Devil's Food Cake

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Not allowing,” Josh said, leaning forward again, his blue eyes snapping with anger. “He encouraged it. He supplied every drop. Thom hasn’t been able to drive for years, but Mark’s made sure Thom had enough whisky to drown in.”

  “Okay,” Sadie said, letting that one go. “But you also knew Mr. Ogreski was responsible for Diane Veeter’s death and said nothing. How do you justify that?”

  Chapter 42

  Josh’s ire deflated. “I didn’t know about Mrs. Veeter until a few weeks ago,” he said. “And I have racked my brain trying to figure out what to do ever since. The problem was that if I turned in Mark, the police would have to come up with a motive and the motive was protecting the secret about Damon’s book, which would destroy Thom.”

  “How did you even find out about Mrs. Veeter in the first place?” Eric cut in.

  “When Mark refused to get Thom into treatment, I started suggesting Thom check himself in. The idea paralyzed him, so I had to be careful, but I brought it up as often as possible. I knew that if Thom could get himself away from Mark, he could get well. After awhile, Thom started becoming more open to the idea, but he felt horrible about leaving Mark, even though the relationship was a sick one. Thom was convinced he couldn’t take care of himself.

  “When Thom told me he had to go to Mark’s office to sign some papers about the book going out of print, I told him he should try to find his social security card and birth certificate—Mark had taken them for safekeeping a few years ago—all part of his taking control. I told Thom that finding those documents wasn’t a commitment to leave Mark, just a first step in getting some power back over his own life. Thom trusted me, so he did what I’d told him. Only he didn’t find his documents. Instead, he came across a letter Mrs. Veeter had sent to Mark and an article about the accident. Thom hadn’t even known she’d died, but Mark had an article? It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened based on the dates and how paranoid Mark always was about anyone learning the truth.”

  “So that was the other murder you were talking about when you told me there had been two murders and you hoped the police would figure out this one?” Sadie asked.

  Josh nodded. “For a few minutes tonight I thought it would all work out and I wouldn’t have to be involved at all. So much for that.”

  “Did Thom know Mrs. Veeter had helped Damon submit the book?” Eric asked.

  Josh shook his head. “I didn’t even know about it. Thom didn’t find out about Damon submitting until months after Damon died, when Mark called to update Damon on how things were going with the book.”

  Sadie considered that. It made sense that none of them would have known about Diane. They believed they were the only ones who knew the secret. And with the three of them bound together by their shared guilt, the secret was safe—until Diane sent a letter to Mark Ogreski telling him she knew the truth. He then chose to save himself through drastic measures.

  “So Mark called Thom, found out Damon was dead, and said, ‘Hey, let’s just put your name on it,’” Sadie said.

  “No,” Josh said. “It didn’t happen like that. Mark was very sympathetic when he learned what Damon had done. He called Thom a few times over the next month or so to see how he was doing. Thom was extremely vulnerable. It was only after they became friends that Mark brought up the idea of publishing the book under Thom’s name.”

  “And then Thom found out about Diane’s death and he told you?”

  Josh nodded. “Thom was terrified, but I saw an opportunity. With the book going out of print and the rights reverting back to Thom, he could finally be free of Mark forever. Plus, now he had a very good reason to sever all ties. Thom was ready, but he felt he needed to do this library fund-raiser first.”

  “He wasn’t worried about coming clean?” Eric offered. “Like you said, getting well might mean telling the truth.”

  “But see, that’s the thing,” Josh said, excited now that Eric and Sadie seemed to be seeing the motive behind his involvement. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Thom is flying back to Virginia with me tomorrow afternoon. I paid for his ticket so Mark wouldn’t find out. Monday morning we are going to the police and telling them what we know, then Thom is checking into a treatment center I’ve arranged for him. There will be consequences for what we’ve done, of course, but Thom will get well. And that’s all I wanted in the first place.”

  “But then Mr. Ogreski turns up dead days before Thom is supposed to go into treatment,” Sadie reminded him. “Interesting timing.”

  “If Thom were afraid of Mr. Ogreski,” Eric mused as he deftly continued the questions, “wouldn’t it be easier for Thom to knock him off himself rather than have the fear of Mr. Ogreski’s revenge hanging over him?”

  Josh looked at Eric with confusion. “You weren’t there tonight, were you?”

  Eric shook his head and Josh turned to look at Sadie. “You’ve seen him. Do you really think Thom’s capable of masterminding a plot to kill anyone?”

  It was an excellent point. Sadie thought back to Jane’s comment about Thom not being able to tie his own shoes. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that was true.

  “Not without help, maybe,” Eric threw out. “Someone had to go to great lengths to pull this off. Who else would have a motive as good as Thom’s? Ogreski was his secret keeper, and it was destroying him.”

  Josh was shaking his head before Eric finished talking. “I’m sure Thom and I aren’t the only people Mark’s screwed over in his life. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out he was involved in something far more sinister than a plagiarized book. Men like Mark Ogreski don’t just make an enemy or two—they have dozens. And Thom couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do this. Mark was still the most important person in Thom’s life even though he knew he had to get away from him.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s kind of like those abused women who finally leave their husbands but still say they love them.”

  “But who would kill Mr. Ogreski like this?” Sadie questioned. “He was killed with the same kind of gun Damon used, in the same town Thom had lived in when Damon died. Why would someone else make those types of connections? Besides that, whoever did it had to know that the police would pull out all the stops to figure it out and they would see those same connections.”

  “Those very things lend credibility to the fact that it wasn’t Thom and it wasn’t me,” Josh said. “We’re both knee-deep in this mess. We’d be the first people the police would look into. Maybe someone set it up to make Thom look guilty.”

  “Who?” Sadie and Eric said in tandem.

  “I don’t know,” Josh said, sounding discouraged.

  “The two of you together could have pulled this off without leaving an obvious trail,” Eric said, leaning back in his chair as he appraised Josh, obviously unwilling to give up the idea that Josh was more involved than he’d admitted thus far. “And you’ve lied for each other before. What’s one more deception?”

  He put his hands behind his head and Sadie noticed a little tear in the elbow of his shirt. She could mend that in two minutes flat. Another time of course.

  Josh looked at Eric and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling; Sadie found it rather remarkable that he wasn’t more defensive. “Besides everything else I’ve told you, you think I’m going to work this hard at a future to throw it away on someone like Mark Ogreski?” He snorted and shook his head. “I might not be proud of some of the things I’ve done, and I might have plenty of reasons to want Mark dead, but I didn’t kill him. I didn’t need to. His power over Thom was almost over.”

  Sadie lined that tidbit up with some of the other details she’d learned tonight. It was like a kaleidoscope, turning it a little bit one way or another presented a totally new picture. “Is there any way Mr. Ogreski knew Thom was leaving?”

  “I don’t think so,” Josh said, shaking his head. “Thom was terrified of Mark finding out, so I’m sure he was careful. Why?”

  “When you were taking pictures,” Sadie s
tarted, “I was looking at a copy of Devilish Details that had been left backstage. Inside the front cover were the words ‘I’m sorry.’ Gayle, my friend who helped set up the backup microphone, said the book was on the podium when they brought it on stage. She gave the book to Mr. Ogreski to give to Thom right before he came up to the podium.”

  “It said, ‘I’m sorry’?” Josh repeated, pulling his eyebrows together. “Who wrote it?”

  “I have no idea,” Sadie said with a shrug as she leaned back in the chair. The pain in her shoulder was getting worse, and she tried to find a better position for it but refused to let it throw her off. “But Mr. Ogreski had also set up an appointment to meet with a reporter after the presentation—presumably to tell her the truth. The reporter found a letter Mrs. Veeter wrote before her death claiming to have proof that Thom hadn’t written the book.”

  Josh looked stunned, his blue eyes almost vacant. Then he slowly shook his head. “Who told you about this meeting?” he asked.

  “The reporter,” Sadie said, realizing she hadn’t introduced Jane and Josh. Maybe that was a good thing. “She’s been working several angles of this story for a few weeks, and when she confronted Mr. Ogreski about Damon’s book, he agreed to meet with her after tonight’s event. She believed he was going to confirm her suspicions.”

  Josh shook his head. “I don’t believe it. She’s making it up. Mark would go to his grave before he’d admit to any of this.”

  “Maybe he did,” Eric said.

  Sadie and Josh both turned to look at him.

  “What?” Sadie said, thinking she must not have heard him correctly.

  Eric looked at Sadie. “A reporter is making noise about having proof of the fraud, and the book is going out of print.” He looked at Josh. “You say Mark didn’t know Thom was planning to break ties, but what if he did? He controlled Thom’s life, right? And Thom was a drunk. Are you sure he could keep the fact that he was leaving a secret?”

  Sadie picked up on the conjecture even though it made her head spin. “If things were coming to a head—what with a reporter close and Thom breaking away—Mr. Ogreski would know he was out of time.”

  “Especially if everyone found out about Damon’s teacher,” Eric put in. “He would be facing far more fallout than just losing his job.”

  Sadie’s mind was racing. “And the chances of him silencing both Thom and the reporter—”

  “And you,” Eric cut in, pointing at Josh. Then he waved Sadie to continue.

  Sadie nodded. “Right, and you too, were slim to none. He was losing power, but he may have had just enough time to keep things on his terms. And, given all the medications the police found in his room, he wasn’t coping with all of this as well as you may have thought he was.”

  “Medications?” Josh repeated. “You mean his sleeping pills?”

  “And anxiety medication and antidepressants,” Sadie added. “He wasn’t a well man. What if he thought the bottom of this pseudo life he’d created was being pulled out from under him?”

  They all fell silent. Josh looked slightly shell-shocked. “You think Mark could have done this to himself?”

  It did seem a bit ridiculous, Sadie realized, reliving that shotgun blast. And yet, was it possible?

  “He couldn’t have done it alone, though,” Eric put in. He looked at Sadie. “Didn’t you say Mark and Thom were late for the dinner because they drove up from Denver today? When would he have rigged the gun? Where would he have gotten the gun in the first place?”

  Josh’s expression turned thoughtful. “Last night . . .”

  “What about last night?” Sadie said, looking at Josh intently.

  “Thom called me from the hotel,” he said. “He was really nervous about the presentation and couldn’t sleep. I told him to ask Mark for a sleeping pill.”

  Sadie shook her head in censure. The man was an alcoholic and taking other people’s prescriptions was never a good idea.

  Josh continued. “They had adjoining rooms—you know, the kind with doors in between?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “Mark had locked the door on his side and didn’t answer when Thom knocked. I told Thom to call him, and he did, on both the hotel phone and Mark’s cell phone. Mark never answered.”

  “O-kay,” Sadie said, willing Josh to continue. So Mark was a sound sleeper, what else?

  “I assumed Mark had taken a sleeping pill too, but what if he wasn’t there at all?”

  “You mean, what if he came up to Garrison?” Eric put in.

  “And rigged up the gun himself?” Sadie added.

  “He’d spoken with the hotel extensively,” Josh said, leaning forward as much as he could, which wasn’t much. “He wanted to know the exact layout of the room and . . .” He trailed off, then looked at Sadie. “Could you please release my arm? It’s completely numb.”

  Sadie glanced at Eric, who shrugged. She looked back at Josh and realized that this was the first request he’d made. And his legs would still be lashed to the chair. Hadn’t he also given them a great deal of information?

  “Okay,” Sadie said. She pushed back from the table, but Eric put his hand on her arm to stop her.

  “I’ll do it,” he said. Sadie looked at the hand on her arm. The man seemed to have a lack of appreciation for personal space, and yet . . . Sadie shut that thought down at warp speed, turning every bit of her focus to Josh. No “and yet”s allowed.

  Eric removed his hand and walked around the back of Josh’s chair, squatting to undo the belt. A moment later, Eric dropped the belt on the floor and Josh brought his hand around front, wincing as he rubbed his fingers with his other hand.

  “Thank you,” Josh muttered as he made a fist, then stretched out his fingers before making a fist again.

  Sadie had to look away. She felt horrible that he’d been tied up at all and those feelings were increasing in direct proportion to how much information Josh was giving them.

  “You were saying Mark had asked the hotel about the layout?” Eric prodded, back to business the second he sat down. He closed his laptop and kept his eyes on Josh.

  “Right,” Josh said, nodding. He was still opening and closing his fist, his face showing that it was painful. “He wanted to know the exact layout of the room, audio setup, how many people would be there. I mean, he always did that when Thom was going to present somewhere. He always wanted to know exactly what to expect in hopes it would make Thom less nervous.”

  “The rental car would show the miles, right?” Eric said.

  Sadie nodded, thinking that would be a good way to verify the information. Then she was on to the next thought. “Could he get into the hotel?”

  Josh shook his head. “I don’t know, but someone did, right? Someone got into the hotel and rigged up the gun.”

  Sadie picked up when Josh paused. “If he drove up from Denver last night, there’d be a smaller staff at the hotel for the night shift, right? Doesn’t seem like it would be hard to get in and out.”

  “Although he would still be dependent on things working out just right,” Eric added, looking between the two of them. “I mean, what if someone else messed with the podium?”

  Sadie thought back to the pink Post-It Gayle had given her after the shooting had taken place. “There was a note,” she said. “It said the mic had already been tested and was ready to use once it was plugged in. ”

  “It’s still relying on a lot of luck that whoever was really supposed to test the mic didn’t wonder why there was a note there in the first place,” Eric suggested.

  Josh added his own thoughts as soon as Eric finished. “Unless the backup microphone was something Mark had insisted on and was not standard practice. Then it would be easily discounted or appreciated that it was ready to go, right?”

  “But, why?” Sadie cut in, interrupting the pileup of ideas.

  Both men paused.

  Sadie leaned forward. “So Mr. Ogreski faces up to the fact that everything’s about to become common knowl
edge—why end it like this?” She spread out her one hand as if to encompass all the details. “He could have simply taken too many sleeping pills, or driven his car off a cliff.” She paused to remind herself that this was a man’s life she was talking about. She didn’t want to lose sight of that. “My point is that this particular . . . method took a lot of planning and the details had to fall in place just right. And at the end he was . . . well, dead. So there’s no payoff.”

  They all sat there for a few seconds, looking at the one detail that made everything else look different.

  Suddenly, Josh sat up straight. “The key,” he said, nodding toward the orange-capped key on the table next to Eric’s computer. “Thom called me tonight when they arrived at the hotel, and I went out to take their bags upstairs while they got set up for the presentation. When I got back to the ballroom, Thom was trying to get the wireless mic to work. I tried to help him for a minute, but then a hotel staff member took over. I stepped back, and that’s when Mark came up to me and handed me that key.” He nodded toward the key again. “He said Thom asked him to give it to me.”

  “Why didn’t Thom give it to you himself?” Sadie asked. Eric had discovered it fit a storage unit here in Garrison. What was in that storage unit?

  “I don’t know,” Josh said, shaking his head. “But things were crazy and tensions were high because they were running late. At the time I thought it was weird—I mean, why not give me the key later if Thom wanted me to have it? Or why didn’t Thom give it to me when I was helping him with the wireless microphone? But I didn’t think about it too much, just put the key in my pocket and hurried around to the back of the ballroom so I could start lining up my shots. I got back to my equipment, zoomed in on the stage, and then the gun went off. I forgot all about the key in the aftermath. Well, until you showed up with it.” He paused again, his expression becoming even more thoughtful. “But what if Thom knew nothing about the key? What if Mark was the one who wanted me to have it?”