The Underground Lady (30 page)

The black SUV drove slowly and deliberately down the terrace row, past the tree line, and stopped ten yards from where we sat. Gerald VonHorner got out holding what appeared to be an automatic pistol, a Glock, I thought.

He was a handsome, older guy, though in the unremarkable, unmemorable way of a male model. With the deep acne scars, he would leave a pleasing, but fleeting impression. There was something undistinctive about his jaw, his slender mouth, and aquiline nose. Even his eyes were neutral, a hazel that shaded more to gray than green. His voice, as I remember, went with his appearance. He spoke in the uninflected tones of the chronic depressive or the drug induced.

He did not move. He did not smile. He just stood there, looking at us. His face had the quiet, earnest look of a man staring at a question.

Hebrone fingered the trigger on the AK-47. "VonHorner, shoot or don't shoot. But don't argue with yourself."

He looked down at the gun in his hand as if seeing it for the first time. His facial muscles moved abruptly, then the movement vanished, having conveyed no expression. "I didn't come here to shoot anyone. This was just for protection."

He looked up, caught my eye, and would not let go of the stare. He held it, looking me straight in the eyes, and I met his gaze and would not turn away. Before long it was as if neither of us were in the same place. He was somewhere else, another scope of woods, another time, and that's where he was seeing me.

"Put down the gun," Hebrone ordered.

VonHorner turned, laid the pistol on the front seat of the SUV and closed the door. Walking slowly toward us, he said, “I did not shoot Hadley Welch. I did bury her and the airplane, but it wasn't me that shot her."

I did not believe that a human body could change dimensions within one's sight, but I saw the man shrinking in weight, in posture, in form, as if the air was escaping from every pore. What once had been arrogance was suddenly a docile person that could not be a threat to anyone. He looked at me with a strange half-smile of serenity, the serenity of a victory over pain.

We heard the engine before we saw the airplane. It came in low from the south at treetop level. Once it cleared the tree line, it dipped even lower, skimming the tops of the grass like a crop duster. When it approached where we were standing, it pulled straight up, the engine at full power, the propeller screaming. It was a Cessna 182.

"Oh no," VonHorner said, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. "Oh, my God, no!"

The airplane climbed until it ran out of airspeed and momentum, then performed a perfect wing-over and screamed straight down toward us. We stood mesmerized, unable to move. At the last possible moment, the plane pulled out of the dive, skimming the treetops, and flying away in a southerly direction. When it was abeam where the grass runway used to be, the Cessna began another vertical climb. At the top of this one, we watched the nose snap over into a spin. I instantly knew that it was too low to recover from that maneuver. After three turns in the spin, it hit with a thump that shook the ground under our feet where we stood. A fireball and black column of smoke rose into the clear winter sky.

VonHorner sank to his knees. "Kien…"

The sun touched the treetops on the slope of the hill, and they looked a bluish-silver, catching the color of the sky. The bare limbs went from silver to brown to the smoky blue of the sky above. The light trickled down through the branches and shot upward in sudden spurts when it hit a clump of cedar bows that became a fountain of green rays. It was comforting to watch the motion of light over a stillness where nothing else moved except the black column of smoke to the south.

Looking at the man on his knees, I felt that I was tied to some wounded stranger who would suddenly scream from his pain. But I felt no pity for the stranger, only a contemptuous impatience. He made us fight him, and it was not an easy fight.

***

It had been a long three days. Law enforcement, the FAA, NTSB, and the media had been crawling all over my once peaceful utopia. Kien VonHorner's body, or what was left of it after the impact and ensuing fire, was removed, and since we already had a hole dug from the removal of Hadley Welch's body and her Piper Super Cub, they just buried the debris from the Cessna in it.

Determining the cause of the crash was relatively simple, since the Sheriff's deputies following Gerald VonHorner were videotaping him, and they had it all recorded, right down to the moment of impact and beyond.

The
Union Appeal
ran follow-up articles on the Hadley Welch murder, and I had just returned from their office thanking Bill Graham for all that he did to help us. Walking into the cottage, I saw Sunny Pfeiffer sitting in a recliner reading a book. We had a meeting planned for later this afternoon.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, Hi. I'm reading one of your books,
Intruder in the Dust
, by William Faulkner. It's brilliant. It doesn't look like it has ever been read."

"It's a first edition. My reading copy is in the back. I always buy three copies of important books – one to keep, one to read, and one to loan."

She laughed, closing the book. "I think his writing is too intelligent for me."

"I don't believe that, though you do seem more Fitzgerald and Steinbeck, than Faulkner. But Mr. Bill is a hero in this part of the country."

She pointed out the window. "It's starting to rain."

"Another cold front is moving through."

"I hope my plane can get into Philadelphia this afternoon."

"You're leaving tonight, then?"

"As soon as we all get together."

Shack drove up, got out, and ran to the porch, getting soaked.

"Come on in. There's whiskey on the counter."

He poured a drink and sat down with us. "Cows will be standing knee deep in mud if this keeps up for long."

"Is that bad?" Sunny asked.

Shack laughed. "Only for the cows. Where's Rose and Hebrone?"

"Due any moment."

"Them government boys get that hole covered over to suit you?"

"Did a good job."

Rose's pickup pulled up. She and Hebrone got out and came inside just as a heavy downpour started.

Shaking the water off, Hebrone went to the counter and poured a glass half full of whiskey. He stared out the rain-streaked window and took a long drink that shuddered through him. I could tell he was making a long journey while he stood in the kitchen.

Shack fingered his glass, watching Hebrone. "So, VonHorner copped out on everything?"

"Yes, said his then girlfriend shot Sunny's mom because of jealously and the fact that she was going to expose him for the illegal maintenance thing. He would be ruined."

"I don't understand," Shack said. "Hadley Welch had just taken off in her airplane. Why did she come back and land?"

"She evidently saw Kien's vehicle. They drove a yellow Volkswagen van, one of those old ones that looks like a bus. Gerald said she called Hadley and threatened her not to turn him in. Everyone assumes that Hadley spotted the van from the air, and came back and landed. Too bad she just didn't keep flying to Meridian."

"Was Gerald VonHorner with his girlfriend?"

"No, she called him after the confrontation. He came to the landing strip and saw what had happened. It was an amazing coincidence that Avis Shaw's bull dozier and backhoe were on site, and that VonHorner knew how to operate them."

Hebrone came and sat down. "Pulling those wings off was brilliant. Only an aircraft mechanic would think of that."

Rose asked, “How much time will he get out of this?"

"He pled to accessory after the fact. Since he didn't force a trial, the DA cut him a deal. He'll serve three years."

"What if she didn't do it?" Sunny asked. "What if he's blaming it on her?"

"Then he got away with killing your mother. Since Kien VonHorner is dead, we'll never know."

Hebrone took another long pull from his glass. "The Vietnamese do strange things."

"You packed? I'll drive you to Jackson for your flight. Sorry about the long layover in Atlanta."

Sunny asked, “You're going back to Key West?"

"Yes, via Atlanta and Miami. Thanks to Mr. Leicester's bookings, I have three hour layovers in both places."
I watched Sunny thinking.

"My plane is arriving in Philadelphia at six. We'll take you to Key West. I'll call the crew and let them know of the change in plans."

"Thank you. I accept the ride."

Getting up, I went to the phone and canceled the airline reservations.

At five-thirty, Sunny Pfeiffer and Hebrone Opshinsky loaded into my truck and we drove to the Philadelphia airport. Shack and Rose followed in his truck. The rain had eased into a steady, cold drizzle.

The three-engine Falcon-50 Corporate Jet sat on the ramp in front of the airport FBO office, glistening in the rain. The onboard APU was running, making a humming noise. The Captain was sitting in the cockpit, the copilot waited in the lobby of the FBO. A flight attendant stood at the top of the airstair door, waiting boarding of the passengers.

We said our good-byes.

Sunny hugged my neck. "I'll expect you in St. Louis in two weeks to evaluate the flight department."

"I'll be there."

Hebrone shook my hand. "Thanks for the work. I'll tell Smash you said hello and that he missed a good old Mississippi lynching. He'll be thrilled."

"Stay out of Captain Tony's."

We watched the Falcon jet taxi to the end of the runway. Rain began to fall in sheets, the clouds low. Barely able to see the landing lights of the airplane, we watched as it accelerated toward us, rotated, and started to climb. Almost instantly, it went into the clouds and disappeared.

We stood, looking at one another, watching the rain run down the windows of the FBO office, not sure exactly what we should do.

The airport Unicom crackled. "N1SP, Philadelphia Unicom. Miss Pfeiffer bids you adieu. Mr. Opshinsky says to tell you that we broke out on top at 17 thousand with clear skies above."

The girl behind the counter answered. We got in our trucks and drove away. I headed back to a cottage in the woods and a cat named B.W.

Epilogue

I sat on the porch of the cottage holding the big Siamese cat in my lap. I'd just returned from St. Louis, where for two weeks I evaluated the flight department of Upton Pharmaceuticals. Sunny Pfeiffer accepted my recommendations of a complete shakeup of personnel, selling off of old and varied aircraft, purchasing new equipment from one company that would save money, not only on acquisition costs, but on training, spare parts inventory, and maintenance. I showed her where the company could save over a million dollars a year worldwide.

To the south, I watched a red-tailed hawk dive low over the fencerow. Suddenly a black blast of smoke seemed to rise soaring into my memory where it would remain forever and ever. I saw the plane hit the ground again and I would not lose that sight, in whatever peaceful valley, beside whatever quiet and rippling stream, or looking into the faces of innocent children. It will always be there, musing, steadfast, not fading, and not particularly threatening, but horrible and sickening.

That night, I felt strangely calm, and the reason was that I'd experienced the horror that left one so. How long would I be haunted by the shadowy sadness I did not know. I wondered who could explain a world where human words and human bonds and human thoughts had so profoundly failed. I had the feeling of an inexorable tide rising up inside me. My eyes had seen too much death. I had the feeling I'd been just a hollow, hungry, empty man held on earth waiting until the call came, until it was my turn to become one of those failed humans. But in the breast of these woods and this cottage in the middle of God's country, I'd never felt hollow or hungry or empty. I did not understand it, but I knew I was no longer afraid of death. I no longer felt I was half of something but felt whole and finished in my making. I also knew that Rose English, Sunny Pfeiffer, Shack Runnels, Hebrone Opshinsky, and B.W. the cat, remained my friends.

THE END

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The Underground Lady (Book 8 in the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series)
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Check out all 10 books in

The
Jay Leicester Mysteries
Series
by
JC Simmons
:

Blood on the Vine
Some People Die Quick

Blind Overlook
Icy Blue Descent
The Electra File
Popping the Shine
Four Nines Fine
The Underground Lady
Akel Dama
The Candela of Cancri