Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) (7 page)

Noon, Tuesday August 17

An old newspaper article still sat at the top of Tench’s desk. He had glanced at it daily for a long time. On the front page to the left under the international news a picture blared of William Strake and the headline “Billionaire’s daughter and family lost in airplane accident.”

The photo was one showing Strake as a younger man, his hair full and no eyeglasses. The caption said “William Strake, Chairman, Strake Oil Company.” The credit for the photo was Strake Oil, Dallas, Texas.

“AP, Dallas. At 2:32 AM this morning the Cessna twin owned by Strake Oil and carrying Emily Strake, her husband Bob and two daughters Emily and Julie, disappeared from radar over the Gulf of Mexico on their way to vacation in Venezuela. Search boats and planes dispatched to the site found wreckage but no bodies and the search continues. The plane is resting upright on the bottom in one hundred feet of water and appears largely undamaged according to divers at the scene.

“Emily Strake was vice president in charge of African wells for Strake Oil. She was listed in Women of Texas and considered one of the fastest rising women executives in the state. Her husband Robert Tirch was a partner in the Dallas law firm of Donovan and Tirch.

“The Cessna recently passed all inspections. It had been owned by Strake oil for ten years. Its pilot William Luke had been with Strake Oil for fifteen years and was familiar with the area.

“The Coast Guard has called in a new cutter with special search equipment to help in finding survivors. Meanwhile a salvage barge has been sent to the location to attempt to lift the wreckage.”

Tench shook his head. No bodies had ever been found. The police had given up looking.

Julie had told him in that conversation, “The airplane doors were open. The police think the occupants swam out.”

“The children and her husband?” he asked.

“The sharks, Jimmy. I’m afraid the sharks might have got them.”

Then too, she had been worried about her father’s health. “Is Marengo any help to you?” asked Tench.

“He’s the only one there I trust. He goes in to see my father.”

“Goes in?”

She had said, “My father’s in his bedroom, Jimmy. All day and all night. He had been so different since my mother was killed. We still talked. Then, after my sister’s death, he became more distant. He began to forget things.”

“What does Marengo say?”

“He tells me he’s worried about Daddy. He also says Stagmatter handles everything and he can do nothing.”

Tench asked her, “What is going on?”

“Jimmy, I don’t know. Everything is confused.”

“Yes, and Marengo says I should wait for a while, get to know Stagmatter, Stagmatter has been good to my father. Maybe he’s right.”

“Marengo told me Stagmatter was originally only supposed to take care of the cars,” Tench had said. “Where did he come from anyway?”

“Actually he came from Africa. He was working there and found out about my father’s collection of cars. My father had agents all over Africa and his collecting interests were well known. Stagmatter flew to Texas to meet with Daddy after Mother died. My father needed something then to get his mind off my mother’s death. At the time we were pleased Stagmatter had come, and thought the attention Stagmatter brought to Daddy’s cars would be good for him.”

“Tell me about the death of your mother,” asked Tench. Her mother had died only months before the plane crash of her sister.

“You probably know most of this. The details were in the paper here and in Texas. A car hit her and killed her and the driver ran away. She was just walking near our house, in the morning. No one saw anything.”

“You’d think someone would have seen the accident.”

“The police found no witnesses,” she had said. “You asked about Stagmatter. My sister’s husband was against hiring him. Marengo checked with his African contacts and said the man was well known there and was knowledgeable about cars. So Daddy overruled my sister and her husband, saying getting a man with car credentials was hard and this man came with the best.”

“Why did your brother in law not want to hire him?”

“He wanted to keep the control of the farm money in our hands, not in Stagmatter’s. He was afraid the man would take over.”

“So Stagmatter was hired to take over only the museum?”

“That was the original plan. Right after he got to Maryland, he brought in his own men, those African mechanics, and he’s just taken over everything. My sister said my father at first handled the family affairs, our allowances, that kind of thing. Then my father stopped talking directly with my sister in the months before she died. Daddy just let Stagmatter do all his communicating with the Texas company.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“A lot more since my sister died. Stagmatter has come kind of power over my father. Something to do with the cars. I don’t understand.” She went on, “My father stays in his room. Marengo brings him food. He sits at his desk and goes over accounts Stagmatter brings him.”

Her voice had been strained on the telephone. “New men have come since when you and I were there. Those mechanics. I don’t know any of them.”

After all this time apart, Tench wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms, comfort her. He sighed, looked at the phone and computer incoming email once again, shook his head and stood up.

He walked to the back of the garage. He stood beside the well-polished and almost finished gas class quarter mile race car. The charged air was filled with the intermingled smells of new thick slick type racing tires, gasoline, sweat and drying automotive lacquer on the blue and white car with his name, Tench, on the side. He had painted the car the blue and white Cunningham colors from the Le Mans race of 1950. He was alone except for Abraham, the Captain’s dog, who had become a regular visitor at the garage in the last few days. Abraham had found a place near the back of the race car where he felt comfortable and Tench had brought a blanket from his home for the dog to sit on during the day.

He kneeled beside the dog and rubbed his hands on the dog’s head. Abraham still had his childhood in his eyes and worked his eyes over Tench, looking for more rough play and perhaps a stick to be thrown. Tench checked Abraham’s water bowl and his food dish to make sure they were full.

He stood up and returned to the side of his racing car. He’d modified a 1966 coupe model Mustang by essentially lightening the front end and polishing ports in the basic Ford small block, but in every way keeping it a street driver. Inside the body he inspected the tubular framework and the steel protective plates behind the transmission and the Ford engine. Looking out through the Lexan windshield, he saw the new fiberglass hood with its thin blue racing stripes centered over the white paint. Underneath the hood he knew intake was a Holley carburetor on a special manifold and exhaust went into lightweight headers he had designed. To the side of the engine long chrome pipes fed back to the racing cutouts on the three inch pipes.

“You want to try the new mixture settings?” a voice behind him said. Katy had come in.

“Let’s do it,” Tench said. He bent down and lifted Abraham to the back side of the room, away from the vibration and fumes of the car. He knew the dog wouldn’t move for any other reason once he had assumed his daytime position.

Katy hooked up the exhaust pipes to the outside venting tubes. She shut the back door. “No need to scare half the people in town with all the noise,” she said, smiling.

Tench lifted back the seat harness and sat in the carefully framed racing driver’s seat. He started the engine. After a couple of cranks the machine tore into life, the exhausts popping loud against the walls of the room. The rear wheels had already been raised and set into his dyno to measure output of the engine. This lift allowed the wheels to turn furiously without sending the car forward crashing into the shop wall as the revolutions climbed.

The noise became louder as Tench increased the fuel flow to the engine. The revolutions surged well over five thousand revs per minute.

When he finally had the car silenced with the engine turned off and the wild vibrations of the chassis finished, Tench leaned back in the driver’s seat. He grinned, knowing his goal of building a winning car was close. With the engine off his mind still took several minutes to forget the roaring of the exhausts and his body the same to calm from the pounding of the horsepower.

“I think she’s ready,” Katy said, checking the dyno printouts. “As close as we’ll get to ten seconds in the quarter.”

“I agree. A few things left to do, but we’ll be in time for the races.”

“Smiley wants to drive,” she said, looking at him solemnly.

“I figured you were going to say that. You’re scared what might happen, though.”

“Smiley has his rights. I really got no say with him,” she said.

“Smiley would have to pass the driver license inspectors.”

She nodded and opened the door to go back into the main garage. She left him alone with the blue and white car.

This car had the go fast stripes of the Cunningham Le Mans racers. They were the same blue Cunningham racing stripes that were later used by Shelby on his Ford cars.

Strake’s Cunningham C2R roadster had no racing stripes. It was painted purple, made to order long ago for some African prince. He saw it the first time Julie showed him her father’s collection. That day, Julie had held up her hands. “See the oil in my fingernails,” she said, proudly. “I help Marengo work on the cars.”

Marengo had chuckled as he pushed that car out for Julie and Tench to drive around the farm. “Miss Julie can take apart any car in here. She has been working on them since she was a child. Finest woman mechanic she’ll be, I wager, Mister Tench.”

In those days, they took trips together with her father. He thought of that long ago night, the Baltimore Thruway was wet with scattered thunderstorms as the engine of the big Mercedes sedan roared in front of them. He leaned over and touched Julie’s hand. They were in the back seat. Strake and his assistant, Marengo, were in the front, with Marengo holding the oversize German steering wheel, keeping the heavy vehicle on the road in the gusts of wind and rain. Marengo was heavily built but short, so his face was directly behind the flash of headlights of oncoming cars. Sometimes his facial scar would reflect as the lights beamed into the car.

That time Strake took them to an antique car sale, a special one for privileged and wealthy buyers. Tench said he had been to car auctions in Baltimore, some of them for expensive collector machines. Strake smiled and said, “At this particular auction it is different. The cars and parts have no origins and nothing can be traced. You don’t ask questions about pedigree here, boy.”

Stolen. Stolen and sold only to the big players, the ones who kept their mouths shut. He’d heard about stolen art and jewels being traded this way. But cars. Theft was not something new to a street kid. This was new in the sense that it was big time. Tench was intrigued at the professionalism. First of all, the place was secure. The display of products for sale, attendance by invitation only, was at a farm far past the city, out in Baltimore County.

At the gate, men came up on both sides of the car and looked inside with flashlights. The flashlights worked through the car. Strake held up his hand with a slight wave and the light went by him to rest on Tench.

“My daughter and her friend,” Strake said, tough but jovial without any fear, as Strake was in those days.

The biggest of them, dressed in a dark raincoat with a felt hat pulled down over his face, said, “All right, Mister Strake. They’re expecting you up at the big house. Go in.”

As they drove further in the lane, the car headlights picked up the shapes of large trucks with containers scattered among the trees alongside the road. Emblems on the containers, flashing in the light, showed addresses from different places all over the world. He spotted for the first time the shipping company emblem of the lion on one of those containers. At the house, Marengo approached a young woman dressed in slacks and white blouse, who was standing near the front door with a clipboard. He gave her an envelope and said, “From Mister Strake.” She smiled and opened the envelope. She expertly thumbed the cash inside, counting the bills and then put the envelope in her pocket. She motioned to a door at the end of the hall.

“Go out to the barn,” she directed, her voice mellow.

They proceeded to a large barn behind the house. Strake confided to Tench as they walked, “You’ll see some of the best buyers here, Jimmy. We trade for parts we don’t have. Sometimes we come here to get cars. The important thing is these people deliver. That’s what makes the market.”

Tench didn’t understand until he walked inside the barn. Spread out in front of him were tables of spare parts and in the large center space were several perfectly restored automobiles. The air smelled like gasoline mixed with the odor of animal feed. A few men were walking silently along what served for aisles.

“The big item tonight is the Rolls Royce in the center,” Strake said as they stepped across the rough concrete floor of the barn.

“Are you going to buy it?” asked Julie, looking at the shining chrome of the old vehicle.

“No,” he said. “I own two just like it. I’m here for a part for one of my other cars.”

Marengo said, “The parts sometimes are worth as much as the cars.”

On a table along the wall was a fat man sitting with two younger men at his side. Wrapped partly in soft gauze covering was a downdraft carburetor. The metal in the piece was partly corroded. Tench stopped to look at it.

As he reached to touch it, the fat man said, “No.” Tench looked at him. The young men beside the fat man had stood up and one of them, as if to accentuate the command of his apparent boss, had his hand on a revolver stuck in his belt.

Strake said, pointing to Tench, “He doesn’t know. Leave him be.”

“You better tell him,” said the fat man, his mouth turned down.

Strake turned to Tench, “The piece of metal is original. It’s worth several hundred.”