The Cinderella Murder (19 page)

I
t was barely seven o’clock in the evening, but Nicole was already at her bathroom vanity, washing off the heavy layer of makeup she’d worn for the cameras today. Gone, too, was her tailored black sheath dress, replaced with her usual ensemble of yoga pants and a hoodie.

When she was done patting her face dry, she opened her eyes to find Gavin’s image behind hers in the mirror.

“That’s my wife,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and giving her a kiss on her freshly scrubbed cheek. “You looked beautiful today, but I always prefer you like this.”

She turned to face him and returned his embrace. “I’ve never been beautiful. The makeup certainly helps, but I don’t understand how anyone can put up with all of that work every day.”

“You’ve always been beautiful to me.”

“Please, when you met me, I still looked like a dorky teenager. I guess I should be grateful now that I’ve always looked young for my age.”

Gavin was smiling to himself.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Telling that TV producer about how we met. It’s been a long time since I thought about that. We owe our marriage to that fake ID of yours.”

“I had that ID because of Madison. She got them for Susan and me so we could go celebrity-watching on the club scene.”

“I can’t even picture you doing that.”

That, Nicole thought, is because you never knew me when I was a follower. A lemming. The girl whose own parents knew she would get “lost” on her own. The one who started spending more time with the crooks at Advocates for God than with her own best friend.

“Are you done with your work?” she asked.

“Just a couple e-mails, and I’ll be yours for the night.”

“Sounds good. I’ll start dinner. Lasagna sound good?”

“Delicious,” he said, giving her another buss on the cheek.

He padded down the hall to his office, while she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. As she chopped some fresh basil for the pasta sauce, she replayed her conversation today with the television crew. Nicole thought that she’d done a good job talking about Madison, Keith, and Frank Parker, the three people who were truly under suspicion. But before they’d even spoken about the investigation, Laurie had launched all those questions about why Nicole had left college and moved to the Bay Area. She even seemed a little too curious about the fact that Nicole had given Gavin a fake name when they first met.

Did she know that Nicole had been using that fake identification for more than wine purchases after she fled Los Angeles? Did she already know about Advocates for God?

No, it was impossible. Nicole had never even spoken the words “Advocates for God” or “Martin Collins” since she left L.A. She was too terrified.

Maybe Keith Ratner had told the producers about Nicole’s association with AG. After all, she was the one who first introduced him to the racket. No one in Advocates for God would refer to it as a racket, of course. They called it a religion. They said they were committed to “good works.”

That was so long ago that sometimes Nicole had a hard time remembering when exactly Susan had started to feel so much animosity
about Advocates for God. At first, Susan was supportive. Just like Susan had her theater activities and computer work without Nicole, Nicole was finding a new network of friends in what she had initially described to Susan as a “volunteer group” focused on “serving the poor.” But when Nicole began to advance farther into the circle—and began soliciting donations from wealthier students like Susan—Susan questioned the church’s ongoing demands for money.

It was the very beginning of spring semester, sophomore year, when Nicole told Susan that she had started seeing Martin Collins over the holiday break, not just as part of the group, but as his girlfriend. She expected Susan to be worried about the age difference: Nicole, having graduated early from high school, was only eighteen, and Martin was twenty-nine. But Susan’s concerns ran deeper. She said Advocates for God was a fraud. That Martin was lining his pockets with money meant for the poor. That he was enlisting vulnerable people to treat him like God. She said she felt like Nicole was slipping into “another world.” That she was “brainwashed.” She asked why a twenty-nine-year-old man would be interested in a college sophomore in the first place.

“How can you know anything about Martin when you’ve never met him? How can you judge AG when you refuse to learn anything about it? No wonder Martin says you’re trying to corrupt me!” Nicole had yelled. It was their very first argument.

But it wasn’t until Nicole invited Keith to join Martin and her at a revival that Susan truly became angry. Nicole had never seen her like that. Susan was always so calm, smiling like she was telling herself a secret joke or listening to her own private soundtrack. But that day, she was screaming at Nicole with such fervor that her pale face turned bright red, makeup streaking her cheeks.
Keith needs attention from every girl he meets. First it was Madison. Now it’s you. But you’re worse than Madison. She’s a harmless flirt, but you had to take my boyfriend to your ridiculous Bible-thumping cult! What is
happening
to you, Nicole? It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.

Even now, Nicole could not actually remember picking up her political science textbook and throwing it at Susan’s head. She just saw Susan freeze, her mouth open in shock. She remembered trying to apologize, but Susan wouldn’t calm down. “That’s it, Nicole,” she had screamed from the doorway. “I love you, but you either quit that cult or you’re moving out!”

It was the last conversation they ever had.

Nicole had fled the dorm, too, walking to Martin’s house, and then into his bedroom unannounced. He wasn’t alone. In that moment, Nicole realized why Martin had liked her in the first place. She had always looked younger than her age. But as it turned out, she was not quite young enough for Martin Collins.

36

M
ama Torini’s looked exactly as Leo remembered it: red-and-white-checked tablecloths, dark wood molding, bright yellow walls barely visible beneath decades of Italian movie posters and signed celebrity photographs. He couldn’t believe it had been twenty-two years since he was here with Laurie and Eileen. He wished his wife were here to share the experience with her grandson, but he had lost her ten years earlier to a heart attack, before she’d even had a chance to meet Timmy. He wished Laurie’s husband, Greg, were here, too. But like the song said, you can’t always get what you want. He was lucky to have Timmy and Laurie in his life.

Leo noticed a well-dressed man at the next table admiring Laurie’s appearance as she took her seat. As usual, his daughter was completely unaware of the attention. Her focus was entirely on Timmy as she pointed out an autographed picture of Wynton Marsalis with two of the restaurant’s waiters.

“So what did you and Grandpa do today?” she asked once they were settled in.

“We walked and walked,” Timmy said, “like probably a hundred miles. We walked even more than we do in New York. And you can feel it more because of all the hills. I was like . . .” He stopped talking long enough to pant like a tired dog. “I told Grandpa when we got back to the hotel room that if we took one more step, my feet would fall off.”

She feigned a look beneath the table. “We just walked here, and you’ve still got your feet. Did you actually see anything while you did all this walking and panting?”

“It was awesome! We saw everything,” he said excitedly. “Chinatown; the piers; a place called Exploratorium, which was totally cool. And, Grandpa, what was that super-steep, twisty street?”

“Lombard. And the kid here walked it bottom to top like a champ.”

“That certainly does sound like a busy day,” Laurie said.

Timmy’s rendition made it sound as if sightseeing had consumed their entire day. But Leo had found time to do some work on his own. His primary job here was to watch his grandson while Laurie was working, but if he was truly going to keep them both safe, he couldn’t turn off the part of his brain that had brought him to California—the cop part.

NYPD inspector Leo Farley had spent twenty minutes of Timmy’s television time on the phone with Detective Alan O’Brien, the lead investigator in the murder of Lydia Levitt. Somebody else calling the Alameda County sheriff’s department about an unsolved homicide the previous week might have gotten the brush-off, but more than thirty years on the job came in handy, despite retirement and being on a different coast.

He knew from Detective O’Brien that the police had no suspects in Lydia’s murder, even unofficially. The sad reality was that domestic violence was usually to blame when women were killed. But police had found absolutely no evidence to suggest any discord, let alone physical violence, in the Levitt marriage. By all accounts, Lydia’s husband, Don, was a stand-up citizen with an ironclad alibi at the time of his wife’s murder, thanks to surveillance cameras at his gym.

The next theory was some kind of secret life that might have put Lydia in danger. But a thorough search of the family’s home and
computers had turned up no reason to believe that Lydia was anything other than she appeared to be: a seventy-one-year-old wife, mother, and grandmother who liked to garden, eat out at restaurants, and talk to her neighbors.

According to Detective O’Brien, the most likely explanation was that Lydia interrupted a burglary attempt at Rosemary’s house. The police were chasing down the local thieves in hopes of a tip.

“Did Rosemary tell you that her daughter was murdered twenty years ago?” Leo had asked the detective.

“She did,” Detective O’Brien had said. “She was understandably upset about her neighbor and then mentioned it brought back memories of Susan. The Cinderella Murder. Gotta wonder whether that one will ever be solved.”

“That’s actually why I’m in California.” Leo explained Laurie’s decision to feature Susan Dempsey’s case in
Under Suspicion
. “I’ve got to admit that I didn’t feel too right when I heard there was a murder at the home of one of the show participants right when production was starting.”

“You think Lydia Levitt’s murder is somehow related to
Under Suspicion
?”

“I thought I should at least throw the possibility out there. And if you happen to pick up on anything that indicates a connection, I’d sure appreciate a call.”

Leo had to hope Detective O’Brien would keep his word. He sounded trustworthy over the phone. Until Leo could prove to Laurie that Rosemary’s neighbor was killed because of the show, he would never be able to convince her she was in danger.

There’d been one other phone call during Timmy’s nap, from Alex Buckley. That one he could share with his daughter.

“Alex called today,” he said.

“He called me too but didn’t leave a message. What’s he up to?”

Leo could never tell whether Laurie was actually interested in
Leo’s Alex updates or was just following along, as she would with any other story.

“He’s looking forward to the trip out.”

“Great. Once we get to the summit session, he can go into cross-examination mode.”

“That’s why he was calling. He’s heading to Los Angeles tomorrow.”

Leo saw the confusion on his daughter’s face.

“I think you misheard, Dad. We’re laying the groundwork for now, getting some first-person narratives. Alex isn’t needed until the summit.”

“I know that was the plan. But I guess Brett decided he wanted Alex to have as much contact as possible with the suspects, or the players, or whatever you call them. Alex said something about Brett having sprung news on you before, so he was trying to make sure you knew he was flying out early.”

Timmy’s summary of the day’s activities had finally gotten Laurie out of work mode, but now Leo could see the tension immediately return to his daughter’s face. “No, I didn’t know that. Typical Brett.”

“Are you upset? Alex is our friend. He’s a good man.”

“I want him to come. Of course I do. But I had intended to get my own fix on the people he’ll be interviewing first.”

“It sounds like you are trying to come up with reasons to keep him away—”

“Dad. Please.”

Leo knew it was time to change the subject. “So you met Susan’s roommate today? Nicole?”

She nodded. “She was nothing like I expected. I got a very peculiar vibe off of her. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve got to wonder if the police even looked into her as a suspect. They may have had their hands too full with the others to have even asked where Susan’s supposed best friend was.”

“Sometimes I really do think you inherited my cop brain.”

“This is more my reporter brain.
Under Suspicion
may be reality TV, but I haven’t forgotten my journalistic roots. Just as we don’t want to skew the facts to make people look guilty if they are not, I don’t want to present Nicole as the angelic best friend if there’s another side to the story.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find out the truth about who Nicole Melling really was back at UCLA—back when she was known as Nicole Hunter.”