Dead Ringers

by Camilla Chafer

  While I waited for my lunch to arrive, I made notes, and occasionally scanned the nearby tables. Halfway through my salad, I had an opening when I overheard, "Anyway, she hasn't replied to any of my texts in over a month and I'm starting to get worried."

  "Excuse me," I said, leaning over, purposefully mishearing, "Did you just say Sammy? Sammy Turturro? I've been trying to get in touch with her too."

  The woman shook her afro. "No, sorry, I was talking about someone else."

  "I know Sammy," said the woman next to her, a tall woman with skin so dark, it made her pink eyelids shine. "But I haven't seen her in a while."

  "Sammy might be missing," I told them, turning away from the remnants of my salad now that I had their attention. "We're all worried about her. Is your friend missing too?"

  "Coral? I don't know. I guess… I never thought she might be missing. I just thought she was super busy with something."

  "Is Coral an actress or a model?"

  "She's an actress. We're models with Sirens," said the second woman, indicating both her and her friend, then pointing in Sirens' direction. "I don't think you know Sammy, do you, Annette?"

  Annette shook her head again. "I don't think so."

  "What do you mean by Sammy is missing?" asked the pink-lidded woman.

  "No one has seen or heard from her in a while. She's not answering her phone. She hasn't come home in two weeks."

  "That doesn't sound like Sammy."

  I nodded sagely. "We know. What about your friend? Is it unusual for her not to be in touch?"

  "Actually, I don't know. We're not super close to her. We met a few months ago and we hung out for a while, then Coral just slipped out of contact. I wanted to reach her again because a job came up that I knew she would be perfect for. A commercial that wants models who can ride horseback." She glanced at her phone. "I guess she won't get in touch. She didn't like the last job." The woman pulled a face.

  "Does Coral work for your agency too?" I asked, pointing discreetly to the glass offices.

  The two women glanced at each other. "Yeah," said Annette.

  "What was the last job?"

  "It was just a model gig thing…" she trailed off.

  Something clicked. "An 'off the books' kind of thing?" I asked, adding quote marks.

  "Not exactly that kind," said Annette. "I mean it wasn't a photo shoot. We were just paid to hang out at a party and look pretty with all these old guys in suits. I wouldn't do the other stuff."

  "Me neither," said her friend, pulling a face.

  "I heard it's good money," I said, guessing what she was talking about.

  "Not good enough," snorted Annette.

  "Did your friend do that party?"

  "Yeah, but she wasn't into it like some of the girls are. It's easy money but some girls put up with the roaming paws better than others." They looked at each other and pulled faces. "Actually, I don't think Coral has been to the agency since then. Do you think she left without telling us?"

  "Maybe," said Annette.

  "Can I get her details?" I asked.

  "Why?" Annette narrowed her eyes. "Who are you anyway?"

  It was time to come clean. I produced two business cards and handed them over. "I'm a journalist from the LA Chronicle. I'm looking into some missing girls. Sammy Turturro is one. Bonnie Rodriguez is another. And then there's April Beam."

  "I don't know any of those names," said Annette. "Do you, Keisha?"

  Keisha paused. "No, only Sammy."

  "April was found dead yesterday." I held up a hand as they gasped. "Please don't be alarmed. I'm not saying anything has happened to your friend, only that I'm looking into all leads that suggest there could be other missing women. If I had Coral's details, I could check up on her."

  "I can give you her phone number and mine," said Annette. "Will you let us know if she's okay? Now I'm hoping she just doesn't want to talk to me!"

  "I will," I agreed. "Leave it with me."

  Chapter Seven

  Sitting at my desk, I wished I could feel the warmth of the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows on the other side of the office. I was doodling while I thought about the missing women. Three women. Two agencies. One dead.

  Despite searching online and probing the two models for more information, I couldn't find any connection between the agencies or the women. Could it be that two women per agency was just an anomaly? A weird coincidence? It seemed that way when I looked at the dates. Bonnie disappeared before April even came on the scene. Sammy disappeared recently but Coral had been missing for more than a month.

  I tried calling Coral's cellphone several times but it went straight to her voicemail. On the final time, when I waited to leave a message, the machine voice informed me that her inbox was full. Coral was not picking up messages and she hadn't for some time.

  For two hours, I stalked the women's social media profiles, making notes on the places they went, the people they saw, but I still couldn't find any crossover. Even their professional profiles on their agency websites didn't have any jobs listed in common. It was perplexing. Yet I couldn't concede the idea that the three women missing and the one now dead were all separate cases.

  I looked at the photos spread in front of me. Three attractive brunettes, one African-American. Medium height to tall. All young. All on their own in LA. All trying to make it in a city full of equally beautiful people just trying to make it too.

  "Hey."

  I shuffled the photos under my notepad and looked up. The man I bumped into earlier stood in front of me, looking over the cubicle. "Hayden, right?" I asked.

  "Good memory. I thought I'd introduce myself properly now that I'm officially working here. Hayden. Wait, you know that," he said, sticking his hand across the cubicle. I half rose from my seat and shook his hand. "Freelance photographer. Oh. You know that too. I forget who I keep introducing myself too. This is embarrassing. I'm filling in for a while. As you probably also know."

  "Still Shayne," I told him. "Celebrity and obituaries."

  "Interesting combination, Still Shayne."

  "Sometimes it's both in the same column."

  Hayden pulled a face. "That's… an economy of words. Concise. Frugal."

  "I never thought of it like that before."

  "It's like yogalates but weirder."

  "Yogalates?"

  "Yoga and pilates together to make a new, exciting thing. Celebuaries? Obitrities?"

  I pulled a face "Is yogalates even a thing?"

  "Sure. I got a flyer through my door about it. Anyway, Shayne of the celebrities and obituaries, it’s nice to meet you. Again," he added with an embarrassed wince. Then he tapped the top of the cubicle as he stepped back, smiling.

  "And you."

  With a wave, Hayden took off for… Actually, I had no idea where he went but I figured he was assigned a desk somewhere for the duration of his temporary contract. Glancing across the room, I frowned at Ben's empty desk. Then I checked my phone for the hundredth time. Still nothing. Instead of waiting, I decided I should just send a message: Everyone coming to my place tonight. You’re invited.

  I hit send and put it down. Then I picked it up and checked. No immediate response. Rude.

  "Hi, Shayne." Martha chirped as she walked past my desk while I was on my third phone check.

  "Hey, Martha. Do you know where Ben is?"

  "He went to lunch with Gabi. Isn't he back yet?" She looked over at his empty desk. "Did you need him for something? Can I pass on a message?"

  "It can wait," I muttered. Why was Ben having lunch with Gabi? It had to be the same Gabi from yesterday; his ex, queen of the celebrity column. Why were they meeting so soon after their previous rendezvous? More to the point, why didn't Ben say anything to me about it? Also, just how long did it take to eat lunch? The questions and their lack of answers were more than irritating.

  "Okay, Shayne." Martha cheerfully waggled her hand as she walked away.

  I took one last glanc
e at Ben's empty desk, did my best not to scowl at it, and decided the only thing I could do in response to Ben's long lunch with his ex was to solve the puzzle of the missing women, grab the headline and ace my career. It was the only reasonable way to respond.

  Returning my attention to my notes, I realized there was one thing my social media stalking didn't actually produce: Sammy and Coral's calendars to compare to Bonnie and April's, which their agent's secretary gave me. So far, I'd only seen the jobs they were hired for. It was possible they had other meetings with people for auditions that never came to fruition, or they could have taken jobs under the table that they didn't record publicly. I couldn’t say there definitively wasn't a connection; just that I hadn't found it, yet. I needed those calendars and I had to speak to more people associated with the women. Clearly, their agents only had a very limited knowledge of their lives. I needed to talk to those around them who knew more, like their families and friends. I had plenty of work to do before I could forge a bigger picture of their lives.

  I knew from Ashleigh that April's parents were coming into town. I didn't like to "death knock" relatives — an unfortunate staple of a reporter's job was to knock on doors and sometimes further traumatize people for quotes — but it was a good opportunity to speak with them. I doubted they would know any intimate details of April's life in LA, however, I didn't know their address. That stopped the plan before it even started. Then I remembered they were on their way to LA although I had no idea where they were staying. Would Ashleigh give me those details? Probably not, so my investigation had to continue elsewhere.

  But before I tackled that, I realized the one thing I only briefly considered was the physical similarities of the four women. All of them were aged within a year or two of each other, all were dark-haired, tall and slender, all were in showbiz, and all of them were recent transplants to town. Those commonalities had to mean something.

  I added a new search to my laptop: "missing brunettes." Then I typed in "missing model" and finally, "missing actress." The search results brought up a variety of useless-to-me information: men reported missing, missing pets, stock image photos with the same key words, novels and non-fiction texts, and a small number of newspaper articles about missing women. I needed to narrow my search so I discounted the ones where the women didn't physically match my missing women, and those that didn't have any connection to the showbiz world. That left me with two more names: Danika Jones and Anna Sanchez. The article reported Danika missing two years ago and Anna, one year ago. I made another search with their names but couldn't find any information that told me what happened after those first reports and their talent agencies appeared to have gone out of business.

  Much as I hated to do it, I called Ashleigh.

  "You need to get a new contact," she told me.

  "Why? You're the best."

  "Obviously, but I can't be your personal research assistant. I have a murder to investigate."

  "You said to call if I had information relevant to the case. I have two names. They might be related."

  "Might?"

  "It's a not so distant long shot that might pay off."

  "There's that word again. Might."

  "Have you gotten any further with the case?" I asked, wondering why she sounded so irritated.

  Ashleigh sighed, which told me no, she had not. That could work in my favor. "Tell me what you have," she said.

  "Danika Jones and Anna Sanchez. Both physically similar to April, Bonnie and Sammy. Both actresses too. Both missing. Can you tell me if they are still listed as such?"

  "Sure. Stay on the line."

  I waited while Ashleigh clicked her keyboard. Hayden waved as he walked past and pointed to his mug. I shook my head, then changed my mind and waved him back, giving him the thumbs up. Coffee would be good.

  "Shayne?" asked Ashleigh.

  "I'm here."

  "I don't know if this is good news or bad but both Danika and Anna are on the missing list. There isn't much more in the files. Both investigations came to dead ends pretty quickly."

  "Why is that?"

  "It says in the report, Danika left her apartment for a job and never came back. By the time anyone realized she was missing, the case was already a week old and cold. Anna is a little different. She was reported missing when she didn't come home from a shoot. Seems she made it to the shoot, and nothing was out of the ordinary there, but she disappeared somewhere on her way home. The detective on her case got video camera footage from a convenience store of her walking past the stop where she got off the bus. She's seen rounding a corner, going out of sight, and that's it."

  "That's it? There aren't anymore cameras?"

  "Every camera within a five block radius was checked. She wasn't on any of them. The detective did good work but Anna simply vanished."

  "Do you know the detective?"

  "There's two, but yeah. The detective on Danika's case won't be any help to you. Nice guy. Diligent but he died six months ago from a heart attack."

  "And Anna's?"

  "Martinez. I think he's undercover at the moment. I'll reach out."

  "Is this too much of a coincidence that there are more women just like April and Sammy missing?" I asked.

  "I'm not ruling it out but you have to think of it like this, Shayne. An actress might be a rare thing in some cities but here in LA, there are thousands and brunettes are hardly a scarce thing either. The job could be a sheer coincidence."

  "There are a lot of other similarities. I heard about another woman too. Coral Nichols."

  "Let me check." A minute of quiet later, Ashleigh said, "She's listed as missing too."

  We were both silent. On my part, I wanted Ashleigh to acknowledge a link, even a tenuous one but when she didn't seem forthcoming, I asked her, "Did you speak to April's family?"

  "Off the record?"

  "Of course."

  "They were devastated. The dad had to take a sleeping pill and is resting in their hotel room. The mom had a hard time not crying through the interview. I felt terrible for them."

  "That poor family."

  "It's moments like that which make me hate my job."

  "They need you in their corner. You'll give them the answers they need," I told her. Of any detective I'd ever met, I thought Ashleigh was one of the most dedicated. She wouldn't give up on a case.

  "They don't need to know what some bastard did to their daughter."

  I gulped at the hardness in her voice. "That bad?"

  "It'll be a closed casket."

  I opened my mouth to ask, then thought better of it. I didn't care to know the details either and neither did my readers. "That sounds personal. Did April's parents have any suggestions about who might have hated their daughter that much?" I asked.

  "None. They said she was well liked. Making lots of friends but no boyfriend. Not dating anyone in particular and enjoying her life here. She hadn't complained about anyone. Her last phone call to them was happy and chatty. I'll deep dive her life, of course, but there's not a lot to go on. Just so you know, I advised them not to give any press interviews."

  "Understood. What about working backwards from what we already know?" I asked.

  "You mean starting from the dump site where she was found? On it. There are no cameras on that stretch of road and several roads that turn onto it so the vehicle could have come from multiple directions. I suspect the canyon's isolation was exactly why it was chosen."

  "So someone knew the area?" I tapped my pen against my notepad, thinking.

  "Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're local. They just did a good job of finding somewhere to dump a body without being seen. I doubt I'll get a license plate but that won't stop me looking for a camera."

  "Thanks for checking those names for me," I said since I figured Ashleigh was already having a thankless day.

  "I appreciate you coming to me with them. I'll make a note but you know what this means if there is a connection?"

  I circled the
dates Danika and Anna went missing on my notepad, my pen paused over April's name. "That they're probably dead too," I sighed.

  "Yes, but not just that. It could mean a serial killer has been operating in LA right under our noses. Maybe for years."

  I thanked her again, even though that was news no one needed thanking for, and hung up just as Hayden deposited a mug of coffee on my desk, the bottom of the cup grazed the corner of my notepad. He steadied it before it tumbled and spilled.

  "I hope I didn't put that on anything important," he said, grimacing as I grabbed my notepad, sliding out of the way from both the coffee and his eyesight.

  I shook my head. "Just some notes for an article. Thanks for the coffee."

  "You looked like you might need one. I asked Martha how you took it so I hope it's okay. Mid-afternoon slump?"

  I nodded. "It's been a long day."

  "Same but that's the fun of starting a new job. There're a lot of names to remember, and as you know, I struggle with that." Hayden laughed and I felt my somber mood lift slightly "…And jobs to order and photos to peruse. I'm helping the picture editor source some images until they send me out to cover a story."

  "I'm sure you'll settle in fine," I told him. "How long are you here for?"

  "My contract says a couple of weeks but I can stay longer if it works out, maybe even until Dan's injury fully heals. I was lucky this came up. Working freelance, I'm usually on my own or trying to avoid getting kicked in the press pack." Hayden laughed, his dimples appearing.

  "Sounds rough."

  "I prefer something more sedate. Paparazzi is not my jam but a good shot pays good money."

  "What is your jam?" I asked, curious now.

  "Portrait photography. I have a studio in the guest cottage at my house."

  "You have a guest cottage? And a house?" I barely owned new furniture in my rented apartment but at least my apartment had come a long way since I first arrived and found Mike squatting there. He helped me find furniture and I unpacked all the things I brought with me from my previous apartment. A few new throws, pillows and other small pieces contributed to the ambiance. Hayden didn't look much older than me but seemed to have his life in order if he owned a property like that.