Dead to Rights by Jack Patterson (fiction book recommendations .txt) 📕

across the street sells fitted tin-foil hats . . . and he’s always running out.”

“What’s your best guess?” Kelly asked.

“The Marsh Monster, hands down. Now, enough of that. Can I take your order?”

Cal and Kelly ordered their meals and didn’t have time to discuss anything else before Larry Arant strode through the front door. Without an available seat, he shuffled over toward Cal and Kelly’s table.

“Mind if I join you?” Arant asked.

“Are you sure you want to?” Cal asked.

Arant nodded. “I’d spend the rest of my lunch answering questions about the case if I sat with anyone else.”

Cal chuckled. “What do you think we’re going to talk about?”

“Well, at least you won’t be pitching me cockamamie theories and asking me to agree with you or worse—print them.”

“Good point.”

Curly dropped off Cal and Kelly’s sweet teas before quickly taking Arant’s order and vanishing into the kitchen.

“Now, you said back at the lake that you wouldn’t have predicted Drake committing murder but that it didn’t completely surprise you either. Care to elaborate? Is there something we don’t know about?”

Arant shifted in his seat and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. He glanced around the room before he began speaking in a hushed tone. “What I’m about to tell you I’m doing so in the strictest of confidence,” Arant began. “And I’m doing this because I want you to get a full picture of who Isaiah Drake is—or at least, was.”

“Go on,” Cal said, leaning in closer.

“When Drake was a freshman in high school, he was with two other boys who beat and robbed an elderly woman. They put her in the hospital, all for fifty bucks. Sheriff Sloan tracked down the trio. Only one of the boys was punished with a short stint in a juvenile detention center.”

“Who were the other two boys?”

Arant shrugged. “I could guess, but nobody really knows, so that wouldn’t be fair.”

“Then how do you know about Drake?” Kelly asked.

“One night I was at The Pirate’s Den having a couple of drinks with Sheriff Sloan, and he told me the story. He said he let Drake go partly because he wasn’t convinced he was a participant in the attack. The Sheriff also said he saw how much potential Drake had on the football field and hoped to steer him to Auburn. So, when I say I wasn’t surprised that Drake was capable of such a thing, that’s why.”

“Because he allegedly beat up a little old lady?” Cal asked. “That’s quite a leap from there to being a killer.”

“Anyone who beats up an elderly person has something wrong with them.”

“Allegedly,” Kelly added. “He allegedly beat her up with two other men.”

“I never wrote that nor did I ever tell anyone. But just know that Drake isn’t a saint.”

Cal nodded. “Hayward was my prime suspect in the murder of Susannah Sloan, but not anymore. Now, I’m baffled by it all. Okay, so answer me this: Who do you think killed Jordan Hayward?”

Arant leaned back in his seat and glanced around the room. “Same person who I think killed Susannah Sloan—it was Isaiah Drake.”

CHAPTER 23

MRS. LOUISE KIRKWOOD SAT UP STRAIGHT, fingers interlocked and resting on the desk in front of her at her station in the Pickett County Library reference section. Cal thought he detected a faint smile on her face the moment he and Kelly walked into her line of sight.

“Back to solve some more mysteries?” Mrs. Kirkwood asked, clapping her hands quietly.

“We’re trying,” Kelly said.

“Yes, and we were hoping you might be able to help us some more,” Cal added.

Mrs. Kirkwood stood up. “Give me a moment while I lock up my desk, and I’ll meet you back in the microfiche room.”

Cal and Kelly followed Mrs. Kirkwood’s instructions and waited for her, spending their time discussing how Drake could have orchestrated a hit on Jordan Hayward from prison.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Cal said. “Why wait all this time? If you had the resources to kill Hayward, why not do it years ago? The timing of it all makes me want to dismiss that theory altogether.”

“Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment,” Kelly said, holding up her index finger. “What if Drake took all this time to figure out a way to get the state’s major eyewitness to recant . . . and now Drake needs to make sure nobody else talks or jeopardizes his chances at getting cleared in a retrial?”

“That’s an interesting theory, though when we talked with him, I never detected any animosity from Drake regarding his childhood best friend.”

“Psychopaths are good at hiding things.”

Cal’s eyes widened. “So you think Drake is a psychopath now?”

“Remember, I’m just being the devil’s advocate. If you’re going to write a comprehensive feature on this story, you need to consider all the possibilities.”

“I’m having a hard time seeing that.”

“All I’m saying is it could be true. Just think about it.”

Before Cal could ponder Kelly’s theory any further, the door clicked open and Mrs. Kirkwood entered.

“So, what is it I get the pleasure of helping you with today?” she asked.

“I just want to say first that we appreciate your willingness to help us again,” Cal said. “You have no idea how difficult it is for us to piece this story together as outsiders.”

Mrs. Kirkwood snickered.

“What’s so amusing?” Kelly asked.

“Oh, you two think it’s difficult to delve into the dark secrets and hidden motivations of Pickett County residents as outsiders? I think it’s far more difficult to do that as an insider. It’s hard to get your preconceived ideas, notions, and history about your neighbors out of the way.”

“When you put it that way, I tend to agree with you,” Cal said. “I’ve lived and worked in a small town before. It certainly has its unique challenges, especially when it comes to privacy.”

Mrs. Kirkwood raised her right hand in the air. “Amen to that, brother,” she said. “Now, what can I help y’all find?”

She clicked on the microfiche machine as the light