“My laptop’s right here in the kitchen. Let me put on some tea and show you what I’ve got.”
Once the kettle was on, they leaned over her as Missy booted up her laptop. “Lots of actresses use their cell phones, but I find the bigger screen is easier.” Missy’s screen filled with shortcuts, organized by type, in columns and rows.
“Creative Artists Agency is right on top. That’s your agency, Missy?”
“Yes, my agent’s with them. Dick North’s his name. They’re one of the largest.”
“Heather Burnside was with them, too. Was Deborah?”
“No, Deborah was with Abrams. And Connie was with a smaller agency, I don’t remember which one.”
“It was Gush,” Daniel said. “A William Burley was her agent, for nearly three years, before her murder.”
Missy nodded. “Yes, that’s it. Burley has a rep for a mover and shaker. She was lucky to have him.”
Cam said, “SAG-AFTRA, what is that?”
“That’s the new name of the Screen Actors Guild since they merged. You know, they represent actors, but just about everybody else, too—newswriters, dancers, DJs, voiceover people, everybody.”
“Do you spend a lot of time on that site?”
“Not really. I occasionally go on for some industry news. I think a lot of us spend more time on Backstage. They focus on casting, job opportunities, career advice. And the Hollywood Reporter.”
Daniel said, “I see a lot of these shortcuts are to shopping sites, magazines. Do you post on any blogs, or on online forums?”
“The only place I blog is on my Facebook fan page. I’m trying to build a fan base, so I go on and blog every couple of days and answer when people have comments. Anytime I win a part, I post it, along with any new photos to build up name and face recognition.”
Cam said, “I see a file labeled Auditions. You keep records?”
“Sure, I can’t imagine not keeping good records of those who liked me, who didn’t and why, what roles I’ve won, what roles I didn’t win, my impressions of why I may have lost a role, plus lots more stuff, like the actresses who beat me out, and why I think they did. You think that’s important?”
“Maybe, yes.”
Missy opened the Auditions file. They saw subfiles for movies, TV, and commercials going back for the past four years. Missy pressed a key. “This is for the first six months of this year.”
She scrolled slowly down, showing them how she’d formatted it all, with each comments section completely filled in. It was a history of Missy’s triumphs and failures for the past six months, more than fifty auditions. “The files are less useful after about three years because there’s so much turnover. I’ve streamlined it pretty well, though. All the information is spot-on, and easy to find. Mostly I use it to make me think about how I could do better. It’s really helpful with a repeat, say a producer I’ve already dealt with, and the impressions I had the first time around.”
Daniel thought the detail was amazing. “Do you know if both Connie and Deborah kept this good of audition records?”
“Oh yes. Deborah was even more detailed and particular than I am. I remember she told me about her experience with an advertising agency—they were pigs, as in sexists, and wanted sex for parts. I have that information in my file.
“Connie had everything on her smartphone. She had what she called a suck-up list, people she had to be nice to no matter how obnoxious they were. Wait a second—I forgot the tea.”
Missy took the whistling green teakettle off the flame, fetched three cups from a cupboard painted the same pale green, and handed Daniel some napkins and spoons.
Missy poured the boiling water over tea bags, added a dollop of nonfat milk into her tea, took a sip, nodded to herself. “I don’t know if Doc told you, Cam, but Deborah had a good part in a movie—a period piece called The Crown Prince. Most of it was filmed in Italy. They came back maybe two weeks ago, to wind it up at the studio.” Her voice caught. She stared into her cup, swishing the tea around, as if there were answers to be found amid the steam and the swirling water. “But now she won’t get to finish it. She was really excited about that role. She even hoped it might get her an Oscar nomination.” She paused. “Cam, all of those murdered girls, they were all so keen to make it, they worked hard, dreamed, dealt with their lives as best as they could, even when they weren’t sure how to pay their rent. And now they’re gone, just gone.” She looked up. “Now none of them will never have a chance to get her Oscar.”
Daniel said after a moment, “The Crown Prince—what will they do now that Deborah’s dead? Will they simply go down their list and select the next actress they’d considered for the role?”
Missy stared up at him. “You’re thinking another actress would have gone around the bend and killed Deborah for that part?”
“Plus five others? Listen, even if you killed an actress who won a role you wanted, who’s to say they’d give it to you? They’d have to find an actress who looks enough like Deborah to cut in smoothly, and the second actress in line probably wouldn’t fit the bill. Given that, they’d probably give the role to someone who’d never auditioned for the role before.”
“One step at a time, Miss Devereaux. Also, according to our eyewitness who saw the killer leave Deborah’s house, the killer is a man. Oh, yes, keep that to yourself as well, all right?”
“Of course. Oh, for goodness’ sake, Detective, call me Missy.” She gave him a long look, smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. “And that makes you Daniel.”
Daniel slowly nodded, never looking away from her. “Yes,” he said, “it does.”
Cam cleared her throat as she swished the tea bag around in the hot water. “I’m wondering—what if the murders do indeed have to do with the roles these actresses have won, and played? What if it has to do with their rivals? Maybe there’s an actress who lost out to all of them, maybe even more than once, and did have a mental break. Or maybe she complained about it to, say, a husband or boyfriend, and he was the one with the mental break? How would we begin to even find these actresses?”
Daniel was shaking his head.
Cam raised her hand, sighed. “I know, all the task force has already spoken to all the agents, tried to compile lists. There are far too many names to get them all together, find unique connections.”
Missy nodded. “There have to be hundreds of actresses who go to every audition they can, and that’s thousands of auditions. Fact is, everyone can win, and everyone loses out, at least once in a while.”
Cam said, “Then let’s simplify. Both you and Doc said Deborah kept very complete records. Plus, Doc seems to know a good deal about her career, her friends. So let’s start by looking through your contacts, and hers. I’ve asked Agent Aaron Poker to review the flight manifests between Las Vegas and L.A. this past week. Maybe the Serial flew commercial. Maybe we’ll find him on one of your lists. Missy, you keep a list of contacts on your computer, right? Including actresses you know?”
“Oh yes,” Missy said, and punched a key and pulled up a file labeled Friendly Enemies. There were about twenty names. “Several of us were hanging out on the beach one day, came up with that file name. We all use it. These are the people I sometimes hang out with. I met some of them at auditions, actually, and sometimes, afterward, we’d go shopping, drink beer, complain and whine, trash guys. Many times at Ivy’s at the shore.” She paused. “I met Connie there.”
“I’d like to copy that list, Missy. In fact, I’m going to copy all of your contacts. I want to make sure every actress you know gets a call telling her she might have a connection to these murders, that she should never be alone, and emphasize she should take this seriously.
“I’d also like a copy of your auditions files. I want to compare it with whatever I can find at Deborah’s place, or find out from Doc. Now, tell me about Connie. You said you met her at Ivy’s?”
Missy nodded. “Connie was nice and I liked her. She talked a lot about this great guy she was seeing—Theo Markham—he’s a really important producer who believed in her so much he even rented her his house in the Colony for peanuts so she could quit selling shoes at Saks and concentrate full-time on her career. She was so excited, said he was lining up roles for her. Of course all of us were thinking he rented her the house because she was sleeping with him, and it was convenient for him. She laughed about it, said she knew what we were thinking, but she wasn’t having sex with Mr. Theo—that’s what Connie always called him. No one cared, but I thought it was strange she’d deny it. I think he asked her to deny it because he’s married.
“But hey, maybe he really did think she was a big talent.” She saluted them with her teacup. “It would make me wonder if Mr. Theo isn’t an alien—I mean, a bigwig in show business, in Hollywood, not screwing around on his wife? Wouldn’t that be a first?”
Daniel asked, “Did you ever meet Theo Markham?”
“Once. I chatted him up for about two minutes. He was pleasant, but he had this sort of ‘knowing’ look in his eyes, smug, like he knew he could crook his finger and most young wanna-be actresses, like me, would come running. He’s older, well into his forties, but a man’s age doesn’t mean much in Hollywood as long as there’s Viagra. He wasn’t bad-looking, nice thick head of hair.”
Daniel was taking notes. He said, “Missy, I already told Cam that I spoke to Markham after Connie’s murder, how his slick lawyers shut me down. He had to be acquainted with Deborah, since he’s producing The Crown Prince. At least he had to know who she was.”
Cam said, “Yes, indeed, and that gives us the perfect reason to interview him again. Missy, you said you had a suck-up list. I imagine Theo Markham would be on everyone’s list?”
“Sure he would. I’ve met a lot of these guys. I’m usually just another pretty face to them, although they might jot down my name for a possible part or for possible sex, who knows? I wish there were more women’s names on lists like that.”
“My mom says the same thing,” Cam said. “It makes her so mad she sputters. Daniel, I want to go see Theodore Markham, now. This time, let’s just show up, that way maybe we can escape his herd of lawyers.”
Cam’s cell rang. She looked down at the name, then walked out of the kitchen. When she came back, she looked shell-shocked but her voice was easy. “Missy, I brought a thumb drive along, could you use it to copy those files we talked about?”
“Sure, Cam. Is something wrong?”
Cam shook her head. “Daniel, I need to speak to you while Missy’s copying those files.”
Daniel merely arched a dark eyebrow at her, followed her out of the kitchen. Cam leaned close. “That was Dr. Eli Umbricht, a pathologist from the local field office. I asked him to be on hand at Deborah Connelly’s autopsy. Here’s the thing. He compared her wounds to the previous autopsy reports and they don’t exactly match. He said the cut on her throat is from right to left, but all the others were left to right. And the neck wound that killed her wasn’t as deep as the others. He’s not saying it was necessarily the work of a different killer, maybe he’s ambidextrous or he hurt his right hand, and so used his left, but it does raise questions.”
Daniel said, “If it wasn’t a different killer, maybe the killer was startled by something, or he had to improvise for some reason?”
“Yes. And I noticed the bedcover had been smoothed around her waist, not left in disarray like the others were. Dr. Umbricht won’t say it’s a copycat but admitted he isn’t certain either way.”
Daniel said, “So he won’t commit himself. Here’s a question for you. The killer took Deborah Connelly’s computer and cell phone. If it’s a copycat, how did he know to do that?”