Jenna tried to inject some positivity into the conversation. “Tomorrow is another day. Who knows what a new day will bring?”
Chapter Fifteen
My friend was right. The problem was, there was no telling if a new day would bring good or bad news. I returned home and turned on the television, where the local news was replaying their interview with Scott Harper and Amy Turner from earlier in the day. It was so surreal seeing the two of them side by side, united for the same cause, rather than at each other’s throats. Of course, as a murder suspect, the easiest way to deflect the blame from yourself was to point fingers at someone else—which they were both quite eager to do in the interview.
With all the finger-pointing going around, it was hard to keep the facts straight. Although, after everything that had been thrown at me throughout the day, it was hard to keep anything straight right then. My brain, understandably, had turned into mush.
Suddenly, I got the urge to watch anything other than news. I needed a break. Anything to take my mind off of the case.
I sighed as I sat on my leather couch in my living room. “What a day.”
My Labrador retriever, Buster, looked up at me with his soulful eyes. He clearly wanted some pats, and I obliged. After I was done giving him a few pats, he wagged his tail, completely happy. Life sure had a way of way of getting complicated for humans, but the same could not be said for dogs. They were not only easily amused, but easily satisfied as well. At that moment, staring into Buster’s eyes, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.
“Oh, to have the life of a pampered dog,” I said.
Buster curled up as close to me as he could on the couch and took a nap. I flipped around on the TV, stopping in the most surprising of places. The other night, the sight of an old episode of Sassy Sleuth had been enough to make me want to turn off the TV for the rest of the night.
On this particular evening, my opinion of my old show had changed. I welcomed watching a rerun of Sassy Sleuth. Now that I was in the thick of a real-life investigation, seeing one that was completely scripted and that I knew would end with the killer being caught was a cathartic sight.
I settled in on my couch and turned my brain off, watching the episode with one eye on nostalgia and another on escapism. As the episode reached its climactic scene, however, I found myself being hit with a serious surprise.
In the episode, my character, Victoria Sassy, had just stormed into the office of a sixty-five-year-old newspaper editor, convinced that he had murdered one of his investigative reporters.
Naturally, the editor denied any wrongdoing.
That was when I heard my character deliver this monologue. “People don’t expect someone your age to commit murder, someone in your position, someone who should know better. You took advantage of those expectations, thinking you could fly under the radar—assuming that you’d be able to get away with murder. Well, you were dead wrong.”
The moment I heard those lines being delivered on the television, it sent my mind into overdrive. I grabbed the remote and put the TV on mute as I went over those lines in my head again and again. They really hit a nerve with me, not just pertaining to this old rerun, but in terms of the Trent Harper case as well. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was closer to finding the killer than I had originally thought.
Chapter Sixteen
By the time I woke up the following morning, I had found myself with a fresh new lead that begged following up on. At the same time, I had to be careful to not get too far ahead of myself. I remained hopeful as I followed up on my hunch.
From there, I did some digging that took me in an unexpected direction. After I felt like I had enough to work with, I paid a familiar face a second visit.
I stormed into Walter O’Reilly’s office at nine o’clock in the evening and wasted no time getting straight to the point with him.
“Working late again, just like the night of the murder, huh?” I asked.
Walter didn’t look happy to be getting another visit from me. At first, he looked up in shock. He quickly wiped that expression off of his face and gave me a nasty glare.
“How dare you just storm right in here? I’m in the middle of something,” he scolded me.
No matter how bad his attitude was towards me, I wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. I pressed on with my plan. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick.”
Walter was as cranky as ever as he snapped at me. “What do you want?”
“You’re a straight-shooting kind of guy, Walter, so I’ll get right to the point.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’d rather you just leave.”
I broke the bad news to him. “That’s not going to happen, especially since I know you were the one who killed Trent.”
He scoffed at me. “That’s ridiculous.”
I called him out. “Enough with the nonsense, Walter.”
“Get out of here,” he insisted.
I put my foot down. “I’m not going to let you push me out again.”
“You have a lot of nerve.”
I corrected him. “No, you’re the one with a lot of nerve. It takes a bold man to kill a person then go back to work like business as usual the next day.”
He tried to deflect. “Now you’re just throwing around lies.”
I shook my head. “No. You see, I talked to the night cleaning crew that handles this office complex. The evening of the murder, shortly after nine o’clock, when they came in to clean your office, you weren’t here.”
Walter remained dismissive. “That doesn’t prove I did it.”
“You can deny it all you want, but I know what you did.”
He folded his arms. “You have nothing on me.”
“I wouldn’t speak so soon if I were you. I also went and questioned Trent’s neighbors. That’s when one of them mentioned that he saw a red luxury sports car streaking down the street around the time of the murder. You drive a red luxury sports car—”
Walter was quick to interrupt me. “You still can’t prove—”
I returned the favor and interrupted him. “I’m not finished. Trent’s neighbor described the driver of that sports car as a white-haired gentleman in his fifties. When I showed him your photo, he confirmed that it was you.”
Walter went quiet. That was fine with me.
I had plenty more to say. I kept pressing. “You lied about where you were at the time of the murder. Not only were you not at the office, but you were on Trent’s street. Are you really going to tell me you just stopped by to pay him a courtesy call?”
Walter continued to deny his guilt. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I’m tired of the lies. It’s time for the truth. I know what happened, Walter. You went over to Trent’s house that night, still hot and bothered about him firing you for that younger hotshot agent. You probably tried to get him to reconsider—to hire you back on as his agent. When he refused, you snapped and decided to make him pay. Never cross a shark, even one wearing a suit, right, Walter? You killed Trent Harper, didn’t you?” I said.
Walter became uncharacteristically quiet.
I turned the heat up, determined to make him talk. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
Finally, Walter spoke up. “Yeah, I did it. I killed him. And, thanks to your meddling, you’re going to be next.”
He wasn’t done. Walter got fire in his eyes. He held his arms out, looking like he was about to try to strangle me. Before he got the chance to, Detective Noble burst into the office with his gun drawn.
“Put your hands up,” the detective demanded.
Walter stared down the barrel of the gun and backed off. Realizing that there was no escape for him, he let his deepest thoughts blurt out.
“After all I did for Trent, he tossed me aside like I was just a piece of trash. He was nothing before I met him. Just some aspiring actor going nowhere. I gave him his career, I got him his big break. And how did he repay me? By throwing me aside for some young punk. No one
does that to Walter Patrick O’Reilly. I made him pay,” Walter revealed.
I fired back at him. “And now you’re going to pay for what you did.”
Chapter Seventeen
A police deputy hauled Walter away and loaded him into the back of a squad car. After the constant anxiety, the fretting, and the overwhelming stress of the case, a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. This was finally behind me. Not a moment too soon, too. I had begun to worry that all of the stress was going to make me crack.
Now, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. The detective was not quite as carefree. As I turned to him, he actually looked pretty stiff. The case was closed. What was he so uptight about? If there was ever a time to cut loose a little, surely it was now. Right?
Apparently, not. The detective and I stood beside each other, completely silent. If the detective remained tight lipped, things could turn awkward in a hurry.
I didn’t get it. Detective Noble hadn’t been shy about his opinions before. Why was his tongue tied now?
Suddenly, the answer occurred to me. Maybe he was having trouble admitting that I had been right all along. Detectives often had a hard time putting their egos aside and swallowing their pride. Was that the case this time?
I remained quiet, determined to let him make the first move. I just hoped that it would be a congratulations of some sort.
Instead, the detective had a completely different response. “You know, I did some digging on you.”
That was far more peculiar of a conversation starter than I expected. Where was he going with this? That statement sounded more ominous than anything.
As I didn’t know if he was going in a positive or negative direction with his comment, I gave a very reserved answer.
“Uh-huh,” I replied.
“During my research, I read that your TV show had been canceled,” Detective Noble said.
I couldn’t believe it. That was the worst possible way to start things off. The equivalent of pouring salt in my wound. I knew Noble wasn’t exactly a people person and that he was more accustomed to interrogating than making small talk, but this was ridiculous.
I scrunched my nose. “Why would you bring that up?”
He realized that he had rubbed me the wrong way and tried to clarify his point. “Because it turns out you have a pretty good investigative mind.”
“Is that your way of saying you’re glad I started investigating this case?”
He swallowed his pride. “Yes, I am.”
I smiled. “That’s good to hear.”
“I must admit, you brought a different perspective to the case. One that I certainly would never have gone with.”
“Over the years, I’ve found that you can’t keep doing the same things if you want to achieve different results.”
“It’s funny that you brought that up,” he said.
I furrowed my brow. “Why?”
“Have you ever thought about joining the force? We could use someone like you to give the department a fresh approach.”
I grimaced. “Thanks, but no thanks. When it comes to being a detective, I’d rather just play one on TV.”
“With a little freelance sleuthing on the side, you mean?”
I scoffed. “Are you kidding? I don’t plan on throwing myself into danger on a regular basis.”
“So this little investigation of yours was just a one-time-only deal?”
I crossed my fingers. “Hopefully. I could do without another murder occurring in my lifetime.”
“So could I, but my caseload these days seems to be getting heavier rather than lighter,” Detective Noble replied.
“Here’s hoping that changes in the future.”
“Only time will tell. In the meantime, how does it feel to have your first case in the books?”
“Are you kidding? I have never been more relieved in my entire life.”
“So, what’s next for you?” he asked.
“That one is easy,” I said.
“I’m all ears.”
“A spa day would be nice.”
He chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“This is just how differently our minds work. You were thinking of a spa day, and I was thinking of a grabbing a donut.”
“Come on, Detective. Pamper yourself a little. A mud bath would do wonders for you,” I said.
“I don’t think I have ever had a former suspect tell me that,” Detective Noble joked.
“There’s a first time for everything,” I said.
He chuckled. “Hopefully it’s the last time I hear the words ‘mud’ and ‘bath’ in the same sentence.”
“Fine. That leaves more pampering for me,” I said.
Chapter Eighteen
Three Months Later
It had been months since I had been cleared of murder charges, but the smog-filled cloud of drama had not completely lifted from my life. There was still the matter of me being out of work. I wish that I could tell you I had another acting role lined up, but that was far from the case.
Ultimately, it wasn’t just my TV show that had been canceled. It seemed like my career had gone down the tubes with it. I did everything I could to try to reverse my bad luck. While I went to every open casting call imaginable, my agent pulled every string he could think of. Unfortunately, it was to no avail. There were no roles to be had. It appeared that Hollywood was truly done with me…as an actress, at least.
In a twist fitting of Hollywood, Tinseltown was interested in one part of my life—my story. One day, a producer called, wanting to buy my life rights. His intent was to make a movie about my amateur sleuthing. When he described the project, I thought the producer intended to cast me in the role of the sleuth. After all, who was more suited to play me than me?
The producer disagreed. Sure, he wanted to make a movie out of my story, but as he described it, he wanted to go in a “younger direction” with the project. When it came to scripting out the movie version of my story, his plan was to change the sleuth character to a twenty-three-year-old and cast the lead role with some fresh-faced ingénue. The producer thought that would help the movie sell better to the youth market.
To me, that was the last indignity I was willing to suffer from Hollywood. I knew this town was ageist, but this was ridiculous. I had reached a point in my life when I couldn’t even get cast in a role playing myself. I ended up turning the producer down. That was the last call that I got from anyone in Hollywood.
After that, I faced the facts and came to terms with the sobering realization that my acting career was over. Suddenly, staying in Hollywood seemed like adding insult to injury. Every day, I was reminded of the career I used to have. When I went out, I would run into actors whose careers were still firing on all cylinders. Living in Los Angeles was like being trapped in a haunted house full of ghosts. I needed to escape. It was time for a change.
That was how I found myself standing in my driveway on an overcast Tuesday morning in September, saying good-bye to my dear friend Jenna while movers packed my belongings up and loaded them onto their truck.
“Are you sure about this?” Jenna asked.
There was no hesitation on my part. I didn’t have to think about my decision anymore, mostly because this topic had practically been the only thing on my mind for the last few months.
I nodded at Jenna. “I’m sure.”
She seemed disappointed by my answer, as if one last plea on her part would change my mind.
I tried to explain my thought process to her. “I know it may be hard for you to understand, but I think this could be the best thing for me.”
“You’re right. It is really difficult for me to understand. I mean, you’ve worked so hard over the years. You’ve built up a life here,” Jenna said. “So, your career has hit a lull—another role could be just around the corner.”
“If I was younger, maybe I’d have an easier time believing that. The thing is, Hollywood has shown me that it is done with me.
Now, I can either keep denying it, or accept it and move on.”
Jenna winced. “I just hate to see you call it quits like this.”
I tried to give her reassurance. “It’s okay.”
She wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure about that?”
“Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t how I wanted things to go, but life didn’t ask me what I wanted. It turns out the universe doesn’t consult me before making decisions. But, as they say, when one door closes, another one opens.”
Jenna groaned, having more trouble than I’d thought letting go. “It’s just a bitter way for things to end.”
I corrected her. “This isn’t the end. It’s a new beginning. Hollywood, California, may be done with me, but I know a place that isn’t. I feel like it’s time to move back to Florida—that it’s time to return home.”
Jenna played devil’s advocate. “What about that old saying about not being able to go home?”
I crossed my fingers and held them up for Jenna to see. “Let’s hope that saying is wrong. After all, there’s another famous saying that comes to mind—about home being where the heart is. Well, my heart isn’t here in California. Not anymore. The City of Angels doesn’t feel much like home to me. Maybe Florida will.”
Finally, Jenna realized that there was no changing my mind. Her focus shifted.
“Good luck,” she said.
I leaned in and gave her a hug. “Same to you. I wish you all the best.”
“I’ll miss you,” Jenna replied.
“Thanks for everything,” I said.
Like that, my life in California came to a close. I set off to make a fresh new start back in my old hometown. It was a gamble but one that I felt was worth taking. As I looked out at the road ahead of me, I didn’t know what the future would bring. I didn’t get the Hollywood happy ending that I’d wanted in the Golden State, but I was hoping that the Sunshine State would smile down on me with better luck.
The End.
Hope Hadley Eight Book Cozy Mystery Set Page 7
