Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

Only family and a few close friends had Dudley’s cell phone number. When his Blackberry rang about five miles from the station, he didn’t hesitate to answer it.

“Oh, Dudley!” It was his mom, Junie Mae, calling from small-town Mooreville, Mississippi, her voice quivering. “I saw on the news about Charlie. The news!”

“Awww, Mawmaw. I’m sorry. I should have called you. I never meant for you to hear it this way.” His voice cracked, but he was unaware of the tears rolling down his cheeks. “I’m just so sorry.”

“That’s okay, hon. I know you’re trying to find him. Wait just a minute.” The television was playing in the background, and he heard her footsteps tapping on the wooden floor. The sagging springs on her old sofa groaned as she sat down. “Let me turn off this TV. My hearing is not what it used to be.”

The volume went up then back down before Junie Mae could figure out how to get the TV off with her remote. She’d never understood gadgets.

“Have you found him? Have you found my Charlie?”

Her question was nails hammered into his heart. “Not yet, Mawmaw, but we will. Jack is leading the team. He’s the best detective on the homicide squad.” The minute the word homicide was out of his mouth, he could have kicked himself. There had been no official statement yet that Charlie’s disappearance was a homicide.

“My Charlie was murdered?”

“It’s possible, but we don’t know exactly what happened yet.”

“Poor Laura. If I could see to drive, I’d come up there and keep her company.”

The idea of Junie Mae behind the wheel of her ancient Chevrolet, dodging every time a car in the thick Memphis traffic passed in the lane beside her, was enough to make Dudley want to ground her, the way he would Elizabeth Ann if she got out of hand when she became a teenager. But then, Mawmaw would have no way to get groceries or go to church or drive to her neighbor’s house to play bridge.

Even worse would be his mother witnessing the inside of the garage that was sealed with crime tape.

“Soon as I can I’ll come down there and drive you back so you can visit with Laura.” Unless it turns out she’s the perpetrator.

“Don’t you worry about me, hon. You just find Charlie. I know you can.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I never doubted that for one single minute. My boys are the best! You find Charlie and tell him to quit scaring his Mawmaw this way.”

If only that were possible!

“I will. You get some rest now, and don’t worry.”

After he closed his Blackberry, Jack said to him, “I wish my mother was still living. I’d didn’t always do right by her.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

They both stared out the window and drove the rest of the way to the station in pained and nostalgic silence, two grown men turned to little boys by the sound of a mother’s voice.