Heat

by R. W. Clinger

  “Axle, I thought I heard you out here. Thank you for coming to see me.”

  “Off you go, handsome,” Chandler said, pointing me in the direction of Bishop’s office. “Don’t keep him waiting, or he’ll become cranky. None of us need that.”

  * * * *

  Officer Bishop’s office smelled like dandelion wine, which filled my nostrils and coated the back of my throat; not that I objected, of course. He looked dapper, dressed from head to toe in his green-and-white uniform. His police officer’s hat lay on the right side of his desk. The hat and desk were both immaculate. Not a piece of paper or rap sheet seemed to be out of place, and the two windows that overlooked Serius Avenue behind the officer were clean. He had two noticeable items on his desk that stroked my interest: a regular Pepsi and one of Margo Pagino’s fluffy romance novels.

  One, I became surprised that he wasn’t drinking a Diet Pepsi, because he looked trained, fit, and trim, and I knew that he regularly worked out. And two, Officer Bishop did not have the reputation of reading fluffy romances. Instead, he preferred true crime writers or fictional works by James Patterson, Michael Connelly, and Vince Flynn.

  “Sit,” he said, pointing to the seat to my right. “This won’t take long. I know you’re a very busy man. I just need two minutes of your valuable time.”

  I listened to him like a good puppy, having no intention of being spanked with a newspaper.

  He picked up the copy of Fire’s Wind on his desk, waved it in my direction, and asked, “If Peter Rotunda did not burn down his own bar for the insurance money, tell me who did.”

  He showed me the cover of Margo’s newest paperback, which detailed a glossy picture of some bare-chested blond hunk who looked similar to my boyfriend, riding a white stallion into what looked like a ferocious and fiery windstorm somewhere in Oklahoma during the year of 1889. Seated behind the beefy stud was Fire herself, a big-breasted and wide-lipped damsel who clung to her hero of four hundred-plus pages. She looked sassy, sexy, and sinful, just as her female readers wanted her to appear.

  I raised a shoulder and inquired, “Margo Pagino?”

  He tossed the paperback in my direction, which I clumsily caught with two hands, and said, “Exactly.”

  Before I could muster the courage to ask him his position on the firebug and murder case in Hurricane Bay, he continued.

  “Margo set the Flaming Flamingo on fire. Read pages two-thirty-nine and two-forty.”

  I thumbed to the precise pages and read one of Margo’s long and windy paragraphs under my breath. In brief, somewhere on the flat plains of Oklahoma in 1837, Fire was betrayed by The Riverside Saloon’s owner, Cody Ferth. Not only did Fire steal the antagonist’s diary (a man who had thought it clearly normal to rape young Indian girls), but she caught its pages on fire, tossed the diary inside the saloon, added whiskey to the blaze, and achieved exactly what a woman getting revenge needed to achieve.

  “You’re telling me that Margo was getting revenge on Peter Rotunda for something gone wrong in their lives, right?”

  He nodded. “And Rudy Shower was at the wrong place, at the wrong time, murdered by accident. Margo loathed Peter because he treated all young men with disrespect, including her son. Bobby Pagino worked for Peter a few months ago. It did not go well. Peter was all over Bobby, sexually infatuated with the young man. He chased Bobby around the city, stalked him, and…it became quite ugly. It’s one of the reasons why Bobby doesn’t want to be found.”

  I closed the paperback and placed it on the edge of his desk.

  He smirked and played with the tip of his left ear with two fingertips. “Some women like to play dirty when a child is involved. And women like Margo Pagino know how to get dirty to obtain revenge.” He pointed at the paperback and nodded again. “She wrote those two pages last year. It’s a blueprint of her work with all the recent arson activity in Hurricane Bay. Two fires, one murder. Fire’s Wind tells a twin story of crime.”

  “I get that, but why would she cause the inferno at Bungalow Fifteen?”

  He reached across the desk and tapped the front cover of Margo’s bestselling paperback. “She wanted to make it look like someone else had burned down the Flaming Flamingo. Margo is brilliant, especially when it comes to plots. I’m sure she purposely burned Bungalow Fifteen down to the sand to steer any finger-pointing away from her.”

  I added, “And hire me to find her son who didn’t want to be found, which she was very much aware of.”

  Proud of his work, he leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms, and said in a confident tone, “Exactly. The woman is snarky and a killer. Aren’t all romance writers?”

  I sort of laughed at his judgment, realizing that he was maybe right. How many romance writers could kill a woman or man’s heart? All of them. Every last one of them. The act was interchangeable with murder, in my opinion.

  He reached for a red paper file on his desk and slid it in my direction. “The answer to your questions about Margo and Peter are inside. Take a look. In fact, take as much time as you need. The file’s contents are a copy. I made it just for you.”

  I flipped open the file and fingered three black-and-white photographs of Margo and Peter. Each photograph showed them holding hands and kissing on some island along Florida’s Gulf Coast. And each had a date at the bottom right-hand corner with last year’s date.

  Officer Bishop couldn’t hold his composure together. “They were lovers for three months. The affair took place on Sanibel Island near Naples. Peter ruined it by fucking a waiter half Margo’s age. That really pissed her off.”

  “A waiter?” I asked, puzzled and thrilled all at the same time.

  “Yes, a waiter. His name was Milliard. A pretty guy from Clearwater. A wannabe model with Italian looks. Peter said he had fallen in love with the kid. Margo told him to fuck off. It’s a typical affair in these parts, and probably all over the world. Peter ended up diddling the model once or twice until the model moved on, and Margo designed revenge.” He chuckled, grinned wildly, and added, “You gotta love women sometimes.”

  “I’ll be damn,” I said, closing the file. “Margo’s heart was broken. She gets revenge by burning down one of the things Peter Rotunda loves.”

  “Exactly. It all makes sense. A classic love story gone bad.”

  I held the file close to my chest, letting all of Bishop’s facts sink in.

  “You do know that a woman’s rage is sometimes relentless, right?”

  “I do,” I said.

  I ended our meeting, ready to put an arsonist (and murderer) behind bars and never read one of her shitty paperback romances of fluff again.

  Chapter 45: A Good Boy

  HBIA

  St. Paul Street

  2:48 P.M.

  The arsons and murder cases were solved. Rudy Shower had been accidentally killed, a victim of asphyxiation by smoke, heat, and fire. Relieved to know that Margo Pagino would be tried and confirmed guilty for second-degree murder, once she was behind bars, I sighed with contentment.

  Exhausted from all the work that went into the case of Rudy Shower’s death, never in my life had I understood the term spent before, until then. Frankly, I needed to collect my thoughts about the fires and murder. What better place to accomplish the job than my office on St. Paul Street?

  Before leaving the precinct, Officer Bishop told me in confidence, “Margo’s all yours, Axle. Confront her. Badger her. Say what you want to say to her. My men will step in after your doings. You’ve earned the spotlight, so enjoy it while you can.”

  Honestly, I hadn’t a clue what my doings consisted of. I did want to confront Margo about bogusly hiring me to find her son and being an arsonist. And I wanted to tell her that I thought it clever of her to burn pages from her bestselling books on Hurricane Bay Beach, outside my lover’s bungalow. I also wanted her to know that I had details about her short affair with Peter Rotunda, and how her heart—like Fire’s heart time and time again in her books—had been left broken, and that she t
hought revenge on Peter necessary. But how would I accomplish those tasks, and when? That is why I ended up in my office, thinking many things through and over.

  Rebecca texted me. Love you. Will miss you. I hope we can get over this bump.

  I texted her back. I will always love you. Now and forever. We are friends. We’re already over the bump. No worries.

  Fifteen minutes later, lost in thought, perplexed and unsure of my next move concerning a take-down of Margo Pagino, I drifted off to sleep in my office chair, drooling. Then Casey stirred me awake, kissing me as if he were Prince Charming.

  “Hey, babe, you’re going to get a nasty crick in your neck sleeping like that.”

  I stretched and yawned, happy to see him. Sanity like that could not be priced after a long day of questioning suspects and learning the secret life of a killer.

  “What were you dreaming about?” he asked, referring to the erection between my legs.

  “Sex with you.” I pushed down on the hard slab of cock with my right hand, attempting to deflate its mass.

  “Where was the sex at and how?”

  “Can’t tell you that,” I teased, playing with him.

  “Are you starting to keep secrets from me?”

  “I am. Shame on me.”

  “Shame on you is right.” He told me that he wanted to have a cocktail with me at the St. Paul Street Bar & Grille.

  I objected at first, complaining of too much work to do.

  “Come,” he said. “One drink with me won’t kill you. I’m your lover and demand that you spend some quality time with me.” Then he joked, adding, “Don’t make me take Bruno Grigade on a date.”

  He had to use that trump card on me, didn’t he? How could I tell him that I needed some valuable time to think my way through the firebug/murder case? I couldn’t do that after almost ripping our affection for each other apart. Besides, wasn’t our closeness and boyfriendhood more important than my work? Of course, I wouldn’t even question such a thing.

  “One drink,” I blurted. “And you will not call Bruno Grigade for a date.”

  He laughed, and I let him pull me out of my office chair.

  “And a blowjob for you after the drink,” he joked. “But only if you’re in the mood.”

  I chuckled.

  He chuckled.

  And off we went.

  * * * *

  Between four P.M. and six-thirty P.M., I had three drinks with Casey at the St. Paul Street Bar & Grille. He enjoyed a few imported beers from Ecuador, and I satisfied my loss of Rebecca with two gin and tonics. We split a plate of jalapeño nachos and discussed Rebecca’s week in Stockton County, Oklahoma, our texts, and my hour with Officer Cane Bishop.

  “I say take the evening off and nail Margo’s writing ass to the wall first thing in the morning.” Casey hiccupped, semi-drunk from his numerous bottles of beer.

  “I can’t take this evening off. I have a meeting with Laura Monigal in Turtle Bay at seven this evening.”

  He looked at the time on his cell phone. “You have a few minutes with me before you should leave. What’s the meeting about anyway?”

  “She didn’t tell me.”

  “Aren’t you curious what she has to say?”

  I shook my head. “I’m really not. The firebug case is solved. Plus, I now know that Rudy Shower’s death couldn’t have been on purpose. I’m sure Laura is going to tell me everything that Officer Bishop told me a few hours ago. What more is there to say? I will still show up at her mansion, though, out of respect.”

  “Good boy,” he said. “I knew you had manners.”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Only sometimes.” I promised him a blowjob later that night, after my meeting with the wealthiest women in Turtle Bay and Hurricane Bay.

  Chapter 46: Laura Monigal Explains

  Turtle Bay

  Monigal Estate

  7:00 P.M.

  “Good to know you arrived on time,” Laura said, studying me with her inquisitive eyes, taking me in as an old crow looking for food. Her steady stare scanned my khakis, sandals, and tight T-shirt. Judgment stalked me, but I really wasn’t sure what it entailed, nor did I care.

  I thought her navy blue capris too dark and her French perfume beneath her earlobes a touch too strong. She looked exhausted, almost sheet white, and irritated by my presence.

  No matter how we perceived each other, we had a meeting to execute. She would be the chatterer and I the listener. Sometimes, roles at meetings were interchangeable, but not that evening. Not at all.

  We sat in her study across from each other in Chippendale chairs. Purple and blue evening light bowed through the windows, illuminating the room with twilight beauty. I thought the amazing mix of hues to be quite soothing. Leather-bound books lined the walls. Two Chippendale desks were opposite each other, somewhat centered in the room. A miniature table sat between us and showcased glasses of iced tea with slices of lemon and leaves of mint, but neither of us had any interest in the beverages.

  “Shall I broach my topic of interest without wasting a moment longer, young man?”

  “Please,” I said. “Not that my time is any more important than yours, of course.”

  “Just as I suspected you would say.” She looked at one of the iced teas on the tray, but didn’t remove it and take a drink. Instead, she said in a rather condescending way that rubbed me the wrong way, “You have a history of being a talented investigator, do you not?”

  “I’d like to say and think that.”

  She huffed with laughter for a second and said, “I wouldn’t lately, Mr. Dupree. Your skills are…shall I say…sloppy.”

  My confidence betrayed me all of a sudden, but I didn’t know why. Could I have been offended? Hell yeah. Anyone in my position would have been. After the sting settled, I asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you haven’t done the homework you should have pertaining to the fires and murder in your community.”

  “I’m confused,” I said, craving something strong to drink to settle my nerves. To hell with the iced tea, I craved booze. “What are you talking about, Laura?”

  She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “The killer and arsonist are right under your nose. You haven’t sniffed a person out as of yet, young man, have you?”

  My nerves calmed, and my stomach settled. I knew who the killer and firebug was: Margo Pagino. And I knew why. What more did Laura want from me? How could she just fish facts out of me in her skilled technique to perform some gossip in our two communities?

  “I believe I can explain both fires and the accidental murder of Rudy Shower with numerous details.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Accidental? Tell me you can’t be serious. That is most preposterous thing I have ever heard.”

  “But I am serious. The young man’s death was accidental. The fire was started with gasoline, and Rudy was stuck inside. He died of smoke asphyxiation.”

  Her laughter grew louder and caused confusion to flood through my veins. She stood and walked over to the desk to her right, retrieved a burgundy and leather binder, and returned to our Chippendale chairs. She placed the binder in my hands.

  “I’ve taken the liberty to spend some of my hard-earned money on my own detective. Inside the binder is your killer and arsonist, Mr. Dupree. Tell me if you agree.”

  I could not be any more baffled by our meeting. The cases were closed. I had learned who had burned down the Flaming Flamingo and Bungalow Fifteen, and I had also learned who accidentally killed Rudy Shower. My time with Laura seemed irrelevant and a waste. What pony had she tried to present to me, and why?

  “Open the binder, young man. Learn the truth.”

  I became her puppet. I didn’t want to insult her in her own home, which would have been rude of me. I had manners and considered myself a gentleman. Bad behavior was uncalled for, and this is why I opened the binder.

  My heart dropped to my stomach, and perspiration bubbled on my forehead and under my arms. A color headshot of Bru
no Grigade stared at me. His familiar dark hair and almost-purple eyes were beautiful, presenting him as a handsome man with above-average looks.

  “You don’t have to read all the details, Axle. I’d rather share them with you myself, if you don’t mind. Sometimes a woman my age enjoys telling the tale.”

  I turned the color photograph over and scanned two paragraphs. Words and phrases popped out at me: history of setting fires, juvenile delinquent, member of Underground Spectacle, charges of arson…

  “I know you’re stunned, young man. I expected nothing less from you, of course. Now close that thing and listen to what I have to say to you. Sometimes I like to hear myself talk,” she said, grinning. “A woman of my age has that privilege.”

  She told me everything I didn’t want to hear, but felt was true. Bruno Grigade had been born and raised in Naples. He started playing with fire at a very young age and burned down his family’s house in Naples Cove, a highbrow area of Naples. His younger sister (six years old at the time), Tammara Linn, died in the fire.

  Laura said, “That didn’t stop Bruno from starting more fires throughout his middle school and high school years, though. He went from one juvenile home to the next. His parents are very wealthy and purchased him freedom.”

  I thought her last comment ironic since she had purchased her own freedom by paying off the jurors at her trial for arson. How interesting and parallel.

  Laura continued. “Bruno is attempting to obtain his degree in design. This isn’t a farce, of course. As far as I have learned, he works well with your lover, Casey. And Bruno has been a member of Underground Spectacle for the past year, which drew him to Hurricane Bay in the first place, since the Sign Farm is nearby.”

  I recalled my dangerous adventure in the Everglades, observing Sign Farm. There were so many people at the group’s farm. It had been too dark out to determine if Bruno had been present among them, even with the burning fires. Maybe he hadn’t been there at all, though.