Hollywood Ending

by Kellye Garrett

  “Jim Henson is on Sunset and La Brea.”

  The Jim Henson Company Lot with its collection of stages and recording studios, is best known as the place they recorded “We Are the World” back in the day. It’s seen a lot of celebrities. What it doesn’t see is a lot of commoners. Like with most businesses that cater to a celeb clientele, you can’t just walk on the lot and say hey to Kandy Wrapper. You have to be on the list. Hollywood lives and dies by them. Whether it’s a club VIP list, People’s Sexiest Bachelors, or the top ten movies of all time, you’re on a list or you’re no one. Studios were no exception.

  Which meant Jim Henson probably had a record of everyone who’d been on the lot, including Pretty Boy and Piper aka Geppetto aka person I needed to find before they had anymore nicknames. “If we can get our hands on the visitors’ log—or better yet, security footage—we’d have what we need.”

  Sienna perked up. “We should drive there. Pretend we’re delivering flowers. I could distract the guard. You could sneak on the lot. Find the security office.”

  I nodded. “Which would probably be locked. Which means I’d have to pick it.” I made a mental note to order a lock picking set immediately.

  “At that point, the guard would probably get a phone call about an alarm.”

  “Which I wouldn’t realize was there. And I’d only have like sixty seconds before it automatically called the police.”

  “And it’d totally go off. But we would figure that would happen. So, we’d have a plan. When they got there. I’d distract them. With something other than my boobs.”

  I nodded appreciatively. “Which would give me just enough time to turn on the computer and figure out the password. It’d be something simple like JimHenson1234* because they all insist you have a freaking symbol now. Like it can’t be your choice to have a password that’s quote-unquote weak.”

  Sienna had heard the “my password, my choice” rant so many times that she just ignored it. “Right,” she said instead. “You’d type it in. Then find the security footage, which would be neatly labeled by date. You’d look for the week or so before the blind item. Pull it up. And bam. Visual proof of J. Chris meeting Pretty Boy.”

  “Or one of our nine other choices.” Sienna ignored that, so I continued on. “Whoever it is, she’d be running out the lot after Pretty Boy asked her to sing. I’d steal the tape so we could take it to the police. Brilliant.”

  “Yes!” Sienna said. “We could do that.”

  “We could totally do that!”

  “Totally. Or we could just check his Instagram account.”

  “Or we could do that too.”

  My phone was already out. I pulled the app up and found Pretty Boy’s username within seconds, no lock picking required. Not that it mattered. I was still ordering that lock pick set ASAP. Pretty Boy’s Insta put Junior’s girlfriend Regina’s to shame. Every thought. Every selfie. Every meal. All shared with the world. I’m no math genius, but a cursory glance at his account seemed to show a five-posts-per-day average. And a whole lot of posting on his part meant a whole lot of scrolling on mine.

  I’m not ashamed to say my thumbs were the body part that got the most work out. My personal record was being 262 weeks deep in Omari’s college girlfriend’s account. And I have never accidentally hit a like button. Not even once. It was a God-given gift.

  It didn’t take us long to find what we needed, posted a mere four days before the Anani blind item. He’d gone with a filter. Lark, if I had to make a cursory guess. I was a Clarendon girl myself. It made the red in Sienna’s outfits pop.

  The photo was taken inside, yet Pretty Boy had elected not to remove his sunglasses. He probably needed them to not be blinded when the light hit all the diamonds on his neck. And his wrists. And his ears. And, perhaps most importantly, his pinkies. While he treated diamonds like he’d purchased them on sale in a bejeweler kit, his photo-mate only sported one rock. Of course, the solitaire diamond on her left ring finger was probably bigger—and more expensive—than all Pretty Boy’s combined. Her diamond was embedded on a ring as platinum as her hair. It was—

  “J. Chris! I knew it.” Sienna’s scream was so loud they probably heard it in Calabasas. “Look at her. You can tell her voice is about as real as her nose, boobs, hair, lips, teeth, butt, nails. You need to call the tip line. Right now.”

  And with that, she glided off and left me with my thoughts. I wished she hadn’t. I almost took her advice and called the tip line immediately. It’s what I’d done in the past. But something stopped me. Or should I say someone.

  Geppetto.

  What if we were wrong? What if it wasn’t J. Chris? As much as I’d love for the whole thing to be over—again—I had to wonder if this was still all part of Geppetto’s plan. Just like they’d wanted me to hand Junior to the cops. Maybe they wanted me to hand them J. Chris as well.

  I was not going to let them pull anymore of my strings. It would take more than just a blinged-out Instagram photo before I was ready to jump back down that rabbit hole. I couldn’t see myself calling the tip line any more than I could imagine Pretty Boy’s Instagram post being introduced as Exhibit 23 in trial.

  I decided to sleep on it. It was still on my mind when I woke up the next day—alone, since Omari had a late call. There had to be something more concrete, I decided—preferably from Lyla/Anani herself. Or her source. Anani and her “birdie” communicated somehow. I was betting—hoping—it was buried somewhere in her email account. I got on my laptop and logged in.

  I did a search for J. Chris and Janet Christie. There were a couple of blind items but none mentioned lip-syncing or any clandestine meetings with Pretty Boy. He also didn’t come up in any searches.

  Blurg.

  I took a time-out, figuring I could google either of their real names. Or a friend or disgruntled ex-employee I could look up as a source.

  I started with J. Chris and her Wikipedia, which had obviously been heavily edited by her publicist. It stated she was born Janet Malone and moved to LA at 20, which meant she probably was closer to 23. A stage age—one that shaved at least three years off your real one—was a Hollywood must, along with a weave, teeth whitening, and a nose job. I got so used to telling people my stage age during my Chubby gig that I still hesitate when I need to fill out my birth year on official documents. Maybe J. Chris had the same problem.

  She’d started off with modeling and turned down a gig working in a music video for a debut country artist named Mack Christie. Mack may not have gotten the girl, but he did get a number one single. His career rose while Janet was cast on a soap opera. From there, she climbed the celebrity alphabet until she reached A-list with a role as the adoring wife in an Oscar-nominated Leo DiCaprio film. A couple of years later, Mack came back in her life when friends—read publicists—set them up. Hollywood’s latest It Couple was born.

  Despite repeated claims that their next collaboration would be a baby, it actually was some movie called $3,000. I had no clue what it was about but I doubted I’d be seeing it. You might be able to lip-sync a three-minute song. But an entire movie role? Not so much.

  I did some more research but came up with nothing of interest. I was more lost than a bunch of teenagers midway through a horror movie. On one hand, chances were the source would probably contact “Anani” again. Somehow. Some way. I just didn’t know when or how. And I had no desire to wait.

  I needed to call Aubrey, if nothing more than to talk things out. My instincts were saying to put figuring out Piper’s true identity on the back burner and focus on finding the source. But I wasn’t sure. Geppetto still had me feeling shook, and I was treating my instincts like a cheating boyfriend who swore up and down that he’d changed: I didn’t exactly trust them though I’d never admit that to my friends.

  Also, I needed to talk to Aubrey about when he could take the PI exam, since I’d dropped the application off in
the mail on the way home from Emme’s yesterday. Once his application got approved, he would be eligible to take the exam and I didn’t want to waste any time. A quick Google search let me know there were over 2,000 possible multiple choice, Q&A, and True/False questions covering everything from state labor codes to post office manuals. Another site claimed only thirty percent of applicants passed it. Blurg.

  The one thing I did know from the last few days was I needed Aubrey more than ever. I just hoped he remembered half the stuff he’d learned at the Sheriff’s Academy. To be safe, I found a site offering a study guide and printed out the info before heading over to his place in Silver Lake.

  He must have just gotten home because he was standing next to his bike taking off his bright yellow helmet. A police scanner was mounted to his bike. It squawked. Aubrey’s version of fun.

  “We have a Code Six. Adam.”

  “Roger that. Forty-five will be in route.”

  “Oh no!” I put both hands to my cheeks Home Alone style. “A Code Six! Their lunch delivery isn’t here yet?”

  Aubrey wasn’t amused. “The patrolman has arrived at the location, a Code Six, but they might need assistance—Adam.”

  Maybe we didn’t need to spring for a study guide course after all. “You going to help out?” I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler on his sliver of a patio. “Super Aubrey to the rescue.”

  “No, I just came back from Ms. Ruth’s home. She let me examine her grandson’s room. I did not find anything of note, but she did provide contact information for some of her grandson’s associates.”

  I nodded appreciatively. “You have any luck when you gave the cops the phone?”

  “They claimed they would look into it, but we shall see,” he said. “What about you, Ms. Anderson?”

  “Well,” I said, “I did maybe find a motive through the Anani angle.”

  I updated him on what Sienna, Emme, and I had uncovered. He didn’t speak until the end. “Forgive me, Ms. Anderson, but I find it hard to believe that alleged lip-syncing is a strong enough motive for a murder.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re looking at it from the point of view of a regular person. Being a celebrity is as much a brand as Coke or Pepsi. It’s a legitimate multi-million-dollar enterprise. You make money for managers, publicists, execs at movie studios. Which makes them all invested in every aspect of your career and life. Chubby’s had someone whose job it was to monitor my Twitter account and I was nowhere near the level of a platinum-selling singer. So this is not like me mouthing the words to Mariah Carey in the car. This has the potential to ruin a career and lose a lot of people a lot of money. And isn’t money one of the prime motives for murder?”

  If I had a mic, I would’ve dropped it. Instead, I settled for taking a sip from my Arrowhead bottle. I almost spit it out when Aubrey spoke.

  Thirteen

  “I stand corrected, Ms. Anderson.” It was the first time Aubrey had ever admitted I was right. “So what do you propose we do now?”

  I’d come here to ask him that. “Sienna’s working on getting J. Chris’s schedule but it might take some time. Linking J. Chris to the blind is a dead end for now. So maybe we should possibly look into finding the source.” I hated how hesitant I sounded.

  It took a good thirty seconds for Aubrey to respond. I counted. “You said no one has ever linked Ms. Davis to this Anani Miss alias, correct?”

  I nodded. “The blog is on its annual hiatus and always reveals a big blind item when it returns, right after the Silver Sphere Awards.”

  “The source probably does not know Anani Miss is dead, which means he or she will attempt to contact her again. I would not waste much time on that for now. Instead, we should look into finding the proof that Ms. Davis alluded to in her blog article.”

  Of course, I’d completely forgotten all about the audiovisuals. Blurg. “If we get that, we don’t need a source or a threat. I should have thought about that.”

  “There is no question that you would have, Ms. Anderson.”

  I smiled then, appreciating his lame attempt to make me feel better. “Lyla seemed so focused on covering her tracks that I see her keeping a copy on her desktop or a flash drive. Not in her email or the cloud. Worst case scenario, it’s in a safety deposit box and we’re screwed. Best case, it’s in her apartment.”

  “Well then, we should operate on best case scenario. What is Ms. Davis’s home address?”

  It took ten minutes to get in the car and less than that for Aubrey to work my nerves.

  “I know you are not texting and driving, Ms. Anderson.”

  “Of course not.” Aubrey made a point to side-eye the cell in my hand. “Technically, I’m GPSing and driving.”

  Which I was. Emme had found Lyla’s addy in minutes. She texted it to me along with a reminder I only had a few days to get her birthday gift. I was lying to my GPS app Waze about being the passenger—like Aubrey, they too were serious about the whole distracted driving thing—when Aubrey jumped in with a PSA.

  “You do know that a law firm estimated there are 300,000 injuries every year from accidents caused by texting while driving?”

  “I did not know that. I do have a question, though. How do you know that? You have a flip phone so I know you didn’t google that statistic on your cell.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “How old are you, Ms. Anderson?”

  “Twenty-four.” I automatically gave him my stage age. “Wait, no. That’s wrong.”

  “You take this lightly, but 33 percent of drivers who were using their mobile phones during crashes were in their twenties, according to the federal government’s distracted driving webpage.”

  I had to smile. Yes, Aubrey was a walking, talking footnote, but he was my walking, talking footnote. And my partner—when he took care of getting ASAP Investigations licensed. “By the way, I dropped the PI license application off. Next step is the exam. They test six days a week, so yay.”

  He nodded. “I will let you know as soon as I hear from them.”

  “Good.”

  We drove past the Paramount Studios lot off Melrose before hitting a red light at Van Ness. Across the street was a huge digital billboard that looked like someone had taken a movie screen showing before-the-movie ads and placed it four stories up. Image after image flashed, most promos for movies and TV shows, including Omari’s LAPD 90036. Conveniently, the show was filmed at Paramount across the street. I’d bet good money I didn’t have that all the billboard ads were for productions that shot on the Paramount lot. That meant the subjects on said billboard saw them on their way to work and were probably overjoyed Paramount was giving its all to promote their careers.

  The latest ad for a sitcom featuring a chubby white guy and his ridiculously hot wife was replaced with an advertisement for the Silver Sphere Awards. Live only on CBS! It was a shame Lyla wouldn’t be around to see it.

  We started moving, only to stop again a few streets up. I used the time to review everything we knew, the facts continuously scrolling through my mind like sports scores on ESPN. When I got to the Viv3000 email addy it was like someone hit pause on the DVR. Its presence didn’t make much sense. I could understand the secret Anani account but why have two? The only reason people needed a secret—well, more secret—email was to sign up for yet another free Netflix trial or a porn site.

  Or so I was told.

  Lyla was meticulous about having the bare minimum on her Anani phone, so it wasn’t there by accident. If she wasn’t using Viv3000 for free porn, she had to be using it for something else. And that something else could be the Piper blind. It could be how Lyla and her source contacted each other, especially if Lyla didn’t want to wade through the massive daily injection of new emails in the Anani account.

  We were still at a stoplight. I glanced at Aubrey. He was distracted by someone attempting to jaywalk. A big no-no in LA. Au
brey rolled down his window and yelled out, “You know you are breaking the law, correct? You are risking a $250 ticket. I suggest you turn around right now and wait for the light.”

  It was a risk, but I took a chance. I logged on through my browser. It took a second but I opened it and navigated to the Viv account.

  Still no new emails. Blurg.

  I stole another peek at Aubrey. He was paying me no mind since apparently, the jaywalker wasn’t following his advice. “I do not want to call the police and report you.”

  Feeling brave, I went to check the Anani account when my cell was wrenched from my hand. Aubrey started awkwardly tapping on my touchscreen like a three-year-old at his first dance class. I lunged for it and he proceeded to play a game of Keep Away. “We’re at a stoplight!” I said. “If you don’t give me the phone back, I swear I will be in my nightgown the next time I take you anywhere.”

  Aubrey looked at me as if wondering if I was bluffing. A dumb California law didn’t allow women to drive in housecoats. Aubrey knew it too. “How much is that fine?” I asked him.

  He handed my phone back to me without a word. The Viv inbox was not only empty, but he’d also somehow managed to delete the unsent draft. He was worse than my two-year-old cousin, who we dubbed the “Magician” due to her ability to delete apps from cell phones she hadn’t even touched.

  “Incensegrand can wait, Ms. Anderson.”

  My brain tried to calculate what he’d said. It hit me. “I’m not on Instagram. I’m working on the case.”

  I used the rest of the trip to explain why I’d checked my phone. He didn’t seem convinced. We were still chatting when we finally pulled up to Lyla’s address and got out. She lived in Hancock Park, an old-school rich-people neighborhood smack-dab in central Los Angeles. Nat King Cole and his family had integrated it in the ’40s, much to the chagrin of some of his all-white neighbors.