The Cinderella Murder (17 page)

R
osemary Dempsey ran her fingertips along the dark gray granite countertop as she paced the length of the kitchen. “It feels so strange to be back here. I cooked in this room almost every day for nearly forty years.”

Rosemary had put together a collection of her daughter’s childhood photographs and mementos—a blue ribbon won in a science fair, the banner she’d worn as her high school’s homecoming queen. She had even given Laurie and her crew the guest book from Susan’s memorial service.

Now they were inside the Dempsey family’s former home, where Jerry had arranged for them to shoot today’s interview. This was the kitchen where Rosemary first learned that her daughter’s body had been found in Laurel Canyon Park.

“I thought it would be traumatic to come back here,” Rosemary said. “But after what happened in my backyard last week, it’s nice to get away from my ‘new’ neighborhood.”

“Have the police made any progress in your friend’s investigation?”

“Apparently not. You might have found another case for your show,” she said with a sad smile.

Laurie could tell that Rosemary needed to ease into a conversation about that horrible morning when she learned of Susan’s death.
Laurie shot a look to Jerry, who was lingering next to the cameramen stationed near the sliding glass doors at the edge of the kitchen. He gave her an
okay
sign. Though they were keeping their distance, they could capture what they needed to get on video.

“Has the house changed much since you lived here?” Laurie asked.

Rosemary stopped pacing and looked around her. “No, not in any obvious way. But it feels completely different. Their furniture—it’s much more modern than ours. And our art is gone. The photographs. All of the things that made this house our home are either with me at the new place or in storage.”

“If it wouldn’t be too painful,” Laurie said, “maybe you can point out a few details in the house that were significant to your daughter. Perhaps we can start with her room?”

Laurie wouldn’t need footage from other parts of the house, but a tour through the home was a way to get Rosemary to loosen up and start talking about Susan. The show only worked when they could portray the victim not as a piece of evidence in a mystery to be solved but as a living human being.

Rosemary led the way up the mission-style staircase to a bedroom at the end of the upstairs hallway. Her hand trembled as she turned the doorknob. The room was set up now as a nursery, with lavender-colored walls hand-stenciled with yellow tulips.

She walked to the window and fingered the latch. “See how the overhang above the front porch is just beneath the window here? I used to check this lock every single night because I had a fear that someone would sneak in and grab my baby.”

Next she walked to the closet and ran her fingers along the inside of the door frame. “This is where we used to chart her growth, drawing a new line for every birthday. They’ve painted it over since then, but I swear, you can still seem them. See? Faint little lines.”

Laurie looked over Rosemary’s shoulder and smiled, even though all she saw was clean white paint.

When they were back in the kitchen and in front of the cameras, Laurie felt like Rosemary was ready. “Please,” Laurie encouraged gently, “tell us how you learned about your daughter’s murder.”

Rosemary nodded slowly. “It was the weekend of Jack’s sixtieth birthday. We had a big party here on Saturday, outside. It was a beautiful night. Everything was so perfect, except Susan couldn’t be there. She called that afternoon to wish Jack a happy birthday, but he was at the club for a round of golf. He worked
so
hard. Always. She was in good spirits, excited about school, and very excited about the audition she had that night.”

“The one with Frank Parker?”

“Yes. She told me his name, but I hadn’t heard of him. She said he was a real up-and-comer. She said . . . she said she felt ‘lucky,’ like it was ‘too good to be true.’ ” Her voice caught as she repeated her daughter’s words. “Then we got the call from the police the next morning. The funny thing is, I had a terrible feeling all day that something was wrong, like this vague but terrifying foreboding.”

“About Susan?”

“No, not initially. More this floating anxiety. But that all changed once the police called. It was the LAPD. They had found a body. You know the rest—one of her shoes had fallen off, presumably as she was chased through Laurel Canyon Park. Her cell phone was nearby too. Her lucky necklace had been pulled from her throat. They wanted to know why she might have been at the park. I told them she was meeting that night with Frank Parker. It was only later that we learned that his house was only a mile or so from the location where they found her body.”

Laurie could see the grief gripping Rosemary, all these years later. She knew full well it would never disappear. “Going back to Frank Parker, did that strike you as peculiar, for him to meet with Susan at night?” Laurie asked gently.

“No, but she didn’t tell me she was going to his house. And I assumed
that her agent would be there. Trust me, if I could turn back time, I’d stop her from ever going to that audition.”

“Why? Because you think Frank Parker is the one who hurt your daughter?”

Rosemary looked down at her hands and shook her head. “No. I wish I could have stopped her from going up to the Hollywood Hills that night, because at least she would have been closer to campus, where she knew her way around. She wouldn’t have been wearing silver shoes that she couldn’t run in. At the very least, even if she couldn’t escape, she wouldn’t have been called Cinderella, as if my daughter were some pretty little girl trying to win a prince for the night. That nickname and the Hollywood setting wouldn’t have been such a painful distraction.”

“A distraction from what, Rosemary?”

Rosemary paused, pressing her lips together as she chose her next words. When she finally spoke, any nerves she’d had about the cameras were gone. She looked directly into the lens like a trained TV star. “A distraction from the truth, which is that the most dangerous person in Susan’s life was much closer to home: her boyfriend, Keith Ratner. He was a cheater and a liar, and he knew my Susan was going places he could only dream of. I will go to my grave believing he is the one who killed my baby.”

32

T
he next morning, Laurie hopped out of the van in front of Nicole Melling’s house. It was ten degrees warmer on this side of the Golden Gate Bridge than it had been when they’d left their hotel in downtown San Francisco half an hour earlier.

Jerry let out a whistle as he took in the view. “I may never go back to New York City.”

The house was situated at the top of a ridge above town, at the edge of Sorich Ranch Park. They were looking out across Ross Valley to two tree-covered mountains in the distance, the green of the leaves broken only by the early blooming of dogwoods.

Laurie heard the van’s rear door slide open and watched as Grace managed to climb out in form-fitting leggings and thigh-high leather stiletto boots. “Wow,” she said, following the direction of their gaze. “That’s almost enough to make me appreciate nature.”

“It’s hard to believe we’re only twenty miles away from the city,” Laurie said.

Jerry nudged Grace, who was fiddling with her iPhone. “Your love of nature didn’t last long,” he joked.

“Not true. I was doing research,” she said indignantly. She held up the screen and showed an image close to the view in front of them. “Those are Bald Hill and Mount Tamalpais,” she said, stumbling
over the pronunciation. “And in case you’re wondering, according to Zillow, this house is worth—”

Jerry admonished her with a scolding index finger. “No! It’s bad enough that you cyberstalk everyone you meet, but I do
not
want to be a part of it. Yesterday, Laurie, she found a website called Who’s Dated Who. The grammar’s wrong, first of all. It should be Who’s Dated
Whom
. But thanks to that nonsense, I spent the entire delay at baggage claim hearing about the various ingénues linked to Frank Parker before he finally got married.”

“Oh, Jerry, if you only knew. That list was so long, it could have kept us occupied through hotel check-in.”

Jerry wasn’t done complaining. “And speaking of baggage claim, do you think you brought enough luggage, Grace? I managed to make the trip with only a carry-on.”

“Don’t blame the bags on me!” Grace protested. “It was your father, Laurie. He insisted on packing heat. Transporting a gun from New York to California means checking luggage. So, yes, Jerry, I figured if I had to go through the process, I might as well bring all my favorite shoes.”

Laurie shook her head and laughed. Jerry and Grace worked incredibly well together, but sometimes she felt like they warranted their own reality show with their Mutt-and-Jeff personality differences.

“My father doesn’t
pack heat
, Grace. But once a cop, always a cop: the man can’t sleep if he doesn’t have that gun in his nightstand. Now, let’s focus on Susan’s former roommate. And what she might be hiding.”

•  •  •

The interior of Nicole Melling’s home was as picture-perfect as its surroundings. Nicole greeted them in a light-filled foyer lined with brightly colored contemporary art. Laurie had done some cyber research of her own and had been unable to find a single photograph
of Nicole online. All she had were a couple of high school yearbook photos Jerry had tracked down from Nicole’s hometown of Irvine, and her freshman class photo at UCLA. Even in her college photograph, Nicole hadn’t looked much older than fourteen.

The woman standing in front of Laurie today looked nothing like Laurie had expected. It’s not that Nicole had aged poorly. The adult version was far more attractive than the plain-looking, freckle-faced girl from those photographs. But she had changed her appearance drastically. The strawberry-blond hair that had hung well past her shoulders was now dyed and cropped into a dark brown, chin-length bob. Perhaps it was only for the cameras, but at least for today, she wore dramatic makeup, her eyes lined with charcoal. Perhaps more striking than any identifiable physical change, there was a confidence in the way she carried herself that had been lacking in those early photographs.

“Nicole,” Laurie said, offering a handshake, “thank you so much for being a part of
Under Suspicion.
Rosemary told me how close you and Susan became in college.”

“She was very caring toward me,” Nicole said quietly. She led them through the foyer into a large living room with open views of the valley outside.

They were interrupted by the appearance of a man wearing a loose oxford-cloth shirt and khakis. He had a bit of a paunch and was beginning to bald but had an inviting smile. Laurie thought she detected the faint smell of soap.

“Hey there. I thought I should at least say hello. I’m the husband, Gavin.”

Laurie rose from her chair to shake his hand. “You certainly didn’t have to take the day off for us,” she said.

“Oh, I didn’t. I work upstairs.” He pointed to the staircase off the foyer.

“Gavin’s in finance,” Nicole explained. “His firm is in the city, but he works here unless he has meetings.”

“Lucky you,” Laurie said. “Did you also go to UCLA? Is that how you met?”

“Oh no. I was out of Harvard and working at a start-up in San Francisco—one of the first companies that let regular people buy and sell stock online without a broker. I met Nicole in a bar.”

His wife rolled her eyes in frustration. “I hate it when you tell people that. It makes me sound cheap.”

“What’s worse is that she fell for my completely cheesy pickup line. I asked her if she had a Band-Aid, because I skinned my knee falling for her.”

Laurie feigned a groan. “Oh, that is
awful.
”

“True,” Gavin said, “but it was intentionally awful. There’s a difference.”

“To be clear,” Nicole said, “that’s just how we
met
. I felt sorry enough to give him my phone number, but we began to date properly after that.”

“And what brought you up to San Francisco after UCLA?” Laurie asked. She knew that Nicole quit school after her sophomore year and assumed it was because of what happened to Susan. She was always amazed to learn how the death of one person rippled out to change the course of so many other lives.

“I had originally wanted to go to Stanford or Berkeley, so I guess I felt a pull from Northern California. I mean, look at that view.”

The story sounded polite but superficial. “So, did you continue school up here?” Laurie asked.

“Nope.” Nicole shook her head and said nothing more.

“It’s just, I couldn’t help but notice that many of the people closest to Susan seem to have left school. You, Madison Meyer, Keith Ratner.”

“You’d have to ask them. I assume it’s not uncommon for actors to leave school if they start getting regular work. And of course Madison got that role in
Beauty Land
. As for me, I think Susan’s death made me realize life was short.”

“Are you still in touch with Madison or Keith?”