“How important would you say his career was for Dashing Henry?” David asked, and I could see him already thinking.
“The most important thing in his life,” I answered, unequivocally.
“Why are you so sure?” David was in reporter mode.
“Because I knew him, and he was a narcissistic prick who only perked up whenever he was being accosted for an autograph or nominated for an award. And he was vile if he wasn’t the one winning that award,” I explained.
“So he wasn’t big on the wholejust being nominated is an honorthing,” David said.
“He couldn’t care less about honor.”
“But there must have been something else in his life, no?”
“He had no family, no friends. He attended award ceremonies with his manager as his plus one,” I said. “He had no hobbies. He wasn’t into reading, fishing, puzzles, or freaking knitting. The only thing he liked watching on TV were reruns of his own shows.”
“SoLA Misconductswas his life?”
“Pretty much. He’d tried dabbling in movies but hadn’t been successful. He wasn’t that great of an actor, to be honest. He was famously cranky whenever the show went on hiatus between seasons. He even hated the holiday break every winter.”
“And he was going to get fired fromLA Misconducts?” David was confirming a piece of information I had given him the day before.
“He hadalreadybeen fired,” I said. “You can talk to my agent. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to give you all the juicy details if you quote her as an anonymous source. She loves babbling. What did the hacker tell you?” I finally asked. I wanted to know what had prompted those questions.
“That Henry was the one who leaked his own doctored emails,” David said. “Apparently the zip file on the pen drive contained a copy of them.”
“Was he also behind the fake email address in your name?” I suddenly realized.
“Not only that,” David said, “it looks like I won’t have to worry about YouReallyDontKnowWhatsOutThere.com publishing anything else about me.”
“I told you so,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“No, the reason I won’t have to worry about it is because Emma was able to trace the blog back to Henry. He was the one who published the post saying I had sent him a series of emails and asked him to go to the Eastern Columbia the night he died. He’d scheduled that post, and it was published even if he was already dead. If you think about it, the piece didn’t mention anywhere that he’d been run over by a car, just that I had lured him to my place and something nefarious had happened to him there.”
“Okay, so?” I knew David was making some kind of connection I was missing.
“So, I think he was a desperate man. His lawyer had told him the libel accusations against me were moot and had left him. He wasn’t going to be able to prove that I’d fabricated anything against him. He’d just been fired. His team, the only people in his life, were deserting him. He had nothing left.”
“Not sure I’m following you.” And I really wasn’t. “You’re saying he realized that his career was over.”
“Hence, his life was over,” David added.
“And since there was nothing else, he tried getting you accused of his murder, but it was him who took his own life?” I couldn’t avoid the tone of doubt in those last words.
“Yeah, hearing you saying it out loud, I realize that it sounds a bit ridiculous,” David admitted. “I mean, Henry was an egomaniac and career-obsessed enough, but to the point of suicide? Plus, he was probably aware that there’s nothing Hollywood loves more than a good comeback story.”
“As the Hollywood expert here, allow me to say there are comeback stories andcomeback stories. When you throw sexual assault into the mix, like in his case, the options for redemption start getting thinner.”
“He hadn’t been convicted of anything,” David tried reasoning.
“True,” I said. Most of the complaints made against Henry had been for aggressive sexual advances and coercion like the ones he’d made with me or Brenda. But at least one of his victims had accused him of aggravated assault. That case had been settled for an undisclosed amount outside of court though, and the other party involved had doubtless signed an NDA. “We’re not really contemplating the possibility of him being the one who ran himself over with a car though, right?”
“The whole thing sounds a bit preposterous. How do you even run yourself over with a car?” David rubbed the back of his neck.
“Preposterous or not, he’d tried implicating you,” I said. “The whole thing with him being at our building and being drunk on Fernet. I’m sure he made himself drink that stuff.”
“It’s good stuff,” David insisted.
“In any case, the plot thickens.”
