The Perfect Disguise (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Ten)

by Blake Pierce

  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?”

  “What kind of profiler would I be if I couldn’t pull an occasional rabbit out of the hat?” Jessie said before leaning in and whispering in her ear so that Trembley couldn’t hear. “You may want to make a restroom run later. Whatever ink you used on the project stained your top, which is misbuttoned.”

  Bray stared at her open-mouthed before allowing a slight smile.

  “Thanks. Motherhood, right?” she finally said. “By the way, sorry about Moses. I know you two were tight. Everyone had enormous respect for the man. And sorry about your partner as well—Hernandez, right? How’s he doing?”

  “Thanks. Hard to tell. Some days are better than others, you know?”

  Bray nodded, then shrugged as if to say “what are you gonna do?” Apparently the sympathy portion of their conversation had drawn to a close.

  “Yeah, well, I guess you’ll want to know what we have so far.”

  “That would be great,” Trembley said.

  “Don’t get too excited. It’s not much.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They watched the security footage intently.

  An overhead camera caught the assailant at the edge of the frame as Corinne Weatherly was dragged into the prop department.

  “After that nothing happens for a while, until this,” Bray said, fast-forwarding to footage of the person leaving the stage and walking into the New York Street area.

  “Is this it?” Trembley asked.

  Bray nodded. Jessie realized the detective was right. If these short clips were the only available video, that didn’t leave them much to work with.

  Just as bad, the images weren’t especially crisp. To make matters worse, the cameras were mounted at such high angles that there was no way to gauge the perpetrator’s height, weight, or general build. All they could tell was that the killer wore all black to go along with a black ski mask.

  “So the killer just disappeared after that?” Jessie confirmed with Bray.

  “From the view of the cameras, yes. The problem is that they’re only set up in high trafficked areas. And since there are so many, it’s hard to monitor all the cameras in real time. Unless a guard in the office was looking at the right screen at the right time, it would be easy to miss what happened. So someone who knows the lot well and has any sense of how the security here works, especially at night, could evade it pretty easily.”

  Trembley had a suggestion.

  “Maybe that means we should be looking at the folks who handle security,” he said. “Do we have a log of who was on duty last night?”

  “Way ahead of you, Detective,” Bray said. “Not only do we have a log, but each security officer is provided with a GPS-enabled radio so their locations can be constantly monitored. They’re also required to check in with the main office every fifteen minutes. Every officer working last night is accounted for and none of them were near Stage 32 or Weatherly’s trailer in the time window of the crime.”

  “That’s awfully convenient,” Jessie mused. “Like you said, it’s almost as if the killer knew the best time to do this.”

  “It’s definitely suspicious,” Bray agreed.

  “How come we don’t have a shot of when she was moved out of her trailer?” Trembley asked.

  “Let me show you,” Detective Bray said, leading them to Weatherly’s trailer. “There are a few things you need to see in there anyway.”

  As they walked past several crew members milling about, Jessie heard one especially vocal guy in jeans and a T-shirt grumbling that at least now they wouldn’t all need to go to group therapy. She was tempted to stop and ask him what that meant, but before she could, Bray spoke.

  “We’re here,” she said.

  Ignoring the crowd of onlookers, she ducked under the police tape and stepped inside the trailer. Jessie and Trembley followed. They immediately stepped into another world. Jessie’s image of a trailer was of some flimsy, temporary building with interior corkboard walls and fluorescent lighting. But this place looked like an expensive studio apartment.

  It was decked out with amenities she didn’t have access to at her old condo or Kat’s apartment. The living space had a nice loveseat set along one wall facing a massive television monitor. Behind that, in the back of the trailer, was a queen-size bed. Along the other wall was a kitchen, complete with a full-size refrigerator/freezer, a microwave, oven, and stove.

  Right across from her was a surprisingly spacious bathroom, including a shower with a small built-in bench. She turned the other way to see a makeup station, complete with a large mirror with built-in lighting. On the mirror was a word written in what appeared to be lipstick: Boatwright.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “This is one of the things you needed to see,” Detective Bray replied.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Trembley asked, stepping closer to the mirror.

  “Depends on what you think it is,” Bray replied.

  “I think it’s a name.”

  “Whose name?” Jessie demanded.

  “If I had to guess—Miller Boatwright.”

  He paused as if he’d solved the case and was waiting for a pat on the back.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Jessie said plainly.

  Trembley looked at Detective Bray, who seemed equally surprised by her comment.

  “Wow,” Trembley said in amazement. “You weren’t kidding when you said you missed some years, pop culture wise.”

  “I’ve been kind of busy, Trembley. You want to spill or play coy all morning?”

  “Sorry. Miller Boatwright is a Hollywood producer, one of the most successful in the industry. Think Jerry Bruckheimer or Brian Grazer, surely you’ve heard of them? He’s been associated with some of the biggest hits of the last twenty years.”

  “Okay,” Jessie said. “So what does that mean? Is he a producer on this movie?”

  “I don’t know about that. But he was a producer on Petals and Petulance, Corinne Weatherly’s breakout role. The stories about casting that movie are legendary. She beat out over two hundred actresses, including some pretty big names, for the female lead. Boatwright was the one who went to bat for her over higher profile actresses. The movie ended up being a massive h
it. She was nominated for a Golden Globe award. That performance is what got her the lead in the original Marauder film, which I still think is one of the top five horror films ever made.”

  “It is pretty good,” Bray agreed.

  “What’s your point, Trembley?” Jessie asked, getting exasperated.

  “My point is that in many ways, Corinne Weatherly owed her career to Miller Boatwright. And the fact that his name is written on the mirror in her makeup trailer where she was killed doesn’t seem like a coincidence. I don’t know if Weatherly wrote it or the killer did or if Boatwright should be a suspect, but I think we should probably have a chat with the guy, especially since his office is on this very studio lot.”

  “How do you know that?” Jessie asked.

  “I thought we’d established that I’m a film buff,” he told her as if it was obvious.

  “I can think of another word for what you are,” she countered.

  “Be that as it may, I still think we should talk to him.”

  “Fine,” Jessie agreed before turning back to Bray. “You said you could show us why there was no footage of Weatherly being taken from here.”

  “Right,” Bray said, nodding. “This is how.”

  She moved to the back of the trailer and knelt in front of the foot of the large bed. It was only then that Jessie noticed a rectangular indentation on the floor.

  “This is the fire door,” Bray said. “Every trailer is equipped with one in case the main door is inaccessible. It can only be opened from the inside. Don’t worry. We’ve already checked for prints and DNA.”

  She pressed a nearly invisible button underneath the bed and the door latch released, popping up. Bray removed it and motioned for them to look down. Jessie leaned in and immediately understood what had happened.

  Underneath the trailer was a women’s shoe that she gathered would be a match to a shoe found on the body. There were bits of material—seemingly torn clothing—on the underside of the trailer, where strands must have been torn off as she was dragged along the ground below.

  “So she was killed here,” Jessie said, “then dragged under the trailer to the soundstage, which we don’t actually have footage of, correct?”

  “That seems to be the case,” Bray confirmed.

  “Why not just leave her here?” Jessie wondered. “Why risk the elaborate procedure of moving her to a spot where they might be seen or having some kind of unforeseen hiccup?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. But when you see the body, I think you’ll find that whatever the reason, it was important to the killer that Weatherly be found where she was, in the state she was.”

  Jessie and Trembley exchanged curious looks.

  “Lead the way, Detective,” Trembley said more calmly than Jessie would have thought possible.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They stood over the body of Corinne Weatherly.

  In death, she was just another person. Whatever aura of celebrity she’d had in life had been wiped away, replaced by cold skin and empty eyes. The body she’d clearly spent so much effort trying to keep tight had started to dissipate. Her skin had lost its elasticity and her limbs were rigid.

  Jessie tried to get her bearings in the cavernous space of the prop room. There was something weird about finding a dead body in a warehouse. Everywhere she looked, there were fake dead bodies and countless individual bloody latex limbs that looked like they’d been ripped from torsos. It reminded Jessie of a meat processing plant, only with fake humans. A number of “dead” female torsos had been placed in a circle around Corinne in the center of the room.

  The deputy coroner stood quietly off to the side, ready to collect the body and take it to the morgue. According to Detective Bray, she’d been waiting for an hour but wasn’t allowed to move the body until the HSS folks had checked her out.

  “Sorry,” Trembley told her. “We won’t be long.”

  Jessie motioned for him to come closer to her.

  “Don’t ever apologize for doing your job,” she muttered under her breath. “We’re here to solve this murder, not expedite the process. If we need to study the body for two hours before she takes it, then we get two damn hours, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Trembley said, his face turning crimson. “I was just being polite.”

  “Be polite on your own time. This woman on the floor deserves our best efforts to get justice, not good manners.”

  She could sense he was about to apologize to her too and nipped it in the bud.

  “What do you make of this?” she asked, nodding at what both of them had immediately noticed upon seeing the body.

  In Weatherly’s right hand was a white rose. It had clearly been placed there after her death. Whatever significance it had was lost on Jessie. Looking over at Trembley, she could tell he had a different take.

  “It’s from the film,” he said. “Petals and Petulance.”

  “I saw the movie,” Jessie said. “But it was a long time ago. I think I was in college. So I have no recollection of a rose.”

  Trembley glanced at Detective Bray to see if she wanted to explain. She shrugged.

  “I remember that the guy gave her one in the movie but that’s about it.”

  Trembley, seemingly stunned, refreshed them on the plot.

  “In the movie, she played a woman named Rosie who owns a small floral shop. Sparks fly with a charming guy named Dave who comes by the store. But it turns out that he’s a rich entrepreneur who has bought out the property across the street to turn it into a huge nursery in his chain. They end up in this love-hate thing.”

  “I remember that part, Trembley,” Jessie said. “It was basically a rip-off of You’ve Got Mail, which was a rip-off of The Shop Around the Corner.”

  “I thought you didn’t pay attention to movies,” Trembley said, impressed.

  “I didn’t grow up in a nunnery,” Jessie replied. “Go on.”

  “Well, at the end of the movie, he comes to her with her favorite flower, a white rose, and proposes.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Jessie said. “And you think that whoever killed her intended for us to make that connection?”

  “It seems pretty obvious,” Trembley said.

  “Maybe too obvious,” Detective Bray piped up.

  “I guess,” Trembley conceded. “But either way, it seems clear that whoever did this knew about the movie and its back story. Maybe it was an obsessive fan. Maybe it was somebody who worked on the movie. But it sure appears that Petals and Petulance is somehow relevant to all this. It reinforces my feeling that we need to talk to Boatwright.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Jessie said vaguely as her attention was diverted by a small, red-faced man marching toward them. “Detective Bray, do you want to let us know who the angry little guy headed our way is?”

  Bray looked over and her shoulders visibly slumped.

  “That’s Anton Zyskowski. He’s the director. Not a barrel of laughs, that one. Buck up.”

  Zyskowski halted in front of them and stared directly at Trembley, ignoring Jessie entirely.

  “Are you the special detective?” he asked officiously, staring up at Trembley, who, like Jessie, had a good six inches on him.

  “Special detective?” he repeated.

  “The one who handles special cases,” the little man said in obvious frustration. “This woman says nothing can be done on the picture until the special detective arrives.”

  “I guess I’m one of the special detectives,” Trembley allowed. “We’re a team.”

  “Team means nothing to me. I need the person in charge to finish so I can begin shooting again. Every hour without shooting is many dollars. Time matters very much.”

  Jessie bit her tongue, waiting to see how Trembley would react. The detective looked back down at the tiny man. He started to mumble something about procedure, which Jessie didn’t understand. She seriously doubted that the director would get it.

  When it became apparent that Trembley w
as crashing and burning, Jessie stepped forward. Zyskowski glanced at her briefly before resuming his stare-down of Trembley.

  “Anton, is it?” she asked politely.

  “My friends say Anton,” he said, looking at her with an upturned nose. “Whoever you are, you may say Mr. Zyskowski.”

  Off to the side, Detective Bray tensed up. Jessie winked at her. Then she smiled her broadest, fakest smile.

  “My name’s Jessie Hunt. And here’s the thing, Anton,” she said, punching hard on his name. “Time may matter very much to you. But you know what matters more to us? The dead body on the floor twenty feet from you. And considering that the body belongs to the leading lady in your film, I would have thought it might matter to you as well.”

  “Of course it matters,” he retorted, slightly undone by the clap back. “I never say it doesn’t matter. But I have charge of this picture. Over three hundred jobs depend on me. I cannot only be sad for Corinne. I must think of others working. I must think of studio investment. It is not happy to say but I must be strong so that work can continue, even in death.”

  “Well, Anton,” Jessie said, unmoved, “work is going to have to wait until we’re ready to clear the crime scene. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re even able to continue without her.”

  She watched as Anton tried to restrain himself, even as his face turned from red to a hue resembling purple.

  “Corinne’s scenes were almost done,” he explained. “Remaining ones can have double. Will use CGI if we must. But picture still has four shooting days without her. Those can happen without problems.”