The Underground Lady by JC Simmons Page A

mentor to her in all things related to flying."
    "Could she have had an affair with him?"
    "I said no married men. She had too much respect for that, and I would have known."
    "Anything else, Rose? You didn't call this meeting just to tell me how wealthy Sunny Pfeiffer is today."
    "I want you to let her help you find out what happened to her mother. I don't want you to ask any questions, I just want you to do it as a favor for me. I've never asked you for much."
    "I'd do anything for you, Rose, even let Sunny Pfeiffer follow me around."
    "Good. Now take that cat and get out of here. I have work to do."
    Rose really wanted to hug my neck. Running us off was her way of avoiding it. We left, with me wondering why she wanted the daughter involved in the search for her mother. Rose never did anything without a reason. Things were getting interesting.
    B.W. and I started back to the cottage. In the west, a winter cold front bore down on us. As the storm approached, I became fascinated by the dichotomy of the sky. Everything north and east of a given line was bright sunshine and clear skies. To the west and south of that same line the sky was dark gray and frothed with darker clouds boiling in like lava. Here and there broad shafts of black rain hung beneath their parent clouds as they raced across the land in an angry cavalcade. The air all around reflected the dark menace of the clouds and gave off colors akin to old hammered iron.
    There was a distinct electric odor on the wind. It was a primeval scent that augured only the largest of storms. Suddenly, on the rising wind, aromas of decayed plant life and animal waste struck like a paste, but I knew the coming wind would scour the stench from the air.
    The first bloated raindrops struck just as we made it to the cottage. They were so big that when they impacted the sandy soil of the driveway, they sent up little explosions, like miniature artillery bursts. Thankfully, I had stacked enough firewood on the porch out of the weather to last for a couple of days. After building a fire and making a pot of coffee, I thought about where to go next with finding the missing Piper Super Cub and its occupant. A visit to the local FAA office in Jackson for the Accident/Missing Aircraft report would be necessary, a phone call to Atlanta for a copy of the tower transcript, and interviewing the men in Hadley Welch's life seemed a place to start. If that airplane crashed, it seems truly unlikely that someone would not have stumbled upon the wreckage by now, especially with the numbers of hunters, timber harvesting, land clearing, cattle farming, and people simply walking over their property. Although, there is what I call my 'back eighty,' an eighty acre rectangle of timber that I haven't walked over in years.
    If the PA-18 had crashed, all that would be left would be a small pile of twisted metal. The airplane was covered with fabric that would have rotted away, leaving the fuselage and engine, that would be partially buried in the ground from impact. The body, well only a few bones would be left, and those scattered about by animals. There was little hope of discovery after twenty-five years.
    Holding a warm cup of coffee, I looked out at the freezing rain and remembered pilots sitting in cockpits on frozen ramps, bone weary from long flights fighting terrible storms, resting their heads sideways on coffee mugs to imagine the breath of wives or lovers in their ears before departing on the next leg of flight.
    As the full brunt of the storm hit, the lightning flashed and thunder crashed in shattering intensity making the earth tremble. B.W. ran and hid under the bed, his favorite Querencia. A feeling of apprehension and barren anxiety settled on my soul like a wet deer hide. Something was wrong, but I was at a loss to know why I felt so distraught. I stared out the rain-soaked kitchen window, looking for the ghost of Hadley Welch.

 
    Chapter Six
     
     
    Looking through a Jackson, Mississippi,