Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2) by Thomas Hollyday Page B

employees in uniform and flying fighter planes that Aviatrice helped engineer. The old ones like the Thunderbolts and the Lightnings, and other names I’ve never heard of. Signs tell which planes are which and about their history and design and engines, what battles they served in, how many kills they had. Every table and counter display tells the history of the early years and planes that Aviatrice helped build. One is a display about the company’s pioneer woman founder, Amanda Gibson, with her flight records. Bernard Wall, whom she appointed to run the company, is prominent in the pictures. Parts of the room have fire blackened typewriters taken from the old Navy lab in Philadelphia where the Lawson explosion occurred. One of the walls has been fitted with burned wooden slats that shows the force of the blast and one of the old safes with the door open.
    “Jenni remembered that she had seen the old man Bernard Wall in the shadows of that room during her training. He was an old man, sitting in a wheelchair, incredibly thin, bald, his eyes bulging from his face, stained teeth flashing in the dim light. She said he smelled bad, like he had not had a bath in some time. All she wanted to do was get away from him.
     “‘During the training,’ she said, ‘Bullard lectured us how the company was taken advantage of by Captain Lawson. This room, he said, was built from the ruins of the Navy lab Lawson destroyed in order to show Aviatrice employees how Aviatrice was compromised by a communist, by a traitor.’”
    “She said, ‘After my training was finished, I came out of the traitor room into the brightly lit corridor and wanted to keep on walking right away from the job. Then I thought about the money I was getting paid and the prestige of working in such a famous company and I went to my job.”
    “She had to be careful, I can see that,” said Mike.
    “I had asked her,” Jeremy said, “to look around and call me back. Jenni is a beautiful babe. With her smile she can get into places we couldn’t even shoot our way into. She always had that talent, Mike, long as I have known her. Except that she had no smile in her voice when she called back. She was, like, so scared.
    “She told me that after I called, she went down to a section called the file room. She pretended that she was getting something for her boss. She does procurement of parts all over the world, and in the file room the company had all the vendor records, supply files, parts lists. From time to time she had to go there. The file room was classified secret so she needed a reason to be looking around down there. Fortunately her boss was out of town so she could be creative.
    “The guard on duty was new, somebody Bullard had just hired, and did not recognize her. She saw him and was just about ready to go back to her office to wait for another opportunity. Unfortunately he asked her why she was there and she was trapped. He was very efficient and so she had to sign in carefully, state her reason, all the things she normally did not even have to bother about with the other guard. This guard kept her standing there. Other employees could see her standing at the guard table. She was afraid that Bullard might come along and start getting nosy. This guard even checked her office. He rang and rang her phone. Naturally she wasn’t there to pick up and her boss was gone. The guard kept on until the secretary from across the hall came to Jenni’s phone, answered and clarified that Jenni’s boss was traveling. Jenni knew she was getting in deeper, and worried that her boss would be asking her about this, not to mention the secretary, who was a real busybody. Jenni is stubborn though, Mike, and she made up her mind to go ahead anyway. Finally the guard let her sign in and opened the door, probably because he was a man and could not resist that smile of hers.
    “Inside the file room she told me that she had to go to another section to find the history files. She