The Underground Lady (25 page)

***

At four o'clock my phone rang.

"Get up to my house now. You need to hear what Opal Shaw has to say."

Hebrone and I were there within five minutes.

She looked like everybody's favorite grandmother, with the gray hair and eyebrows, and deeply wrinkled skin that had inscribed her face with the passage of countless years. The skin was deep olive which accentuated her penetrating eyes, irises so black they seemed like inkblots on a painter's white canvas.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Leicester, I should have told you this when you visited after the funeral."

"It's fine, Mrs. Shaw. We understand. Tell us again, as best as you can remember."

"Avis had been clearing off creek banks for Mrs. Welch, and he was using the bull-dozier and backhoe. We heard on the news about her going missing in her airplane. I think that was on a Friday, I'm not sure. When he went out Monday to pick up the equipment, he couldn't get the dozier to run. He discovered it was out of fuel and according to the hour meter, someone had used it for almost five hours. When he checked the backhoe, he found that it was used for two or three hours, also."

"Could he tell what the equipment had been used for?"

"He looked around, and found that a couple of hundred yards up from the creek, someone had dug a huge hole, covered it back up, then moved debris he'd piled up from clearing the creek banks, and covered the fresh dirt."

"What did your husband do then?"

"He loaded the dozier and backhoe up and left. We never got paid for that work he did for Mrs. Welch." She bowed her head as if ashamed of mentioning the money.

"Do you have any idea where that hole would have been dug?"

"No, only that it was near a creek."

"Why would your husband surmise that Hadley Welch was murdered?"

"Avis thought that when she was never found that maybe someone killed her and buried her in that hole near the creek. Maybe the airplane, too. He had seen her arguing with someone standing beside the plane on the grass runway a couple of days before she went missing."

"Why didn't he report this to the police?"

"He called the Police Department, but no one ever came to talk to him. Everybody thought she, Mrs. Welch, crashed her plane."

Rose went and sat down beside Opal Shaw, patted her on the knee. "Avis was afraid the police would think he was involved, isn't that what you said?"

She bowed her head, again, “Yes. He figured they would think he was the one dug the hole, being it was his equipment and all."

"Did your husband say who it was that Hadley Welch was arguing with on the runway that day?"

"He thought it was another woman, but he was too far away to be sure. He said there was a lot of arm waving and shaking of fists, though."

"So he waited twenty-five years to send a letter saying he thought Hadley Welch was murdered?"

"He always thought she was buried in that hole. When he realized that he was dying, he decided to make one last effort to point out what he'd always believed."

"We appreciate you telling us this, Mrs. Shaw. Please don't mention this to anyone else."

"I won't. Do you think Avis' name could be kept out of it if you find Mrs. Welch's body?"

"We promise he won't be mentioned. Thank you again for telling us this."

***

Rose and Sunny left to take Opal Shaw back home. Hebrone and I rode back to the cottage.

"I don't know, Hebrone, it would take two days to dig a hole large enough to bury a PA-18, not five hours."

"Not if you removed the wings, lay them alongside the fuselage. A good mechanic could do that in less than two hours. You know of any aircraft mechanics associated with Hadley Welch?"

"Gerald VonHorner, and he would have known how to run the dozier and backhoe. What would be his motive?"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would he have known how to operate the dozier and backhoe?"

"Hebrone, have you ever known a mechanic worth his salt that couldn't operate heavy equipment or figure it out pretty quick?"

"Good point. You plan on digging up eighty acres of timber land hunting a buried airplane?"

"No, just the land two or three hundred yards from the creek banks."

Chapter Twenty

Hebrone, Shack, and I walked into Sheriff John Quincy Adams's office at nine a.m.

"Have a seat, gentlemen. Let's discuss our interview with Mr. Henderson. State law, and the District Attorney, requires all interrogations be videotaped with sound. We have to set some ground rules. Since none of you are law enforcement officers, I'll ask the questions."

"There is only one question, John. Who hired him to threaten us?"

Henderson was standing when we entered the room. He was a huge man, at least six foot five and over three hundred pounds. His full beard had been shaved in spots where the doctors had sutured deep lacerations. Wide areas of his scalp were bald and had been stapled, making him look like he'd had brain surgery. Both eyes were black and puffy. He squinted, eyes tiny slits, causing a painful look as if old mistakes were bothering him. But he was merely nearsighted, not nearly so sorrowful for his true sins.

"Sit down, Ralph," John Adams ordered.

He obeyed, placing hands that looked like two toilet seats on the table. His face was dark and serious. Locking onto Shack, his black eyes looked on the point of ignition beneath the bright light of the interrogation room. I watched this, knowing that sometime in the future there would be serious trouble between the two men, maybe even a killing.

The room was designed for three people, not five. We were close enough to smell Henderson, who gave off an aroma of lye soap, hospital disinfectant, and topical antibiotics. Up near the ceiling, in a corner, the video camera glared like a Cyclops, a useful law enforcement tool that protected criminal rights, saved many a suspect from beatings, but left a lot of information on the table. It also protected police officers from false accusations of brutality, coercion, and sexual assault.

Henderson lifted his head and looked at me, the faint contraction of boredom in the corner of his eyes letting me understand that this moment of attention was a favor. He spoke in a tone of emphasized patience.

"You Leicester, right?" I nodded. "It wasn't personal. It was only meant to scare you. None of you or your friends were in danger."

"I don’t believe you, Henderson."

Sheriff Adams spoke up. "Tell us exactly what VonHorner said when he approached you?"

He rubbed a scab that had formed on his broad forehead as if it had the strange power to remind him that his past was real, and the cause of the wound could never be forgotten. "It wasn't VonHorner that hired me, it was his wife."

An hour later, we had all the information we needed, or at least all that Ralph Henderson could tell us.

As we left the room, I saw Hebrone stop John Adams and say something. It was a moment of tense words, and then Hebrone went back into the interrogation room with Henderson. The sheriff motioned for us to follow him. We went into an adjoining room with a monitor to the video camera. We watched as Hebrone pulled a chair up to the corner of the room where the camera was mounted, and we could observe him reaching around to unscrew the connecting cable. The screen went blank.

"Son-of-a…" John mumbled. "He promised no violence. He wanted to make sure there would be no retaliation against Runnels, Miss English, or Miss Pfeiffer."

Shack shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I told him that I could handle Ralph Henderson."

"We know you can, Shack." Adams put a hand on his shoulder. "But this way, maybe you can also stay out of prison."

Hebrone emerged from the interrogation room ten minutes later, leaving the door open. We could see Henderson seated at the table, apparently unharmed. Sheriff Adams exhaled a sigh of relief.

Hebrone was sweating. He took a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his eyes. I'd never seen him do that before. He looked at me. "Later, Jay."

We thanked John Adams and walked out of the Sheriff's Office with the assurance that Ralph Henderson would be in custody for another two days before being released.

Sitting in the car, I put my hands on the steering wheel, gripping it until the knuckles turned white. "Well?"

"Henderson has never experienced fear. I simply made him understand that emotion."

"You did that by…?"

"By explaining to him the many ways there are to torture a human being. How, if something were to happen to a friend of mine, that the perpetrator could experience pain that is prolonged, excruitating, intolerable, and can be repeated over and over. I went into details on some of the methods. Oh, I didn't tell him all the ways of torture, just the ones that I'm good at executing. He seemed to pay attention. I don't think we have to worry about him anymore."

"Seems like you dug up some old memories?"

"They're not memories, they are nightmares."

"I want to go visit Raymond Spruance."

"The retired Naval Officer? Why?"

"To enlist his help. You in a hurry, Shack?"

"No, I've got all day."

When we drove onto the interstate heading for Meridian, Shack asked. "If VonHorner's wife hired Ralph, and she's the one flew over your place the other day, what's her reason?"

"Motive, Shack, that's the thing we don't have. We know VonHorner had a thing with Hadley Welch just before she disappeared, and while he was on furlough from American Airlines. Annie Sanders said he wasn't married then, but was he going with Kien Phuong at the time? Was jealously a motive for murder? If so, how was it done? Lots of questions. The first thing we have to do, and do it fast, is find that missing airplane."

Hebrone turned and looked at Shack. "If the slant-eye hired Henderson, she could hire someone else, maybe this time to do more than try to threaten us away."

***

The four engine C-130 Hercules passed low over the cottage, its Allison engines trailing faint lines of exhaust gasses and oil. It made a dozen passes, then vanished over the horizon like some alien apparition.

Raymond Spruance turned and looked at me. He was a tall, handsome man, nattily dressed in a hounds-tooth sport jacket and silk tie, his face had gone craggy, his thick, straight hair white, his manner aristocratic. He seemed to make a point of watching every movement of the big cargo plane, proving he was a true airman. "We should hear by this afternoon. They will return to Keesler Air Force Base and evaluate what the ground penetrating radar showed on the eighty acres. They will send you a fax with a photo and precise GPS coordinates of any anomaly that is detected."

"Well, Admiral, you've been a great help."

"I had to call in a few favors, but it's worth it if you find what happened to Hadley Welch. She was a good girl." He looked across the fields to the south of the cottage as if it were mere weeks ago that they were dating. "I'll head on back to my woodworking shop, now. Let me know how this turns out."

"Will do, and thanks again."

We watched him drive away.

Sunny Pfeiffer stood next to Rose holding B.W. "Wow! My mother would have been wise not to let that man get away."

"Yes, but he said your mom was not cut out to be a military officer's wife. She wanted to run her own business, not host afternoon teas for other officer's wife's and attend inane formal functions. She was an independent woman who wanted to live her life on her own terms. That remind you of anyone you know?"

As Raymond Spruance disappeared up the gravel road, we watched an older model, silver Ford Thunderbird pull onto the terrace row leading to where we stood. It paused, then proceeded slowly, stopping at the tree line. Hebrone retrieved the binoculars and glassed the car.

"That's Pussy Galore."

The Thunderbird crawled slowly to where we stood, and stopped, the engine idling. The door opened and Pussy Galore fell to the ground. Hebrone was at her side instantly.

"Ah God, Jay, she's been beaten."

We took her inside, laying her on the couch. She suffered severe cuts and lacerations about the head, though her wounds didn't appear to be life threatening. There was bruising on both arms and she had bled profusely from the nose and mouth.

Rose and Sunny washed her face and assured her that she was safe and that they would care for her.

Hebrone sat down, held her hand. "Who did this? Was it Collinswood?"

Tears streamed down the bruised cheeks, and she had a desperate look that pleaded for this to be a dream and not reality.

"Was it Collinswood who beat you?"

She nodded.

"That son-of-a-bitch." Hebrone stood and headed for the door.

I followed him outside, knowing there was no way to stop him. "You want me to go with you?"