The Story Behind Southern Heat
What inspired me to write Southern Heat was really a collection of details. I lived in Charleston on Sullivan’s Island for almost five years. That alone gave me the setting. My landlord had a large second row house with apartments on the back side. Second row, for those who don’t know, and I didn’t until I lived there, means the house was in a line of homes across the street from the beach front homes. He gave his tenants a lot of liberties, including allowing us to head to the unoccupied second floor with an ocean view patio. In Charleston, homes built after hurricane Hugo had to be elevated. The ground level was a concrete slab that a lot of people turned into an above ground basement. The first floor was really the second floor and the second floor was really the third floor. Confused yet? So, the house was really three levels. One fourth of July, I climbed onto the roof and had a 360 degree view of the Charleston harbor and fireworks in at least five different directions.
Why did I spend so much time talking about the house? Because I learned the island way of life there—laid back. The first rule, and there weren’t really many others, was when you crossed the Ben Sawyer Memorial Bridge onto the island, your problems stayed on the mainland.
The city of Charleston is such a gem. It is like no place on earth, with its palmetto tree lined Meeting Street, premier shops on King Street, and historic homes on the Battery. As a single man at the time, I also enjoyed the night scene. Great bars and clubs within close proximity meant my friends and I could walk and hit three different locations on a Friday night.
I tried to capture the healing magic of the city in my book. Just as I am not the same person I was when I first moved there, I wanted my protagonist to be changed. Brack Pelton came into being after several failed attempts, the first being a close carbon copy of Mike Hammer with an office on King Street. That character and the next one didn’t ring true, and members of the South Carolina Writers Workshop critique group I belong to let me know as much.
I wish I could stay the story just wrote itself, but that would be a false statement. It took a lot of rewriting, and I mean a lot. I heard that Robert B. Parker could write a first draft and only have to change a few words to make it his final. Well, I am not Robert B. Parker. And my first manuscript took six drafts. Writing is work. Fun work, but work nonetheless.
What motivated me to finally put fingers to the keyboard was a feeling that I had for most of my twenties that I was wasting time. I’d come home from work and park in front of the TV for hours. Looking back, the shows I watched helped develop my imagination, but I knew I was frying my brain. My soon-to-be wife could tell I was unhappy and urged me to find my passion. As I was walking back from the exercise room in the apartment complex I was living in at the time, it hit me that I wanted to write a novel. I’d always liked writing. The “mistake” I made was mentioning this to my fiancé. Once we were married and living under the same roof, she took every opportunity to remind me what I told her I wanted to do. Six years later, I had a contract for Southern Heat and I owe a lot to her.
Title: Southern Heat
Author: David Burnsworth
Publisher: Five Star/Gale
Pages: 304
Language: English
Genre: Southern Noir/Mystery
Format: Paperback & eBook
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Gunshots echo down an antebellum Charleston
The sole heir of his uncle's estate, Brack receives a
rundown bar called the Pirate's Cove, a rotting beach house, and one hundred
acres of preserved and valuable wetland along the Ashley River Charleston
From the sandy beaches of Isle of Palms, through the
nineteenth-century mansions lining the historic Battery ,
to the marshlands surrounding the county, Southern Heat is drenched in the
humidity of the lowcountry.
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First Chapter:
“A man doesn’t have the right to avoid
reaping what he sows.”
Brother Thomas
Saturday
night in the holy city of Charleston Battery
than a parking space near the Market. Especially in July. I bounced over
century-old bricks, made a big U on Meeting
Street
My
uncle wanted to meet for dinner, and I was late.
Three
blocks over, a spot opened up on Chalmers
Street
To
save a few steps, I cut down a darkened alley. A quick flash and a loud pop
echoed off the surrounding walls. I hit the deck, rolled behind a dumpster, and
reached for my Berretta. It hadn’t been there in six months and wasn’t now. The
aroma of spoiled seafood from the garbage hit me harder than a bullet.
A
voice in the alley shouted like my drill sergeant in boot camp. “Give me an
answer!”
My
eyes adjusted to the dim light. I peered around a corner of the dumpster. A
figure knelt over a body. To get a better view, I stood. My foot hit an empty
bottle. It clanged across the cobblestones of the alley. The kneeling man
raised his arm. The silhouette of a gun aimed in my direction. I dove back
behind the dumpster. He fired. The bullet ricocheted off the steel frame. I
needed an exit strategy.
Receding
footsteps of someone running echoed in the alley. After a moment all I heard
was labored breathing and eased from my hiding spot. The figure with the gun
was gone. The body on the ground wheezed. I got to my feet, hurried over to
help, and found my uncle staring up at me with his one good eye, the other
having been lost in Vietnam
“Uncle
Reggie!” I fell to my knees.
Blood
trickled from his mouth as he said my name, “Brack.” His voice was rough and
muffled by the liquid filling his lungs.
Grabbing
my phone, I punched nine-one-one.
“Brack,”
he whispered, and his uncovered eye closed.
The
emergency line rang in my ear.
“I’m
calling for an ambulance,” I said.
“Ray.”
He coughed. “Ray shot me.”
I
let the phone drop a few inches. “Who’s Ray?”
He
swallowed hard.
A
tinny female voice interrupted, “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
The
life went out of Uncle Reggie and I placed two fingers on his neck.
No
pulse.
“Sir,”
said the operator. “What’s your emergency?”
“My
uncle’s been shot. We’re in Simmons Alley.” I placed the phone on the ground
next to me, raised my uncle’s chin, and gave him CPR.
In
the middle of my second round of chest compressions, the howling intake noise
and moaning exhaust of a car engine at full throttle made me look up. Flashing
lights bounced off the dumpsters and trash lining the alley.
A
patrol car headed for me, and I jerked my hands up in reaction. It skidded to a
stop a few yards away. Doors swung open in unison. Two men stepped out and
trained their weapons on me. “Police! Freeze!”
One
of them moved out of my line of vision.
“He’s
not breathing,” I said.
The
officer by the cruiser said, “Get your hands up!”
Patience
left me. “He’s been shot! Make yourself useful and call an ambulance.”
“Get
down!” screamed a voice behind me. A hard shove made me hit the ground face
first next to my uncle. The officer jammed his knee into my back, frisked, and
cuffed me.
I
spit blood and dirt and tried to take a breath. “He’s my uncle. Help him!”
The
second officer knelt beside Uncle Reggie and checked for a pulse like I did.
“He’s gone.”
It
took both cops to lift all six-foot, two-hundred-and-ten pounds of me off the
ground. I grunted at the strain on my joints from the handcuffs. They placed me
in the back seat of a cruiser and shut the door. One of them rattled off
something on the radio. I ran my tongue over a split in the middle of my lower
lip. Blood on the front of my white T-shirt mixed with three-century-old soot
from the cobblestones. Ten feet away my only family and best friend lay dead. I
shook my head in disbelief. The moon cast everything in electric blue.
More
vehicles showed up and the area erupted in activity. Gray uniforms and
white-jacketed technicians crowded into the narrow passage between the old
brick buildings. Cameras flashed. Two suits got out of an unmarked Crown Vic.
One knelt beside my uncle. The other spoke with one of the uniforms, both of
them glancing at me several times. After a few minutes, the suits teamed up and
came at me like two sand crabs ready to make a meal out of a fish carcass
washed up on the beach. I saw my wallet in one of the crab’s claws and realized
it was no longer in my back pocket.
The
first one to the cruiser’s door was slim and tall with stiff creases in his
slacks and shirt. A silver Rolex flashed on his wrist. The second man, half a
step behind, had a stocky build. His loosened tie exposed an unbuttoned collar.
Both wore short sleeves, a necessity in the sweltering lowcountry.
The
stiff-creased crab opened the door. “Brack Pelton?”
“Yes.”
“I’m
Detective Rogers.” He pulled out a notepad and pen. “This is Sergeant Wilson.
We’re with Charleston P.D. and need to go over a few things with you.” He
looked at my face. “I see you’re injured. We’ll get someone to check you out in
a minute.”
“Thanks.”
I didn’t feel the pain.
“Brack?”
Detective Rogers
I
grinned to show off my busted mouth. “Sure.”
“How
did that happen, Brack?”
“What?”
I
gritted my teeth, knowing it wouldn’t do me or my uncle any good to get on the
bad side of the police. “I must have fallen. The officers were kind enough to
help me up.”
Detective
Wilson
“I
was supposed to meet him at High Cotton.”
“We
can’t seem to find any identification,” said Wilson
“Reggie—Reginald
Sails.” I spelled the last name.
Detective
Rogers
I
nodded. “He said Ray shot him.”
Rogers
and Wilson looked at each other.
“Did
he say it exactly like that?” Wilson
The
cuffs dug into my wrists. I eased forward and exhaled. “He said ‘Ray shot me.’
I asked him who Ray was but he didn’t answer.”
“No.
He owns a run-down dive on the Isle of Palms and spends his free time surfing.”
“The
Pirate’s Cove.” It was the only real dive left on the island.
“No
kidding.” Wilson
I
choked and cleared my throat. “No kidding.”
“My
nephews love the place,” Wilson
“Macaw,”
I said.
“Macaw,
right.” Wilson
“I
couldn’t find a parking spot close to High Cotton and ended up on Chalmers. I
was late and turned through here to save time and that’s when he was shot.”
“Already
in the alley.”
“No.
Like I said, I was on my way to meet him.”
Without
looking up, Rogers
“Can’t
tell you what he looks like. Maybe six feet and fairly stout.”
Both
detectives sized me up. Rogers
I
stood, forcing them to back up. “Look, you think I did it? Test me for gunshot
residue. Otherwise, get these cuffs off me and go find who killed my uncle.”
“Easy
there.” Wilson
“At
this point,” Rogers
*****
Murder
in the tourist district was rare in Charleston
Detective
Rogers
I
peeled off my shirt and threw it to him. “Take it.”
“Don’t
worry. You’re going to hear a lot from me.” I pocketed the card, slipped on the
shirt, and walked through the alley to my car. At the police barricade, I found
a spot with the fewest people loitering about and tried to cross the line.
A
woman holding a microphone cut me off. “Are you involved in the police
investigation?”
I
was ready to brush past her when a cameraman approached, flipped on the lights
above the camera and proceeded to film us. The woman stepped into the
brightness and I caught a glimpse of my late wife, Jo, in the reporter’s blond
curls and pretty face. The momentary image of her almost made my knees buckle.
The
reporter shifted on her feet, stood in front of me, and spoke into her
microphone. “Darcy Wells, Channel Nine News. Are you with the police?”
She
moved the microphone from her mouth to my face, but I said nothing. Channel
Nine was supposed to mean something to me, I was sure, but all I could think
about at the moment were the words I had wanted to say to Jo but didn’t.
Darcy
Wells aimed the microphone back at her mouth. “Can you tell us what’s going
on?” Her eyes did a good job of pleading as she stuck the microphone in my face
for the second time.
I
spit a glob of blood on the ground away from her, trying to get the taste out
of my mouth, and didn’t care it was on film. My forehead beaded with sweat from
the sultry night air. “My uncle was killed tonight in this alley.”
Detectives
Rogers and Wilson pushed through the crowd and stood in my line of sight but
out of view of the camera.
She
said, “Did you see the killer? Was there more than one? Who was your uncle?”
I
pointed to the investigating officers. “Ask those guys.”
When
her attention went to them, I stepped away. I heard her call, “Hey, wait!” But
I turned the corner and hurried to my car, hoping the double-parked news trucks
hadn’t blocked me in.
The
Mustang had just enough room to squeeze out.
*****
Death
followed me like a hungry predator. I’d seen enough of it, caused enough of it,
and hadn’t planned on seeing any more for a while. Not like that. Not Uncle
Reggie. I had to do something or I’d go nuts. The only place that might have
some answers was the same place the police would be headed next, if they weren’t
there already.
As
I wound the Mustang to a hundred and merged onto the Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge Cooper River Mt. Pleasant
The
small beach-shack my uncle had called home for as long as I’d known him stood
on the south side of the Isle of Palms. Sand covered the driveway—the entire
yard, in fact. I swung around and parked, the High Intensity Discharge
headlights from my Mustang bouncing off palmetto trees. I got out of my car and
walked to the house that mimicked my uncle’s lifestyle. In the darkness, I
opened the door to the screened-in porch, trimmed in rotten wood and white
paint-flake, and eased my way between two old rocking chairs. At the front door
I felt the top of the frame for the key, found it, and let myself in.
My
uncle had left a light on in the living room. His prized surfboards leaned
against one wall . . . vintage Hobies, Webers, and Nolls all waxed to
perfection, unlike his car. A newer couch faced a big flatscreen TV. Two shot
glasses and a tequila bottle sat on his glass-topped coffee table. Lipstick on
one of the jiggers caught my attention.
He’d
always said cell phones caused cancer. The one and only instrument for his land
line sat in the kitchen. A calendar hung on the wall beside it. Ms. July stared
at me with all her naked beauty. I pulled out the push-pin holding it to the
wall and scanned the dates. Today, my birthday, had been marked in bold black
marker. The previous week had a notation for a Mutt’s Bar.
With
the calendar in hand, I walked into the bedroom. My uncle had shown me his
version of a safe-deposit box, a hole in the floor covered by loose boards,
when I moved to town. He peered at me with his one blue-crystal eye and his
trademark grin peeking through a graying beard. “If anything happens to me,
here’s some legal stuff.”
“Uncle
Reggie,” I told him, “the next hurricane will blow this whole house and all
your legal stuff to Columbia
He
said, “That’d be something, wouldn’t it?”
I knelt beside the bed and lifted a couple flooring boards
up and out of the way. In the hole I saw two bands of cash and a stack of
papers on top of a moving carton. I picked up the papers and sat on the bed to
read them. Nothing popped out at me other than the cash—ten grand in each band.
I put the bills in my pocket and carried the carton and calendar out to my car.
The police were about to get a whole lot of help to solve this murder. Probably
more than they’d want. And I would make sure they found my uncle’s killer . . .
dead, if I got to him first.
Southern Heat Tour Page
About the Author:
David Burnsworth became fascinated with the Deep South at a young age. After a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee Charleston Island for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife along with their dog call South Carolina
His latest book is the southern noir/mystery, Southern Heat.
Visit his website at www.davidburnsworthbooks.com.
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