The Underground Lady

by JC Simmons

  "Sunny Pfeiffer, this is Shack, my neighbor."

  "Nice to meet you…Shack."

  "Same here…Sunny."

  "Now that we all know each other, let's go inside and build a fire. We can talk."

  I brewed a pot of coffee while Shack and Sunny made small talk, something I'd observed him do very little of, except in a woman's company. Not that he was flirting, he was as faithful to his wife as Rose is to her cats. He simply enjoyed female company.

  Handing them both hot cups of coffee, I said, “Sorry to get you involved, old man, but we thought you needed to know there is a bad guy running around the neighborhood."

  "Listen to me, Leicester, never apologize and never explain."

  "That's a line from an old John Wayne movie."

  "Maybe, but it's smart thinking. Catch me up."

  We told him everything we knew, up to and including our morning's visit with Gerald VonHorner. Sunny offered her thanks for his help in protecting Rose and the rest of us from whomever this was making the threats.

  Shack, in his gravelly voice, said, “Well, a man needs something to fight for, to love or hate, otherwise he could go mentally bankrupt. I have learned that there are some things no man can tolerate though it cost him his life or, precisely, because that life would not be worth living if he yielded. Threatening to kill my friends is one of those things."

  "I'm going tomorrow to pick up Hebrone in New Orleans, he's coming in from Key West. Thought we could use his help. It will be good to know that you'll be around to look after things while I'm gone."

  "Hebrone's a good man."

  "He said the same thing about you."

  Shack sat his coffee cup in the sink and started to leave. "Don't worry, Sunny, we'll find out what happened to your mom, and who is making the threats. We'll track them down. There's no justice in this world unless you make it yourself."

  I walked him to the door. He smiled that slow, cruel, and dangerous smile of his that revealed teeth as white as the eyeteeth of a wolf. He observed me a moment longer, and then, his expression unreadable, put his hand on the doorknob. His eyes, black as death, stared at me without blinking. When Shack looked at you, you always wondered if he had eyelids. I saw a flash of rage. It lasted only a second, and then it was gone, hidden behind the cruel grimace that twisted his pale, cold lips. "This one that hung the coyote belongs to us, Leicester. Let me know when you leave tomorrow." Then he was gone.

  Sunny sat on the couch sipping coffee, B.W. lying at her feet. "That's a scary man. I'm glad he's on our side."

  "It's not good to anger him. I've seen him irate. A few years ago, someone stole one of his dogs. Shack spotted the dog in the back of a pickup truck at a service station in town. He took a model 700-magnum rifle from the vehicle we were riding in and stuck the end of the barrel under the chin of the man driving the truck. He calmly asked him to explain why his dog was in his truck. The man swore he'd bought the animal from someone he did not know two months before. I'm sure that if the man had not said that, Shack would have shot him."

  "Did he really sew up his own cut?"

  "I watched him do it. Had a deep cut on his left foot from a chain saw that bucked when he was undercutting a limb from a downed tree and chewed through his boot sole. It was a deep cut, but flesh only. Miraculously the wound healed without getting infected."

  "So what do we do now?"

  "The transcripts of the exchange between the tower and your mom are being sent to the Meridian tower chief who will let me know when they arrive. A copy of the investigation into the disappearance of the plane is being mailed to me here, at the cottage, from the FAA office in Jackson. The forensics results from the letter you received and the threatening note hung beside the coyote are being processed. I'm going to start checking the background of the lawyer, Collinswood, and the banker, Pushkin. We will look hard at Gerald VonHorner."

  "I noticed you left out Earl Sanders, who was closer to my mother than any of them, and who she seemed to worship."

  "Forget him. He had nothing to do with whatever happened to your mom."

  "You are certain?"

  "I am."

  The phone rang. Sunny handed me her empty cup and I put it in the sink before answering the phone. "Leicester."

  "Ten a.m."

  "Good. Atlantic Aviation by eleven." I hung up.

  "That was short."

  "Hebrone Opshinsky, the one I told you about. He's not long on conversation. He's arriving in New Orleans in the morning. I'm going to fly down in my plane and pick him up."

  "You own an airplane?"

  "A small one."

  "Good, I'll fly down with you."

  "Sorry, it's only a two-seater, besides, it's an open cockpit and the ride would be chilly."

  "We could have used my company airplane, but I sent it back to St. Louis to keep the crew from having to stay in a motel."

  "Yes, your company airplanes. I want to discuss the Upton Pharmaceutical flight department with you when this is over."

  "I'd like that, you being an aviation consultant and all."

  There was a hint of sarcasm in that remark, but I let it slide.

  Putting more wood on the fire, I opened a bottle of vintage Tattinger champagne, and poured two glasses. Sunny accepted the wine, holding it up before the fire, watching the tiny bubbles race to the top.

  "So tell me all about Sunny Pfeiffer."

  "Boring subject. Both parents died, leaving a little girl with a huge company to run. I was Harvard educated, a graduate of Wharton Business School, with a Ph.D. in applied economics. Now I'm trying to find out what happened to my mother. See, boring."

  "That is an extraordinary example of how not to reveal anything of one's self."

  She put both feet up on the couch. I can make out clearly the details of her face from the light of the fireplace, the high cheekbones, hollowed cheeks. Her eyes sparkle like the bubbles in the champagne, and I stare for awhile, taking all of her in. She is beautiful like a wild animal. Too delicate, it seems, for heading up a huge conglomerate. She stares back at me quizzically, and then her face breaks into a wide grin, the whiteness of her teeth startling me.

  Outside, a car door slams, and I look around for the magnum. B.W. jumps up, growls, and heads for his Querencia. I spill my wine getting out of the recliner. Damn, careless, Leicester.

  Rose English walks through the door without knocking. I want to hug her.

  "I saw Shack leave. He's up to speed and on board, I assume?"

  "How about a glass of champagne, Rose?"

  "You got a beer?"

  ***

  Declining an invitation to eat with Rose and Sunny, I sat in front of the fire and sipped on the champagne, watching the flickering flames, and thinking about flying to New Orleans tomorrow to pick up Hebrone Opshinsky.

  B.W. jumped into my lap and let me know it was time to feed him. Finishing the glass of wine, I opted for no more as it would be an early takeoff in the morning. We ate cold, leftover salmon sandwiches and chips, B.W. savoring the fish more than I did.

  Turning on XMRADIO, a freebie that came with a satellite t.v. system my ex-girlfriend insisted we install, I listened to music from the fifties. Gogi Grant sang "The Wayward Wind," followed by Chuck Berry's rendition of "You Can't Catch Me." Then Georgia Gibbs sang "Dance With Me Henry." But when Conway Twitty sang "It's Only Make Believe," I knew it was either get drunk or go to bed. It was fortunate that I had to fly tomorrow.

  Lying in bed, I thought of my Grandmother on my father's side of the family. She was a full-blood Chickasway Indian and we used to have long conversations. She asked me one day when I was still a teenager if I believed in the Bible stories. I said that I did indeed believe in the entire Bible. Then she asked me to explain two things to her: How big was the snake in the Garden of Eden, and if white folks have had the Bible for so long, how come they are not better than they are? I still do not have the answer to those questions. We cannot let life turn into an amoral chaos dis
playing no evidence of a divine authority or any sense of purpose or design, I thought.

  Soon, exhaustion took its natural course, and after a period of wakefulness, I sank into a merciful and restorative sleep that eased the restlessness of thought.

  Chapter Nine

  Dawn broke clear and, thankfully, much warmer. The weather forecast was for calm winds, cloudless skies, with unlimited visibility. A halcyon day for aviators. I dropped B.W. off at Rose's and headed for the airport.

  Preflighting the Stearman, I donned a heavy pair of down-filled coveralls, checked that there was a spare pair for Hebrone, climbed into the front cockpit, and buckled myself snugly into the seat. The four-hundred and fifty horsepower Pratt and Whitney radial engine coughed to life and settled into a deep steady rumble, a sound that has always been magic to my ears. As the engine warmed and all the gauges climbed into the green arcs, I went through the pre-takeoff checklist, lined up on the grass runway, and slowly advanced the throttle. In the cool, clear air of the pristine morning, the Stearman was airborne in less than five hundred feet.

  I stayed low, leveling off at three thousand feet. The higher one goes, the colder it becomes, two degrees per thousand feet, to be exact. Looking down at the brown landscape, I was still overwhelmed by this southern country. The rolling hills, dotted with green pine forests, were as vast as a pale ocean, and the sky stretched forever, sometimes blue, sometimes slate. The many small lakes and ponds, like islands in this sea of brown and green swells, only seemed to emphasize its vastness.

  The GPS navigation system showed a heading of two hundred degrees and one hundred and sixty-five nautical miles to the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, forever referred to by us old aviators as Moisant International, its original name. Abeam Hattiesburg, Mississippi, I could see Lake Pontchartrain, and passing Picayune, Mississippi, could make out the Superdome and the airport. Traffic was light, and I was cleared for a straight in landing on runway one-nine. After a long taxi of constant S-turning – one cannot see forward in an airplane with a tail wheel while on the ground – I parked at Atlantic Aviation and shut down the engine. It was ten-thirty a.m.

  The lineman put chocks around both main wheels, and afforded me the same courtesies he would someone arriving in a thirty million dollar corporate jet. I asked him to top off the fuel tank with aviation gas, and informed him we would be departing as quickly as possible. The fuel truck was pulling up as I walked into the lobby of the FBO.

  Hebrone was nowhere to be seen. I took off the coveralls, went to the bathroom, then paid for the fuel, and sat in a comfortable chair across from a blond woman with a small daughter. The child pulled one end of a Band-Aid loose, looked at the newly forming scab, blew a kiss upon it, and then reattached the end of the bandage. For some reason I'll never understand how that simple gesture by the little girl warmed my heart and made me want to forever fight for the protection of the family unit. It seemed as if that was what life was all about.

  "Leicester, let's get airborne."

  "Hello to you too, Opshinsky."

  Out at the airplane, I handed Hebrone the extra pair of coveralls. "Would you like to fly her back?"

  He smiled and climbed into the front cockpit. I removed the chocks and settled into the rear. We asked for, and received a clearance to runway one zero.

  "November One Juliet Lima would you like an intersection takeoff?"

  "You want to go from the intersection, Hebrone?"

  "I do not. Tell him we will taxi to the end. Runway behind me, altitude above me, and fuel in the ground, all bad things. It's the code I live by."

  "Thanks, Ground, but we'll taxi to the end."

  "Roger. Contact tower on 119.35 when ready."

  "Tower, One Juliet Lima is ready on one zero."

  "One Juliet Lima, fly runway heading, climb and maintain two thousand, squawk 4421. You are cleared for takeoff."

  "Roger, runway heading, up to two thousand, and 4421 on the squawk. Here we go."

  Hebrone advanced the throttle. As soon as the main wheels left the runway, he leveled off and accelerated to one hundred miles per hour. Then he rolled the Stearman upside down and climbed out inverted, both of us hanging from our seatbelts.

  "November One Juliet Lima, thanks for the show. Contact departure on 128.55. Good day."

  We were cleared on course, and at three thousand feet Hebrone leveled off, pulled the power back, and aimed the nose for Union. I made no comment on the inverted climb out, even though if the engine had failed, we both would be dead.

  As we crossed the north shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain, I looked down at the landscape and thought that there are many books written on the warriors in the sky, but I've read little of the joy of flight. For me flying had the effect of transforming hours into minutes, a kind of unlocking of time. We flew on through the sky into the mystery of what was ahead, a knowledge only of the air behind us.

  I switched the radio frequency so that we could monitor Atlanta Center. As we came abeam of Meridian, we heard Atlanta call a TWA flight.

  "TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right forty-five degrees."

  "Center, we are at thirty nine thousand feet. How much noise can we make up here?"

  "TWA 2341, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"

  A different voice, probably the Captain, said, “TWA 2341 is turning right forty-five degrees."

  Hebrone made a smooth landing on the grass strip and we taxied to my hangar and shut down the engine. We sat quietly for a minute listening to the pinging of the cooling metal, smelling the hot oil, and savoring the experience of being aloft.

  Pushing the Stearman into the hangar, we closed the doors, got into my truck and headed for the little cottage in the woods.

  "So how is life in Key West?" I asked, as we drove out of the little airport.

  "I need to know everything about our situation, now. We can discuss my life later."

  I almost laughed, for his response was exactly what I expected. We have known each other for a long time, and have become friends. Hebrone Opshinsky had saved my life on more than one occasion. I have always thought of him as a soldier, for that is what he was during the Vietnam War, and that experience molded him into what he is today, a controlled killer.

  He lied about his age and was inducted into the army at sixteen. Two years later he was a highly trained assassin, adept at getting into and out of Vietnamese villages and army encampments to kill selected enemy targets. He wore no uniform, carried no I.D., and as far as the military was concerned, did not exist. It took years for him to talk to me freely about the experience, but when he finally got to know me and trust our relationship, we would sit for hours and he would tell me many things, though I always felt he left out some events, not for what it would do to him to relive them, but how it may have affected me.

  He said that on some occasions when he was "in-country," everything seemed wrong, nothing you ever learned was true anymore. When you came out – if you did – you couldn't remember. You had to put the killings back together by the rules, and when you did, you ended up with a lie. That's the best you could do, and when you told it, it would still be a lie. He said a soldier fights on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, and the one facing what we do to the enemy.

  I wanted him here with me now, not to protect me, but because of the threats to Rose and Sunny. If Hadley Welch was in fact murdered, then whoever did it would not hesitate to kill again. Shack and I could probably handle the situation, but having Hebrone around made me feel more comfortable.

  "Twenty-five years ago, a Piper Cub took off from a private runway near where my cottage is today, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. No wreckage was ever found, no record of the airplane has surfaced. The pilot was a woman named Hadley Welch, owner of Upton Pharmaceuticals. She left a six-year-old daughter. It is the daughter, whose name is Sunny Pfeiffer, who wants to find out what happened to her mother. A few weeks ago someone sent her an anony
mous letter saying her mother was murdered. We made a few inquiries and were warned off by someone hanging a live coyote from my door facing with a not so polite note attached."

  Hebrone thought for a minute. "Seems simple enough. We find out who sent the letter and they lead us to the animal hanger."

  "My client is a very rich young woman who insists on being in on our investigation. Normally I would not tolerate that, but Rose was a friend to the missing woman, and demanded I let the daughter tag along. We have to be careful not to get her hurt."

  "Inherited the drug company, I assume. Rich people. I once knew a girl in New York worth eleven million dollars and she did her laundry in the toilet bowl."

  "Sunny Pfeiffer, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders."

  "How does her husband figure into this?"

  "She's never married."

  "Then why the different name from the mother?"

  "Seems the mother wanted to take back the family name after the husband died. Something about being easier to run the company. It had belonged to her family, not the husband."

  "Makes sense. So what else you got?"

  "Rose gave me some names of men the Welch woman was seeing around the time of her disappearance. After the death of her husband, who grew up in this part of the country, she dated some locals. I've talked to four of them, plus our old friend, Earl Sanders."

  "Earl? How does he figure into this?"

  "He sold her the PA-18. Taught her to fly. Seems there was a strong attraction between the two, though it was handled openly and up front, nothing ever became of it. Earl talked to Annie, and so did the Welch woman. They vowed it was platonic."

  "Earl would have nothing to do with murder."

  "Love makes people do strange things, Hebrone."

  "Has to be somebody you talked to. Otherwise, they wouldn't have known where to torture the coyote. Tell me about the four men."

  Turning off the highway onto the gravel road that led to the cottage, I said, “One's a local lawyer who came across as up front and cooperative. A banker from Decatur who exhibited some guilt, but that was about paternity, though it could be motive. Then there was a Navy flyboy, retired and living in Meridian. He's the least likely. The fourth is a retired airline pilot. He worked for Earl as a mechanic while on furlough from American. Did the maintenance on the woman's airplane, flew with her, and the two had a fling that lasted a short while. The breakup was ugly. Earl fired him and he moved to Waco, Texas. All this was around the time Welch went missing. We will look hard at this man."