Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  “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.”

  Jesse paused, “You add all that suspicion to the fact that my family lives in one of the most patriotic areas of the country. The people in River Sunday think, and I guess rightly so, that betraying the United States is like burning a church.”

  “Not a very pleasant situation, being a traitor,” said Mike. “I never thought much about the families of spies, what life was like for them.”

  Jesse sat back in his chair, the spring squeaking. He relaxed, as if telling the story of his grandfather had somewhat relieved his shoulders of weight. “I can tell you the Aviatrice Corporation and that old guy who owns it have made my family miserable over the years.”

  “I know about Chairman Wall,” said Mike. Mike had been told by his father long ago that if Wall, the patriarch head of Aviatrice, hated someone, he had a reputation of making sure that person or company was hated by everybody. His father, who could get along with most anyone, never liked the old guy. He didn’t like the fact that Wall sold airplanes to Germany before the war. Now, the Museum got funding from Aviatrice because Tim O’Brien, one of his father’s oldest friends, still worked there.

  Jesse said, “At first the problem was the public hatred. People all over the country sent mail for years. Some still comes to our box in River Sunday, repeating the same tired accusations. When I was a child it was a lot worse. When we’d go into River Sunday, we were always taunted. For sure, we never left the farm on the Fourth of July. We were always afraid someone would come out and set the place on fire. We actually had one fire set. That was enough. Take, for example, the Fourth of July parade in River Sunday. I’ve never been to one. My mother wouldn’t let me go because she didn’t want me to be scared by all the hatred, the way the people looked at my Mom and me. Even today, the older folks still have the hatred and venom. They look at me and my family like we were responsible for every son or nephew who got killed in every war since World War Two.”

  He went on. “I know about your father, how he won the Navy Cross. I respect that. Just because my grandfather was accused of being a spy, doesn’t mean I'm not a good American.”

  Jesse paused, then said, “I tell you what. You give my grandfather’s wreck an honest looksee. I’ll take your word for it. If you find nothing, then I’ll cross off your debt, sign it over. You won’t owe me a thing.”

  “You’re calling the shots,” said Mike.

  Jesse grinned. He had a friendly face. He said, “You’re wondering how the grandson of a traitor got all this money. I got it because I have a service that farmers are willing to pay for. I help them get real good crops and they like that.”

  Mike bent forward and said, “Let me see if I understand what you want from me and the museum staff.”

  “It’s simple,” said Jesse. “You get your equipment out there into the ocean and make a search. That’s all I want.”

  “Well, we know the Navy found nothing,” said Mike. “As far as they were concerned, the plane disintegrated without a trace left to find. We’ll have to figure out where to look. The seaplane may not be there.”

  “How long will this all take?” asked Jesse.

  Mike thought for a moment and then said, “We look up the records and try to come up with a research area that makes sense. We’ll need money for the equipment, the research.”

  “When you want money, you let Dulany know,” said Jesse.

  “Does that mean more loans for the Museum?” asked Mike.

  “No, I’m paying you for the project costs too,” Jesse assured him.

  Mike looked at him and asked, “Anything you can tell me about the wreck?”

  “Nothing,” said Jesse. “Look, Mike, you think I treated you badly.”

  Mike didn’t answer.

  Jesse added, “I may be right about my grandfather. Then you’ll be redeemed.”

  “What do you mean, redeemed?” asked Mike, looking up.

  Jesse explained. “If he turns out to be falsely accused, you’ll come out pretty good. You’ll get recognition from your peers.”

  Mike did feel a tinge of excitement at the thought of discovering new historical information. He tried not to let Jesse see his emotion. “It’s not our job to find out whether he was guilty,” he said.

  Jesse smiled and said, “I’ll take my chances. I read in the paper your team cleared the record of that Navy pilot, found out that he was a hero taking on a German sub, when the records stated he was negligent. Look, I got faith in you. I put out the money for the search for that P47, didn’t I? I could have lost it all.”

  Mike took charge of the conversation, speaking like a project leader, asking questions. “If we find the plane, what then? Do you expect us to bring your grandfather’s remains to the surface? Maybe salvage some of his equipment or papers?”

  “That’s my hope, yes,” said Jesse.

  Mike smiled, warming up. He began to feel that he could work with Jesse, that Jesse was being honest with him, “Before we go any farther,” he said, “I have to tell you bodies have very little chance of surviving that long in the ocean. We might find some of the wreckage but it’s unlikely we’ll find anything else.”

  He pulled a large yellow marine chart from a cardboard tube he had been holding.

  “OK to put this here?” Mike asked.

  Jesse nodded. Mike placed the chart across Jesse’s desk, carefully avoiding the piles of business forecasts and daily farm reports.

  “This will help you to understand what we‘re up against,” Mike said, his hand steadying the chart.

  Jesse leaned over as Mike continued. “The map is centered on the offshore waters from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Ocean City, Maryland.” He pointed to a black line heading east over the Delaware River and into the Atlantic from Philadelphia.

  “This is the flight line from where your grandfather took off to where the Navy said his plane crashed.”

  Jesse studied the map, his finger following the black line. “My grandmother,” he said, “She always felt that my grandfather was misjudged, that the public bought the story that it was handed. She said he wasn’t a communist, had no reason to be, that he might have been a little crazy because of the war, but that he wasn’t disloyal to the country.”

  Mike grinned and said, “Jeremy, my assistant, and I like to say that we let the wreck tell its own story.”

  The men were silent for a moment. Mike glanced out the window. In the bright sun, the colors of a cornfield in back of the building looked washed in greens and browns.

  “Looks almost patriotic, doesn’t it, just like one of the waving fields of grain out west,” Jesse said.

  “The Fourth of July is almost here, “Mi
ke said.

  “The Fourth isn’t a good day for me,” said Jesse.

  “That’s what you said. Tell me, did anyone ever prove for sure that your grandfather was a traitor?”

  “They tried,” Jesse said.

  “I imagine you’ve looked into this yourself.”

  “Me and my mother had pretty much decided to let the whole thing rest.”

  “What caused you to get interested now?” asked Mike.

  “I found you people, an outfit that I think I can trust, to do the looking.” Jesse stood up. “My family has been accused of this terrible thing for too long. Do you have any idea what that is like?”

  “So you don’t think he was guilty?” Mike said.

  “No, I don’t,” said Jesse. “I don’t know why except that’s what I was told as a kid. I don’t have any proof.”

  Jesse blinked his eyes, a little mist forming on the deep tan of his strong face.

  “See, Mike, on top of the accusations against my grandfather, I have another reason. My own father was murdered by a mob of Vietnam War protesters in 1973.”

  “Murdered?” Mike asked, astonishment in his voice.

  Jesse went on, “He had just got off the plane from Oakland, California. Just arrived in Baltimore. Fresh home from Vietnam, in uniform with all his medals. Outside the airport in Baltimore, he got into a fight, got beat up, died on the street. The police never found the people that did it.”

  “That’s ironic,” said Mike. “He survived the war and still it killed him.”

  “Yeah but it’s more complicated,” said Jesse. “You see, my mother never thought it was protesters. She thought it was Aviatrice, waiting for him, letting him know they were still around. He pushed back. Coming out of Nam he must have thought he could take on anything.”

  “Didn’t the police investigate?” asked Mike.

  “My mother believed the police were told to stop the investigation,” Jesse explained.