Read Online Elvendude by Mark Shepherd - Free Book Online Page B

up, I came in here and found everyone dead."

    The phone, which had been ringing off the hook since the cops arrived, rang again. Daryl knew they were trying to locate the parents of the dead kids, but were having little luck. They all seemed to be . . . unavailable.

    Maybe this was one of them finally returning a call. . . .

    The cop eyed him uncomfortably for a long, long time. Daryl was impressed with himself at how long he was able to stare the man down without blinking.

    "How do you know they're dead, Daryl?" The cop smirked.

    "Guessed," he said. Through a bay window he watched a fire truck pull away. "Maybe it had something to do with the way they weren't moving very much."

    The detective shook his head. "Godammit," he said. "Don't you feel any thing? They were your friends! "

    Daryl's gaze remained fixed on the fire truck as it trundled down the long, long driveway to the automatic gate. "Not anymore," he said, with a yawn.

    The cop stared at him. "You really don't feel anything, do you?" His face flushed red. "This isn't an act."

    "I told you what happened. . . ." Daryl replied, getting irritated. He's giving me a taste of the lecture I'm gonna get when I get home. Great. That stuff all over again.

    A uniformed officer stuck his head in the dining room. "Roach. Phone call. It's the boy's father."

    Daryl snickered. "Roach. Pretty cool name for a cop, if you ask me."

    "I'm not asking," Roach said. The cop got to his feet slowly. "The drugs have eaten your soul, lad. They really have. And you're only seventeen."

    "Eighteen," Daryl corrected. "Yesterday."

    "Oh, well exc use me. Eight een. All grown up and knowing everything. No more juvenile detention. When you go down, you go down in the big boys' jail." Then, apparently as an amusing afterthought, he added, "And they're gonna love you." He left the room to take the call.

    Boy's father. Wonder if that's Winton. Then, a disturbing thought. Maybe it's my father. His stomach turned again at the possibility.

    A few moments later, Roach returned, smiling. This made Daryl nervous. "Now I know who you are," the cop announced cheerfully. "I thought your name was a little too familiar."

    Inside, Daryl groaned. He'd debated whether or not to reveal the fact that his lawyer was also his father, and a high-priced one at that. But the police departments of Northeast Texas didn't like Paul Bendis, as he had so successfully defended an army of drug dealers in the past ten years, effectively keeping them on the street. So Daryl had decided to stay mute on the subject and leave the scene as soon as they let him.

    As long as they don't find anything, they can't keep me. I at least know that much.

    "Yeah, well, who am I?"

    Roach looked around, and raised his voice when he said, "You're Paul Bendis' son. The lawyer. The crooked lawyer."

    Three heads in the hallway looked up. "Say what?" one of them said.

    "You all heard me. The Paul Bendis. This is his boy."

    Paul suddenly felt like a black man at a KKK rally.

    Another suit came over, one who had spent most of his time upstairs. This alone made him nervous, since Daryl hadn't gone over Steve's room very thoroughly, and this cop probably had. The detective was older, heavier, and louder than Detective Roach. He puffed on a long, obnoxious cigar that looked like a turd.

    "Well, well," the detective said. "I was rather hoping to catch Bendis in the act, but I think his son will do for now."

    "You haven't caught me at anything," Daryl said. "I know my rights. And my father knows them better than I do."

    "Sure, sure," he said. "Looks like someone really went over this house with a comb. Say, I found glass shards in the commode upstairs. That wouldn't have been a pipe, would it?"

    Daryl shrugged. "Don't know. You're the cops, you tell me."

    Roach said, "Now that we know who Daryl is, I think we should go over the place just one more time. No telling what we might find."

    "Yeah. No telling." They both started