Southern Heat

by David Burnsworth

  “That, little lady, is the tough part. Galston’s got more lawyers than sense. As long as he can show due diligence, he’s safe.”

  “But why kill my uncle?” I said it more to myself than to anyone else.

  McAllister said, “If he did it—or had it done—it must mean Reggie was close or had something very incriminating. I wish I knew what it was. So does Constance.”

  “Won’t she suffer if her brother goes down?” I asked.

  “She’s got her own money,” he said.

  I already knew that, but I wanted to see if he did. Patricia had filled me in on Constance on the way back from Yemassee. The youngest of five siblings and the only daughter, Constance had been wild in her day, which from the looks of her was a good twenty years ago. Arrested at twenty-two for possession of stolen property and cocaine, she had been forced to marry a member of the Hagan family, another wealthy Charleston clan. She accepted her role to avoid jail. The new life didn’t kill her, but her husband died at forty-five of a heart attack in the arms of his mistress. Constance became the sole heir to a fortune valued in the mid-nine figures, more than enough to keep her fat in oatmeal raisin cookies and African American servants.

  McAllister brought us back to the diner. Darcy went inside to use the restroom and I stood outside with him next to his truck.

  He propped a foot on the running board. “If Galston did kill your uncle, I’m surprised he hasn’t come after you yet.”

  I said, “My house was trashed and my car vandalized. I think it was the two dirtbags he’s got working for him. We’ve got a line on someone who can give us an I.D. Apparently the killer likes Asian prostitutes. Young ones.”

  “Really?” McAllister put his hands in his pockets. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past Galston’s property managers as he calls them. They act respectable but they’re just hired muscle.” He paused as if to think. “If you want some revenge, I might be able to help. How can I get in touch with you?”

  I gave him my cell number.

  Darcy and I stopped by my rental and picked up Shelby. The three of us rode to Patricia’s house for a late lunch. When we walked in, Patricia asked me to get the grill ready and proceeded to occupy herself with my dog. The grill was a nice one, a Weber, and it lit easily. As I watched it heat up, Tom Petty sang from my pocket about living like a refugee. I pulled out my phone but didn’t recognize the number it displayed.

  “Pelton,” I answered.

  “Hey Brack, it’s Ken Graves, EPA. I found out a few things. Had to cut a lot of red tape to do it. Have a minute?”

  “I thought you feds carried the red tape dispenser,” I said.

  “We do, but the departments we report to have got ones of their own. We get a big dose of it ourselves.”

  “Good to hear we mere civilians aren’t the only ones. Hold on a sec.” I slid the glass door open and asked Patricia for something to write with. She handed me a purple pad and matching pen. I took them to a garden table with a pedestal umbrella sticking out through a hole in the middle. “All set. Go ahead.”

  “The owner of the Chemcon site went belly-up this year. Because that was after the EPA classified it a Superfund site, we acquired the property. Current public opinion aside, the federal government is not in the real estate business. We immediately put the property for sale. It wasn’t a private auction. We wanted anything we could get for it, so I’m sure it was advertised.”

  I took notes. “So, who bid on it?”

  “Hold on.” I heard the shuffle of papers. “Palmetto Properties.”

  “What business are they in and do they own any other property in Charleston?”

  “You’d have better luck than me. I only have access to information that interests the EPA. Palmetto Properties did not come up anywhere else in our database.”

  As we ate grilled chicken, couscous, and some sort of vegetable medley, Darcy and I filled Patricia in on everything McAllister said. I added what Ken Graves found out. Patricia leaned forward. “We have a link.”

  “More than that,” Darcy said, swiveling her chair from side to side like a schoolgirl, “we have allies.”

  “I did a search on McAllister last night,” Patricia said. “He’s into restoration and conservation and he’s given big bucks to Constance’s foundation. I think they’re more than friends.”

  “We should let her look at everything we’ve got,” Darcy suggested. “Maybe she can connect more of the dots.”

  “First,” Patricia said, “we have to see how much she hates her brother.”

  I fed Shelby my chicken scraps, sans bones. “You think she may be lying? She gave us McAllister.”

  “It sounds far-fetched,” Patricia said, “but we need something Galston and all the lawyers he keeps on retainer can’t dispute.”

  Darcy said, “How about murder?”

  From the back deck of my beach rental, I watched the color of the water alternate between many shades of green. Vivid—that’s how Jo had described the ocean around Saint Lucia on our honeymoon. The crystal-blue water gave up its secrets when we donned snorkels. Vivid—the bright colors of the schools of fish changing direction at the first hint of our presence in their domain. Vivid—my memory of the first trip to the hospital when she started feeling weak. Vivid—Jo and I seated facing the doctor and hearing him explain the end of Jo’s life. Vivid—holding Jo’s hand when she took her last breath. Vivid—Uncle Reggie dying in my arms in the alley.

  A dark cloud formed over me. One I couldn’t shake. I pulled out a cigar and sniffed the Cuban tobacco. It smelled earthy and acerbic. I clipped the end, stuck it in my mouth, and lit up. Shelby slept at my feet. My cell phone rang and I dug it out of my pocket and answered.

  Fisher said, “Pelton, I’m in trouble.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The sun was setting when I walked out Folly Beach Pier for the second time, already wishing I’d brought Shelby. At least I’d brought the forty-five. Fisher paced nervously.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  He looked down at the wooden decking as he paced. “I got caught.”

  “What, like they found you listening with a glass against the door?”

  “The senior partner walked in when I was printing more files.”

  “So, isn’t that part of your job?”

  “Not these files,” he said. “I was stupid.”

  “What did he say when he saw them?”

  Still pacing, he shook his head. “Nothing. But he knew what they were the moment he saw them. I mean, it was so obvious, Cooper River Chemicals letterhead plastered across the screen.”

  “How many companies do you guys do business with? Hundreds? How’s he going to know exactly what you were looking at?”

  Fisher stopped pacing and looked at me. “He’s the senior partner. He knows everything that goes on in our firm.” His eyes lowered to the decking again. “He knows I wasn’t handling that particular account.”

  I spoke before thinking. “What’s the worst that could happen to you?”

  His eyes shot up to mine.

  I raised my hands in surrender. The worst that could happen was exactly what happened to my uncle.

  He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t go home.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “I do. They’ve got their hooks into your boss or he’s in cahoots with them. Either way, they found their leak. Whoever got to my uncle is going to come for you.”

  He grabbed my shirt. “Stop it! Stop saying that!”

  I forced his hands off me. “You know I’m right.”

  “What do I do? I didn’t even get the file. After he left my office, I powered down my computer and walked out.”

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t know you from Adam, but I’m running out of choices. I’ve got a place here at the beach. You’re welcome to crash there.”

  “They’ll find it. All it takes is a few phone calls and anyone can be tra
cked down.”

  “Sure, if they’re looking for me. But I rented the house with my uncle’s credit card, and I haven’t canceled it yet. I don’t think they’ll be asking around for him.”

  “But you have the same last name, don’t you?”

  “No. He’s my mother’s brother.”

  Fisher looked at me but wasn’t looking at me, more like he was thinking.

  I put a hand on the railing and watched the water, letting him make up his mind.

  He said, “No one knows?”

  “No one I don’t trust.” I turned and faced him. “Stay there. I’ve grown to like the couch in my uncle’s office anyway. I have one condition.”

  He stiffened. “What’s that?”

  “I want you to talk to Patricia Voyels.”

  Fisher eventually relented. What else could he do? At the beach rental, he relaxed a little. The freezer had a bunch of frozen dinners and the view was, of course, perfect. Dressed in a pair of my shorts, and a T-shirt, Fisher wolfed down two microwave meals in record time and was working on a six-pack of beer. For a little guy, he ate as much as I did.

  I called Patricia. She said she couldn’t meet with us until eight, which was in four hours. Fisher passed out on one of the chairs on the back deck. Shelby and I left him there and drove to the Pirate’s Cove, the gun in the glove box. I wanted my dog with me as I didn’t trust Fisher. On the way, I used the hands-free connection and phoned Darcy.

  She answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve got the man with all the information on Galston in my hideaway on Folly.”

  “Great,” she said. “As soon as I finish I’ll be on my way.”

  “Hold your horses. The guy’s too jumpy. It took some convincing to get him there. Patricia’s coming at eight tonight.”

  “You mean you aren’t there now?”

  “I’m on my way to the bar.”

  She said, “Who’s watching him?”

  “He’s sleeping off a six-pack,” I said. “He’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t leave. Meet me at the Cove.”

  I spent the time before the meeting with Fisher by helping the women wash out the industrial-sized freezer in the kitchen. It was in bad shape. Shelby napped on the lower back deck.

  Paige had done a lot to clean the Pirate’s Cove. With a few added staff members, she had everyone scrub the wood flooring and walls, and polish the old mismatched brass fixtures my uncle had accumulated over the years. The bathrooms received new coats of paint and a thorough cleansing. Clean enough to maybe raise our inspection score next time around.

  In order to see inside the freezer, I had to replace two burned-out light bulbs. The new illumination showed a filthy floor and a lot of past-due food to be pitched—stuff that hadn’t been on the menu for a long time. The way my life had been going lately, I half-expected to find a dead body hanging in there. My cell vibrated and I left the freezer to answer it. Fisher’s number was on the screen.

  He was already talking when I accepted the call. “Pelton, I’ve got to go.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Look,” he yelled. “Something’s come up. They . . . they . . . My family. I gotta go.”

  “Hold on a minute, Fisher.”

  Nothing.

  “Fisher?”

  The call ended. I tried to get him back. No answer. Tried again. Again no answer. I stared at the phone. The urge to throw it against the freezer made me put it back in my pocket.

  Patricia and Darcy strolled into the Pirate’s Cove at precisely eight o’clock. I’d already told them Fisher was gone, but they decided to come anyway. They took stools in front of me at the bar.

  Patricia handed me a sheet of paper. “Here’s what I could find on your Mr. Fisher.”

  It was a letter-sized sheet, handwritten, with Fisher’s name at the top.

  “He works at the most exclusive accounting firm in Charleston,” she said. “Senior associates like him make mid-six figures, easy. More if it’s a good year. And it’s been a good year.”

  I said, “No address?”

  “I’m working on it,” Darcy said. “He’s got an unlisted number so I have to up my bribe.”

  I put my hands on the bar. “What are you waiting for?”

  Darcy snapped, “I’m on it!”

  “The guy was scared,” I said. “Someone got to him.”

  Darcy’s cell rang. She read the caller I.D. and answered, listening for a minute. Her mouth opened slightly and she looked at me.

  At four o’clock Wednesday morning, I sat in the main conference room at the Palmetto Pulse with Patricia, Darcy, and Shelby. A picture of David Fisher splashed across the front page of the next issue, in color, hot off the press. He was slumped in the driver’s seat of his Volvo. Someone had found him in a back alley in North Charleston, not far from crack dealers and prostitutes. He’d been shot in the chest several times. Patricia had a cameraman meet us at the scene and Darcy did takes for the next evening’s news.

  I crumpled the paper in my hands. “This story sucks.”

  Shelby raised his head and looked at me.

  Darcy propped her feet on a chair. “I didn’t realize you’d been promoted to my editor.”

  “Not your writing,” I said. “The whole thing.”

  The young reporter slipped off her sandals and massaged her feet. By my count, she’d been on the go for more than twenty-four hours.

  “The police are filing it as a solicitation attempt gone bad,” Patricia said.

  I said, “Gunned down by an unhappy hooker. You believe that garbage? I mean, the way they wrapped up the crime scene so fast, you’d think the cops had been paid by the job instead of the hour.”

  “I’ve a connection at the bank,” Patricia said. “He told me Fisher was up to his eyeballs in debt.”

  “A lot of people are,” I said. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “Most people aren’t successful accountants with eighteenth-century mansions on Tradd Street close to foreclosure,” Patricia said. “That’s probably why he was selling information.”

  “He did say he was good with numbers.”

  Shelby and I went to the beach rental to crash for a couple of hours.

  I felt a tug at my sleeve and opened my eyes. Daylight made me close them again, fast.

  Shelby barked.

  “I guess I been neglecting you, huh?”

  He barked again and ran to the back door.

  I pulled the covers off and got out of bed. “All right, all right. I’m coming.”

  He scrambled down the steps when I opened the door. While he did his business in the backyard, I looked out at the ocean, thinking David Fisher would never see this again. Shelby barreled up to me, barked, and grabbed his leash with his mouth and dropped it at my feet.

  “But I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”

  His next bark told me he didn’t care what I needed. I pulled on a pair of shorts, slid on sunglasses, and grabbed my wallet, and we headed out. Near the pier, I found a vendor selling coffee and bought an extra large. It was the way I liked it, sludge. After an hour or so of wandering aimlessly around, we headed back. The message symbol was on the screen of my cell phone and I listened to Darcy tell me to wake up. She was on her way and we were going to see McAllister. I dressed and slid the gun in the small of my back. With Fisher gone, it was not worth the risk going unarmed. Using the same logic, I left Shelby in the safety of the rental.

  Darcy turned into the entrance to McAllister’s house on John’s Island. Posts holding iron gates flanked a driveway half-mooning to the front of the home. The large McMansion stood on twelve-foot stilts covered by lattice. As we swung around the drive, I saw the open garage doors. Taillights from a low-slung sports car peeked out at me in one of the three open bays. The red beauty with white racing stripes brought a whistle of admiration from me.

  Darcy pulled us to a stop. “What?”

  I pointed. “He’s got a ZR1.”


  Darcy rolled her eyes and opened her door to get out. “So?”

  “It’s the fastest production Corvette,” I said.

  Too much like Jo, Darcy ignored my fascination with cars. “I did some checking. Our Mr. McAllister has another home in Mount Pleasant—ocean view. And a helicopter, a McDonnell Douglas 500E five-seater.”

  Environmental cleanup must be a boom industry.

  McAllister answered his own door wearing shorts, a knit shirt with a sports logo on the sleeve, and tennis shoes.

  “Glad to see y’all,” he said. “I was ready to head to the courts.”

  A black tennis racket case leaned against a black gym bag on the hardwood floor in front of a carved wooden entrance table. We stepped around the bags and McAllister led us past a great room with a high ceiling to a bar in front of the kitchen counter. He motioned for us to take seats at two tall chairs.

  He said, “Can I get you anything? Coffee, OJ?”

  “Black coffee,” I said.

  Darcy passed.

  McAllister poured my coffee and refilled his own.

  I noticed the logo printed on the cups. “What’s Ashley River Recovery?”

  “Oh, a business I’m working with,” he said. “We’re cleaning a site on the river. So, what’s up? You sounded a little concerned on the phone.”

  Darcy flipped open the paper on the counter and turned it so McAllister could read the headline.

  He took a drink from his coffee mug. “I saw that this morning.”

  “He knew my uncle.”

  McAllister raised his eyebrows. “The accountant did?”

  Darcy said, “Did you know him?”

  “I use the firm he works—worked for—to handle my taxes.”

  “Galston used them too,” I said.

  McAllister set his cup on the counter. “I’m not surprised. It’s the best in Charleston. At least the one with the best pedigree.”

  The same could be said about how people were measured in Charleston. Either you had status or you had to buy it, but it was always there, around the corner of the next question, tucked in a few layers behind an insinuation. I was fortunate enough to carry the double negative of not from around here and not enough money. Darcy, on the other hand . . .