“Got him,” she said.
“We should have Leo fill in the LAPD on what we’ve got,” Alex said. “Nicole, we can keep what you’ve told us confidential, at least for now. If the police agree, they can monitor the questioning of Keith while disguised as camera crew.”
“Maybe Rosemary was right about Keith all along,” Laurie said. “He could have sent one of his church buddies to shut down production on the show.”
“You guys are the experts,” Nicole said. “But if any of this is related to Advocates for God, I wouldn’t bother worrying about Keith Ratner. Martin Collins is the truly dangerous one. If this Steve Roman works for Collins, he’d be the kind of person willing to do anything for him. Trust me, I know.”
On her way to the car, Laurie was replaying Nicole’s description of Susan in a frantic search for her necklace, stressed out about her audition and lashing out at Nicole for introducing Keith to her fringe church. There was something about the scene that was bothering her.
Her thoughts were distracted by a new voice mail alert on her phone. It was Dwight. “Call me ASAP. I need to talk to you.” He would have to wait until morning. They needed to find an LAPD detective willing to help them corner Keith Ratner.
61
The next morning, Laurie stood in the driveway of the Bel Air house, watching for cars. She checked her watch. It was 9:58 A.M. Dwight Cook and Richard Hathaway were scheduled to arrive at ten, so she had asked Keith Ratner to come at eleven thirty. She figured he would be less likely to be suspicious about being called back in if he were one of multiple witnesses at the house.
She snuck a glance through the door into the living room. LAPD detective Sean Reilly blended in with the camera crew, wearing blue jeans, a baseball cap, and the black Under Suspicion T-shirt Laurie had provided. He was the detective assigned to the assault on Jerry. He was young, probably early thirties, the only lines on his face the kind that came whenever a cop took his job seriously.
It had taken a long late-night phone call to explain the connection from Lydia Levitt to Steve Roman to Advocates for God to Under Suspicion to Jerry, but Reilly finally agreed to come to the set to hear what Keith Ratner had to say about the church’s involvement in all of this.
Nicole Melling was already waiting in the house. Laurie had to hope that when the time came, all the pieces to the plan would fall into place.
A white Lexus SUV pulled into the driveway at 10:02. Hathaway was driving. No one else was in the car.
“I thought you and Dwight would come together,” she said as he opened his door.
“My place is in Toluca Lake.” Hathaway must have registered her blank expression because he added, “It’s in Burbank. Great place. Private lake. One of the best golf clubs in the state. Anyway, Dwight still has his student crash pad in Westwood. Driving out of your way during the L.A. commute? No one’s that good of a friend.”
“We’ll get you in and out quickly, just a little background about Susan’s technology interests. Her father was a successful intellectual property lawyer, and they shared an excitement for the tech world. You can talk about that side of her in a way our other witnesses can’t.”
Dwight still hadn’t arrived by the time Hathaway had been miked and powdered by the makeup technician. It was 10:20. Laurie listened as Hathaway left yet another voice mail message for Dwight: “Hey, man. Laurie and I have both been calling you. Hope you’re on your way.”
“I don’t get it,” Hathaway said, slipping his phone in his sports coat pocket. “He’s usually so prompt.”
Laurie was kicking herself for not finding the time to return his “ASAP” call last night. She now had a feeling that he had been calling to cancel. “I wonder if the idea of the cameras scared him off on the eve of the shoot,” she said.
Hathaway shrugged. “Maybe. But he had been so eager to help with the show.”
Laurie had planned to get Dwight and Hathaway out of here shortly after Keith arrived. Otherwise, Keith might lose patience and leave.
She made a quick decision to proceed with Hathaway alone. He was telegenic. He had cachet, having earned his tenure in his early thirties and then moved on to help a protégé form a groundbreaking company. If she could rope Dwight back in later, Alex could question him separately. It was more important not to ruin their plans for Keith Ratner.
As she had expected, Richard Hathaway was a natural on camera. “I had a lot of talented students at UCLA,” he told Alex, “but Susan was among the best. When she died, there was so much talk about her promising acting career, but I’ve always believed she could have gone on to be a star in the tech world. She could have been another Dwight Cook. Such a tragedy.”
His handsome face furrowed in thought, his voice resonating with the authority of a man who had been a professor, with step-by-step reasoning, he continued to talk about Susan and then, under Alex’s questioning, the night of her death.
“I remember the absolute shock of hearing on Sunday that her body had been found. Dwight was only nineteen years old then, the brain of a wizard but still adolescent in his relationships. It was impossible not to realize how he felt about Susan. Whenever they were in the lab together, his eyes were shining and he was smiling. When he got the awful news, he tracked me down at my home and cried in my arms.”
“Do you happen to know where Dwight was on the night Susan died?” Alex asked quietly.
“With me, actually. Dwight was in the throes of writing code for his project, and I knew he wanted to talk to me about it. I didn’t have any plans for the evening, so I called Dwight and asked him if he wanted to join me for a burger.”
“What time was this?” Alex asked.
“I called him around seven. Met him just after that at Hamburger Haven.”
“One more thing,” Alex added. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t mention the fact that you were very popular among female students and had a bit of a reputation as a Don Juan.”
Hathaway laughed. “Ah, yes. Most crush-worthy professor, according to the campus paper. All rumor and innuendo, I assure you. I’m convinced it’s inevitable when you’re a young, single academic.”
“So anyone who suggested you may have taken a more-than-professional interest in Susan…?”
“Would be deeply mistaken. Not to mention, Susan was very clearly taken by her boyfriend. It broke my heart watching poor Dwight pine for her.”
Hathaway had been perfect, providing the touch of personality she’d been looking for. Dwight Cook was the face of REACH, but Hathaway was a hundred times better on camera than Dwight would have been.
She had just yelled “Cut!” when she heard the purr of a sports car outside the house, followed by the sound of a car door slamming. Keith Ratner was here. She could send Hathaway home. Perfect timing.
62
Laurie placed Keith in the same spot on the sofa where he’d been the previous day, wearing the same shirt, as requested.
“Again, I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “We lost the footage of you telling us where you were the night of Susan’s murder. If you can just repeat that, we’ll shoot you close in. It will look just like you’re sitting next to Madison and Nicole.”
“Sure, no problem.”
She double-checked that Detective Reilly was positioned with the camera crew, then gave the signal to start filming.
Alex started with the identical line he’d used the previous morning. “I thought we’d start,” Alex said, “by having each of you walk through where you were the night of the murder. Keith, would you like to begin?”