“No!” Victor exclaimed. “No!” I swear it isn’t true!”
“It’s the same thing with my mother!” Rafael said. “It explains why you were outside her door already trying the doorknob, while I came out seconds later. You KILLED MY MOTHER. The same way you killed Seth! You shot her, placed the gun in her hand, and then walked out.”
“It’s not true,” Victor said. He had tears in his eyes. “It’s really not true.”
“It has to be. Too much of a coincidence, your being at the door twice!”
“Look, the reason I was at Seth’s door is because Seth called me!” Victor said. “At about seven twenty-five he called me and asked me to come up.”
“Oh yeah?” Rafael sneered. “Let’s see the call records, then.”
“I…I don’t have them. He made an internal call through the hotel’s phone system. I doubt those leave any records.”
“Sure,” Rafael scoffed. “Real convenient.”
“It’s true,” Victor said. “As for your mother, Rafael, I agree, I was at the door sooner than you were. There’s a reason for it. You see, I’d just exited from your mother’s room. I was still in the hallway when I heard the gunshot.”
Rafael’s eyes turned flat and blank. In an instance, he’d swung out his fist, and sent Victor sprawling on the floor.
*****
Chapter 10
Victor & Ayla
It took some time for normalcy to be restored. Martin had to physically restrain Rafael from strangling Victor. He used his superior bulk to wrestle Rafael away from Victor, and then sat on his chest, holding Rafael’s swinging fists with both hands.
“Let me get him!” Rafael was swearing like a sailor, his face nearly blue. “I’ll kill him myself! I knew it! All these years, I knew it! He’s responsible for my mother’s death, one way or another! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!”
Lenu was leaning over Victor, who was coughing, his face red. She gently helped him up. He was holding onto his nose, which was bleeding from where Rafael’s fist had connected with it. Nora ran to the nearest room and brought him back some ice wrapped in a scarf.
“Thanks,” Victor said, placing it over his nose.
“You ok?” Lenu asked.
“He won’t be ok when I’m done with him!” Rafael screamed.
“Rafael, hush for a moment,” Martin said. “Let the man talk. Please.”
Rafael took deep breaths, his eyes teary. “My mother! He was in my mother’s room the night she died, and he never mentioned it to the police.”
“I was scared!” Victor was crying a little. “I admit, I’m a selfish, cowardly man. But I was terrified. You see, I was in love with Ayla. She was the one who broke up with me, not the other way around. Even years later, when I met her again, I loved her. But she was going out with Seth, so I didn’t say anything. Thing was, your mother was an honorable woman. She had no idea Seth was married. He always claimed that he was separated from Lenu, that she was cheating on him, that they were minutes away from a divorce. That’s the only reason she consented to date him. But she never--she never had relations with him. When she found out Seth had lied to her, that Seth was really married in every sense of the word, she got angry and hurt. She began having an affair with me as a way to get back at him. But things got complicated. Seth actually left Lenu, and Ayla was feeling guilty and unsure about what to do. She wanted to break up with him by then, but she didn’t know how. She agreed that we’d host a birthday party for him, and maybe tell him that night about us. Only it got complicated. You were there, and so was Lenu. We just didn’t find the right time.”
“Why were you in her room?” Rafael asked. “Did you kill her that night?”
“No!” Victor said. “I swear I didn’t. I don’t think she killed herself, either. But I don’t know what else to think. I went to her room because, well, let’s just say because I loved her. Afterwards, I left. I was walking down the hallway when I heard her scream, and a gunshot rang out. I jumped to the door, but it was locked. You came out then…and that’s the true story. I didn’t kill her! I would never have killed your mother. I truly loved her.”
“Well if you didn’t kill her, who did?” Rafael asked. “And why didn’t you tell the police all this?”
“I didn’t want them to arrest me.” Victor hung his head in shame. “I was in shock, and I was scared. I thought nobody would believe my story. When they ruled it a suicide, I was relieved. I could never go back to my old life because Ayla’s ghost would haunt me… but at least I wouldn’t go to jail.”
“You coward!” Rafael tried to swing at him again, and Martin hauled him backward.
“I know I am a coward.” Victor nodded. “I’m very ashamed of it, too. But I’m not a murderer, Rafael. Believe me.”
“You have to be,” Rafael said. “There’s no other solution, is there? Who killed my mother if not you!”
Nora stepped forward. “I think it’s obvious who the mastermind was, Rafael--you’ll realize it too, if you think about it.”
Rafael blinked, looking at her as though he’d forgotten she existed. “Who is it?”
“The person who killed your mother is the same person who killed Seth Sultan,” Nora said.
“Who?” Lenu exclaimed. “It has to be one of us, so who is it!”
“It’s Seth Sultan himself.”
*****
Chapter 11
The Killer Unveiled
“A lot of things didn’t add up for me,” Nora said. “Starting with why Seth chose me to attend his party instead of, say, a real detective. He could have easily made that arrangement with a high-level detective, but he chose me instead.”
“What are you talking about?” Lenu looked confused.
“I’m an amateur detective,” Nora said. “Seth read an article about me in a magazine, and told me he hired me so that I’d help him find the killer. That’s not the truth. Since I’m only an amateur, he was hoping that I’d be easier to trick, and also that the police would be swayed by my testimony and start looking at the wrong lines of investigation. From the start, his intention of calling you all here was for one purpose only—to get Victor arrested.”
“Wow.” Martin’s mouth hung open.
“Seth was obsessed over Ayla, but I suspect he knew something was going on between her and Victor,” Nora said. “The night he killed her; I believe it was a spur of the moment crime. I don’t think he planned it. It’s possible that he was hiding in the bedroom all along, and when Victor left, mad with jealousy, Seth jumped out and shot Ayla. Then, in a panic, he locked the room from inside, wiped his revolver and placed it in Ayla’s hands, and left the room the same way he’d come in--through the open window.”
Lenu was open mouthed too.
“I think part of Seth was relieved when the police declared the death a suicide. But I think part of him was slowly going insane, too. Ayla’s death didn’t lessen his obsession with her. If anything, that obsession only grew. He admitted it himself, several times, that life after her death was a kind of half-life. All the fame and money in the world couldn’t buy him happiness. What was worse, the one person that he wanted to suffer, seemed to take another path to happiness. In Seth’s mind, Victor escaped. He broke away from the money and the fame, and lived a quiet, happy life on a farm. All these years, Seth was jealous and hated Victor for his happy life.”
“No.” Rafael shook his head. “I refuse to believe it. If it was true, Seth would have killed him earlier. Or… I don’t know. Killed himself earlier.”
“Ah, but Seth was a narcissist,” Nora said. “He couldn’t bear to live, but he couldn’t bear to die either. Nor could he bear the thought that he might go to jail if he killed Victor. No. He had to go on living his half-life, growing more and more bitter as the years passed by. Then, one day, he found out he had cancer.”
Lenu gasped.
“That’s right.” Nora nodded. “He mentioned it to me in an effort to get sympathy when I first arrived here. He
pretended that because he only had a few months to live, he was making a last ditch effort to find out who killed Ayla. He told me he didn’t want justice, he just wanted to know. Truth is, he already knew. He always knew. But I think now that he only had a few months to live, his hatred for Victor only intensified. If he was going to die anyway, he’d take Victor down with him.”
“You have no proof of any of this!” Martin exclaimed.
“There’s some proof,” Nora said. “One sign he was obsessed is how carefully he trailed all of you, how carefully he set up this meeting in this isolated place, how carefully he chose me, hoping I’d be influenced by him and believe Victor was the killer. He was careful not to be too obvious about his intentions, and I think if it weren’t for luck, I might have fallen for his trap.”
“Luck?”
Nora nodded. “At first, when I saw Seth’s body, I was immediately convinced it was a murder. Any detective with half a brain could see it was not a suicide. He was holding the gun in the wrong hand, he was standing in the middle of the room instead of sitting down, and the key was in a seemingly random place. It all pointed to murder.”
“So how did you realize it wasn’t?” Lenu asked.
“I realized it when Martin told his story right now,” Nora said. “He said that when he broke into Seth’s room, the keys were already placed underneath the bed. Now that’s a very significant thing. Why were they there? The only possible reason is that Seth placed them there, deliberately. Why would he do that? The answer is obvious. He wanted to frame Victor. He deliberately killed himself in a manner that appeared false. Not only that, he deliberately called Victor upstairs, and waited until Victor was at the door to kill himself. That way, everyone naturally suspected Victor of doing it. It does seem like too big a coincidence that Victor was at the door, doesn’t it? It’s not. It was engineered that way. Seth set him up.”
“My God.” Victor was pale. “I—he tried to kill me! Even from beyond the grave!”
“He was an arrogant man,” Nora said. “He thought he could predict human nature, and he was wrong. He didn’t predict that Martin would sneak into his room. He didn’t predict that I would not be so easily fooled. He didn’t predict the rain that would trap us in this house, either.”
As she spoke, the rain seemed finally to dull, slowing down to a gentle drizzle. Nora stared outside the window, wondering if the rain had indeed been a coincidence, or divine intervention of sorts.
“We should call the police,” Martin said gently.
“Yes,” Nora agreed. “If my theory is right, and the police are looking for the right clues, I’m sure they’ll find more telltale signs that Seth had indeed taken his own life.”
“If not?” Rafael asked. “What if you’re wrong? What if Martin or Victor has done it?”
“The one way I know they haven’t done it,” Nora said, “is the lack of blood on their clothes. But when the police come with blacklights, it should be easy enough to tell. If Martin or Victor were the killer, they would have had to get close enough to Seth to at least have a few drops splattered on their clothes. My hunch is that the police will find nothing. I’m confident Seth did it, and we’ll know soon enough if I’m right.”
*****
Epilogue
“It’s incredible,” Tina said, slamming the paper down on the table in front of her. Nora only smiled, sipping her coffee quietly.
“It’s the biggest scandal the music industry’s ever had!” Tina said. “What a pity that Seth Sultan killed himself! He had so much to live for!”
Nora nodded, but didn’t comment.
“You were there,” Tina said. “Why won’t you tell me anything about what happened?”
Nora shrugged. “I respect the others. They want their privacy.”
Indeed, as it turned out, privacy was what the others had wanted most. Once the police had cleared them of any crime, and confirmed that Seth had indeed killed himself, Lenu, Martin, Victor and Rafael had debated whether they should release all details of the story to the public. On the one hand, Rafael wanted very much to expose his mother’s killer to the world. On the other hand, he understood the media backlash that would follow.
“In the end, it’s your decision,” Lenu had said. “Seth was a cruel monster, but he loved attention. It’s up to you to decide whether he should get more attention after his death or be allowed to eventually fade away into the annals of history as just another musician who killed himself.”
“We’ll support you, no matter what you want,” Martin said.
Rafael had given it a lot of thought before he finally said, “Seth’s suicide should just be attributed to his cancer. That’s the best way forward. It’s not out of respect for him, either. I’d love to unmask him to the public. It’s you, Victor; I think you really loved my mother. If there’s a media storm around this case, and you lose the quiet happy life you worked so hard to build, it’s like Seth will win, in a way. I won’t let that happen. I’d rather he just…fade away.”
“Thank you,” Victor had said gratefully.
As she sipped her coffee now, Nora reflected that Rafael had done the mature thing. It might have been satisfying to unveil Seth for the evil mastermind he truly was, but what would really become of it? Justice had already been done. Ayla’s killer was already dead. Now, the best way forward for the survivors was to live their own lives in peace and happiness, without Seth’s shadow stretching out over them.
Nora sighed, wondering if Rafael, Victor, Lenu and Martin would ever find happiness. She certainly hoped they would. As for her, Tina pushed forward a slice of rich, moist chocolate cake, and Nora dug into it with a fork. As for Nora, there was this coffee, this cake, and this diner—her happy little world.
The End
Thank you so much for reading my story! I hope you liked it! If so, please continue on to the final book in this series, Death On Bingo Night! You can GET IT ON AMAZON!
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Continue For Your Delicious Recipe…
One More Thing…
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Please continue for Nora’s delicious recipe…
A RECIPE FOR YOU!
Nora’s Chocolatey Chocolate Cake
Serves: 12
Ingredients:
For The Cake:
2 cups white sugar
1 3/4 cup white flour
1 cup milk
1 cup boiled water
3/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tspns vanilla extract
1 1/2 tspn baking soda
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
1 tspn salt
2 eggs
For The Icing:
3 cups powdered sugar
1 stick butter
2/3 cup cocoa
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2) Grease & flour a baking pan measuring 13” x 9” x 2”.
3) Prepare the cake batter by combining sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder & salt in a mixing bowl. Add in the milk, vegetable oil, vanilla extract & eggs and beat with an electric mixer set on medium for two minutes (or until batter is thin).
4) Pour the prepared batter into the baking pan.
5) Bake for 35-40 minutes (a toothpick stuck i
nto the center should come out clean once finished).
6) Cool for 10 minutes.
7) Transfer to a cooling rack and, while cooling thoroughly, prepare the frosting:
8) Melt the butter.
9) Stir in the cocoa, powdered sugar & milk, alternating until frosting reaches the desired consistency, then add the vanilla extract.
10) Frost the cake
11) Serve & Enjoy!
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Rights & Disclaimer
This is entirely a work of fiction. All people, places and events contained have been completely fabricated by the author. Any similarities to real people, places, or events are completely coincidental.
Death Of A Rock Star Page 5
