Hot Flash

HOT FLASH

CARRIE H. JOHNSON

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Dedicated to my mom and dad,
Walter and Muriel Johnson

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the following individuals I offer my thanks and appreciation for your support, thought-provoking comments, and editing: Roberta Johnson, my sister and best friend; Anika Nailah, editor and author of
Free: And Other Stories
; Connie Miles; Anita Beckett; and Alicia Silva.

 

Special thanks to Selena James, executive editor at Dafina Books, who believed in my story and was willing to take a chance on me; and Esi Sogah, senior editor at Kensington Publishing.

 

And a very special thanks and undying gratitude to Adrienne Lloyd, firearms examiner—retired, who helped me launch this project and has been there every step of the way.

C
HAPTER
1

O
ur bodies arched, both of us reaching for that place of ultimate release we knew was coming. Yes! We screamed at the same time . . . except I kept screaming long after his moment had passed.

You've got to be kidding me, a cramp in my groin? The second time in the three times we had made love. Achieving pretzel positions these days came at a price, but man, how sweet the reward.

“What's the matter, baby? You cramping again?” he asked, looking down at me with genuine concern.

I was pissed, embarrassed, and in pain all at the same time. “Yeah,” I answered meekly, grimacing.

“It's okay. It's okay, sugar,” he said, sliding off me. He reached out and pulled me into the curvature of his body, leaving the wet spot to its own demise. I settled in. Gently, he massaged my thigh. His hands soothed me. Little by little, the cramp went away. Just as I dozed off, my cell phone rang.

“
Mph, mph, mph
,” I muttered. “Never a moment's peace.”

Calvin stirred. “Huh?”

“Nothin', baby, shhhh,” I whispered, easing from his grasp and reaching for the phone from the bedside table. As quietly as I could, I answered the phone the same way I always did.

“Muriel Mabley.”

“Did I get you at a bad time, partner?” Laughton chuckled. He used the same line whenever he called. He never thought twice about waking me, no matter the hour. I worked to live and lived to work—at least that's been my story for twenty years, the last seventeen as a firearms forensics expert for the Philadelphia Police Department. I had the dubious distinction of being the first woman in the unit and one of two minorities. The other was my partner, Laughton McNair.

At forty-nine, I was beginning to think I was blocking the blessing God intended for me. I felt like I had blown past any hope of a true love in pursuit of a damn suspect.

“You there?” Laughton said, laughing louder.

“Hee hee, hell. I finally find someone and you runnin' my ass ragged, like you don't
even
want it to last. What now?” I said.

“Speak up. I can hardly hear you.”

“I said . . .”

“I heard you.” More chuckles from Laughton. “You might want to rethink a relationship. Word is we've got another dead wife and again the husband swears he didn't do it. Says she offed herself. That makes three dead wives in three weeks. Hell, must be the season or something in the water.”

Not wanting to move much or turn the light on, I let my fingers search blindly through my bag on the nightstand until they landed on paper and a pen. Pulling my hand out of my bag with paper and pen was another story. I knocked over the half-filled champagne glass also on the nightstand. “Damn it!” I was like a freaking circus act, trying to save the paper, keep the bubbly from getting on the bed, stop the glass from breaking, and keep from dropping the phone.

“Sounds like you're fighting a war over there,” Laughton said.

“Just give me the address.”

“If you can't get away . . .”

“Laughton, just . . .”

“You don't have to yell.”

He let a moment of silence pass before he said, “Thirteen ninety-one Berkhoff. I'll meet you there.”

“I'm coming,” I said and clicked off.

“You okay?” Calvin reached out to recapture me. I let him and fell back into the warmth of his embrace. Then I caught myself, sat up, and clicked the light on—but not without a sigh of protest.

Calvin rose. He rested his head in his palm and flashed that gorgeous smile at me. “Can't blame a guy for trying,” he said.

“It's a pity I can't do you any more lovin' right now. I can't sugarcoat it. This is my life,” I complained on my way to the bathroom.

“So you keep telling me.”

I felt uptight about leaving Calvin in the house alone. My son, Travis, would be home from college in the morning, his first spring break from Lincoln University. He and Calvin had not met. In all the years before this night, I had not brought a man home, except Laughton, and at least a decade had passed since I'd had any form of a romantic relationship. The memory chip filled with that information had almost disintegrated. Then along came Calvin.

When I came out, Calvin was up and dressed. He was five foot ten, two hundred pounds of muscle, the kind of muscle that flexed at his slightest move. Pure lovely. He pulled me close and pressed his wet lips to mine. His breath, mixed with a hint of citrus from his cologne, made every nerve in my body pulsate.

“Next time we'll do my place. You can sing to me while I make you dinner,” he whispered. “Soft, slow melodies.” He crooned, “You Must Be a Special Lady,” as he rocked me back and forth, slow and steady. His gooey caramel voice touched my every nerve ending, head to toe. Calvin is a singer and owns a nightclub, which is how we met. I was at his club with friends and Calvin and I—or rather, Calvin and my alter ego, spurred on by my friends, of course—entertained the crowd with duets all night.

He held me snugly against his chest and buried his face in the hollow of my neck while brushing his fingertips down the length of my body.

“Mmm . . . sounds luscious,” was all I could muster.

The interstate was deserted, unusual no matter what time, day or night.

In the darkness, I could easily picture Calvin's face, bright with a satisfied smile. I could still feel his hot breath on my neck, the soft strumming of his fingers on my back. I had it bad. Butterflies reached down to my navel and made me shiver. I felt like I was nineteen again, first love or some such foolishness.

Flashing lights from an oncoming police car brought my thoughts around to what was ahead, a possible suicide. How anyone could think life was so bad that they would kill themselves never settled with me. Life's stuff enters pit territory sometimes, but then tomorrow comes and anything is possible again. Of course, the idea that the husband could be the killer could take one even deeper into pit territory. The man you once loved, who made you scream during lovemaking, now not only wants you gone, moved out, but dead.

When I rounded the corner to Berkhoff Street, the scene was chaotic, like the trappings of a major crime. I pulled curbside and rolled to a stop behind a news truck. After I turned off Bertha, my 2000 Saab gray convertible, she rattled in protest for a few moments before going quiet. As I got out, local news anchor Sheridan Meriwether hustled from the front of the news truck and shoved a microphone in my face before I could shut the car door.

“Back off, Sheridan. You'll know when we know,” I told her.

“True, it's a suicide?” Sheridan persisted.

“If you know that, then why the attack? You know we don't give out information in suicides.”

“Confirmation. Especially since two other wives have been killed in the past few weeks.”

“Won't be for a while. Not tonight anyway.”

“Thanks, Muriel.” She nodded toward Bertha. “Time you gave the old gray lady a permanent rest, don't you think?”

“Hey, she's dependable.”

She chuckled her way back to the front of the news truck. Sheridan was the only newsperson I would give the time of day. We went back two decades, to rookie days when my mom and dad were killed in a car crash. Sheridan and several other newspeople had accompanied the police to inform me. She returned the next day, too, after the buzz had faded. A drunk driver sped through a red light and rammed my parents' car head-on. That was the story the police told the papers. The driver of the other car cooked to a crisp when his car exploded after hitting my parents' car, then a brick wall. My parents were on their way home from an Earth, Wind & Fire concert at the Tower Theater.

Sheridan produced a series on drunk drivers in Philadelphia, how their indiscretions affected families and children on both sides of the equation, which led to a national broadcast. Philadelphia police cracked down on drunk drivers and legislation passed with compulsory loss of licenses. Several other cities and states followed suit.

I showed my badge to the young cop guarding the front door and entered the small foyer. In front of me was a white-carpeted staircase. To the left was the living room. Laughton, his expression stonier than I expected, stood next to the detective questioning who I supposed was the husband. He sat on the couch, leaned forward with his elbows resting on his thighs, his head hanging down. Two girls clad in
Frozen
pajamas huddled next to him on the couch, one on either side.

The detective glanced at me, then back at the man. “Where were you?”

“I just got here, man,” the man said. “Went upstairs and found her on the floor.”

“And the kids?”

“My daughter spent the night with me. She had a sleepover at my house. This is Jeanne, lives a few blocks over. She got homesick and wouldn't stop crying, so I was bringing them back here. Marcy and I separated, but we're trying to work things out.” He choked up, unable to speak any more.

“At three a.m.”

“I told you, the child was having a fit. Wanted her mother.”

A tank of a woman charged through the front door, “Oh my God. Baby, are you all right?” She pushed past the police officer there and clomped across the room, sending those close to look for cover. The red-striped flannel robe she wore and pink furry slippers, size thirteen at least, made her look like a giant candy cane with feet.

“Wade, what the hell is happenin' here?” She moved in and lifted the girl from the sofa by her arm. Without giving him a chance to answer, she continued, “C'mon, baby. You're coming with me.”

An officer stepped sideways and blocked the way. “Ma'am, you can't take her—”

The woman's head snapped around like the devil possessed her, ready to spit out nasty words followed by green fluids. She never stopped stepping.

I expect she would have trampled the officer, but Laughton interceded. “It's all right, Jackson. Let her go,” he said.

Jackson sidestepped out of the woman's way before Laughton's words settled.

Laughton nodded his head in my direction. “Body's upstairs.”

The house was spotless. White was
the
color: white furniture, white walls, white drapes, white wall-to-wall carpet, white picture frames. The only real color came in the mass of throw pillows that adorned the couch and a wash of plants positioned around the room.

I went upstairs and headed to the right of the landing, into a bedroom where an officer I knew, Mark Hutchinson, was photographing the scene. Body funk permeated the air. I wrinkled my nose.

“Hey, M&M,” Hutchinson said.

“That's Muriel to you.” I hated when my colleagues took the liberty to call me that. Sometimes I wanted to nail Laughton with a front kick to the groin for starting the nickname.

He shook his head. “Ain't me or the victim. She smells like a violet.” He tilted his head back, sniffed, and smiled.

Hutchinson waved his hand in another direction. “I'm about done here.”

I stopped at the threshold of the bathroom and perused the scene. Marcy Taylor lay on the bathroom floor. A small hole in her temple still oozed blood. Her right arm was extended over her head, and she had a .22 pistol in that hand. Her fingernails and toenails looked freshly painted. When I bent over her body, the sulfur-like smell of hair relaxer backed me up a bit. Her hair was bone-straight. The white silk gown she wore flowed around her body as though staged. Her cocoa brown complexion looked ashen with a pasty, white film.

“Shame,” Laughton said to my back. “She was a beautiful woman.” I jerked around to see him standing in the doorway.

“Check this out,” I said, pointing to the lay of the nightgown over the floor.

“I already did the scene. We'll talk later,” he said.

“Damn it, Laughton. Come here and check this out.” But when I turned my head, he was gone.

I finished checking out the scene and went outside for some fresh air. Laughton was on the front lawn talking to an officer. He beelined for his car when he saw me.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I muttered, jogging to catch up with him. Louder. “Laughton, what the hell—”

He dropped anchor. Caught off guard, I plowed into him. He waited until I peeled myself off him and regained my footing, then said, “Nothing. Wade says they separated a few months ago and were trying to get it together, so he came over for some making up. He used his key to enter and found her dead on the bathroom floor.”

“No, he said he was bringing the little girl home because she was homesick.”