Trembley looked over at her with a “that’s awesome” expression. She gave him a stern glare in return to remind him to rein it in. But he nearly lost it when the cart passed the tank and he saw what was behind it. They were driving through a re-creation of multiple sections of New York City.
A bodega storefront stood next to a pizzeria. They passed a subway station sign and Trembley stood up in the cart to see how far down the stairs really went. Behind the facades, Jessie noticed that there was nothing but scaffolding and empty space. They rounded a corner and the entire look of the new street changed.
“What part of the city is this supposed to be?” Trembley asked, unable to contain himself.
“This stretch is the Lower East Side,” Paul the guard told him as they passed a collection of brownstones. “But other blocks are done up like Greenwich Village, the Financial District, even Brooklyn. We have a Chicago street too. The crime scene is over by SoHo.”
That last line drained some of the zeal out of Trembley’s face. He went quiet. A few seconds later, they pulled up at the back of the faux neighborhood next to a massive soundstage with a “32” painted on it.
“We’re here,” Paul said as if that wasn’t obvious from the crowd of people milling around behind the police tape that had been set up near the soundstage.
“Paul, can I ask you something?” Jessie probed.
“You can ask anything. I don’t promise I have the answers though.”
“I don’t know about that,” she countered. “You seem like the kind of guy who knows what’s going on around here. How long have you worked on the lot?”
“Eight years,” he said. “I was at Sony for seven before that. I guess I’m turning into a lifer.”
“So you know how these places operate,” she said. “What’s the overnight security like here? Hardcore or more relaxed?”
“It depends. There’s always some staff. We typically shut down the side gates around midnight. But the main gate is always manned. And there are guards walking the lot all night long. But if there are active shoots overnight, we obviously staff up more.”
“Were there overnight shoots last night?” she asked.
“Everything was scheduled to wrap by eleven p.m. except the production right here, the Marauder feature. But they ended up wrapping early on that too so we pared back to the standard crew.”
“Do you know why they wrapped early?” Trembley asked.
Paul shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“Come on, Paul,” Jessie cajoled. “You know why we’re here. And you know those studio suits are going to give us the party line. A guy like you, with your ear to the ground, has got to know the real story.”
Paul, whether due to the flattery or an inability to contain himself, caved.
“Officially, there were technical issues with the sequence they wanted to complete. Unofficially, I heard that Ms. Weatherly got pissed at her co-star, Terry Slauson; said he was too rough with her in the scene they were shooting.”
“Was he?” Jessie asked.
Paul shrugged.
“I wasn’t there so I couldn’t say for certain. But truth be told, and I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, Ms. Weatherly was always going off on someone for something. She screamed at me just last week for taking a turn too fast in this very cart; called me a fat f… never mind. Let’s just say that not all of her complaints were justified.”
Trembley seemed crestfallen at Paul’s description of the actress. Jessie tried to keep her annoyance in check and focused on Paul.
“What about stalkers? Are you guys notified if a performer has been threatened? Do you get photos or restraining orders?”
“Not automatically,” he told her. “But usually a member of the performer’s team will make us aware if there’s an issue. We’ve had a few crazies try to get on the lot from time to time.”
“Did Corinne Weatherly’s team—maybe a bodyguard—ever make you aware of any issues?”
Paul chuckled before catching himself.
“I’m sorry. That was thoughtless. It’s just that Ms. Weatherly didn’t have a team with her, much less a bodyguard. The production assigned her an assistant. But she wasn’t really in a position to have a traveling team, if you get my meaning. Besides, if anyone was harassing her, I promise you that Ms. Weatherly would have brought it to our attention personally and forcefully.”
Jessie nodded. Trembley, to her surprise, spoke up.
“So you say she didn’t have a bodyguard. She just walked around the lot on her own?”
“Sure,” Paul said, a bit taken aback. “That’s one of the reasons that productions shoot on studio lots in the first place. I mean, part of it is to have a more controlled shooting environment where you have most everything you need easily accessible. But it’s also more secure. In theory, everyone on a back lot is authorized to be there. It’s a workplace, just like a glorified office building. That means that folks, even super famous ones, can usually move about hassle-free. I’ve seen mega-stars in line at the commissary waiting for chicken fingers and big-time producers carrying boxes of scripts to their cars. It’s supposed be a safe place. It usually is. Unfortunately, we’ve had a few issues this morning with the paparazzi trying to hop the fence so they could snap a few candid photos near the stage here. We managed to snag them all though.”
Jessie saw a petite woman in her late thirties walking quickly in their direction. Trembley noted it too.
“I think that’s Detective Bray,” he muttered under his breath.
“Thanks, Paul,” Jessie said to the guard. “You’ve been really helpful. I promise we’ll keep what you unofficially told us in confidence.”
Paul nodded, got in the cart, and managed to pull away just as Bray arrived. Up close, Jessie saw that the woman had thin, brittle-looking dirty-blonde hair, tired gray eyes, and what appeared to be magic marker stains on her fingertips. Her blouse was also misbuttoned and smudged.
“Karen Bray, Hollywood Station,” she said, extending her hand. “I assume you’re the folks from HSS?”
“Alan Trembley,” her partner said, taking Bray’s hand and pumping it vigorously. “This is our profiler, Jessie Hunt.”
“I know who you are,” Bray said. “Hell, you’re almost as famous as Weatherly in this town. You were probably a hotter property than her in the last year.”
“Not anymore, I guess,” Trembley said before he registered how inappropriate the comment was. Both women stared at him silently for a moment before Jessie recovered.
“I actually left the force last week,” she said quickly, hoping to rescue Trembley. “I’m just here to consult.”
“Yeah, I heard that too,” Bray noted.
“You seem to hear just about everything, Detective Bray,” Jessie replied. “I don’t know if I’d be so on the ball after getting hardly any sleep and having to help out with—what was it—an art project?”
Bray stared at her incredulously.
“Second grade science project, actually,” she said slowly. “We were working on it until after midnight and got up at five to complete it. How did you know?”