Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Dudley’s House

The minute he drove up, he saw the lights ablaze in the living room. Dudley’s heart sank. He had hoped to sneak into his house, take a quick shower and then finish the night on the sofa, as he often did of late, especially after a murder that required the homicide squad to work into the wee hours of the morning.

He told Gloria Jean he was being respectful of her. There was no need to disturb her night’s sleep just because he didn’t get one. She always countered that he was avoiding her, he didn’t love her anymore, he was married to his job.

Tonight, he was too bone tired and heartsick to face that kind of confrontation. As he got out of the car, he prayed that she had just left the lights on for him.

He slid the key into the lock and eased open his door. His luck had run out. There she sat, his wife, perched on the edge of the sofa, arms crossed over her chest, a frown marring her face. The fact that she was still beautiful, even when angry, made him want to try harder to save what they’d once had.

He still marveled that a dark eyed beauty with cherry lips had fallen in love with an ordinary man you’d never notice on the street. Dudley had a plain, uninteresting face, brown hair that refused to conform to any style except a buzz cut, a cowlick that made the front of it stick up as if he were constantly startled. He was shaped like a refrigerator. No broad shoulders and trim waist. Just a boxy man with powerful arms and legs as strong and sturdy as fence posts.

“Do you know what time it is?”

The grandfather clock in the corner was chiming the half hour. Three thirty in the morning. He decided to take a conciliatory approach to Gloria Jean. “You didn’t have to wait up, sweetheart.”

“Don’t try to sweet talk me! Didn’t you ever hear of the telephone?” She jumped off the sofa and strode across the room, a tall, slender woman who made her cotton nightgown and cheap chenille robe look like some expensive costume one of the old Hollywood glamour movie stars might wear. She stopped within a foot of him, arms akimbo. “You went to the bar, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” No use denying it. Ever since Gloria Jean started pulling away from him, finding fault, expressing displeasure at his job and her lifestyle, he had used alcohol as an escape. He controlled the drinking. Of course, he did. He was a cop. He knew the dangers of drinking and driving, of fooling yourself into thinking you’ll have just one and then ending up sloppy drunk. “I had a reason.”

“You always do.” Sighing, she marched off toward their bedroom, her shoulders slumping, defeat in every line of her body.

“Gloria Jean. Wait.”

She paused, glanced back over her shoulder. “Why should I?”

“There was a murder today.”

“There’s always a murder. Or a robbery, or a mugging, or a carjacking. For Pete’s sake, Dudley! You’re a cop, and the city is crawling with crime.”

“It was my brother.”

Her face registered shock. “Charlie killed somebody? It must have been that sneaky, holier-than-thou wife of his.”

“No.” Dudley’s legs could no longer hold him. He barely made it to the sofa before he collapsed, his head on the armrest, his longs legs hanging off the other end.

For once, he’d left his wife speechless. She stood there with her mouth open, comprehension dawning, disbelief replacing her anger.

“Dudley? Was the victim Charlie?” He was too tired to answer, too worried, too terrified. She sank beside him and cupped his face with soft hands that smelled like roses. “He was, wasn’t he?”

He nodded, still seeing the skill saw with bits of flesh of clinging to the teeth and bone dust on the floor. He shut his mind to the thought of what that might mean. Then he closed his eyes to shut out his wife’s face, shut out the ever-present vision of the murder scene, the image of his brother fighting a maniac who had used a hammer and a skill saw, among other unthinkable things.

“You’re crying.” Gloria Jean wiped his tears with her fingers, leaned close to croon into his ear. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Somewhere in the dark rain-soaked city, his brother’s bones screamed at him. FIND ME. FIND ME. FIND ME.

He felt Gloria Jean leave, heard her light footsteps going toward their bedroom, then returning. He felt the blanket fall over him and smelled her sweet-smelling perfume as she tucked him in. Her tenderness was such a departure from her chilly reserve of late that he felt a small seed of hope start to grow.

And then, blessedly, sleep claimed him.

But not for long. The nightmares came. A horror movie. His brother fighting, fighting. And losing.

And the bones, the bones. Screaming. Find Me.

Dudley searching dark alleys and dragging the Mississippi River that bordered west Memphis, his dream-self saying, Where are you? Who did this?

Then silence. The devastating silence of bones hidden in the vastness of the rain-soaked city.

Dudley woke to find his children astraddle him, seven-year-old Elizabeth Ann, and five-year-old Tammy.

“Play horsey, Daddy,” Tammy shouted. “Giddy-up!”

His fatigue forgotten, he smiled at his daughters. They were the two bright spots in his life, their innocence and unending joy in life banishing his nightmares as nothing else could.

“You want a horsey, do you?” He set them on their feet, then threw back the blanket, hoisted Tammy onto his shoulders and pranced around his living room, neighing and snorting in his best imitation of a Kentucky Derby racehorse.

“My turn, Daddy.” Elizabeth Ann held her arms out to him. Tammy was a petite redhead, like Dudley’s own mother, Junie Mae, but his oldest was tall for her age and already showing the beauty of her mother.

“Yes, it is.” Though her size made her unwieldily, he had no trouble hoisting Elizabeth Ann onto his shoulders for a trot around the living room. On their second round, her leg caught against a table lamp and sent it crashing to the floor.

Gloria Jean hurried in, an apron covering her pristine white blouse and the top of her black pencil skirt. Her black jacket, patent leather purse, and briefcase were already waiting beside the door where she would grab them before taking the children to school and heading to her job in mid-town as legal assistant to Cramer, Jones, and Cramer.

She glared at the broken glass on the floor and then at Dudley. “Oh, for Pete’s sake! Why can’t you, for once, act like a grownup and help me get the girls ready for school instead of cavorting like a child!”

She raced off to get the broom and the dust pan, but not before she sent the girls back to their rooms to get dressed. “Right this minute!” she yelled as they raced off.

Dudley stood in the middle of his living room feeling like a failure. To be chastised in front his children was humiliating enough, but to feel as if he had failed them and his wife was a burden he never expected to bear. All his life, he and Charlie had sworn they would never be like their own parents, careless, selfish alcoholics who neglected family to the point that Social Service officers were often sent out by one school teacher or another who had reported the Stephens boys were undernourished and threadbare.

Realizing he still wore the trousers that had blood spatters above the spot where his protective shoe coverings stopped, he hurried to the shower to strip and try to wash away the stench of death that clung to him. Afterward he made his way to the kitchen where the coffee pot was still hot and the coffee strong, just the way he liked it. Lest he take that as a sign his wife still cared about him, the lipstick on her cup reminded him that she liked her coffee the same way.

He heard his children upstairs, chattering and scurrying around as they dressed for school. Two cereal bowls with remnants of the corn flakes they’d had for breakfast still sat on the kitchen table. He rinsed them out and put them in the dishwasher.

He reached to add his wife’s cup, but then, what if she wanted another cup before she left for work? He’d feel the sting of her tongue.

Indecision over such a small matter made his head hurt. He was saved by the ringing of his Blackberry. He pulled the smart phone out of his pocket.

“Dudley,” he said.

“You need to get down to the station.” It was Jack. “We’ve just had a 911 call from your sister-in-law.”

“Has she found Charlie?”

“No. Someone broke into her house.”

Dudley turned to see his wife standing in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. “You work all night and now you have to go to into work early.”

It wasn’t a question. “That’s what I do.”

She glared at him, her lips pursed, a dozen unspoken accusations on the tip of her tongue. Finally, she grabbed her cup, turned her back to him and poured herself another cup of coffee. She glanced briefly over her shoulder. “Don’t forget Elizabeth Ann’s piano recital at seven.”

“I won’t.”

She turned her back. “You missed her last one.”

What was the use in saying, I know . Gloria Jean just wanted him to know she was keeping a tally of his shortcomings, and he was already so deep in the doghouse he might never get out.