Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2)

by Thomas Hollyday

  “I retrieved the tumblers and as I held them for him to pour, I said, ‘Everyone in London sends their regards.’

  “ ‘You’re back home,’ he said. ‘I guess that means the old lady’s corporation can’t sell any more aircraft in Europe. The War’s really over.’

  “Captain Lawson swallowed his whiskey at one gulp and poured another. Like I told you, he was in a bad mood and probably had been drinking before I got there.

  “ ‘Why did London go to all this trouble?’ he said. ‘They never used to care about my whiskey supply.’

  “That caught me by surprise. I said something like, ‘We like you, Ed and we need you in New York.’

  “ ‘My work is here,’ he replied.

  “I just plowed ahead and said, ‘We want to move the seaplane propulsion work up to New York.’

  “ ‘No Navy lab up there,’ he replied.

  “ ‘Like you said, my friend, the war is over,’ I said to him. ‘ The Navy doesn’t need you as much as we do. We have customers for your work.’

  The Captain waved his hand towards the factory floor outside the windows of the small engineering office. In the distance was a large seaplane with its engine compartment open, flaps of metal pulled back and ladders resting against the giant wing.

  “ ‘I have made a lot of progress in the last few months,’ he said. ‘The engineers up in New York would not recognize most of what I have here. It's not a Catalina seaplane anymore.’

  “Then Lawson smiled at me, ‘I've got a new name for her.’

  “I was beginning to think he was out of his mind, so I said, ‘The purchasers usually decide the names, you know that.’

  “Captain Lawson winked and said, ‘I might just surprise you.’

  “ ‘The head office is interested in a variety of new power sources,’ I said.

  “The Captain sat at his desk and looked over several drawings scattered over his desk. He stopped smiling. ‘Only one power source they are interested in,’ he said.

  “ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  “Captain Lawson looked at me and said, speaking to me as if I were a child, ‘Aviatrice is in the business of future wars.’

  “ ‘Somebody has to build them, Ed,’ I replied.

  “The Captain stared at me for a few moments. Then he said, ‘Maybe you didn't learn anything after all from this last Goddamned war.’

  “He swallowed another drink and added, ‘So when am I supposed to decide?’

  “Decide?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Yes, decide. I might just stay in the Navy. Then again, I might just quit.’

  “We have here an aircraft with great military potential,’ I replied.

  “ ‘Yeah, if I build it for you. If I don't design it, you got a big nothing.’

  “Seems to me you have a duty to your country,’ I said to him.

  “ ‘I sure agree with that,’ he said, finishing the whiskey in his glass.

  “Jenni then told me she had to stop reading. The voices were coming closer. She heard people stop and try to open a safe. She recognized one voice. Jessica Veal. All the employees were terrified of her. She had a way of sneaking up behind them and checking to see if they were working. Jenni could see in her mind the thin, sharp boned face, and, of course, the wig. The woman had a fast way of talking, like her words were on fire.

  “Veal was talking to a companion. She was saying, ‘Captain Lawson was responsible for the loss of millions of dollars in profits, thousands of jobs, and most importantly, the deaths of thousands of American soldiers lost in future wars that could have been prevented by the technology. That seaplane was an important link in the development of a new bomber. The plane was never built. We were not able to replace what Captain Lawson destroyed that day.’

  “Veal said to whoever was with her, ‘You have the folder on the Lawson grandson?’

  “Then Jenni heard Bullard’s voice. ‘Here, Ma’am.’

  “ ‘Read it to me one more time before we file it,’ Jessica said impatiently.

  “Bullock began to read, stopping after each group of words like a child, as if he were following the words with his finger.

  “ ‘Jesse James Lawson, River Sunday, Maryland,’ he read.

  “ ‘Go on.’

  “ ‘Two million dollar line of credit with Wilmington Farm Savings Bank. Manager, William Dulany.’ Bullock said in a lower voice, ‘We have plenty on the manager. Owes us big time. What do you want me to do, Ma’am?’

  “ ‘You could have Dulany call this Lawson and dangle the idea that his line may be cut. That will be enough,’ said Jessica.

  “Jenni said to me then, ‘I realized they were talking about hurting someone. Like they could hurt anyone anywhere. I never thought a company could be this powerful.’

  “Welcome to the world,” said Mike.

  “Jenni said that Veal started screaming at Bullard. She said, ‘Bernie will not stop on this. Every time I go into his office, it’s the same thing. He asks me for news. He says he pays me for results. He says he doesn’t care if I am his daughter. He says he doesn’t owe me anything if I don’t get results. You think I like him talking to me that way?’

  “ ‘No, Ma’am,’ Bullard answered. ‘Maybe I ought to go down to the country and beat the shit out of that farmer.’

  “You’d like that wouldn’t you, Mr. Bullard. Well, you’ll get your chance soon enough. Where is the file of my father’s testimony? I don’t want that old fart O’Brien to give anything to that man from the museum. He could be real trouble and you remember I said that. Any more trouble from him and that will be your trouble, you hear me?’

  “Jenni heard files being taken out of a drawer. ‘The file was in here,’ Bullard said.

  “ ‘Damn him,’ Veal shrilled. ‘I told O’Brien not to let that director have any of our stuff.’

  “ ‘Don’t worry,’ Bullard answered. ‘Tim ain’t got the guts anymore. Let me check with the guard, see who’s been in here.’

  Jeremy went on, “Jenni told me she heard Bullard talking outside to the guard. Then she heard whispers and footsteps coming closer to her table.

  “ ‘Jenni, you in here?’ Bullard called her name.

  “ ‘Yes,’ she replied, her voice shaking.

  “She heard his heavy boots. The sound of them were recognized in fear all over the building. Then Jessica and Bullard were standing in front of her, looking down at her. Jenni had frozen at the table with the file still open in front of her.

  “ ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Bullard as he picked up the file and showed it to Veal, whose face was twisted in anger.

  “ ‘What are you doing here?’ repeated Veal, her words aimed right at Jenni like sharp blades.

  “ ‘Working on a project,’ Jenni stammered.

  “ ‘This is your project?’ said Veal, shaking the folder in front of Jenni’s face.

  “ ‘Lawson?’ asked Bullard.

  “ ‘Jenni, what are you doing with the folder?’ Veal asked again without waiting for Jenni to answer.

  “ ‘I was just studying it,” Jenni blurted out. ‘Mr. Bullard, you said we had to be vigilant. I wanted to work up an extra security briefing for my department. I was going to show it to you for your approval.’

  “ ‘You told the guard you came in here for your boss.’

  “ ‘I said that so I could get in. I wanted to surprise my boss.’

  Veal looked at Bullard and after they had traded glances, she nodded to Jenni.

  “ ‘You can go, Jenni. We’ll put the file back.’

  “ ‘Yes, OK,’ Jenni said, knowing that they were watching her as she fled out the door.”

  Jeremy slapped one hand with the other. “Mike, she was so scared she was crying. I told her not to go back to work tomorrow. To call in sick.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she can take care of herself. Started telling me about her karate kicks.” He paused. “I’m worried, Mike.”

  “Tell her t
o get a plane down here. Call her right now and tell her to write down my credit card number for the ticket. That’s the least we can do for her. Get her out of there, away from those people. Look,” Mike said, putting his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, “she’s going to be all right. If she was in any danger she’d be smart enough to get out of there. She just got scared, that’s all. Everyone gets scared once in a while.” As he said this, Mike hoped Jeremy believed it. He wasn’t sure if he did himself.

  Jeremy smiled. “It sounds like our friend Jesse has the most to worry about. Money talks, doesn’t it?” He paused, then said, “I guess you’re right. She’s a big girl and would get pissed off at me if I worried too much about her. Besides, she’s got a better karate kick than I do.”

  “Good. Stop worrying.”

  Nice to have someone think that he, Mike, never got scared, Mike thought.

  Robin walked outside with him.

  “Where are you staying?” he asked.

  “Here with Jeremy for a while.”

  “Where?” said Mike.

  She laughed. “He’s going to give me the end of the bed. He said he’d clear some computer magazines away but only for me. His girlfriends have to sleep on top of the magazines.”

  “I guess you’re special.”

  “I love Jeremy.”

  “So do I,” said Mike. Then he turned to her, “What about us?” he asked.

  “I came back to help. Let’s leave it at that for a while. I’m still confused about us.”

  “The same old thing.”

  “I don’t think you’ve solved anything yet, Mike. God, I wish you had.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You’re still living in your father’s house. Still living in all that memory of him. Look, I came back. That’s got to be enough for now.”

  Mike took her hand and she moved toward him and gave him a hug.

  “See you in the morning,” she said.

  “We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said.

  As he drove home, he thought about Jenni. He was worried about her. He remembered when he had been afraid. Mike knew about going into harm’s way, how it could wrench a person’s guts. He remembered the fear that night when he was home from college working with his father.

  A storm, one of the worst types, had come up from North Carolina. The aircraft outside the Museum had to be tied down in case the gusts got too bad and flipped the planes. The old biplane was tugging to take off. That plane would lift up and almost fly in a summer breeze, much less an Atlantic storm.

  When he came into his father’s office from helping the mechanics tie down the planes, his father was adjusting the ship-to-shore radio. The Museum monitored distress calls along with the regular aviation traffic. In earlier days, when Mike was a boy, the airport was still landing planes. As a result the Museum had state of the art radios.

  A call came in from a fisherman in a forty-five foot trawler named the Henry B off Ocean City, Maryland. His father had been talking with an elderly retired flier, one of the volunteers, in the office. They were kidding each other about the wind skipping across the runway. When they opened the office door, the wind blew it closed. His father motioned for Mike to come in and listen to the call.

  They heard the fisherman’s distress, and they also heard the Coast Guard reply that the Guard would travel out as soon as they finished another tow. It would be about thirty minutes. The fisherman couldn’t hear the Coast Guard. Mike’s father finally went on the air trying to get the fisherman.

  “Henry B, Henry B, this is Wilmington Airport, do you read me?”

  “Wilmington, this is Henry B, we’re in distress here. Boat swamped and sinking.”

  His father looked at Mike. “We got to help this man.”

  Mike looked at him. The sky was getting darker by the minute. The squall was coming in over the ocean and would hit them within an hour. It would be treacherous going out, much less taking off, with the gusting and crosswinds.

  “Takes a real flier to handle this. You can do this one, boy. You’re checked out in all the planes in good weather. You need some storm experience. Good for you. Put some hair on your chest.”

  Then his father added, “You’re a natural pilot and as good as me, at least that’s what you like to say. Let’s see you do it.”

  Mike grinned and started out the door.

  “Be careful, boy. We don’t want to have to rescue you too. We’ll be directing you by radio.”

  Mike got to the float plane they kept for coastal flying. It had wheels built into the floats. He removed the tie downs. Inside the plane he started the engine. With luck, he would be over the trawler Henry B in less than fifteen minutes. Behind his seat was a collapsible rescue raft that he could drop for the fishermen.

  The radio crackled, “We’re proud of you, boy.”

  Then it happened. Mike could still see even so many years later the prop whirring in front of him, some flecks of rain beginning to hit hard, like bullets, the windshield.

  Suddenly, he couldn’t move the rudder with his foot pedals. His legs wouldn’t move. His arms couldn’t hold the controls. He slumped in the seat, as though he had no strength. His father was on the radio. “Let me hear from you, boy. What’s happening out there?”

  “Let me hear from you, boy, let me hear from you, boy.” The words echoed as he remembered the other fliers and mechanics pulling him out of the cockpit, his arms and legs useless with fear. Then his father climbed into the idling float plane. The rest of them watched as his father burst out of the small mooring and into the air, his light blinking off into the storm, getting smaller, smaller and smaller as he went into danger. Then they listened as the radio was silent for ten minutes then twenty, then thirty. Finally a propeller noise and a blinking light came out of the blackness. His father circled and flicked his wing lights. Even with the strong crosswinds, the plane came down for a perfect landing. The mechanics ran past Mike who lay on the grass at the edge of the runway. The fear had taken all his strength and he could not move.

  The plane was tied down again as the wind howled even more strongly. Then his father came up beside him and passed by, his face straight ahead, walking into the radio room without a word to him. The mechanics and fliers yelled to Mike as they followed his dad inside. Mike would have heard them even if they had whispered in the howl of the wind. Even now, all these years later, Mike could still hear those words, sharp and stark, clear and free of any storm noise.

  “He got the job done, Mike, as he always does. You got to be proud of the old guy. Life ain’t worth living, as your father likes to say, unless you be willing to give it up for something.”

  Chapter Six

  2 PM, July 1

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Robin decided to come along when he went to find Lawson’s secretary and Hiram Jones. Mike looked at her riding beside him. This was like old times, the two of them together.

  Mike’s mind kept going back to persistent questions about the Lawson case. What was the real story about the death of Jesse’s Vietnam veteran father? Something didn’t add up about the death and the handling of that murder. What was the truth about why Aviatrice, a world renowned corporation, had chief executives who were still angry about what happened to a project so long ago? What did Lawson have to do with the development of this nuclear bomber project that Veal had mentioned? Perhaps Lawson had made a discovery in propulsion of aircraft that was so innovative and so different that Aviatrice still wanted it. He found hard to believe the notion that Aviatrice investigators would try to kill Jesse’s father to find the papers on that discovery. On the other hand, according to Jenni’s report, they, meaning Jessica Veal, Bullock, and likely Wall himself, had certainly been willing to use their financial power to get their way, to crush Jesse Lawson’s attempt to find the truth about his grandfather.

  Jeremy had never heard of an atomic bomber program. Mike remembered reading about a huge building constructed in the 1960’s, out w
est, for testing atomic aircraft engines. He’d heard about a B36 bomber being fitted out decades ago to test a nuclear engine but that the project had been cancelled because the radioactivity was too great for the safety of the air crew. Jeremy promised he’d start right in this morning researching the state of that technology.

  Mike smiled. He was supposed to be a careful museum director who worked with facts to find answers. The problem was that Mike did not know enough facts. In one ear, Mike heard the old saying “let a sleeping dog lie.” In the other, though, was the crinkle of Jesse Lawson’s line of credit being torn up to put Lawson Harvesting out of business, and what was going to be a concerted effort by Aviatrice to punish the Museum by taking away its money and its museum standing.

  “These witnesses, they are pretty old,” said Robin.

  Mike nodded. “Still it’s worth the time to see them. If they can’t help us, though, I’m telling Jesse we’re out of this. Then we’ll have to see how we can placate Aviatrice.”

  “Yeah,” said Robin, her voice softer than the normal brash tone.

  “You don’t think I should quit?”

  “It’s your call. I agree that without a real break, a good discovery, you don’t know which way to turn.”

  “Jeremy will be pissed,” said Mike. “He gets really involved in these projects. After all, without his perseverance we probably would have given up on the P47 several times.”

  “Yeah, but he’s worried about his friend, Jenni. He might be relieved if we quit,” she said, as she tuned the radio through several rock stations.

  Mike drove on, thinking of his father, how the old man would handle this situation if he was still alive and here beside Mike right now. The museum world was tougher than in his father’s day. Today, decisions had to be made for practical cash reasons. Staff had to be paid. He smiled, thinking of how his father would always ask whether the results were worth the trouble. He remembered one of his father’s favorite stories about when he was a navigator in a torpedo bomber. His dad would sit at the company lunch table at break time, his hair cut to a precise military length, still ruddy brown, his strong hands motioning accents to the storytelling. Around him would be the aircraft mechanics and some of the old fliers who hung around the Museum, each sipping on a bottle of Coke or a cup of coffee. Mike, only fourteen years old then, would listen, sitting there on the edge of a folding chair, usually with a wrench or other tool almost as big as he was still held in his hand from his apprentice job out in the workshop.