by Kim Goldman
Idly I turned off the freeway onto Lindero Canyon Road, and only a few minutes later I pulled into our garage, noting that both Patti’s and Michael’s cars were there.
As I walked through the door from the garage into the family room, Patti looked up in surprise at my early arrival. At that very moment Claudia Ratcliff from the coroner’s office said to her, “Well, I hate to tell you this, but your son Ron was the other victim.”
Patti looked stricken. She yelled at me, “Fred! Hurry up! Pick up the phone! You have to talk to someone. Something has happened to Ron!”
I did not understand what she was talking about, but I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the receiver. Someone, either Patti or the woman on the phone, told me that the call was from the coroner’s office.
The woman asked, “Did you hear today that Nicole Brown Simpson has been murdered?”
“Yes.”
“Your son was the other person.”
The instant I heard those words I fell into shock, stunned by a blast of disbelief and pain so great that the only thing I could do was push it down and bury it somewhere deep inside. I could not face this reality.
“How do you know?” I asked quickly. “Oh my God! Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes, we’re sure.”
“How do you know? Maybe it isn’t him.”
“No, we’re sure.”
“How?”
“Because of his driver’s license.”
Patti gripped my shoulder and held her other arm around my waist. She was leaning against me, shaking. I felt the blood rush from my face and my body go rigid. A question stumbled out of my mouth: “Do I need to be there? Do you need me there?”
“No.”
The moment blurred. I was numb. Everything was going blank. Suddenly the receiver was back in its place on the kitchen wall. Patti and I held on to one another, quivering. Muffled screams came from places deep inside of us, places that were totally alien and uncomprehending.
“What happened?” Patti asked.
“Ron’s been killed,” I said, the words choking in my throat.
“Are they sure? Oh my God. I can’t believe it. What happened?”
“They’re sure,” I said.
It was final exam week, so when Michael had come home from school about 12:30, he was tired and had taken a long nap. It was about five o’clock when he woke up and hopped into the shower.
He had just gotten back to his room, wrapped in a towel, when he heard a knock on the door. He thought that he heard weird, hysterical laughter coming from the hallway.
The door opened. Patti stood there, her face ashen. Tear-drenched mascara tracked down her cheeks. Michael had never, ever, seen his mother look so shaken.
“Mom, what’s the matter?” he asked.
Patti put her arms around her son and worked hard to get the words out. “Ron was murdered,” she said.
Michael’s face stiffened. His brain could not accept the words that his ears had just heard. “Ron who?” he asked.
“Ron! Your brother!”
A car accident? Michael wondered. No, Mom had said he was “murdered.” Michael could not comprehend that. Who would want to kill his brother? No one. “There’s no way Ron was murdered!” he yelled.
But Patti just sobbed on Michael’s shoulder and nodded her head.
Michael lost control. He pulled away and threw himself onto his bed and began to weep. Patti tried to embrace him, but he pushed her aside. He leaped from the bed and ran from the room. He found himself in the bedroom immediately at the top of the curving staircase, the room that had once belonged to Ron. He slammed the door and sat on the edge of Ron’s bed. All he could do was cry. And cry. And cry.
Patti decided, for the moment, to leave Michael alone. Grasping the railing, she stumbled down the stairs to rejoin me.
I was in the family room, pacing. Patti noticed that my face was as stone, cold white as the shirt I was wearing. She pulled me down onto the large, beige sectional sofa, and we held tightly to one another. Both of us were suspended in a state of total horror and disbelief.
I had turned on the television. A still photograph of my son filled the screen. It was taken from his photo ID. Ron? Murdered? The words screamed, then echoed and reverberated in my head.
We could not be sure, but Patti mentally scrambled to put together the sequence of events. Obviously the media had been waiting for word that we had been notified. The authorities could have been trying to contact us all day, but did not know how. Had they asked John DuBello at Mezzaluna to leave a message for us? After speaking with Patti, DuBello must have reported to the coroner’s office that someone was home because now, only moments after the cold, cursory notification was made, an onslaught of media attention began.
“Oh my God,” Patti whispered suddenly, “Kim! How are we ever going to tell Kim?”
I was afraid that if I let myself fall apart, I would never be able to put the pieces back together again. I had to be there for everyone, and I willed myself to stay in control. There were Patti, Lauren, Michael, and Brian to consider. And Kim.
Kim was at the core of it all.
* * *
Ron and Kim were truly a pair, closer than I could have imagined my two children would ever be. From the day Kim was born, Ron looked at her like he had been waiting for her all his life. In the snapshots of my mind I saw them as children, holding hands, hugging, whispering, laughing. And, as the years passed, that had never changed.
My marriage to Ron and Kim’s biological mother, Sharon, had ended when Ron was only five and Kim barely two. Over the course of the next few years, I had obtained full custody of the kids and Sharon drifted from their lives. As the years passed, Ron became not only Kim’s big brother, but her protector, her confidant, her second father, and her best friend. They shared a bond that was unique in its depth—a “you and me against the world” resolve.
Now Patti and I were terrified that Kim might see or hear something on the news before we could contact her. At the same time, I knew that informing Kim of her brother’s death would be the most excruciating task I had faced in my fifty-three years.
Quickly, deliberately, Patti and I moved back into the kitchen. I reached for the wall phone and dialed Kim’s number in San Francisco. Patti picked up the extension on the kitchen desk.
Each unanswered ring of the phone increased our anxiety. Finally, on the fourth or fifth ring, just as the answering machine kicked in, Kim’s boyfriend, Joe Casciana, picked up. “Joe, it’s Fred, have you been listening to the news? Is Kim home?”
“No, not yet. She’s on her way,” Joe replied.
I hoped desperately that she did not listen to the news on her car radio.
“What time is she going to be home?”
“I don’t know. Maybe six-thirty or so.”
I blurted out the words. “Ron’s been killed. And we have to tell Kim. As soon as Kim gets home I want you to have her call me. Don’t tell her anything. Just be by her side.”
“Oh my God,” Joe said.
The semester had just ended, so Kim was able to put in a few more hours at her job with Wells Fargo Bank. A recent promotion had her handling loans, accounts, and customer service.
Joe usually plays soccer on Monday nights, but Kim had called home earlier and was surprised to find him there. When he told her that he had decided not to play this night she was delighted. “That’s great,” she said. “We can go to the gym together!”
Kim’s friend Amy Levine drove her home from work. The sun was shining as they sped along the coast and Amy had her usual R&B station blaring on the radio. The two young women laughed and joked about an eccentric customer they had dealt with during the day.
When Kim walked into the apartment, Joe had a strange expression on his face. Kim had always been attracted to his Mediterranean look—jet black, curly hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. This evening his face was fixed in what Kim called his “nervous look,” but she did not
immediately sense tension. She was in too good a mood, preoccupied with her plans for a trip to the gym.
He greeted her with a terse “Kim, you’ve got to call your father.”
We talked all the time. Getting a call from me was not at all unusual. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll call him in a bit.”
Joe was persistent. “Kim, you’ve got to call your dad,” he repeated.
“Okay, okay,” Kim said. “I just got home. Give me a breather.” She sat at the kitchen table and idly began to sort through the mail.
“Kim, call your father,” Joe repeated.
Kim ignored him.
He leaned close and said firmly, “Kim, just call your dad.” He was wearing a T-shirt with a low collar, and Kim noticed that his chest was flushed and his heart seemed to be beating fast.
A small light went on in her brain. She and Joe had been discussing the possibility of marriage. Ah-hah, she thought. The phone is in the bedroom. Maybe Joe’s got a surprise waiting for me in there! She made a quick stop in the bathroom and then headed for the bedroom.
No surprises were apparent and Kim was a little disappointed, but she decided that as long as she was there, she would go ahead and call home. As she dialed, Joe came into the room and motioned for her to sit down on the bed. He sat very close, as if he wanted to listen in on the conversation.
Patti and I answered the phone on two extensions at the same time. The conversation went very, very fast.
“Kim, are you at home?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Is Joe with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you watch the news today?”
This is totally weird, Kim thought. “No, I didn’t. Why?”
“Did you hear about Nicole Brown Simpson?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“She’s O. J. Simpson’s ex-wife.”
“Who’s that?”
Kim could tell that I was stalling. Get to the point, she thought. Who are these people he’s talking about?
How could I tell her this? I had to do it. I said, “Well, she was killed with somebody else, with a friend. Did you hear that?”
“No.”
There was another short pause.
“Kim,” I said, my voice breaking, “Ron was killed.”
Kim’s mind raced erratically: I didn’t call him back. Ron called me last week and I never called him back! Why didn’t I call him back?
She could hear Patti and me crying on the other end of the line. She looked at Joe. He was crying too.
When you learn that someone has died, you think cancer. When you hear that someone was killed, you think car accident. Ron had a car accident? Kim thought. She threw the phone down and screamed, “How did Ron die? Did he die in a car accident?”
Joe picked up the phone and heard me crying. “Calm her down,” I stammered. “Get her some Valium. Calm her down.”
I told Joe that it was not a car accident. We did not know yet what had happened, just that he had been murdered.
Kim grabbed the phone out of Joe’s hands. “Do we have to identify him?” she asked.
I told her that would not be necessary.
I kept crying and begging her to calm down, but Kim was falling backward into what she would later describe as a bottomless black tunnel. Ron was gone. Her brother was gone. Those were the only words she heard.
Before Kim had arrived home, Joe had called the airline and changed their reservations from Wednesday night to tonight. They would leave for the airport in a few hours and would be in L.A. later this evening.
Kim paced, dry-eyed, around the apartment. Adrenaline rushed through her like some kind of unknown, frightening narcotic.
Suddenly she was five years old again. She began to ramble: “I’ve got to pack. Do I have to go to a funeral? Is there a funeral? Do we bury? I have to pack.”
Joe watched silently as she threw dozens of pieces of underwear, and nothing else, into a suitcase.
* * *
Michael did not know how long he sat on the edge of Ron’s bed, crying. Finally he composed himself as much as he could and went downstairs. He heard me on the phone, repeating over and over again, “It’ll be okay, honey. We’ll make it through.” He knew that I was talking to Kim. Patti was standing over me, watching carefully.
Michael knew how close Kim and Ron were. How will she ever be able to handle this? he wondered.
He turned and ran back upstairs to Ron’s old room. He still needed to cry in private.
Patti phoned two of our close friends, Rob and Barbara Duben, and told them what had happened. Barb said that they would come over immediately. Then Patti called her mother, but had to leave a terse message on her answering machine, telling her to call as soon as possible. She placed a call to her father. When his wife, Alecia, answered, Patti said, in a cracking voice, “Have you been listening to the news?” Alecia said that she hadn’t, and Patti simply blurted out, “Ron has been murdered.” Immediately her dad was on the line and, in utter disbelief, asked, “How? Why? When? Who?”
Of course, Patti had no answers. Her dad said they would be there as soon as possible.
Within minutes, the Dubens were at our front door. They found me sitting in front of the television. My shoulders were slumped, tears sliding down my cheeks. My eyes were transfixed by the recurring image of my twenty-five-year-old son on the screen.
Once more, Michael came down the stairs. As he passed by the front door, he saw our neighbors and good friends Andrea and Jim Ziegler turn into our street on their way home. Quickly he ran into the front yard, followed by Patti, and motioned for them to stop. He screamed, “Ron’s been murdered!”
Andrea misunderstood. “What do you mean your mom’s been murdered?” Andrea snapped at him. “She’s standing right behind you!” They quickly ascertained the awful truth, and came inside to help.
Barb called Rabbi Gary Johnson from our temple, and he hurried over to be with us. Then Barb and Andrea called several other friends, activating a support system.
Patti’s mother phoned and, after receiving the news, broke into tears and said that she was on her way.
The house filled quickly. It was the beginning of what is, in the Jewish tradition, a mitzvah (a good deed) to care for the needs of a family that has suffered a loss.
The activity swirled about us. Patti and I sat on the sofa, clinging to one another, repeating the unanswerable question: “Why? Why? Why?”
There was a knock on the front door. Barb opened it and Patti saw our landscaper, Adán, standing there. We had a 6:00 P.M. appointment with him.
Patti rushed over. “We can’t do this,” she babbled. “Fred’s son was just killed and this is a really bad time, we can’t—you can’t—you’re just going to have to leave …” Patti simply shut the door, leaving Adán standing there.
It dawned on Michael that Lauren was not home yet. Then he remembered that this was the day of her class trip to Disneyland, and he thought: It’s probably the only happy day she’ll have for a long, long time. Rob offered to pick up Lauren, and Michael volunteered to go along. Michael was still crying as Rob’s van pulled out of the driveway.
“Michael, you need to try to control yourself in front of Lauren,” Rob reminded him.
It is only a short drive to Medea Creek Middle School. As they approached, Michael saw Lauren waiting outside, along with her friends, twin sisters Jamie and Julie Berke. Lauren had a wide, bright smile on her face. She was searching the crowd, looking for her mother, but she was not too surprised to see Rob and Michael there instead. Our families often shared chauffeuring duties. She figured that her mom probably had some things to take care of at home.
Along with Jamie and Julie, Lauren walked over to Rob’s van. The three girls scrambled into the backseat and started talking about their day. Lauren had found Disneyland disappointing; perhaps she was just getting too old for it, or maybe because she had been there so many times, the day seemed to drag.
Now she was anxious to get home.
Michael sat in the front seat, facing forward. He could not allow himself to speak. He could not look at his little sister. He knew that if he did, he would break down again. Lauren could tell that he was not acting like himself at all. Normally he would ask questions in his rapid-fire, enthusiastic style: What rides did they enjoy? Were there any new attractions? Did they pig out on junk food? Any cute boys? But Michael did not seem to want to talk at all. From what Lauren could see of his face, he appeared blank, almost stunned, and a strange, foreboding feeling came over her. She shivered involuntarily.
Rob had the radio on. During the short drive home, an announcer began to report: “Nicole Brown Simpson and—” Rob reached over and snapped off the radio.
When they reached Jamie and Julie’s house, their mother, Sherri, was standing outside in the driveway. Her face was ghostly pale. She was usually very friendly and talkative, but this afternoon she ushered Jamie and Julie inside without a word.
Rob drove Michael and Lauren the short half-block home.
As they rounded the corner, Lauren saw her mom and some of our friends outside of our house. Cars filled the driveway and lined both sides of the street. When they got out of the van, Barb put her arms around Michael. Patti approached Lauren and asked, “How was your day?”
“Fine,” Lauren answered, but she wondered what was going on.
“Was it really good?” Patti asked as big tears started to well up in her eyes.
“It was okay,” Lauren said, “what’s going on?”
Patti wrapped her arms around her daughter as warmly and securely as possible. The words seemed to lodge in her throat as she whispered, “Good. Because—Ron—was—Ron—was—murdered.”
Lauren yelled, “No! No!” Her head spun and she lost her balance, falling to the ground. She thought: I’m not hearing this. It can’t possibly be my Ronnie. There has to be some big mistake. A piercing, intensely painful shriek emerged from her throat. Lauren thought that if she just screamed loudly enough, someone would tell her that she was having a nightmare and she would wake up. Then everything would be okay.