Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2) (2 page)

Mike sat down at his desk and pushed aside a thick book on Karl Doenitz, the head of the Nazi submarine forces, part of his research for the Thunderbolt exhibit. He picked up the phone.

“Hello, Billy,” he said, trying to sound like he welcomed the call.

“You’ve been busy.” Billy’s voice always seemed like a man who was looking over everyone’s shoulders in a poker game, a man who knew what each player had. To Mike, the tone of his voice suggested more, that Billy thought he was a little bit smarter than anyone else.

“I’ve been watching the Museum cash flows,” said Mike, hoping to pre-empt Dulany’s usual warnings about spending too much money. “I knew the money was all right for a while so I didn’t call you. I just wanted to get this exhibit finished.”

“How’s the exhibit going?” asked Billy.

“We’re ahead of schedule,” replied Mike.

“Good,” said Billy, cheerily. “You can fill us in at the next board meeting. Tell you why I called. Do you know Jesse Lawson?”

“The same Lawson who was accused of spying for the Soviet Union?” said Mike.

“This one is that guy’s grandson,” said Billy.

“How come you’re mixed up with him?” asked Mike.

“You can’t blame a kid for his parents, Mike. He’s the biggest depositor in the bank. Makes a lot of money doing harvesting for the farmers in Maryland.”

 “Why should I care about Jesse Lawson?” asked Mike.

 “You’re going to know him a lot better,” said Dulany.

 Mike replied quickly. “The Museum’s not taking any of his money, if that’s what you’re suggesting. No way. I heard my father say many times that the grandfather was the worst kind of person, selling out his country. I couldn’t let the Museum do any business with that family.”

“You already are,” said Dulany.

“What have you got us into?” said Mike, his voice a little higher in tone.

Billy paused then said, “Remember when you were out in the ocean a few months ago and called me at home, all excited about what you were finding? You insisted that you had to finish the job at all costs.”

“Yeah,” said Mike, “But I didn’t mean dealing with a traitor’s grandson.”

“It was his grandfather who got into trouble, Mike, not Jesse. Your exact words were to get the money wherever I could so long as it was legal. Jesse was in my office the next day and I mentioned it to him. Turns out Jesse offered to put up the whole amount.”

Mike let out his breath, knowing he was trapped.

Billy continued, “I worked out the best deal I could for the Museum. Remember, I am your chairman.”

“I thought the bank put up the money,” Mike said weakly.

“It did, but Jesse cosigned,” said Billy.

Always covering your ass, Billy, Mike thought. Then he said, “So does he want his money back now?”

“Not right away,” Billy replied. “Jesse suggested though that since he’d done this favor for the Museum that maybe you could do him one in return.”

“What’s that?” said Mike, dreading Dulany’s answer.

Billy hesitated, then said, “He asked me that since you’ve found the other salvage, since you have such great expertise, maybe you would consider looking into his grandfather’s crash.”

“The hell,” Mike shouted into the phone. “The Museum is not going to get involved with traitors.”

“Mike, you really have no choice,” said Dulany in his steady banker’s voice.

“What?” Mike was still excited.

Billy talked slowly. “The way we structured the loan, Jesse owns the P47. Let’s not get him angry. He has the right to sell it to another museum to get his money out.”

“Is he threatening us?” asked Mike.

“No, Mike, he’s been very accommodating about the loan.”

“We’ll pay him out,” said Mike.

“With what?” asked Billy.

Billy had him there. Mike knew he wouldn’t have any payback for months.

“I’d like to smack this Lawson,” said Mike.

“If you’re that pissed off, come over to the bank and smack me. It’s my fault.”

“Maybe I’ll do that,” said Mike. Dulany knew he would too.

Mike went on, “Do you realize, Billy, that not only is Lawson a household word for treason but no aviation company or foundation will speak to us if we get involved with him? They hate his grandfather for what he tried to do to the country. You know we get a lot of money from the industry. Take Aviatrice for example. They give us money every year and always have. Lawson was accused of stealing their secret airplane. They’ve never got over it.”

Billy was patient. “Aviatrice donations, like the rest of the corporation gifts, don’t start to cover the loans of the Museum. You’ve been after all those people for several years. They don’t give enough, Mike. “

Mike replied, “If my father were alive, he’d tell you. Aviatrice was really hurt by the man. It was their project, worth millions of dollars that Lawson took to the bottom of the ocean.”

“Look, Mike. It’s on your plate. The museum is not the highest priority on my desk. I am doing the best I can for you. You got to help me out. Do something. Look into it. When you find out you can’t do anything for Jesse, he’ll understand.”

Mike thought about his father. If he had still been alive, the old man would have moved his head back on his big shoulders, looked at Mike with a no nonsense stare from his rangy face and said, in a chastising voice, “Boy, you just got handed the job of changing Billy Dulany’s underwear for him.”

“Billy,” Mike said, “You’re telling me that with all the problems I have in getting recognition and respect and money from corporations like Aviatrice, and with a new project that is taking all the time we can put into it, I’ve got to sneak around behind the back of the aircraft industry and work for the one family that they all despise.”

“I don’t see it that way. Jesse is one of my best customers,” said Billy, defensively.

“This is as close to a disaster as the Museum has ever had,” Mike said.

Billy paused, then added, “Jesse is expecting you to talk to him tomorrow at his company.”

“What in hell am I supposed to say to him?” asked Mike.

“You’ll think of something,” said Dulany as he hung up.

Mike looked out his office window. He slid open the worn glass panel and looked through the rusty screen. Outside, one of the retired docent fliers who volunteered at the museum was guiding a small group. Mike counted the visitors. Only five in this group. Not enough admission fees to pay the day’s electric bill. Mike glanced across the tarmac at the exhibit planes. He saw the biplane first with its red and white checkered wings and for a moment he felt sadness as he remembered Robin, and how she loved to loop that plane for the tourists. The plane actually belonged to her. He missed her. His eyes moved on. Beyond the stunt aircraft was the big DC3 and the two small single engine trainers. His father had picked them up at a government salvage sale, but he had never raised enough money to keep their old engines in flying condition. As a matter of fact, Mike had finally paid off that loan. The Douglas DC3 was a crowd pleaser, but all the little kids walking through its passenger compartment had seriously worn the flooring panels. Behind the planes was the Museum hanger, constructed by the Navy during World War Two to repair bombers used against German submarines. He remembered being a little boy and watching his father and two of the mechanics painting the letters on the hanger. They were high up off the ground on scaffolding proudly brushing on the great black letters that stretched across the metal panels, proclaiming that this was the Museum of Historic Aviation. Those letters were fading, and he and Jeremy would have to get up there soon and repaint them.

Mike waved through the window at the visitors. His face didn’t show anything, but he knew the Museum and everything he had worked for, everything for which all of them had sweated, would be in a first class crisis by undertaking this unwelcome Lawson project.

Chapter Two

12 Noon, June 29

River Sunday, Maryland

River Sunday was located halfway down the Eastern Shore of Maryland, more than a hundred miles south from the Museum. Mike had flown over this area, mostly farm country, in the red checked Stearman biplane with Robin at the controls. He never flew himself, hadn’t for years, even though he was fully checked out on instruments and in two engine aircraft. Robin, he thought warmly, God love her, had tried so many ways to get him back into flying. He missed her. She had packed up one morning and had left. That was nearly two months ago. She said she had to get away so she went parachuting with a contest team in California.

The Eastern Shore was an orderly country of green farms and woodlands interrupted regularly by black highways, towns with white buildings, and many rivers, or creeks as the natives called them, running west into the Chesapeake Bay. River Sunday, itself, was a tourist town with a pretty harbor filled with expensive yachts from Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

Mike found Jesse Lawson’s company building in a prosperous industrial park just outside River Sunday. The one story cinder block structure was modern and well kept, a substantial improvement over his own museum structures. He parked in an empty space near a green and red, mud spattered tractor and a current model Mercedes sedan, its new black paint barely visible under heavy streaks of road dust.

A Chesapeake Bay Retriever sat in the shady doorway of the office watching Mike as if he were an intruder. Directly above, a tall microwave radio antenna stretched vertically from the roof. Behind the building were the sounds of a repair garage. Mike heard the clanks of wrenches and a car radio broadcasting the persistent sobs of a Reba MacIntyre ballad. He listened as one man slowly explained in a drawl to some unseen coworker the best way to pull a cracked gear from a rusted transmission. To Mike’s right, at the side of the building, a shiny Peterbilt truck was idling, ready to transport a muddy tractor and row cultivator on the lowboy in back. Over the door, a small neat white sign stated Lawson Harvesting Company, River Sunday, Maryland, in blue letters.

Inside, away from the sunlight, the room was poorly lit but cooler. Two young women rustled at their desks doing accounting work. An air conditioner whined, water dripping into a small puddle below it on the floor. In a small side room, another woman, this one overweight and in a dress that was too small, sat at a table covered with speakers and radio gear and operated a microphone connected to a large transceiver. She was finishing a call about delivering the cultivator that was parked outside. Just as she signed off, Mike heard the Peterbilt start up, and the gears shift as the driver moved the rig out to the road.

“Jesse Lawson?” Mike asked the radio operator.

She lifted her earphones to hear him, he repeated his question, then she smiled and pointed to a back office where a door was open. Inside a man about Mike’s age, his face heavily tanned, was talking on the telephone. The moment he saw Mike, he waved him in. Mike entered and stood by a chair in front of the man’s desk. The man quickly finished his conversation, hung up the phone and reached across to shake Mike’s hand.

“Mike Howard,” Mike said.

“Glad to meet you. I’m Jesse.”

“Yessir,” said Mike, sitting down.

Jesse leaned back in his chair and played with the deeply stained sweat band of an old straw hat. “I appreciate you coming down to see me, Mike,” he said slowly. Mike noted the emblem on Jesse’s shirt, an expensive monogram from a top Baltimore men’s store.

“My father’s old hat,” Jesse said, eyeing Mike.

 He tossed the hat on his desk and leaned forward, “I know you don’t have a lot of time, Mike, so I’ll tell you how I see us.” Jesse spoke aggressively with his head forward, like a man familiar with command of the people around him.

“Us?” asked Mike.

“I think we’re both fucked. I don’t like being fucked. I don’t think you do either. I’d like to change that, Mike. That’s why I need your help.”

“You caused me to be fucked,” said Mike.

“Mike, you ran out of money. That’s what caused your problem. I just happened to be there for a guy like Dulany to tap.”

Mike replied, “Looking for the airplane your grandfather stole from Aviatrice is not going to help me.”

“I can understand that,” said Jesse. His eyes showed Mike he had some concern.

“I don’t think you get it,” said Mike. “Aviatrice Corporation gives us a lot of our funding.”

“You’re afraid of that company, aren’t you?” asked Jesse.

Mike shook his head. “No, but we treat them with respect. They are one of our major contributors and have been for years. I just don’t want to run into any trouble with them.”

“If they pull their support, let’s just say, because you help me, then you go bankrupt?” Jesse persisted.

“You have good information,” said Mike, with a grimace. He wished that Dulany had kept his mouth shut about the Museum finances.

“Do you know the story about my grandfather, Mike?”

“Not a lot. I did some work on the coordinates of the wreck, that’s all.”

Jesse, tensing, said, “Let me relate to you the story most people seem to believe. It’s the one I memorized when I was a kid. It goes like this. My grandfather, Captain Edward Lawson, had been in charge of the Aeronautical Testing Laboratory of the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, a secret engineering lab established by the US Navy in the Nineteen Thirties to test prototype aircraft. Aviatrice was in on these projects. On the evening of July 4, 1946, he cleared out all the top secret designs from his laboratory safes. Then he set a timer to blow up the lab and went outside to the airfield. He stole a top secret experimental seaplane which normally required a seven man crew, and flew it all by himself, out into the Atlantic. The Navy suspected he was attempting to deliver the plane and classified research he had stolen from the lab to a Soviet battleship that was cruising to New York for a United Nations meeting. According to the Navy, the only thing that saved the country’s secrets was the fact that the plane crashed and my grandfather was killed before he got to his destination. The pieces of the plane, his body, all but a few of the missing documents, were never found. A raft came ashore a few days later with part of his bloodstained uniform in it and the pockets stuffed with some of the secret papers.”