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“For the book?”
“For that and/or the incident that inspired it. In your kitchen yesterday, one of us remarked that it would be a short list of people who would harbor that kind of grudge and go to those lengths to settle it.”
“You said that, or near enough. You asked me who I thought the mystery guest was.”
“Okay, let’s name the possibilities.” He raised his finger as though to count them off. “Me.”
“You didn’t fake the knifing.”
“So I’m eliminated? Thanks,” he said drily. A second finger joined the first. “Your parents.”
“We can strike them, too. Cancer is a solid alibi.”
He held up a third finger. “Steven. He has some serious issues and grievances.”
“But it wasn’t he who jumped you last night. Besides, he wouldn’t harm me, no matter how angry he is over the book.”
“I guess,” he said, but dubiously. “Those are the principals. If it’s not one of us, it’s gotta be someone more removed.”
“Tangential.”
“Back to the big words. But, yeah.”
“Dale Moody?”
“Possibly. But what’s his beef? Besides coming across as not too bright or competent in your book.”
“Daddy said he looked like a troubled man during the trial. He should have been pleased with the conviction. What was the problem?”
Of course Dent didn’t have the answer, but thoughtfully he added, “Moody’s a big guy, or was, like the lummox who jumped me. Let’s put a check mark next to his name. Who else?”
“What about Rupe Collier?”
“Definitely wasn’t him at the IHOP.”
“No. So who does that leave?”
“Strickland.”
She reacted with a start.
“Not Allen,” he said. “But maybe his brother. Roy.”
“Ray,” she corrected.
He motioned at the directory. “That’s who I was looking up.”
“What made you think of him?”
“Process of elimination. Of this group of people involved, even tangentially—did I say it right?—he and Allen were by far the most redneck.” He looked down at the cut across his knuckles. “He’d be royally pissed by how his big brother was portrayed in your book.”
“It was a fair portrayal.”
“Of a killer. But what if he wasn’t? An excellent reason for a vendetta is your brother getting sent to prison for a crime that he didn’t commit.”
“And then dying there.”
“Allen didn’t die, Bellamy. He was murdered.”
