“Keith, you’ve been very quiet during this. Wouldn’t Susan have confided in you that she was quarreling with one of her closest friends?”
He shrugged as if this was the first he’d heard of any tension between the two friends. His seeming indifference struck Laurie as odd.
Alex made one more effort. “I want to ask you all, now that the importance of the question is clear. For the first time, we have revealed that Susan stormed out of her dorm room. It is likely because of her car problems that she did not drive herself to Frank Parker’s for the audition. That means she may have encountered someone the police never questioned. Where should we be looking? Where would she have gone?”
Madison appeared genuinely perplexed, but Laurie noticed Nicole and Keith exchange a wary glance.
From the first time Laurie had met Nicole in person, she’d believed Nicole was being intentionally vague about her reasons for leaving UCLA. They hadn’t yet solved the case, but one thing was clear: Nicole’s departure from Los Angeles had something to do with her fight with Susan, and Keith was covering for her.
56
Leo Farley sat back on the sofa to rest his eyes. Detective O’Brien, the lead detective, had e-mailed Leo a list of license plates from camera footage near Castle Crossings, the gated community where Lydia Levitt had been killed. Today, after taking Timmy to the zoo, he had stopped by the LAPD and gotten driver’s license photos for most of the cars’ owners, as well as their criminal history reports.
He had excused himself from the dinner table early, eager to pore through the materials. This house was luxurious, but at the moment, he missed the bulletin boards and laminate furniture of a police precinct. The documents and pictures were spread around him in layers across the sofa cushions, glass coffee table, and plush carpet.
Two hours later, he had finished his second perusal of every single piece of paper. He had been hoping for an obvious lead: a name associated with the Susan Dempsey case, something to connect the murder in Rosemary’s backyard to the murder of Rosemary’s daughter twenty years earlier. He had to believe that Laurie’s decision to feature the Cinderella Murder case had led to the attacks on both Rosemary’s neighbor and Jerry.
But nothing was jumping out.
Timmy came bounding out of the kitchen toward him. “Grandpa! Have you found anything yet?”
“Careful,” Leo warned as Timmy tipped over a stack of printouts on his way to Leo’s side. “I know this stuff looks like a mess, but I’ve actually got a system going here.”
“Sorry, Grandpa.” Timmy reached next to him and began straightening the pile that had been toppled. “What are these?”
“Those are photographs of drivers who were near Castle Crossings on the day I’m interested in but who have prior addresses in Los Angeles.”
“And you’re interested in that particular day because that’s when Mrs. Dempsey’s neighbor got killed?”
Leo looked toward the kitchen, where he could hear the others finishing up their dinner. Laurie didn’t like him talking so openly about crime with Timmy, but the boy had witnessed his own father’s murder and spent years under the killer’s threat to come for Timmy as well. As far as Leo was concerned, the child was going to have a natural curiosity about crime.
“Yes, that’s why we’re interested. And if the person who hurt Lydia has something to do with your mother’s case-”
Timmy completed the thought. “Then he might have lived down here when Susan was in college.” He was sneaking peeks at the driver’s license photos he was supposedly straightening.
“That’s right,” Leo said. “I tell ya, Timmy. You can do anything you want when you grow up, but you’ve got the chops to be a better cop than I was.”
Timmy suddenly stopped fiddling with the pictures and pulled one from the pile. “I know him!”
“Timmy, we’re not playing police right now. I’ve got to get back to work here.”
“No, I mean it, for real. I saw him in the restaurant in San Francisco, the one with the huge meatballs and all the pictures of celebrities on the walls.”
“At Mama Torini’s?”
“Yes. This man was there. He was sitting at the bar, right above our table. Whenever I looked at him, he turned around really fast.”
Leo took the photograph from his grandson. According to the driver’s license, the man was Steve Roman. His current address in San Francisco had been changed with the DMV two years earlier. Before that, he had been a longtime resident of Los Angeles.
“You’re saying you saw this man, in person, when we were in San Francisco?”
“Yes. He had big muscles and pale skin. And his head was shaved. Not like bald when the hair falls out, but it was shaved, like when you say you have five o’clock shadow, Grandpa. And I remember thinking it was funny he’d shave his head while other grown-ups complain all the time about their hair falling out. Plus the bartender had long dark hair but kept it in a ponytail, so in a way he was hiding his hair too.”
“Timmy, are you sure?” But Leo could tell Timmy was sure. As much as he credited Timmy’s ability to deal with hardship, the threat of Blue Eyes had trained the boy to constantly monitor any man in his vicinity.
Leo believed that Timmy had indeed seen Steve Roman. Still, he’d like to have something more to connect this man to the case.
“Do me a favor, kiddo. Can you fetch me your iPad from the kitchen?”
Seconds later, Timmy was back with his gadget in tow. “Are we playing a game?”
“Not quite yet.” Leo opened the browser, typed in “Steve Roman,” and hit ENTER.
He found listings for a Boston Realtor, a New York City investment banker, the author of a book about rain forests. He scrolled to the next page of results.
Timmy touched his index finger to the screen. “Look, Grandpa. Click on that one. Weren’t Mommy and Alex talking about that today?”
Leo knew immediately from the name of the website that he had found the correct Steve Roman. He finally had the connection he was looking for between Lydia Levitt’s murder and Under Suspicion.
“Laurie!” he called out. “You need to see this!”
57
“Alex, that was delicious.” Laurie could still smell the aroma of cooked red wine and mushrooms as she filled the cast-iron pot with sudsy water to soak overnight.
“I’ll pass the compliment on to Ramon. He’s the one who taught me everything I know about coq au vin.” It had been Alex’s idea to send craft services away early so they could have one home-cooked meal in this gourmet kitchen.
“A five-star dinner,” Laurie said, “and then in the morning, little elves will appear to carry away the dirty dishes. I could get used to this.”
She had just stacked the final plate in the sink when she heard the sound of her father’s voice from the living room. “Laurie!” Was it her imagination, or did he sound excited? “You need to see this!”
She turned off the faucet and ran to the living room. Her father and son were next to each other on the sofa.
“We’ve got something, Laurie. It was actually Timmy who made the connection.”
“Dad, I told you I didn’t want him exposed to all this.”
Now Timmy was on his feet, extending a printout of a driver’s license. “I recognized this man right away, Mommy. His name is Steve Roman. His car was photographed right outside Mrs. Dempsey’s neighborhood the day Lydia Levitt got killed in her yard.” Laurie could not believe she was hearing her nine-year-old son talk this way about a homicide. “And I also saw him right next to us at the restaurant in San Francisco, at Mama…”
He looked to his grandfather for help with the name. “At Mama Torini’s,” Leo said. “Timmy got a good enough look at him to recognize this picture. The man’s name is Steve Roman. He lives in San Francisco, but until two years ago, he was in Los Angeles. And get this.”