The Underground Lady

by JC Simmons

  ***

  I awoke rested in a pleasant place, an easy place. A place I had chosen for myself. Rolling over in the bed, I noticed the smell of the air that was sometimes dusty, sometimes flowery, depending on the humidity. If the window was open, the way the curtain fluttered seemed like the skirt of a young woman walking. There is a validity in the premise of the importance of place.

  After a quick shower, I drove to Rose's. We had a meeting with Avis Shaw's widow this morning. As I hoped, Shack was there, and I gave him the file from the FAA to read. B.W. sat in Sunny Pfeiffer's lap at the kitchen table, causing me a pang of jealously. I thought of black stockings and legs that transcended flesh and became art. Made me hold my breath and held me riveted by her boldness.

  She looked up at me and smiled. "Jay, isn't this weather wonderful?"

  "Yes, we never have bad weather in the south, just inappropriate clothing."

  Rose laughed. "Okay, boys and girls, let's get going. The widow lady awaits."

  Avis Shaw's widow, Opal, invited us inside the modest home. She was a neatly dressed, silver-haired lady, small of stature, and weighing less than a hundred pounds. Though obviously poor, her house was neat and clean. She offered coffee and calmly asked why we were here.

  Rose introduced us all and after the ritual of condolences for the loss of her husband, said that Sunny's mother had disappeared twenty-five years ago, and that recently Avis had sent a letter saying he knew she had been murdered.

  Opal Shaw put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, my goodness. I don't know anything about this. What did you say her name was?"

  "Hadley Welch," Rose answered. "She lived on the farm next to mine. Owned a business up in St. Louis, and flew her own airplane."

  "Her own airplane, yes, I remember that. Avis did some dirt work for her, built a pond levee, and cleaned off some creek banks. He talked about the airplane. It was so unusual in this part of the country. I think he even did some grading on her landing strip. But that was a long time ago."

  "He sent me a letter a month ago," Sunny said. "Did he know he was ill, Mrs. Shaw?"

  "Yes, it was his heart."

  "Do you know a man by the name of Gerald VonHorner?" I asked.

  "VonHorner? No, and I never heard Avis mention him."

  "What about Peter Pushkin, the bank president from down at Decatur?"

  "Oh, yes, a nasty man. We had to sue to get our money for some work."

  "Your husband never mentioned Pushkin and the Welch woman having anything to do with each other?"

  "He would have no reason to know about anything like that."

  "The lawyer Charles Collinswood helped you get your money from Peter Pushkin?"

  "He's a nice man. I never heard anything about the missing woman, your mother or any other man." She looked at Sunny.

  "Two more names, Mrs. Shaw – Raymond Spruance or Earl Sanders. Do either of these names ring a bell?"

  "I've never heard of either of them."

  "One last thing, do you have any idea why your husband would send a letter to this woman saying her mother was murdered?" I pointed to Sunny.

  She looked at Sunny, and tears formed in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, my husband was very ill in the last year of his life. I wish I could offer some explanation, but I can't."

  We left Opal Shaw to her grief.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As we passed the turnoff to the airport, I saw a Cessna 206 pass low overhead on a base leg for landing. "That's Earl Sanders and his mechanic. We'll drop you ladies off at the house and come back to the airport."

  On the way from Rose's, Shack said, “I heard you had a little problem yesterday. Sunny said you lost some oil?"

  "Someone sabotaged my airplane, poured water in the oil tank. It turned to steam and blew the cap off, siphoning six gallons of oil out in less than a minute."

  Shack didn't say anything. I could see him in the rearview mirror scratching his chin and looking out the window.

  "Shack…?"

  "My friend, Ralph Henderson, was a mechanic in the Army, worked on helicopters."

  We pulled into the airport. Earl and his mechanic were standing beside the Stearman.

  "You don't have locks on these hangar doors?"

  Earl introduced his mechanic, whose name was Aaron Crosby. I did the same with Shack and Hebrone.

  While the mechanic, with Shack watching with interest, flushed out the oil tank and poured in fresh oil, Earl, Hebrone, and I stood off to the side.

  "I know you had to wonder, Jay, for obvious reasons, but I would never do something like this to you, even if I had killed Hadley Welch – though I did not."

  "It embarrasses me to say it, but yes, your name came up, among others. If, for one second, I thought you were capable of this, you wouldn't be here."

  "I understand."

  "You have to admit, it is an unusual way to screw up an engine."

  Earl crossed his arms, scuffed the ground with a toe. "No, not really. I've known of a couple of cases, and my mechanic is well aware of the consequences of water in the oil tank."

  Hebrone said, “I learned in the seventies."

  "Why does everybody but me know about this?"

  "It might be that you don't like to get dirt under your nails, bend wrenches?"

  "I never could understand why anyone would rather work on them, than fly'em. Or strap on a parachute and jump out of a perfectly good running airplane."

  "We're ready to run it," the mechanic hollered.

  After five minutes of running the engine with the mechanic making me nervous standing behind the spinning propeller examining the radial engine, he motioned for me to shut it down.

  "There are no leaks. We brought a portable air-compressor. It will take about an hour to run a compression check to see if there was any damage to the cylinders. I don't think there is, but it really should be done. I'm going to need some help."

  "I'll be happy to lend a hand," Shack offered.

  "Me too," Hebrone said. "Why don't you give Earl a look at your farm? Introduce him to Rose. Everybody needs to know her."

  "Good idea. We'll be back in an hour or so."

  Rose was cordial to Earl, but standoffish. She'd heard his name mentioned not only by Hadley Welch, but also as possibly being involved in our engine problem. Sunny was friendly.

  Later, at the cottage, Earl said, “I've got to bring Annie up here. She would love this place."

  "Great. If you fly, I'll pick you up at the airport. We'll grill some red meat, and let you enjoy the country life."

  "What happened to Hadley's home? I saw it from the air many times. It looked like a nice house."

  "Rose said it burned, not long after she went missing. You really didn't have an affair with her, did you?"

  "It was tempting. We were both attracted to each other, but I loved my wife too much to jeopardize our relationship."

  "Yeah, that's what Annie told me. She said you even talked about it, as did Hadley. I admire that in you, old son."

  Earl looked strangely at me. "They ought to be through with the compression check by now."

  The mechanic pronounced the Pratt and Whitney 450 horsepower radial engine fit for duty. They loaded up their equipment and prepared to leave.

  "I won't charge you for the new oil cap, but the rest, you'll get a bill."

  "I'm going to hold you to bringing Annie up for a few days of country living."

  "It's a promise."

  We watched the Cessna 206 take off from the little grass runway. "Please, God, do not let his man be involved with anything bad concerning Hadley Welch," I said to myself, as we headed for the little cottage in the woods.

  Shortly before we turned off the blacktop onto the gravel road leading to the cottage, my cell phone rang.

  "Jay, it's John Adams. My daughter just called with the ballistics on the S&W Combat Masterpiece. It's clean. Originally purchased by a Meridian police officer named Moulds, in sixty-nine. There were three sets of prints on the weapon;
Gerald VonHorner, Opshinsky's, and a woman by the name of Kien Phuong, D.O.B.: 29 April, 1957. Last known address was Port Lavaca, Texas. She has no record."

  "Why was she fingerprinted?"

  "First time was by INS. Applied for citizenship. She and her parents immigrated from Saigon. There is a large community of Vietnamese in Port Lavaca, it's a big shrimping area."

  "The second time?"

  "Routine job application as a flight attendant with American Airlines."

  "Okay, High Sheriff, thanks for the info."

  "My pleasure. Keep me in the loop."

  Shutting the phone off, I told Hebrone and Shack what John Adams found out.

  "VonHorner met Kien at American Airlines. It could have been during the time he was involved with the Welch woman. He probably bought the pistol from the Meridian policeman while working for Sanders during his furlough. Gives us good reasons to keep both of them on the radar."

  Hebrone was right. Everything pointed to VonHorner. The question is what could he have done to Hadley Welch, what was his motive, and where are the body and airplane? Besides doing background checks on Collinswood, Pushkin, and Raymond Spruance for mechanical aptitude, which really didn't matter, as they could have hired someone to pour water in my oil tank, there wasn't much left to do. We had to be careful, though. There could be a fallacy in the assumed premise.

  "Shack, we need to talk with Ralph Henderson."

  "He should be back tomorrow."

  As we pulled into the driveway, Rose and Sunny were making themselves at home on my porch. B.W. was playing in the cypress glider, rolling over and over like some big kitten.

  "Did you get your little put-put fixed?" Rose teased.

  "We did."

  "I've made reservations for us all up at the Big Ball for tonight. It's time we did something different."

  "I hate that place, Rose."

  "Hebrone and Sunny haven't eaten there, and Shack's wife needs a break from the routine."

  "Sorry, we have plans. Friends are coming over," Shack smiled.

  "I'm going to check with your wife."

  "I know, Rose, but it's the truth."

  "Okay," Rose said, getting up to leave. "Pick us up at six thirty, Jay. You two wear them coats and ties."

  ***

  There are no windows in a casino. No clocks or newspapers. It is hard to tell what city you are in. You could be in Las Vegas, or Reno, or Biloxi, and still find the same pastel-colored furniture and piped-in music, the same bottled water and strips of paper on the sterilized toilet seat. No pine trees or fresh cut hay. No smell at all. Dice tables, poker tables, and slot machines in all forms and coinages dominate the floor, with the only way to the check-in counter or restaurants leading through the maze.

  Pushing the button for the elevator that would carry us up to the restaurant, I looked at Sunny Pfeiffer, and at that instant her eyes caught mine and flickered from my shoulders to my waist and again to my face. She followed Rose and Hebrone into the elevator decisively but gracefully, as though she had practiced the movement in front of a mirror. I followed her high, slim shoulders and tight-sheathed hips as she stepped inside. I envied the men who had warmed themselves, or been burned, by that secret electricity. When I was around her, I felt it was another way to describe being lost, without the impulse to remember where you came from. I wondered if her mother had been like her.

  The elevator door opened onto the Galaxy Restaurant located inside the huge Golden Moon atop the casino with a three hundred and sixty-degree panoramic view of Neshoba and Newton County. It is one of the southeast's most unique dining experiences, but what keeps it from being rated "Five Star," in my opinion, are two simple things – noise and cigarette smoke. One has to remember, though, this place is first and foremost a gambling casino.

  We were seated at a table that was half booth and half chairs, very plush with a spectacular view. The sun was just touching the horizon, and the air was clear, clean, and as crisp as frozen steel.

  "Wow," Sunny said. "This is some view. And out in the middle of the southern woods. Who would have imagined?"

  The fading light, caught perfectly on her face, framed an expression like a child's. She closed her eyes, and seemed to shudder, then she opened them, and for a moment she was coming back from a long way away. Then she smiled.

  Rose said, "I once had a creative writing teacher who taught that one should never try to write about a sunset. It is an affront to God, and the writer is bound to fail. The most skillful arrangement of words is an embarrassment when compared to the actual event." She looked at me. "You should have been a writer, Jay. You possess all the characteristics of one – outsideness, displacement, and alienation."

  Sunny laughed. "Boy, she's got you pegged."

  Hebrone saved me from making an ass of myself. "Too bad Shack and his wife couldn't make it."

  "Yes," Rose said. "They are good people, and good neighbors. I like him because what he does not understand, he suspects, and what he suspects, he fights."

  "He could be compared to a shark. Zeros in on his target and attacks to the exclusion of all else," I said. Only Hebrone got the analogy.

  "Kind of reminds me of Jay," Rose said. "Strong, durable, trusted protection and discretion."

  Sunny laughed. "I think she just compared you to a tampon."

  We all laughed.

  The sun set below the horizon and lights began to twinkle across the countryside. People filled the restaurant, and the noise increased. Our waiter showed as if biding time for the sun to go down, reminding me of Key West where the whole island pauses and then applauds that event.

  Rose looked at the waiter and pointed at me. "He's the wine expert, so we will let him do the ordering for all of us."

  I picked a bottle of champagne and an assortment of hors d'oeuvres, waiting to see who wanted what to eat before choosing the dinner wine.

  "So, Sunny, why has some man not seriously tried to steal your heart?"

  "There was one that came close, but he decided he didn't like me."

  "Why didn't he like you?"

  "He liked the way I looked," she said. "He mistook that for me."

  "I'd have made the same mistake."

  "Sure, you're a man."

  Rose laughed. "She has you figured out, also."

  Hebrone and Sunny ordered fish, Rose and I red meat, so I ordered a bottle of Chardonnay and a bottle of Pomerol, both outstanding vintages at amazingly low prices for a restaurant. The food, wine, and company were excellent. The noise and cigarette smoke still a problem.

  I sat for a moment enjoying the complex nose of the Pomerol, my mind drifting.

  "What are you thinking, Mr. Leicester?" Sunny asked, with a slight condescending smile.

  Laughing, I answered, “There was a Russian-born physicist by the name of George Gamow, who had developed theories of stellar evolution. His girlfriend asked him that same question one night. He answered, ‘I’m the only person in the world right now who knows how the sunshine works.' Well, I'm probably the only person in this 'Big Moon' who is wondering what happened to a woman named Hadley Welch twenty-five years ago."

  "You want to know what I think?" Rose said. "I think there is a decline in this country's biological fitness. There is increased criminal behavior, a loosening of moral values and a consequent rise in venereal disease. Look at AIDS. Political and religious restlessness is increasing. Some congressman wanted to use the Koran to take the oath of office, for God's sake. No pun intended. Look at the huge outcry at the homosexual Senator and the Pages. Even the cause of the anti-abortion movement used zealots to blow up clinics. Then there is urban decay and industrial squalor. I fear for our biological fitness."

  "You have a solution to this problem?"

  "Maybe we should breed people like Shack does his cows?"

  "Surely you don't suggest eugenics as a cure for your 'Biological' problem?"

  "Maybe – within the framework of other things."

  "I've got a th
ought for you – Hitler? The Nazis claimed that the Aryan was a distinct and superior form of humanity destined to rule over 'sub-humans.' You saw how that came out."

  "But you get my point. We have a problem and it needs fixing."

  Hebrone raised his glass. "You know what I think? Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is precious. More white wine, please."

  Rose was right, the trip to the casino restaurant was a good diversion.

  Dropping the three off, I waited in the driveway until Hebrone gave me a thumbs-up that everything was okay, then drove to the cottage. Stepping out of the car, I was at once enveloped by the dewy freshness of the moonlit night. It was beautiful with nothing evil on the horizon. It was just another fine southern night.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke to the sound of an engine running. It took me a moment to realize that it was a small airplane circling the cottage. Getting out of bed, I headed for the door only to become aware that I had no clothes on. Returning to the bedroom, I slipped into a pair of pants, grabbed the binoculars, and went out on the porch. The little airplane was disappearing over the trees to the north. It was high-winged and fixed geared, most likely a Cessna. Why would they be low, circling my place at seven a.m.? The Tax Assessor uses small aircraft to see if anyone has built new structures on their property in the county. Timber companies survey forest tracts with them. Some contractors use them to scout for building sites, and then there is the local sightseer, kind of like Hebrone and I were the other day when the oil cap blew.

  Now, the airplane returned and circled low to the west over my back eighty. It was too far away to see the "N" number – A number used for identification required on all aircraft. In a few minutes, it went away.

  After a shower, and while sipping my second cup of coffee, I called the airports in Philadelphia and Newton. Neither had any airplanes departing or landing this morning. No one answered at the Forest airport. Dialing the control tower in Meridian, I got Paul Bradford, the tower chief. He promised to check the logs and call me back.