The Cinderella Murder

11

Some people were just creatures of habit.

Not Madison. Heck, Madison wasn’t even her name. Her real name was Meredith Morris. How old-fashioned was that? There wasn’t even a cute nickname she could make out of it. She’d tried Merry, but people thought she was saying Mary. Then she tried Red, but that didn’t even make sense for a blonde. But she always liked the alliteration. When she enrolled at UCLA to appease her parents, she changed her name to Madison Meyer, determined to get discovered by Hollywood.

In various stages of her life, she had been a vegetarian, a gun owner, a libertarian, a conservative, a liberal. She’d been married, and divorced, three times. She had dated actors, bankers, lawyers, waiters, even a farmer. Madison was constantly changing. The only constant was that she wanted to be a star.

But as Madison was to reinvention, Keith Ratner was to habit. Even back in college, he’d flirted, danced, and occasionally snuck off with Madison and other girls. But he always, always, always went back to his beloved Susan. He was loyal in his own crazy way, like a bigamist who insisted his only crime was loving his wives too much to disappoint them.

And just as Madison had always known Keith would never quit his high school girlfriend, she was confident she would find him at his usual haunt, a lounge celebrities liked called Teddy’s, in the far front corner of the Roosevelt Hotel. He was even sitting in the same banquette where she’d last seen him here, about six months earlier. She should have called him Rain Man, that’s how much Keith Ratner liked a routine. She was even fairly certain she could identify the clear liquid in his glass.

“Let me guess,” she said by way of greeting. “Patrón Silver on the rocks?”

His face broke out into a broad smile. Twenty years later, and that smile still sent a chill up her spine. “Nope,” he said, jiggling his glass. “I still love this place, but I’ve been a club soda guy for years. From here I’ll hit Twenty-Four Hour Fitness for some cross-training.”

Several years ago, at the height of Keith’s television career, Madison had seen an interview highlighting his commitment to physical health, volunteer work, and his do-gooder church. It all seemed like a PR stunt to her, but here he was, in his favorite bar, sipping soda water.

“Still trying to convince everyone you’re a reformed soul?” she asked.

“Clean body, clean mind.”

She waved over a waitress and ordered herself a cucumber martini. “Vodka’s clean enough by my standards.”

“Speaking of standards,” Keith teased, “how did the likes of you get past the red velvet rope?”

Madison’s celebrity had taken off before his, thanks to her role in Beauty Land, Frank Parker’s first major film. But Keith’s career hadn’t died like hers. If only he knew how close his comment cut to the bone. She had, in fact, slipped the bouncer a twenty to get in.

“I knew I’d find you here,” she said.

“So this isn’t a chance encounter?”

Keith obviously still knew the power he had over her. Madison recalled the first time she met him, as a freshman at UCLA. She’d shown up to an open casting call for some horrible musical based on the life of Jackson Pollock. Keith was there to audition for Pollock, she for the artist’s wife, Lee Krasner. Madison could tell as they read their lines that they were both having a hard time suppressing laughter at the terrible dialogue. They finally burst into giggles when the casting agent declared that they were both “far too good-looking for this project.” They headed straight from the audition to a nearby bar, where Keith knew a bartender willing to serve them despite their age. When he kissed her, it was her first taste of whiskey.

She didn’t even know that he attended UCLA until she spotted him in Wilson Plaza, holding hands with a girl she recognized from her History of Theater class. Blond, pretty, a less primped version of Madison herself. Madison made a point of befriending Susan Dempsey the very next day, quickly learning that she’d come to UCLA with her high school boyfriend. Keith wasn’t happy about his girlfriend’s newest friendship, but there wasn’t much he could say about it, was there?

Keith had Susan, so Madison moved on to other relationships, too. But they continued their dalliances. When Madison upped the ante by moving in with Susan sophomore year, it only seemed to make their secret rendezvous more exciting.

All that changed after Susan’s murder. Keith stopped calling and brushed Madison off when she called him. Not long after she finished shooting Beauty Land, he dropped out of college. He told everyone he had landed a major agent who had big plans for him. But whispers in the theater department speculated that he was so broken up about Susan’s murder than he could hardly function, let alone attend school or launch an acting career. Supposedly he had found Jesus. Other, less kind whispers suggested that his departure was proof that he’d had something to do with Susan’s death after all.

Now, twenty years later, time had been easier on him than on Madison, as always seemed to be the case with men. Somehow the lines on his thin, angular face made him even more handsome. The dark, tousled hair that had pegged him as a rocker type when he was a college freshman now came off as comfortable and confident. He occasionally showed up as a featured guest on a one-hour network drama and had even had a small part in an indie film the previous year. But even so, Madison hadn’t seen him in a regular gig since his cable sitcom was canceled four years earlier. Keith needed Under Suspicion almost as much as she did.

“Not a chance encounter,” she confirmed, just as the waitress returned with her drink. She took a seat next to him and smiled.

“Uh-oh. It’s been a while, but I know that look. You want something.”

“Did you get contacted by a TV producer named Laurie Moran?”

“Oh, I get contacted by so many projects, I can’t keep them all straight.” Now he was the one smiling. He was still a ham, a completely charming ham.

“It’s for Under Suspicion,” she said. “They want to do a show about Susan’s murder. They must have contacted you.”

He looked away and took a sip of his drink. When he spoke, the lighthearted tone was absent. “I don’t want anything to do with it. What’s the point in rehashing everything that happened back then? They’re really doing it?”

“Sounds like it.”

“Do you know who else is in?”

“Susan’s mother, Rosemary. Nicole, wherever she disappeared to. Apparently her last name’s Melling now. And the person I think you’ll really be interested in: Frank Parker.”

When Keith heard that Madison had landed the role in Beauty Land, he had shown up outside her dorm. He was drunk and yelled, “How could you? That man killed my Susan, and everyone knows it. All you ever will be is a cheaper, lesser version of her!” It was the only time he had made her cry.

“I’m surprised they got anyone to go along with the show, other than Rosemary,” he said.

“Well, I for one am doing it. If we play our cards right, it could help us both. Millions of people watch that show. It’s exposure.” She didn’t add that she also hoped to persuade Frank Parker to find a role for her in his next project.

“I’ll think about it. Is that it?”

“What I really need, Keith, is your word.”

“And what word might that be? A secret, magical word?” The playful smile had returned.

“I mean it,” she said. “No one can ever know about us.”

“It was twenty years ago, Madison. We were all kids. You really think anyone will care that you and I played footsie on occasion?”

Was that all I was to him? she thought. “Of course they’ll care. Susan was-perfect Susan: smart, talented, the whole package. I was-how did you word it? The other beauty, but a cheaper, lesser version. You know that the producers will portray Nicole as the good, loyal friend. I’ll be the rival drama queen.” Madison knew that the friendship between Susan and Nicole hadn’t been nearly as perfect as the media had made it seem in the aftermath of Susan’s death. “There are still people on the Internet saying I must have killed Susan or at least faked an alibi for Frank Parker, so I could get the role in Beauty Land. If the world finds out I was sneaking around with Saint Susan’s boyfriend, they’ll really think I did it.”

“Well, maybe you did.” She couldn’t tell whether he was teasing or serious.

“Or maybe you did,” she sniped, “just like Susan’s parents always thought. It won’t look good that you had something going with your girlfriend’s own roommate.”

“Mutual destruction,” he said, staring at the empty glass he was now spinning in his hand.

“So I have your word?”

“Word,” he said, pointing at her. “We never happened. Forget all our cozy little get-togethers. Our secret dies with us.”