“Oh my god,” Fiona exclaimed.
“What?” Lenny asked, apparently not totally processing the news. He looked confused by her words.
“She was found in her apartment by her roommate,” Jessie said. “We’re investigating what happened. So you can understand that learning about any potential issues she had on-set or with a co-worker is essential to finding out what happened.”
“This can’t be right. I just saw her,” Lenny said, still not grasping things completely.
“When was that?” Jessie asked.
Lenny looked over at his mother helplessly. Fiona pulled up a screen on her computer.
“Yesterday we wrapped for the day at five eighteen,” she said, studying the screen. “She would have gone to makeup after that. Getting back to an everyday look is an involved process. Unless a girl has a public event or is doing a set at a club afterward, she’ll usually want to peel everything off. Same with wardrobe—most of our girls like to leave here makeup free and in sweats so don’t they draw…unwanted attention.”
“Stalkers?” Jessie asked.
“More just overenthusiastic fans,” Fiona said. “But it can be a lot. None of them want to be hit on at the local Starbucks. I’m sure you get the same thing, dearie. For a lot of the girls, going without makeup is a kind of disguise because they look so different.”
“You say she would have gone to wardrobe too. Was she a cheerleader for this movie?”
Lenny seemed to snap out of it slightly at the question.
“Yeah. We were shooting Nympho Cheerleader Zombies 2. The original was one of our biggest hits.”
“She was found in her cheerleader uniform,” Jessie said, ignoring his box office commentary. “How unusual would it be for her to wear her costume home?”
“A little,” Fiona said. “But it’s not crazy. That’s a simple uniform to prep. If she kept it, she probably could have slept an extra half hour this morning. Normally the wardrobe girls have to find the outfit, check it out, and dress her. She could have just shown up in it and had wardrobe do a quick check. The head costumer doesn’t like that in general because of potential damage. But because it was Melissa, I bet she would have let it slide. It’s not like we’re doing Shakespeare in Love here.”
“Yeah,” Jessie said. “It seems like a lot of what goes on here wouldn’t pass muster in the normal film world.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lenny demanded, looking offended. “We follow all the industry standards. We wipe down facilities after every scene. We haven’t had a health shutdown in over three years.”
“That’s very impressive,” Jessie said, trying not to gag. “But what about following employment rules?”
Lenny looked over at his mom like a kid who was worried he might get busted for stealing a cookie. Fiona sighed.
“We follow standard procedure,” she said. ‘Everyone needs to provide the same paperwork they would to work at a grocery store or at a shop in the mall.”
“It looks like your age verification procedures could use a little brushing up,” Jessie said.
“What do you mean?” Fiona asked as she punched the keyboard in front of her. “I’m looking at her file now. Everything is in order.”
“Melissa was seventeen,” Jessie told her. “And her real name isn’t Melissa Mackenzie. It’s Michaela Penn.”
“What the…?” Lenny started to say.
“That’s not possible,” Fiona said. “I’m looking at copies of her documents right here—license, social security card—they’re legit.”
“A basic background check would have told you that the Melissa Mackenzie with that social security number died as a baby eighteen years ago. It took me two minutes to confirm it.”
“But you’re a cop,” Fiona protested.
“You don’t have to be a cop to verify this information,” Jessie said, not correcting the woman’s misimpression about her profession. “It’s easy to confirm. I suspect that age verification just isn’t a priority for Filthy Films.”
“Listen,” Lenny insisted. “We follow the rules. Missy, Michaela, whoever she is, was trumpeted by Giles. He pushed for her. If there was anything sketchy about her background, he’s the one who should have known.”
“Who’s Giles?” Jessie asked.
“Giles Marchand,” Fiona said. “He’s one of our top directors. He did the original Nympho Cheerleader Zombies. He kind of discovered Melissa. He’s been known to push hard for girls he likes. Last year he got a girl cast on Nasty Maids Make a Mess who turned out to be undocumented. He helped her get papers to suggest otherwise. But she was an idiot and started bragging about how her ‘precious Giles’ made her an American. Another girl who wanted her role turned her in. I wouldn’t be stunned if he did something similar for Mel…Michaela.”
“Can you please ask him to come here so we can talk?” Jessie asked.
“He’s actually at home,” Fiona said. “We wrapped early today and he’s reviewing footage in the edit bay he has set up at his place.”
“I’ll go there then,” Jessie said brusquely. “I need his contact info.”
As Fiona looked it up, Lenny sat down on the worn, discolored loveseat in the corner of the office.
“I can’t believe Missy’s dead,” he said foggily. “I had big plans for her. She was going to be the tent pole character for the Candy Wants Candy series. The second one is coming out next month. I guess now we’ll just have to hype it as the last great performance of a talent cut down too soon.”
Jessie was amazed and horrified at how quickly Lenny seemed to transition into thinking of how to monetize the death of one of his actresses. She felt anger bubble up in her chest and forced herself to gulp it back down before she spoke. She waited until Fiona handed her Giles’s info before responding.
“You should know I’m having you shut down,” she said to Lenny coldly. “Whether you were aware of it or not, you employed an underage girl in multiple porn films. That’s not going to fly. So I wouldn’t go making any elaborate marketing plans for her movies anytime soon. I have a feeling the FBI might take issue with that.”
“But we’ll lose hundreds of thousands of…”
But before Lenny could continue, Fiona shushed him. She seemed to sense that protesting would only make things worse.
“Thanks for bringing this to our attention,” she said through gritted teeth. “We’ll do everything we can on our end to help.”
Jessie gave her a perfunctory nod and walked out, happy to let mother and son hash out the fallout without her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On her way to see Giles Marchand, Jessie saw that she had missed a text from Kat that read simply “Update. Call me.” She called her back immediately.
“That was fast,” she said when her friend picked up.
“You’re surprised? I’m good at what I do.”
“Prove it,” Jessie challenged. “What did you find out?”