The Underground Lady (6 page)

"I noticed some tension in Annie Sanders. You think it had something to do with my mother and her husband?"

"You got that, too, did you? Very astute."

"I have my moments."

"You are more than you wish to appear to be."

Sunny Pfeiffer looked at me, and of the six universally recognized facial expressions – fear, anger, surprise, disgust, sadness, and happiness – I saw five.

"My mother and Earl Sanders?"

"I've known Earl for a long time. He's not the type to fool around on his wife."

She looked at me again, and I could see the thought process going on behind those green gemstone eyes like the workings of a fine Swiss clock.

"Annie said there was a man in your mother's life. Do you have any recollection of who it might be?"

"No, no one comes to mind, but then I was only six years old."

"She said we should find out all that we could about him."

"She didn't say why or who?"

"I gathered it was not her husband, but she was serious enough that it makes me think it could somehow be related to your mother's disappearance."

"How do we find out about this person who was supposedly involved with my mother that you are so sure wasn't Earl Sanders?"

"No clue. It could be romantic or business related. At any rate, it's time to go see the aircraft controller who was the last person to talk with your mother."

I didn't want to tell her that after today, she wouldn't be involved with the rest of this investigation.

***

It was a neat house set in a quiet neighborhood. We rang the bell, and the door was opened instantly by a woman who was the mirror image of Barbara Bush, even down to the silver gray hair and three strand pearl necklace.

"You must be Jay Leicester. John is expecting you. Please come in."

She escorted us into a sunroom where a silver tray was set with tea and cookies. John Roberts sat in his wheelchair with a green and black blanket over his lap and a copy of
Death in the Afternoon
by Hemingway. He had a barrel-shaped body with tiny, close-set eyes. His long, sharp nose resembled an eagle's beak – with all apologies to the eagle. He had always been a big man, though not as big as me. His warm, friendly smile assured me that all was well with him.

"It's good to see you, John."

"You, too." His grip was firm and sincere. He looked directly at Sunny. "My God, you brought Hadley Welch with you."

"John Roberts, meet Sunny Pfeiffer, Hadley Welch's daughter."

They shook hands.

"You are the spitting image of your mother."

I thought the same about his wife and Barbara Bush, who had served the tea and left us alone.

"Let's talk about the morning her mother disappeared. Were you working alone that day?"

"I was working approach control alone, the tower boys were upstairs. Her voice was as familiar as yours, and her call sign, I knew well. She trained here with Earl in the PA-18. There was no panic in her voice. She seemed to have forgotten something and wanted to return and land. She just wouldn't answer after that final transmission. I instinctively knew something was amiss. There were so many possibilities, radio failure, an engine running rough, leaving her no time for chitchat, some control problem that kept her busy. But for her to simply vanish, I have no explanation."

"How soon did you sound the alarm?"

"Immediately, that's standard procedure. Better safe than sorry."

"You think there's a transcript still around?"

"Should be, they are not supposed to ever destroy them. Check with the tower chief, man named Paul Bradford. He should be able to help."

"Okay, John. We won't keep you any longer. It was a pleasure. Take care of the hip."

"Yeah. We are both getting old, Jay. You and I. There are not many who share our memories and silences. And of them, few are the men they used to be."

Sunny set her teacup on the silver salver, bent down and hugged John's neck. "Thank you for the kind words about my mother."

"Yes, she was a lot like that one." He pointed at me. "They both had what Hemingway wrote about – 'grace under pressure.' I've seen this one come into Meridian with an engine shut down; no muss, no fuss. I've worked him around summer squall lines when other carrier pilots turned and ran for cover, and heavy icing and low ceilings, always calm, never rattled. In an emergency, emotion is not an antidote for trust and experience. I'd rather fly on an airliner with the seasoned old veteran captain who I detested at the controls than my friend and drinking buddy with less experience aloft, and a tendency to panic. I may not enjoy the trip, but my chances of arriving safely at our destination would be greatly improved."

"You think my mother had that Hemingway thing?"

"She did."

"Goodbye, Mr. Roberts."

***

We drove up Highway 19 toward Union and the cottage, a different route than we had previously taken. Sunny didn't seem to notice. She appeared deep in thought. I reached my right hand over and traced a question mark on the center console.

Sunny watched the movement. "Why would Annie Sanders be so secretive about some man involved with my mother?"

"I will figure out a way to broach the subject with her."

She slid over to the door, turned sideways and looked at me. Out the side window behind her, cattle grazed in open fields and young pine trees on the nearby highway right of way raced past. "So you have this 'grace under pressure' thing?"

"I don't think anyone truly knows what they will do under circumstances where life is threatened and the outcome is in doubt. We all hope that we'd do the right thing."

Her green eyes were expressionless and looked into a void only she could contemplate.

We pulled into the drive of Rose English's farmhouse. Sunny reached for the door. "I'm going to stay for another week and work with you to find out what happened to my mother."

"No. From here on out, I do this alone. If you want me to continue, fine. If not, I'll tear up the check for the retainer, and we'll call it off. That's the way it has to be."

Anger ran through her like an electric current. She turned the anger against herself, taking her ponytail and pulling at it as if she wanted to tear it from her head. She pulled it so tight I knew it had to hurt. "Fine, then you continue on alone." She got out and slammed the door.

I watched her disappear into Rose's house, leaving me to contemplate people's lives. It seemed to me that the older I get, the less I really understand about the intricacies and frailty of the human psyche. I drove to the cottage and a big Siamese cat named, B.W., who couldn't care less about what I thought.

Chapter Five

The phone woke me from a deep and dreamless sleep. Sunlight slanted weakly into the room, cold, and hazy, casting an oblong patch of light between the bed and the window.

Rose English's voice resounded through the receiver. "How do you look at life, Leicester?" She never called me by my last name unless she was mad.

"With the innocence of a fresh laid egg."

"Have you ever been told that you possess a rare ability for complicating your life? An astounding ability."

"I haven't even had coffee."

"Then get your butt out of bed and come to my house. I'll make you some coffee. We have to talk."

"Sunny Pfeiffer?"

She hung up the phone. Lying back on the pillow, I thought that this was going to be a fun morning.

B.W. jumped upon the bed, then eased up on my chest and stuck his head close to my mouth. "Well, old boy, you want to go pay another visit to Rose? Looks like we have incurred her wrath. Women. Love'em."

After a quick shower, I called the tower chief at the Meridian Airport and told him who I was, what I needed, and that John Roberts gave me his name. He was extremely helpful, telling me that those transcripts I wanted were kept in Atlanta, and that an Accident/Missing Aircraft report would be on file at the local FESDO, (Federal Aviation Flight Standards District Office) in Jackson, Mississippi. After giving me the pertinent telephone numbers, he asked if I was the same Jay Leicester who flew for Southern Airways back in the eighties. I said that I was, and he asked if I remembered a pilot named Asa Bradford, also with Southern. I told him that Asa had in fact been a classmate of mine during initial training at Southern. Asa was Paul Bradford's brother. Small world. He informed me that Asa was now a Captain on a Boeing 747 flying out of Seattle to Hawaii and back with Northwest Airlines, the company that had absorbed Southern after it merged with Republic.

I thanked him for the telephone numbers, the update on his brother, and asked him to please send my regards when next they spoke. He promised to do so.

After hanging up, I thought about Asa Bradford. He was an outstanding aviator. There were thirteen of us in our class at Southern. Three of them are dead. One died on his first trip out after upgrading from the Martin 404 to the DC-9. The chartered aircraft crashed on approach to Huntington, West Virginia, wiping out an entire football program. Another died after an encounter with a severe summer thunderstorm in Georgia, which caused both engines to flame out. An emergency landing on a rural two-lane highway was unsuccessful. The third was a tragic error of judgment. The Captain of a Martin 404 descended into a valley on a clear day in the Rocky Mountains to give his passengers an up close view of the terrain. He flew into a blind canyon from which they couldn't climb out. The rest of the class, as far as I am aware, continues to ply the skies of the world.

Even though it was just above freezing, Rose stood in her doorway waiting when B.W. and I arrived. Handing her the cat, I said, "Ah, Rose, I do love thee as each flower loves the sun's life-giving power."

She took B.W. and held him to her breast. "That's poetry, and I know you are not a poet, so you must have stolen those lines."

"Guilty as charged, however I do not remember who wrote them. I've never been smart enough to read poetry."

"I've always thought poets were people who, because they cannot love, imagine what it would be like if they could."
"Why, Rose, that is poetic in itself. Maybe you possess a talent that you do not realize."

She put B.W. down, and he ran into the back of the house seeking other felines to bully. "Coffee is ready. Come to the kitchen and we'll talk."

"Sunny Pfeiffer is gone, then?"

"She left for the airport at daylight. Her chauffeur picked her up."

"Chauffeur?"

"There are some things you need to know about Hadley Welch and her daughter."

Rose poured the fresh-ground coffee – she would always grind her own beans. Using a honey dipper, I stirred in a dollop of the sweet, brown liquid collected by a local producer.

"How long have we known each other?"

"Ten years."

"You are a strange man, Jay Leicester, different from any man I've ever known. If we'd met thirty years ago, and had been the same age, I probably would have married you, or at least had one torrid affair. You see the world through a certain set of eyes."

Taking a sip of the strong coffee, I sat back and waited to find out where this was leading.

"You have to remember, Jay, people around here look through different eyes, explain the world in different ways, perform different rituals to keep it in balance. But most share common concerns. Family is more important than country, prayer more important than political power, weather more important than world news. People around here worry about crops, children, animals and food, and always about sickness and health."

"I once knew a young woman living alone in a big city that worried so much about getting raped that she wore a Tampax tampon to bed every night, for fear a man would rape her in her sleep and she might not otherwise know of it."

That was the wrong thing to say. Rose got up and went to the sink, anger oozing from every pore.

"We must not lose our dead." She turned to me with an expression that told me this was serious and I'd better start taking it that way.

B.W. strutted into the kitchen, jumped into my lap, and stared at Rose. "Okay, this has to do with Hadley Welch and her daughter. Why don't you get on with it."

"Hadley Welch came from a very rich family. That's why, after her husband died, she reverted back to her maiden name. It made it easier to run the family business."

"That business would be?"

"Have you ever heard of Upton Pharmaceuticals?"

"I know they are based in St. Louis and have an eclectic fleet of poorly managed corporate airplanes. Their Vice-president of the Aviation Department was an idiot. May very well still be."

"Hadley's great grandfather started the company in 1840 as a one store pharmacy and built the business into a world-wide pharmaceutical giant. The company has stayed in the Welch family and never went public. It is one of the largest privately held businesses in the world. When Hadley's father and mother were killed in an Alaskan plane crash, she inherited the company. Shortly thereafter, she married the CEO, Ed Pfeiffer, and they had one child."