Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  “They started it.”

  She looked at me for a long while. “So what did the old man have to say?”

  The fact that Darcy knew about Mutt’s and my visit to Mr. Porter meant the gang knew, too. And probably the killer.

  “Not much,” I said. “Remember I told you about a friend of Willa’s named Mary Ellen? Well, the old man’s her uncle. Brother Thomas said it might be a long shot. I just think he wanted us to check on his friend.”

  She nodded and took out a notepad. “I found out about the owners of the property.”

  “This ought to be good. You want a Diet Coke?”

  “Sure.”

  After tossing the polishing towel into a trash barrel, I got Darcy’s drink out of an old refrigerator, opened it, and handed it to her.

  Darcy accepted it, took a sip, and set it on a worktable next to her.

  While she flipped through a few pages, I got a drink for myself.

  She said, “Jonathan Langston Gardner the third …” she looked up at me and said, “… that would be Daddy and current primary candidate for state treasurer,” and then continued reading, “… inherited the developing business from his father, Jonathan the second, thirty years ago. They lost big in the economic downturn of oh-eight but seem to have recovered.”

  After a big swallow from my drink I said, “How much did they lose?”

  “My source says forty million.”

  I sat on a stool and blew out a long breath.

  “Exactly,” she said, “and didn’t go bankrupt. That should tell you something.”

  “They have a lot more than most people know about. How much are they worth today?”

  Darcy took another sip of her drink. “A hundred million in the accounts I found, and don’t ask how I found them.”

  “How did you find them?”

  “Very funny. The interesting point here, if you’ll let me finish, is that ten years ago the business was only worth twenty million.”

  “Big daddy knows what he’s doing.”

  “No,” she said, “he knows how to surround himself with smart people.”

  “If they’re so smart, why are they in business with him?”

  “He had capital and equipment. The Gardner name was a selling point. They had a hand in just about everything built on the north side of Mount Pleasant in the last two decades.”

  I slowly turned the drink in my hands. “What are they saying about the torched body found on their building site?”

  “Not much. But as far as I can tell they’re cooperating with the investigation. So is the buyer.”

  “They already have that lot sold? Who’s the buyer?”

  “Custom spec house. That’s the other juicy tidbit.” She picked up her drink and sat back.

  I watched her take a long drink and finish with a smile.

  “Let me guess,” I said, “the house is for Jon-Jon.”

  The smile vanished. “How did you know?”

  I leaned forward. “I was right?”

  She nodded.

  “How many other people know?”

  “It’s in the public records,” she said. “Anyone can find out. You just have to know who’s behind the companies that own the properties, which is what I’ve been digging up. The senior Gardner has quite a lot of businesses.”

  “You really think Jon-Jon murdered Willa Mae, stuffed her in a drum at his new house, and torched her?”

  “No, but someone may want people to think that.”

  I leaned back again. “This just gets better and better.” After a moment, I said, “There’s one thing I can’t figure out.”

  Darcy was used to my introspective moments. “What’s that?”

  “Why was Willa Mae on that particular street when I ran into her last Saturday night?”

  The bombshell reporter set her drink down. “That’s a pretty good question.”

  My eyes focused on her. “Only pretty good?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Better than that. We should have been asking ourselves why from the start.”

  “Trying to get straight, and she goes right back into the lions’ den.”

  Darcy snapped her fingers. “Aphisha. We need to talk to her and right now.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A quick call to Brother Thomas and Darcy, Shelby, and I met him at his church, the only place of worship that seemed to allow dogs. Or at least my dog. He rested a hand on the lectern facing the empty sanctuary. “What you want to worry that poor child for?”

  I said, “You know why.”

  The pastor turned his head slowly from side to side, mumbling something to himself. Shelby nuzzled his pant leg and Brother Thomas reached down and scratched behind his ears.

  Darcy said, “We need this, Brother Thomas. I think you know that.”

  “All I know is that poor child been through enough.”

  I said, “I can’t help it if you don’t like where this is headed.”

  “Brother Brack,” the preacher said, straightening up, “you of all people should know I don’t truck to being no victim.”

  Shelby moved and stood beside Darcy.

  Brother Thomas gave another head turn and mumble. Then he said, “Okay.”

  “Where is she?” Darcy asked.

  “Come on.” Brother Thomas walked past us to the door. “At her grandmother’s. I already called and told them we was comin’ over, mm-hmm.”

  Darcy’s eyes met mine. I nodded at her unspoken question. Brother Thomas was not happy. The three of us, Darcy, Shelby, and me, turned and trailed him outside.

  “You better ride with me,” he said.

  We got in his donated Volvo. It was an expensive car before it had gotten riddled with bullet holes. Brother Thomas had accepted the car and had the local kids fix it up. They’d done such a nice job I couldn’t tell where the damage had been done.

  With me and Shelby in the backseat and Darcy in the front, Brother Thomas drove the two blocks to where Aphisha now lived. We could have walked there but I got the impression that Brother Thomas didn’t feel up to it in this heat. Clara Jasper opened the door to greet us, holding her cane. Aphisha ran to Brother Thomas and gave him a hug.

  He said, “Hey, little girl.”

  “Sorry to bother you this evening, Mrs. Jasper,” I said.

  Aphisha spotted Shelby and stuck her hand in her mouth. Shelby inched close to her, lowering to a crawl. When he was a foot away, he rolled over on his back. Aphisha tentatively reached her hand out and gave his belly a pat. He licked her face and before long, she had both hands working his fur, his back leg going a mile a minute.

  Clara Jasper said, “Brother Thomas be tellin’ me you doin’ all you can to find out what happen to Willa Mae. He say you wanna ask Aphisha somethin’.”

  She gave a slight chuckle. “Depend on what it is you wanna ask, now don’t it?”

  “It might help us figure out what happened to her sister,” Darcy said.

  “Then I guess you better ask your questions.” The elderly woman called to her granddaughter. “Aphisha, come inside, hear? These people wanna talk to you.”

  Aphisha finally stood and approached me. “Hello, Mr. Brack.”

  She wore a pink T-shirt and green shorts and looked at me with her bright eyes.

  I knelt and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hello, Aphisha. How are you?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I like stayin’ with Grams.”

  Brother Thomas said, “Let’s go inside before the neighbors start talkin’, mm-hmm.”

  “Do you mind if my dog comes in?” I asked. “He won’t bother anything.”

  Clara said, “He’s a good-lookin’ dog. I don’t mind.”

  Aphisha let me pick her up and carry her in. Darcy, Shelby, and the preacher followed. Mrs. Jasper closed the screen door behind us. The small home did not have air-conditioning and it was still eighty-five degrees outside. We crowded into a spotless living room. I set Aphisha down and she and her grandmother sat on a worn
couch. Brother Thomas leaned against the wall because there weren’t any other seats in the room.

  Darcy sat herself on the threadbare carpet. I followed her lead, surprised by her humility.

  Shelby found a spot beside Darcy and rested his head in her lap.

  Brother Thomas said, “Aphisha, honey. These folk wanna know about that night you was with Willa Mae.”

  The little girl crossed her arms and tapped a foot. “Uh-huh.”

  I asked, “How did you get there?”

  Her bright eyes took me in but she didn’t say anything.

  “What Brother Brack means,” Brother Thomas said, “is what were you and Willa Mae doing?”

  She said, “Willa Mae?” It was a question.

  “Yes, dear,” Darcy said, rubbing Shelby behind his ears, “Willa Mae.”

  “Um, we was walkin’ around.”

  “At midnight?” I asked.

  Aphisha dropped her head.

  Brother Thomas stooped down to her. “Aphisha, you ain’t in no trouble. We just wanna know what you all was doin’. It might help us find what happened to Willa Mae.”

  “Grams said she with Jesus.”

  Mrs. Jasper said, “That’s right, chile. She is. We all miss her so much.” The old woman choked up. “Talk to these people, Aphisha. Tell ’em why you was with Willa.”

  “Um, Willa said we needed to get something.”

  Darcy stiffened.

  It took all I had not to react.

  Brother Thomas said, “You know what she needed to get?”

  “No. She didn’t tell me.”

  I asked, “Can you tell us which house you were at?”

  “Towanda’s.”

  Darcy looked at me. Not knowing who Towanda was, I shrugged and figured Brother Thomas knew her.

  He patted her head. “That’s real good, girl.”

  “How’d you get there?” I asked.

  “We walked,” she said.

  Darcy asked, “Did you go for a ride in Willa’s car?”

  “Yeah, she got a brown one.”

  Brother Thomas stood. “Thank y’all for your time. Sister Darcy, Brother Brack, we can go back to my office now.”

  My favorite reporter opened her mouth to say something. Brother Thomas put a finger to his lips and pointed to the front door.

  In the car outside Mrs. Jasper’s, I asked the obvious question, “Who’s Towanda?”

  “The local midwife. Unofficially, of course, mm-hmm.”

  I said, “Well, we know where we need to go next.”

  Brother Thomas faced me.

  “Stop wasting time,” I said. “Let’s go see this Towanda. Then we’ve got to find Willa’s car.”

  Five minutes later, Brother Thomas pulled the Volvo to a stop in the exact spot where I’d parked my truck the night Willa Mae was shot. We got out and went to the door of the house I’d ducked behind while running with Aphisha. The same house where the police had found and dug out the bullets that missed me and Aphisha. Bullets that had been fired from the gun found in the back of my truck.

  The preacher walked up the two steps and onto the concrete pad that made up the front porch. At the door, he paused and faced us. “Remember, let me do all the talkin’.”

  I nodded.

  Darcy remained silent.

  He knocked on the screen door.

  Through the screen and the thin front door, we heard a woman’s voice say, “Hold on.”

  After a moment of clicking locks, the door opened. Standing in the yellow light was a thin, light-skinned black woman. She was Darcy’s height with shoulder-length curly black hair that fell in rolls. Streaks of beige colored her white T-shirt. The smell of freshly applied latex paint wafted out the open door.

  She said, “Hello, Brother.”

  “Sister Towanda, sorry to bother you this evening. This here’s Sister Darcy and Brother Brack.” Pointing to my dog, he said, “And that is Mr. Shelby. He doin’ some volunteer work at the church.”

  Shelby sniffed Towanda’s hand and she patted his head.

  “Please come in.” She held the door open for us. The lighting cast the age lines of her face in shadows. Her eyes were clear and her gaze determined.

  Ceiling fans blew full blast along with two floor units she’d set up on the weathered hardwood plank floor. The house was small and Towanda was in the middle of repainting her living room a light beige, the same color staining her shirt.

  We stood in a small entryway.

  “Thanks for letting us interrupt your work,” I said.

  She wiped her forehead with her arm. “It’s okay. I need a break. Can I get you all something to drink?”

  “Um, no thanks,” Brother Thomas said. “Towanda, the reason we here is ’cause Aphisha told us she and Willa Mae had been here visiting you the night Willa got shot.”

  Towanda studied my face for a few seconds. “You’re the one who saved Aphisha, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  She looked at Darcy. “And you’re a news reporter.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Darcy said.

  “I enjoy your segments. And anyone who protects Aphisha is a friend.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, they came to see me that night.”

  “What for?” I asked, impatient that I had to ask it.

  Shelby offered a paw to Towanda.

  She took it and gave him another pat. “This is hard to talk about.”

  Brother Thomas said, “We buried her this morning. Anything you have to say might help us find out what the police don’t seem to want to.”

  The midwife straightened up. “Don’t you think I know that?” She took a deep breath. “Okay. Willa Mae had been coming to see me because she got pregnant.”

  Shelby circled the floor by Darcy’s feet and plopped down. His eyes were closed soon after.

  “Pregnant?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. Her diary had talked about her trying to play Jon-Jon, but I didn’t expect her to actually turn up pregnant. Of course, why else would she be visiting a midwife?

  “Yes,” Towanda said. “But she lost the baby that night.”

  “You mean she had a miscarriage?” Darcy asked.

  Towanda nodded.

  I said, “We checked out her apartment and found that she had been sick.”

  “She had been trying to detox,” Towanda said.

  Darcy asked, “So you knew about her drug use?”

  The midwife looked at Darcy when she answered. “Of course. I told her I wouldn’t help her unless she got clean.”

  “Did she have a relapse?” I asked.

  “More like she’d weaned herself off.”

  Brother Thomas asked, “What does that mean?”

  The midwife picked up a sweating plastic cup and took a long drink. “Willa was snorting a gram a day when she got pregnant and came to see me. She cut her daily fix a little each day for ten days.”

  “We saw her apartment,” I said. “It was not a pretty sight.”

  “She had morning sickness on top of everything else.”

  Darcy asked, “How was she paying her rent?”

  The midwife gave us a tight-lipped smile.

  We waited for a reply that didn’t come.

  Brother Thomas said, “Towanda, Willa Mae’s dead. Someone killed her and burned her up in a trash barrel.”

  “I told you I know that,” she said, her voice rising.

  “These two friends of mine are the only ones tryin’ to find the one who done it. Please talk to them.”

  “Are you in danger?” I asked.

  Towanda sat down on an old green couch and wiped tears from her eyes. “Willa was trying. The baby changed her. I saw it in her eyes. She stopped working for her madam.”

  “So then help us,” Darcy said.

  A thought came to mind. One I didn’t want to believe. I said, “She was still turning tricks, wasn’t she?”

  Towanda glared at me. “Yes. You happy now that you know?”

  “So,
who were her clients?” I asked.

  The midwife to the poor said, “I don’t know.”

  Brother Thomas asked, “Where she meet them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you think of anything that might help us find who killed her?” Darcy asked.

  “All I know,” Towanda said, “is she got a lawyer to work for her. Someone named Sykes.”

  Darcy took out a pad and wrote down the name.

  I wondered what she needed a lawyer for. Unless it had been for the baby. “One last question,” I said. “Do you know why Aphisha was with Willa Mae that night?”

  “Not sure,” the midwife said. “Aphisha normally stayed with her grandmother. I guess Willa wanted to spend time with her. Something told me she hadn’t been there for her much before.”

  We tried to find Willa Mae’s car and struck out, even with Darcy’s limitless resources. Willa Mae must not have registered it, therefore leaving no digital or paper trail. However, the lawyer, if one could call him such, was named Gordon Sykes. Early Saturday morning, I had Chauncey Conners, my lawyer and fellow Isle of Palms resident, look him up for me, and the report was not good.

  Chauncey said, “Your Mr. Gordon Sykes, Esquire, as he likes to be called, gives ambulance chasers a bad name.”

  “I wasn’t expecting Perry Mason,” I said.

  “I’m not quite sure what his client base is, but the few inquiries I made had him representing low-end drug dealers and prostitutes. Probably the absolute bottom of the barrel, and all of their cases beginning with an arrest of some kind.”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “His office is on the outskirts of town. I have the address here if you want it.”

  After I got it, I hung up with him. Paige called soon after.

  She asked, “Where have you been?”

  “Guess,” I said.

  After a pause, she did. “You’ve been looking into the murder of that dead girl, haven’t you?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Of course you have,” she said. “Well, I’m not even going to comment on that. You see, we have another problem now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Somehow all our purchasing records have been wiped out. Normally that would just be an inconvenience except that since we’ve applied for another license to sell alcohol, we need to show proof that we’re obtaining it legally. We can’t do that now. The state has placed a hold on our request for a new license pending investigation, as they put it. It’s still pending, but now flagged for further inquiry.”