Page 33 of Bone Echo

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. “Charliekilledsomebody? 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, thebones.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 besidethe 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!”

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