Burning Heat Read online

  “Mr. Pelton, we checked you out on our way here.”

  I said, “I’ll bet that was enlightening.”

  “To say the least,” she said. “You have a history of gunfights and meddling in police investigations. What I can’t understand is what’s going on here.”

  “What do you think is going on here?”

  “I’m not sure, but if I find out this is a ploy to drum up business for your bar, I will personally nail your coffin shut.”

  Detective Warrez was a few inches shorter than me and had to look up when I stepped in close. “You said it yourself—I have a history of gunfights.”

  She didn’t back off and didn’t flinch.

  I locked my eyes on hers. “That alone should tell you I know what someone getting shot looks like. A woman was murdered here tonight in cold blood. If you choose to chalk it up to some bogus accusation and slander me, then you’re not going to like it when I find the shooter and nail his coffin shut.”

  She held my gaze. “Mr. Pelton, I’d recommend you exercise your right to remain silent before I decide to read the rest of them to you.”

  Crawford returned. “Everything all right here?”

  Straightening up, I took another pull on my cigar.

  Warrez said, “Mr. Pelton wants to be a good citizen and help us any way he can.” To me, she said, “Give your contact information to Detective Crawford. We’ll be in touch.” With that, she turned and walked away.

  It occurred to me as I watched her leave that I’d just dived into a big pile of sewage and forgot to shut up before I swallowed a mouthful.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next morning, Sunday, I awoke early from a night of not much shuteye. Close-range gunshots did that to me sometimes. While I contemplated falling back to sleep versus getting up, Shelby, my rescue mixed-breed dog, cast his vote by giving an excited bark from the doorway. So I forced myself out of bed, let Shelby out to make sure the yard was still his turf, and gulped a large glass of orange juice before putting on jogging shorts and running shoes.

  “Ready to go?” A needless question.

  Shelby spun around, grabbed the leash that I kept coiled by the door, and ran to me. I clipped it to his collar and we went for our morning jog. The Isle of Palms, where Shelby and I reside in the single-story shack I’d inherited from my uncle, was a barrier island a few miles north of Charleston and a favorite tourist vacation spot. The sun barely peeked over the water. Outlined in white trim, the beach-front homes that went for two million, even in a down market, bloomed in pastel shades of yellow and pink and blue, and were elevated thanks to new codes after hurricane Hugo hit the lowcountry in ’89.

  Willa Mae had haunted my dreams—not only because of the shooting but also because I’d met her before. Following my return from Afghanistan, where I’d been deployed after my wife, Jo, died of cancer, I spent a couple months trolling the bars and nightclubs of downtown Charleston. Loneliness and heartache plagued me and I’d tried to placate them with booze and one-night stands.

  It had been during one of these escapes that I’d run across Willa Mae. At a crowded bar, she stood next to me while we waited for one of the busy bartenders to take our orders. I noticed her tight dress, straight black hair, and dark eyes and asked how she was doing. After I paid for our drinks, we sat at a corner table and talked. Her laugh was full of life and her smile showed perfect white teeth. Too soon, a tearful friend pulled her away from the table and they made a quick exit. I went home alone that night, but unhappy only because I hadn’t gotten her phone number.

  I didn’t see her again until last night. My telling Brother Thomas how she’d faced the gun did not do adequate justice to her act of bravery.

  In the early afternoon, I sat sipping an iced tea at my bar, the Pirate’s Cove, located on the ocean side of the Isle of Palms. Like the shack Shelby and I called home, I’d inherited the place from my late uncle and had decided to keep it going instead of selling out. Its elevated structure was covered with green planks, the whole thing in the shape of an old Spanish frigate. She flew her flags proudly in defiance to the high-end hotels and beach shops surrounding her.

  Satellite radio’s beach station filled the place with a tropical-drink-sales-pitch of a song courtesy of Kenny Chesney. The surf charged up the sand like platoons of soldiers in an ever-repeating siege.

  Bonny, the bar’s macaw mascot, landed on my shoulder, gave my ear a gentle nip, and squawked, “I love you, Brack.”

  I stroked her head. “I love you too, girl.”

  Seemingly satisfied, she flew up to her perch and pruned her red and blue feathers.

  Too late for the lunch crowd and not quite happy hour, for once the bar had no customers. Just me, Bonny, and the infinite beach assault. Pure solitude. Shelby had elected to stay home and sleep and I felt his absence. To my right rested today’s edition of the Palmetto Pulse, folded to expose a headline:

  BURNED BODY FOUND AT CONSTRUCTION SITE

  A confidential source identified the victim as a middle-aged Latino man, so it wasn’t Willa Mae. Her story was buried on page four in a short paragraph describing the “alleged” shooting. Even if I hadn’t read the five sentences minimizing the loss of a life, I would have known my name wasn’t mentioned. The lack of customers told me that much. The last time I made the paper for a shooting, it packed my bar for weeks. Detective Warrez knew what she was talking about when she suspected my “escapades” as publicity seeking. She just didn’t know me.

  I felt a tap on my lower back. A lifetime ago, that would have sent me reaching for a gun. Today, I eased around and found myself looking at a little black girl wearing a pink dress, her pigtails held by pink clips. She seemed about six and with brown eyes that looked, to me, curious and amazed at the same time.

  “Aphisha?”

  She nodded.

  “Brother Thomas with you?”

  Aphisha shook her head no, pigtails wagging, her fingers clutched tightly to a small pink purse. I waited for her to speak, but no words came directly.

  “No, Mr. Pelton,” said a voice I’d heard before, “I brought her.” Aphisha’s grandmother stood at the entrance to my bar, stooped over her cane.

  Out of respect, I climbed off my stool and walked to her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She smiled.

  Seeing her support herself with the cane bothered my sense of being a good host. “Would you like to have a seat?”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’d appreciate that.”

  I guided her to the closest chair at a table across from the bar. “You all want something to drink?”

  Both ladies nodded.

  Aphisha hoisted herself up on a barstool.

  Not sure what they preferred, I asked, “Iced tea?”

  The younger lady shook her head no.

  “How about cherry Cokes?”

  That drew smiles and nods from both.

  I scooped ice into two glasses, poured in cherry syrup and Coke, and added maraschino cherries. In honor of my good friend Detective Wilson, currently residing in Myrtle Beach, who asked for them with every drink order, I dropped in small cocktail umbrellas. Aphisha took her drink at the bar with a coaster. I carried Mrs. Jasper’s glass to her, then sat on a chair next to her. “Did someone give you all a ride over here?”

  The old woman took a sip of her drink and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I borrowed my nephew’s car. He don’t need it ’cause he in jail. People sure is crazy drivers these days.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The spectacles Mrs. Jasper wore were almost as thick as the decorative glass blocks of a fifties diner.

  “Reason we here, Mr. Pelton, is—”

  “Please call me Brack.”

  “And my name’s Clara. Clara Jasper.”

  Aphisha said, “I want my sister back.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. The child had been with me when her sister was shot. There was no issue of mistaken identity. All I could think of was Aphisha’s suspension of di
sbelief must’ve been better than mine.

  Clara Jasper said, “What my granddaughter is trying to say is the police ain’t telling us nothing.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “They can be difficult at times.” Even my good friend Detective Wilson had been a real jerk in the beginning.

  Aphisha’s grandmother cleared her throat. “Brother Thomas said you was good at finding things … investigatin’.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “He said you found and shot the man who killed your uncle. Said the po-lice weren’t doin’ nothing about it, and you solved the case yourself.”

  She was right. About most of it, anyway. Except that I had help. A lot of help. From my Uncle Reggie’s ex-wife who owned the Palmetto Pulse paper and one of the local news stations. From Darcy Wells, the paper’s star reporter. From Mutt, a good friend and the owner of Mutt’s Bar, where I’d been last night, and Brother Thomas. And from Detective Wilson, who lost his job with the Charleston Police Department because of it.

  “Mrs. Jasper,” I said, “I appreciate the need to know what happened. As Brother Thomas told you, during my nightmare I was kept in the dark just as you are now. And it almost killed me, and a few others.”

  The old woman teared up and sniffled. “If Willa Mae gone, I’m all Aphisha got. And I won’t be around forevah.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” What I really thought was that my friend Brother Thomas had set me up real good. And the old lady thought Willa Mae might be alive, too. Like her granddaughter.

  Aphisha asked, “What are you crying for, Gramms?”

  Mrs. Jasper took a handkerchief out of a worn pocketbook and dabbed at her eyes. “I just love you so much, child.”

  The double doors to the kitchen swung open and Paige, my bar manager, came through them. Her thin, aerobic instructor-like build sported a modified version of the bar’s official T-shirt: the Pirate’s Cove insignia of a cigar-smoking Jolly Roger wearing aviator sunglasses and a bandanna with the South Carolina state flag on it. Today’s version, a size too small, had no sleeves and was tied tight above her belly button. Not that she’d listen if I suggested a wardrobe change. I motioned her over.

  “Mrs. Jasper and Aphisha, this is Paige. She’s going to fix you all some cheeseburgers on the house and I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Aphisha’s eyes opened wide. “Cheeseburger!”

  Before Paige could ask me what was going on, I stepped outside onto the back deck of the bar overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. A slight breeze of clean, ocean air reminded me once again why I’d chosen to spend the rest of my life in this paradise. I dialed Brother Thomas and was startled by his voicemail’s electronic voice booming his name. At the beep I said, “Brother, this is Brack. If you happen to be missing a pint-size parishioner by the name of Aphisha as well as her grandmother, they’re at the Pirate’s Cove with me and Paige.”

  I hung up and made another call. This time a live person answered. Through a lot of background noise, the voice said, “Shut up, Willie, and let me see who dis is.” A slight pause, and then, “Mutt’s Bar. What can I do you outta?”

  “Mutt,” I said, “this is your competition calling.”

  “My what? Competition? Yeah right, like I wanna compete for the bidness of all them fat soda crackers from New Jersey. How you doing, Opie?”

  “Same ol’ same ol’,” I said. “Only different.”

  “How! You pretty quick for a white boy. Word here is you almost caught the bus last night. I told them you got more lives than all them stray cats in animal control. What’s up?”

  “At this very moment, I’m looking at a little girl named Aphisha and her lovely grandmother.”

  “They at your place?”

  “Yep. And I can’t find Brother Thomas.”

  Mutt said, “You want me to tell him to call you?”

  “Sure, if you can find him. I got his voicemail.”

  “Consider it done.” He hung up.

  The communication system in the poor section of Charleston, where Brother Thomas’s Church of Redemption and Mutt’s Bar were two sides of the same coin, would baffle Verizon Wireless. Three minutes later, I received a call.

  “Brother Brack,” Brother Thomas said, “I heard you have Aphisha and Clara Jasper.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I was just wondering how Mrs. Jasper came up with the idea that I was in the dead missing persons business.”

  “Mm …” Brother Thomas paused. He never paused. He never closed his mouth except to chew his food.

  “While you think about that,” I said, “Mrs. Jasper needs some help getting back across the river. I don’t think she should really drive.”

  “She drove?”

  “See you when you get here, Brother.” I hung up and walked back inside the bar.

  It didn’t take long for both of my visitors to clear their plates of burgers and fries. Afterwards, Aphisha helped Paige roll silverware sets into napkins. Mrs. Jasper moved to the back deck and sipped her second cherry Coke while watching the ocean from underneath the awning that shaded the bar.

  Brother Thomas stepped through the doorway wearing his usual tight-fitting 3XL black suit and minister’s collar. “Well, there you are, young lady.”

  Aphisha beamed. She set the silverware and a napkin on a table and ran to him.

  My friend and pastor hugged her tightly, then held her at arm’s length. “Did you talk your grandmother into coming out here?”

  The little girl’s eyes opened wide. “I didn’t. I swear!”

  “Now, Aphisha,” Brother Thomas said, “what did we learn in bible study about swearing?”

  She lowered her head. “We shouldn’t swear.”

  “That’s right. Now go tell your grandmother I’m here to drive you all back home.”

  “Okay.” She walked out onto the back deck.

  “Paige,” I said, “why don’t you help Aphisha and Mrs. Jasper? I need to talk to Brother Thomas in my office.”

  Paige nodded and followed Aphisha.

  The large pastor trailed me across the bar to the office. Stopping at the doorway, I let him go in first, and entered, shutting the door behind me so the other wait staff couldn’t hear. I turned on my friend. “Why did you tell them I could find Willa Mae? She was shot. Or don’t you believe me, either?”

  The poor man, all six-foot-two, three-hundred-plus pounds of him, stood there looking into my eyes. “She wasn’t found. And ain’t no one else gonna look.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Probably,” he said.

  “Why, then?”

  “Because I known Willa Mae since she was a baby. Because I don’t like anyone attacking one of my flock. And because I’m asking you to, mm-hmm.”

  I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. With the door closed and the AC on the blink, the office warmed up quickly. “I’m not a private investigator.”

  The heat didn’t seem to bother Brother Thomas. “I know that, Brother Brack. The po-lice aren’t going to do anything. Aphisha’s grandmother is taking care of her. She can’t afford to pay no one no how.”

  The chair my uncle used to sit in when he’d run the bar squeaked when I took a seat. Like a lot of things in the place, it was old and worn out. “What do you think is going to happen when I show up in your neighborhood and start asking questions?”

  Brother Thomas eased into the sagging couch that my dog and I took turns sleeping on now and then. “People know you, Brother Brack. Most of ’em, anyways. I’ll tell ’em it’s okay to talk, mm-hmm.”

  “Why not just ask them yourself?”

  He pulled out a white cotton handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. “Sometimes, people tell me what they think I want to hear. You got a way about you. Got a lot of light around you, too. They’re not sure what they’re dealing with and might open up.”

  “But she’s gone.”

  His voice got loud. “We don’t know that!”

  I swiveled back and for
th in the chair, shifting the force from one foot to the other, considering what the best plan was. “Okay, setting logic aside, what if she is alive but doesn’t want to be found?”

  “Find her anyway. I’ll take care of it from there.”

  “What are you going to do? Drag her back, kicking and screaming?”

  Brother Thomas said, “If I have to.”

  His posture was rigid as he waited for some kind of acknowledgment from me. I looked away and thought about his request. What did I know about finding someone? Maybe this Man of God was only acting from desperation. I remembered how I was when my own life fell apart. My desperation sent me to war. At the time it was the best way I could think of to kill myself. Maybe I should be looking at this situation differently. Maybe the poor pastor simply wasn’t thinking clearly.

  I stood. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly, either.

  Brother Thomas bounded off the couch and wrapped me in a crushing bear hug.

  Through wheezes for breaths, I said, “Easy, there, Brother.”

  He gave me a final squeeze and let go. “Sorry, Brother Brack. I had nowhere else to go. I’m just happy you gonna do this, mm-hmm.”

  I wasn’t sure why I agreed. There were many good reasons not to. First and foremost being that Willa Mae was surely dead. But Brother Thomas had become my friend and I couldn’t let him down.

  “Come by the church tomorrow morning,” he said. “I got someone you should talk to.”

  We collected Aphisha and her grandmother from Paige and left out the front door, convincing Mrs. Jasper that we’d return her nephew’s car later. In the crushed shell parking lot of my bar, Brother Thomas tried to use the remote unlock button on his car.

  “Blasted things,” he said, pressing the button harder and harder. “Lord, tell me who designed such a contraption.”

  “Now Brother,” I said. “What did we learn in bible study?”

  Aphisha giggled.

  Brother Thomas straightened up. “Very funny. It would be even funnier if you showed up to bible study once in a while, mm-hmm.”

  Mrs. Jasper said, “Lord, I hope you two know what you doin’.”