The Cinderella Murder

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Hey, don’t get frustrated yet. We’re just getting started.”

  • • •

  The tiny store was crammed floor to ceiling with books, many of them used. A whiteboard behind the cash register listed upcoming events. That night, an author would be signing copies of his book Legalize Everything.

  The sole employee sported a bushy beard that made it difficult to estimate his age. “You guys looking for a coffee shop or something?”

  So she wasn’t alone in thinking that she and Alex looked out of place here. Fortunately, the jingle of the bell on the front door interrupted the moment. Laurie could tell from Keith Ratner’s expression that he immediately recognized Alex from television.

  “I didn’t think we were shooting today.” He ran his fingers through his tousled dark hair.

  “We’re not,” she explained. “But Alex wanted the opportunity to meet you before the cameras are on.”

  Alex offered a handshake. “Hey, Keith, good to meet you. I was a huge fan of Judgment Calls.” Keith Ratner had played a young prosecutor in the short-lived courtroom drama.

  “Thanks for meeting us,” Laurie said. “And before I forget, we have the location for next week’s summit session. It’s a house not too far from here.” She handed him a piece of paper with the Bel Air address on it.

  “No problem,” he said, slipping the address into the front pocket of his jeans. “Wow. This store hasn’t changed at all. Talk about a blast from the past.”

  “You haven’t been here for a while?” Laurie asked.

  “I only came here twice, I think, both for events.”

  “Advocates for God events, you mean.”

  “Sure. Does that matter?”

  “Only if your church members were backing you up because you share the same religion.”

  “So much for a little friendly conversation.” He looked to Alex for help, but Alex pretended to browse a shelf labeled HAIKU AND TANKA. “The only reason I was ever under suspicion in the first place was because Rosemary never liked me. I had six different people confirm to the police I was with them all night—first here at the store, then we went out for coffee. But because we were part of a new church people didn’t understand, it’s like our word didn’t count.”

  “Sorry, Keith, this isn’t about oppressing you for your belief system. You have to admit, when we spoke on the phone, you tried to deflect attention onto anyone but you.”

  “Human nature.” Keith looked to Alex again. “The criminal defense lawyer here must understand that. Someone killed Susan, and it wasn’t me—so, yeah, I guess you could say I suspect everyone else. People seem to forget that she was my girlfriend. For four years. I loved that girl.”

  “Yet you cheated on her,” Alex said. He wasn’t going to play good cop.

  “I never said I was perfect. Why do you think I went looking for a religion? Something to believe in? I was a bad boyfriend, but that doesn’t make me a murderer. Did you even look into the stuff I told you about Dwight Cook? Pretty convenient that he happened to invent something so valuable within months of Susan’s murder.”

  “Actually,” Laurie said, “I did look into your theory. And what I learned was that you knew so little about your own girlfriend that you had no idea what she was working on. Her professor even confirmed that Susan’s research had nothing to do with the idea that became REACH.”

  “Professors don’t know anything about who their students really are. Dwight followed Susan around like a lapdog. It seemed like every time I’d come by her dorm, he’d be lingering nearby. I don’t care how much money he’s made. I’m telling you: something was off about that kid.”

  “You sound desperate, Keith.”

  He shook his head. “Check it out if you don’t believe me. You know, when I said I’d do this, you told me you’d be objective, that you were a reporter at heart. But it’s obvious that Rosemary’s infected your brain about me. I’m out of here.”

  “We’re just asking questions,” she said. “And you signed a contract.”

  “Then sue me.”

  The jingle of the bell as he exited felt like a buzzer ending a boxing round that Laurie knew she had lost.

  41

  Keith could feel his cell phone shake in his hand. It had been years since he’d lost control. He certainly could not recall ever speaking to Martin Collins so firmly. “I can’t do it. You should have heard the way they were running down AG. I couldn’t control my anger. I had to leave to keep myself from saying more than I should.”

  “Of all people, Keith, don’t you think I know what it is like to have our beliefs belittled by people who can never understand our good works?”

  Keith should have known that Martin would not accept his decision, but Martin didn’t understand his frustration. Keith had heard the ridicule in Laurie Moran’s voice when she mentioned Advocates for God. She could never begin to understand how AG had saved him after Susan died.

  Service to others and guidance from Martin as to the certainty of God’s goodness had kept Keith from taking out his grief through booze and girls. And then there were the group sessions. Keith began to examine his guilt at treating Susan poorly when she was alive. He realized that all his betrayals were little acts of revenge. As much as he loved Susan, she made him feel small. He remembered how other couples in high school would talk about being treated like honorary family by one another’s parents. His friend Brian even got birthday and Christmas presents from his girlfriend Becky’s family.

  But Keith had never gotten the slightest sign of approval—let alone affection—from Rosemary or Jack Dempsey. Jack worked so hard, he probably wouldn’t have been able to pick Keith from a lineup. And Rosemary? She treated Keith like dirt, with her constant sighs of disappointment and barbed comments insulting his dream of being a star.

  Susan always told him to ignore it. She said her mother was just protective and would have had the same response if Susan were to date a prince who was also a Rhodes scholar. But, after Susan’s murder, Keith realized that he had absorbed the criticism. Hurting Susan—having power over her—had been a way to keep her from hurting him.

  Now Keith felt like Rosemary Dempsey was calling the shots all over again. He tried once more to explain it all to Martin.

  “The way that television producer spoke to me brought back all my old insecurities. And the way they talked about AG reminded me of how Susan would call it a scam when Nicole first became involved.”

  “You didn’t give them any indication that it was Nicole who introduced you to the church, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Remember, if they ask, you were handed a flyer on campus and were curious. With all the pamphleting I did back then, it’s perfectly believable. Do not say anything to link Nicole with AG.”

  “I won’t be saying anything at all. I don’t want to be part of that show.”

  “You know better than this. Sometimes it’s not about you, Keith. How are you best positioned to serve the work of God?”

  “How can it be God’s work to be in a house full of people who make fun of everything our church stands for?”

  “A house?”

  “Yes, they have a house for filming. They’re also going to be staying there.” He retrieved the address from his pocket and read it to Martin.

  “Listen to me: you will call the producer and confirm your participation. Advocates for God is a group serving God, and Nicole’s participation in this show is a direct threat to that group. I have reason to believe that Nicole isn’t saying anything about us for now, but the television show may be digging into Nicole’s background.”

  “ ‘Reason to believe’?”

  “I’m relying on you to update me about her involvement and to steer the investigation away from anything that might lead to AG. Do you understand?”

  Sometimes Keith wondered whether he should be more questioning of Martin’s commands. But without Advocates for God, what would he have?

  42 />
  Determined to stick to her family’s postdinner board game ritual, Laurie gathered the crew in the den of the Bel Air house to play Bananagrams, which was like Scrabble on speed. Timmy’s favorite moments of the game were the banana-related puns: “split” to start playing and “peel” to pull new tiles. Grace had won the last three games in a row, each time telling Timmy that she might not have been the smartest person in the room, but that she was the most competitive person in the entire world, “and that matters more in the long run.”

  Laurie could tell that both Timmy and Leo approved.

  Everyone was playing except for Jerry, who was hunkered in a chair by the fireplace, working on plans for next week’s summit sessions.

  “Take a little break,” Leo said. “Your eyes are going to cross.”

  “Can’t take a break when you live with your boss.” Jerry looked up from his notes and winked at Timmy, who laughed at the joke.

  Laurie thought that if anyone should have been working late tonight, it was her. She had blown the meeting with Keith Ratner today. The man was arrogant, but he had a point. Rosemary was so convinced that Keith was involved in Susan’s death, but was her suspicion based in fact or on her belief that Susan never would have gone to Los Angeles in the first place if not for her boyfriend? And would anyone have even questioned his alibi if it had come from six members of a book club or established group, instead of Advocates for God?

  She was supposed to be spelling out words with her tiles, but she kept hearing Keith’s voice: You told me you’d be objective. Objective reporting meant checking his alibi.

  She excused herself to make a phone call. She looked up the phone number for the church of Advocates for God and received a message system. “This is Laurie Moran, calling for Reverend Collins.” She had read that Martin Collins was the founder and minister of Advocates for God. Though the alibi witnesses who had spoken to police were all individual church members, she had to believe that Collins would have been aware of the situation given the group’s relatively small size at the time and the high-profile nature of the investigation. “It’s about a church member named Keith Ratner and a police investigation from 1994. If he could return my call, I’d appreciate it.”

  Laurie was heading back to the makeshift game room when Jerry waved her over to his corner.

  “You really should hang it up for the night,” she said. “I’m starting to feel guilty.”

  “Then you have no idea how late I usually work in New York. Besides, this is fun. I was just going through old copies of the UCLA newspaper that I downloaded onto my computer. I thought it might be worth exploring the aftermath of Susan’s killing on the campus. Were students afraid? Did the university add security? That kind of thing.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Thanks. And then I saw this.”

  He rotated his laptop so she could see the screen. The headline read TECH PROFESSOR LEAVES FOR PRIVATE SECTOR, FIRST JOB IS FOR UCLA STUDENT.

  The article was published in September 1994, the first edition in the school year following Susan’s death, reporting the university’s loss of Richard Hathaway, a popular and prolific computer science professor, to a booming, Internet-fueled private sector job.

  According to the article, a university policy requiring ownership of all faculty research and development could have played a role in Hathaway’s departure. The author hinted that the policy could make it difficult to hire and retain professors in the most innovative and profitable fields. It also reported that Professor Hathaway’s first private-sector gig was as a consultant to UCLA junior Dwight Cook, who was currently seeking financing for his Internet-search technology.

  The caption beneath Professor Hathaway’s photograph read, “Professor could earn his annual UCLA income in a day’s work for a successful start-up.”

  But it was the last paragraph of the article that Jerry highlighted for Laurie on his screen:

  Professor Hathaway may be familiar to students beyond the computer science department as the male professor named “most crush-worthy” by this publication for three of the last five years. Though that award is one of many tongue-in-cheek honors bestowed by the paper’s editorial board, not everyone always saw the humor. Last year, a student filed a complaint with the university, repeating campus rumors that Professor Hathaway had dated female students and alleging that he showed favor to attractive female students on that basis. The student withdrew the complaint when she was unwilling to provide the names of any students who may have been involved with the popular teacher, and no other students came forward to confirm her allegation.

  Jerry looked at Laurie to make sure she had finished reading. “We know Susan was one of his favorite students. And she was definitely attractive.”

  Laurie looked again at the photograph accompanying the article. Hathaway would have been in his late thirties at the time. When she met him in Dwight Cook’s office, she had noticed he was handsome, but his face was fuller and his hair thinner than in this photograph. As she looked at the younger version, it dawned on her that Hathaway’s features were similar to Keith Ratner’s. Dark hair, strong cheekbones, and a killer smile. She could imagine that a woman might be attracted to them both.

  Susan and her professor? It was a theory that the police had never even considered.

  “I’ll check with her roommates, see if there were any signals that Susan and Professor Hathaway might have been an item. If they were, Dwight Cook certainly didn’t know about it. I could tell when I first spoke to him that he’d been carrying a torch for Susan himself, and then Keith made it sound like Dwight was pretty obsessed with her. No way would he have kept Hathaway as his right-hand man at REACH if the teacher crossed that line with Susan. But the article calls him a consultant. We know that Hathaway was instrumental to REACH from the very beginning. That means he got stock options and big money. I know you told me that Hathaway confirmed that the idea for REACH was Dwight’s and not Susan’s, but—”

  “You’re thinking Dwight Cook might have murdered Susan?”

  “I don’t know, Jerry. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that it’s often the least likely suspect.”

  She thought of her husband’s murder. Because Greg was an emergency room doctor, the police thought he might have crossed paths with a deranged patient who became fixated on him. It never dawned on anyone that Greg was targeted by a sociopath consumed by hatred of her own father, NYPD inspector Leo Farley.

  Laurie was reminded of her conversation with Alex that morning; Jerry really had moved on since his intern days. He was now close to a partner for her on the show, and she needed to treat him that way. “I’ll call Rosemary again so we aren’t just taking Hathaway and Dwight’s word for it about Susan’s lab work. She’ll know what Susan was working on.”

  Laurie had hoped to narrow the field of people under suspicion before the summit session, but her list of suspects seemed to be growing.

  43

  By the time Dwight Cook slipped his key into the lock of his Westwood bungalow, it was nearly midnight. He and Hathaway had taken REACH’s jet to Los Angeles, but the flight had been delayed by fog in the Bay Area.

  Hathaway teased him for hanging on to this modest little house, which Dwight had bought at the end of his junior year, once REACH appeared solid enough as a start-up for him to get a small mortgage. In fact, Hathaway teased him for returning to college at all. Hathaway was so confident in REACH’s potential to pull in major cash that he’d retired from his tenured position.

  But Hathaway had always been more financially motivated than Dwight. It sounded overly simple, but Dwight really did enjoy college—not the parties or hanging out in the quad, but the learning. So even after REACH launched, he found a way to finish college. Besides, he had Hathaway to oversee the corporation.

  As soon as he locked the door behind him, he opened his laptop and logged in to the surveillance cameras at the Bel Air house. He had not been able to check updates while he was with Hathaway.<
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  He fast-forwarded through hours of tape for a quick overview. The house was empty most of the day. The little boy and his grandpa came home first, followed by some television for the boy and phone calls for Grandpa. Then Jerry and Grace, followed by Laurie and Alex Buckley. It looked like they were wrapping up the night with some kind of game in the den.

  He hit PAUSE. Jerry was in the corner by himself while everyone else was playing the game. Laurie seemed to stop and talk to Jerry alone. He rewound to the beginning of their conversation and hit PLAY.

  By the time he watched Laurie resume her seat at the game table, Dwight wanted to throw his laptop across the room. When he set out to monitor the activity at the house, he thought it would give him some semblance of control, but this was maddening. What he really wanted was to be in the room with them. If they would only ask him the right questions, he could set them straight.

  Susan and Hathaway? The thought made him physically ill. It was also ridiculous. Susan was too blinded by her devotion to that abominable Keith Ratner to notice anyone else.

  And the idea that Susan had been the one to develop REACH? The technology that had launched REACH wasn’t Susan’s idea; it wasn’t even Dwight’s—not really. As Hathaway had pointed out, he and Dwight were two halves of a whole. On his own, Dwight might never have conceived such a grand idea. But without Dwight’s programming talent, Hathaway might have gotten bogged down and someone else would have caught up and surpassed him before REACH was off the ground.

  It had nothing to do with Susan.

  He wanted Susan’s murder solved, but now the people at Under Suspicion were on the completely wrong track, and he couldn’t correct their misconceptions without revealing the fact that he was monitoring their conversations. He was stuck. All he could do was watch and listen and hope. Oh, Susan, he thought wistfully.

  He switched his screen over to the We Dive SoCal website. He hoped someone might have tips about new sites for him to explore while he was in Los Angeles, but it looked like he was going to stick with his usual dives: Farnsworth Bank, on the windward side of Catalina, and the oil rigs off of Long Beach.