some acting schools but
“Two more girls?” I said. “Sisters?”
“Read.”
Andrew and Catherine Gaidelas, forty-eight and forty-five, respectively, haddisappeared two months after Tori Giacomo.
The couple, married twenty years with no children, were owners of a beautyparlor in Toledo, Ohio, called Locks of Luck. In L.A. for a springvacation, they’d been staying in Sherman Oaks with Cathy’s sister andbrother-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Barry Palmer. On a clear, crisp Tuesday in Aprilthe Palmers went to work and the Gaidelases left to go hiking in the Malibu mountains. Theyhadn’t been seen since.
Identical report in both files. I read Catherine’s. “Doesn’t say where in Malibu.”
“Doesn’t say a lot of things. Keep going.”
The facts were sketchy, with no apparent links to Michaela or Tori. Was Imissing something? Then I came to the final paragraph.
Subject C. Gaidelas’s sister, Susan Palmer, reports Cathy and Andy said theywere coming out to Califfor vacation but after they got there talked about staying for a while so theycould “break into acting.” S. Palmer reports her sister did some “modeling and theater” after high school and used to talk about becoming an actress. A.Gaidelas didn’t have acting experience but everyone back home thought he was ahandsome guy who “looked like Dennis Quaid.” S. Palmer reports Andy and Cathywere tired of running a beauty parlor and didn’t like the cold weather in Ohio. Cathy said shethought they could get some commercials because they looked “all-American.” Shealso talked about “getting serious and taking acting lessons” and S. Palmerthinks Cathy contacted some acting schools but doesn’t know which ones.
At the rear were two color head-shots.
Cathy and Andy Gaidelas were both fair-haired and blue-eyed with disarmingsmiles. Cathy had posed in a sleeveless black dress trimmed with rhinestonesand matching pendant earrings. Full-faced, with plump shoulders, she had teasedplatinum hair, a strong chin, a thin, straight nose.
Her husband was a tousled gray-blond, long-faced and craggy in a whitebutton-down shirt that exposed curls of pale chest hair. I supposed hisoff-kilter grin had a Dennis Quaid charm. Any other similarities to the actoreluded me.
All-American couple well into middle age. They might qualify for Mom and Dadparts on commercials. Pitches for dog food, TV dinners, garbage bags…
I shut the file.
Milo said, “Wannabe stars and now they’regone. Am I reaching?”
“How’d you come across it?”
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