The Burning Day by Timothy C. Phillips Read Free Book Online Page B

come in and disgorge several squads of well-to-do business types, but they already had women on their arms when they arrived; none of them were Mary’s man.
    I glanced at my watch. Eight-thirty. I started looking around for Mary, herself. It was possible, though it didn’t seem likely, that she planned to meet her paramour outside of the main building, at a hanger perhaps. I mulled this over and went back to my car. From my vantage point in the parking lot, I could watch Mary as she arrived, and I could follow her and her lover as they left—unless, of course, their plan was to leave by plane, in which case I wouldn’t be able to follow her, anyway. But I could still get the plane’s FAA number if it happened that way. So I waited outside.
    Around 8:55 I started to get a little concerned. Mary was running a little late, if she was going to meet someone she wanted to run away with and live happily ever after. I had seen plenty of people do just that, and they were always in a breathless hurry.  
    After 9:15, I was fairly sure Mary wasn’t coming, or at least, whatever else was going on, she was in no breathless hurry. What’s more, no one arrived via plane that looked the least bit interesting, either.
    A couple of things could have happened, I reasoned. Either she had received another call from whoever had called her previously, with a change of plans, or someone had gotten cold feet. Based on what Henry Wiggins had told me, I was betting on the change of plans scenario. I decided to go back to Mary’s hotel and see what she was up to there.
    ~
    When I arrived back at Mary’s hotel, I wasn’t surprised to find that she was gone. The desk clerk told me that she had returned around seven, and checked out soon after. I asked him if she seemed upset or in a hurry, and he told me he didn’t know. Since he was just out of adolescence and Mary was a beautiful woman, I felt sure he had noted her mood. But twenty dollars failed to jog his memory.  
    So, with the sinking feeling that I had wasted most of the afternoon, I left and drove back up Birmingham’s spine to Mountainbrook. I drove past the Wiggins abode, where Henry’s BMW roadster sat, lonely and dejected in the two-car garage, just like Henry himself must look, lying all alone in the king-sized bed which I was certain he had bought and placed upstairs for he and his beautiful bride.
    So Mary had failed to keep her appointment at the airport. Clearly, it wasn’t some sudden pang of remorse. She hadn’t fled back to Henry, or called him to come to her. He was at home with the lights out, and her car was not in the driveway or the garage.
    There had to have been a change of plans, I thought . . . unless.
    I turned around and went back to Bessemer. I drove to the mall where I had killed time earlier and looked around until I found a magazine stand. I walked up to the old fellow behind the counter and nodded. He smiled pleasantly enough, and returned my nod.
    “How can I help you?”
    “Do you have any maps of the area?” I asked him.
    “Map? You mean of Bessemer?” He snorted. “What do you need a map of this town for?”
    “Well, I was looking for something, and I come from just up the road, you know, but I think I must have made a mistake.”
    “What are you looking for?”
    “Someone told me they had a place near the airport. I drove around out there and I couldn’t seem to find it. I was wondering . . .”
    “If there was another airport here in Bessemer?”
    “Yeah. I know that it’s a funny question.”
    “Not at all. You’re probably too young to remember it, but there is another airport. I should say, there was another. It’s been closed since just after the first Gulf War, but I think the military still uses it to train helicopter pilots. I’ve seen Army choppers buzzing around out there. There’s no civilian air traffic, though. Not any that I know about, anyway, though anything’s possible, I guess.”
    “Well, perhaps that’s where