Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

Memphis

Dudley stood in the cemetery in his uniform, the hot sun beating down on his head, his heart feeling like a giant hole inside his chest. His mother and Laura had dressed in their Sunday best. They stood on either side of him, clinging to his arms and silently weeping.

The gravestone had his brother’s name, birthdate, and a simple inscription from C. S. Lewis’ modified to fit Charlie. “His loss is like the sky, spread over everything.”

Laura had asked a minister to read scripture but she delivered her husband’s eulogy. It was from the heart, delivered in broken pieces, interspersed by sobs.

But no one was in the grave to hear. Did the dead even hear the living anyhow? And could there ever be any peace for them if they were not laid to rest in a quiet place where birds sang in the trees and the nearby brook voiced its own song as shallow water rushed over smooth rocks to form small pools where you could sit on the bank and cool your feet.

The memorial ceremony was over too soon. Dudley not only had no closure, but being back at Charlie’s empty-feeling house made him so furious he wanted to ram fist through the wall.

Mamaw saw with Laura on the sofa, drinking tea, which he had declined, and talking in hushed voices.

“I’m going to stay with you a while, hon, so we can both grieve together. Dudley will take me home when I’m ready.”

“Thank you, Mawmaw.” Laura talked about the hydrangea bushes he was going to dig up for her, another reminder of life without Charlie. But when she began to talk about tearing down the garage and planting a garden in its place, it was more than Dudley could bear.

Charlie’s workshop. Vanished. Just like him.

“I’ve got to go,” he told them.

“Where’re are you going, hon?”

“I have some things to do. Don’t worry and don’t wait supper. I’ll stay in my apartment tonight.”

He kissed them both on the cheek and hugged them close, as if he might never see them again.

Who knew? Maybe he wouldn’t.

Life had become a time bomb. Just waiting to explode.

Dudley sat in a hard chair watching through the glass for his first glimpse of Karl von Hoover since the trial. When he shuffled in wearing his orange prison suit, handcuffs and leg irons, he had lost so much weight he looked shrunken, not all the muscular, cocky man who had sat in a courtroom and believed until the bitter end that he would get off for murder. After all, what were three more bodies added to his massive body count?

When he sank into a seat on the other side of the glass, the cheeky grin he gave Dudley showed that the Eliminator was there, underneath all the humiliations prison life had heaped on him.

“Well, well,” he said. “If it’s not the cop brother.”

Dudley felt as if he’d just been slammed into a brick wall, headfirst. It was the first direct reference he had ever made to Charlie’s murder. He wanted to smash his fist through the glass, grab the man by the throat and squeeze until his eyeballs popped out. He forced himself to remain calm.

“Where is my brother?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” A macabre sort of glee spread over the killer’s face. He was playing a cat and mouse game. And enjoying it.

“Yes, I would.” Dudley refused to make this a sick game.

“What’s it worth to you?”

“You’re in no position to bargain. You’re here for the rest of your life, and I intend to keep coming back until you tell me.”

“Hmmm. Let me think about that.” The Eliminator tapped the side of his head with his forefinger, as if the answer needed dislodging. “There have been so many bodies.” His grin was ghoulish. “And Charlie was in so many pieces.”

Dudley’s stomach lurched and he thought he might be sick. Still, he sat in his chair, forcing himself back under control. What he was enduring was nothing compared to what his brother had gone through.

“Where is he?”

The Eliminator clamped his mouth tight and sat that way for five minutes. Dudley waited him out. He had nothing left but time.

Correction. I have Laura and Mawmaw and Jack.

What would Jack say if he knew what about this visit?

Suddenly, the Eliminator leaned forward, his face so close to the glass Dudley could feel the heat of evil.

“I’ll never tell and you’ll never find him, cop! I’m here because of you and your kind. I want you to spend the rest of your sorry life hearing your brother’s bones screaming for you.” He leaned even closer, his nose flattened against the glass, his breath fogging it, his voice low and menacing. “Just like he did the day I killed him.”

Nothing, nothing, could have pierced Dudley’s soul the way those last words did. Not the empty grave. Not the nightmares. Not even the loss of him.

His brother had cried out for him to help. And Dudley had failed.

He had failed everybody.

He watched the guards take the Eliminator back his cell before he left the prison and drove to his mean apartment in an even meaner neighborhood.

Maybe this was all he deserved. Heartache and uncertainty. Maybe there was no such thing as redemption for the likes of Dudley Stephens.

He was not eager to find out.

He lay down on his cot and flung an arm across his eyes, as if that might prevent him from seeing his future. As if he could ward off the nightmares where his brother’s bones still screamed.

Silent Bones is a prequel to the full-length novel, No One to Hear Them Scream: Alice and Dudley Thriller . Available in eBook and paperback.

Order a copy here: No One to Hear Them Scream