Milo screen-shot the four names along with accompanying photos and emailed the lot to his desktop. The computer began chiming receipt and we returned to examining what was shaping up as Marissa French’s sadly brief legacy.
—
The photos fit into three categories.
Marissa posing on the beach in a bikini or topless with arms folded across her chest.
Marissa perched on sun-splotched hilltops in shorts and tees, hair blowing strategically.
Marissa crouching in what appeared to be a forest, looking entranced by pinecones, ferns, and stones and wearing tight western shirts, denim short-shorts, and boots with heels that mocked the notion of hiking.
What seemed to be modeling poses. But modeling’s about more than beauty and for all Marissa’s good looks, she projected a limited emotional range—smile or pout—and none of the results had produced anything better than what the DMV robot had accomplished.
A rare burst of prose followed the photographic display:
I’m available for movie work, here are my credits. xoxoxoxoM
No agency listed, just an email address.
Then the “credits.”
During the past eighteen months, Marissa French had worked as an extra on four TV pilots and three low-budget horror flicks.
Milo said, “Heard of any of them?”
I shook my head.
“Same old story, poor thing.”
I said, “Maybe she worked as a float to be available for auditions.”
“Which never came through.” He scrolled quickly through several more screens, came to the end, and was about to click off when his eyes widened.
The final photo was time-stamped Friday, eleven thirty-four p.m., and featured Marissa French in a minimal red dress with side cutouts that exposed a tight waist and a violin curve of hip.
Standing with a man. This time, not an age peer, not even close.
Mid- to late-forties and nothing prop-like about him. Unlike every other photo in Marissa’s collection, she’d given up center stage and was edged so far to the right that her left arm was out of the frame.
Easy for her companion to fill space. He was tall enough to stand well above a five-five woman wearing four-inch heels, and broad, with piled-up shoulders and a muscular torso running slightly to flab.
Middle-aged but dressed younger, in a black, scoop-necked Pink Floyd T-shirt with high-cut sleeves that emphasized bulky arms. A diamond or something pretending to be glinted from his left earlobe. A chunky gold chain dangled to the hem of the scoop.
A pug-nosed, meaty face was improbably tan where it wasn’t booze-flushed. A toothy, borderline-rodent smile was a tribute to the excesses of cosmetic dentistry. Black hair was buzzed nearly invisible at the sides, the top a curly thatch lubricated to gleaming. Framing the capped teeth were thick lips bottomed by a triangular, black soul patch.
His left arm was tattoo-sleeved. His right, un-inked, was slung over Marissa French’s bare shoulders in a casual display of ownership. Nothing in her body language said she’d signed on voluntarily. Glassy eyes said she wasn’t equipped for protest.
Both he and Marissa held oversized martini glasses filled with something red. His smile was triumphant. Hers, pathetic.
Milo said, “Joe Beef looks like he’s bagged a trophy. She’s not into it, why’s she standing for it?”
I said, “Look at her eyes.”
He studied the image. “Yeah, she is kinda hazy.”
“His size fits the video and so does the time frame.”
“Partying close to midnight and she’s dead before three.”
