“What’s a moulage artist?” Jessie said.
Trembley stepped in.
“It’s the name for a special effects and makeup person who makes fake wounds and gore look realistic.”
“Okay,” she said, wincing. “Sounds disgusting.”
Trembley looked surprised by her response.
“It’s hard to believe that a criminal profiler who deals with real-life brutality would be so grossed out by someone who creates fake injuries,” he noted.
“Touché, Trembley,” Jessie said.
“Regardless,” Decker interrupted impatiently, “the studio executives are making a fuss. Word is already starting to leak out about who the victim is and they want to be able to tell the public that LAPD’s most specialized homicide unit is handling the situation. That’s not unreasonable, but if we don’t go into the case without our best folks, it reflects poorly on the unit and on me. No offense to Trembley here, but Ryan Hernandez is the top detective in the unit and with Moses dead, you are easily the top profiler we have.”
“Had,” Jessie corrected.
“Had,” he conceded. “So if I don’t have Hernandez, I at least need you. This is just too high profile to entrust to second-tier folks.”
Jessie didn’t like the implication.
“So if the victim was just a random grocery clerk from Hollywood, you’d be okay with the—what was the term, ‘second-tier’ investigators?”
“Don’t give me a hard time, Hunt. If it was a grocery clerk, we’d never have been called in the first place. You know what HSS does. This is our specialty. So are you willing to help out?”
Decker had started out the sentence sounding crotchety, but by the end his voice was near-pleading. As far as she could recall, that was a first for him. She couldn’t help but feel some sympathy. In that moment, despite all the red lights warning her against it, she knew she’d say yes.
“If I agree to this,” she began, “it would be a one-time thing, in a consulting capacity, like Garland used to do. I’m not an LAPD employee and there’s no expectation that I continue beyond this case. Fair?”
“Fair,” Decker said immediately.
“I’ve got teaching interviews lined up at multiple universities next week. I’m not missing them, whether this thing is solved or not. I’m not upending my life for this, Captain. That’s the whole reason I left in the first place. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” he said, a smile starting to form at his lips.
“And Trembley here has to step up,” she added. “No goober moments.”
The detective’s face fell but he said nothing.
“I can’t promise that,” Decker admitted wryly.
“I can,” Trembley interjected, recovering quickly.
Jessie looked at him, giddy with enthusiasm, almost bouncing out of his shoes. In that moment, he was the epitome of gooberism.
“Let’s go,” she sighed. “You’re driving.”
CHAPTER SIX
They had only been in the car for five minutes when Jessie began to regret her decision.
Trembley was talking a mile a minute, bouncing from one topic to another without any seeming coherence.
“Trembley,” she finally interrupted. “Calm down.”
“Sorry,” he said.
She glanced down at her buzzing phone and saw that Hannah had replied to her text saying she was helping out on a case with a solitary mad-face emoji. Explaining her decision later tonight was going to be brutal. Kat had yet to respond.
“Let’s just go over what we know about Corinne Weatherly and this film,” she said. “I assume you have details?”
“Yeah,” he said with unbridled enthusiasm before lowering it a notch. “I mean, yes. How familiar are you with her?”
“I’m not a huge fan. I know she did the romance film a while back and then those horror movies. And she was in some crappy cop show a while back. That’s about it.”
“You’ve hit the highlights,” Trembley confirmed, now seemingly in control of his energy level. “She had a bunch of small roles before she broke out with the romantic comedy Petals and Petulance. Then she got the lead in the horror movie Marauder. But she didn’t have many hits after that. She did the Marauder sequel, which sucked. She was in a lot of other stuff over the next few years. Some of it looked like it would be good but ended up being crap. She was on that series Tacoma Profilers. I would have thought you’d watched that.”
“I think that was on when I was getting my master’s in forensic psychology. I didn’t have time to watch much of anything back then.”
“You didn’t miss that much,” Trembley conceded. “It was set in Tacoma but they shot it in Vancouver. It only lasted three years. After that, she did a lot of junk. I won’t bore you with the details. This was supposed to be her big comeback. It was another Marauder movie, but it was going to be a reset of some kind. They got some fancy foreign director. I was actually curious to check it out. I don’t know what they’re going to do now.”
“Are the Hollywood Station detectives okay with us taking over?” she asked.
“I talked to one of them before you got to the station—her name’s Bray. She sounded a bit put out but I got the sense she’s also a little relieved. I don’t think they want the heat this case is going to generate. I mean, this is pretty huge.”
Jessie gave him a sidelong glance.
“You sure you can handle this, Trembley? I can’t have you going gaga over a bunch of celebrities. You need to keep your professional distance. Can you do that?”
He looked mildly offended.
“Of course,” he said.
Jessie wasn’t entirely convinced.
*
When they arrived at Sovereign Studios, Jessie noticed a small memorial had been set up by the gate near the main entrance. It was only four people with a few candles and posters. She didn’t know if that meant Weatherly wasn’t that popular or if word hadn’t gotten out yet.
A portly, kind-faced studio security guard named Paul was waiting for them. He directed them to the guest lot, followed them to their parking spot in a golf cart, and offered them seats.
“We have to cross half the lot,” he said by way of explanation. “It’s a long walk.”
They got in and he sped off along the cobblestone path. Jessie, who had gone to college at USC and spent most of her twenties living in the city, had never been awed by being in the center of the cinematic universe. But she had to admit that it was pretty cool to be spirited through a facility where movies had been made for nearly a hundred years. As they zipped along, they passed a large, sunken, walled-in outdoor parking lot with a huge, sky-colored screen at the back of it.
“What’s that?” Jessie asked, pointing.
Paul the security guard followed her finger and smiled.
“When a production needs to do a water shoot in a secure environment, they can use that. They fill up the parking lot with water so it acts like one huge water tank. Then they can project whatever background they want on the screen and boom, you’re in the middle of the ocean if you like.”