Tropical Heat - Hardcover

Miller, John A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765301652 ISBN 13: 9780765301659

Publisher: Forge Books, 2002

Synopsis

When an army officer is found dead in the small Virginia town of Hopewell, the murder sets in motion a sequence of events that will forever change the life of Sheriff A.G. Farrell. A.G.'s investigation is hampered by a strangely hostile provost marshal from the murdered captain's base and by the captain's enigmatic widow, Theresa Fitzgerald, whose beauty, like the terrible heatwave that hangs heavily in the Southern summer air, leaves soldiers and civilians alike gasping for relief. When a thin thread ties together the otherwise unsuspicious deaths of four young women over the past four years, A.G. struggles to retain his sense of objectivity and propriety as sexual tension grows between Theresa and himself, while facing down the provost marshal whose rush to judgement will get the wrong man hung for murder.

About this title

About the Author

John A. Miller is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Cutdown, Causes of Action, and Tropical Heat. Miller’s Jackson Street and Other Stories won the California Book Award for First Fiction. He lives in Georgia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Tropical Heat
Chapter OneThe cardboard fans fluttering restlessly throughout the chapel of the Calvary Baptist Church of Hopewell, Virginia, reminded A. G. Farrell of nothing if not the tattered souls of his neighbors struggling to slip their earthly bonds. The fans had been provided to the congregation by the Creech Brothers (Your Friends In Need) Funeral Home and bore, on one side, the image of a gnarled, arthritic pair of hands clasped in prayer and, on the other, a grainy, slightly out-of-focus black-and-white photograph of the Creech brothers themselves, faces set in rictuslike grins. The vigorous, nonstop fanning of the parishioners notwithstanding, the small chapel was fiery hot, and although A. G. was wearing a fine linen suit that had belonged to his father, rivulets of perspiration raced down the small of his back.A. G. tried and failed to stifle a deep yawn as the Reverend Jimmy Morton laboredmightily in the heat, bringing forth a long, disjointed, and exceedingly morose prayer seeking relief from any number of perceived earthly afflictions, including, among others, the extraordinarily hot weather and the specter of postwar racial integration. Roundly corpulent and possessed of a cheerfully optimistic nature when not in the pulpit, the Reverend Morton was prone to serious depression on most Sundays, the more so as he looked out on his copiously perspiring flock from his vantage point in front of the choir. A. G. yawned again, wanting to look at his watch but knowing that to do so would be rude."Sheriff."If the whispered salutation, coming as it did as the Reverend Morton struggled unsuccessfully to tie up the many loose threads of his prayer, surprised A. G., he did not show it. Thirty-four years old and a bachelor, A. G. was a graduate of the University of Virginia, a distinction of some note in a county where fewer than 25 percent of the population could boast of so much as a high school diploma. He was tall, handsome in what his neighbors thought of as a bookish way, and had been born with only one kidney, a defect, if such it could be called, that had kept him out of the army and both the Second World War and the Korean conflict. Appointed sheriff in 1942 when the incumbent officeholder, caught up in the patriotic spirit of the times, enlisted in the Marine Corps, A. G. agreed to serve strictly as a favor to his community, fully intending to return to Charlottesville for graduate studies in philosophy as soon as the war ended. Twelve years later, his predecessor having died storming the beach at Iwo Jima, A. G., much to his own surprise, still held office.Without taking his eyes off the pulpit, A. G. inclined his head sideways in the direction of Warren Elam, the young man crouched in the aisle next to A. G.'s family pew."Sheriff," Warren continued in a loud stage whisper that carried easily to all corners of the chapel, "Mr. Taylor says you got to come right away." Knowing that the entire congregation was now straining to hear his words, Warren paused for dramatic effect. "Mr. Taylor said to tell you that a dead body's done been found."Warren, who did odd jobs and ran errands for Bud Taylor, badly wanted to relay to A. G., and of course the rest of the congregation, additional details of the exciting discovery, such as the fact that a bullet had passed through the unfortunate decedent's head, but a stern warning from his employer to reveal nothing beyond the existence of a cadaver inhibited him. But only for a second or two."Mr. Taylor don't know who found ..."A. G., recognizing that Warren would blurt out anything that came to his mind, put a finger to his lips. "Hush, now," he admonished quietly, noticing that even the Reverend Morton had fallen temporarily silent. He carefully replaced the Creech Brothers fan, together with his hymnal, in the rack on the back of the pew in front of him and rose with a barely concealed sigh of relief at the prospect of missing the remaining half of Jimmy Morton's service. Leaving with as much dignity as was possible under the circumstances, he gently shooed Warren Elam down the center aisle as one might coax a child. Outside the church, A. G. asked Warren where the body had been found."It's in a car parked in front of Mr. Taylor's feed warehouse," Warren gushed as he climbed hurriedly into Bud's pickup truck. "We better get on over there. Are you going to run the siren?" he asked hopefully, nodding toward the sheriff's car."I doubt it's necessary since, according to you, the man is already dead. By the way, who is it?""I don't know, but he was wearing a ..." Warren suddenly paused, remembering Bud Taylor's unambiguous order to keep his mouth shut."Wearing what?" A. G. asked impatiently."A uniform," Warren blurted, starting the truck. "But don't tell Mr. Taylor I told you, okay?"A. G. got into the black 1950 Ford sedan the city of Hopewell had purchased, used, two years earlier. It had a single red dome light on the roof and the word Sheriff painted in block letters on each side. The lettering had been done by a sign painter serving a three-year state sentence for bigamy who had been loaned to the county for a week's worth of painting. While he was working for the county, A. G. allowed him to take his meals at Francine Baker's boardinghouse. In the course of his week's stay in Hopewell he repainted both the mayor's and A. G.'s offices, lettered the sheriff's car, recaulked all the windows on the city's small administrative building, and impregnated Francine Baker's thirty-two-year-old daughter. 
 
"Howdy, Bud.""A. G.," Bud Taylor acknowledged A. G.'s greeting with ill-disguised annoyance. Sixty-one years old and a childless widower, Bud was short, bald-headed, and overweight. In addition to being the owner of the feed warehouse, a large general store on the outskirts of Hopewell, and several hundred acres of prime bottomland, he was the county Democratic Party chairman and, as such, considered himself, not wholly inappropriately, a man of some consequence in that part of the state. The telephone call from Fort Lee alerting him to the presence of a body in Hopewell had awakened him at home from a restless sleep on cotton sheets wet with perspiration. He opened a packet of headache powder, his second in thepast hour, and poured the contents on the back of his tongue, washing it down with a drink of lukewarm Coca-Cola. The sweet, syrupy flavor made him grimace, the overall effect of his unpleasant expression heightened by the fact that he hadn't yet shaved."What have we got?" A. G. asked, nodding in the direction of the 1951 two-tone DeSoto coupe parked in front of the warehouse Bud had inherited from his father-in-law in 1934. He and Bud were standing in the building, looking out one of the front windows. Warren, who had badly wanted to stay and listen, had been summarily dispatched by A. G. to find Henry Beal, a local army-trained photographer who had a contract with the county to provide whatever photography, crime-related or otherwise, might be needed from time to time."The provost marshall's office out at the fort called me about an hour ago," Bud said after he finished the Coke and put the sweating bottle in a wooden crate on the concrete floor. He belched indelicately, not bothering to cover his mouth with his hand. "Some lieutenant, the duty officer, said he had just gotten an anonymous telephone call saying there was a dead body in a car in front of the feed-company warehouse." Bud pointed unnecessarily out toward the DeSoto coupe. "Said he tried to reach the sheriff first," he paused to glare briefly at A. G., "and, since he couldn't, he called me."The discovery of the body represented something more than an inconvenience, for it came at a time when the county was without the services of a coroner, the previous holder of that office having died unexpectedly, of natural causes, six weeks earlier. Bud, as the county Democratic Party chairman, had reluctantly taken on the newly vacant office until such time as the county could recruit a reasonably competent person for the job. He had obviously not anticipated, in the short time he intended to hold office, having to deal with a homicide."Man or woman?" A. G. asked."It's a man," Bud grunted, assuming A. G. was asking about the gender of the body in the car."No, I meant was the person who called to report the body a man or a woman?""How the hell would I know?" Bud took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. The two headache powders he had taken in the past forty-five minutes clearly had not yet begun to have a positive effect on his disposition.A. G. smiled, unoffended by Bud's tone of voice. "Let's go take a look," he said, opening the door and stepping out into the harsh sunlight. As hot as it was inside the warehouse, stepping outside was like walking into an oven.The automobile's two front windows were open, as were the window vents. A man lay slumped against the steering wheel, arms hanging straight down over the front edge of the seat. The head was turned toward the driver's-side window, both eyes frozen open in a stare of profound shock and dismay. The body was that of a Caucasian male, mid-thirties, A. G. guessed, wearing the army uniform and insignia of a captain in the Quartermaster Corps. The man had brown eyes, a close-cropped military haircut, and a five o'clock shadow on flaccid cheeks. An entrance wound was visible on the left temple, slightly forward of, and a little above, the left ear. Because the head was turned, no exit wound was visible. Leaning down and looking through the driver's window, A. G. could see that the headliner and passenger door were splattered with a copious amount of blood and what appeared to be fragments of the decedent's brain."Large caliber," A. G. murmured, more to himself than to Bud. He felt surprisingly calm, almost detached, as he looked at the body. Perhaps it was the war, he thought. Perhaps we all got so used to death on a large scale, even those of us who didn't go overseas, that we can now look at somethinglike this without it making us sick. "If so," he said quietly, "I wish we hadn't.""What's that?" the older man asked. The hot sun, together with the aftereffects of the better part of a fifth of bourbon he had consumed the night before while playing gin rummy, made him more than a little queasy.A. G. looked at Bud and realized he had been thinking out loud. "Sorry, Bud, I was just talking to myself." He looked back at the body. "This wound was made by a large-caliber bullet," A. G. explained, pointing at the hole in the man's temple. He held his thumb and forefinger approximately half an inch apart and sighted them over the wound. "I'd guess a .45."A. G. walked around the front of the car to the passenger side, stopping at the front-quarter panel. The pavement in front of and below the passenger window bore evidence of blood spatter, as well as at least one piece of what he assumed was brain tissue. Before he could examine that side of the car more closely, Warren Elam returned in Bud's pickup followed closely by Henry Beal's 1950 Studebaker."Morning, Henry," A. G. called out, motioning for the freelance photographer to join him at the front of the DeSoto. "Sorry to drag you out on a Sunday morning." He nodded back toward the body. "I'm afraid it's not a very pretty sight."Henry raised a hand to forestall further apology. "Believe me, I need the money. Sally is expecting again. Who was killed?""Don't know yet. Before we disturb the body, though, or anything else around the car, I want you to get a good set of shots from every angle, okay? Oh, and Henry," A. G. added, almost as an afterthought, "needless to say, I don't want you touching anything, and," he pointed to the bloodstains and tissue lying on the pavement outside the passenger window, "be real careful about where you step."The photographer nodded absently, already busy with getting his camera ready. "Yeah, sure, no problem.""Warren." A. G. walked back around to the driver's side of the car, crooking his finger at Bud's young handyman. "Come here, I want you to look at something." A. G. pointed toward the open window. "Look through there, and tell me what you see.""See?" Warren asked, obviously confused."Look through both windows. This one," A. G. indicated the driver's-side window, "and the passenger window, out toward the vacant lot across the street."Warren bent down and looked. He straightened up and turned to A. G., fearful that he was about to fail some sort of test. "Trees?" he said, his response more a question than an answer."Bingo." A. G. smiled. "Trees. Now, Warren, what I'm hoping is that one of those trees stopped the bullet that obviously passed through this unfortunate soul's head. What I want you to do is go over there and examine all the trees along the probable path of the bullet. Start on a direct line with the two windows and work out from there.""You want I should dig it out for you if I find it?" Warren pulled out his Barlow pocketknife for A. G.'s inspection."No, don't touch anything. Just come get me if you think you've found it." A. G. turned to Bud Taylor as soon as Warren trotted away. "Come on, Bud, let's get you back in the warehouse and out of this sun while Henry takes his pictures.""Don't you want to check the body for any identification?" Bud asked. "A wallet or something?"Leading Bud into the relative cool of the high-ceilinged warehouse, A. G. shook his head. "I don't want to disturb anything until Henry gets done. There'll be plenty of time to look then." A. G. paused and fanned himself with his straw hat. "You don't look so good, Bud. It's going to be a whilebefore I've got things wrapped up here. Why don't you head on home, and I'll call you later.""I just need a little hair of the dog that bit me last night," Bud assured him. "But you're right, there's no use to both of us sweating like field hands out in that hot sun." He mopped his brow one last time before putting on his white Panama hat. "What are you going to do with the body?"A. G. shrugged. "Not much I can do. We'll have to keep it at least until I can arrange to borrow someone from the state to come do an autopsy. Probably be a day or two before a pathologist can drive over from Richmond." He pointed to the telephone on the desk. "I'll call Bob Creech to come pick up the body and store it in his mortuary for the time being.""Well, keep me posted," Bud grunted. He opened the door and winced at the sudden blast-furnace heat. "Give Warren a ride home when you're done with him, will you?""You don't mind if I store the car"--A. G. nodded toward the dead man's automobile--"here for a day or two while I get it checked for fingerprints, do you?"Bud took a single key off his key ring and tossed it to A. G. He left without another word.A. G. made a quick call to the Creech Brothers Funeral Home and then walked out of the warehouse and watched Henry take the last of his photographs. "I appreciate your coming out," he told him."Like I said, I can sure enough use the money," Henry assured him, as he stowed his gear in the trunk of the Studebaker. "I swear, it seems that all I have to do anymore is look at that old gal of mine and we've got another young 'un on the way."A. G. chuckled. "I'm thinking you two must be doing more than just looking at each other."He...

About this edition

• Publisher: Forge Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0765301652
• ISBN 13: 9780765301659
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320