Dead Shot by Jack Patterson (adventure books to read .TXT) 📕

than Sunday resulted in an endless line of questioning, such as, “What’s the special occasion?” or “You sure do look nice. What’s her name?”

But today felt different for Cal. A double murder is a serious story and I need to be more serious looking.

He dug some wrinkled khaki slacks out of his closet and paired it with a blue and green plaid oxford shirt. No tie. No one would confuse him for a Gap model, but he appeared more professional than on most days, which was Cal’s meager goal as he raced out of his rundown duplex apartment door. This could be big.

On this late summer morning, Cal rushed to his black and maroon Civic . He engaged the engine and pressed the accelerator to the floor. A few seconds passed before Cal coaxed the engine underneath the replacement hood to life. He peeled onto Highway 278 for his five-minute commute. There was no time to waste if he was going to turn out a story sure to land at the top of the heap in his skimpy clips file.

As Cal slowed to a stop at an intersection, his iPhone buzzed again.

Kelly Mendoza’s picture and name consumed the phone’s screen.

Cal’s mood momentarily changed from frenetic to giddy. If there was a good reason for staying in Statenville, it was Kelly Mendoza. Her fiery spirit overtook her common sense at times, but Cal dug spunk in a woman. It didn’t hurt that Kelly possessed good looks either. A 5-foot-9 leggy firecracker with wavy shoulder-length brown hair and piercing blue eyes made for an intriguing package. Kelly embraced her Basque bloodlines in both spirit and beauty. Cal spent more time dreaming about asking her out than he did of covering the Mariners and the Seahawks combined. But there was that bothersome unwritten “no dating fellow employees” policy.

Cal pressed talk.

“Hey, Kelly. Happy Monday morning to you.”

“Cal, I’m sure you heard the news …”

“What news?” Cal said, playing coy.

“Guy hasn’t called you yet?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah, yeah. He told me about the murders. I’m on my way into the office now.” Cal could tell flirting wasn’t a good idea.

“Well, I heard there’s a serial killer on the loose,” she said in a near-whisper. “Why would anyone want to target those two kids? There’s got to be something else going on.”

“Don’t get too freaked out, OK? I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this.” Cal just couldn’t think of a plausible one at the moment to soothe Kelly’s nerves.

“Are you packing any heat?”

“Packing what?” A grin spread across Cal’s face.

“You got a gun?”

“Heck, no. What do you think this is? Dodge City? … Are you?”

“You better believe it. I’ve got my Glock 21 within arm’s reach.”

Cal shuddered but responded with a nervous laugh at the thought of some poor criminal getting on the wrong end of Kelly’s gun.

“Well, maybe I should ride with you today. You’re the photographer on call today, aren’t you?”

“Of course, Cal. I’m the only photographer ever on call.”

“I know but it sounded like something you would say if you were working at a big city paper. We might be writing for a small town paper, but we’ve got a big city murder to cover now.”

“I’m a little scared, but a tiny bit excited too,” Kelly admitted.

“Ditto on both of those for me, too. See you at the office in a few.” He ended the call.

What was going on? Cal wondered. Is there really a serial killer on the loose in Statenville? And if so, why would he kill those two boys? Whatever could they have done? What could they have been involved with to deserve death?

The paper’s readers would likely be asking those same questions. It seemed like a good place to start when interviewing the local authorities. He imagined their answers and began to write the story in his mind.

He looked down Main Street at Statenville’s usual brisk economic activity. Shoppers and business owners, many whom he knew, went about business as usual. He wondered if they knew a killer was on the loose. And in this small town, he wondered how they couldn’t. Then he wondered why no one seemed scared.

Chapter 4

When Cal walked through The Register’s glass doors and into the newsroom, his eyes focused on Guy. Cal’s curmudgeon editor stood on the other side of his desk, testing the length of his phone chord as he leaned out his door and snapped for a pen and pad from his assistant. Guy scratched down information that the caller relayed to him before hanging up the phone. He ran his hands through the thinning unkempt hair on his 62-year-old dome, as he exhaled a big breath. Then he spotted Cal.

“Get in here, Cal. You’ve got work to do!” he bellowed.

Cal then realized he was still standing outside the newsroom. He quickly moved toward his editor as he watched the veteran newsman come to life.

“Coming, boss!”

Cal’s desk was on the second row of four in The Register’s cramped newsroom. He sat behind Edith Caraway, the chipper receptionist who didn’t try to hide her vintage era with the bouffant hairstyle she sported. Next to her was Earl Munroe, the middle-aged obituary and typesetter extraordinaire. Earl enjoyed sharing his mock obituaries almost as much as Edith enjoyed hearing them. Both had worked at the paper for more than 20 years and neither seemed to aspire to anything more.

Directly next to Cal’s desk was copy editor and sole page designer, Terry Alford, armed with every technological advancement known to a modern newsroom. When he wasn’t designing pages he spent most of his time flaunting his software and hardware superiority over the plebe reporters. His high-powered Mac desktop versus the reporters’ aging Dell laptops was like comparing a Bazooka to a pea shooter – at least in his mind. He often exploded into diatribes about his virtual world conquests that would make Charlie Sheen blush. This usually produced exaggerated eye rolls and snickers from anyone unlucky enough to be caught