Maggie looked at both of their faces. “You need to give me more than that. Cab said you knew something about the murder of Haley Adams from Fort Myers but you didn’t want to go public.”
Tarla shook her head. “No, I didn’t know anything about Haley Adams, not directly. And you’re right, I didn’t want to go public, and I still don’t. But given what’s happened, I’m willing to tell you what I know. As of now, Cab is the only other person in the world who knows about this.”
“Knows what?” Maggie asked.
“Did you ever see the movie Society of One?” Tarla asked.
“I did. Cab and I were talking about it on the drive up here. You were astonishing in that film.”
“I was,” Tarla agreed without a trace of arrogance. It was simply a fact. “Back then, I was a nobody. A drop-dead-gorgeous nobody, but that doesn’t narrow it down in L.A. Dean Casperson was the same age as me, but he was already an international star. He was going to drive the box office for the film, and everyone knew it. Including me. I wanted that part. I knew it was a career maker, and I was right.”
She was silent. Maggie said nothing. She noticed that Cab wouldn’t look at his mother.
“I got it. Casperson helped me land the role. He made sure I knew that. He said he saw something special in me, and you know what? I truly believe he did. He was being completely honest about that. Whatever else I may think about Dean Casperson’s morality, he is a brilliant actor who’s utterly devoted to the quality of the art.”
She paused again.
“Something happened?” Maggie guessed.
“Oh, yes. It was halfway through filming. I’d done most of my scenes. I was flying. I knew how good I was. Sometimes, on a film, you can feel the chemistry, that everything is coming together. That was true on Society of One.”
Tarla closed her eyes.
Maggie waited.
“There was a party at the house Dean rented,” Tarla went on. “This was in the Hamptons. Very glamorous. I’m the first to say I drank a lot that night. But I know my limit, and I wasn’t anywhere near it. I remember Dean offered to show me the house. It was a beautiful place. It probably belonged to some Manhattan hedge fund billionaire. When we were alone upstairs, he poured me another drink.”
She stopped. Tears filled her eyes, and she wasn’t acting.
“I passed out. When I woke up, he was on top of me. The room was spinning. I can still remember the smell of his breath and the smoothness of his voice, telling me how beautiful I was, how good this was going to be. I was naked. He still had on most of his clothes. I was incapable of fighting back. Literally, I was unable to move my limbs. It didn’t last long, thankfully. And then he was zipping up and buttoning his shirt and telling me he was sure I was going to win awards for this film. As if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.”
Maggie shook her head. “Ms. Bolton, I don’t know what to say. I’m very sorry.”
“But you have doubts, right? I can see it in your face. ‘She was a wannabe starlet, she already said she was drinking too much, she owed her role to this man. If he wanted sex, would she really have said no?’ And the funny thing is, you’re right. I probably would have said yes if he’d asked me. That’s how things are done. But he didn’t ask. It wasn’t about sex for Dean. It was about power and control. Raping me is what turned him on. And knowing I couldn’t do a thing about it afterward.”
“Did you tell anyone?” Maggie asked.
“Not a soul. Do you think anyone would have believed me? Or if they had, do you think they would have thanked me for tearing down an icon? No, the only one who would have suffered was me. My career would have been over. I didn’t tell anyone until two years ago. That was when I told Cab.”
“Believe me, she had to physically restrain me from going out and killing the son of a bitch,” Cab interjected.
“Did you tell Cab because of Haley Adams?” Maggie asked her.
“Yes, I was investigating Haley’s murder,” Cab interjected. “I knew she’d headed across the Sanibel bridge to a party she didn’t tell anyone about. I happened to mention it on the phone to Tarla, and she suggested, without giving me any explanation, that I find out whether Haley had been out to Dean’s estate on Captiva. I located two different witnesses who saw her there, but neither would go on the record. I didn’t tell Lala about it. I wanted to find out first why Tarla knew about this. That was when she told me what Dean had done to her. But she didn’t want to make a statement, and without that I didn’t have any evidence of anything. I just knew I was going to keep an eye on Dean Casperson. Sooner or later, I was going to bring him down.”
Tarla stood up from the glider chair. Her smile had the look of cracked china. “If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I think I’ll shower and change.”
Maggie waited until she was gone, and then she spoke to Cab softly. “I know what a terrible experience it was for your mother, but is there really any evidence connecting Haley’s murder to Dean Casperson? She was killed several weeks after the party.”
“I went through the restaurant receipts at Tin City for the day Haley was murdered,” Cab replied. “Guess who had lunch there that day? Jungle Jack Jensen. Do you really think that’s a coincidence? If you ask me, Dean assaulted Haley at the party, and then Jack paid her cash to keep her quiet. Either she was planning to go public about it anyway or she was looking for more money. So they had her killed.”
Maggie frowned. “And now Peach.”
“Right, and now Peach. One murder may be a coincidence. Not two. And definitely not seven.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry, what? Seven?”
“I’ve had two years to dig into Dean Casperson, Maggie,” Cab went on. “I’ve researched crime reports in every location where he’s done movies over the last thirty years. I found five other unsolved homicides or disappearances involving young women that occurred either during or within days after the filming. And those are just the ones I could find. If you ask me, it’s the tip of the iceberg. Dean Casperson is a serial killer by proxy, Maggie. He drugs young women, and he assaults them. If he smells any risk of them talking, he has them murdered.”
Maggie thought about Peach and said, “Something doesn’t add up.”
“What?”
“Peach wasn’t at any of the parties. She was spying.”
Cab nodded. “Right.”
“So if Dean didn’t assault her, why is Peach dead?”
“She must have seen something when she was watching the house,” Cab said.
“Wouldn’t she have told you?”
“Not necessarily. If Peach had one fault, it was that she was secretive. She didn’t like to come to me with half information or unproved theories. She wanted everything wrapped up with a bow. This time, she may have waited too long.”
“So what did she see?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know, but you better talk to your friends in Duluth,” Cab replied. “If she saw something that was worth killing over, you may have another victim up there.”
18
Serena stared at the photograph of Peach Piper that Maggie had sent her in an e-mail. There was no question that Peach was the girl they’d found in the woods, but in this photo she was fresh and alive. She had blond hair cut in a Mia Farrow pixie style. Freckles dotted her forehead, and her face was small and almost perfectly round. She was tiny, skinny, flat-chested, the kind of girl who could have passed for a teenager if she’d wanted.
What struck Serena most was the loneliness in Peach’s blue eyes. The photo showed her smiling, but her smile couldn’t completely hide the longing behind those eyes. She looked like someone who was alone in the world and had grown resigned to the fact that it would never change.
It made Serena angry. She had a weakness for lost girls. She’d been one of them herself, which was one of the reasons she’d fought so hard to make sure Cat was not a lost cause. But for Peach, it was too late. That made Serena furious. Particularly if Peach had died because of the whims of someone rich, powerful, and untouchable.