“And you think she was really falling for him.”
“Oh, I know she was. Only, then all of a sudden, he just drops her, and she’s really devastated. She thought it was ’cause she’d told him who her dad was, that he didn’t want get involved with a judge’s kid, but she just wouldn’t let go.”
“So, she pursued him?”
“Not only that. She went and got this tattoo, on her wrist. She said one of the girls that hung around the club—a friend of his—had one and that he thought it was cool.”
“Did you know what it symbolized?”
“She said it made her his girl. You know, like how some girls tattoo their boyfriend’s name on their arm or maybe a butterfly on their ankle. I think she hoped if he saw it he’d realize how much she cared.”
Suddenly the pictures and the stories the paper had been running since Monica’s abduction were taking on a whole new meaning for me. The girl in the photos with her parents, singing in her church choir, feeding the homeless, reading to her kindergarten class, they weren’t just of the saint her father described her to be. She may have been a naïve young woman, an innocent, but if Bethany were correct, she was very definitely into the Hollywood club scene.
“She begged me to come with her. She wanted to see him again, but I wouldn’t go.” Bethany put her head in her hands and started to cry. “I can’t believe she’s dead. Maybe if I’d gone with her, she wouldn’t be.”
I wanted to put my arms around her, but she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then reaching into her pocket, handed me a crumpled piece of paper. It was a flyer, some type of Hollywood advertisement promoting an event.
The headline read: Pub Crawl. Free Entrance into Hollywood’s Hottest Clubs. No cover. No wait. Beneath the headline, in fine print, was a description of the various bars, clubs and hot spots promising anyone looking to party an “Awesome Night.” A telephone number was printed in bold for reservations.
“She wanted me to come with her. She said it’d be fun.”
I folded the flyer and asked her if I could keep it. Tears began welling up in her eyes as she nodded her head. I pressed my business card into her hand.
“If you think of anything else, or if you need to talk, call me anytime. Alright?”
I wanted to tell her it’d be okay, but I knew better. I could see in her eyes she was blaming herself for Monica’s murder. Around us people started jumping to their feet, cheering. Cate was going crazy. Charlie had scored a touchdown. She grabbed my hand. I jumped to my feet and turned to look at the scoreboard. It was flashing a winning score for the Vikings. Home: forty-four. Visitors: forty-seven. By the time I turned back Bethany was gone.
CHAPTER 9
Despite the lilt of my daughter’s laughter and the smell of roasted garlic and tomatoes coming from Sheri’s kitchen, I was having trouble feeling festive. Standing in front of the living room’s large plate glass window I stared out at the city lights below, my mind wandering back over the events of the day. How many other missing girls might still be out there? Alone and afraid, they might end up like Monica.
“Champagne?” Sheri entered the living room with Cate. She was carrying a silver tray of hors d’oeuvres and three perfectly frosted champagne flutes, chilled and bubbly. She handed a glass to me, then one to Cate, and suggested we toast.
“To your birthday.”
“And to a little girl time,” Cate added.
The boys had gone off with Charlie’s dad for a weekend of football and Boston baked beans. My ex had tickets to the USC/Boston College game—which obviously trumped my birthday—and Charlie asked Clint to go with them. They’d been packed and ready to go for days and left right after their game.
The three of us clinked glasses. Dinner would be another few minutes. Cate wandered over to a bookcase filled with old LP’s; an antique Victrola was on the shelf in front of her. I looked back out the black window at the lights. Traces of my conversation with Bethany continued to run through my mind nonstop.
“What are you thinking about?” Sheri leaned closer to me and whispered. “I can tell from the look on your face you’re off somewhere else. What is it? ”
“I’m sorry. I’m having trouble switching gears. I keep thinking about the young woman sitting behind us at the game. She was a friend of Monica Channing’s.”
“I knew it. You’re thinking about those missing girls, aren’t you?”
“What do you know about the pub crawls?” I asked.
“Is that what that woman behind us at the game was talking about?” Cate approached with an album in her hand and sat down on the couch next to us.
“She said Monica had met a man online and had gotten herself into the club scene pretty heavily before she disappeared.”
“It’d be easy enough to do,” Cate said. “Men are always fishing for girls online.”
I looked at Cate. “You know anything about this?”
“Not this exactly. But online hookups? Everybody knows. There’re girls at school who have online sugar daddies. Older guys who like young girls. We call them Sugar Babies. The men pay for their education in exchange for what they call friendship.”
“That’s legal?” Sheri asked.
“It’s just like any other matchmaking site, only the girls aren’t looking for a relationship. At least not in the traditional sense. Besides, what consenting adults do is up to them.” Cate sounded very self-assured.
“But these Sugar Babies, as you call them, they’re not disappearing,” I said.
“On the contrary, they’re graduating debt free and bragging about it.”
I rolled my eyes, and took the flyer Bethany had given me out of my pocket and placed it on the table.
“Difference is, these girls aren’t free at all. In fact, I think whoever kidnapped them is using them as slaves.”
Sheri looked at Cate then back at me.
“It’s called human trafficking,” I said. “And if I’m right, it’s going on right here in Hollywood, and for whatever reason the police aren’t talking about it.”
“But why would the police want to keep it quiet?” Sheri asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe because they’re in the middle of an active investigation and don’t want to blow it. But someone’s targeting young women on the internet. Marilyn Ann Billings had an online relationship with a talent agent. Her sister said it’s why she came to Hollywood. Jessica Martin was in a bad situation at home and needed to get away. April Hansen was about to go back to court for DUI. There are sites online offering financial aid. Maybe, just like those Sugar Babies, they found somebody who offered them a way out. As for Leticia Johnson and Brandy White, the girls Detective Browne told me about, I’ll bet if I did a little digging I’d find they had access to a computer and also met someone online.”
“But what about Gabi Garrison?” Sheri asked. “I don’t see an ex-news reporter falling for an online dating scam or anything close to it.”
“She’s the only one that doesn’t fit...Unless—” I stopped. The thought was chilling.
“Unless what?” Sheri asked.
“Unless Gabi Garrison was a replacement for Monica Channing. And whoever killed Monica, saw Gabi—she liked to frequent the Hollywood clubs—and maybe they figured she’d work perfectly. I mean look at the two of them; they could be sisters, both blonde, about the same size, same age.”
Sheri put her glass down on the table and picked up the flyer.
“And you think that if you just get yourself downtown and sign up for some pub crawl, you’re going to find whoever kidnapped Monica, and maybe Gabi and these other girls? That it’s going to be that easy?”
“Maybe.”
“No, no way.” Cate grabbed the flyer out Sheri’s hand. “You’re not doing some pub crawl down on Hollywood Boulevard.”
“Why not?”
�
��Well, to start with, you’re my mother and you’re too old.”
I stood up and reached for her champagne glass. “Really? Brave words for someone not yet twenty-one.”
Cate turned away from me, shielding her glass then looked back at Sheri as though she expected some sort of support.
“Tell her she’s ridiculous. She’s not going on some pub crawl. It could be dangerous.”
“Oh, stop it. This is research. Nothing more. Nobody’s going to know what I’m doing, and the station will love it. They’re always looking for ways to promote themselves in different areas of the city. And if along the way I uncover something about Monica and the missing girls, well, so much the better.” I crossed my fingers. I’d barely mentioned the idea to Tyler. In truth, I’d left a harried voicemail as I left the game, telling him about my encounter with Bethany and my suspicion about the pub crawls. “Plus, I ran into a woman this morning that could help. So it might not be as tough as you think.”
I explained the Marilyns, the dancing flash mob in front of Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and how one of the impersonators had introduced herself.
“She gave me her card, said if I ever wanted to really see Hollywood Boulevard to give her a call, and I think right now that might be a good idea.”
Cate looked at Sheri. The two exchanged a look, then Cate said, “Well, then you’re not going alone.”
CHAPTER 10
Saturday morning the front page of the LA Times ran a picture of Monica Channing’s body as it was being airlifted out of the canyon. The headline above the photo said it all: “Judge’s Daughter Found Dead.” I stared at the picture for the longest time, my coffee growing cold as I read and reread the article. Even though I’d watched as the paramedics hiked down the hill and secured her lifeless body to the gurney, I couldn’t believe it. The only similarity to the once happy young woman, whose smiling face had been blasted across the city on billboards and posters for the last two weeks, was a strand of curly blonde hair that had escaped the thin Mylar blanket thrown over her body. It danced with the wind as she was airlifted from the scene like some final goodbye.
The story contained a few brief details about her disappearance, including the discovery of her body by a passing motorist and that she had died as a result of a broken neck, the cause of which was yet to be determined. There was no mention as to how her crumpled body had come to be found nearly doubled over beneath the big oak tree. In fact, the entire story concerning her murder was as barebones as it gets. Chief Walker was quoted as saying the police believed Miss Channing may have been the latest victim in a string of kidnappings targeting young women in Hollywood and that an investigation was underway.
The story then conveniently jumped to an inside page and included photos of Monica’s early life: Monica surrounded by her kindergarten class, Monica in college, Monica playing soccer, and Monica as a small child on a tricycle in front of the family home, a large stone mansion with a circular drive in Stone Canyon. The judge was quoted saying how proud he was of his daughter. Both he and his wife were thankful to have had her in their lives for as long as they did. At the age of five Monica had been severely injured when her mother accidentally backed the family car out of the garage and hit her while Monica was riding her trike.
She had been hospitalized and lapsed in and out of a coma for weeks. But looking at later photos of her active lifestyle, it appeared she had suffered no long-term effects. The judge said they felt blessed that Monica had survived, and admitted both he and his wife had been overprotective.
A related story, “LAPD Believes Missing Women Were Kidnapped,” ran as a sidebar to the report about Monica’s disappearance. The article included more quotes from Detective Browne. LAPD and FBI were now revisiting cold cases of other missing persons, including Jessie Martin, Marilyn Ann Billings and April Hansen. Their photos, along with those of Leticia Johnston and Brandy White, were included in the article, and looked like they might have come from their high school yearbooks. Leticia’s picture leaped out at me. The girl was a knockout.
Even in a grainy black and white photo, it was possible to see she had a future in front of the camera. Leticia had a broad confident grin, straight white teeth, and with her hair pulled away from her face in tight cornrows, her features were model-esque.
Brandy White, the younger of the two, had freckles, wore a beanie on her head and round black-framed glasses. She looked a little like Urkle from the TV comedy series Family Matters. But beneath her very nerdy expression, I could see classic pretty-girl features: big eyes, high cheekbones, straight teeth and an award-winning smile. I wondered if she were trying to hide her looks behind some alter ego.
The newspaper devoted two column inches to their background. Leticia was living with her grandmother; her mother was in prison for drug possession with intent to sell. She’d served seven of her of nine-year sentence. Brandy had grown up in foster homes, the whereabouts of her family unknown. Both girls had simply disappeared off the street and were, until Monica’s disappearance, assumed to have been runaways. Their names had now been added to a list of missing girls suspected to have been kidnapped.
At the bottom of the page was another photo, this one of Gabi Garrison. There was a brief description reporting that she was also missing but, despite her physical similarity to Monica Channing, the police were not convinced her disappearance was related to that of Monica or the other missing girls. Detective Browne was quoted saying that with regard to Miss Garrison, they were talking with a person of interest.
I put my coffee down, picked up the phone, and called Detective Browne’s cell. He answered on the first ring, his voice amazingly upbeat for nine-thirty on Saturday morning.
“Detective Browne, Carol Childs.”
“Ms. Childs, I believe I owe you.”
“Really?” I liked the idea that a LAPD detective thought he owed me. “May I ask why?”
“You see this morning’s paper?”
“I’m looking at it right now.”
“Then you’ve seen the pictures of the two girls I asked you include in your report yesterday?”
“It’s one of the reasons I’m calling.” I explained I wanted to talk to him about the girls, but first I had some information concerning Monica I thought I should share. “I ran into a friend of Monica’s, a teacher, at my son’s game last night.”
“Bethany Richards.” He seemed to know without my saying exactly who I was talking about. “We interviewed her right after Monica went missing.” I could hear him flipping through the pages of his notepad. “I’m afraid she wasn’t very forthcoming about what her friend was into.”
“But you know she was meeting with a man she’d met online in Hollywood.”
“I’m afraid, Carol, I can’t comment on that. That’s part of an open investigation. You heard the chief.”
I decided I’d push a little harder despite his resistance.
“Bethany says the judge was clueless about who his daughter was. She was afraid he’d come unglued if he knew what she was up to, and had run off with some man. She kept thinking Monica would come home.”
“Like I said, I can’t comment.”
“Look, I get that Judge Channing’s trying to protect his daughter. That this is an open investigation and LAPD and the FBI aren’t talking about it with the press until they know something. But there’s at least five other girls out there missing. The public deserves to know what’s going on.”
“And just what do you think that is, Miss Childs?”
“I think there’s a sex trafficking ring operating inside of Hollywood and that Monica, and the other missing girls, maybe even Leticia and Brandy, were targeted via the internet, kidnapped and they’re being held somewhere.”
“You plan to do something with that story?”
“I plan on filing a report this afternoon that suggests Monica’s murder may be linked to the
disappearance of at least six other missing girls in Hollywood.”
He paused and I proceeded cautiously, hoping I wasn’t about to undo the good will between us.
“Detective, you started this conversation saying you owed me. Talk to me about Leticia and Brandy. Do you know if they had been going online, maybe answered an ad or—”
“Like I said, Carol, I can’t, and I won’t, talk about anything that might be related to the case.” His voice sounded firm, like he was barking an order, but then it softened. “But, since you helped me, I can put you in touch with Leticia’s grandmother, Bessie Bixby. She plays the church organ at the AME Church downtown. Nice lady. Been to church there a couple times myself and I know she’d like to speak to you.”
“Good, I’d like to speak to her too.” I paused. “One more question, Detective?”
“Nothing to do with the case,” he said.
“Gabi Garrison. The police chief didn’t think her disappearance was connected to Monica’s so—anything new?”
“I talked with her boyfriend again this morning. He was at the hospital. Said Gabi was given to bouts of depression, that things at work weren’t going well. She was upset with his hours. Have to admit, a resident’s got worse hours than some detectives I know. He said she’d been threatening to leave. He thinks she might have gone off to some weekend resort in the desert.”
I didn’t see someone like Gabi just up and leaving, no matter how depressed she might be. The girl was probably pulling down a six-figure salary working for the television station. You don’t just walk away from a job like that. It seemed odd.
“You think he’s telling the truth?”
“What I think is that the trail is getting cold. Girl’s been gone for seventy-two hours. If she were going to show up, now’s about the time. Until she does, I suggested he not leave town.”
Beyond a Doubt Page 5