Word Prompt 7: Poster

Jame stopped dead in her tracks. It was a crowded street, a Los Angeles sidewalk, Rodeo Drive to be exact. Sporadic lines of colorful cars spotted with candy yellow taxicabs whizzed by. Fellow pedestrians lined the streets beside and opposite her, and yet the busy hustle and bustle of the world around her was at a complete and utter standstill. Everything and everybody ceased to move or retain any meaning or color except for the single object of Jame’s attention. There was not a single doubt in her mind of the reality of what she was seeing. She knew. She would recognize her anywhere.

Hale Kirschner’s apartment was undoubtedly designed and executed by the most expensive interior design professional known to Hollywood. The penthouse suite of the largest high-rise in L.A. was decorated entirely in a single color and theme. Every wall, piece of furniture and accessory was art deco and either white or glass. The space was obsessively spotless and bleached of any and all color. This of course only proved to accentuate the rather large bloodstain spattered against the living room wall. Jame Watson could not remove her eyes from the horror of the only color in the entire apartment.
“Alright, Miss Watson. Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Detective Arlene Reynolds made sure there was a blank cassette in the recorder and pressed down the red button before looking back up at the distraught model. Despite how upset Jame was, Arlene noticed that she was still stunning. Arlene wasn’t sure if that meant talent or guilt.  
Jame nodded slowly, thinking. She thought about Griet, about her dead lover, and what she’d been like the night she had met her.
Griet had this ubiquitously exotic beauty about her. She was a bronzed goddess, all tall and leggy and foreign in new and exciting ways. Her voice was soft and flirtatious with more than just a hint of her native Brazilian accent. Her hair was long and dark and cascaded in waves over her shoulders to lap suggestively at her breasts like the shores of an inviting island rising from the ebb and flow of a mysterious and far away sea. Her eyes only continued this effect with their brilliance. Their blue was so bright and so crystalline, so fine that their purity stupefied. They were, without question, eyes that could simply steal your breath from your throat with a single glance, regardless of your gender or orientation. The subtle curves of her body rippled underneath the steady flow of her dress, which fit like a loose continuation of her flesh, just a shade darker than her skin tone and clinging in all the right places. Her lipstick matched the satin perfectly, the same sun-kissed bronze that almost nearly blended into the rest of her flawless body. She was lovely and ripe, embodied passion and mystery, and any person who looked upon her instantly fell helplessly in love with her.
Of course, there were countless other reasons for one to fall helplessly in love with Griet. She was intelligent and well educated with a refined taste, she was witty and charming and her jokes were always both amusing and occasion appropriate. But most of all, Griet had this uncanny ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the world once she’d put her attention on you. However, falling out of her spotlight could be one of the most painful things you’d ever experience. She could do it so nonchalantly, maybe it was even accidental. Maybe Griet herself was completely unaware of her gift. Whatever the case, once Griet loved you, you never wanted to be anywhere but in the light of her presence. And you would never realize how completely enthralled with her you were, until she was gone or she’d looked away. Anywhere that she once was seemed that much darker for lack of her light. And now she was dead.
“Hale called me a couple hours ago asking me to drop by sometime today because he wanted to talk to me about the photo shoot I did on Monday. So I jumped in the shower and I got in the car. When I got here, I opened the door and saw the body. I called 911 immediately.” Jame tried to focus on the story, and not the medics who were slinging a body bag onto a gurney and carefully trying to get the gurney out the door.
“We have a suspect down at headquarters, I was wondering if you could tell me if you’ve ever seen this man.” Arlene handed Jame a photograph.
Jame nodded, an alarming look of panic creasing her features, “Oh my god, that’s the photographer from my shoot on Monday!”
“So you do know him.” Arlene narrowed her eyes at Jame.
“Well, no. I don’t know him. I just met him on Monday. He was the photographer on set. I told Hale I didn’t want to work with him anymore because he was creepy and obsessed with me and he tried to ask me out.” Jame looked disgusted.
“So you turned him down because he was creepy?”
“Well, he got even creepier after I turned him down. But mostly I turned him down because he isn’t my type. I told you yesterday I was with Griet.” Jame glanced down at her hands and tried not to think about it.
Arlene nodded, “Yes, you mentioned you were having an affair with Mr. Kirschner’s wife. How long had you been seeing Mrs. Kirschner?” She looked intently at the woman sitting next to her.
Jame sighed, “Well we met at the benefit last September. Hale invited all of his clients, so of course I went. I guess that was a little over a year ago.”
Arlene nodded again and paused as she thought of her next question. The ring of her cellphone interrupted her frail train of thought. She answered on the second ring, “Reynolds.” There was a long pause as she listened to the tiny metallic voice on the other end of the call. “Alright, Barry. Thanks.” She flipped her phone shut and slipped it back into her pocket, eyeing Jame with a new kind of scrutiny. “Now, Miss Watson, are you aware that your photographer was hired to kill you?” The question was asked with all the nonchalance of dinner table chitchat.
Shock proliferated the lovely features of Jame’s face, “No… n-no. No. What? W-who would do that? Who would… who would want me dead?”
“Apparently Mr. Kirschner,” Arlene stated matter-of-factly.
“But why would Hale want me dead? I’m one of his best clients!”
”I’m not sure, but my best guess is probably because you were doing his wife.” Arlene shrugged.
Jame was speechless. She had nothing to say to that. There was a long pause.
“Miss Watson? Are you alright?”
Jame nodded, “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Alright. Well, Miss Watson, you’re essentially free to go. Our suspect confessed to the murders of Mr. and Mrs. Kirschner. Apparently, he mistook Mrs. Kirschner for you, and Mr. Kirschner was none too appreciative of the shoddy workmanship.” Arlene explained. She pressed the stop button on the tape recorder, “I just have one more question for you, Miss Watson, if you don’t mind.”
Jame looked up from her shocked stare into space, “Not at all, detective.”
“If you loved Griet so much, why did you kill her?” Arlene’s face was empty of emotion.
Jame glared at her, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, detective.”
“I think it’s a bit of a funny coincidence that you found both bodies, Miss Watson.”
“Good thing coincidence doesn’t count as evidence.” Jame replied icily, standing to leave. “Have a nice day, detective.”

Jame stood on a sidewalk, staring at a very large poster in a shop window on Rodeo Drive, depicting a flirtatious Griet Kirschner looking like the new Marilyn Monroe. Jame’s expression narrowed to a glare. Obviously Hale had given Griet the ad campaign, the bastard. Now the whole thing was all for nothing.