Five Stories

All the prominent people are there. Terry Opal. Meg Fontaine. Kenneth Taslim. Fabian Prince. Half of their signatures are the same, and I point it out to Gabriel.

"I gave up having important people sign themselves in a long time ago. Half the time their assistants do it for them, if anyone does it at all."

Over a hundred people had come and gone on that day. Grips. Camera operators. Fill in the blank Coordinator. Lights. Photography. Catering. Hair and makeup. Wardrobe. Medics. LAPD.

"Cops were here?" I ask.

"Checking on the pyrotechnics team."

An LAPD officer came in and out during the time Meg would have been having a tantrum in her trailer. I don't see any precinct or name for the officer who came by. The handwriting is neat with exaggerated loops on the curved letters. My guess is female.

"Meg is logged in at eight in the morning," Jo says, and points to her spot on the sheet. There is a space for remarks, and it says she left via ambulance at 3:18pm.

A black Tahoe pulls into the set from the gate, and we all turn to it. Terry Opal opens his own door from the back, using it to help lift himself from the car. He has to turn his body to unnatural angles to wiggle himself out. He's so fat he needs to get out a Tahoe creatively.

"Mr. Kramner, you're early," Terry Opal says. "Morning Gabe."

"Sir," Gabriel replies with a small nod. Mutual respect. Didn't see that from Terry.

"Better than being late," I repeat.

"Not every department is here anymore, obviously. The mat, ropes, and her harness are here. Right this way," Terry says, and starts to walk, but quickly pivots back to the logbook. "Almost forgot." He signs himself in, and then asks us to do the same. He's not a complete asshole.

"Could you give us some history on the building?" I ask. He looks over his head inquisitively.

"Relevance?"

"Could be nothing. Could be everything."

"It was originally business offices. Law firms, private medical practices, things like that. The tenets moved out for other locations. In some cases, for other states, and soon the land was worth more than the rent. The owner defaulted on the loans, it was seized by the bank, and the production bought it for pennies. It only cost around six hundred thousand after closing."

"Damn," I say.

"Local politicians just want the building gone. It's an eyesore. They only got an exception to build as high as they did because the contractor was cousins with the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. They promised to buy the land off us for over a million after we demolish it."

We come to the side of the building which looks like a movie set. Tracks are still set up for the cameras with markers on the ground. They chose this side of the building for the natural light.

The side of the building is immediately beside the asphalt of what used to be a parking lot. The set was probably built for this shot because the earth was flat and even. A red square of tape is still present on the ground. The square is about seven feet long and five feet wide.

"It marked the mat. The thing was, it was aligned when she fell. She still missed her mark," Terry says. I look straight up the wall, and then back to the square. That's a hell of a fall.

"Is it marked up there as well?" I ask, and he nods.

"Come on, I'll take you up."

"I'll check out my theory," Jo says.

I follow Terry into the building. It appears abandoned and gutted. Several walls had been taken down, and it lacks any furniture.

"We took everything out. Sold the excess furniture, recycled some for other sets. It's just a shell with an elevator now."

We take the elevator to the fifth floor, and we walk down a deserted hall to the stairwell. There is a ladder leading to a hatch for roof access.

"I'd join you, but I'm old," he says, and leaves me alone at the stairs.

I groan and climb up the ladder, gripping the rung above me, securing myself with my elbow on the top of the rung below it, so I can jump with my one real leg to the next rung.

"Old fat fuck," I grumble to myself as I reach the hatch. I turn it open and push hard. I climb up and out and place my fake leg down first. I'm way too young to be this tired.

I look for the sun to find the correct side of the building. There are similar markers on the roof, showing where the rappel was supposed to be executed from. The metal loop to hook onto is still mounted. It's marked with the same red tape on a small ledge, old, cracked, and faded, and I kneel next to it before leaning over the side. Jo waves up at me.

"How's the view?" Jo shouts.

"A whole lot of fuck that," I reply. "Stand back."

Jo does as asked, and I dig a pen from my pocket and drop it straight down. Not exactly scientific, but it's something. I watch it lands flush inside the red square.

"Looks good," she says, in case I didn't see it. "We got a rope?"

I sit against the side of the roof hatch for almost a full ten minutes. Finally, I hear the elevator ding. I poke my head over the hatch and see the door to the stairs open. Gabriel appears with a coiled rope draped over his shoulder.

"Room for one more?" Gabriel asks.

Gabriel effortlessly climbs up and helps me get the rope situated. He quickly explains a fixed line rappel and throws the two strands down. I lean out and watch Jo pull them taut. It's aligned with the marker on the roof and is flush dead center in the mat placement. How did this go so wrong?

I take the elevator back down and rejoin Jo at the red square. She's now on her knees and running her fingers across the asphalt.

"Part of your theory?" I ask.

"I'll know it if I feel it." I watch her work for about thirty seconds before she runs her fingers over the same spot a few times. The spot she's focused on is inside of the red square. I'm gestured over to check it myself. Rough asphalt, and then suddenly sticky adhesive residue. Not much, but enough. "You feel it?"

"Yup," I say, and then rub my fingers on my thumb. I look at the tape that is still here, and then look up to where the tape was on the roof. Both were red and have similar state of decay. Only the one on the ground isn't sticking to the road as well. Like it's been picked up and reapplied a few times. "What's your theory?"

"Someone moved the markers," Jo replies. "I'd say that's likely."

Jo and I trace out the assumed old outline with the shoelaces of her boots. It's far enough off to have killed her.

"One last thing," I say. I point to a reference point on the side of the building. Jo brings over the laptop and places it on the ground in the red square. We watch the third take again, but we only pay attention to where the mat is. A second after her thud, the camera whips down, and I freeze it. I see the edge of the mat she missed. It's aligned almost perfectly with Jo's shoelaces.

I immediately call Detective Roland and ask her to stop by. She tells me she's busy with her case, but she'll check in with me when she's got a minute.

"I need every inch of footage you have," I say to Terry who hands me a card to the production companies HQ. "Jo, reinterview Kenneth Taslim and the entire stunt crew. Find out who put that tape down or is squirrely about answering that question."

"We took the same car," Jo reminds me.

"Shit, right," I say, and pause to regather my thoughts. "I'll drop you off."

"In LA traffic just before noon?"

"Fine, we'll comb through footage together, and then, I don't know," I say, groaning in frustration at my own lack of planning. It was my idea to drive over together.

"Take a breath boss," Jo says with a taunting grin. "It's that adrenaline rush when you get your teeth on something tangible." That rush is real. "You ride over with Mr. Opal to see the film, assuming he's okay with that." I look at Terry who shrugs. "I'll take the Jeep to do the interviews."

Jo's plan is accepted, and I schedule a phone call in the afternoon for an update. I join Terry in the backseat of his Tahoe and leave before Jo.

--

-Holly Roland-

Chase Kramner called to tell me he found something on the Meg Fontaine case. I'll be damned. I can't help him right now, but as soon as I'm done with this, I would be interested in looking at what he's found. For now, I'm stuck with the murder of a porn star. Deesohorny. What is wrong with kids these days?

I just don't understand this generation. In my day, porn was hard to find. You had to steal magazines from a careless male relative or read National Geographic. Maybe you got some softcore porn covered in static if you wiggled the bunny-ears of your TV just right. Computers started with slow downloads of blurry pictures, assuming your mother didn't kick you off the computer because she was waiting for a phone call. I was in college when dialup started. And I know admitting that only serves to carbon date me.

Men were nicer to women because sex was a scarce commodity. You had to go out of your way to find a porno. You had to put yourself out there, to put yourself out there so to speak. If you wanted to meet someone, you had to go somewhere. Still being a virgin in your twenties wasn't strange. Losing my virginity in my third year of college didn't even make me a late bloomer. Today I'd be a weirdo.

Denise Horne is the third case of a porn actress's death I've seen this year alone. This is the first one I have reason to suspect is a murder. Girl wants to be an actress, comes to Hollywood. Isn't getting auditions, waitressing isn't paying the bills. Takes a one-time only role in a porn. Pretty vanilla scene. Blowjob, missionary, doggy, little reverse cowgirl, jerk off onto your tits or on your belly button. Rent comes around next month, still no work. You take the same role, only this time it's facial. I don't understand the fascination with facials. Is it a power thing?

Rent comes around again, you take a role. This time, raw. No condom.

This time you don't wait a full month. Two guys. Two facials at the same time.

Then it's you and another girl. The guy comes in your mouth and you spit it into the other girl's mouth. Or worse; it's the other way around.

You just made ten thousand in two weeks, and you've decided to go all in. You film ten scenes in three days. You get ten thousand for your anal virginity alone. The first gangbang scene is rough, but you can't turn down the money. It's no longer a job; it's a lifestyle.

You can't meet nice men anymore. Every man you know has fucked you. If you manage a date, you can tell he recognizes you and thinks he's getting a professional level blowjob. You can only be friends with people who you work with. Good luck not getting herpes or something worse. Plan on at least one abortion in the next year, whether you want the baby or not.

How do you cope? Weed calms your nerves before a scene. You don't have the sexual stamina to keep up naturally, so you're constantly lathered in lube or oil. You need cocaine to keep the energy for the next shoot. Drinking helps you come back down so you can sleep. You want out, but now you need the money just to fuel the drugs. Eventually, you die of alcohol poisoning because weed prevents vomiting, and now you can't puke when you drink too much.

Your legacy is a handful of videos on websites people watch for free, and a comment on the video asking "Who's the blonde?" Which begs the question; when did we become so desensitized to porn that now the videos have comment sections?

"ME says they won't get to our girl until tomorrow," I hear Max say from his desk behind me. I was so focused on thinking about Denise, I ask him to repeat himself just to make sure I heard him. In movies and television shows, the body is cut open the next scene for autopsy exposition dump time. Not in LA. Unless you're important. Two episodes of detectives sitting around with their thumbs up their asses isn't good television. "You really think it's a murder?"

"We'll know more after an autopsy. Girl dies from a needle I have reason to believe she wouldn't put in herself. Just looking at it with more scrutiny than usual," I summarize. I want to talk to her other housemates, but they're still in Vegas with an unknown date of return. They're also bad at answering their phones. The production company has let me know they'll get back to us several times. I know some of the detectives in LVPD, so if it comes to that, I can have someone track them down for me.

Denise's stepbrother said he was coming to get her body. Her family wants to bury her in Kansas. I'd like to speak to him more. Her agent is immediately next on my list.

Jasmine "Jazz" Harts is a talent agent who represents actors in several industries, but mostly television extras and porn. She represented Denise, and all her housemates, minus Rainy Diaz. From my research she currently represents twelve actresses. She agreed to come to us, so now I'm just waiting.

My phone rings, so I reach for my belt clip, but I notice the ringtone is my personal cell. I switch to the pocket on my opposite side and slide it out. It's my daughter Prudence.

"Everything okay?" I ask immediately. Pru knows calling me at work is for emergencies.

"Hey mom. Not trying to freak you out, but I'm in the ER," she says, and I tense up.

"Why?" I ask. I'm going to be a grandmother in two months. Well, grandmother again. Her older sister Lucy had a baby two years ago. Unlike Pru, Lucy's an employed college graduate with a husband. Pru is fifteen, and has an ex-boyfriend whose parents conveniently sent him to a boarding school on the east coast. Then again, according to Pru, the baby could be from one of several guys. I'll tell you what, the kids of cops love being unruly. I lost my virginity to my husband when I was twenty-one, and my daughter was getting railed at thirteen. And I'm the weird one.

"Bad cramps. Like worse than usual. Dad said don't take a chance, and here I am," she says. She's just telling me, so I hear it from her. "He overreacts. Baby is fine by the way."

"Good to hear. I'm working..."

"...shocker," Pru says and hangs up.

"Pru I...dammit," I say, and immediately open my messenger app. "We'll talk later, okay?"

"Check the last message you sent me," Pru replies. I didn't notice the last message I sent to her, was the same message I sent seconds ago. And I don't remember us talking.

"Fuck," I say aloud, and throw my phone on my desk. It thuds into my coffee cup and tumbles across my keyboard, summersaulting all the way off the opposite edge. "How?"

"You good?" Max asks. I lean over to the side and pick up my phone. New crack. That's an expensive anger outlet. Still works though. "That sucks."

"My pregnant, fifteen-year-old daughter hates me," I say, and gently place my phone down. "You'd think having a pregnant teenager was enough."

"Glad I had a boy," he gloats. His son is five. He's thirty-seven with a twenty-four-year-old baby mama. Do the math. Hooked up with a barely legal student and got an awkward phone call three months later.

"You only worry about one boy. I have to worry about all of them," I say.

"How is Pru?" he asks.

"Fine, I guess. How's Erik?"

"Great. Get him this weekend," he replies, and genuinely beams.

Here's a secret. The look of a father who smiles when he talks about his kids, is attractive. Against our best efforts, women love fathers. It's hardwired into our biology. My husband swinging Lucy in his arms made my panties leave craters in the ground. Some of our best sex was after we put her down for a nap. The kind of sex where you've been together for so long, you're not worried about asking for things anymore.

My desk phone rings. It's the reception desk letting me know that Jazz has finally arrived. I ask them to escort her up and place the phone back on the receiver.

Jazz is a naturally tanned beauty a few years out of her prime. Rather than resume a futile game of trying to keep up with beauty standards against women half her age, she just turned with the skid. Not quite old enough to be a cougar, but she could teach younger men a thing a two. She's in a navy-blue business suit with no jewelry, not even earrings.

"Ms. Harts?" I ask.

"Jazz is fine," she says, delicately holding a tote bag with both hands in front of her body. I offer her a seat and prepare to take notes.

"Let's go over a few of the details I already know," I say, and she gives a small nod. "You were Denise's agent?"

"Yes. Starting March of this year."

"How does an agent for porn work exactly?" I ask.

"Same as any other agent for any other industry. I secure roles, negotiate payment, handle contracts, things like that. I helped her build her brand."

"How does someone establish a brand in porn, exactly?" I ask.

"Detective, you clearly have a built-in bias with the profession," she says, and I tap my pen on the paper. "I'd prefer staying on topic. I have no interest in debating this with you."

"You don't have daughters, do you?" I ask.

"No, but that's not relevant. Ask your questions. I'm here voluntarily, and I can also leave voluntarily."

"Fine," I say, and look at my notes for the questions I had already written down. "When was the last time you spoke to Denise?"

"Four days ago. She was scheduled for the shoot her roommates went to in Vegas but dropped out last minute. She called, saying she didn't feel like she was up for it, and I didn't push her on the reasons why."

"You didn't tell her to suck it up and go?"

"I'm not a pimp," she says harshly, and looks ready to leave.

"What did she sound like on the phone?" I ask.

"Normal, I guess. Maybe a little tired, but it was late in the day when we spoke."

"What did you know about her drug habit?"

"I knew she had one," Jazz admits, and I ask for elaboration. "Weed, mostly. I don't know who supplied her, if that's what you're asking."

"Any harder drugs?"

"Cocaine was the worst I knew of."

"Heroin?"

"God no."

"That's what did her in. Heroin overdose."

Jazz exhales, shaking her head and adjusting in her seat. "Suicide?"

"Active investigation."

Jazz sniffs mucus back into her nose. "She was in counseling."

"For?"

"Depression. That's why I was okay with giving her some leeway on canceling," Jazz explains, and I write that down, and ask for her doctor next. "Dr. Adison McKenzie." I turn my chair to my computer and find the doctor's information. A clinical psychologist who works through a home office in the west LA neighborhood Mar Vista.

"Is that the agency's doctor?" I ask, and she nods, saying most of her clients would go to her if needed. "Did Denise request a doctor, or did you advise it?"

"She requested one."

I may need to schedule my own appointment with the good doctor. I spend nearly a half hour going through basic questions with Jazz, short of infringing on the privacy of her other clients. Once I'm done, Jazz leaves, and I start looking over my notes from the interview. While looking it over, my work cell rings, and I recognized the Ohio area code.

"You gotta hear this," Chase says right off the bat.

"Hear what?"

"I'm watching all the footage from Scarlett that they filmed before Meg fell. Been at it for hours," he says. He does sound exhausted. It's like watching surveillance footage with a better plot.

"And?"

"Listen," he says. It sounds like he's moving his phone near a speaker. He starts playing a scene from the show that was already filmed.

"...he's one of the guys you couldn't catch?" a female voice says. Meg Fontaine.

"Had him on everything. Walks on a technicality." Male voice, her co-star Heath Conrad.

"You had your chance, why is this my problem now."

"Hear it?" Chase asks, and I shake my head, and then remember it's a phone call.

"Noooo," I say, prolonging the word to express my confusion.