Suspect Is Held in Missing Model Case : Investigation: Photographer is arrested after apparent suicide attempt at his home. Missing woman’s car is found in Torrance; authorities say case may be a homicide.

A photographer arrested after an apparent suicide attempt at his Hollywood home was being questioned by detectives Wednesday night as a “possible suspect” in the disappearance last week of a 27-year-old calendar model from Hermosa Beach, police said.

Lt. Mark Wright of the Hermosa Beach Police Department said investigators have reason to believe that the missing woman, Linda Sobek, “may be the victim of a homicide.”

Officials identified the suspect as Charles E. Rathbun, 38. Wright said Rathbun was believed to have been with Sobek in his car on the day she disappeared. Her car was found Wednesday in a restaurant parking lot in Torrance.

The lieutenant did not elaborate about the suspect’s connection with the missing woman, other than to say Rathbun was considered a suspect before his apparent suicide attempt at his Canyon Drive home Wednesday evening.

Wright said a single shot was fired during the apparent suicide attempt. He said Rathbun’s attorney and a third person were in the home when the shot was fired. The bullet apparently ricocheted off a wall, causing a minor injury to a sheriff’s deputy outside the home.

The discovery of Sobek’s car in the restaurant parking lot was one of several developments during a day of frenzied activity in the search for the missing model.

A few hours earlier, friends looking for Sobek in Angeles National Forest turned up a cosmetic case, hair curlers and a receipt from a Manhattan Beach photocopy shop--all of which they believe belong to her.

The friends said the cosmetic case contained Sobek’s initials and the receipt was dated Nov. 16--the day she vanished after leaving her home for a modeling assignment.

In another development Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department assumed control of the case at the request of Hermosa Beach police. For the first time, investigators acknowledged that Sobek may have been abducted.

Deputies stopped an acquaintance of Sobek’s--Morgan Carey--at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday afternoon and took him to the Lennox sheriff’s station, where they talked to him for about an hour.

Carey--reportedly the brother of pop singer Mariah Carey--later caught a flight to an undisclosed destination. A department spokesman stressed that Morgan Carey is not a suspect.

Sobek’s white Nissan sports coupe was recovered Wednesday afternoon in a Denny’s restaurant parking lot after police received a tip from a motorist who had heard about the case. Investigators sealed off the area and studied the site before hauling the vehicle to a crime lab at the sheriff’s station in Carson.

Wright said investigators found a map book, some envelopes and a white plastic bag inside the car.

The vehicle, which did not appear to have been ransacked, was found locked and covered with dust, indicating that it may have been in the parking lot for a number of days, Wright said.

A garbage bag was found near the car, but Sheriff’s Sgt. Ronald Spear said the contents did not appear to be connected to the case.

Photographs of Sobek and a page from her appointment book had been found in Angeles National Forest on Tuesday.

Hermosa Beach police Sgt. Paul Wolcott said the friends reported finding the cosmetic case, curlers and receipt about six miles from the stretch of highway where a road crew worker found the photos--both of Sobek and her family--and the “Day Planner” page for Nov. 16, the day she disappeared.

Written on the page was an address in West Hollywood.

Times staff writer Nieson Himmel contributed to this story.