“Not really.”
“Okay, then let’s start fresh. I’m sorry, but the questions I have to ask you are going to be difficult. But in order to find out what happened to Michaela…”
“Mick,” Lizzie corrected. “She went by Mick.”
“In order to find out what happened to Mick, I’m going to be blunt and I need you to be honest, okay? Don’t try to protect her memory by keeping important details from me. Everything is going to come out eventually, so the sooner the better. Are we clear?”
Lizzie nodded.
“Okay, let’s start with how you knew Mick.”
“We went to high school together at St. Ursula Academy. She graduated a year early and we kind of lost touch. But we reconnected a few months ago. I go to school at Cal State Northridge and didn’t want to live on campus. She had a new place and wanted a roommate for company. So I moved in.”
“It’s a pretty nice place,” Jessie said gently. “You were able to afford it as a student?”
“I only paid a quarter of the rent, basically for the room. She footed the bill for everything else.”
“She could afford that?”
“I guess so,” Lizzie said unconvincingly.
Jessie decided to hold off before pressing on that point.
“So you’ve been roommates a few months now?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. Since last fall actually.”
“And what were you doing last night before you came home?”
“I had a study session. I came home around nine forty-five. Mick gets up early for work lots of days so I tried to be quiet in case she was asleep.”
“But…” Jessie pressed, sensing Lizzie wanted to say more.
“But I saw that her light was on. So I peeked in and…” She trailed off.
Jessie opted not to push on the details of a crime scene she’d seen herself. She didn’t want Lizzie’s emotions to overwhelm her and prevent her from providing other important details.
“I asked you this last night but you were a little out of it. Did Mick have a significant other?”
“No. She was single.”
“What about an ex?” Jessie asked. “Maybe a relationship that ended badly?”
“She wasn’t romantically involved with anyone the entire time I lived with her. She wanted to keep the focus on work. She was trying to build a nest egg.”
“Waitressing at Jerry’s?” Jessie asked incredulously.
Lizzie looked at her uncertainly, then glanced away.
“Can I get some more water, please?” she asked.
“Sure,” Jessie said, refilling the cup and returning it to her.
After the girl took several more large gulps, Jessie tried again.
“Lizzie, do you remember what I said about being honest? How hiding things wouldn’t help Mick?”
Lizzie nodded.
“I think we’re at the point where you need to think about whether you’re helping her right now. We both know you’re not being totally straight with me. Why don’t you tell me what you’re holding back? It’ll save me time that I can better use to catch her killer.”
Lizzie stared at her with a mix of guilt and apprehension. Then she lowered her eyes. Jessie was just about to try again when the girl spoke.
“She wasn’t just a waitress. She was there because she could work part time and set her hours. Mostly, though, it was so she could tell people that’s what she did.”
“It wasn’t?”
“She made most of her money…acting.”
“Okay,” Jessie replied, sensing that word was carrying a lot of weight. “What kind of acting?”
“The adult kind,” Lizzie answered heavily.
“She did porn?” Jessie asked, wanting to make sure they were on the same page.
Lizzie nodded her head.
“But she was underage,” Jessie said. “You have to be eighteen to make those movies.”
“She paid a lot of money to get decent fake papers. I doubt they would have been enough if she was applying to work at Google or Northrop Grumman or something. But the people she worked for weren’t exactly sticklers. They asked for the paperwork. She gave it. They let her work.”
“Was she popular, well-known?” Jessie asked, her head swimming at the possibility of thousands of viewers, all potential suspects.
“She wasn’t a star or anything,” Lizzie said. “She’d only made about a dozen movies so far. But she said they were planning to put her in a lot more. She said they liked her work ethic. She showed up on time. She’d work long hours. She was never high.”
Jessie wondered about the professional environment in which those qualities were considered rarities.
“This was work she wanted to do?” Jessie asked.
“It wasn’t her dream job. But she didn’t have a problem with it. She liked to live on the edge a little, got a thrill out of being a bad girl. But mostly, she liked the money. She had a plan. She didn’t live a fancy lifestyle. The apartment is nice and she generally bought what she wanted. But she didn’t go crazy. She said that if she worked for two years and made fifty movies with multiple scenes—you get paid by the kind of act in each scene—she figured she could pull in about $250,000. Then she’d quit and go to school. She was looking into an advertising degree. She was already auditing my marketing class on Thursdays.”
“Did she seem happy, like things were going okay?”
“I mean, happy is a strong word,” Lizzie admitted. “She seemed okay with what she was doing. I tried not to press her on it too much. I don’t like to judge but her lifestyle isn’t my lifestyle. I’m pretty religious and she definitely wasn’t. But considering that she was giving me such a deal on living there, I didn’t think it was my place to call out her choices, you know?”
“I understand,” Jessie assured her.
“It’s not like she even needed a roommate really. She said she just felt more secure having one. And she liked the company. I think she appreciated having someone around who wasn’t part of her work life, someone who knew her before she was Missy Mack.”
“Missy Mack?”
“That’s her screen name. She obviously wasn’t going to use her real one. She said Missy sounded young and innocent, which is the type of character she was known for. Also it fit with her fake identity, Melissa Mackenzie. That was the name on the social security number she bought for employment documents.”
“She really thought this through, huh?” Jessie said, half-admiringly.
“Like I said, she had a plan. Two years, $250,000. That was her focus.”
“Was she working yesterday?”
“Yeah. She had an early call—six a.m. She was supposed to be there today too.”
“Do you know the name of the company she worked for?”
“She did a lot of fly-by-night stuff for a while. But for the last half dozen movies, she’s been a regular performer for Filthy Films. They’re based here in Van Nuys.”
Lizzie sighed deeply. Jessie could tell the girl was fading.
“Okay,” Jessie said, writing it down. “I’m going to wrap up soon. Just a couple more questions—do you know if she had any obsessive fans? Did she ever mention stalkers or anything like that?”