Page 63 of Death on Riddle Road

Clang, clang, clang.Not according to Sally, the aide.Why deny it?

“But you went to see him in prison regularly?”

“Some,” he said grudgingly.

If frequency ended up being vital, we could probably get at it another way.

Keeping him talking felt more important now.I had the oddest feeling we’d have limited opportunities to chat.Or was that hope?

“How was he when you did visit him?Strong?Determined?Or...?”

“He wasn’t happy about much, that’s for sure.Not about being in prison.Not about not seeing his kid much because the wife worried about the kid getting emotionally scarred from seeing him there.

“Not about the wife being around less and less, along with harder and harder to reach.Can’t tell you how many times I heard about him having to leave a message and not hearing back for days after the doctors told him what he had and he wasn’t going to beat it.”

From a quick calculation, that was around the time Dova had her accident.

“Not about dying, either, for damned sure.”There was an odd note of satisfaction in that last statement.“Should’ve stayed in prison to die there.If that visiting preacher hadn’t started taking an interest in him a year ago—”

Right around when Dova had her accident.

“—and sprang him loose.”

“A preacher?”Not the family?

“Guy’s been around a long time, knows all the ins and outs to pull off something like that.Derrick didn’t have to do a thing.Like always.”

Except have a terminal disease that was nearing its end.

Nope, didn’t point that out.

“You’d been close when you were younger, but it sounds like you didn’t get along well after he went to prison?”I asked, trying for Clara’s innocent-as-pie voice.

He instantly looked wary.Either I hadn’t done it right or he didn’t possess much belief in innocence.“Where’d you hear that?That wife of his?We got along fine.I went to see him, didn’t I?”

“Oh, I must have been mistaken.Did you have interests in common?”

“Didn’t need interests in common.Not when we were younger and not when he was in prison.All those times visiting him because they couldn’t reach Dova’s phone were because of family.I did my duty,” he said righteously.“You want to know what he talked about when I visited him in prison?Himself.All the time.All about himself.Same thing, over and over and over.How he didn’t kill Jaylynn, how he got framed by law enforcement, how his first lawyer sucked, how his wife was working on getting him some new, hot-shot lawyer that would get him out.And none of it ever got him anywhere.”

“Did you believe him — about his being innocent and being framed by the sheriff’s department?”

“It’s what people in his position say, isn’t it.”Not a question.Not an answer, either.“Over and over, like one of those songs you can’t get out of your head.”

“An earworm,” I provided.

He snorted.Not a bit grateful I’d named the irritant.“I’ve had enough of this.He’s dead.They’ll figure out they’re wrong about it being murder.It’s all over now.”

He stomped away toward the parking lot.

Clara and I looked at each other.

“Not over,” she said.

“Not even close,” I agreed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Clara lobbied tocheck if Rose Gleiner might still be inside Kentucky Manor, even though it was significantly after her shift would have ended.Far more likely she’d left before we arrived.