Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  She came closer, stooped down, and gave me a single kiss on the lips. “I know you’re not that bad of a guy.”

  I watched her walk away again, this time with the knowledge that she wasn’t coming back any time soon. People say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I have to agree with that. My luck with women was a case in point. I dug out my cell phone and hit speed dial. Darcy answered on the third ring.

  I asked, “Any of your sources give you a news flash in the last five minutes?”

  “No. Why? Is something going—” She paused in mid-sentence. “Hold on, I’m getting another call.” When she clicked over to it, I took another drag off my cigar and waited. Thirty seconds later she was back. “You must be psychic.”

  “So what happened?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Well, spill it, girl.”

  “Bad news.”

  Brother Thomas, Mutt, and then Aphisha came to mind. “What?”

  “There’s been another murder. It’s Camilla.”

  I stared at the wall of the room. “Where’d they find her?”

  She told me. I said I’d meet her there, ended the call, and dialed Brother Thomas.

  “I just heard,” he said.

  “You and Darcy have got some wicked sources,” I said. “She’s going to meet me at the crime scene. You want to come?”

  “Since she was a friend of Willa’s, I believe I will take you up on your offer.”

  The Deep South forms its own version of Hades when the thermometer hits a hundred and the hygrometer nears the same. Nights offer some relief, but tonight was not one of them. In the palmetto heat, I wiped sweat off my forehead with my hand and flung it at the asphalt.

  The crime scene was a stark reminder to me of events of a year ago. Events I’d rather forget but thanks to this investigation couldn’t. My uncle had been gunned down by an old army buddy because he didn’t want to sell a hundred acres of undeveloped wetland along the Ashley River. The crime scene was an alley not far off the tourist section of downtown Charleston. I now stood at the entrance to that same alley, with the same crime-scene tape holding back the media, tourists, and other gawkers. And the same news vans were blocking the street.

  I found Darcy and a cameraman setting up to film a segment for Channel Nine News not far from where I’d first met her on that dreadful night. Brother Thomas ambled up close behind me. Darcy greeted him in her usual fashion, giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She never greeted me that way.

  “Your cop friend is already here,” she said. “She showed up in a black dinner dress like she was out on a date or something.” Darcy looked me over. “Nice outfit. Must have been blind luck, your calling me asking if something’s happened five seconds before I get a call about another murder.”

  “Must have been,” I said. “So what do we know?”

  “I know a lot,” she said. “And I have a news clip to film. So if you don’t mind …”

  “Actually, I do mind,” I said, my voice rising. “Quit the—”

  Brother Thomas interrupted me. “Children, children. Let’s calm down and take a deep breath.”

  “I am calm,” Darcy said, “and I need to finish this segment. Now, again, pretty please, with sugar on top, get out of here so I can work.”

  The tone and volume of her voice suggested that she was, in fact, not calm. But I let it slide.

  Brother Thomas grabbed my arm and escorted me closer to the barricade. “Officer,” he said to one of the men in uniform wandering around behind the crime-scene tape. The man tried to look away.

  “Officer, my name’s Reverend Thomas Brown. Please tell your commanding officer I’d like to speak with him.”

  The man raised his head and nodded without so much as glancing in our direction. Then he disappeared in all the activity. While we waited, I watched Darcy give her clip on the murder. Her profile was flawless.

  “Darcy Wells, Channel Nine News,” she began. “I’m standing in front of Simmons Alley where the body of a twenty-one-year-old woman was found stabbed to death a short time ago. The police are withholding the name of the victim until the family can be notified.”

  Darcy looked from the camera to me and said: “A year ago, another murder took place in this same alley. That victim was Reginald Sails, the owner of the Pirate’s Cove Bar and Grill on the Isle of Palms. It remains to be seen whether the two crimes are connected.” She deadpanned the camera. “All we know is that two murders in the same location in this city usually turns out to be more than coincidental. This is Darcy Wells, Channel Nine News.”

  My insides burned with anger. She had no reason to go there. I turned to say something to Brother Thomas and found him talking with the C.O.

  “Brother Brack,” Brother Thomas called. “We need to leave now.”

  “Just a moment, Brother,” I said and started for Darcy.

  He stopped me. “No time. They gonna let me notify the next of kin ’cause I used to be a police chaplain. We gotta leave. Now.”

  It was not a suggestion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I gripped the steering wheel tight and gunned the motor. “She had no right to do that.”

  “If you run any more traffic lights,” Brother Thomas said, “I’m jumping out.”

  At the next intersection, I slowed to a stop. “Can you believe she did that to me?”

  “To you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Dragging Uncle Reggie’s murder back into the spotlight. It’s been a year and things were just getting back to normal.”

  If I thought about why I was really mad, I’d ram a brick wall.

  “But another murder happened in the same alley,” Brother Thomas said. “What did you expect her to do? Ignore it?”

  “It was the least she could do considering all that I’ve done for—”

  “Oh, so it’s about you, now? She supposed to forget she’s a reporter and look after the poor little Marine who can’t seem to get a grip on hisself.”

  I slammed on the brakes and slid into a parking lot. “You want to say that again?”

  Brother Thomas looked at me and spoke in a voice much too calm. “Maybe she was protecting you and Patricia by making the connection tonight. What do you think would happen if she and the TV station tried to hide it? Like the other papers aren’t smart enough to find out on their own?”

  I hit the steering wheel. “She had no right!”

  “She had every right. In fact, I think it was her duty to her employer and as your friend to do exactly what she did. You forgetting one small little fact in all this.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That girl loves you.”

  “She has a funny way of showing it. I mean, she’s moving to Atlanta in a couple of weeks to get married.”

  “Brother Brack, you ever think she really don’t want to?”

  I didn’t respond.

  He said, “Why else would she still be coming to see you? Spending time in your bar? Getting you to give her boat rides? You think she don’t have enough money to buy a whole fleet of ships?”

  He was more right than I wanted to get near to. Still, she was leaving in a month. And I didn’t like that at all.

  “It took all the strength she had to give that report,” he said. “You could see it in her face. Why you think she looked at you when she made it?”

  “It still hurts.” I wasn’t talking about the news clip anymore.

  “I miss Reggie, too. That boy had more crazy ideas than the sanitarium. But, he gone and we here. And we need to get going before that girl’s family finds out from someone else. If that happens, I’m blaming you.”

  The police had tracked Camilla’s mother without too much trouble, thanks to Camilla keeping her real name. And according to Brother Thomas they didn’t really seem to want to notify any family and were glad he’d volunteered. Her mother’s last known address was a trailer park in North Charleston. The GPS got us to the park, but we had to ro
ll through at five miles an hour until we found the unit.

  I pulled in behind a fifteen-year-old Honda Accord with faded paint and cut the motor. “How you wanna play this?”

  My minister friend asked, “What you talkin’ about?”

  “We gotta find out if they’ve seen her in the last week.”

  Brother Thomas wiped his face with a handkerchief.

  “Brother Brack,” he said, “that is not what I signed up fo’.”

  I looked at the rusty screen in front of the front door, the dirty siding on the trailer, and the concrete blocks that someone had begun to line the bottom of the trailer with which stopped at only the second course. “You want to find Willa Mae’s killer, don’t you?”

  “Not like this.”

  “Two people are dead, one of them being Willa Mae. Now, I’m going in there and I’m going to ask a few questions. I liked this girl. I liked her a lot. But she’s another victim in this mess that started two weeks ago. This has got to stop, one way or another. No matter what it takes.”

  Brother looked away from me and wiped his face again. Shaking his head, he said, “No matter what it takes.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he was agreeing or not and didn’t really care. With a flick of the handle, I opened my door and stepped out.

  Brother Thomas did the same. “Okay. We do this my way. If you start in on those people, like I know you want to, I will drag you out of their home dead or alive. We clear?”

  Something told me he was serious. He had the moral high ground covered, so who was I to question it. I nodded and motioned him to take the lead to the door. He cleared his throat and gave the door two good raps.

  The door behind the rusty screen was opened by a woman who was the spitting image of Camilla twenty very hard years down the road. Her pale, white skin and long, dark hair and curvy figure were present and accounted for.

  She gave me a grin and took a drag on a cigarette. “Well, if this ain’t something.”

  Brother Thomas said, “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m Reverend Thomas Brown, and this here is Brother Brack. We was looking for Dolores Good. Would you happen to be her or would this be her place of residence?”

  The woman leaned against the open door.

  From behind her, a man yelled, “Who the hell is it?”

  Ignoring him, she said, “I am and this is. What’s this about, Reverend? You collectin’ for your church?”

  Now for the bad news.

  The preacher said, “Sorry to bother you, Ms. Good. We got something we need to talk to you about and I’d rather not do it through your screen door here. You mind if we come in?”

  Her eyes went from my overweight friend dressed in black to my silk and linen duds. I gave her what I felt was a sympathetic smile.

  She unlocked the screen. “All right. But just so’s you know, Tom’s got a shotgun so you best not try anything.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Brother Thomas held the door open for me and then followed after.

  We stood in the sparsely decorated living area of the old, rundown trailer. A small flat screen TV belted out American Idol. The gentleman who’d called to Ms. Good must have been in another room. Threadbare furniture and fading wallpaper had the tint of yellow from years of cigarette smoke.

  She said, “Okay, now what do y’all want?”

  I said, “I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news regarding Camilla.”

  Ms. Good said, “I haven’t seen her in, like, five years. What’s that little tramp done now?”

  “Ms. Good,” Brother Thomas said, “I’m sorry to say she died this evening.”

  “Shut up!” she said. “Shut your filthy mouth!”

  A man stormed into the living room. He was fat and round and bald. He did not have the aforementioned shotgun. “You get the hell out of my house, you hear!”

  The woman put her hands to her face, turned away, and began to cry.

  The man looked at her. “What in the hell is going on?” To us, he said, “You two get the hell out!”

  Brother Thomas said, “I am so sorry for your loss.” He set one of his cards on the counter of a dinged-up end table, turned, and opened the door.

  The poor woman’s shoulders shook, her breaths coming out as gasps for air.

  I said, “Your daughter was trying to do the right thing when she died. I wanted you to know that.”

  The next morning I called Mutt, figuring that he might not want to be alone what with his bar gone. As I opened the door to leave, an attractive brunette woman I’d seen before was set to knock.

  “Oh,” she said, flashing perfect teeth. “I’m looking for a Mr. Brack Pelton.”

  “You got him,” I said to Eve White. “Please come in.” I waved a hand to direct her inside.

  She passed me and stood in my living room, her brown hair pulled back in a clip, and her outfit a peach body-hugging number. “I’m a … well, I used to date Jonathan Gardner.”

  Closing the door, I said, “Junior, right?”

  “Yes. My name is Eve White.”

  I shook her offered hand. “Can I get you something to drink, Ms. White?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Motioning to the couch, I said, “Have a seat.”

  We sat, her at one end and me at the other.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  Looking at her hands, she said. “Um, certain things have come to my attention. Things I’m kind of embarrassed to talk about.”

  “Yes?”

  “I know you are looking into the deaths of those girls.”

  She said girls. Plural. That means she already knew of a connection. The police hadn’t gone that far. At least, officially.

  Without trying to seem eager all of a sudden, I said, “You know something about them?”

  She smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her tight skirt. “More like I overheard something I probably shouldn’t have.”

  Waiting patiently was not one of my virtues. I had to dig deep to stay composed.

  Continuing, she said, “I went over to Jonathan’s to break up with him this morning. He was talking with his father on the phone when I let myself in. I’ve got my own key. And actually, they were yelling at each other. I heard him mention the two women who’d been killed, Willa Mae and Camilla, and that they didn’t know who killed them.” She wrung her hands together. “That’s when I let myself back out. I don’t think he even knew I was there.”

  “Smart move. So you’re saying they didn’t know who’d killed the women and were upset?”

  “Yes. But only about how it was going to ruin his father’s chances in the election. It was awful. The deaths of those girls only mattered to them in how it made them look. And some link to something that happened last summer. I didn’t quite catch that part either.”

  “Why do you want to stop seeing Jon-Jon?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding?” she said, her voice rising. “He was sleeping with prostitutes.”

  “I could see how that might not be the best thing for a relationship.” I paused and thought. She seemed sincere and I didn’t believe she was playing me or trying to cover for Jon-Jon. “So what do you want me to do with what you just told me?”

  “I thought you were after him.”

  “I’m after the killer,” I said. “You just gave me reason to believe both Gardners don’t know who he is.”

  “Yes, but don’t you see?” she asked. “They knew the girls. Both of them. And they’re afraid of what’s happening. They might not be the killers, but they’re involved. I know it.”

  Before Eve left, I gave her my card and told her to stay away from the Gardners. She told me she was leaving for California in the morning. As I drove to Mutt’s, I phoned Darcy and told her about my conversation with Eve. She agreed it wasn’t anything we could use at the present time, but would start looking into anything that happened last summer.

  As I stood in Mutt’s living room while he changed his shirt, my phone vibrated in my pock
et. I pulled it out, looked at the caller I.D., and answered.

  The caller sniffled and gasped. “Mr. Brack?”

  I thought I recognized the voice as the girl from the rehab center. “Megan?”

  More crying. “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Ye-yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  Mutt said, “Who’s that?”

  I waved him off. “Are you still there?”

  She said, “Mm-hmm.”

  “Are you at the rehab center?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Good,” I said. “Are they treating you okay?”

  Sniffle. Cough. “I found out Camilla was killed.”

  “Yes. I’m very sorry.”

  “Can you come here to see me?”

  Looking at Mutt, I said, “I’ve got a friend with me.”

  Megan asked, “Is it Darcy Wells?” The hope in her voice made her sound like a young teenage girl for a moment. In other words, like her real age for a change.

  “Not this time. She’s working on a story. Camilla’s story. I’ve got another friend. I think you’ll like him.” I chuckled. “He’s kind of silly.”

  Mutt said, “You get off that phone and you and me’s gettin’ into it.”

  Winking at Mutt, I said, “Hold tight, Megan. We’re on our way.”

  We said our goodbyes and ended the call.

  “Silly, huh?” Mutt asked. “Like how?”

  After more than a few moving violations, we pulled into the entrance to the rehabilitation center.

  Megan sat on the front steps waiting for us, her backpack by her side. Her arms were folded underneath her legs and she rocked back and forth. I parked in visitors’ parking and Mutt and I walked over to her. She stood, ran to us, and gave me a hug. I hugged her back. Mutt lit a cigarette.

  She cried some more. Apparently she didn’t get all of it out over the phone. I gently patted her back.

  After more than a minute, her sobbing slowed and she took deep breaths. Holding her at arm’s length, I watched her.