The Cinderella Murder (2 page)

F
orty-five minutes later, just as Rosemary was expecting Jack to walk in the door, the phone rang. It was Susan.

“Mom, I had to work up the courage to tell you. I can’t get home tonight.”

“Oh, Susan, Dad will be so disappointed!”

Susan’s voice, young and eager, almost breathless, said, “I didn’t call before because I didn’t know for sure. Mom,
Frank Parker is going to meet me tonight
, about maybe being cast in his new movie.” Her voice calmed a little. “Mom, remember when I was in
Home Before Dark
, just before Christmas?”

“How could I forget?” Rosemary and Jack had flown to Los Angeles to watch the campus play from the third row. “You were wonderful.”

Susan laughed. “But you’re my mother. Why wouldn’t you say that? Anyhow, remember the casting agent, Edwin Lange, who said he’d sign me?”

“Yes, and you never heard from him again.”

“But I did. He said Frank Parker saw my audition tape. Edwin taped the performance and showed it to Frank Parker. He said that Parker was blown away and is considering me for the lead in a movie he’s casting. It’s a movie set on a campus and he wants to find college students to be in it. He wants me to meet him. Mom, can you
believe it? I don’t want to jinx myself, but I feel so lucky. It’s like it’s too good to be true. Can you believe that I might get a role, maybe even the lead role?”

“Calm down before you have a heart attack,” Rosemary cautioned, “and then you won’t get any role.” Rosemary smiled and pictured her daughter, energy exuding from every bone in her body, twisting her fingers through her long blond hair, those wonderful blue eyes shining.

The semester’s almost over, she thought. If she did get a part in this movie, it would be a great experience. “Dad will certainly understand, Susan, but be sure to call him back.”

“I’ll try, but, Mom, I’m meeting Edwin in five minutes to go over the tape with him and rehearse, because he says Frank Parker will want me to read for him. I don’t know how late it will be. You’ll be having the party, and you’ll never hear the phone. Why don’t I call Dad in the morning?”

“That might not be a bad idea. The party is from six to ten, but most people linger on.”

“Give him a birthday kiss for me.”

“I will. Knock that director off his feet.”

“I’ll try.”

“Love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you, Mom.”

Rosemary had never become used to the sudden silence that followed when a cell phone disconnected.

•  •  •

When the phone rang the next morning, Jack popped up from reading the newspaper. “There’s our girl, bright and early by a college student’s standards for a Sunday.”

But the caller wasn’t Susan. It was the Los Angeles Police Department. They had difficult news. A young woman had been found
just before dawn in Laurel Canyon Park. She appeared to have been strangled. They didn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily, but their daughter’s driver’s license had been retrieved from a purse found fifteen yards from the body. A mobile phone was clutched in her hand and the last number dialed was theirs.

4

L
aurie Moran paused on her way to her office at 15 Rockefeller Center to admire the ocean of gold and red tulips blooming in the Channel Gardens. Named after the English Channel because they separated the French and British Empire Buildings, these gardens were always brimming with something lush and cheerful. Tulips were no match for the plaza’s Christmas tree, but the discovery of new plantings every few weeks in spring always made it easier for Laurie to say good-bye to her favorite season in the city. While other New Yorkers complained about the throngs of holiday tourists, Laurie found cheer in the brisk air and festive decorations.

Outside the Lego store, a father was photographing his son next to the giant Lego dinosaur. Her own son, Timmy, always had to loop through the store to inspect the latest creations when he visited her at work.

“How long do you think it took them to make this, Dad? How many pieces do you think there are?” The boy looked up at his father with a certainty that he had all the answers in the world. Laurie felt a pang of sadness, remembering the way Timmy used to gaze at Greg with the same anticipatory awe. The father noticed her watching, and she turned away.

“Excuse me, miss, but would you mind taking our picture?”

Thirty-seven years old, Laurie had learned long ago that she came across as friendly and approachable. Slender, with honey-colored
hair and clear hazel eyes, she was typically described as “good–looking” and “classy.” She wore her hair in a simple shoulder-length bob and rarely bothered with makeup. She was attractive but unthreatening. She was the type of woman people stopped for directions or, as in this case, amateur photography.

“Of course I don’t mind,” she said.

The man handed her his phone. “These gadgets are great, but all our family pictures are from an arm’s length away. It would nice to have something to show besides a bunch of selfies.” He pulled his son in front of him as she stepped back to get the entire dinosaur in view.

“Say cheese,” she urged.

They complied, flashing big, toothy smiles. Father and son, Laurie thought wistfully.

The father thanked Laurie as she returned his phone. “We didn’t expect New Yorkers to be so nice.”

“I promise, most of us are pretty nice,” Laurie assured him. “Ask New Yorkers for directions and nine out of ten will take the time.”

Laurie smiled, thinking of the day when she was crossing Rockefeller Center with Donna Hanover, the former first lady of New York City. A tourist had touched Donna’s arm and asked if she knew her way around New York. Donna had turned and pointed and explained. “You’re just a couple of blocks from . . .” Smiling at the memory, Laurie crossed the street and entered the Fisher Blake Studios offices. She got off the elevator on the twenty-fifth floor and hurried to her office.

Grace Garcia and Jerry Klein were already busy at their cubicles. When Grace saw Laurie, she sprang up from her seat first.

“Hi, Laurie.” Grace was Laurie’s twenty-six-year-old assistant. As usual, her heart-shaped face was heavily but perfectly made up. Today, her ever-changing mane of long, jet-black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. She wore a bright blue minidress with black tights and stiletto boots that would have sent Laurie toppling over face first.

Jerry, wearing one of his trademark cardigan sweaters, ambled from his seat to follow Laurie into her private office. Despite Grace’s sky-high heels, long, lanky Jerry loomed over her. He was only one year older than Grace but had been with the company since he was in college, working his way up from intern to valued production assistant, and had just been promoted to assistant producer. If it hadn’t been for Grace and Jerry’s dedication, Laurie never could have gotten her show
Under
Suspicion
off the ground.

“What’s going on?” Laurie asked. “You two act like there’s a surprise party waiting in my office.”

“You could put it that way,” Jerry said. “But the surprise isn’t in your office.”

“It’s in here,” Grace said, handing Laurie a legal-sized mailing envelope. The return address read
ROSEMARY DEMPSEY, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
. The seal had been opened. “Sorry, but we peeked.”

“And?”

“She agreed,” Jerry blurted excitedly. “Rosemary Dempsey’s on board, signed on the dotted line. Congratulations, Laurie.
Under Suspicion
’s next case will be the Cinderella Murder.”

Grace and Jerry took their usual places on the white leather sofa beneath the windows overlooking the skating rink. No place would ever feel as safe to Laurie as her own home, but her office—spacious, sleek, modern—symbolized all her hard work over the years. In this room, she did her best work. In this room, she was the boss.

She paused at her desk to say a silent good morning to a single photograph on it. Snapped at a friend’s beach home in East Hampton, it was the last picture she, Greg, and Timmy had taken as a family. Until last year, she had refused to keep any pictures of Greg in her office, certain that they would be a constant reminder to anyone who entered that her husband was dead and his murder still unsolved. Now she made it a point to look at the photograph at least once a day.

Her morning ritual complete, she settled into the gray swivel
chair across from the sofa and flipped through the agreement Mrs. Dempsey had signed, indicating her willingness to participate in
Under Suspicion
. The idea for a news-based reality show that revisited unsolved crimes had been Laurie’s. Instead of using actors, the series offered the victim’s family and friends the opportunity to narrate the crime from a firsthand perspective. Though the network had been wary of the concept—not to mention some flops in Laurie’s track record—Laurie’s concept of a series of specials got off the ground. The first episode had not only aired to huge ratings, it had also led to the case’s being solved.

It was nearly a year since “The Graduation Gala” had aired. Since then they had considered and rejected dozens of unsolved murders as none had been suitable for their requirements—that the nearest relatives and friends, some of whom remained “under suspicion,” would be guests on the program.

Of all the cold cases Laurie had considered for the show’s next installment, the murder twenty years ago of nineteen-year-old Susan Dempsey had been her first choice. Susan’s father had passed away three years ago, but Laurie tracked down her mother, Rosemary. Though she was appreciative of any attempt to find out who killed her daughter, she said she had been “burned” by people who had reached out to her before. She wanted to make sure that Laurie and the television show would treat Susan’s memory with respect. Her signature on the release meant that Laurie had earned her trust.

“We need to be careful,” Laurie reminded Grace and Jerry. “The ‘Cinderella’ moniker came from the media, and Susan’s mother despises it. When talking to the family and friends, we always use the victim’s name. Her name was Susan.”

A reporter for the
Los Angeles Times
had dubbed the case “the Cinderella Murder” because Susan was wearing only one shoe when her body was discovered in Laurel Canyon Park, south of Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Though police quickly
found the other near the park entrance—presumably it had slipped off as she tried to escape her killer—the image of a lost silver pump became the salient detail that struck a chord with the public.

“It is such a perfect case for the show,” Jerry said. “A beautiful, brilliant college student, so we have the hot UCLA setting. The views from Mulholland Drive near Laurel Canyon Park are terrific. If we can track down the dog owner who found Susan’s body, we can do a shoot right by the dog run where he was heading that morning.”

“Not to mention,” Grace added, “that the director Frank Parker was the last known person to see Susan alive. Now he’s being called the modern Woody Allen. He had quite a reputation as a ladies’ man before getting married.”

Frank Parker had been a thirty-four-year-old director when Susan Dempsey was murdered. The creator of three independent films, he was successful enough to get studio backing for his next project. Most people had first heard of him and that project because he had been auditioning Susan for a role the night she was killed.

One of the challenges for
Under Suspicion
was persuading the people who were closest to the victim to participate. Some, like Susan’s mother, Rosemary, wanted to breathe new life into cold investigations. Others might be eager to clear their names after living, as the show’s title suggested, under a cloud of suspicion. And some, as Laurie had hoped would be the case with Frank Parker, might reluctantly agree to go along so they appeared to the public to be cooperative. Whenever whispers about the Cinderella case arose, Parker’s handlers liked to remind the public that the police had officially cleared him as a suspect. But the man still had a reputation to protect and he wouldn’t want to be seen as stonewalling an inquiry that might lead to solving a murder.

Parker had gone on to become an Academy Award–nominated director. “I just read the advance review for his next movie,” Grace said. “It’s supposed to be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination.”

Laurie said, “That may be our chance to get him to go along with us. It wouldn’t hurt to have all that attention when the Oscars come along.” She began to jot notes on a pad of paper. “Contacting the other people who were close to Susan is what we have to start on now. Let’s follow up with calls to everyone on our list: Susan’s roommates, her agent, her classmates, her lab partner at the research lab.”

“Not the agent,” Jerry said. “Edwin Lange passed away four years ago.”

It was one less person on camera, but the agent’s absence wouldn’t affect their reinvestigation of the case. Edwin had been planning to run lines with Susan prior to her audition but got a phone call that afternoon informing him that his mother had had a heart attack. He had hopped immediately into his car, calling relatives constantly on his cell phone, until he arrived in Phoenix that night. He had been shocked to hear of Susan’s death, but the police never considered the agent a suspect or material witness.