The Underground Lady (10 page)

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 relationship 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.

"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."