It was hot. Ungodly hot. All my trek down I-95 South, I sweated out a new definition for the term, hot. My doublewide trailer back in northern Virginia roasted up in mid-August but my arrival in Charleston, South Carolina, had to be my rehearsal for entering Hells Gates. Still, as an ole Southern boy, I'd soon adapt to it. Hopefully.

In the interim, there was air-conditioning if I could track down The Indigo Fire, a bed-and-breakfast holding my room reservations. At The Battery within sight of venerable Fort Sumter across flat, slate-gray Charleston Harbor, I scribed a tight U-turn and trawled back up the main drag.

In a slower gear, my eyes darting to and fro to spot the correct address, I engaged in a jot of reverie. Chase Winfield had phoned me up at the house. I didn't know Chase Junior from Adam's tomcat but his late daddy and I were old Army pals from our MP days at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. That was introduction enough. Plus, I was a sucker for extending a helping hand to veterans any time I could. You'd have to have served in the military to understand such a sentiment.

"Mr. Johnson," Chase had told me, “I’m in a situation down here.”

That opening line, not an original one, got my attention. "Things are slow for me right now," I said. "Spill your guts, Chase. Chances are it's something right up my alley."

The fact was I'd grown a little piqued about having others dump their woes on me. The envelope for my private detective license renewal lay on my bed table still sealed. I’d been debating whether to bail on the PI trade and go back into gunsmithing full time. On either career path, I'd never tread enough water to keep my nose above Mr. Bush's poverty line.

"I hope it is," said Chase. "My partner was killed. The police were serving a psychiatric order on him and things got out of control. Direly out of control."

"Died in police custody?" I asked somewhat stunned. "Christ."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you," he said. "It was murder. Only the cops have been stonewalling me, insisting that due force was applied. Naturally, I’m all broken up inside. I need to know what really went down."

"Did she have a history of violent behavior?" I asked him.

Pause. "She was a he," said Chase. Longer pause. "I'm gay. His name was Todd. We lived together. Is that, um, a problem for you?"

"Not unless you have a thing for early middle-aged PIs," I said.

Chase assured me that wasn't the case and we moved on to discussing my fee and what mileage I charged since the journey down was a rather tedious one as I was soon to discover firsthand.

"One thing further, Mr. Johnson. It’s only fair to warn you our town is a rotisserie at this time of the year. Dress light."

I had scoffed. “A little heat doesn’t bother me.”

Successful at last finding my address, I pulled into a vacant parking lot and went inside. What awaited me? My lodging at The Indigo Fire wasn't the oasis I’d sought. A brown out had knocked out the power grid along the coastal Carolinas. Half-moons of perspiration under my armpits spread into full moons. A petite girl at the lobby’s front desk to whom I talked bore the ripest strawberry hair. I wanted to eat her up.

"Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it doesn’t last long," she told me, a sunny smile glimmering in her copper-tanned oval face. "We've set up large floor fans in all our rooms. That way at least the air is stirred."

"My berth is on which floor?" I asked.

She smiled but now in wry sympathy. "Floor six, the top one. Apologies, Mr. Johnson, but the Civil War Reenactment of Fort Sumter beat you here. The Union actors stay on Floors One, Two, and Three. The Confederates occupy Four and Five."

"I should've waited for the war to end," I said.

“Indeed, sir.”

No elevator, of course. While plodding up the half-dozen flights of stairs, a bulky suitcase in each hand, I brooded how this down-on-his-luck PI gig sucked ass. It was too damn stultifying to delve into Chase Winfield’s “situation.” Just making it to the sixth floor was a relief, a victory even.

As promised, an oscillating fan blew arid drafts about the room’s cramped dimensions. A backup generator chuffing like inches below my window kept basic services like the electric fans and draft beer on tap in the tavern off from the lobby running. My bags thumped to the beige carpet and I adjusted the fan to stream its breeze straight on the twin bed where, groaning, I crashed on my back.

Welcome, to Charleston, South Carolina. Cradle of the Confederacy. Saint Robert E. Lee had been a magnificent butcher. I chewed on that irony, a perfect gentleman brimming with Southern virtues who led his army into the most savage battles of the nineteenth century. His ass finally whipped but good by Grant, he advised his scarecrow men to return home to plow dirt and plant a little corn. Act as if nothing had happened. Go forth and be model citizens. Amazing stuff, history.

After a while, I rang down to the lobby desk, grateful for the functional phones. A priggish voice that answered identified himself as the bed-and-breakfast’s head manager. Yes sir, they had crushed ice. Yes sir, they'd transport up a bucket of it in reasonable time. No sir, they didn't keep a fifth of refrigerated Kentucky Bourbon for special guests. That third item I really didn't need, my being AA certified and on the wagon for some time. Still, I enjoyed poking fun at this bedrock of Southern hospitality.

My next call connected me to Chase's apartment nearer The Battery. His dull-sounding words warned me he'd tumbled into a blue funk. It'd been long enough for the loss of a loved one to sink in deep. We discussed logistics on where to meet and said our good byes. Meantime, a double rap at the door announced that the ice bucket had come. I tipped the clerk and got a dirty look. Was I such a cheapskate? Whistling "Dixie," I dumped the ice cubes into the bathtub, filled it with cold water, and sank myself into a hog wallow if only for a brief stint.

Down in the lobby again, blue and gray soldiers of every rank accosted me. Their spade beards and miles of gold braid struck me as a little over the top. Middle-aged white men playing soldier. Since I was out of uniform, they ignored me. As I waded through the revolving glass door into the late afternoon’s bright sauna, I had to wonder what expert diplomacy I’d brought with me to deal with local law enforcement. If police brutality was involved in Todd’s death, the brotherhood in blue would close ranks and not let a ghost inside their investigation.

The cell phone off my hip put me in touch with Robert Gatlin back in Middleburg, Virginia. He was my sometime boss, an attorney rich as Midas who took on hopeless causes.

"Run all that by me again," boomed Gatlin's concussive voice. "Only slower."

I complied and ended by soliciting his expert counsel. "Well, let me say this about that," Gatlin said in his irritating barrister arrogance. "You ain't got a snowcone's chance in Death Valley."

"So, I drove six hours straight and now you tell me it's for nothing?"

"Frank, you took it upon yourself to assist this young man," said Gatlin. “I played no part in it. You called asking me for my opinion, personal and professional. I gave it to you.”

“He’s a young gay man,” I said.

“And I’m a Gemini,” Gatlin said. “Live and let live. But to be frank with you, for once I'm stumped on what to do. Cops are a tight-lipped bunch when it comes to their internal affairs. And Southern cops, too. I can’t begin to tell you how to pierce their wall of silence."

I played my trump card. "I bet there's a high profile law suit waiting in this." On the other end of the connection, Gatlin paused. Then, just when I thought he was about to suggest that I stick to detection and leave the law to him, he responded.

"Damn skippy there is! A big nasty law suit with plenty of Court TV coverage. Well, that paints a different sheen on this matter altogether, doesn't it? Lemme think. Okay, I'll commence working back channels from this end to tap the DA's office in Charleston. Somebody there must carry a grudge with the police department to give up information if the price is right. For a start, how about an autopsy report?"

“Are you suggesting a bribe?” I asked.

“I never said that.”

"I hear you. Man, you're all too smooth," I said.

He laughed but without much humor. "Well, jolly good thing I am in your corner, then, isn’t it?"

# # #

The gay couple, Chase and Todd, rented a small apartment in one of those vintage manses held together by steel hurricane bolts screwed into brick walls painted in Easter egg pastels. The cool dim inside it surprised me. I walked down three doors in a stale, musty corridor to the brass numeral "7" on his and stabbed the lit doorbell button. A clean-cut young man with thinning brunette hair and a Van Dyke goatee straightaway answered. His voice was a half-octave above a stage whisper. He ushered me to sit at his dining room table, the wicker place mats piled in the corner.

"How long did you know my dad?" he asked.

"Well, it's like I'm sitting here right now talking to him," I said surveying Chase, Junior. "We were in the MPs, oh, it must've been seven years or more. He was a solid cop. Thorough, tenacious, honest, and always a practical joker."

"What a shame I didn't inherit any of those traits," said Chase, dejected.

"Why was Todd served with these psychiatric orders? Somebody had to set that ball in motion."

"Guilty," said Chase. "I'm the one to blame for that stunt."

"Explain."

"Todd hadn’t been himself for the past six months," said Chase.

Outside, through a barren window, I viewed an ostentatious Hummer rumbling by us. “In what way?”

"He was hostile, combative, and paranoid. A danger to himself and me, really. I pleaded with him to seek professional help.
No way, Jose. He flat out refused. Soon he took to doing crazy stuff. Shoplifting. Bar brawls. Carrying a loaded hand gun."

"Is this the hand gun that killed him?" I asked.

"Yeah. It was an old Iver-Johnson .22."

"Sure, a junk gun, same as what Sirhan capped Bobby Kennedy with ages ago. Hand guns get passed around for decades."

“The cops have this one now. At my wits end, I saw a psychiatrist and with Todd's rap sheet, processing the orders though a lot of hassle was doable. I mean what else was I to do? It was either that or find him dead with his throat slit in some back alley."

"I'll take another shot in the dark here and contend it was drugs that bedeviled him."

"Hey, how did you guess? Yes, cocaine was the culprit," said Chase. "Todd screamed how he had it under control. Not true. Not true. He was a monster splitting apart at the seams and didn't even realize it."

"Where he did latch on to the .22?" I asked.

Chase frowned a little. "I've no idea. It sort of showed up about the time he started weirding out on me. I can only suppose it went with his paranoia. He swore somebody was shadowing him, especially at night when he ventured out for his long, spooky walks. Where he went I haven’t the rustiest idea."

"That’s probably when he hooked up with his supplier."

"Anyhow, the police won't give me the time of day," said Chase. "If I phone their headquarters, I get passed from office to office. If I camp out on their doorstep, I may as well be a
trash receptacle. They walk on by ignoring my questions."

"Being an ex-cop, I know a dirty few do shit on the shield," I said. "But hearing that it pervades an entire department blows my mind. Ninety-nine percent are smart, hard-working public servants. Long hours and low pay, too."

"It's my sexual orientation," said Chase. "Charleston is the buckle of the Bible Belt."

Chair raking back over the tiles, I stood up from the table.
"In this day, I find that astonishing. Chase, I don't discount what you've told me here but something else is going on."

"What?"

"I dunno. What I'd love to know is where Todd bought his nose candy. Do you have any ideas? For instance, what triggered him to start tooting up? Did he have any bad breaks lately? A death in his family? Was he fired from his job? Did he antagonize the wrong crowd in these bar fights?"

Shaking his head, Chase settled it on his upraised thumbs and talked to the tabletop. "No to all those questions as far as I know."

While letting myself out to leave Chase in his melancholy, I hit on an idea. Perhaps Todd had a side to his life that he managed to keep secret until it rocketed out of control. My foot tread tapping down the cobblestones, I'd no sooner flicked a perspiration ring off my brow than a new one beaded up in its place. Something rustled under a shaft of greenish streetlight. I startled. It was a huge palmetto bug scattering for cover. They were roaches on steroids.

How many palmetto bugs infested the police department? My hope was none.

Twenty-minutes later after I'd shot through The Indigo Fire's revolving door, the also petite night clerk hailed me. "Mr. Jansen." Her shout was thin and reedy. "A Jay Gatsby left a message for you."

"No, my name is Frank Johnson and he's Robert Gatlin, not Jansen and Jay Gatsby," I corrected her before looking at the pink slip of paper. Gatlin's message was cryptic: "Call me ASAP."

"Hoo-boy. I wasn't even close getting your names right," she said, behind a hand to cover her embarrassment.

My smile was sympathetic as the elevator doors closed between us and lifted me between the bivouacs of the sleeping Yanks and Rebs on the first five floors. I hurried off and at my room's door, one quick look down showed me somebody had pocketed the quarter I'd left leaning against the sill. That somebody was now inside my quarters to welcome me. It wasn’t the maid with clean towels, either.

After swiping in my passkey, I waited for the little red light to burp and nudged in the door. Stepping back from the inset, I waited for my would-be assailant to take the bait. He pulled the door inward and grabbed at air, not me. Instead, I launched a right cross for his exposed chin. Teeth and bone crunched.
My left wasn't far behind to clip his temple where the skull sets thinnest to the brain.

He tumbled to the red carpet. Clutching both coat collars, I dragged the dead weight into my room and my foot slammed shut the door in its frame. The nylon stocking came off his head but I didn't know his face. My eight knuckles shrieked in pain. I washed hot water from the faucet over them before pitching a bucket of cold water into his youthful face.

"W-w-what?" he gurgled.

Shaking my fingers, I doubted if he felt the same stinging agony as I did in them. "We haven't met yet," I said. "Why don't you introduce yourself? Or do I have to beat it out you?”

"Whoa. Hold on. I'm a lawyer," he said.

"That's reason enough right there," I said.

"No more," he said, waving me off. "Help me up to the bed. Please."

"Naw. You sound better from down there. Why did you try to sap< me?"

"I’m in the DA’s office," he said. "We’ve had a tap on Chase Winfield’s phone -- ”

My snarl cut in on his sentence. “First the police. Now the DA. How damn far does this corruption run?”

The young lawyer scowled up at me. “Chase Winfield is a perverted troublemaker. It only takes a dedicated few of us to fix things right.”

"Why did you kill his partner?" I asked.

"Todd Seaton was shot in head while resisting arrest," said the lawyer. "Just like the news media reported it."

A new blast of raging blood flushed me. "With his own gun? What, the officers didn't carry enough firepower so they had to borrow his? I ain't buying it."

"Think what you like. What now?"

"I call my boss," I said, doubling up the nylon hose. "Meantime, you sit here quiet."

Spitting, the lawyer protested the gag. That completed, I rang Gatlin on the cell I'd left in the bed table drawer. Among other developments, he related to me what I'd already learned about Todd’s own Iver-Johnson .22 having killed him.

"Todd was a big-time cocaine addict," I said. “It drove him to act crazy.”

“I hadn’t heard that lurid detail,” said Gatlin. “Interesting. So, serving the psychiatric orders gave the cops the ideal excuse to kill him.”

"So it would appear. Somebody in the DA’s office has had a wire tap on Chase Winfield’s phone. They knew about me coming. A punk lawyer waited to coldcock me."

"Where is he now?" Gatlin wanted to know.

"Hogtied next to my bed," I said.

Gatlin cleared his throat. "Christ, how far does this cabal go? It can’t be but a dirty few. You'll be needing a legal heavyweight. By morning, things could get awful hairy awful fast. Hang loose until I can travel down to Charleston. We'll strategize at that point."

“Fine by me.”

As I cut the signal, the young lawyer began moaning through his nylon gag. He wanted, I believed, to confess his sins in all this. Irritated, I shut him up. He yelped just the once. Stretching back on the hard, narrow cot in that hot, stuffy berth, I slept with one eye peeled.