The Underground Lady

by JC Simmons

  ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?

  Or maybe Shack was muttering the "handwriting on the wall?"

  MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

  Or maybe more appropriate would be the French words found on the brass ring of the CSS Alabama's steering wheel, one hundred and eighty feet deep, on the bottom of the English Channel.

  AIDE TOI ET DIEU T'AIDERA

  Bloody welts rose on the back and chest of the huge man, who endured the beating without uttering a sound. Shack was now sweating, his anger growing. He shortened the chain and started to work on the man's head. Henderson's scalp was soon lacerated, blood running into his eyes and mouth. Then Shack went back to the torso. The big man was not talking and Shack was getting close to losing control. I started toward the two. Hebrone put out an arm, stopped me.

  "Give it a little longer. The wolf knows the dreamer who dreams his dreams."

  After one vicious hit, Henderson screamed, “VonHorner – VonHorner." He slumped, unconscious, the noose cutting into his neck.

  Hebrone was there in an instant, slicing through the rope, the big man falling to the ground. At that moment Shack pulled an automatic pistol from his waist, sticking it in Henderson's eye.

  "Stop this, now!" A voice yelled from slightly behind me. "This all must stop!"

  It was Rose English. I had no idea how long she had been there. She went to where Shack was bent over Henderson, his finger on the trigger, hand trembling. Touching his shoulder, she said, “There is a line that if you cross over you can never return."

  Shack moved the gun away, stood, and looked at Rose as if trying to figure out who she was, or why she was here. Then he walked away, into the dark.

  "How bad is he?" She asked Hebrone.

  "He'll live."

  "Jay, you and Hebrone take him to the hospital. I don't care what kind of story you make up, just see that he gets medical attention. You need to call Sheriff Adams."

  "Rose, I…"

  "Leicester, just do it. I'll see that Shack gets home. I'll thank him for saving all our lives."

  We lay Henderson on the back seat of my car, and headed for the emergency room at Laird Hospital in Union. Using my cell phone, I woke Sheriff John Quincy Adams. After hearing the story, he agreed to meet us at the ER.

  From the back seat, Henderson said, “It was nothing personal. I wasn't going to kill anyone, just scare you."

  Hebrone looked at me. "He's a bright boy." Turning to Henderson. "But you're too bright for your own good. You got to learn you can't go around annoying people, especially those who are friends of Shack Runnels. You also need to quit going blissfully through life ignoring the facts of death."

  "You got any ideas on how to explain the wounds on this man?"

  "Not at the moment," Hebrone said.

  "Tell'em I wrecked my motorcycle."

  "Ah, bright boy's gonna play it smart. Okay, we'll tell'em you fell off your bike and since you don't have gravel or dirt in your wounds, we can say we beat you with a chain before we brought you to the medics."

  "Let me get out, I'll roll around in some gravel."

  "The story may work. If it weren't for the lacerations on his scalp that need suturing, we wouldn't have to take him to the ER. The sheriff is going to meet us there, so we don't have to cover up anything."

  "Well, bright boy, you don't have to roll around in the dirt. We'll stick with the motorcycle story for the benefit of the doctors and nurses."

  I thought back to when Hebrone woke me. Things happen when they're supposed too, I guess. Good things and bad. You never know which, so it's good to always be prepared for both. I glanced back at the big man bleeding on my car seat. I've developed a private classification of people, a not exactly scientific taxonomy that I've found useful in working with pilots. It fits nearly all people, though – both neurotic people and so called normal people. According to my private classification people are either bears or squirrels. Henderson is a squirrel who wanted to be a bear.

  At the hospital, the nurses put Henderson on a gurney and wheeled him into a curtained-off cubical. I watched as they cleaned the raw wounds, paying careful attention to the scalp lacerations. Soon a doctor entered. He was tall and lean with thick-lensed glasses, his white coat starched and clean. He didn't look tired, even though it was four thirty in the morning.

  Folding his hands, he leaned over the patient, his magnified eyes moving side to side reminded me of a fish in a tank, watching for predators. "Motorcycle accident…" It wasn't a question, more like a statement. He looked up at me with an intelligence born of years of experience. "You know, people who maim other people should be forced to live with their victims, day after day, and nurse them back to health. Feed them, wipe their drool, bathe them, dress them, help them to the toilet, and clean them afterwards. Bringing and dropping them off at the emergency room is too easy."

  We made no comment. There was nothing to say.

  Hebrone and I went out to my car to wait for Sheriff Adams while Henderson was getting sewn up. I made a half-hearted attempt at wiping up blood on the back seat.

  "Shack did good catching Henderson. Wonder how he knew it would be Rose?"

  Hebrone looked at me. "When you hunt a man, you must know the way of his life. You must know the things he loves, the things he fears, the paths he will follow. You must be sure of the quality of his speed and measure of his courage. He will know as much about you, and at times make better use of it. Know your prey, whatever it may be."

  "We're talking about a cattle farmer, not a trained assassin."

  "Shack pays attention. He grew up in a country where he had too. The two men were friends, remember? The difference between them is one has the instinct, the intelligence. The other is just a big, mean, stupid bully. That's why he's getting his head sewed up and Shack is at home, and you and Rose and Sunny and that black and white cat are safe."

  "You included."

  "Yes, me included."

  Sheriff John Quincy Adams drove up and parked beside my car at the rear of the emergency room. There were no pleasantries exchanged.

  "Give it to me, and do not leave out a thing."

  "Shack Runnels caught Henderson breaking into Rose English's house. He figured, and rightly so, that the man was going to carry out the threats left in the two notes. He brought him to my place, strung him up to a tree and beat him with a chain until he said who hired him. It's a pretty ugly sight, but not life-threatening."

  "What part did you play in this, Hebrone?"

  "Every part."

  "Jesus – you, too, Leicester?"

  "Yep."

  "What's Henderson saying?"

  "That he wrecked his motorcycle."

  "Really?"

  "It was his idea."

  "We got him for animal cruelty, terrorist threats, house burglary, and three or four counts of attempted murder."

  "Sounds about right."

  "You two and Shack, I could charge with kidnapping, aggravated assault, and attempted murder."

  "Sounds about right, again."

  "Let's go take a look at what's left of Henderson."

  The big man had been given a painkiller, his scalp put back together, and he was resting easy, though still awake.

  "Give us a minute," the sheriff asked the nurse. She nodded and exited out of the curtain.

  "So you wrecked your motorcycle?"

  "That's my story."

  "Listen to me, Henderson. You're doing the right thing. I have enough, at the moment, to send you to Parchman for a long time. You know it, and I know it. All this can go away, even the attempted murder charges, if you fully corporate and testify against whoever hired you. Can you understand what I'm offering?"

  "Yeah, but me and Shack, we got a score to settle."

  "No, no retaliation. It all ends now, or the deal is off the table."

  Henderson didn't say anything, closed his eyes as if thinking. Then, "I took a beating."

  "You earned it. The deal is on the table, you
want it or not?"

  "Yeah, I'll take it."

  "Good. When they let you go from the hospital, you will be released into my custody. I'll have a deputy posted here until that happens. You understand?"

  "I understand." He laughed, bitterly, as if all he had ever known of life amounted to little more than a cruel joke.

  The ER Doc said they were going to admit him, do a CT and chest x-ray, but that he should be able to be released in a couple of days if there were no complications.

  Outside the emergency room, we stood beside my car.

  "You people don't know how lucky you are. This could have been a terrible mess."

  "Yeah, John, Henderson could have killed us all."

  He stared at me with an anger that I'd never seen in him before. "One of my deputies will be here in a minute. I'll follow you out to where this occurred."

  "Why?"

  Again, the stare. "If this all goes south, I need to have been at the scene of the crime. More precisely, where Shack Runnels hung a man and damn near beat him to death with a chain. When the drugs wear off, Henderson may decide the beating he took is not worth the deal, or VonHorner may get to him. Does that help explain why?"

  "I guess so."

  The deputy arrived and Sheriff Adams filled him in, then turned to Hebrone. "You ride with me. We'll follow Leicester."

  As we turned off the gravel road onto the terrace row that led to the cottage, the sun exploded like boiling glass up above the treetops. The shadows cast by the rays slanting through the limbs made it seem like everything around us was disappearing.

  The sheriff parked behind me. He and Hebrone got out and we walked upon the porch. Unlocking the door, I said, “I'll make a pot of coffee."

  After putting the coffee on to brew, we walked out back to the leaning post oak. Shack's truck was gone, but there was a dark stain in the sandy soil under the limb where Ralph Henderson hung.

  "Good place to hang and beat a man." The sheriff squatted, scooped a bit of the stained dirt, smelled it. "Seems Henderson lost more than blood." Throwing the dirt back on the ground and wiping his hands together, he said, “Where's this English woman's house? I need to see it and talk with her."

  "A couple of miles to the north. I'll call her, let her know we're coming."

  "Them turkeys or buzzards?" He pointed to the big open field on the other side of the tree line where Hadley Welch's grass runway used to be.

  "Turkeys."

  "Pretty sight. I always love looking at wild things in the woods."

  "There is a pair of binoculars inside if you want a closer view."

  We took our coffee on the porch. John Quincy Adams stood on the south end looking at the flock of birds.

  "I count twenty-one. Can't believe the coyotes don't decimate them."

  "They take their toll, the ones that aren't hanging from my door."

  The sheriff turned and looked at me. "VonHorner's motive for hiring Henderson, you have any thoughts?"

  "If for some reason he caused Hadley Welch's death, and we have no proof that he did, he wouldn't want anyone looking into it. Used Henderson to scare us off."

  "Way I see it, you got a couple of problems. Why did Avis Shaw send the letter to the daughter saying her mother was murdered? What would have been VonHorner's motive for killing her? Where are the body and the airplane?"

  "Anybody want more coffee?"

  "No, let's go see Rose English. Then I want to interview Shack Runnels."

  Chapter Eighteen

  When we arrived at Rose's house, there was an unfamiliar truck parked in the drive. The bed of the pickup looked like a junkyard. I noticed a coil of old hemp rope entangled among old engine parts.

  Rose answered our knock on the door, cleared her throat, and touched the tight bun she had made of her hair. There were streaks of gray through it and doubtless through her heart as well. There would have to be, for her to have endured the past few days and remain as ordered as she seemed. "Come in Gentlemen. You too, Jay." Still Rose, I thought.

  We went into the kitchen where Sunny sat at the table. Her breasts shifted easily beneath her shirt as she turned to look at me, and she caught me admiring them. It seemed to amuse her.

  I made the introductions. Rose had met the sheriff once when he came out to her house campaigning, and Sunny remembered our visit to his office.

  "What's with the truck in the drive?" I asked, as we all sat while Rose poured coffee.

  "It's Henderson's. Shack brought it here. It was parked up by the railroad tracks on a logging road under the power company's right of way. He slithered his way to my house like a snake. Thank God Shack was watching out for us. Did Henderson live?"

  "Yes," John answered. "Says he wrecked his motorcycle."

  "Ha, that's a good one."

  "I know what happened, Miss English. I've seen the tree where it took place. He's not going to press charges and, if he cooperates, I won't charge him with the attempted break-in of your house, or the threats and animal cruelty, if you agree. What we want most, is who hired him and why."

  Rose looked at Hebrone and me. We both nodded. "Fine. Please convey to Mr. Henderson that if he ever shows up at my place again, he's a dead man."

  John Adams laughed. "I will tell him." Turning to Sunny, he asked, “Miss Pfeiffer, do you have anything to add?"

  "Only that if Gerald VonHorner is behind this, he has to have caused my mother's death twenty-five years ago, or at least knows what happened. Where do we go from here?"

  "We wait until Henderson is released from the hospital and tells us what he knows. Until then, I need to talk with Shack Runnels."

  "Let's do it at my cottage. I'll have him meet us there."

  "Okay by me. Nice to see you ladies. Thanks for the coffee. I'll have Henderson's truck towed to our impound lot, get it out of your drive."

  Rose showed us to the door. "You remember, Sheriff, Shack Runnels is no more involved in this than all the rest of us."

  "Yes, I know. Good-day."

  ***

  Shack answered "Yes" and "No" to all of John Adam's questions, not sure of what ground he stood on. I remembered Pythagoras saying that those oldest and shortest words are the two that require the most thought. He was right.

  Sheriff Adams waved hands as brawny as the paws of a bear, his voice now as hoarse as a winter storm roaring out of the northwest. "You cannot go around hanging people from a tree and beating them with a trace chain. It could land you in jail."

  "The man ought not to be making threats among his neighbors. It's not polite."

  John Adams stood. "Well, I guess if there were no bad people, there'd be no good defense lawyers. You were lucky this time, remember that."

  "So what happens now?"

  "I'll let your two friends fill you in. I've got to get to the office. Circuit court starts today, it's a busy time."

  Out on the porch a cowbird made its unusual noise from high up in a sweetgum tree.

  "That's an ugly-sounding bird," John Adams said, opening the door to his police cruiser.

  "Yes," I said. "But the world would be a silent place if only the best birds sang."

  After the sheriff drove away, I watched a squirrel sit in a fire ant bed under the bird feeder. He did not stay long.

  Back inside the cottage, I built a fire, not because it was cold – it wasn't, the temperature was near sixty degrees – but out of habit, and to give me something to do while thinking about the past few hours. Shack sat on the couch, rather subdued, even for him. Hebrone cleaned his fingernails with that strange little penknife I had never seen before. B.W. sat looking at the fire, his tail flicking as if in anticipation of something emerging from the flames he could kill or bully.

  "What did you and the sheriff talk about on the way from the hospital?"

  "How amateurs should not be involved in extracting information from suspects."

  Shack shifted uneasily on the couch, but said nothing and, like B.W., stared at the fire.

&nbs
p; "Anything else?"

  "How everything would have been much simpler if Henderson had been killed and his body disposed of. It seems few people would have cared. An investigation would have been conducted, no body found, no suspects arrested. It all would have blown over."

  Shack started to say something, but didn't.

  Hebrone looked at him. "You're a good man, Shack, but you know you're going to have to kill Henderson. He's not going to let it go. I've known too many like him."

  "I know."

  "I'll do it for you."

  "Thanks for the offer. I can handle Ralph Henderson."

  Hebrone whirled around and looked at me. "How many FBO's on the Meridian airport?"

  "One."

  "That Cessna 182 belongs to VonHorner and Sanders saw fit not to tell you it's based with him? That don't seem strange to you?"

  "Had not thought about it. Annie didn't mention it, either."

  "We need to find out who was flying that plane."

  "Agreed."

  "Did you ask Adams about men to walk your land?"

  "I've been occupied with other thoughts."

  "Well, I asked him. He'll furnish a dozen. They'll be here in the morning at seven. Don't thank me. I do a lot of your thinking. It's why you brought me here from Key West."

  "Anything else I'm supposed to be thinking about?"

  "Yes, we need to take another run at Avis Shaw's widow. The man knew something, and I'm betting he shared it with his wife."

  "Why didn't she tell us the other day?"

  "She'd buried her husband the day before, she could have been scared, or someone got to her. In any event, we need to get her out to Rose's house, away from town, somewhere she'll feel safe. Maybe Rose and Sunny can get her to talk?"

  "It's worth a try."

  "I'm glad you agree."

  Shack stood. "Anything else I can do?"

  "Keep doing what you've been doing. With Henderson out of the picture, we don't know where the threat will come from. Let's not drop our guard now."

  "I'll be in touch later."

  Shack left and I knew that he wanted to talk about his actions with Henderson. He was worried we thought he'd screwed things up. He hadn't, but now was not the time. We were all too tired.