Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  “They could be just playing stupid,” I said.

  “One of the construction workers told me they found the remains in a barrel like people used to burn trash in.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  From our vantage point, and with the optical help, we could see men and women in Sheriff’s Department shirts working the scene. After a while, it got boring to watch.

  Darcy took a lot of pictures, then put the camera away.

  “All done?” I asked, ready to get out of there and away from the death.

  She nodded. “You can lower the prop.”

  The tide was on its way out so I was glad to exit the cove. Darcy didn’t say much else as she piloted into open water.

  I took my shirt off, lathered on sunscreen, and stretched out. “Where are we headed now?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Twenty minutes later she slowed as we approached Capers Island, an uninhabited barrier island, and shut down the motor. I raised the prop so it wouldn’t drag, jumped into shallow water, and walked the boat onto the sand. Three other boats were beached there, so we didn’t have the place to ourselves. After tying off the anchor and shoving it into the sand, I lifted a cooler Darcy had brought along. Then I held her hand as she climbed over the edge, carrying a canvas bag.

  Shelby jumped out and worked the area with his nose, and Darcy and I grabbed the handles of the cooler and lugged it across one of the few beaches around still covered with shells. We found a level spot and set the cooler down. Darcy withdrew a worn blanket from her bag, spread it out, and then unloaded the cooler. Over the past year of getting to know her, I had learned to overlook Darcy’s quirky diets. We sat on the blanket and ate hummus on pita bread, olives, and cucumber salad.

  She offered some to Shelby but he wouldn’t touch it. Instead, he circled at our feet twice and then lay down. Within ten seconds he was snoring.

  I asked, “So you wanna tell me what angle you’re working for the Fiddler’s Marsh case?”

  Darcy took a sip of her drink. “The work crews building the new homes found the body. So far, the police have no leads. They haven’t made a real I.D. yet, either. I think there’s a connection to the building site.”

  “What kind of connection?” The herbal tea concoction she served me was not southern sweet tea, so I tried not to wince when I took a drink.

  She said, “I don’t know, but why would someone burn the body there, of all places?”

  Following the lead Brother Thomas gave me earlier after my visit with Mary Ellen, I parked my pickup in front of the Coat-of-Arms apartment complex. The name made it sound like a place where royalty hung out. The only royalties here came once a month from the U.S. government in the form of welfare. Faded brown wooden siding on the buildings showed signs of rot and maybe half of the ten cars in the lot appeared capable of mobility.

  The drive up I-26 to Orangeburg had taken about an hour. Shelby stayed at home sleeping off his busy afternoon boat ride and I missed his company. I grabbed a box of groceries from the backseat and pressed the lock button twice on the key fob. The truck’s alarm system responded with a blow of the horn. The brick tenement building with faded shutters that couldn’t shutter did have several doors along its length. I located the unit number Brother Thomas had given me and knocked on the door. “Miss Pervis?”

  “Hol’ on,” called a raggedy female voice from inside.

  While waiting I checked out the area. A few feet away, a stray cat licked a discarded frozen dinner tray. The thump of bass from a passing car throbbed under my feet.

  A security chain scratched against the inside of the door and at least two more locks released before the door opened. A woman about five feet tall stared up at me as if I were the jolly green giant.

  Ho ho ho.

  Her lined face defined her age. “You mus’ be the man Brother Thomas tol’ me was comin’.” Dentures clicked in her mouth when she spoke.

  “Yes ma’am,” I said. “My name’s Brack.”

  She looked at the box I was holding.

  I said, “Brother Thomas told me you liked ravioli and mac and cheese.”

  Her whole face turned into a smile. “Well now, that was sure nice of you, young man. Come in, come in.”

  She held the door open and I entered, catching a whiff of cat urine and moth balls. I watched as she closed the door, turned both locks, and latched the chain. We stood in her small, dim living room. The old TV had knobs and a digital converter box, the couch was covered with worn plastic, and over it hung a picture of Jesus.

  “Where would you like me to set the groceries, ma’am?”

  “Right this way.” She led me from the living room to a kitchen area. About five paces. A small table and two chairs stood against the wall to my right. I set the box on the table because the microwave took up all the counter space.

  I said, “Can I help you put this away?”

  “Naw.” She picked up a can of Chef Boyardee. “What you want, anyway? Brother Thomas jus’ said you wanted to ax me some questions.”

  The unpleasant odors and confined quarters closed in on me. I placed a hand on the back of one of the chairs. “Yes, ma’am. I am looking for your niece, Willa Mae. She’s, um, missing.”

  Her eyes pierced me. “What a good-looking man like you wanna get mix’t up wit’ Willa Mae for? I heard she dead. And if she ain’t, she still nothin’ but trouble.”

  “Her sister wants to know for sure.”

  “Hmm.” She clicked her dentures again. “That chile is better off never seeing Willa again.” The woman shook her head. “Nothin’ but trouble, yessir.”

  “So you haven’t seen her?”

  “Son,” she said, “let me tell you something. You ain’t the first white boy been by here lookin’. Willa had lotsa callers. And I’m being polite in calling ’em that.”

  I pulled out a notepad and pen from the pocket of my cargo shorts. “These men, any of them give you their names?”

  “Yeah, they got names. John. Every one of them.”

  “You saying she was tricking?” Brother Thomas had not mentioned that detail.

  The old woman mumbled something and shook her head again. “I prayed every day for that girl. I told her she get Jesus, she don’t need nothing else. Look at me. I ain’t got much. But I’m happy. No troubles of my own. Only from men knocking on my door looking for my lost relations.” She put her hand on the box as if she anticipated I might take it back. “You go looking for snakes, you gonna find ’em. The one you looking for gonna steal more than your heart, yessir.”

  She grabbed two cans and set them in a cupboard.

  I said, “Willa Mae take something from you?”

  “That girl had so much promise. She so pretty. That what got her in trouble. Men come looking and give her nice things and money. Willa Mae see she got a way to get what she want. Then she got hooked on them drugs and that was that. Now she no good. I wiped my hands clean of her when she started dancing at one of those strip clubs.” Miss Pervis slapped her hands together.

  “Do you know which one she worked at?”

  She thought about it. “Treasure Island or something like that.”

  I jotted down a few notes. “You said I’m not the first white boy coming here to ask you questions. How many of us were there?”

  She closed the cupboard. “One other.”

  “Can you tell me about him?”

  “What you mean?” she asked.

  “Like tall, skinny, fat, big nose … anything?”

  “He was rich.”

  I felt my eyebrows raise. “Rich?” Exactly what Mary Ellen had said.

  “He give me a hundred dollars and ax me if I know where she was. I don’t know nothin’.”

  “Can you tell me what he looked like?”

  “Good lookin’ white boy, like you.” She pointed at me. “But younger.”

  “You see what kind of car he drove?”

  “Naw,” she rasped. “He let himself out when I t
ole him I didn’t know nothin’ and was gone. Same with Trevor.”

  “Trevor? Who’s that?”

  “Willa Mae’s old boyfriend.” She grunted again. “When they was growing up. He got to where he thought he owned Willa. She spent a lot of time running from him.”

  “What about Willa Mae’s sister, Aphisha?”

  “She a half-sister. They got different daddies. Poor chile. Who watching over her?”

  “Brother Thomas said Aphisha lives with her grandmother.”

  She said, “Clara a good woman. She on Aphisha’s daddy’s side. If that don’t work out, the girl is welcome to come live with me.”

  I drove home and spent a quiet evening with Shelby, thinking about what I’d learned. Willa Mae had not been the person I thought she was. Stripping. Prostitution. Drug use. But, none of that really mattered. She’d shown me who she could be when she took the bullet. Afghanistan illustrated to me that the true test of a person occurred during the heat of battle. Everything else was just window dressing.

  My iPhone buzzed and vibrated on the nightstand, waking Shelby and me. I felt my dog’s wet nose on my hand and scratched his ears. The phone vibrated again and I snatched it up to check who was calling at—what the—?

  “It’s five A.M.,” I said into the phone.

  Paige said, “I’m glad you can tell time, boss. We got a problem.”

  “Can’t it wait until, oh, I don’t know, daylight?”

  “I got a call from the security company since you made me the point of contact. Someone broke into the bar, but I guess I’m the only one who cares about your business.”

  I sat up in bed, blinked a few times. “What did they take?”

  “The police are already there,” she said. “I’m on my way. Thought maybe you might want to tag along since, oh, I don’t know, you own the place and all.”

  “On my way,” I said.

  It took me five minutes to pull on a pair of shorts and find a clean T-shirt. Shelby and I were out the door and at the bar in five more.

  Two cruisers were parked on the street in front of the bar, blocking the fire hydrant where Jon-Jon’s SUV got towed from. Flashing blue lights bounced off all the buildings.

  Paige stood by the new Jeep Wrangler I’d bought her as a bonus for turning the bar around. Its white paint twinkled violet from the illumination coming off the police-issue Chargers. Her six-year old, Simon, slept in the front seat. I noted he was the same age as Aphisha.

  Ron Bates, the police chief, wore his usual khakis and a polo shirt with an Isle of Palms police department monogram over the left breast. Even without the monogram, his six-foot-four frame telegraphed an air of authority.

  Shelby and I got out.

  “Chief,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

  Shelby, in violation of the city’s leash law, sniffed the Chief’s hand.

  He gave Shelby a pat on the head. “It’s not everyday we have a B and E here, you know. But don’t worry, it’s good practice for us.”

  Paige said, “They broke in through the door in the back.”

  The Chief said, “You wouldn’t happen to have security cameras, would you?”

  “Didn’t think we needed them,” I said.

  My bar manager said, “We do now.”

  The four of us, Paige, the Chief, Shelby, and I, walked up the back steps and assessed the damage. Someone had thrown a brick through the window. Shards of glass littered the inside of the doorway. We walked around the mess on the floor, me carrying Shelby so he wouldn’t cut his paws on the glass.

  Paige walked into the back office and after a moment shouted, “The safe hasn’t been opened.”

  The cash registers, empty as the staff had been instructed to leave them, had also not been tampered with. As far as I could tell, all the liquor was still present. We searched for thirty minutes and found nothing out of place. The Chief leaned against the bar.

  I said, “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Coffee if you got it.”

  Paige apologized for not thinking of it herself and brewed two pots for the men.

  “You think someone was just playing a game?” I asked.

  “Who knows,” the Chief said. “I recommend getting a camera system just in case.”

  After finishing off both pots of coffee plus a third, the police left. Any other day, I might have wisecracked about needing to get them doughnuts, but they were doing their jobs. The fact that they stayed and helped us clean up the mess showed a level of class that their chief was known and respected for.

  In the back office, Paige sat at the desk. I stretched out on the couch. Shelby slept on the floor between us.

  Paige said, “Something’s not right.”

  “We went over the place three times and didn’t find anything wrong. Someone’s playing with us.”

  She got up and left the office. I closed my eyes and drifted off.

  “Ah-ha!” she yelled, waking me up.

  “Ah-ha, what?”

  “Come here.”

  Rising, I put my feet on the floor, and eased up. With a roll of the neck, I made my way to the front.

  Pointing to a blank spot on the wall by the bar, she said, “What’s missing?”

  I shrugged.

  “Typical man,” she said. “It’s our liquor license.”

  “Why would someone take that?”

  “Not sure,” she said, “but I’ll report it missing and apply for another one as soon as the government opens up.”

  Later that morning, the city of Charleston closed Broad and East Bay Streets for a parade to kick off the summer. Citizens cheered their favorite floats sponsored by local businesses while high-school bands played their best marching music. The Pirate’s Cove waitresses had worked hard on our float, a four-wheeled, ten-foot by twenty-foot platform I pulled with my pickup. They turned it into a pirate ship to resemble the bar. Three twelve-foot masts were spaced evenly along the centerline of the platform, complete with sails displaying the bar’s logo and a fairly decent attempt at rigging. The top of the center mast featured the traditional Jolly Roger.

  For the coup de grâce, the girls wore eye patches in honor of my late Uncle Reggie and tight Pirate’s Cove T-shirts and shorts. The parade’s rules prohibited anything flashy or revealing. We had the “not flashy” nailed down but probably pushed the other stricture a few degrees starboard.

  A parade official signaled our position in the middle of the line. Ahead was a float from another beach bar, this one decked out with surfboards, a fake palm tree, tiki bar, and staffers waving at the crowds. But because of the rules, none of the females on that float could wear bikinis, which made the whole scene unnatural.

  One of the women on that float, Mora, was a regular customer at my bar. Paige would have hired her, but she wasn’t a single mom and so didn’t make the cut. Fifteen minutes into the route, the convoy stopped. Mora looked back and recognized me. I waved. She turned her petite figure my way and waved back.

  I was enjoying myself communing with Mora when someone rapped on the door of my truck. The knock startled me and I turned to see a smiling Darcy.

  When I lowered my window, she said, “Having fun?”

  “I was.”

  “Too bad.” She walked around the front of the truck and got in the passenger seat.

  I glanced at Mora and saw her busily throwing candy to the crowd.

  “Romeo lives,” Darcy said.

  The float ahead inched forward and I eased my foot off the brake.

  I said, “Covering the parade … or are you here only to give me a hard time?”

  She slipped her sandals off, rested her feet on the dash—ten perfectly-painted, violet toenails attached to the prettiest woman this side of my late wife—and said, “Heard something you might be interested in.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Has to do with that burned body I’ve been looking into.”

  Forcing my eyes to maintain the distance to the float in front
of me, I said, “I’m listening.”

  “Guess who owns the construction company?”

  “Who?”

  The parade stopped again. I looked at her.

  My favorite reporter leaned back against the door. “I think he’s motioning you to move.”

  I looked through the windshield. A police officer was waving me on. The float with Mora had pulled away. I took my foot off the brake too quick, forgetting about the float with five women on it behind me. We lurched forward. In the rearview mirror, I saw that two had lost their footing and fallen to their knees. The others had found something to hold onto. All of them gave me nasty looks that promised I’d pay later. I waved my hand in apology and we were slowly on our way.

  Once we crept at a steady pace, she said, “Jonathan Langston Gardner, Senior. He’s the sole owner.”

  “You’re not just saying that because I dislike him and his peckerwood son, are you?”

  “No,” she answered. “I’m saying it because I don’t like either of them very much. It also happens to be true.”

  “I guess Senior won’t be getting our votes,” I said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  An internet search didn’t find a Treasure Island, which Willa Mae’s aunt, Mrs. Pervis, had mentioned, but I did locate a Treasure Chest. While I could think of a few people who’d want to back me up in a strip club, the only one I trusted was Mutt, my six-foot-three friend and fellow Marine. At dusk I pulled into an open parking spot, this one close to Mutt’s Bar for a change, and noticed Brother Thomas sitting on a porch across the street with an elderly couple.

  He called when I got out of my vintage GT500 Mustang. “Brother Brack! You got a minute to meet some folks?”

  I walked over and stood at the edge of the porch, not daring to add my weight to the rotted boards under their feet.

  Brother Thomas said, “This is Alfonse Jameson and his wife, Nelia.”