Microphones and Murder

by Erin Huss

  Camry leapt over the coffee table and wedged herself between Hazel and me. “What did he say?”

  “He said he knows all about Amelia and asked if we are available to talk right now.”

  “Aha! I told you it wasn’t a waste of our time.”

  I gave her a look. “Sure you did.”

  “Stop staring at me and call him back!”

  Will do.

  Efran agreed to be recorded via Skype, and I worked quickly to set up the equipment. It was nearly nine p.m. in California, and he now lived in New York. The fact that he was willing to stay up past midnight to speak to us told me that he had something worth saying.

  I sat in the closet, slid the door closed, put my headphones on, tested my mic, and made the call. I wasn’t doing a video Skype—there was no point—I only needed the audio.

  Efran had a younger voice than I imaged he would. Before we started, I asked him to talk so I could test the audio quality. He said the ABC’s and we were good to go.

  “Thank you for speaking to me so late. I really appreciate it,” I said.

  “I’m sorry for hanging up on you. I get way too many sales calls,” he said. “But I do know about Amelia Clark and her disappearance. I followed it for a long time. As a matter of fact, last year I checked online to see if they’d ever found her.”

  “Did you know Amelia?”

  “No, I never met her. I lived in Los Angeles, but I was all over the Central Coast and Southern California region for CVS. All stores from San Luis Obispo to San Diego.”

  Wow, that was a lot of stores. “Why were you so interested in Amelia’s disappearance?”

  “I had received a call from the Orcutt manager. She said the police asked for surveillance video from October 3 until October 12. I asked why and if they had a warrant. They did, and she told me it was for the Amelia Clark case, and went ahead and gave me a briefing of the viral video, the car, hiking trail, and that she had disappeared. We gave the police the video and I never heard from them again.”

  “Did they ask for surveillance from the other stores in the area?”

  “No, just that one. They found a bag in her car and inside was a receipt from the Orcutt store.”

  That was the first CVS Camry and I went to.

  “There’s more, though,” Efran said. “It just so happens that I was at that store on October 9, and I remember watching Amelia on the cameras when she was there.”

  I was confused. “You must look at a lot of surveillance, how do you remember Amelia?”

  “Do you have an email address?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly and give it to him. “Why?”

  “Check your email then call me back.” The line went silent.

  Okay, guess I’ll wait.

  It took several painful minutes for Efran’s email to show up in my inbox. By the time it did, Camry was hovering over my shoulder, breathing down my neck. We could have probably exited the closet, but I didn’t want to reset everything up.

  From: Efran Dym

  To: Missing or Murdered tips

  My heart jumped into my throat when I read the subject line.

  Subject: Surveillance Video from October 9, 2008

  “Holy hell.” Camry smacked my shoulders. “Open it. Open it. Open it. Open it. Open it!”

  “I am, calm down.” I clicked on the video and it took an excruciating amount of time to download. The cynic in me expected it to be a virus, but the optimist in me was shivering in excitement.

  Finally, the video popped up. It was in black and white, with the time and date stamped in the corner, and Video Camera One along the bottom. The quality wasn’t great. It looked like Efran took a video of a video. At first, all we could see was an empty feminine hygiene and family planning aisle. Then at exactly 1730 (5:30 p.m.), Amelia walked into the picture. She had on a baby doll dress, sandals, her hair in a ponytail, with a handcart swinging at her side. It was surreal seeing actual footage of her. It was surreal to think that one day later she’d be gone. It was surreal that Efran has this footage. Actually, it was strange that Efran had this footage.

  Amelia stopped at the end of the aisle. The angle switched to Video Camera Three, and we could only see Amelia’s back and I nearly choked on my own spit.

  “Is-is-is she...” Camry stuttered out.

  I nodded. “Sure looks like it.”

  “What the frog.”

  My sentiments exactly.

  Amelia was looking at pregnancy tests.

  Episode Fifteen

  Mysterious Blonde

  “It would have to be Jeremy’s baby, right?” Camry asked.

  I paused the video. “But she hooked up with Jeremy the week before. There’s no way to find out your pregnant that fast.”

  “Maybe she hooked up with someone else? Like Carlos.”

  “But everyone commented on how thin she was.” My mind took a sharp right, and I remembered when my sister-in-law was pregnant. She lost a considerable amount of weight the first trimester from all day morning sickness.

  Holy hell.

  I resumed the video, chewing on my cuticles as I watched.

  Amelia bent down and looked at the bottom shelf, picking up boxes and reading the back. We couldn’t see what she was looking at and I paused the video. “A pregnancy test would have been on the receipt. Which means Leon saw it. I’m sure he would have mentioned she was pregnant.”

  “He didn’t tell us about Jeremy,” Camry said.

  True. “But an ex-boyfriend is different than being pregnant.”

  “Meh. Hurry up and push play. You’re killing me.”

  I resumed the video. Amelia spent another two minutes looking at boxes until she was startled by something off in the distance. She threw a box in her cart and slowly rose to her feet, still looking at something in the background, and clasped her hand over her mouth. The camera changed to Video Camera Ten, and all we could see were the registers and a long line of customers waiting to be rung up. I paused the video and searched for a familiar face, but I didn’t find one. Neither could Camry.

  Resumed.

  Video Camera Twelve and it was the front door looking into the store. Two people walked in, a young guy and a short girl with long blonde hair. All we could see was their backs. The camera changed again, and we were back in the feminine hygiene aisle. Amelia was gone, and the guy and girl walked hand-in-hand and stopped at the family planning section. I paused the video.

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to tell, but the guy has dark hair and looks about the same height as Jeremy. We need to see his face.”

  I resumed the video and, as if on cue, the camera changed so we can see their faces. It was Jeremy. He was younger and thinner and his hair was longer—but it was him.

  “Who is the girl, though?” Camry asked.

  “I have no idea, but whoever it is, he’s about to hook up with her.” Jeremy grabbed a box of condoms and the two laughed at something the girl said.

  Camry reached over and paused the video. “Didn’t Jeremy say he hooked up with someone who turned out to be crazy right before he went to Austin?”

  “You’re right. This is probably her.”

  “Unless he hooked up with another chick.”

  “It’s a possibility. We need to find this girl, though.”

  “Absolutely. Now push play.”

  The video continued with Jeremy and the mystery girl chatting. The camera changed to the Halloween aisle. Amelia was crouched down with her hand over her mouth, shaking her head. She peeked up to see if Jeremy was still there and immediately dropped back down. In her basket was a rectangle box. It could have easily been a pregnancy test, or it could have been an ovulation kit, or yeast infection medication. They all have similar packaging.

  Amelia crawled on all fours down t
he aisle; a collection of Halloween decorations lit up as she passed and she opened her arms, looked up, and mouthed, “Why?” Which made me laugh. Here she was trying to sneak away, and instead she activated a whole collection of witches and pumpkins and skeletons with glowing eyes. There was no audio, but I imagined it was loud.

  She quickly crawled to the next aisle and the camera changed. Camry and I both leaned closer. It was the Christmas decorations!

  Amelia grabbed several items off the shelves without looking and shoved them into her basket, presumably to hide the box. Then she sat back on her knees and peered around the corner, watching and waiting. The camera didn’t switch, but I assumed she was waiting for Jeremy and his date to leave.

  “She doesn’t look scared,” I said to Camry. “She seems embarrassed.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So she wasn’t scared of Jeremy.”

  “Agreed.”

  At the three-minute mark, Amelia jumped up and ran. The camera changed and she was at the register, urging the clerk to hurry up, still checking over her shoulder. A three-foot receipt printed out. Amelia shoved it into her bag and knocked into a man with dark skin wearing a white shirt. The two talked and she opened her bag to show the man what was inside. Then she opened her purse and the man used a flashlight to check her belongings. He nodded and stepped out of the way.

  Then the screen went black.

  I called Efran back. He answered on the first ring, “Did you watch it?”

  “Did CVS let you have this?” I asked.

  “No, I took the video with my camera. That was me at the end, checking Amelia’s bag. That’s why I remembered her, because she was crawling on the ground. It wasn’t until after the cops asked for the footage, that I went back and watched the other cameras to see what she was looking at. You saw the guy with the blonde girl, right?”

  “Yes, that’s her ex-boyfriend.”

  There was silence on the other end. “It looks like she’s trying to avoid them.”

  “Did you turn this over to the police?”

  “I did, but they never asked for anything else.”

  “Do you remember what was in her bag?” I asked.

  “Christmas decorations and—” He sighed. “—I want to say a box of medication. But I can’t remember.”

  “Was it a pregnancy test?”

  “No, no, no. That I would remember. Pregnancy tests and razors were stolen regularly from that store. It was something else. Some kind of ointment. Yeast infection, maybe. I don’t recall exactly.”

  She wasn’t pregnant.

  What a sweet relief.

  “Can I use this video?” I asked. “Do I need permission from CVS?”

  “I’d say use it, honestly. It’s been over ten years, and I doubt anyone will care.”

  “Do you still work there?”

  “No, I work for a sporting store now. But I am curious about what happened to her.”

  “You and me both,” I said. “Thank you so much for this.”

  “My pleasure.”

  We hung up and I re-watched the video ten more times before I fell asleep.

  Episode Sixteen

  North Carolina

  Camry spent the next two days “bumping” our Facebook post on the mom’s group and the results were staggering. Two hundred comments followed from friends, former classmates, neighbors, teachers, people who volunteered on the search, those who worked with her at CinnaMann’s and Direct Dental.

  We conducted a Skype interview with Kelly Barnard, Amelia’s former boss. She offered no new information. When asked why Amelia was fired, Kelly got defensive. “She wasn’t fired. Millie gave her two weeks’ notice in the video. HR thought, under the circumstances, that it was best to pay her the two weeks and let her go that day.”

  “Did you agree with them?”

  “I did. Truthfully, Amelia was distracted those last few months. I shouldn’t have let her go to the gala, but my kid had a talent show that night.”

  “Anything else you can remember?”

  “Just that she’d lost weight and appeared physically and emotionally beaten.”

  The word “beaten” stuck with me. It was the same verbiage Detective LeClare used.

  As word of our podcast spread through the city, suddenly everyone wanted to talk. Whether they had something important to say or not.

  Our Facebook messenger inbox filled with leads.

  She ate at Melba’s Diner the week she disappeared.

  We visited Melba’s. The owner recalled seeing Amelia but couldn’t remember what day it was and now, neither could the original tipster.

  Dead End.

  One woman got a hold of my cell number and left a detailed message of the time she was abducted by aliens and Amelia Clark was her roommate on the spacecraft.

  Dead End.

  We were losing momentum.

  Nothing that lead us to Scottydog00. Nothing on Carlos. No ID of the woman in the video. No new breaks.

  Until we got a message from Dr. Deb Naidoo on Facebook Messenger.

  My name is Dr. Deb Naidoo. When I first moved to this country, I worked at my cousin’s restaurant. This was in the end of 2008. That’s how I knew Amelia Clark. She went by the name Millie then. She was very upset about a video posted on the Internet. I did not know she went missing until I saw your post on the Mom’s Facebook group. I thought she had moved away. I would very much like to offer my help. She and I talked a lot about her problems, and now I am very concerned.

  Deb had me at “Millie.”

  Deb worked at a free medical clinic off Price Street in Pismo Beach (a small beach town about thirty minutes north), and we arranged to meet outside of the popular tourist stop, The Splash Café. Their clam chowder must be made of gold because it wasn’t even lunch yet and the line was out the door and around the corner.

  We were early and passed the time by taking pictures of each other in front of the clam mural outside the building. Camry sent the pic to our parents to prove we hadn’t killed each other yet.

  They each replied with smiley faces.

  Price Street was busy. People riding bikes, surfers carrying their boards to the beach, tourists taking pictures. A bum dressed like a pirate gave me a flyer proclaiming The End is Near! Repent now! And told me a spaceship would land tomorrow afternoon. Maybe it was the same spaceship Amelia was on. I shoved the flyer into my bag.

  As soon as the clock struck twelve, I spotted Dr. Naidoo walking down the street. I recognized her from her Facebook profile.

  Dr. Deb Naidoo had dark skin, short hair, big brown eyes, and a no-nonsense stride. She was in blue scrubs and pink Crocs.

  She recognized us. “You’re Liv from the podcast,” she said. Her accent was thick.

  “I am, and this is Camry Lewis. It’s nice to meet you.” I held out a hand.

  Dr. Deb jerked her head to the right. “We should go to the candy store on the corner. It’s quieter there.”

  I retracted my hand. “Lead the way.”

  The three of us stepped into an old-fashioned salt-water taffy store. Deb bought a bag of root beer taffy. Camry bought three pieces of peppermint taffy. I bought none. It took several shimmies to get my pants on this morning. New clothes were not in the budget.

  We sat near the window. I clipped a microphone onto Deb, tested to be sure we were recording and started.

  “Please tell us your name, a little bit about yourself and how you knew Amelia,” I said.

  “I’m on my lunch. No time for my life story. I worked at my cousin’s restaurant in 2008. Millie, she came in late one night with rice in her hair and a silver dress on. She was watching a video on her computer. She was very upset. She said she was at a gala for work but had to leave.”

  “What’s the name of the restaurant?” I asked.

 
“Sal’s Diner. Went out of business in 2009,” she said, annoyed that I had interrupted her. “That was on a Friday night. October 3. Millie came back three more times. Once was on a Monday, and she met a young man with tattoos down his arms.”

  “Was one a pineapple?” I asked.

  “No pineapple, but he ordered a salad with pineapple and gave it to her. I remember ’cause she was waving the fork in front of his face with the pineapple on it. They were laughing. I thought they were a couple.”

  Interesting.

  “Millie told the boy that she came to Sal’s because it was a metaphor. She will build her life from the very place it was ruined. She came back the next two days. She told me she was thinking about moving. Then I saw her on a Wednesday night, which would have been the eighth of October, and never again.”

  “Did she say where she wanted to move?” I asked.

  “She once said North Carolina. You can get an apartment there for under five hundred dollars is what I overheard her say to the man with tattoos. I knew Millie was on a tight budget. She only paid with cash and she only bought the cheapest thing on the menu, and she didn’t tip well.”

  This was consistent with what Leon said about her not having a debit or credit card. Which gave validity to what she was saying. Which made Dr. Deb Naidoo my new favorite person. “What was her disposition Wednesday evening?”

  “She thought someone was going to post another video because she had an incident at a cell store. But I don’t know what she meant. She talked about running away and starting over. Then she didn’t show up for a date on Friday night, and I thought she did move away like she said.”

  I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “She had a date Friday night?”

  “Yes. The boy who worked at the computer supply store next door came in. He said he was waiting for Millie. I felt very bad because he waited for an hour then he got a call on his phone and left in a hurry. I never saw him again either.”

  “Wait, wait. Are you sure it was the same Millie?”

  “Yes. I saw them talking many times before,” said Deb. “They talked on Wednesday outside of Sal’s. He was waiting for Millie, I know it for certain.”