Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  A rap on my door made both of us jump. Detective Warrez smiled and said, “You guys planning on going inside or what?”

  Mutt said, “I am if you are. Opie can wait in the car.” I asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Police business,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Mutt was showing me where he wanted his birthday party held.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she said. “Well, now that you’ve seen it, I suggest you head on out.”

  “You’re on a stakeout, aren’t you?” I asked.

  She slapped the roof twice. “You boys have a nice day. Now, head out.”

  Mutt and I walked into Patricia’s office. Her staff had stumbled onto something from last year. When she told me, I knew why we’d missed it. It happened at the same time Patricia and I had been closing in on another killer—my uncle’s.

  Apparently the police force didn’t like being questioned as to why they’d let the city’s sex trade run for so long without so much as a single arrest. They set up a major sting operation and caught a lot of people off guard. While the other papers did their best to keep up with the story, Patricia’s and probably the city’s best reporters were focused on my uncle and the web of corruption we’d discovered.

  Patricia’s staff found a plethora of information on the arresting officers and most of the pimps. More elusive were the names of the johns who’d gotten caught. Patricia made two well-placed phone calls and came up with a partial list. It was enough.

  I stared at the ten names she’d written on a pad. But I needed only two of them. At the top were senior and junior Jonathan Langston Gardners.

  My aunt had her staff comb public records and see if the Gardners showed up. Somehow, the father and son delinquents had managed to escape prosecution and there were no records. It was as if it never happened.

  A large contribution had been made to an influential city official’s election within twenty-four hours of the supposed arrest. The same city official that Ernest Brown had worked for. The donating entity turned out to be Estelle Gardner.

  “Estelle Gardner?” I asked.

  “The wife of treasurer candidate Jonathan Langston Gardner the third and mother of Jon-Jon.”

  The woman I’d seen at the Gardner party I crashed.

  I held the copy of the letter Megan had given me that she’d received from Camilla in my hand and reread the line that could change everything: Tell him to check out the Courtyard Suites, room 113, on Friday night.

  Well, today was Friday and the parking lot of the Courtyard Suites was full. The tip Camilla put in the letter to Megan had already paid off. After my phone call with Paige the night before, members of the single-mother army had been recruited for stakeout duty. An hour ago, they’d informed me that Camilla’s tip had been good. After they’d told me the name of one of the individuals in the room, I knew who I needed to share my newfound information with.

  Estelle Gardner, the mother of Jon-Jon and, more importantly for this exercise, the wife of treasurer of South Carolina candidate, fidgeted in the passenger seat of my Audi. “We’ve been here for ten minutes now,” she said. “When I agreed to this, I half-expected you to make a move on me.”

  Patricia had come up with a location on Estelle, a charitable event at the library. I intercepted her on the way to her car and told her I had something she needed to see. After a cursory dismissal, I told her if she wasn’t interested in what I had that she could read about it in the paper in the morning. Curiosity must have gotten the better of her because she relented.

  I took my eyes off the white door to suite one-thirteen, the one mentioned in Camilla’s letter. “I didn’t think you were into peasant bar-owners.”

  She leaned back against the door. “Don’t worry. I most definitely am not. And I’m getting out of this car if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

  I looked at my watch. “Just be patient.”

  She sighed. “This better be worth my time.”

  The door to the suite finally opened. Estelle and I watched a tall man with his back to us pull a naked black girl toward him, kiss her, and run his hands down her back. Estelle made a sound, like a bird chirping, then reached for the door handle. She was out of the car before I could hit the lock button, leaving her door wide open.

  “I guess it’s plan B,” I said to the empty seat beside me.

  Estelle stopped in front of my car and stood with arms folded across her chest. I think I saw one of her feet tapping the cracked concrete sidewalk. Gardner the candidate was still preoccupied. I got out and slammed my door, catching his attention.

  His mouth opened when he saw his wife. The girl behind him put her arms around his chest, but he pushed her off and took a step away. I found it amusing to see him quickly try to distance himself from who he was, as if attempting to pull off his own skin. I put my hand on the fender of my car but didn’t get too comfortable. Estelle struck me as being unpredictable and that kept me uneasy. If she pulled out a gun and started shooting, chances were her husband would be dead before I could stop it.

  “Don’t bother trying to explain yourself,” Estelle said to her husband. She motioned to me. “We now have another problem.”

  Gardner transformed before my eyes from tyrant to scared rabbit. I had set up this ambush, and now I almost felt sorry for him.

  Estelle spun on her heels and walked back to the car. “Let’s go.”

  Gardner raised a hand as if trying to stop the future from smacking him across the face, then let it drop. I got in the car and pressed the start button. The engine lit and I pulled away from the curb.

  When we reached East Bay, Estelle said, “Care to have a drink with me, Mr. Pelton?”

  We sat at a table on the roof-top bar where I’d run into Elizabeth. Mrs. Estelle Gardner ordered a double vodka tonic. I got a sweet tea.

  “You really are a piece of work,” she said.

  “I get that a lot.”

  The silence that followed was interrupted only by the waitress bringing our drinks.

  Estelle lifted the glass and used the cocktail straw to taste hers and said, “So what do you want?”

  I squeezed a lemon wedge into mine. “Did you really have to do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Have them killed?” I said.

  Her eyes opened wide and her cheeks got red. It looked like she clenched her jaw for a second. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Willa Mae was going to give you a mixed grandbaby and you couldn’t have that.”

  “If you’re talking about that dead hooker, who knows if she was pregnant or not. And surely the father could have been a whole bunch of men. After all, she was a hooker.”

  I smiled and said, “But you couldn’t take a chance, could you? No room in the Gardner legacy for a black baby. Not with your husband in the running for the treasurer for the state of South Carolina.” Bringing my drink to my mouth, I said, “I guess we’ll have to wait for the paternity test to come back.”

  “There was no paternity test.”

  As soon as the words came out of her mouth, I could tell Estelle wanted to take them back.

  She recovered by opening her purse and checking her face with a compact.

  “Besides,” she continued, still focused on herself, “I can assure you my son has nothing to do with any prostitutes.”

  “Is that why you fixed the arrest records from last summer?”

  Her head jerked up like I’d just slapped her.

  “Hiring Ernest was really not the best idea,” I said. “What you did was let a rabid dog into the kennel with your so-called purebred pedigree. And I think you know I’m right. I mean, he dumped the body right in your son’s backyard. I’ll bet that wasn’t part of the plan. One thing, though. Before Ernest killed her, Willa Mae had lost the baby. You had her killed and created this mess for no reason.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but stopped.

  “That’s
right,” I said. “The reason Willa Mae had been on that street was because she was visiting the local midwife. She’ll testify that she’d given Willa an examination and confirmed she’d lost the baby.”

  She stood, threw her drink in my face, and said, “I’m taking a cab.”

  I guess she forgot all about her husband.

  Satisfied that we’d caught Willa Mae’s killer, Darcy swung by my house and got me and we picked up Shelby. In celebration of cornering Estelle, we spent the rest of the night at the news office working on the story that would expose her and Ernest Brown.

  The next morning, on the way back to my house, Darcy crossed onto Sullivan’s Island. She missed the turn onto Jasper that would take us across the bridge and onto the Isle of Palms where my shack of a house was.

  “We taking a detour?” I asked.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned right onto Middle Street and headed toward my old house before it had been burned to the ground. Now the empty land belonged to my old neighbor.

  At the beach access I’d used when I lived here, she pulled into the sand lot and turned the engine off. “How about you, me, and Mr. Shelby take a walk on the beach?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she got out and moved her seat forward so Shelby could jump out, which he did without hesitation.

  I got out, closed the door, and followed them. At the surf, we turned left and headed up the beach. Shelby walked with his tongue out and his tail up, a spring in his step. I didn’t have his leash but he stuck close by. Today, no one else had ventured out this far down the island. Most preferred the wider stretches of beach.

  The ocean breeze felt good and the air tasted salty and clean.

  After a few minutes of silence, she said, “I’m going to miss this.”

  Not sure how to reply, I kept quiet.

  She put her hand to her face and slowed to a stop.

  Shelby sensed the change and nudged against her.

  Having never seen her cry before, it took me by surprise. Something had been gnawing at me for some time from deep within. I decided now was as good a time as any to give it voice.

  “Then, don’t go.”

  Her shoulders shook and she dropped to a knee. Shelby licked her face and she let out a laugh in the midst of her tears.

  I knelt alongside her and put a hand on her shoulder, the one that had taken the bullet. “I don’t want you to go.”

  Darcy looked at me as if for the first time. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t want you to go.”

  She shook her head from side to side. “No. Why are you telling me this now?” Her eyes explored mine.

  It was time to come clean, regardless of how many mistakes I’d made. “Because it’s how I feel.”

  Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, she said, “This isn’t fair, Brack.”

  I leaned in closer, not sure why.

  She touched my face and laughed. “Romeo.”

  Shelby nudged his way in between us.

  She laughed again and said, “I love your dog.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  She scratched around his neck.

  “Don’t go,” I said.

  Her eyes met mine. “I have to.”

  “Why?”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. “It’s just something I have to do.”

  My heart sank into the sand. “Is it because of me?”

  Using her hand to lift my chin she said, “Let’s just say, I had planned on leaving a while ago. I got distracted.”

  “So that’s what this is?” I asked. “A distraction?”

  “Neither of us is ready, yet,” she said. “At least, I know I’m not.”

  Almost ten years my junior and she just gave me insight into myself that I hadn’t wanted to deal with. I thought about all the women since Jo. I thought about Detective Warrez. And I thought about Elizabeth. What had I done?

  Darcy stood and offered to help me up. I took her hand and stood, facing her. We remained that way for a long time, me holding her hand and her letting me. I wanted to tell her not to leave again. Not to marry that peckerwood. But I realized she was right. I wasn’t ready. Yet.

  I sat at the corner of the bar on my uncle’s favorite stool and contemplated my lot in life. There were no customers in the place because there was no liquor being poured. There was no liquor being poured because the Gardners had found a way to run me out of business. Paige had found another job and didn’t have the stones to tell me. Rosalita needed time. Elizabeth could be just using me to get back at Jon-Jon. And Darcy was leaving.

  I took a long pull on a Dominican cigar, blew three rings toward the silent cash register, and exhaled the rest away from Bonnie’s cage.

  “I love you, Brack. Squawk!”

  “I love you, too, pretty girl.”

  “Squawk!”

  Shelby nudged my leg.

  “I love you too, pretty boy.”

  He lifted a paw to me.

  Who could resist that? I put the cigar in an ash tray and got down on all fours in front of him. With a playful growl, he hunched low on his front paws, his butt high in the air, tail wagging. I reached a hand for him and he growled more and gave a light nip at my fingers. The game was on. While he focused on my right hand, I scratched his ear with my left. He jerked his head when he felt it and soon we were busy wrestling on the floor, him winning two out of three rounds.

  In the middle of our fourth, Bonnie gave a loud squawk. Shelby jumped off me and growled, his attention on the front door.

  Detective Crawford cleared his throat.

  Shelby eased to the detective, his ears low and back, the fur between his shoulders sticking straight up.

  From the floor, I said, “Let him smell your hand.”

  “You sure it’s safe?”

  “Yeah.” I stood and dusted myself off. “In his mind you snuck up on us and he doesn’t like that.” Shelby’s read on a person’s character was spot on so if he did bite Crawford, then I’d know not to trust him.

  The detective stooped and held out a hand. Shelby moved in closer, a low grumble coming from deep within his belly, and took a quick sniff. Then a second. His ears perked up and he licked the offered appendage.

  I walked behind the bar. “So, what can I get you to drink?”

  He petted Shelby. “I thought you couldn’t serve drinks?”

  “I can’t. But I’ve been known to give a few away.”

  “In that case, I’ll take a shot of Jack and a beer.”

  I poured a shot from the bottle of Jack Daniels and the beer from the Yuengling tap. “So, to what do I owe this honor?”

  He said, “Warrez is missing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Crawford downed his shot and took a long pull on the beer.

  “You want to run that by me again?” I asked.

  “She called me to say she was taking a few days off. I haven’t heard from her since.”

  I said, “I saw her yesterday in the parking lot of this shady strip club called the Treasure Chest. Mutt and I were following someone and ran into her. She told us to leave so we did.”

  “We better check it out, then,” he said.

  “You’re sure she isn’t spending time with her daughter?”

  Crawford set his now half-empty mug on the bar. “I checked there. They haven’t heard from her either.”

  “She could just want to be alone.” Though I said it, I didn’t believe it.

  “There is something wrong and it isn’t because of you. I’ve been her partner for five years. I know her.”

  “What does your boss say?”

  He sat on a stool and rolled the mug between his hands. “What can he say? She’s on vacation and he doesn’t want to know anything else.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  The glass stopped moving. “I want to find my partner.”

  “I’m the last person she wants to see.”

  “Wilson sa
id you’d say that. He also said tough situations are exactly what you’re good at.”

  I had forgotten that Detective Wilson would have worked with Crawford since he’d also known Warrez.

  Leaning back against the liquor shelf, I said, “Yeah, well tell that to the next person who gets murdered because all I managed to do was get a story in the paper.” In fact, the only tangible thing out of that was wrecking Gardner’s chances at election. The killer and his master were still at large.

  Crawford said, “The next one could be Warrez.”

  We dropped off Shelby at Trish’s. I tried to let her know it was just for another day or so. Of course she was more than willing to take him back.

  Afterwards, as Crawford drove I told him what I knew about Ernest Brown, including his connection to the Gardners. When he’d gotten an earful about Mr. Fix-it, he picked up his handset and ran the name and car. Something he should have done when I first gave it to him over the phone.

  He asked, “And is that who you were following?”

  “No,” I said. “We were tailing Willa Mae’s lawyer.”

  “Gordon Sykes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, no, what?” I asked.

  “His body was found an hour ago in his car four blocks from the Treasure Chest. Strangled. The press doesn’t even know that yet.”

  My mind did a simple calculation. Detective Warrez was staking out the Treasure Chest. She must have followed Sykes and witnessed his murder. And now she’s missing.

  “This isn’t good,” I said.

  Crawford said, “You really think this Ernest Brown killed the two women?”

  “Yes but I don’t have any proof. If you can get DNA off him, maybe you can match it to the sample you took that night from the roof of the car I shoved his face into.”

  Crawford nodded. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  The handset beeped and Crawford answered and received the background on Ernest Brown. After a stretch in prison for assault and battery, Ernest operated under the radar.