Page 37 of Bone Echo

He and Jack took a lunch break before they questioned the rest of the staff. At the back booth of a nearby Corky’s Ribs & BBQ, one of the many locations in the city, they compared notes on the interviews.

“Two of the women I interviewed gave glowing reports on Laura.” Jack polished off his barbecue sandwich and wiped his mouth. “But the third woman, the pretty one…”

“The pretty one?”

Jack grinned. “Well, yeah. I might have to give Lucille a call when all this is over. She was just… I don’t know.Nice. And different.”

“What did this lucky woman have to say?”

“All right. Rub it in.”

“I intend to,” Dudley said. It felt good to have a moment of normal in the middle of a waking nightmare.

Jack sipped his coffee and got back to the task, his face turning sober. “Lucille said Laura had been crying a lot in the last couple of months.”

“Any reason?”

“She claimed it was because she couldn’t have children, but Lucille didn’t think that was it. She told Laura they could adopt or find a surrogate mother so Charlie would be the biological father, but she said that made Laura even more upset.”

“Charlie never said a thing to me about any of that.” Dudley sipped his own coffee. “Did Lucille ever find out what was upsetting her?”

“She said Laura got a call at the shop about two weeks ago that had her a nervous wreck and crying all day. Then last week, Laura said she’d had an unwelcome visitor from Arkansas.”

“Who?”

“Laura wouldn’t tell her.”

“We need to subpoena her phone records. She came from Little Rock. Best I can tell, she had a hard life before she met my brother. These attacks could have happened because of something in her past instead of Charlie’s.”

After lunch Dudley drove back to Curl Up and Dye so he and Jack could finish the interview with Laura’s coworkers.

He hit pay-dirt with the last hair stylist, Belinda Martin, an older, motherly-looking woman with salt and pepper hair and thick wire-rim glasses. Right off the bat, she said, “Laura trusted me. I don’t tell my friends’ secrets.”

Dudley held his tongue. He hated having to deal with a close-mouthed witness. Jack should be the one questioning Belinda Martin. He could win over a tree stump.

She settled into the chair, her hips spreading over the edges of the seat, then pulled a tissue from her purse to wipe her face. “I’m getting too old to stand on my feet all day.”

“I can sympathize.” Dudley shifted his sizable bulk in the uncomfortable metal chair. “I’m just thirty-five, but my knees are telling me I either need to lose weight or quit chasing criminals through back alleys.”

Brenda laughed. And just like that, she was suddenly on his side. The tells were there: the way she relaxed into her chair, the way the vertical lines between her eyes smoothed out.

“I’m family, Laura’s brother-in-law, and I can assure nothing will be shared unless it’s relevant to finding out what happened to my brother.”

“Janine told us this morning why Laura didn’t come in. It’s just awful. I’m going to call her this afternoon, see what I can do.”

“Good. Thank you.” Dudley pulled the little spiral bound notepad and a stubby pencil from his pocket. He felt like Columbo, the scruffy, seemingly innocuous detective from the only cop show his wife would watch. “We already know Laura received a phone call and a visitor from Arkansas who upset her. Can you give us more details.”

“Yes. She didn’t give me a name, but she told me somebody she had known well when she lived in Little Rock was harassing her. He showed up at her house while Charlie wasn’t there and upset her so bad, she was crying when her husband got home.”

“What did he want?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Did Charlie know the man?”

“Not until she told him about the visit.”

This could be the lead they’d been hoping for. “Did Laura describe him or say anything else about him, or what happened next?”

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