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

fireworks were going to start pretty soon. This was the first big fireworks display since the war.
    “Then I looked again at the black river. It was real quiet. I told the Navy agent sitting there (witness pointed to investigator in the front row of the hearing room) that was when I heard what sounded like an alarm clock going off, a sound coming over the water from the other shore.
    “Then, after the buzzing, the flash of light blazed everything around me, shining on the terrified faces of my wife and children, her hand frozen with a piece of pie for my little boy. I heard a roaring sound like a volcano erupting and a blast of pressure pushed me back on to the seat of my pants.
    “‘The Navy Lab. It blew up. Run,’ I called to them, crawling, trying to stand in the sandy wind, my fishing rod skidding ahead of me, its line and sinkers insane. I remembered thinking again for those moments about atomic bombs, and then thinking, no, I’m not burned like those Japanese, this is a dynamite explosion. I remembered grabbing my children around the waist. I remembered pushing my wife up the sandy hill towards the road and our car to get away as bits of flaming wood floated down around them. I remembered looking back once across the river, the fear of turning to stone like in the Bible tumbling through my mind, and I saw the fire and the twisting boards floating in the air and burning on the water.”
     
    Drexel sat back in his chair. “Must have been quite a night.”
    Mike eyed the remaining folders on his lap.
    “First of all,” continued the lawyer, “The defendant was dead. He was the only one who could have really confessed to the crime. Her being an accomplice was hard to prove. The prosecutors held on to her in the hope that by doing this they would satisfy everyone’s outrage, I mean, the politicians, the Navy brass, the people in the street. I think the hearing was because the public wanted something tangible. She was the one they grabbed and held in her quarters. Americans had lost an important part of the defense of the country and they wanted to get paid back, to have someone to blame.
    “Add to that,” he continued, “The diplomats wanted the case out of the newspapers. What took all the time was getting a hearing date agreed to, and, of course, lots of lawyer posturing, mine included. The wife was in custody all this time.”
    He twisted in his chair. “George,” he called.
    The old man appeared.
    “Can you find some drinks for us?”
    He turned to Mike and said, “It's hot, don't you think? I remember I always liked traveling down the pretty countryside to Philadelphia, but Goddamn it was hot down there at the Navy Base.”
    He turned his eyes to the ceiling. “We had some Navy testimony.” Drexel looked briefly in the next folder. “They mostly recited the lists of what was stolen, the data collected on Lawson, which wasn’t much, I mean, much subversive. They didn’t have anything. No memberships in the Communist Party. Nothing.
    “The Navy spent a lot of time on the bombed out lab and pretty much established that Lawson set the bomb that blew it up just before he flew off. They also showed that he was definitely alone on the aircraft and that no one else had been with him in the lab or pier area when the explosion and theft of the plane took place. He was the only one the security guard signed in, and no way for anyone else to have entered. I mean, that place was designed to be protected against Nazi agents and enemy submarines. It was tight.
    “The Navy treated Mary Lawson like a drunk shore leave sailor. She was forced to wear a gray pullover, with canvas shoes they gave her. That’s what she wore to the hearing. A couple of Navy women, very strict looking as I remember, guarded her, and they were with her in court.
    “The Navy Intelligence officers, me, the hearing judges, and a group of Navy staffers were present. The Navy lawyers asked the questions and, of course, I came up with any