She leaned over the body, the hot lights causing sweat to bead at her brow. "Do we have an ID on the vic?"
The dead girl was young. And while she remained outwardly stoic, the detective experienced an unpleasant twinge as she surveyed the body. She’d been in that place countless times before. Always the sex worker, college co-ed, runaway. She'd only recently graduated to a lead role—currently in that sweet spot where she was old enough to exude authority but still smooth-faced and firm; a believable romantic prospect. The dead girl was probably in her twenties. But she seemed younger. More frail than the detective remembers herself ever being.
She’d been so good at laying still. Good at being frightened. During one of her early jobs, a gig where she’d started off alive, breathing long enough to be assaulted, the man had been so careful, making an effort to talk to her between takes. To ask if she was alright. It should have been nice—the fact that he was cognizant of her experience—but the attempt at compassion had only made her feel worse.
"Not enough blood here," she muttered. "She must have been killed elsewhere and dumped here after the fact."
She tilted her chin up, ready for the predestined reply. Her partner was the brash one. She played by the rules while he was full of wild speculation and risky gambits that always paid off in the end. He squinted, noticing some detail that would break the case wide open and she had to take it in stride. She'd be doing paperwork in the next scene while he’d be rooting out the killer in some derelict subterranean lair.
This case was going to wear on her. The dead girl reminded her of her sister, a murder that was never solved, the backstory that gave her fight for justice a personal tether. The dead girl reminded her of herself. The way she'd long ago learned to breathe shallowly, let her expression go blank, not think about the societal impact of what she was doing.
Her former co-star, the one who had tried to take care of her, had asked about her comfort in between those moments that he held her wrists, hot under the lights, looming over her body menacingly. He'd told her she was doing a great job, and she’d tried not to roll her eyes. As if he’d know what a realistic reaction might be. Later, she’d worried that he did.
"Look at this." Her partner crouched next to the corpse. The dead girl seemed practiced at keeping her breath shallow, at keeping her arm limp when he lifted her wrist. He tilted her hand toward the detective, a little red spot of ink smeared across her skin.
"Looks like she was at a nightclub before she was killed." The detective delivered her line dispassionately. Her tragic past was all subtext.
"Not a club," her co-star said. "I know exactly where this stamp came from."
Of course he did. He was the fun one. The one with a social life. The detective was married to the job. Obsessive and sexless. She had to be wound up and isolated. It was the tension that dictated that this man would be the one to open her up. But only if they made it to season four.
The detective stayed in place while everyone rolled back to one. No comment from the director. She was used to working without positive reinforcement.
Rarely did she end up on set with someone who fancied themselves a creative genius, but it had happened on occasion. A few young auteurs had had a lot to say, a lot to ask of her. Once, a director insisted on keeping her separated from the film’s antagonist at all times. No chance for him to ask if she was alright between takes. She'd told the director politely that she knew how to act, that he didn't have to go out of his way to make her discomfort real. But she wasn't supposed to talk back. Nothing in the script about how she might really feel.
Someone brought her a bottle of water, dabbed at her brow, brushed her loose curls over her shoulders carefully. She closed her eyes until the set went quiet again. The lights felt hot on her face, like an unrelenting summer sun.
She leaned over the body, concerned her gestures were starting to look stale. "Do we have an ID on the vic?"
The girl was young. Hovering above her, the detective felt her own cells replicating, mutating, dying off. When she was this girl's age, she'd already felt tired, but this body seemed impossibly youthful. Tragically vulnerable. Adept at blending into the background between takes. Full of gratitude for the opportunity to lay on the pavement, painted ghoulishly, throat slit. The detective could still feel the rough texture against her own back, the chill of provocative costumes, the way the special effects makeup dried in place and pulled at her skin if she tried to smile.
"Not enough blood here," she muttered. "She must have been killed elsewhere and dumped here after the fact."
She lifted her chin to her partner, but his eyes were focused somewhere else, already seeing a dimension of the crime scene that her and her by-the-books mentality couldn’t grasp.
He took a beat, sipped his coffee, flashed her a flirtatious smile. He was milking it this time. How aggravating. He was as overly confident as his character, lowering to a crouch in slow motion, someone who had never experienced hardship, had no murdered sister, had never gotten into an argument with a director intent on making him suffer.
"Look at this." He tilted the dead girl's wrist toward the detective, pointing out the ink smeared across the back of her hand.
"Looks like she was at a nightclub before she was killed." The detective delivered her line dispassionately. Her arms felt heavy. She was going empathetically limp, remembering all the times she'd been a dead body in the past.
"Not a club," he said, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. He let the words hang in the air. He had this habit of taking more time with each repetition. The detective hated it. The clock was ticking. She didn’t have forever. Victim, detective, then what? Her time as a leading lady was dwindling.
The police captain was a woman, but she wasn’t much older and looked incredible for her age. The detective had to resist the urge to run her fingers over the sensitive skin at the corners of her eyes, as if crow’s feet might be appearing at this very moment.
"Then what?" she improvised. She was hoping to catch a flash of annoyance in her partner’s expression, but he seemed not to notice the change.
His skin folded when he smiled, or smirked is a more accurate description. His joy seemed condescending on and off camera. He was in his forties and it didn’t seem to matter at all.
"I know exactly where this stamp came from."
The crew moved in to adjust the lights, and the detective stretched her legs, touched her fingertips to the corners of her eyes. She asked if someone could bring her a cup of coffee.
“Does my hair look weird today?” Her partner addressed her with a narcissistic nonchalance she couldn’t imagine possessing. “They tried a new product in it.” He poked at his head with stiff fingers. “I don’t think I like it.”
A cup of coffee appeared in her hand and she sipped it delicately, trying not to smudge her lipstick. “You look fine.” She let her tone be noncommittal. It wasn’t her job to comfort him between takes.
The girl didn’t move, still laying in the space between them, her eyes open, unblinking. Her body relaxed into the pavement, one shoulder twisted at an unnatural angle. She was good. Committed. Already an expert at being dead.
J.R. Chapple is an artist and writer based in Vancouver, BC.
Photo by: Joshua Coleman