The Cinderella Murder

32

The next morning, Laurie hopped out of the van in front of Nicole Melling’s house. It was ten degrees warmer on this side of the Golden Gate Bridge than it had been when they’d left their hotel in downtown San Francisco half an hour earlier.

Jerry let out a whistle as he took in the view. “I may never go back to New York City.”

The house was situated at the top of a ridge above town, at the edge of Sorich Ranch Park. They were looking out across Ross Valley to two tree-covered mountains in the distance, the green of the leaves broken only by the early blooming of dogwoods.

Laurie heard the van’s rear door slide open and watched as Grace managed to climb out in form-fitting leggings and thigh-high leather stiletto boots. “Wow,” she said, following the direction of their gaze. “That’s almost enough to make me appreciate nature.”

“It’s hard to believe we’re only twenty miles away from the city,” Laurie said.

Jerry nudged Grace, who was fiddling with her iPhone. “Your love of nature didn’t last long,” he joked.

“Not true. I was doing research,” she said indignantly. She held up the screen and showed an image close to the view in front of them. “Those are Bald Hill and Mount Tamalpais,” she said, stumbling over the pronunciation. “And in case you’re wondering, according to Zillow, this house is worth-”

Jerry admonished her with a scolding index finger. “No! It’s bad enough that you cyberstalk everyone you meet, but I do not want to be a part of it. Yesterday, Laurie, she found a website called Who’s Dated Who. The grammar’s wrong, first of all. It should be Who’s Dated Whom. But thanks to that nonsense, I spent the entire delay at baggage claim hearing about the various ingénues linked to Frank Parker before he finally got married.”

“Oh, Jerry, if you only knew. That list was so long, it could have kept us occupied through hotel check-in.”

Jerry wasn’t done complaining. “And speaking of baggage claim, do you think you brought enough luggage, Grace? I managed to make the trip with only a carry-on.”

“Don’t blame the bags on me!” Grace protested. “It was your father, Laurie. He insisted on packing heat. Transporting a gun from New York to California means checking luggage. So, yes, Jerry, I figured if I had to go through the process, I might as well bring all my favorite shoes.”

Laurie shook her head and laughed. Jerry and Grace worked incredibly well together, but sometimes she felt like they warranted their own reality show with their Mutt-and-Jeff personality differences.

“My father doesn’t pack heat, Grace. But once a cop, always a cop: the man can’t sleep if he doesn’t have that gun in his nightstand. Now, let’s focus on Susan’s former roommate. And what she might be hiding.”

The interior of Nicole Melling’s home was as picture-perfect as its surroundings. Nicole greeted them in a light-filled foyer lined with brightly colored contemporary art. Laurie had done some cyber research of her own and had been unable to find a single photograph of Nicole online. All she had were a couple of high school yearbook photos Jerry had tracked down from Nicole’s hometown of Irvine, and her freshman class photo at UCLA. Even in her college photograph, Nicole hadn’t looked much older than fourteen.

The woman standing in front of Laurie today looked nothing like Laurie had expected. It’s not that Nicole had aged poorly. The adult version was far more attractive than the plain-looking, freckle-faced girl from those photographs. But she had changed her appearance drastically. The strawberry-blond hair that had hung well past her shoulders was now dyed and cropped into a dark brown, chin-length bob. Perhaps it was only for the cameras, but at least for today, she wore dramatic makeup, her eyes lined with charcoal. Perhaps more striking than any identifiable physical change, there was a confidence in the way she carried herself that had been lacking in those early photographs.

“Nicole,” Laurie said, offering a handshake, “thank you so much for being a part of Under Suspicion. Rosemary told me how close you and Susan became in college.”

“She was very caring toward me,” Nicole said quietly. She led them through the foyer into a large living room with open views of the valley outside.

They were interrupted by the appearance of a man wearing a loose oxford-cloth shirt and khakis. He had a bit of a paunch and was beginning to bald but had an inviting smile. Laurie thought she detected the faint smell of soap.

“Hey there. I thought I should at least say hello. I’m the husband, Gavin.”

Laurie rose from her chair to shake his hand. “You certainly didn’t have to take the day off for us,” she said.

“Oh, I didn’t. I work upstairs.” He pointed to the staircase off the foyer.

“Gavin’s in finance,” Nicole explained. “His firm is in the city, but he works here unless he has meetings.”

“Lucky you,” Laurie said. “Did you also go to UCLA? Is that how you met?”

“Oh no. I was out of Harvard and working at a start-up in San Francisco-one of the first companies that let regular people buy and sell stock online without a broker. I met Nicole in a bar.”

His wife rolled her eyes in frustration. “I hate it when you tell people that. It makes me sound cheap.”

“What’s worse is that she fell for my completely cheesy pickup line. I asked her if she had a Band-Aid, because I skinned my knee falling for her.”

Laurie feigned a groan. “Oh, that is awful.”

“True,” Gavin said, “but it was intentionally awful. There’s a difference.”

“To be clear,” Nicole said, “that’s just how we met. I felt sorry enough to give him my phone number, but we began to date properly after that.”

“And what brought you up to San Francisco after UCLA?” Laurie asked. She knew that Nicole quit school after her sophomore year and assumed it was because of what happened to Susan. She was always amazed to learn how the death of one person rippled out to change the course of so many other lives.

“I had originally wanted to go to Stanford or Berkeley, so I guess I felt a pull from Northern California. I mean, look at that view.”

The story sounded polite but superficial. “So, did you continue school up here?” Laurie asked.

“Nope.” Nicole shook her head and said nothing more.

“It’s just, I couldn’t help but notice that many of the people closest to Susan seem to have left school. You, Madison Meyer, Keith Ratner.”

“You’d have to ask them. I assume it’s not uncommon for actors to leave school if they start getting regular work. And of course Madison got that role in Beauty Land. As for me, I think Susan’s death made me realize life was short.”

“Are you still in touch with Madison or Keith?”

Nicole shook her head.

Laurie got the impression that this subject was making Nicole uncomfortable and decided to approach the questioning from a different angle. “So, when Mr. Pickup Man here threw you his clever line, you were still new to the area?”

Gavin was the one who laughed. “Like, just-off-the-train new. And nervous. She admitted giving me her number, but what she didn’t tell you was that she gave me a fake name.”

“No, really?” Laurie asked. “Why in the world?”

Nicole shifted in her seat. “Wow, I did not think we’d be talking about this. Truth be told, I was in that bar with a fake ID. I didn’t want the bartender to hear me using a name that didn’t match the license I’d just shown him. Besides, I can’t be the first woman who made up a fake name with a stranger trying to talk her up at a bar.”

“Certainly not,” Laurie said. But usually the fake name would come with a fake number, too. How many times had a younger Laurie, borrowing the lyrics of an old pop song, scribbled Jenny, 867-5309, on the inside of some drunk playboy’s matchbook?

“Anyway,” Gavin said, “it was love at almost-first-sight. We got married exactly six months after we met.”

Nicole smiled and patted her husband’s forearm. “Like I said, life is short.”

“I never realized that Susan was the reason you were willing to jump in so fast,” Gavin said. “In fact, Nicole never even talked about being Susan’s roommate until we happened to bump into Susan’s mother, Rosemary, at one of those huge dim sum places in Chinatown. Remember that, honey?”

Nicole raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“You remember,” her husband prompted. “Over all that noise from the tables and the food carts, I heard some woman yelling, ‘Nicole. Nicole Hunter?’ That’s her maiden name. And then Rosemary runs over and gives my wife this huge hug. So, of course, I ask her, ‘Who’s that?’ And then she tells me she was roommates with the Cinderella Murder victim.”

“It wasn’t something I liked to talk about,” Nicole said. “Even now.”

“Anyway, I was the one who went back to Rosemary’s table and insisted that she give us a call.”

Laurie had gotten the impression from Rosemary that Susan and Nicole had been best friends, but now she was learning that Nicole initially did not mention Susan’s murder to her own husband and had no relationship with Susan’s mother until Gavin suggested it.

She had been warned by Rosemary that Nicole could be shy and might even come off as aloof. But sitting here in Nicole’s living room, watching the woman continue that polite smile, Laurie was certain that Susan’s supposed best friend was lying to her.