Burning Heat Read online

  BURNING HEAT

  BURNING HEAT

  DAVID BURNSWORTH

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2016 by David Burnsworth

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Burnsworth, David.

  Burning heat / David Burnsworth. — First edition.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-4328-3111-0 (hardcover) — ISBN 1-4328-3111-9

  (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4328-3107-3 (ebook) — ISBN 1-4328-3107-0 (ebook)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3107-3 eISBN-10: 1-4328-3107-0

  1. Veterans—Fiction. 2. Charleston (S.C.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.U76755B87 2015

  813'.6—dc23 2015013111

  First Edition. First Printing: January 2016

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3107-3 ISBN-10: 1-4328-3107-0

  Find us on Facebook– https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website– http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 20 19 18 17 16

  For Patty, with all my love

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writers do not write in a vacuum. At least I don’t—more like I can’t. There are many people who have offered a helping hand along this journey, some of whom I’m bound to forget here thanks to my ever-limited memory. However, I will play it safe and begin with my wife so as not to have to spend any more time in the dog house than I usually do. Patty, you are the love of my life. I am so thankful for your support. Without your nudging, I would never have written the first word, much less a second book.

  I’d like to thank my mother and stepfather for so many things that I don’t have room to mention them here. I’d also like to thank my Uncle Al and Aunt Treva. They’ve traveled many miles to be my favorite groupies at signings.

  Every author should have someone who works behind the scenes, helping to organize and remove obstacles. I have that in Rowe Copeland, the Book Concierge. At almost any time of the day, I can send her an email request and have a response within minutes. She is responsible for taking me from having no Social Media presence to where I am today. And just about every signing I’ve been able to book is thanks to her.

  Five Star/Gale is wonderful to work with. Thanks so much to Gordon Aalborg, Erin Bealmear, Deni Dietz, Nivette Jackaway, Tracey Matthews, and Tiffany Schofield. You all have had way more patience with me than I had any right to expect.

  Jill Marr from the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency holds a special place here. I am blessed to have such a savvy agent.

  Chris Roerden is an amazing editor. She turns my sometimes gibberish into prose.

  The South Carolina Writers Workshop will always be near and dear to me. I could not ask for a better critique group than the Greenville Chapter. Y’all rock!

  Killer Nashville was where my dream of publication became reality. Clay Stafford and Jaden Terrell are the best.

  And, thanks to all you readers. The emails I receive from you are highlights of my day. You are the reason I want to keep going. God bless!

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Man can’t afford to lose his own soul while he is trying to do right.”

  Brother Thomas

  Charleston, S.C.

  My head buzzed from a second-hand high as I stepped out of Mutt’s Bar and onto the cracked sidewalk of one of the worst streets in the city. The night had not brought relief from the summer heat, but outside was cooler than inside. A plume of reefer smoke escaped the open door behind me, promising to stone the rest of the neighborhood.

  As if they needed help.

  The wail from Blind Man Jake’s Fender Stratocaster pierced the walls of the ramshackle watering-hole and tried to lure me back in. Termite dust and decay of the structure could not restrain the howl from the way-over-maximum-occupancy crowd within. The purple haze in the air was a small price to pay to hear the best blues man no one from the white side of the tracks but me ever heard of. Mutt had said the twenty I put in the tip jar would go right up Blind Man’s arm. The blues master looked a hundred years old, but he played a mean guitar.

  It was way past my bedtime and I’d been on this street enough times to know not to stop—for anything. So I didn’t—for two blocks. Even in the bad part of town, it could be hard to find convenient parking.

  With my Ram pickup in sight, I dug keys from the front pocket of my cargo shorts. Two figures ran toward me, one following the other. I regretted not packing anything tougher than a pocket knife.

  One of the runners, a man, growled, “Get in the car!”

  “I won’t!” The other, a woman, huffed and did not turn around.

  The man caught the woman on the stretch of sidewalk between me and my ride. He grabbed her, spun her around, and slapped her across the face. The sound cracked like a whip.

  Through gritted teeth, he repeated, “Get in the car.”

  I opened my mouth to intervene and a third figure, a little girl, darted out of the shadows ten feet from me. She screamed, “Willa Mae!” and rushed toward the woman.

  The man backhanded the child. I sprinted and caught her before she hit the ground. She grabbed onto me, crying.

  I said, “Pick on someone your own size.”

  “Beat it, cracker,” the man snarled. “This ain’t yo bidness.”

  The little girl tightened her grip around my shoulders.

  I said, “I was talking to the kid.”

  The woman called Willa Mae said, “Please help us.”

  The man closed the distance between me and him. “You a smart mouth. Gonna be a dead smart mouth.”

  I lowered the girl and sat her down behind me, and the man punched me in the mouth—a good enough hit that I saw stars for a half second. Experience told me to be ready for the next swing and I was. He went for another head shot. I blocked it, grabbed his arm, and wrenched it behind his back. Then I shoved his face into the roof of a parked car. Hard. His knees buckled and I let him drop to the ground.

  Willa Mae said, “You better get outta here, Mister. He wakes up and we in trouble.”

  The little girl hugged her. In the moonlight, I got a good look at the two females.

  To Willa Mae, I said, “I know you.”

  “Lots of men know me,” she said.

  “I can give you a ride if you want. I know a preacher who lives nearby.”

  She said, “We’ll be all right. You should leave.”

  Motioning to the little girl, who couldn’t have been more than six, I asked, �
�Is she yours?”

  Willa Mae wrapped her thin arms around the child. “She’s my sister.”

  The man behind her groaned, raised himself, and stretched out his arm. My eyes focused on the object in his hand. Before I could react, the click-click sound of a revolver hammer being cocked echoed in my ears.

  Willa Mae shoved the child to me and spun around to face the man. “No!”

  The weapon exploded and Willa Mae collapsed.

  The little girl screamed, “Willa!”

  I picked up the little girl, turned, and ran for cover. The pistol boomed again. Only my back shielded the girl as splinters of wood flew off the siding of a house we ducked around. Running full-out, I cut the next corner to the back of the house.

  A V-8 engine roared to life close by and tires screeched, the noise quickly receding in the distance. No house lights turned on that hadn’t already been lit.

  Something in the backyard tripped me and we fell. My elbows kept me from crushing the girl when we hit the ground.

  “Willa,” she mumbled again.

  A grim thought came to mind. Willa Mae was gone.

  The shooter, whoever he was, ought to be thankful I didn’t still have the M4 rifle and night-vision glasses the Marines had taught me to use. He deserved a Bin Laden special—two shots and a splash.

  There were no other sounds.

  In the darkness, I got to my knees. We were alone.

  I asked, “You okay?”

  Sniffling, she let me help her up.

  With both of us standing, I pulled out my iPhone, scrolled, and tapped on a number. My eyes scanned the backyard.

  Brother Thomas, the local pastor and a good friend of mine, answered on the second ring. “Mm-hmm,” came his sleepy voice.

  Ever since he’d helped me solve my uncle’s murder last year, we’d become good friends. I knew enough to know I was going to need him for this.

  “It’s Brack,” I said. “I’ve got a situation here.”

  The girl raised her arms and I scooped her up with my free hand. She hugged my neck and buried her head in my shoulder.

  “Brother Brack?” He cleared his throat. “What kind of situation?”

  “You know a woman named Willa Mae?”

  “Yes.”

  “She just got murdered.”

  “Murdered? What you talking about? By who?”

  “Someone with a death wish. He also slapped a little girl and took a shot at me.”

  Brother Thomas sounded very alert when he asked, “Little girl? What little girl?”

  “The one with me right now.” I took the phone away from my ear and asked her, “What’s your name?”

  Between sniffles, she said, “Aphisha.”

  With the phone back to my ear, I heard Brother Thomas say, “Oh, Lord. Where you all at?”

  “Two blocks from Mutt’s. You better get out here. I’m going to need you when I talk to the police. You know I’m not one of their favorites.” I read him the street names off the closest sign.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Brother Thomas stopped the Volvo a widow had donated to him by the curb where Aphisha and I stood. He wore his usual black suit with minister’s collar. Two inches taller than my six feet, and a hundred pounds over my two-ten, he was a force to be reckoned with in any situation.

  And he wasn’t alone. With him was an elderly black woman who walked with a cane. She embraced Aphisha.

  “Brother Brack,” Brother Thomas said, “this is Mrs. Jasper. She Aphisha’s grandmother.”

  The old woman nodded at me. “Thank you for hepping Aphisha, here. I don’t know what I’da done if somethin’ happen to her.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more,” I said.

  A police cruiser arrived. Two uniforms got out, introduced themselves, and took my statement. Aphisha was too scared to say anything, even while being held in her grandmother’s arms. The officers must have realized they weren’t going to get anything else from her any time soon. They radioed in what I told them and went to find Willa Mae’s body.

  While we waited for them to return, Brother Thomas said in a low voice, “You leave anything out?”

  “No.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I felt his eyes on me. “I didn’t.”

  “You know I love you as if you was my own, Brother Brack. And I know you pretty good, too. So tell me what you didn’t tell the po-lice.”

  I pulled a cigar out of my pocket, took off the cellophane, clipped the end, and lit it with my late uncle’s Vietnam Zippo. My friend didn’t partake so I didn’t bother to offer him one. The smoke from the ten-dollar stogie filled my mouth and I exhaled, my body beginning to unwind.

  Brother Thomas was right—I’d held something back.

  Quietly, I said, “Willa took the bullet for the kid. She took it for me, too. Just turned around and faced it.” I took another pull on the cigar and blew out the smoke. “Last time I saw something that courageous was Afghanistan.” And I made sure the ones who killed my fellow Marine paid for it.

  The cruiser returned, pulling to the curb beside me. The officer riding shotgun lowered his window and said, “You’re gonna have to show us where the shooting occurred. The victim’s body isn’t where you allege.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Do you mind if Brother Thomas takes the girl and her grandmother home?”

  The officers collected contact information before dismissing them. Brother Thomas drove away with the woman and child and I couldn’t help but think this was business as usual for them. Except for the kid. She was jacked up for life.

  After they left I said, “It happened near my Ram pickup. Did you find it?”

  The officer driving the cruiser said, “Yeah. But like we said, no body.”

  I folded myself into the backseat of the patrol car behind the steel kick panel, like I’d done enough times before to know how to make myself feel a little less cramped, since comfort was out of the question. We drove to where I directed them.

  The scene was dark and quiet. No one strolled along the sidewalk. The cruiser pulled next to a fire hydrant.

  The rear doors of the patrol car didn’t have handles on the inside, for obvious reasons, so I said, “If you let me out, I’ll show you where it happened,”

  The two officers and I got out and walked to where I was sure Willa Mae went down but the ground was clear of both the body and any blood. I pointed out the dent in the roof of the parked car I’d smashed the man’s face into as well as the bullet holes in the side of the house. One of the officers shined a light into the bed of my truck and I watched the beam reflect off something metallic that didn’t belong there.

  “Is that your handgun?” he asked me.

  I closed my eyes. This was about to get uglier. “No, sir.”

  The officers called for a technician and I spent the next two hours waiting for detectives to show. My never-sunny disposition lost some of its luster with each tick of the clock. From a seat on the ground twenty feet from my truck, I watched the detectives, a man and a woman, approach. The last time I’d been in a similar situation things didn’t end well.

  “Mr. Pelton,” the woman said, “I’m Detective Warrez.” She looked fit in black suit pants and a white shirt, with a holstered Glock clipped to her belt. If I had to guess, I’d say she was mid-to late thirties, about my age. She continued, “This is my partner, Detective Crawford. We need to ask you a few questions.”

  I stood and shook their hands. “Sorry to get you called out so late on this fine May evening.”

  Detective Warrez said, “It’s our job.” She tucked dark, chin-length hair behind her ears and pulled a notepad from her back pocket. “You want to tell us what we’re doing here?”

  I wanted to say, “Your job.” Instead, I said, “I was walking to my truck when I heard a man and a woman arguing in front of me.”

  “That would be the man with the gun and the alleged deceased?” asked Detective Crawford.

  “Yes. The man chased a
nd struck the woman. The little girl ran to the woman and the man struck her, too. That’s when I intervened.”

  The female detective asked, “What do you mean by ‘intervened’?”

  “I put myself between the little girl and the man. He punched me and I shoved his face into the roof of that car over there. I thought I’d knocked him out but he pulled a gun and shot the woman. I grabbed Aphisha and ran.”

  Detective Warrez asked, “Aphisha?”

  “The little girl.”

  Crawford asked, “Is that the last time you saw either the man or the woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the man?” he asked. “Can you describe him?”

  “African-American, I’m pretty sure. Aside from that, it was too dark for me to really see him.”

  Detective Warrez said, “And the gun the officers found in your truck, a Beretta nine millimeter, isn’t yours and you don’t know how it got there.” It wasn’t a question.

  Too many discussions with police detectives had taught me to not take the bait. So I didn’t.

  She turned to her partner. “Can you check and see if the technicians are done with Mr. Pelton’s pickup?”

  Crawford nodded and walked away.

  I pulled out another cigar and lit up. Something told me it might be rude, but I really didn’t care. The clock had passed midnight, Cinderella was nowhere to be found, and my four-cigar limit had reset with the new day.

  I asked, “You want to tell me what you’re thinking?”

  The crime scene lighting showed Detective Warrez’s skin to be a natural shade of tan. She said, “That would go against protocol.”

  “Humor me.”

  She closed her notepad. “I’ve got an alleged murder with no body. I’ve got a recently fired pistol found in the bed of your truck with no fingerprints. And since the officers let the only other witness leave the scene, I’ve got you.”

  Exhaling a cloud of smoke, I said, “And you’re not smiling.”

  “Mr. Pelton—”

  “Call me Brack.”