Free Diagnosis Murder 3 - The Shooting Script by Lee Goldberg

brownstones, and houses were just fake facades, redressed and repainted for each new production.
    But as the city grew, the real estate under the backlots became far too valuable to waste on phony buildings when real ones could generate a lot more cash. The studios razed most of their backlots, and production took to the streets, transforming the entire city of Los Angeles into one enormous stage.
    Hundreds of productions are shot in and around the city on any given day. For Angelenos, seeing a film crew at work is as common as seeing a road being repaved or mail being delivered, and garners about as much attention—unless the filming involves a car chase, a shoot-out, or an explosion.
    Or one of the actors happens to be at the center of titillating scandal involving adultery, sex, money and murder.
    Which was why on the night Mark and Steve visited the downtown location of Kill Storm , a dozen beefy security guards were scrambling to keep hundreds of onlookers and reporters behind barricades erected a block away from the alley where the crew was shooting.
    Although Steve's car was an unmarked detective sedan, it might as well have been emblazoned with the LAPD emblem as far as the security guards were concerned. Most of the guards were off-duty cops and immediately recognized the car for what it was, letting Steve pass through without even asking to see his ID.
    Steve parked behind a huge mobile home, which seemed to have expanded itself to cover an area twice its original size. There were four push-out sections adding extra rooms to the floor plan, a massive canvas overhang to provide a shaded patio, and enough satellite dishes and antennas on the roof to allow whoever was inside to communicate with other galaxies.
    "Gee," Steve said, motioning to the mobile home, "I wonder whose dressing room that is."
    Before Mark could respond, a harried looking young man with a walkie-talkie, two cell phones, and a pager clipped to his belt came rushing up.
    "You can't park there," the young man said. "That's Lacey McClure's private guest parking."
    "We're her private guests," Steve said.
    The young man quickly consulted a sheaf of papers that were folded and crammed into his back pocket. "You aren't on the list."
    "I am now." Steve flashed his badge. "Steve Sloan, LAPD. And you are?"
    "I'm Morgan," the young man said. "Ms. McClure's APA."
    "APA?" Mark asked. "You're her accountant?"
    "Her first assistant production assistant," Morgan said, glancing at his watch. "Excuse me one second, I have to bring her water."
    Morgan rushed into the mobile home, leaving the door open behind him. Steve and Mark followed the young man inside without waiting to be invited.
    Steve took one look at the travertine floors, marble countertops, and leather furniture and let out a low whistle, impressed.
    "Is there a second assistant production assistant?" Mark asked Morgan.
    "And a third. The second assistant production assistant is out getting Ms. McClure a new set of sheets," Morgan said. "She went to take a nap this afternoon and jumped out of bed in a rage. She could feel there were only 250 threads per inch in the sheets."
    Steve glanced into the bedroom. The white sheets had been stripped off the king-sized bed and were piled like a snowdrift against the wall, beneath a massive, flat-screen TV.
    "She could actually feel the number of threads?" Steve asked.
    "Ms. McClure has very sensitive skin," Morgan said, taking bottles of Glacier Peaks water out of the refrigerator and transferring them to a tiny, portable cooler. "She says if she sleeps on anything less than 600 thread count Egyptian or pima cotton sateen sheets, it's like laying on sandpaper."
    "Is there something special about that water?" Mark asked. "There's a bottle on her nightstand and, last time we met her, she had one in her hands."
    "Glacier Peaks is the only water she drinks," Morgan said, checking a thermometer in the tiny cooler. Satisfied with the temperature reading, he zipped the