by Blake Pierce
Jessie’s heart sank, though she wasn’t surprised. The second Keith Penn had mentioned claiming Michaela’s remains, she’d suspected something sketchy was going on.
“What was that?” she asked.
“It seems that the paperwork on Michaela Penn got misfiled and her remains were inadvertently cremated.”
Jessie stared hard at him. Even having suspected what he’d been about to say, it was hard to keep the fury off her face. She took a long, slow exhale before responding.
“That is unfortunate,” she replied evenly. “Under other circumstances, I’d find cremating the body of a murder victim less than twenty-four hours after her death to be suspicious. But I guess that’s just par for the course for Valley Bureau, right? Always bumbling and stumbling your way through major cases.”
“Yup,” Costabile agreed, his bald pate gleaming under the fluorescent lights. “We’re just a bunch of Keystone Cops around here. I was just going to share the sad news with Mr. Penn, who I understand was picked up on a DUI in our own jurisdiction last night. What a wacky coincidence.”
Jessie remembered the old cliché about discretion being the better part of valor and tried to force herself to embrace it. If Ryan was here right now, he’d make a bland comment and lead her out of the station before she could get herself in trouble. But Ryan was in a downtown courtroom right now testifying in a case. She was on her own. And she wasn’t feeling much in the way of discretion.
“You know, Sergeant,” she growled as she leaned in close to him. “I know you’re up to no good, mostly because you’re barely even trying to hide it. And I know you’ve had free rein around here for a long time. But it’s made you sloppy and arrogant. One of these days, it’s going to catch up to you, maybe sooner than you think.”
“Is that a threat, Ms. Hunt?” he snarled back at her.
“It’s merely an observation, Sergeant.”
Suddenly Costabile leaned in, so that his face was only inches from hers.
“You know, little lass,” he whispered so quietly that she had to strain to hear him, “if I was you, I’d be less worried about what some Podunk Valley cop was up to. I’d be more focused on watching your own back.”
“Is that a threat, Sergeant Costabile?” Jessie retorted.
“Yes, it is. Go back to your fancy downtown station and stick to your sexy serial killer cases. It’s safer for you than messing with me.”
Jessie’s heart was beating fast but her voice was calm when she replied.
“I’m glad we understand each other,” she said.
Then, without waiting for a response, she spun on her heel and walked away. It was only when she had rounded the corner that she realized she’d been holding her breath the whole time.
*
Jessie tried not to speed.
She kept having to remind herself not to floor the accelerator on her drive back up the winding road to the home of the porn director Giles Marchand. But her restlessness kept getting the better of her. There was too much to do and not enough time to do it.
She still had to question the director of Nympho Cheerleader Zombies 2 to see what insight he could offer into Michaela’s last day alive. In addition, she was flying through a flurry of calls.
The first was to the tech unit back at Central Station to have them check the GPS data on Keith Penn’s phone. If they could verify that he was traveling from Running Springs to Van Nuys, with an extended pit stop at a roadside bar, it would form the basis of a credible alibi.
Next she called Ryan, hoping he might be on a break from the trial. But her call went straight to voicemail. She briefly updated him on recent details, including Michaela’s cremation, her dad’s DUI, arrest, and possible alibi, and Sergeant Costabile’s overtly suspicious behavior.
When she hung up, she saw that she’d missed a call from an unfamiliar number while she was leaving the message. She immediately played it.
“Hi, Ms. Hunt, this is Detective Wiley Strode of Valley Bureau, Van Nuys Station. I’m assigned to the Michaela Penn case. I understand that Detective Hernandez with HSS has filed to work concurrently on the case and that you both were at the crime scene last night before I arrived. I’ve been trying to reach him all day without success so I thought I’d reach out to you to coordinate our resources. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much to coordinate. It’s increasingly looking like this case may end up in our unsolved file. Regardless, please give me a call when you get a chance to compare notes.”
Detective Strode’s tone was professional and courteous and, at least on the surface, it seemed like he wanted to cooperate. But underneath the pleasant demeanor, it was clear that his bottom line wasn’t much different than Sergeant Costabile’s.
As far as he was concerned, the investigation was closer to the end than the beginning, a strange attitude to have when it came to the brutal stabbing murder of a teenage girl. No one at Valley Bureau seemed to care much about solving this case. In fact, they all seemed actively invested in not solving it.
The last concern gave her an idea and led her to immediately make another call. Again, she got voicemail, this time for Garland Moses. She tried to keep her message brief.
“Garland, you’re pretty old,” she began, hoping to soften her request with some disarming humor. “I’m hoping that since you’ve been around the department for so long, you might be able to give me some insight into some Valley Bureau personnel, specifically at Van Nuys Station. One is Detective Wiley Strode. But I’m especially interested in an officer named Sergeant Hank Costabile. He’s inserted himself into a case I’m pursuing in some really intrusive, borderline threatening ways. Have you heard of him? If so, what can you tell me? If not, can you work your ‘on the sly’ magic and get me some intel? I know the guy is bad news but I’m flying blind about just how bad. Thanks in advance.”
She hung up, uncertain if she was abusing the veteran profiler’s generosity with the request. But she knew there was no way she was going to smash through the blue wall of silence through conventional means. Even Ryan, who’d been a cop for a nearly a decade, seemed only to have a general sense of Costabile. She needed help from someone who’d been around the department much longer than that.
Her last call before pulling up at Marchand’s house was to Detective Gaylene Parker in Vice. She told Parker about Filthy Films using an underage actress and asked who she needed to contact to get something done about it. Parker, who sounded personally offended, said that she would call the right people and guaranteed that all Filthy productions would be shut down by the end of the day.
With that off her plate, Jessie focused on the task at hand. She got out of her car and walked up Marchand’s circular driveway to the front door. While his house was large and had a hilltop view of the currently hazy valley, it was dated, with seventies-style ranch house architecture and a few dangling shingles. It looked like a fixer-upper that had never been fixed up.
I guess porn directing isn’t the cash cow I assumed it was.
She rang the bell and waited, curious to meet the creative mind behind some of the works she’d surreptitiously watched on her laptop earlier. When Giles Marchand opened the door, she had to stifle a gasp.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jessie forced herself to cough to hide the snort of laughter she feared might escape her mouth.
The man was a walking cliché. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties and though he may have cut a dashing figure at one time, now he looked like a guy clinging to past glory. His salt and pepper hairpiece was too lustrous to look real and the line where it met his more straw-like, real hair was distinct.
He was over-tanned, with deep, olive skin that covered every exposed inch, including, disturbingly, directly under his eyes. His teeth were unnaturally white and appeared to have been surgically altered to look more square. He was clearly an aficionado of Botox and had over-dimpled cheeks and a forehead suspiciously devoid of wrinkles. Finally, his oddly formal posture made Jessie wonder whe
ther he might be wearing a girdle of some kind.
“I swear I’m not the father,” he said with booming, overly-familiar jocularity.
For a second, Jessie was so stunned, she didn’t know how to respond.
“Mr. Marchand,” she finally managed to say, “my name is Jessie Hunt…”
“Paternity lawyer or aspiring actress?” he asked in a richly honeyed, clearly practiced voice, a broad smile on his face. Apparently he was fine with her being either.
“LAPD, actually,” she replied, managing to regain some semblance of control over herself.
“Oh, that’s new,” he said, still unruffled. “You’ve piqued my interest. Care to come in? I can offer you some peppermint-cayenne tea and we can discuss whatever exciting development has brought you to my door.”
“Thank you,” Jessie said, stepping inside while eyeing him curiously. “I’ll pass on the tea. But I’ll happily get your answer as to why you’re pretending you don’t know the reason I’m here.”
Marchand couldn’t hide his surprise.
“Am I that transparent?” he asked, unashamedly.
“Yes,” Jessie said. “Also, there’s no way Lenny Lander didn’t call you the second I left his office.”
“Now that you mention it, Ms. Hunt,” he said as he led her into the living room, “I did get a call a little while ago from Leonard. He was most disconcerted by your visit. Truthfully, despite my brave front right now, I spent much of the last few hours shedding internal tears over the loss of dear Missy.”
“Internal tears?” Jessie repeated.
“Yes, darling. I’ve had some work done and I’ve largely lost the capacity for crying; a blessing and a curse.”
“I see. And you know that Missy wasn’t who she said she was?”
“Fiona told me that she was operating under a false name. I never called her Melissa anyway. I only ever address my actresses by their stage names. It’s a small thing, but I find that it helps them stay in character.”
As best she could, Jessie tried to separate Marchand’s ostentatious manner from the words he was saying. She found that it helped to focus on the man’s nose, which seemed to be the one feature that hadn’t had any work done on it.
“I noticed that you said Fiona told you about her fake name. But my understanding is that you have a history of helping some of these girls find those names. Isn’t that true?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Ms. Hunt,” he said, though his expression suggested he knew exactly what she meant. His smile remained plastered on, but his eyes were less confident.
“Let’s not be coy, Mr. Marchand. You have a reputation for getting fake papers for women you want in your films.”
“Those are just vicious rumors,” he insisted far too dramatically. “I would never do anything untoward. I only want what’s best for my actresses. I saw a great future for Missy. I think she could have been one of the greats.”
“Why is that?” Jessie asked, a little afraid to hear the answer, taking the bait though she knew he was deflecting.
Marchand’s eyes gleamed with mischievous glee.
“Because she had that special ‘thing.’ Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“She was magnetic on camera,” he told her in a hushed whisper. “She pulled the viewer in. No matter what character she played—student seducing the teacher, girl who gets it on with her tutor, cheerleader with the football player, naughty babysitter—she was always compelling.”
Jessie paused for a moment before replying to see if he noticed the similarity in those scenarios, but he seemed oblivious.
“Mr. Marchand,” she said. “You do realize that every character you described her playing just now was a potentially underage girl.”
“That was her thing,” Marchand replied, untroubled. “She looked young so she was a natural for the ‘barely legal’ plots.”
“But here’s the problem, and I think you’re well aware of it. Michaela Penn wasn’t legal. She was seventeen and working with obviously false documentation.”
Marchand stared at her with what he clearly hoped was shock.
“I find that hard to believe,” he insisted. “Missy never gave off the vibe that she was seventeen. I would have guessed she was closer to twenty-one. She oozed maturity.”
Jessie was impressed with Marchand’s brazen willingness to pretend he was an innocent in this whole thing. But part of her wondered if a guy this willing to deny reality when confronted with it might be capable of emotionally disassociating himself from other, far darker behavior. She decided to switch tacks to see if she could rattle him.
“Did you and Michaela get along?” she asked.
“Magnificently,” he said loudly, as if he were announcing it to a full theater. “We were absolutely simpatico. I don’t want to sound arrogant here. But had this not happened, I feel like we might have become the Scorsese and De Niro of the adult market.”
“That doesn’t sound arrogant at all,” Jessie observed drily, unable to help herself. “What about co-workers? Any jealous actresses who wanted her roles or scene partners she might have dated and then broken things off with?”
“I’m sure some of the other girls were jealous, but to the point of violence? I find that hard to believe. As for dating, Missy was known for her firm policy on that. She refused to get involved with anyone she worked with. In fact, I don’t think she was seeing anyone at all. She was very focused on her career. There was no B.S. with that girl. She was all business.”
After all Marchand’s dissembling, this was the first thing he’d said that Jessie felt was completely genuine. His description of Michaela’s work ethic and obvious admiration for it was clear. It also matched Lizzie’s account.
“Where were you last night?” she asked, hoping that his honesty in his last answer might bleed over into this one.
“Is this the part where I provide my alibi?” he asked, rediscovering his arch tone.
“It is.”
“Well, after Leonard called, I thought I might be asked this, so I reconstructed a timeline of my whereabouts after I left the set yesterday afternoon. First I went to dinner with one of our fine performers—her name is Melanie Mynx—to give her some professional pointers. Her onscreen enthusiasm has been proving a little histrionic. It doesn’t have the ring of truth. So we did some scene analysis.”
“And then?” Jessie prodded, fearing he would get into specifics of the analysis.
After that, we went to a house party in Toluca Lake, where I introduced her to some other friends. We spent some ‘quality time’ there. If you’re wondering, I’m being euphemistic. We had an orgy. I can give you the names and contact information for all of those people. Then Melanie and I went back to her place, where she hosted me for the remainder of the evening. This morning I came back here briefly to clean up before heading to set.”
Jessie wanted to be suspicious about how meticulously Marchand had accounted for his time. But it struck her as fitting his personality. Still, she prodded a little, watching closely for his reaction to the next question.
“Are you sure Melanie was awake for the whole evening?” she asked him. “Maybe she fell asleep for a stretch there?”
“Are you alleging that while she slept, I snuck out of her apartment, murdered my rising star actress, and then returned to Melanie’s bed?” he asked, his eyebrows raised as high as they could go given the Botox.
“It’s just a question, Mr. Marchand—one I noticed you neglected to answer.”
“I’ll answer. I was just so taken aback at the suggestion. I spent the entire evening in the loving embrace of Ms. Mynx. Okay, loving might be overstating it. If you want, I can offer details on the nature of the embrace, but you strike me as the type who might blush at such things.”
“I have your answer,” Jessie replied, though not to his dig. “My team will verify it. In the meantime, I recommend you stay in town. And you may want to eat at home a little
more often. I have a feeling your production schedule is going to grind to a halt very soon.”
“What?” he asked, his jaw dropping precipitously.
Though she didn’t smile, Jessie felt a sense of satisfaction for the first time in her interaction with this guy.
“I appreciate the whole dandy thing, Mr. Marchand,” as she headed for the door. “But if you think roguish, old-school, smarmy charm is going to allow you to use underage girls in your films, you are sorely mistaken. So I recommend you and your closet full of ascots make alternate plans for the next few months because business is about to dry up.”
Though it was incredibly tempting, she didn’t look back as she walked out and closed the front door behind her. Unfortunately, the high was short-lived. By the time she got to her car, she remembered that she was no closer to finding Michaela’s killer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jessie tried to keep the laptop’s volume down.
Hannah was in the next room and she didn’t want her teenage half-sister to hear the grunts and moans and wonder what she was watching. Normally, she wouldn’t be watching porn in her bedroom after work on a Tuesday evening. But she was at a loss as to how to proceed.
She still hadn’t heard back from Ryan or Garland Moses about her concerns regarding how Valley Bureau was handling—more accurately, not handling—the case. And while Michaela seemed to have interacted with a bevy of sketchy people, none of them was an obvious suspect.
So she was reduced to watching some of the girl’s films, in the hopes that seeing her alive might spark some moment of insight. But mostly, it was just depressing her.
It was only once she started watching that she realized that, despite having made over a dozen films, all of them were from the last six months. The idea that this was how Michaela had spent the majority of her days since school made Jessie feel hollow and sick at the same time.
The girl’s manner only exacerbated that. Michaela had a different demeanor from all the other actresses in any of the films. The others were always animated, sometimes to the point of being over-the-top, much like she imagined Melanie Mynx probably was. There was lots of groaning and whispered dirty talk. Michaela didn’t do any of that.
