Hellbound

by Chester Campbell

  “Normally I’d interview every person involved, but that doesn't seem too practical with this hurricane almost on us. The nurse, Mrs. Holzman, convinced me it would be best to limit it to you three folks. However, I need a list of everybody on that bus, just in case there’s any need for a follow-up.” He looked at Mrs. Ellis, who had introduced herself as the tour director.

  “I can get that for you,” she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. “I’d prefer that you kept it confidential, however. Not give it to the news media. The last thing I want is a bunch of reporters sticking microphones and cameras in everybody’s faces. They’ve had a hard enough time as it is.”

  The sheriff scratched the stubble on his cheek. “I understand, and I agree. Of course, you realize once it goes into the file, it becomes a public record. But I think I can keep it out of the press boys’ hands for a couple of days, at least. By that time you’ll be back home.”

  “Thank you, sheriff,” the tour leader said.

  “Normally I would talk to each of you separately and get individual statements, but under the circumstances, a joint statement’s probably the best we can do. For one thing, I need to get back out on hurricane duty. Also, there’s a pretty good chance we could lose power and be left in the dark most any time now.”

  He had them recount the story of the ill-fated bus ride, then followed up with a few questions.

  “They didn’t take the ladies’ handbags or the men’s billfolds?”

  “No,” said MacArthur. The other two shook their heads. “They just held out a box and demanded we put our money and jewelry in it.”

  Scott leaned forward. “We were too scared to do otherwise.”

  The sheriff sat back and rubbed his large chin. “And you’d never seen any of these men before?”

  “Not before they turned up in Natchez,” said Mrs. Ellis.

  “And you have no idea why they picked your bus?”

  “The leader approached a few of our people,” the tour leader said. “He gave some cockamamie story about a friend of his father’s being from our church. I didn’t believe it. One of the ladies thought they were confidence men, out to pull some sort of trick on us. Turned out she had it about right.”

  Andy Cooper had questioned literally thousands of people during his career in law enforcement, and he was convinced he could spot a lie at twenty paces. He didn’t want to accuse these good church people of being untruthful, but he had a strong suspicion that he wasn’t getting the whole story. Something had happened they were not willing to talk about. Judging from their reaction, he diagnosed it as fear. They seemed to be awfully prudent in their answers. What kind of threat could those men have made that would hold up so well beyond the grave, he wondered?

  Sheriff Cooper instructed them to give detailed descriptions of the robbers, and in this case they didn’t hold back. One of his men burst through the door as he started to wind things up.

  “It’s gettin’ bad out there, sheriff,” he said. “Emergency Management just called. They say winds of a hundred and thirty-five are comin’ at us fast.”

  And with that, the lights flickered like flames on a candle, then went out. The room abruptly became a blackened dungeon. Cooper groped for the flashlight on his belt, switched it on and led them out into the gym, where kerosene lanterns were being lit. With everyone suddenly hushed by the power failure, the howling, shrieking sounds of the wind outside seemed terrifyingly close. To most it sounded like a horde of banshees racing by in the night.

  39

  Hurricane Nora blasted ashore around nine Thursday night with winds clocked at 129 miles per hour, on the verge of Category 4. She made landfall west of New Orleans and damage throughout the area was significant. Buildings were demolished, trees uprooted, roads blocked, power and telephone lines downed. Torrents of rain swelled rivers and streams to overflowing, causing extensive flooding. Initial reports put the death toll at seven. Hundreds were left homeless. Upwards of a hundred thousand homes had no electric power.

  By early morning, the storm had pushed northeast beyond the Louisiana border. Its forward speed and force rapidly diminished over land, but the rains continued to pour as if an ethereal dam had burst somewhere in the sky.

  Damage on the eastern side of New Orleans was not as severe as that to the west. Consequently, newspaper and TV crews concentrated their efforts in the western sector. Around daylight, a New Orleans newspaper received a report of a bus blown up somewhere in the vicinity of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The reporter who took the information thought the caller must have meant “blown over,” since he reported no serious injuries. Because of communications problems and the difficulty of moving around, it was an hour later before a TV station received a more definitive report. A bus had blown up and four people were dead. The news director dispatched a reporter and cameraman to the area.

  Sheriff Andy Cooper, Deputy Carl Floyd and another officer were wandering about the devastated area, looking for bodies, when the TV crew arrived shortly after nine. One of the dead men had been torn apart and the other three appeared badly mangled. After viewing the utter destruction of the bus, Cooper knew he would have to call in federal bomb experts, the ATF and the FBI.

  The initial story was aired at ten o’clock as part of the station’s continuing coverage of Hurricane Nora.

  “An investigation is just getting under way on the Mississippi Gulf Coast this morning of a bizarre incident that occurred late yesterday. As Hurricane Nora’s initial winds and rains pummeled the area, four unidentified gunmen hijacked a busload of senior citizens from a church in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. According to Sheriff Andrew Cooper, the men planted a bomb on the bus and threatened to blow it up if the passengers failed to cooperate. But after forcing the people to hand over their money and jewelry, ordering them off the bus, the robbers apparently did something that proved a fatal mistake. Their bomb went off, killing all four and destroying the bus. The forty-four passengers and their driver were rescued safely by Sheriff Cooper’s men. After spending last night in an emergency shelter, they left for home this morning on a new bus sent down overnight by the tour operator. The sheriff said names of the robbers would not be released until positive identification had been made and next of kin notified.”

  The new Nova Tours bus pulled away from the high school just after nine o’clock. The Silver Shadows had been fed a hot breakfast, cooked with power from an emergency generator supplied by the National Guard. Everyone had dressed either in their own clothes, which had dried out overnight, or in outfits given them by the thrift store.

  Bryce and Marge had roused themselves early to thank Ike and Claire Holzman. Ike provided Bryce with a walking stick, among other things. Ike had carved the cane from a birch limb picked up at some point in their wanderings. The couple had parked their trailer in a sheltered area near the building, away from the storm’s path, protecting it from the worst of the winds. It survived intact, and they started out to the pickup as soon as there was enough light that they could see to maneuver their way around downed tree limbs.

  “I guess we’ll chart a course to the east,” Ike said, scratching his head. “Don’t know where in the world we might wind up, though. Best of luck to you folks.”

  Bryce looked a bit distressed. “I wish there was some way we could repay you for all you’ve done for us.”

  “Just take care of yourselves,” Claire said.

  Marge hugged both of them. “Drive carefully. It’s still awfully wet out there.”

  Bryce patted her shoulder as the couple headed out into the rain. “Said like a good mom, Marge. I’ll bet you’d have made a dandy.”

  “I’m afraid we’ll never know,” she said, taking his arm and helping him over to a table.

  Tillie took a vote before everyone boarded the bus. “Do you want to stop somewhere along the way and spend the night? Or do you want to keep on going till we get home? It’ll be quite late tonight.”

  The vote was almost unanimous. Don’
t stop, except to eat, of course, or go to the restroom.

  With the empty seat on the rear bench where the water cooler had sat, they had room for the extra driver, who would share piloting duties with Chick. Marge volunteered to let him take her place so she could go back to sit with Bryce and Troy.

  Up to this point, they had avoided speculation on what the Vicario family might do about Pat Pagano, but as they rode northeast toward Birmingham, Marge finally broached the subject.

  “Do you think they might give up looking for you after this?” she asked.

  Bryce had done quite a bit of pondering on that one himself. “If they think I’m dead, they will.”

  “Maybe they won’t be able to identify one of those bodies on the bus,” Troy said. “They could think it was you.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. But I have an idea I intend to pursue. Something resulting from that phone call I made from the Riverwalk in New Orleans.”

  During a lunch stop near Meridian, Mississippi, Tillie called Dr. Trent at Lovely Lane UMC and received some unwelcome news. The story of the bus bombing had made the TV network roundups on Hurricane Nora. CNN had showed pictures of the burned-out hulk.

  Tillie came over to the table where Bryce and Marge were seated with Troy, Sarah Anne, the Scotts, and MacArthur. After finding all her charges had weathered the storm in good shape that morning and were eager to travel, Tillie had been unusually upbeat. Now they noticed the smile was gone.

  “The word is out,” she said. “Dr. Trent has had calls from the TV stations and the newspapers. They want to know what time we’ll be arriving.”

  Sarah Anne raised her hands to her face. “Oh, God. They’ll have lights and cameras waiting for us, and I look like a disaster area.”

  “What did Dr. Trent tell them?” Bryce asked.

  “That he didn’t know. Because I hadn’t told him.”

  “So did you?”

  “No. He said not to tell him because he didn’t want to lie about it.”

  “What time do you expect to get there?” Fred asked.

  “Around eleven. That’ll be after the news. I’d hate to have everybody subjected to all that. Maybe they won’t come that late.”

  “Don’t kid yourself.” MacArthur’s voice conveyed the assurance of a man who had traveled this road too many times before. “They’ll be out in force.”

  “But if they don’t know what time-–”

  “They’ll know,” MacArthur said. “I imagine they’ve already contacted the bus company to inquire about it.”

  Bryce looked thoughtful. “I have a suggestion. What if we unloaded the bus somewhere besides the church?”

  Tillie’s smile began to return. “Good idea, Bryce. Maybe we could do it out at Rivergate Mall. I’ll make up a list of relatives that need to be called and informed about the change. We can get somebody at church to contact them.”

  The Silver Shadows also liked the idea. A few had left cars in the church parking lot but said they would bum a ride home with someone else, then retrieve their cars the following day. Bryce and Marge landed in that category. Fred promised them a ride with the Scotts’ son.

  “There is only one problem,” MacArthur said after all had agreed. “You’re going to make the news media mad, and they’ll come after you with a vengeance tomorrow.”

  Tillie folded her arms. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  But MacArthur promptly came up with a solution. “I don’t mind talking to them. I’m accustomed to dealing with all kinds of media questions. Lord knows I did enough of that with my company. I think I can give them enough of a story to make them happy and, hopefully, keep them from coming back to pester the others.”

  After the Silver Shadows “snuck back into town in the dead of night,” as Fred put it, the story received top billing in the Nashville newspapers and on local TV newscasts. But direct quotes were sparse, coming only from Hamilton MacArthur, Fred Scott, and Tillie Ellis. Despite repeated requests, Dr. Peter Trent politely declined to release the bus passenger list. Sheriff Andy Cooper kept his word. He locked away the sheet Tillie had given him and furnished the inquiring news media only the identities of the trio he had interviewed for signed statements.

  It was Sunday before Sheriff Cooper and the FBI released the names of the four “robbers” who had died in the bus explosion. It brought a new flurry of media coverage when they were identified as three Mafia members from New York and one from New Orleans. There was much speculation in print as well as behind the scenes regarding the real motive for the incident. Few knowledgeable observers believed the Vicario troops would have been involved in a simple robbery that far from home. But no one could come up with a plausible explanation. The FBI would say only that it was continuing the investigation.

  The bomb that wreaked such havoc reportedly was composed of a large block of military C-4 plastic explosive. The authorities assumed that Joseph Capparella, a.k.a. Joe Blow, had concocted the device, which, oddly enough, had mangled him the worst.

  In the days that followed their return, Marge chauffeured Bryce to the doctor, the grocery, any other places he needed to go. The physician instructed him to stay off his injured right ankle for a week or two, which effectively kept him from driving. Marge cooked for him part of the time, and they sampled several of the many restaurants that dotted the Rivergate area.

  A few days after the story of the ill-fated bus faded from the coverage of Hurricane Nora’s disastrous aftermath, Bryce sat in Marge’s neat, spacious kitchen while she put the finishing touches on a carrot cake she was making for a bake sale at the church. They had chatted idly about a variety of things, but both had studiously avoided the subject that concerned them the most. Finally, Bryce decided it could wait no longer.

  After watching a few moments in silence as she deftly smoothed the icing, he set his cup of decaf on the table. “I think it’s time to make my call. Hopefully it will help clear things up.”

  She turned, studying him with narrowed eyes. “What things?”

  “This Mafia business. I’ve got to know where I stand. I can’t ask you to risk your neck by getting any more involved with me.”

  “You don’t have to ask. I volunteer.”

  “No, Marge. I’ve ruined too many people’s lives already. I won’t do it to you.”

  “I thought we settled that the other afternoon in the midst of that storm. You said we’d been playing games with our minds, that we needed someone to confide in. We need each other, Bryce.”

  He couldn’t argue against his own logic, but he wasn’t prepared to see her name added to the Mafia’s hit list. “I won’t deny it. I need you,” he said. “But unless I can get free of the Vicario family–”

  “If you’re still worried about them, let’s leave right now. We’ll pack what we need to reach our destination, pick some faraway place, change our names and go.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Neither of us has anything holding us here.”

  “What about Betty Lou and Fred and Troy and all your other friends?”

  “They’d wish us bon voyage.”

  He hobbled over, pushed an errant lock of silver hair from her forehead and kissed her. “Okay. But before we do anything drastic, let me make that phone call. You remember my telling you about attempting to reach that FBI agent, only to learn he had retired? I’m going to make some calls and see if I can get his home number.”

  40

  A relatively short commute to Manhattan, White Plains was where Matthew and Phyllis Kravitz had lived the past ten years, the place they had chosen for retirement. In the early days of their marriage, Phyllis, a college beauty queen, had worked as an American Airlines flight attendant (they were known as “stewardesses” back then). Despite all the miles she had flown, she never got the urge to travel out of her blood. Taking the exact opposite view, Matt contended his frequent journeys on FBI assignments had more than satisfied any desires in that category. He had seen all he wanted of the length a
nd breadth of the U.S.A., not to mention the world beyond.

  Since his retirement, Matt Kravitz had reinvented leisure. The fast pace and long hours of his law enforcement career had left little time for his favorite sport, golf. As an economically deprived kid, which people called “poor” in those days, he had found work as a caddy around Chicago and acquired a lifelong love of the game. Now that he had the time, the opportunity and the resources to afford golf, he had bought a new set of what he called “sticks,” joined a local club and become a regular on the course.

  October was a great month for golfing. Not too warm, not too cold. This had been one of those perfect days, the sun creating a jewel out of every glistening drop of dew, the wind putting just enough nip in the air to make it invigorating. Matt had scored a seventy-eight, his best round since taking up the game anew, and he was in an expansive mood. He retrieved a handful of mail from the box, entered the house and found Phyllis in the kitchen slicing bread with cookie cutters. She had cut the bread in diamond shapes, heart shapes...

  He gave her a big kiss and glanced at the cutting board. “What the devil have you got there?”

  “Sandwiches, dummy. I’m experimenting with a new recipe. Something I plan to make for the bridge club next Friday.”

  Now he could see the bread was also club-shaped and spade-shaped. She was always doing weird things like that in the kitchen. “Why do you want to play that stupid card game?”

  “It isn’t stupid. You should play it, Mr. Deduction Specialist.”

  “I don’t deduce anymore. I’m retired.” He stifled a yawn as if he should have said “tired” instead of “re-tired.” Actually, he was relishing a semblance of happy exhaustion after eighteen strenuous holes. “You should have been out on the golf course with me, getting a little exercise.”

  “I prefer to exercise my mind, dear. Anyway, what we need is a vacation.”