounced visit to that retired pilot I mentioned yesterday. You up for it?"

  "Absolutely."

  I thought there are no absolutes in this world, but still, her willingness to continue headlong into the unknown impressed me.

  At the sheriff's office, I noticed that the sun was fading the colors from the rug in John Quincy Adam's office, reminding me of my numbered days. I introduced him to Sunny Pfeiffer. He took a long, hard look at her, but was pleasant. He had a previously scheduled meeting in the state capital today and promised to hand-carry the note and letter to the crime lab while he was there.

  It was ten a.m. when we pulled up in front of Gerald VonHorner's two-story home on the lake north of Meridian. Sunny took a deep breath, looked at me with a confident smile, and pulled gently on her ponytail. "I'm ready."

  "Let me do the talking and follow my lead. We have to keep in mind that this man may know nothing about your mother's disappearance."

  Approaching the front door, we were able to see the lake at the rear of the property. There was an enclosed boat shed and wooden dock that ran a hundred feet out into the water. The sunlight was clear and sharp and defined the wooded shoreline in superb detail.

  A woman answered the doorbell. She was small and stared at me with ebony-black eyes that did not appear human, but those of an alert animal. She looked Spanish, a slight dowdy woman with parchment-colored skin and untidy gray-streaked raven hair coarse as a horse's tail. She seemed to have started to shrink so that the skin of her face and hands was nothing but millions of tiny wrinkles, stretched taught by the southern sun. The implacable pouched eyes showed no age.

  "We are looking for Gerald VonHorner. Is he home?"

  Her eyes went cold and lightless as a billiard ball. She turned away, having uttered no syllable.

  A man appeared. He was tall and thin like a rope. He seemed like a shadow that slips in and out of darkness. "Yeah, what do you want?"

  "Are you Captain Gerald VonHorner?"

  His eyes went directly to Sunny, and there was a flicker of recognition, like some long lost memory that suddenly and unexpectedly flashes across the consciousness. "Who are you people?"

  Instinct told me that bluntness was the best way to test this man. "My name is Jay Leicester. This is Sunny Pfeiffer. We are looking into the disappearance of her mother, Hadley Welch. Our investigation points to you as being able to shed some light on the situation."

  His eyes were bleary as if the weekend drunk had lasted a decade and aged him by that much. His heavy gaze seemed to be trying to read his future in my eyes. I could read his future – fear, confusion, and trouble.

  "I don't know a Hadley Welch." He started to close the door.

  I stopped it with my foot. "Yes, you did. Twenty-five years ago you worked for Earl Sanders as a mechanic while on furlough from American Airlines. You did the maintenance on her PA-18, flew with her and, my sources inform me, dated her."

  "You a cop?"

  "I'm an aviation consultant looking into Hadley Welch's disappearance."

  "Why?"

  "This is her daughter. She wants to know what happened."

  He looked at Sunny. "My God, you're the little girl."

  "So you did know Hadley Welch?"

  "It was a long time ago."

  "Can we come in and talk about your rela
tionship with her?"

  "I have nothing to say. Please, do not bother me again. If I were you, I'd be careful of making accusations that are untrue."

  "We haven't accused you of anything."

  Sunny stepped in front of me. "You like coyotes, Mr. VonHorner?"

  He slammed the door.

  Back in the car, I looked at Sunny. "Well, he knows we think it was him that made the threats. I wish you hadn't said that."

  "He killed my mother. I know he did. What do we do next?"

  "I'd like to get a look in that boat shed, see what kind of rope is in there."

  We drove away with me thinking it's instances like this, Sunny speaking without thinking, that are the reason I work alone. Rose, Rose, Rose…

  ***

  Turning onto the terrace row leading to the cottage, I recognized the truck parked up behind my car. It was Shack. Although the temperature was in the forties, he stood outside the truck, one leg propped on a bumper, dressed in nothing but blue jeans and a wool plaid shirt.

  Shack was six feet one inch, around two hundred pounds of mostly ranch-hardened muscle, with dark skin and hair the color of old used motor oil. Like Rose, he grew up on his farm, and knows everyone and everything that goes on in this county. He is known as a man not to be trifled with. His knowledge of cattle is surpassed only by that of firearms and how to use them. I have seen him in action and can assure you I would not want him shooting at me from up close or from five hundred yards. He is a man who would protect his family and his property. In that order.

  Parking behind his truck, I noticed a large white bandage, soaked through with blood, on his left arm. "Hello, Shack. One of your bulls take a dislike to you?"

  He shrugged off the wound. "I do not seek injury out. It finds me as if it were my brother."

  "I hope you didn't sew it up yourself like you did the chain saw cut."

  He did not answer, but looked at Sunny, who had walked up and stood beside me.