The Underground Lady (23 page)

"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.

"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.

"I'm going back to Rose's and get some rest. I suggest you do the same."

"Tell Rose I'll come for dinner."

"I'm sure she'll be delighted."

By all rights, I should be exhausted, but I did not feel tired. Going to the glassed in bookcase, I pulled out a first edition copy of Hemingway's
For Whom the Bell Tolls
, sat in front of the fire, opened the book and read the first sentence.

He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees.

Gently closing the book, I suddenly remembered the entire story, and marveled at the genius of the man. I shut my eyes, and wondered where ideas come from. The genesis of any original insight is something of a mystery. Your mind is well prepared, often through years of thought, and a multitude of factors bring them to a point, some personal, some intellectual, some circumstantial, some impossible to articulate, others deeply social and political. From all this comes Hemingway's two characters making love on the ground in time of war, and the earth moving. Amazing.

Opening my eyes, I realized I'd been asleep. The fire was only coals, and the clock read four thirty. Taking a quick shower, I headed for Rose's house with B.W. in tow. The sun was setting below the treetops, and the light had that evening look caught between gold and silver, finally fading away leaving the land blue and cool and silent.

Rose had untied the bun, and with the loosening of the hair, her mood seemed to improve. She was almost jolly. Even Sunny seemed happy.

The meal was simple country fare, fried pork chops, a squash casserole, and candied yams, served with unsweetened tea so dark and strong it could erode tooth enamel.

"I'm sorry about suggesting that we stop the inquiry into my mother's disappearance. I've decided there's too much to gain to lose."

"You are a fan of gospel music, are you?"

"Not really. Why do you ask?"

"Too much to gain to lose, that's an old Dottie Rambo song."

Rose laughed. "Jay's ex-girlfriend was a gospel music lover, played it all the time, t.v., radio, CDs. The girl loved Bill Gaither."

"Hebrone and I think we should talk with Avis Shaw's widow again," I said, hoping to quickly change the subject. "Maybe we can bring her out here, to your house. Her husband knew something and Hebrone thinks he told his wife. You and Sunny could make her feel comfortable, get her to reveal whatever it could be."

"Yes, we could try."
"The sheriff is sending out some deputies and trustees in the morning to help walk my back eighty. We need all the bodies we can get. You two want to take a stroll through some fine forest?"

"I do," Sunny spoke up.

"Me too," Rose echoed. "Call Shack, he needs to come along. Especially now."

"I'll extend the invitation when I get back home tonight."

"He needs to know what he did is okay, not necessarily right, but not totally disapproved of by us."

Hebrone laid his napkin on the table. "Shack has no fear. I like that in a man. Fear is an acid. Everything it touches it corrodes. It eats through the smooth, glistening surface of things, and the mark it leaves is indelible. In the cockpit of an airplane, it can be disastrous. In war, whole countries can be lost."

Sunny looked at Hebrone as if seeing him for the first time. "You were afraid in Vietnam?"

"Every second of every day."

"We will try and set something up with the widow after the walk-about tomorrow. Everybody be at my place by seven a.m. B.W. and I will be off, now. Thanks for the meal, Rose, old girl."

"Invite yourself anytime," she replied, with a skewed smile that let me know we were good friends.

Sunny walked me to the door, scratched B.W. under the chin. "I'm still thinking about that straight flush. Did you ever figure out how to bet that hand?"

"I'm still looking at the cards."

"Maybe we should play poker someday."

"Yes, maybe we should."

"Goodnight, Mr. Leicester."

"'Night, Miss Pfeiffer."

On the way back to the little house in the woods, I thought about love. That feeling, I had it once, but it's gone. Will it, like youth, never return? Or will it come with another experience? I've learned that you can't stop the rain from falling down.

Shack seemed happy that I wanted him to help in the morning, and promised to be there.

On an impulse, I called Earl Sanders. He answered on the first ring. "Why did you not tell me Gerald VonHorner had a Cessna 182 based with you?"

"He doesn't."

"Paul Bradford says he does."
"Jay, there are ten T-hangars that the city owns located on the east end of the field. We have nothing to do with them. But I did know he kept an airplane in one. It never crossed my mind to tell you about it. Why does this interest you?"

"He flew low over my place yesterday, obviously looking for something."

"I covered that area twenty-five years ago. There's nothing to see. Are you sure it was VonHorner flying the plane?"

"Why would it be anybody else?"

"His wife is a pilot."

"The Vietnamese woman?"

"Yes, she learned when they lived in Texas. I've given her a biennial flight review. She's pretty good at the controls."

"I'll be… Thanks, Earl."

"Jay, I've told you that I had nothing to do with Hadley Welch going missing. You need to quit wasting your time worrying about me. I'm not your enemy."

"Yeah, I know. Look, nose around, see if you can find out who took that flight?"

"I'll be in touch."

***

I woke at six a.m. to find Shack sitting quietly on the front porch. The temperature was cool, the sky clear. Ground fog filled the hollows, casting a ghostly shadow across the land.

"You're early. Come inside, coffee's plugged in. I have some work to do on the computer."

He came in and played with B.W. while I dressed and ran off copies of a satellite image of the eighty acres we were to walk over this morning. I added a photo of the PA-18 to the bottom of the page simply to emphasize the fact that we were looking for the wreckage of an airplane.

A van pulled into the drive to the cottage followed by Rose's truck with Hebrone and Sunny. Two deputies got out, accompanied by ten jail trustees dressed in black and white wide-striped pants. I passed out the copies depicting the rectangle of land to be covered.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking for the remains of a small aircraft that may have crashed in the area twenty-five years ago. It will look nothing like the photo on your handout. What you may find is some metal tubing, engine parts, or human bones. We will spread out along the east end of the rectangle, walk all the way to the west boundary, turn around and return to our starting point. There are three spring-fed creeks with deep ravines that you will have to maneuver around as best you can. The land has heavy undergrowth, but since it is still winter, you shouldn't have much trouble, except for the massive clumps of briars in the open fields. Do the best you can. If you find anything, sing out. Okay, let's load up and we'll drive over to the starting point."