The Cinderella Murder

by Mary Higgins Clark

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Steve used to be a violent person. But that was a long time ago. I don’t know anything about a woman in the Bay Area, but, yes, he did tell me about the unfortunate situation at the house in Bel Air.”

  Laurie clenched a fist in celebration. Yes, they had identified Jerry’s attacker.

  “An unfortunate situation?”

  “He crossed a line. He said he found a door unlocked. He went in. Then someone came home and found him there. He told me he panicked, but he didn’t tell me how bad it was until I read about the assault in the paper. I’ve been counseling him, but it may be time for me to call the police before he hurts someone else.”

  As Keith had explained it to them, Advocates for God encouraged all members to open up fully to the church but did not observe the traditional priest-penitent privilege. Instead, it was for the church to decide when disclosure of the information was necessary to “advocate for God’s goodness.” It sounded like Martin was getting ready to use what he knew about Steve Roman to distance himself from the man’s crimes, depicting Roman as an out-of-control lone wolf.

  “Martin, it gets worse. The police also asked me whether—I feel gross even saying it. They asked if I had ever seen you be inappropriate with children.”

  The line fell silent.

  “Martin? Are you there?” Keith asked.

  “Yes. This has to be coming from Nicole. She’s crazy. She fabricated something like this when she was in college. That’s why I wanted to keep an eye on her during the TV show. Obviously it’s not true, so don’t repeat that to anyone. Now, I better track down Steve. He’s clearly become a problem.”

  When Martin hung up, the kitchen immediately broke into cacophony as they all spoke at once, rehashing every last word of the conversation. Detective Reilly formed his hands into a capital T to quiet them. “Good work, Keith. We’ve got what we need for an arrest warrant for Steve Roman. I’ll follow up with Martin Collins to get him locked down on the details of whatever Roman told him about the assault on Jerry.”

  “Wait,” Laurie said. “You’re not arresting Collins?”

  “I’ve got no probable cause. It’s not against the law to ask someone to keep an eye on a situation. If it were, there’d be no private investigators.”

  “But Steve Roman’s not a PI. He’s hurting people. He probably killed Lydia.”

  “And that’s why we’re going to arrest him. But until we can prove Martin Collins solicited Steve Roman to commit these crimes, he’s an innocent man.”

  Laurie started to argue, but Leo interrupted. “He’s right on the law, Laurie. But a running start is just the beginning, right, Reilly?”

  “Absolutely.” Reilly’s brow momentarily unfurrowed. “Once we get our hands on this Steve Roman character, he might have a different story to tell. Happens all the time. We’ll get the phone records, search his apartment, the works. I’ll get the arrest warrant out pronto. We can apply over the phone now. Trust me, we’ll get to the bottom of all of it.”

  Laurie tried not to be disappointed. After all, they had probably solved Lydia’s murder and the attack on Jerry. But they still had no idea how any of this connected to Susan’s murder.

  Reilly had just finished packing up his recording equipment when Grace came running into the kitchen. “Turn on the television!” she yelled, reaching for the remote control on the counter.

  Laurie placed her hand gently on Grace’s forearm. “Hold on a just a minute, Grace. I’m about to walk Detective Reilly out.”

  “No, it can’t wait.” She fumbled with the buttons and began flipping channels until she reached her destination. “Look!”

  On the screen was a helicopter’s aerial footage over bright blue water. An anchor’s voice said something about a “thirty-nine-year-old genius” and the “revolutionizing of the Internet.” It wasn’t until Laurie read the text at the bottom of the screen that she understood what she was watching: REACH founder and CEO Dwight Cook’s body recovered from a scuba accident, sources say.

  No, not Dwight. Please don’t let it be him, Laurie thought.

  65

  Laurie didn’t want to believe that Dwight was dead. Three hours after Detective Reilly’s departure, she wanted to hear that this was all some misunderstanding. When Dwight had called last night, she was so wrapped up in tracking down Steve Roman and his connection to AG, she hadn’t even found the time to return his phone call. Now that sweet man—that sweet, overgrown boy—was dead, and she was convinced that his death had to be connected to her investigation into Susan’s murder. And she was wondering if she could have stopped it.

  Timmy was upstairs playing video games, but the adults all huddled in the den to watch the television coverage. Between Keith’s phone call to Martin Collins and the news reports of Dwight’s death, they were on edge. The LAPD had obtained a warrant for Steve Roman’s arrest, but he was still at large. Was he still in Los Angeles, on his way back to San Francisco, or on the run toward the Mexico border? Could he return to target the team again?

  At the sound of the doorbell, Grace let out a yelp, then placed a hand to her chest. “Oh my Lord. I’m like some girl in the middle of a horror movie.”

  Leo went to the front door, gun in hand, and gazed through the peephole. “It’s Detective Reilly,” he announced.

  Laurie could feel their collective relief.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Reilly said, entering the den with a laptop already in hand. “First I’m afraid I have some bad news. Dwight Cook’s body has been positively identified. I’ll spare you the physical details, but there’s no question that it’s him.”

  Laurie blinked back the tears that were starting to form.

  Alex leaned toward her and whispered, “Are you okay? We can take a break.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m okay. Please, Detective Reilly, tell us the rest.”

  “I didn’t realize this when I was here earlier, but apparently this house is owned by Dwight Cook?”

  “Yes,” Laurie said. “He lent us the house to help us out.”

  “Help you out, huh? See, one of my fellow detectives was going through Mr. Cook’s computers as part of their investigation. Apparently Reverend Collins wasn’t the only person keeping an eye on your production. Cook had every inch of this place wired for surveillance.”

  “Like, spying on us?” Grace asked. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but that’s straight-up perverted.”

  “Not your showers or anything like that,” Reilly clarified. “But pretty much everything that has happened in this house since your arrival is on video.”

  “The house is usually vacant,” Laurie said. “It would make sense he’d have a state-of-the-art security system in a high-end property like this.”

  “It’s not only a matter of the equipment,” Reilly explained. “Given how the video files are set up, we can tell that Dwight actually viewed them. We can also tell when he was watching and what footage he watched. Apparently he stopped watching last night at nine twenty-three P.M.”

  Laurie checked the voice mail log on her own cell phone. “He called me just a few minutes later. He said he needed to talk ASAP.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “We were in the middle of trying to figure out Steve Roman’s connection to our case. I didn’t have time to call. Obviously if I had known . . .”

  She felt her stomach drop as Reilly rolled his eyes, clearly frustrated by the dead end.

  “Well, here’s the thing.” Reilly flipped open his laptop on the coffee table and began tapping away. “Dwight watched a couple of clips repeatedly.”

  He turned the screen so they could all see it. “One clip was the attack on your friend,” Reilly said. Laurie felt sick as they watched the brutal assault on Jerry. Reilly paused the tape just as Jerry’s masked assailant rose from his bloodied body. “See that insignia on his shirt? We’ve got a tech trying to sharpen the image, but at least the body type is consistent with Steve Rom
an.”

  “So Dwight must have called me because he had Jerry’s assailant on video,” Laurie said.

  Reilly was shaking his head, fast-forwarding through the video. “I doubt it. He saw the assault for the first time three nights ago and has replayed it multiple times since. He would have called you earlier. But here.” He slowed the tape. “This is the segment Dwight watched right before he called you.”

  Laurie immediately recognized the scene from yesterday: Keith, Madison, and Nicole, side by side on the living room sofa, discussing the day Susan was killed. Reilly played the interview to its end and then paused it. “It looks like he kept replaying the very end. Is there some reason he’d be interested in that scene?” Reilly asked.

  “I have no idea,” Laurie said. “He wasn’t really friends with any of them apart from Susan. I’ve got to ask, Detective Reilly. If you have colleagues searching Dwight’s computers, are they certain Dwight’s death was an accident?”

  “No. If anything, it looks like the scene was staged to seem accidental. They found traces of bleach throughout the entire interior of the boat, and according to the medical examiner’s initial inspection, the nitrogen levels in his tissue are inconsistent with having scuba dived that night. The current theory is that he was already unconscious when his body hit the water.”

  “Could this be more of Steve Roman’s crime spree?” Laurie was thinking aloud, wondering if Roman would have a reason to go after Dwight. “The alternative is that Dwight knew something about one of the other suspects.”

  “That’s our theory,” Reilly said, “especially if he figured it out as he was watching the end of this video. I thought you might realize its significance.”

  Laurie shook her head. What are we missing? she thought.

  The buzz of Laurie’s cell phone broke her concentration. She wanted to throw the thing across the room until she saw that the call was from Rosemary Dempsey.

  “Hi, Rosemary. Can I call you right back—”

  “Are you watching the news? They’re saying that Dwight Cook is dead. And now there’s a warrant out for some man named Steve Roman, and it has something to do with the attack on Jerry? Are we in danger? What in the world is going on?”

  66

  Steve Roman rocked back and forth, shirtless, on the motel bed.

  His name was all over the news. The police would be monitoring his credit cards as they searched for him. The second he heard his name on the car radio, he made a quick cash purchase on the streets of South Central L.A., then found a fleabag dive willing to accept cash for a room, no ID necessary. He counted the remaining bills in his wallet. Twenty-three bucks. Not much he could do with that.

  A used-car ad blared at him from the crummy television set on the dresser. He flipped the channel in search of more news about his arrest warrant. He halted at the sight of a familiar face. It was Martin Collins, standing in his front yard in a throng of reporters.

  “It has come to my attention that the LAPD is searching for a man named Steve Roman. Some of you have already gleaned from the Internet that he is a member of Advocates for God. I founded this church a quarter century ago. In that time, Advocates for God has gone from a car full of good people willing to help the downtrodden, to thousands of believers who sacrifice every day to help their fellow man. I do know Steve Roman and truly believed he had reformed himself through the healing power of God’s goodness. But I’ve been speaking with the police, and, unfortunately, it seems that a disturbed individual found his way into our flock. But that shouldn’t reflect on our group as a whole. Our church is doing everything within our power to apprehend this criminal.”

  “Reverend Collins,” a reporter called out. “We have sources who say the arrest warrant for Steve Roman is related to the attack this week on a producer for the show Under Suspicion. They are in town covering the Cinderella Murder. What is the connection between your church and the unsolved murder of Susan Dempsey?”

  Martin placed his hands on his hips, as if this were the first time he had really contemplated the question. “It’s not my place to speculate about the motivations of a sick mind. But our best guess is this person—obviously ill at some level—was making a misguided attempt to protect Keith Ratner, another AG member who has been unfairly under suspicion all these years in the death of his former girlfriend. That’s all I have for now, folks.” He gave a friendly wave and retreated into his mansion.

  Steve pulled on a white undershirt, warming himself as the air-conditioning unit rattled in the wall beneath the motel window. A disturbed individual? Criminal? Ill? Misguided?

  Steve had always done whatever Martin asked of him. Yet now Martin was selling him out, feeding into the worst stereotypes of their church, for his own benefit.

  Steve clenched his fists. He felt old impulses rising in his blood, the way he felt when that neighbor found him in Rosemary Dempsey’s yard, when the production assistant had surprised him in the house in Bel Air. He needed a punching bag. He needed to run.

  He left the motel room, checking first that no one was watching. He made his way through the parking lot to his pickup truck and then popped the glove box.

  He retrieved his newly purchased nine-millimeter. It was small for his hands, but it had been cheap. He tucked the gun in the back of his waistband.

  He had made some mistakes in recent weeks, but that was because Martin Collins had treated him as an errand boy. He was feeling levelheaded now. He was in charge.

  67

  Laurie’s first instinct was to rush to the hotel after Rosemary’s panicked phone call. This woman, whom she’d convinced to trust her with her daughter’s case, had learned the news of both Dwight Cook’s death and an arrest warrant being issued for Jerry’s attacker from the television. Laurie owed her an in-person update.

  Alex insisted on coming with her, while Leo stayed at the house with Timmy and Grace. “Alex, thank you for keeping an eye on me,” Laurie said once they were in the hotel lobby. “But I think I should speak with Rosemary one-on-one.”

  “No problem,” Alex said. “I’ll check in with hotel security to make sure they’re on the lookout for Steve Roman.”

  Outside Rosemary’s hotel room, Laurie heard the muted sounds of a television. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Rosemary answered immediately.

  “Laurie, thank you for coming. I’m so afraid. I don’t understand what’s happening. Yesterday it was that whole scene at the house with Susan’s friends. I can’t believe Nicole, after all these years, never told me about that fight. And now Dwight Cook is dead? And the police think this man who attacked Jerry, who’s on the loose, is connected to Advocates for God? Now I’m wondering if I was right all along: maybe Keith Ratner is behind everything—Susan’s murder, the attack on Jerry, now Dwight.”

  On the television screen behind Rosemary, Laurie spotted Martin Collins at an impromptu press conference in front of his house.

  “Hold on,” she said. “Can you turn up the volume?”

  “It’s not my place to speculate about the motivations of a sick mind,” he was saying. “But our best guess is this person—obviously ill at some level—was making a misguided attempt to protect Keith Ratner, another AG member who has been unfairly under suspicion all these years in the death of his former girlfriend. That’s all I have for now, folks.”

  Martin Collins was attractive and charismatic. He duped thousands of people into turning over their hard-earned money to him every year. Now he was using those skills to sweet-talk the viewers watching him on television.

  Laurie muted the volume and led a ghostly pale Rosemary to a wing chair in the living area of the suite. Laurie sat on the couch facing her. “I wish I had all the answers,” Laurie said. “But we don’t know much more than you do, and new information is coming in fast. The reports about Dwight Cook are true, but police suspect foul play. We think this Steve Roman person is trying to shut down the production, but on whose behalf? We’re not sure.”

  “
Because of Susan? Is this the man who killed my daughter?”

  Laurie reached out and held Rosemary’s hand. “We honestly don’t know. But the LAPD is on top of this. They’re going to search Steve Roman’s apartment tonight in San Francisco, and they’ve got out a high-priority arrest warrant throughout the state. Alex is downstairs right now speaking to security. We’ll be sure there’s security around the clock for you, Rosemary. And we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief—and hopefully learn more—once Roman is caught.”

  As she made her way to the elevator, Laurie checked her phone. There was a text from Alex: All set with security. Waiting in lobby.

  She almost missed the familiar face of the man exiting the room at the end of the hall. Richard Hathaway.

  On instinct, she turned her back, continuing to check her phone, until she heard the ding of the elevator. What was Hathaway doing here? He had turned down the offer of a hotel room.

  Laurie walked quietly to the end of the hall, pressing her ear gently to the door of the room he had left. She could hear music playing inside. Before she could even think about what she was doing, she was tapping on the door.

  When it opened, Madison Meyer appeared in a white robe.

  68

  Madison tightened her robe’s sash around her waist. “Laurie. Hi. What are you doing here?”

  “Um, I was here to see Rosemary,” she said, pointing down the hall. “I— Did I just see Richard Hathaway leave your room?”

  Madison’s face broke out into a wide smile, then she let out a girlish giggle. “Fine. I guess there’s no harm in admitting it now that we’re both grown-ups.”

  “You and Hathaway?”

  “Yep. I mean, not this whole time, of course. But let’s just say those rumors about the handsome young computer science professor were true. I heard he was down here for the production, so I figured I should say hi—see how my older crush turned out. I’m actually surprised myself, but we’re . . . rekindling.”