Murdered in the Man Cave (A Riley Reed Cozy Mystery) (22 page)

"Positive. It's him."

That was good enough for me. Pierce O'Shea
had been romantically involved with Karla before her death, and
possibly while she was still dating Brent. It connected Pierce to
two people who were now dead.

"Do you know if he was at her apartment the
day Karla supposedly jumped off the balcony to her death?" I
asked.

Mr. Frazier leaned back on the couch. "Can't
say. I think Karla was out for much of the day. Where, I wouldn't
know. Perhaps she was with him..."

I was thinking the same thing. Only it could
be that they ended up back at Karla's apartment, where Pierce
tossed her off the balcony, perhaps after rendering her unconscious
so her screams wouldn't attract attention.

"I'm really sorry for your loss of Karla's
friendship and support," I told Mr. Frazier. "If you need any
assistance getting to and from the Senior Center, I'm sure we can
help you with that."

"Thank you," he said appreciatively. "I'll
take you up on the offer, though I'd give anything to have Karla
alive and well again."

"I feel exactly the same way," I assured
him.

Unfortunately, I knew that was not to be, for
someone had seen to it that Karla would remain quiet forever. I,
for one, did not believe she had silenced herself.

Now I just had to try to prove my strong
suspicions.

* * *

Later that afternoon, I paid Pierce O'Shea a
visit. He lived in a nice Cape Code style beachfront home not far
from Brent's house. I had been there a couple of times with Brent
and was quite impressed with the workmanship and attention to
detail.

Pierce's BMW was parked in the driveway. I
pulled in behind it and considered things carefully before cutting
off the car and exiting it.

I stepped onto the porch, taking note of the
wicker furniture and potted hydrangeas. In my hand was a copy of
Pierce's latest novel.

I rang the bell and within a few seconds
Pierce came to the door. He was casually dressed and his hair
looked freshly washed.

"Riley...what are you doing here?"

I managed a smile. "I was in the neighborhood
and thought I'd drop by. Hope I didn't catch you at a bad
time?"

"No, not at all," he said coolly. "Come on
in."

I stepped inside and was led into a spacious
Great Room with white furnishings.

"Can I offer you something to drink?"

"No thanks, I'm good," I told him.

He regarded me and the book in my hand. "I
see you brought my novel along. Did you read the whole thing?"

"Actually, I did and found it to be quite
thought-provoking."

He flashed me a boyish grin. "That's great to
hear, especially coming from you as someone Brent respected and
obviously vice versa." He paused. "Well, have a seat."

I watched him sit in a white Queen Anne chair
as I sat on a lush sectional sofa, placing my handbag beside me and
the book on my lap.

"It's certainly good to have this whole mess
with Brent's death behind us, with Karla's confession and suicide,"
Pierce said, "though I must admit, I thought Emily and her friend
were guilty as charged."

"I was never as confident that the right ones
were behind bars," I told him candidly. "Fortunately, they were
absolved of any part in Brent's death before this thing went any
further in the court system."

"I couldn't agree more. No one should have to
go to jail for something they didn't do. Whatever her reasons,
Karla did the right thing by coming clean before Emily had to bear
the brunt of her actions any further."

"Why do you suppose Karla would confess to
killing Brent now, instead of right from the start?" I asked him
curiously.

Pierce shrugged. "I don't know. Because she
had a guilty conscience. Or maybe she felt the walls closing in on
her."

I gazed at him. "I have to tell you, after
running into Karla a few times, I never felt she was suicidal."

"The signs aren't always obvious," he
countered. "Especially if the person wanted to portray a different
image publicly. I'm guessing that Karla could no longer deal with
what she had done to Brent and decided rather than face justice,
she would dispense her own and save the taxpayers money."

"An interesting perspective," I said. "Did
you know Karla well?"

Pierce met my eyes. "No more than you did,"
he said calmly. "I know she dated Brent for a while before the
relationship ended. But I never would have imagined she had such a
jealous rage in her that she would decide to kill Brent rather than
be without him in her life."

I sucked in a deep breath and said, "I'm not
sure Karla did kill Brent or herself. I think someone pushed her
off the balcony and faked the suicide note."

"Really?" He cocked a brow. "Why would
someone go to the trouble of doing that?"

"I've asked myself the same question,
especially since Emily and Tony were already behind bars for
killing Brent. My answer was that Karla somehow discovered who the
real killer was and may have threatened to expose the person,
making her a liability. But to have her commit suicide because of
depression might lead the police to question this. However, linking
it directly to Brent's death would seem to be a better fit, making
it less likely that the police would dig too deeply—even if this
meant clearing Emily and Tony of the murder."

Pierce chuckled uneasily. "That sounds a bit
farfetched."

"Yes, I suppose it does, which is why I
haven't been able to go to the authorities. I suspect they would
dismiss my theory as utter nonsense."

"Maybe you should go with that and leave it
alone."

"You're probably right," I told him
thoughtfully. "But there's a problem with that..."

"What?" he asked inquisitively.

"It's this novel—" I opened it up
halfway.

He wrinkled his nose. "I don't follow
you."

"Well, as I was reading it, I got this
strange sense of familiarity, as though I had read it before. I was
sure my eyes were playing tricks on me, since your book signing was
the first time I had laid eyes on it. Or so I thought..."

I deliberately paused to give him a moment to
consider what might come next.

"I dug through my computer files and located
a rough draft of a novel Brent had e-mailed me some time ago that
bore an eerie resemblance to your novel."

"Seriously?" Pierce said with disbelief.

"Yes, I'm very serious," I made clear. "In
fact, upon comparing the two carefully, they were virtually word
for word, aside from the names of key characters and the setting.
I'm quite sure that to any reasonable authority, it would be
obvious that it was a case of plagiarism."

He shifted uncomfortably. "As you know, I
worked with Brent on his books. It's possible that some of his
notes may have gotten intermingled with mine or vice versa and I
got the two mixed up when I wrote
Before He Strikes Again.
I
can assure you, there was no deliberate means to deceive the
public."

I peered at him. "Actually, I think you went
way beyond that, Pierce. I think Brent was on to you and tried to
put a stop to it. Fearing this would ruin your career, you made a
conscious choice to stop him at any cost. In this case, you went to
Brent's house and entered with a key you had probably made a copy
of. Then you caught him off guard in his man cave when you picked
up the pool stick and bludgeoned him to death."

Pierce laughed wickedly. "That's ridiculous!
Maybe you should consider writing mystery novels, Riley. You
obviously have a very active imagination that's well suited for the
genre."

"I don't think I have the temperament or
talent to make a very good novelist," I told him honestly. "But I
do believe that I'm right on the money in that it was you who
murdered Brent and then tried to pin it on Karla."

"Now why on earth would I do that? I hardly
knew the woman—"

"Actually, you knew her quite well," I said.
"You were, after all, having a relationship with her..." I took my
cell phone out of my handbag and brought up the photograph of him
and me. "Karla's elderly neighbor, Mr. Frazier—whom she had brought
to the Senior Center where I do volunteer work—identified you from
this photo as the man she was dating prior to her death. The
question is whether you were dating her at the same time Brent was.
Perhaps you were using Karla to steal Brent's laptop or to secure
the file on his novel,
Killer on the Prowl
. Or maybe you
started romancing her after they broke up and she somehow
discovered what you had done and planned to notify the
authorities."

"I think this nonsense has gone on long
enough!" Pierce snorted. "You have no idea what you're talking
about."

"Well, I suppose it was a mistake for me to
come to see you first," I told him. "I'll just take this to the
police and let them sort it out. I'm pretty sure, though, when
equipped with all the facts, they'll reach the same conclusions. I
suspect that you somehow learned beforehand that Brent had early
onset Alzheimer's disease and tried to take full advantage of it by
stealing his work. In fact, I'm even willing to bet that you're in
possession of Brent's hard drive with the plagiarized first draft
of his novel, after cleverly leading your friends on the police
force to believe that Brent had simply misplaced his laptop
somewhere."

I stood and Pierce rose just as quickly. His
relatively placid façade suddenly grew rigid. "I'm afraid you're
not going anywhere, Riley!"

My heart skipped a beat as he closed the
distance between us quickly, glaring down at me with eyes that were
slits.

"Do you plan to kill me too, Pierce?" I
challenged him, hoping to get more out of him. "Don't you think
that getting rid of another obstacle in your master plan to steal
Brent's work will only cause more suspicion that will lead to
you?"

Pierce sighed. "Do you have any idea what
it's like to work for a perfectionist like Brent, only to have to
follow in his shadow once I started writing on my own? I could
never measure up to his greatness, certainly not in the eyes of the
critics. I was always several steps behind Brent as a mystery
novelist. But after Brent had let it slip that he had Alzheimer's
disease, I rediscovered
Killer on the Prowl
, which he had
also sent me the first draft of. I had always felt that it was
perhaps his finest work, though he disagreed and cast it aside. I
figured that since his mind was failing, I could make a few
superficial changes and claim it as my own, without Brent being the
wiser.

"My editor certainly loved it and was sure it
would be a bona fide hit. Unfortunately, the editor, who knew
Brent, sent him an advance copy of
Before He Strikes Again
,
hoping for a blurb. Brent recognized that it was his book and
demanded that I own up to this with my publisher, the press, and my
fans—or he would do the honors.

"He left me no choice in the matter," Pierce
stated. "I couldn't let him ruin everything I'd worked so hard for.
I used a key that Brent had given me to more easily come and go
when I was working for him. I slipped inside his house and caught
him off guard as I grabbed the pool cue and pounded him till he
stopped moving... Then I got the hell out of there by going out the
back door and heading over to the next street, where I made my
getaway.

"I hadn't intended to pin the murder on Emily
and her friend," Pierce claimed, "preferring that the police go
after William Hendrickson or someone else. But when it worked out
that way, I was content to leave it like that. Then Karla had to
stick her nose where it wasn't wanted. We'd begun seeing each other
after she and Brent broke up. For me, it was only a fun
distraction, but Karla wanted more. I let her think we'd actually
be long term, until someone better came along.

"Then she had to snoop on my computer, where
she happened upon the file I had of Brent's novel. Having already
read an advance copy of my novel, she put two and two together and
threatened to make trouble for me. Karla left me no choice but to
handle the situation before she ruined everything I'd worked for.
After getting her in a choke hold and rendering her unconscious, it
was easy to toss her over the balcony and escape by going down the
back stairwell. I decided to link her to Brent's murder with the
bogus confession because I knew that, thanks to you, the police
were reinvestigating Brent's death and Karla was considered a prime
suspect. It only made sense to make her the scapegoat to keep the
police from looking any further."

I sucked in a deep breath at his chilling
confession to two murders, with his mind clearly set on making it
three.

"You don't have to do this, Pierce," I sought
to reason with him. "Aren't two murders enough?"

He regarded me with malevolence. "I'm afraid
you've left me no other option, Riley. I won't let you stand in the
way of my freedom or future as a bestselling mystery novelist."

I shrieked and jerked backward as he raised
his hands and moved them toward my neck, clearly planning to
strangle me.

That was when the front door burst open and
Detectives Whitmore and Gifford, along with two uniformed officers,
rushed into the room with guns drawn and aimed squarely at
Pierce.

"It's over, O'Shea," Detective Whitmore
voiced sharply. "We have it all on tape."

Pierce glared at me. "You're wearing a
wire?"

I took two steps away from him, uncomfortable
with a killer still within striking distance.

"Afraid so," I told him. "It was the only way
for the police to actually believe the far reaching story I fed
them. Some parts proved to be a little off, but most were right on
the money."

He lowered his head as a man who knew he had
been caught in a trap of his own making, as Whitmore handcuffed
Pierce and said, "You're under arrest for the murder of Brent
London and Karla Terrell, and the attempted murder of Riley Reed.
Get him out of here," Whitmore ordered the officers.