Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

weren’t keepers,” they heard him reply, his voice muffled by the cylinders.
    Inside, Mike sat down at his desk and quickly looked over his mail. Jeremy, meanwhile, walked back and forth.
    “What did you get out of Jesse Lawson?” he finally asked.
    Mike looked up from a handful of correspondence, and said, “The Lawsons are no friends of Aviatrice, that’s for sure. First of all, Jesse doesn’t believe all the facts about his grandfather. On top of that, his father was killed in Baltimore in 1973 and his mother is convinced Aviatrice might have had something to do with the death.”
    “Aviatrice people killed the man’s father?” Jeremy said, surprise in his voice.
    Mike said, “Jesse told me that the company’s investigators have been roughing up his family for years, looking for information about the lost airplane.”
    Jeremy’s mouth hung open.
    “I know,” said Mike. “It’s hard to believe this kind of thing about a big company like Aviatrice.”
    “We going to be able to work with this guy?” asked Jeremy.
    “I think so,” said Mike. “From what I could tell, he doesn’t want to put us out of business. He just needs to find out about his grandfather. A lot will be up to the attitude of Aviatrice.”
    Jeremy said slowly as he thought, “My friend Jenni works at Aviatrice headquarters. She could check around in the files there, see what turns up.”
    Mike shook his head. “I don’t know if I want to get anyone but us involved. This whole thing is going to take some finesse. What did you find out in Washington?”
    “Not much of a bibliography on the case,” Jeremy answered. “The books that are written are propaganda types, without much fact. No official hearing was held on the Captain. The Navy figured he was dead, that’s all. Maybe they were ashamed of him. I don’t know. Anyway, he was given a dishonorable discharge, posthumously. The reason was, and I quote,” Jeremy said, reading from his notes, “suspected treason based on theft of a classified seaplane and materials thereof, destruction of a military laboratory, and other circumstantial evidence.” As far as the Captain’s wife, she was put through a Navy hearing, but she got off.”
    “Historians haven’t been interested in a traitor, I guess, as long as they have heroes to write about first,” said Mike.
    “Check this out,” said Jesse. “Someone had ransacked through the files. Reference items that were in the index were gone, disappeared. All the court hearing materials on the wife were gone, with only a few notes remaining.”
    “Could you tell if this happened recently?” Mike said.
    Jeremy shook his head. “For this section of the library, I didn’t even have to sign in. The files could have been tampered with anytime over the last ten or twenty years and no records would be kept. The library isn’t set up to guard its stuff. Research is done on the honor system.”
    Mike nodded. Jeremy continued, “I had to look in different places. I went for the base records, day reports, warehouses, supply records.”
    “How about a description of the plane?” said Mike.
    Jesse said, “A Catalina seaplane, one of the later boats, with landing gear.”
    Mike observed, “An amphibian.”
    “Those planes need a good size crew,” said Jeremy.
    “Jesse told me it was normally a seven man crew, but the guy took off alone,” said Mike. “Pilot, copilot, navigator, engineer, radioman, gunner, bombardier.”
    Jeremy went on, “She was in the water, being prepared for a test flight later that week.”
    “Fueled up?” asked Mike.
    “Mineral oil,” said Jeremy.
    “Mineral oil instead of aviation gas?” asked Mike.
    “Some kind of special power plant,” said Jeremy. “The records said ‘experimental.’ One other thing that I found strange. Records were in the files from the sailors who serviced the craft moored in the harbor. Kind of like gasoline receipts for fueling. I went through all different kinds of