Calculated Cruelty

By Ryan Bright

Private eye, John Steele, just wants to solve cases and keep those around him happy. He'll soon have to face the consequences of ignoring a senator's plans to repeal the Right To Farm laws and the choice of taking on a case for a client with a shady past. Steele uncovers infidelity, murder, and acts of animal cruelty as he digs for the truth. The search for answers is never easy or painless for the rural detective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan Bright
• Release date: Mar 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310569975

Ryan Bright

Just a small dairy farmer with an overactive imagination making wholesome nutritious milk..

Book preview

Calculated Cruelty

By Ryan A. Bright

Copyright 2016 Ryan A. Bright

Smashwords Edition

Table Of Contents

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

A Word From The Author

About The Author

Chapter 1

...the phone lines are jammed up with your calls about Right To Farm or Right To Kill. We’ll have Senator Pearson on in the next hour to explain why he wants to repeal the Right To Farm Act. Caller one, your thoughts?

I’ve been vegetarian for five years because of what happens on those factory farms. I’m glad Senator Pearson wants to-

Trying to sleep. Dana cut off caller one and rammed her elbow into my back.

I find there are fewer things more traumatic than waking up to an ear-piercing alarm and I much prefer the gentleness of talk radio. Voices whispering across the ether and slowly stirring you to the land of the living makes sense to me. But more often than not, it isn’t just me anymore. There’s also Dana.

Dana is another story. She hadn’t exactly moved in the last couple of months and by that I mean she wasn’t drying pantyhose on the shower hanger, but she did have an overnight bag she kept in the bathroom and her own toothbrush next to mine for when she did stay the night.

She was twenty-eight and just more than ten years my junior. We kept things simple, or at least, I did anyways. Dana reminded me that there were good people in the world and that was something I sometimes lost track of in my line of work. The worst I could complain about her was that she had switched from the sheer nightgown to flannel pajamas with the change of the seasons. Autumn, you are no friend of mine.

###

The morning coffee did its job at keeping me awake while I watched the brick arts and crafts house on Highland Street. One of the owners, Melissa Powell, called me yesterday worried about her husband cheating on her. She and Dan were in their early sixties and ran one of the many antique stores on the square.

Why do you think he’s got another woman? I asked her.

He goes out for something and takes too long getting back. And he lied about where he went one-time last week. He lied to me right to my face and I knew better because I had just gotten back from where he said he had been. She sniffled and I wasn’t sure if she was going to start bawling on me or not. That was the last straw. That’s why I needed a private detective.

My last two cases kept me out of town for over two months and it is easier to work where fewer people know who you and what you do, at least in my line of work. Still, it is nice to sleep in your own bed for a change and not have a long drive. Canton County, population around fifty thousand. Home of the annual Cicada Sing. Home of talk radio 102.5, Your Talk.

...Senator Pearson, you’ve heard some people call in and say the Right To Farm Act protects farmers from nuisance lawsuits and allows farmers to keep their livelihood. What do you say to them?

If you’re for cheap food from factory farms and the enslavement of animals then you’re not for me.

Something to pass the time because the Powell’s were not going anywhere. Their cars were parked in front of the garage. They hadn’t moved. Nothing had moved anywhere around me, either. It isn’t that I hate stakeouts, but that I don’t like catching cheating spouses. Here’s a photo of your hubby laughing and having drinks with the waitress at the diner you always said he was too flirty with. Here are photos of your wife in bed with her muscled trainer from the gym. Give me an unexplained blood-soaked carpet or empty safe from a breaking and entering any day of the week. But the bills have to be paid one way or another.

The lights in the house finally came on around six thirty. Upstairs first and then the lights popped on downstairs one by one from the back of the house to the front. Not everyone eats breakfast at home or breakfast at all so I had already prepared for an early exit. Yesterday I stopped by the antique store and placed a tracking device on Dan’s car. The app on my phone could track it within a half mile with the only problem being that most cars have so much plastic on them nowadays it is hard to find a place to stick them and still be hidden.

Thirty minutes later Dan stepped out the front door and left in his Accord. He was tall, slender, and still had a good head of hair even it had turned more silver than black. I saw why his wife might be worried. I had seen good men make bad mistakes at this stage in their life. I let Dan turn down the next street before starting the car and following.

In town, my phone had fair coverage and the tracking app gave me GPS-like directions to keep up with him. He stopped first at the new donut shop on the edge of the square and I drove past and parked at a gas station pretending to put air in my tires. He came out with a bag and a drink carrier with two coffee cups in it. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Does he turn back up the hill going toward home to share it with his wife, or.....

Dan choose option two and pulled out on the road headed out of town. I kept the Crown Vic behind him and out of sight which was doubly hard with Dan driving an excruciatingly slow five miles per hour under the limit and the fact the morning sun now glared straight in my eyes. We drove past cow pastures and half picked cornfields on our Eastern journey.

Ten minutes later Dan surprised me. He stopped at the Newberry city limit according to the app. It wasn’t at a house, an apartment complex, or even an all night strip joint. No, Dan stopped at Senior Manor Center, a nursing home.

I drove on past to give him time to go in before circling back around. I made sure Dan’s car was empty before entering the building.

Behind the front desk sat a short, plump woman who looked the type to never be anything but perky. Can I help you? she asked and pushed away from her desk a little to give me her full attention.

Yes, ma’am. There was a man that just came inside and left his car lights on.

Lisa, which I read from her name tag, glanced down the hallway and called to a staff member, Judi, will you go tell the man in Mrs. Kline's room that he left his car lights on.

I think it is great when a man visits his mother here often. I hope my son will visit me when I get old. I hooked the worm and cast it.

Lisa covered her mouth and glanced to make sure no one was looking before whispering, That’s not his mother. She giggled slightly,