Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Dudley was pocketing his Blackberry when he heard the knock on his door.

“It’s me.” Jack was standing in the hallway with two coffees in take-out cups and two sausage and biscuits from the fast-food place down the street.

“Thanks. I’d say pull up a chair if I had one.”

“We’ll be eating in the car. Our perp was brought in last night.”

Charlie’s killer! The news almost brought Dudley to his knees.

“How?”

“At one a.m. this morning, a couple of patrol officers spotted the rental car at a bar on their beat and called it in. The new kids on the block checked it out and brought him in.”

Chuck Reeves and Johnny Gillespie, the MPD’s newest and youngest undercover homicide detectives, were on the night shift. Both were in their late twenties and whip smart.

“Who is he?” Dudley’s desire to question him was so visceral he felt the ache in his gut. Unanswered questions about his brother’s murder burned through him like a wildfire.

“He won’t say and we don’t know yet. Lab is rushing on the DNA.”

“Lawyered up?”

“Big time.” Jack named a hotshot firm based in New York with offices in Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Memphis.

When they arrived at the MPD, the suspect was still in the interrogation room with his attorney, a woman who wore her blond hair severely pulled back and a plain black suit with a loosely fitting jacket in an attempt to appear older. Her smooth skin and her long shapely legs crossed under the table gave away her as somewhere in her early thirties.

But it wasn’t the woman who took Dudley’s attention. It was the man with her. He had the stocky build of a prizefighter and the nonchalant attitude of a criminal secure in the knowledge that he can do whatever he pleases and his lawyer will see that he walks free. Or a the very least, gets a light sentence.

His fists and clenched jaw had Jack putting a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t go in there.”

He would turn in his badge and gun for the opportunity to march into that interrogation room and have his revenge on the man who so brutally slaughtered his brother.

“You make sure to nail him, Jack.”

“I will.” His partner strode off to join the two acting as if they were at a social event.

Jack’s size, alone, was enough to change the lawyer’s attitude. It didn’t faze the sorry lowlife who slouched in his chair as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Jack fired off his first volley. “There is no such person as Kelly Briley, so you can drop that charade right now.”

“No comment.” The perp had the arrogance to smirk. He also clammed up for questions about where he was the afternoon of Fawn Grover murder, the day of the break-in at Laura’s house, and the early morning of the murders in Germantown.

The door to the war room down the hall opened, and Detective Chuck Reeves called, “Detective Stephens, you need to come down here.”

Dudley hotfooted down the hall. Detective Johnny Gillespie was also there. “I thought you two were off shift.”

“We heard DNA results were coming in,” Johnny said. “We wanted to be here to nail the killer.”

They all sat in a semicircle to listen to a member of forensics deliver results from DNA on the coffee cup found at the Williams’ residence.

“It’s a perfect match to the professional assassin, Karl von Hoover. Known as the Eliminator. He has direct ties to Juvenico ‘Bloody One’ Arnica, and is believed to be responsible for murdering eighty-five of Arnica’s targets in South and Central America, Mexico, and the U. S. Furthermore, the bloody footprint in the Williams’ home and the muddy print in Charles Stephen’s back yard match the sole of shoes we found in the apartment where the Eliminator has been staying.”

They had more than enough to arrest him for all three murders in Memphis. Dudley felt a boulder lifting from his chest. Now, he might finally know where to find Charlie’s body.

The Commander of the homicide division stepped up to the podium.

“The Eliminator has been arrested before, but no charge ever stuck. We are lucky enough to have Mrs. Laura Stephens who has agreed to come in to identify his voice, and witnesses at the car rental agency and the Dunkin’ Donuts where he stopped the morning of the Williams’ murders who can identify him. This time we have enough evidence to get a conviction. Good work!”

The room erupted in cheers, then the captain came over to Dudley. “I know you’ll want to be there for the arrest. But no tactics to get information about your brother.”

“Understood. “He fell in step, but the walk to the interrogation room was one of the longest of his life.

When he saw his brother’s killer face to face, rage roared through like an avalanche capable of burying an entire city of people alive. That such a cocky, insignificant wart of the face of humanity could take Charlie’s life was unbelievable.

As the killer was lead from the room in shackles, he did a double take when he saw Dudley. His resemblance to Charlie would be unmistakable, the same square jaw, the same beefy hands and refrigerator size, even the same cowlick that made their hair stand up in front like the comb of a mad rooster.

Dudley wanted to punch his face. But more than that, he wanted to know where his brother’s body was hidden.

“Sucker,” the killer hissed at him, and then laughed. A maniacal sound that haunted Dudley throughout the man’s trial and conviction.

Karl von Hoover received life in prison without parole.

His punishment would never be enough to compensate for the loss of Charlie.