Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2) (7 page)

“Jesse Lawson sent me to see you.”

“Jesse James Lawson. I remember him as a little boy. The Lawsons were guilty as hell, at least the old man was. Guilty or not, the family doesn’t think so much of Aviatrice, I guess you found out.”

“You got that right,” said Mike.

 Drexel began walking. “Everybody connected with that case is damn close to dying if they haven't already. Like me. Old man Wall is still at Aviatrice. He must be getting up there too,” He stopped, turned and looked at Mike, then dropped his glance as if ashamed.

“You know, I don't owe the Lawsons,” he said. “They never did understand that. It was like I was supposed come out of that hearing with the Navy saying that the incident never happened. Then the wife could go back to her farm and live just like before. I got her out of Navy custody, but that wasn’t enough for her. I couldn’t prove that her husband was innocent. After all, the guy did steal an airplane.”

Drexel thought for a moment. “If Jesse Lawson sent you, I guess I can talk to you. I’ll let you see the materials I have. Just promise me I don’t have to deal with his grandmother. She fought me for every cent I billed her.”

“Your client is long dead.”

Drexel nodded. “Come on, it’s starting to rain.” Mike relaxed, more sure that Drexel would help him if he could.

The lawyer led him into his house through a side door, just as the rain burst forth. Inside, the walls were lined with bookcases, overflowing with large and small volumes, most of them double and triple stacked into the shelves. Drexel went to a large leather armchair, sat down with a sigh of contentment, and pulled his legs, one by one, up onto a footrest.

“You want to know about a case that was really quite remarkable.”

He picked up a pile of folders stacked on a table by the chair. “I keep these around to look over my most interesting cases.” He picked one from the pile and handed it to Mike.

“My client was the wife, the old lady. First of all you got to understand what my client was accused of. She was supposed to be an accomplice in her husband’s treason. Treason is betrayal of one’s country by acting to aid its enemies, in this case, the Soviet Union, which was considered a potential enemy in those days. Taking the plane to the Soviet battleship was treason, but I never saw any real proof that he was conducting espionage. So being a spy was all stuff that the newspapers dreamed up to sell papers.”

“You have there the wife’s first interrogation a few days after the crash. I wasn’t on the payroll during that questioning, but she told me about it. Face it, she went through a lot of emotional stress, that woman, even before the Navy got to the house. The telephone rang every half hour. Different people called, many of them reporters. The baby, future father of Jesse, cried in the background. Mrs. Lawson didn’t know who was calling. They were from Navy bases in the area, some from Philadelphia, some Washington. All she could do was to say that she hadn’t seen her husband. She had a robust voice but what with the stress and worry and the demands of the phone, by the time I met her, it had become muted and weak.”

Mike skimmed the words on the old typewritten pages.

Question:
“
You say, Ma’am, that Captain Lawson telephoned you.”

Answer: “Yes, he did. He always calls in. Captain Larson told me that he could not come down to River Sunday for the Fourth of July. We always went down to the harbor to watch the fireworks. He said this year that he would be busy at the lab.”

Question: “Where was he when he telephoned you?”

Answer: “At the lab.”

Question: “Are you sure?”

Answer: “I could always tell it was the lab. I could hear the whispering sound.”

Question: “What sound?”

Answer: “The little whispering sound I called it. He said it was Magnolia Whispers. The sound was from the lab where he tested engines. The Captain told me it was my imagination. I almost always heard that noise though when he called from the lab, you know, in the background.”

Question: “Magnolia Whispers?”

Answer: “I can see that you boys are not from around here. It is a local Indian legend. They believed that gods were talking in the noises that the winds made in the trees. Supposed to be wisdom from the spirits. He was kidding me about it, that’s all.”

Question: “Did you know that Magnolia Whispers was the name he painted on the experimental seaplane?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “Did Captain Lawson ever talk to you about the Soviet Union?”

Answer: “Mercy no. He didn't like the Nazis. I can tell you that.”

Question: “What did he say about the Nazis?”

Answer: “He said that people like that cause wars because they like to fight and hurt people and that was wrong.”

Question: “Did you think it was a little strange that he was staying at the lab during this Fourth of July holiday?”

Answer: no response.

Question: “Did you?”

Answer: “Well, I guess I did. I wanted him to spend some time with me and the
boy.”

Question: “You're talking about your son.”

Answer: “My little boy.”

Question: “Do you remember what happened here at your farm the night the plane was stolen, about ten in the evening?”

Answer: (She looked startled) “What do you mean?”

Question: “Well, Mrs. Lawson, we understand from your neighbors on the adjoining farms that something did happen that night at your farm.”

Answer: “What are they saying?”

Question: “Lights were moving in the sky but strangely they heard no noise. The lights were red and green and circled your house at low altitude. After a few circles around your farmhouse, the lights turned west and went away.”

Answer: “I don't know anything about that.”

Question: “Do you think these might have been running lights of an airplane?”

Answer: “I don’t know.”

Question: “These folks say they know you and your husband pretty well.”

Answer: “Well, maybe they do.”

Question: “We have all of them relating in sworn statements that it was you out back of your house that night with a flashlight signaling, blinking, to the lights up in the sky.”

(Mary asked us to end the interview after that. She ordered fresh tea for all of us and sat quietly holding her glass)

“Here’s something you might want to read,” Drexel said and handed him a page with handwritten notes. “That’s from a book we found in the River Sunday Library, a history of the town. It explained the legend of Magnolia Whispers. You remember she mentioned, ‘wisdom from the spirits?’ My staff looked it up. I mean, we were thorough in reviewing her testimony for anything that might help or hurt her.”

Mike took the paper. “Did you learn anything?”

Drexel grinned. “History of the Indians? I don’t think anyone gave a damn. We did not put it into evidence, if that’s what you mean. See for yourself if you can figure out why he used that name for the seaplane.”

Indian Tales of the Eastern Shore,
compiled from conversations with actual Indians of Maryland and Pennsylvania, by O.P. Spicer, Historian, (Maryland Books, Philadelphia, 1927). Chapter nine, “The Tragedy of the Nanticoke.”

 “The legend of magnolia whispers is one of our most fascinating and terrifying legends to come down from the early days. The Nanticokes were a strong and proud people throughout the Eastern Shore. One small band professed to be in special communication with the gods of the Nanticokes. It was said that their leaders listened to the whispers of their gods in the wind in the leaves of the great magnolias. This group who lived far inland from the Chesapeake was never invaded by the hordes of Northern Indians who would come through the area to get food and take captives. The invading groups feared this immense power.

“They were first seen by the early immigrants from England and their lands were sought for growing tobacco. No one traded with these people however. The colonists were religious men and women but they were also superstitious. They heard the legends of this group, and they feared to communicate with them lest they be tortured or killed by their supreme power.

 “Finally in the deep night an English captain named Lawson and one of the missionaries holding a cross attacked. In the village they found huge groves of magnolia trees. The Indians were asleep, apparently secure in the thought that their spirits had not warned them of this incursion. The colonials, aware that the Indians believed in the whispers of these trees, set about firing the trees and the village.

 
“Great was the terror of these Indians, not used to warfare of any kind. Their supreme weapon had been the fear in others of their incantations and of these trees of knowledge. When the trees were set afire, they turned and ran, leaving the land to the colonists.

“What happened to the Indians after that is not known. One survivor of this clan was said to be still preaching in New York State long afterward, a very old man. He incanted against the outsiders and put curses on their lives and those of their
c
hildren but he died long before the Revolution. This writer visited the land where the clan was said to have had its village. Now the farmer there plows around the one remaining stand of the magnolias and tells me that he hears no whispers.”

 Drexel handed him another page. “This one is from the
History of the Lawson Family of Maryland
written in 1910 by Admiral Richard Lawson, who was the father of Captain Lawson.”

 
“Colonel Edward Lawson (1650-1703) was one of the truly great soldiers in early Chesapeake settlements. Certainly his victory over the Nanticoke settlements in the central Eastern Shore was one of his greatest accomplishments.

 “A whole tribe of Nanticoke were destroyed in a surprise attack by Colonel Lawson and his militia in 1697. His militia was handpicked for this duty from local bondsmen and free men who usually worked for him or owed him money. Colonel Lawson with his own funds armed them with the latest weapons and cannon.

“The Nanticoke village was eliminated as a lesson to other marauders. Especially important was the need to cut down the great magnolia trees which had a special significance to these Indians and were deemed important to destroy so as to also destroy their spirit, their desire to fight, and their unholy religion. It was said that the elders of the tribe would meet under the great trees for formal conferences and that these meetings had been going on since the earliest days any of the Indian could remembers. It was said that when the winds blew in from the Chesapeake that certain whispering sounds came from the leaves in the trees as the breeze blew through and that these sounds were interpreted as
messages from the spirits of the land, messages that gave wisdom and protected this particular Nanticoke tribe from danger. So they took great care to cultivate the trees and each family had a work detail of hours spent in this care as a village responsibility.

“The militia members reported to Colonel Lawson that destroying some of the trees took several days as the trunks were very large. And the roots of the trees were viciously holding to the ground as though they were an enemy army.”

Drexel leaned toward Mike. “Have you learned anything about the case that I might not know?”

“Nothing”

“Probably just as well you don’t tell me. Aviatrice doesn’t like people who know too much about the Lawsons.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wall tried to threaten me. He scared off all the other lawyers. I was the only one who would take the case. I thought it would help my career. It didn’t. I found out that Americans didn’t like anything to do with Communists. I got over the smear campaign though.” The old lawyer smiled and reached down and handed Jesse another folder.

“I wouldn’t mind you aggravating that bastard Wall. Here, this is the eyewitness account of Lawson taking off that night. The statement was from a fisherman who saw the whole event from the other side of the river.”

Question: Describe what you saw on the night of July 4, 1946.

Answer: “The night was quiet and peaceful, very pleasant. World War Two had been over for almost a year. The bombers no longer droned overhead at twilight. Now in the evening there was only the chattering of human life, of families growing and children at play. That Fourth of July night it was like pre-war times with good food and laughter and no fear.

“The smell of dead fish and seaweed rotting in summer heat rose from the shallows. I was fishing off a small wooden pier across the river from the city streets of Philadelphia and the lights and brick buildings of the United States Naval Research Laboratory.

“Suddenly, out in the darkness in the middle of the river, I heard a seaplane taking off, the washing of its propellers cutting through the air. I watched as the seaplane’s small white wing lights lifted gently, the propeller noise easing back. Then the plane was silent but the lights still climbed silently at high speed from the river in front of the base, heading east over New Jersey to the Atlantic.”

Question: “You’re sure it was east?”

Answer: “Yessir, out the river, then turning due east.”

Question: “Go on.”

Answer: “I remember thinking about my wife just then and I said to myself, softly so she wouldn’t hear me, she thinks I fish too much and that’s why I’m always talking to myself. Got the children scared sometimes, she says.”

“I tilted my head to watch the light.