Hope Hadley Eight Book Cozy Mystery Set

by Meredith Potts

  I had to use the soft-glove approach to even get Scott to answer the door.

  “Scott. This is Hope Hadley,” I said.

  Suddenly, there was a dead silence. I wasn’t quite sure why. He couldn’t pretend like he wasn’t home. Was he really trying to ignore me? Why wasn’t he answering?

  A few moments went by, making me wonder if he was going to leave me completely hanging.

  I tried getting him to open up the door again. “Scott—”

  Finally, Scott opened the door with a can of beer in his hand. Wow, did he look terrible! His short brown hair wasn’t brushed. His oval face was red. His blue eyes were bloodshot. He wore a faded wrinkled T-shirt over his rotund thirty-four-year-old figure.

  “I’m sorry for snapping. I thought you were someone else,” Scott said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  I already knew Detective Noble was the answer to that question, but I wanted to see if Scott would lie to me.

  He changed the subject. “Let’s not get into that.”

  Scott was so rough around the edges that I wanted to butter him up a little in hopes that he would open up to me.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened to your brother,” I said.

  To me, his reaction would be key. Would he look genuinely broken up, or remorseless?

  Surprisingly, he got teary-eyed. “Yeah. It’s been a miserable day for me.”

  “I’ll bet. I can’t believe this happened,” I replied.

  “How do you think I feel? Trent was the only family I had left, and now he’s…gone.”

  Much to my surprise, Scott seemed genuinely remorseful. He was falling apart right in front of my eyes.

  “I knew you two were really close,” I said.

  Another lie, but Scott acted like it was the truth.

  He nodded. “Trent was more than just my brother. He was my best friend.”

  Scott had me completely convinced of his remorse until that point. His reply was so over the top that it came across like bad soap opera acting.

  Not knowing how much of what Scott was saying was a lie and how much was the truth, I had to proceed with caution.

  “Yeah. Trent’s death is a huge loss,” I said.

  “If it wasn’t for beer, I don’t know how I would get through this. Speaking of, you want one?”

  I politely turned him down. “I’ll pass.”

  “Your loss.”

  I wanted to keep things on topic. The conversation could easily go astray talking about alcohol in a hurry if I wasn’t careful. “Back to your brother, do you have any idea who might have done this?”

  Scott’s eyes lit up. “Now that you mention it, I have a theory.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but just hear me out.”

  That wasn’t usually the best way to start a sentence, especially with alcohol playing so heavily in his life.

  “I’m all ears,” I said.

  He threw out a name. “Brock Lewis.”

  That was an interesting choice. I’d thought he would go with one of the conventional picks like Amy Turner. The two of them did not get along. As a matter of fact, Scott was the one who convinced Trent to break up with Amy in the first place. Ironically, Scott thought Amy was a no-good mooch. I guess it took one to know one.

  Back to Scott’s theory.

  “That’s interesting. Why Brock?” I asked.

  “We all know what nutcases actors are sometimes.”

  “You remember that I’m an actress, right?”

  He tried to roll back his statement. “Present company excluded.”

  “Nice recovery,” I deadpanned.

  “Anyway, Trent and Brock really duked it out to get the part of Detective Mayhem. The casting director narrowed things down to just the two of them. When Trent came back from his final audition, he told me he was worried that he didn’t turn in his best performance. So, when Trent got the part, it must have been surprising to Brock—maybe a little too surprising.”

  “You really think Brock would have killed Trent because he didn’t get the part of Detective Mayhem?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Or perhaps he killed Trent because he knew that with my brother out of the picture, the network would give the part to him.”

  “That’s very cunning. Do you have anything to back your theory up?” I said.

  Scott pointed to his head. “I’m working on it.”

  That was what he said. In my mind, all Scott seemed to be working on was plowing through a case of beer. Although, since he thought he knew everything, I indulged him.

  “I’m surprised that you didn’t immediately suspect Amy Turner of being the killer.”

  “It could have been her, too. I wouldn’t put anything past that crazy lady,” Scott replied.

  “Does that mean you’re changing your mind?”

  Scott took another swig of beer. “Don’t rush me. Genius takes time.”

  Oh, brother. His ego was growing with each sip of beer he consumed. This was a man who hadn’t worked a single day since arriving in Hollywood, who just rode off of his brother’s coattails. Yet, he thought he knew everything.

  Before he became too loaded for his own good, I knew I had to get some questions in.

  “I wonder what the police think,” I said.

  He became dismissive. “Don’t listen to them.”

  I was curious. “Why not?”

  He was incredulous. “They questioned me about the murder earlier, asking me where I was when Trent was killed. Me, of all people. Can you believe that?”

  Really? He had a victim complex? Did he really not understand why the police would question him? Or was he just trying to push the blame off of himself?

  “What did you tell them?” I asked.

  “The truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I was at home,” he replied.

  “By yourself?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I couldn’t scare up a date last night.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “You’re telling me,” he said.

  He didn’t seem to realize I was referring to the fact that he didn’t have an alibi for the time of the murder.

  Scott took another big swig of beer then ranted. “The police are nuts. Why would they think I would do something like killing my own brother?”

  “Did they give you a reason?”

  “The detective said something about how since I was his surviving relative that I would stand to inherit all of Trent’s money.”

  Scott said that, yet he still pretended that he didn’t have a motive to commit murder. By my count, he had a few million dollars’ worth of a motive right there.

  “Did you tell the police that you didn’t do it?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Scott replied.

  “But they didn’t believe you?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “When was the last time you talked to your brother?”

  “A few days ago.”

  I was confused by his answer. “Really?”

  He seemed puzzled by me questioning him. “Yes. Why?”

  I called him on his lie. “That’s not what Lucy Richmond told me.”

  Scott immediately stiffened up on me.

  I continued. “She told me you had it out with your brother just last night shortly before the murder.”

  Scott jumped on the defensive. “Wait! What are you getting at?”

  “Why did you lie to me?” I asked.

  He was both confused and irritated at the same time. “What’s going on here?”

  I stepped my questioning up a notch. “I can’t help but wonder what else you lied to me about.”

  Scott was reeling. “No. Hold on a second—”

  “Scott, you had a big fight with your brother shortly before the murder occurred, then you lied to me and pretended that you hadn’t talked to him in a few days. So, you have a motive, and when you combine that with a lack
of an alibi—”

  He cut me off. “Hey, I don’t like where you’re going with this.”

  “I don’t care if you like it or not. I just want to find out the truth.”

  “I didn’t do this,” Scott said.

  “I want to believe you, but like the detective said, with Trent dead, you’d stand to inherit millions of dollars. That’s a lot of money, considering Trent had just cut you off financially.”

  “Stop it,” Scott barked.

  Instead, I turned up the heat. “Why? Am I hitting too close to the bone?”

  He fired back at me. “What, you think because you played a detective on TV that you can do it in real life? Because it doesn’t work that way.”

  “Don’t deflect.”

  “You have a lot of nerve to play me like that. To play my emotions, only to throw this at me.”

  “Scott, you keep deflecting. Why are you so defensive?” I asked.

  He had heard enough. “We’re done here.”

  I tried to get another word in, but he closed the door in my face before I had the chance to.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was hard not to be frustrated at that point. I had gotten more doors slammed in my face in one day than during the rest of my life combined. I wanted to put an end to that trend. This was ridiculous. Not to mention insanely grating. I kept feeling like I was finally making some progress, then the door came swinging my way.

  Unfortunately, my next interview was as big of a question mark as I had encountered all day. Everything I knew about Brock Lewis could be summed up in one paragraph. Like Trent, he had been up for the role of Detective Mayhem. But he had lost out to Trent at the last minute.

  Unlike Trent, Brock had very few acting credits to his name. While landing the role represented a step up for Trent’s career, if Brock had gotten the part, it would have been the big break he had waited his whole life for. Only, Brock had come up painfully short in the end.

  I drove over to Brock’s light-brown stucco townhome in Culver City. As I pulled onto Overland Avenue, I realized that I had arrived just in time. Brock was getting into his dark-blue sedan as I reached his driveway. I pulled into his driveway before he had the chance to back out then parked right behind him so he couldn’t go anywhere without plowing into my car.

  Realizing that he was blocked in, Brock got out of his car all hot and bothered. He was a tall thirty-two-year-old man with a muscular build, shoulder-length black hair, a handsome, angular face, and a full beard.

  “Hey, what’s the big idea?” Brock snapped.

  Uh-oh. I hadn’t even gotten out of my car, and I was already being yelled at. Unlike an episode of my old TV show, no part of investigating this case had gone according to my plan.

  On the bright side, at least I had stopped him from pulling out of his driveway. There was no telling where Brock was going or when he would be back. While I hated being barked at, in my mind, it was worth the trade-off. That being said, I had to approach this conversation carefully.

  I moved to get out of my car. Before I had the chance to open the door, Brock approached with a head full of steam.

  I had to find a way to calm him down. As he reached my driver’s-side door, he stopped, looking completely confused.

  “Hope Hadley?” he said.

  I had never been happier to be recognized in my entire life. His confusion had stopped him from yelling—at least for the moment, giving me a few seconds to catch my breath.

  Brock continued. “What are you doing here?”

  As much as I preferred to slowly work my way up to the hard questions, I knew that Brock had no patience for small talk. I got right to the meat of the matter.

  “I’m here about Trent Harper’s murder,” I said.

  Brock looked completely shocked. “Murder? I didn’t even know he was dead.”

  I had to keep in mind that I was talking to a fellow actor. It was important for me to read between the lines, especially after he made a ridiculous statement like that.

  “Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t know Trent was dead?” I asked.

  There was still a look of shock on his face. “I didn’t.”

  I made one last attempt to figure out if he was just putting on an act for me or if he was telling the truth. “It’s been all over the news.”

  Nothing grabbed headlines in this town quite like celebrity deaths, especially when the celebrity had been murdered. For example, every station I’d flipped to on the radio on the drive over had been talking about Trent. I imagined that the local TV stations were doing the same.

  Brock continued denying that he knew Trent had been murdered. “I have been doing some transcendental meditation all morning.”

  That was a curious answer. Not so much the meditation part, as there were plenty of meditation groups and classes in Hollywood. It was more the timing of Brock’s supposed meditation.

  “Were your chakras out of line?” I deadpanned.

  Brock became defensive. “My enlightenment is none of your business.”

  “All right. I won’t ask you again about your meditating,” I said.

  Brock clearly didn’t want me to ask him another question about any topic, much less meditation. He wanted me out of the way, as soon as possible.

  “Could you please move your car? There’s somewhere I need to be,” he said.

  “Where is that?” I asked.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to make a break for it.

  I continued. “What’s the hurry? Are you leaving town?”

  He scoffed. “That’s none of your business.”

  “You’re very defensive,” I said.

  “You’re the one just showing up on my doorstep at random.”

  “You don’t have to get snippy. If you were just headed out to the grocery store, there’s no reason for you not to answer my question.”

  “Have you ever heard of privacy?”

  What a crazy question to be asking me of all people. The minute I became vaguely famous, people began coming up to me at random on the street, in restaurants, and sometimes even in the supermarket with their questions, quotes, and requests for autographs.

  “No, I haven’t heard of privacy. It’s the sad price of fame,” I replied.

  “Right. Of course.” He finally came clean. “I have a meeting with my agent.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “You may not have any privacy in your life, but I still do.”

  “Like I said, if you have nothing to hide, you have no reason not to answer my question.”

  Brock tried to change the subject. “I still don’t understand. Why are you here, and what do you want with me?”

  “Just answer my questions, and this will all be over soon.”

  “Actually, this time, you were the one who didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out.

  I told him the truth. “Scott Harper has a theory that you might have been the one who murdered his brother.”

  Brock scoffed. “Scott Harper? You mean the world-class mooch? Like he should talk.”

  “You two seem awfully eager to point fingers at each other.”

  “He’s the one who pointed the finger at me first.”

  “Let’s get back to you for a minute—”

  Brock interrupted me. “Scott Harper’s theory has no basis in fact.”

  “That’s what you say,” I replied.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “There’s one way to find out. Where were you last night between nine and ten o’clock?”

  He folded his arms. “I don’t have to answer you.”

  “No, you don’t, but I’m not moving my car until you do.”

  “You’re trespassing on my property. I’ll call the police.”

  He thought that would be enough to get me to go away. Brock was dead wrong. I pulled out my cell phone.

  “All right. I’ll call them myself,” I said.

  That took the wind out of his
sails.

  “Who do you think you are? You played a detective on TV. You’re not one in real life,” Brock replied.

  “Just answer the question. Or do you have something to hide?”

  Finally, he gave me an answer. “I was here.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you have no one to verify your alibi,” I said.

  “Alibi? I didn’t know Trent was dead until you just told me,” Brock replied.

  “That’s what you say. Unfortunately, there’s no way to confirm that, nor your alibi.”

  “I answered your question. Now move your car,” he demanded.

  “You seem pretty eager to get rid of me.”

  “I told you, I have a meeting with my agent.”

  I called him out. “You can talk to your agent on the phone. I do it all the time. Maybe you’re not meeting your agent at all. Perhaps there is something to Scott’s theory after all, and you’re looking to leave town.”

  Brock shook his head. “You’re crazy.”

  “You can’t deny that you had a motive for wanting Trent dead. It was down to just you and Trent for the part of Detective Mayhem. He beat you out. That would have been an incredible role for you, your big break. Losing a role like that is a hard thing to get over. Maybe the rejection was too much for you to handle.”

  Brock pleaded with me. “I didn’t do this.”

  I held firm. “It’s a nice act you’re putting on. But is it just an act, or are you being genuine?”

  He had heard enough. “That’s it. We’re done here.”

  Brock turned around and headed back inside.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I’m going to call a tow truck. If you won’t move your car, the towing company will be more than happy to.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. This was his property, and he had the right to have me towed if he wanted. I just wished that I could have gotten a few more answers from him first.

  Unfortunately, he had forced my hand. More importantly, he clearly wasn’t going to give me any more information to work with.

  I relented. “Fine. I’ll move.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Get out of here.”

  I made sure to get the last word in. “In the future, from one actor to another, I would work on your performance if I were you. When you act that over the top, it’s hard to believe you’re innocent.”