Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 03

Chapter 3 Looking Very Shane Today

Carmen got up from the kitchen table and got them mugs out of a cabinet and filled them from the fresh pot of coffee she'd just made. She put the mugs on the table and got creamer and artificial sweetener while Shane dialed the phone number on her cell. It rang twice and was answered.

"Can I speak to Sgt. Marybeth Duffy, please?" she asked into the phone. "Oh, she is? Cool. Oh, wait, let me write it down..." -she gestured at Carmen, who immediately handed her a pad of paper and a pencil. Shane wrote down the phone number, said thanks, hung up and started to re-dial. "She's been promoted to lieutenant, and she's in some missing persons unit," Shane said. She re-dialed. "Lt. Duffy, please," she said when the number was picked up.

"Duffy," came the terse response over the phone.

"Hi, Lt. Duffy? This is Shane McCutcheon. I don't know if you remem-"

"Yeah, I know who you are. The Jenny Schecter homicide. You were the girlfriend slash roommate. What's on your mind?"

"I have a favor to ask. Do you remember a friend of mine named Carmen Morales? She's here with me right now, up here in San Francisco. We'd both like to come to Los Angeles and talk to you about that case, and about our friend Alice Pieszecki, who I'm sure you remember was convicted."

"What about her? She's up at the Farm, last I heard."

"Yes, that's right. She didn't kill Jenny. Her confession was false."

"Is that so? Okay, sure. I'll call the governor right away. We'll get her out by dinner time. Gee, look at the time, gotta run-"

"Wait! Please, don't hang up! Please!"

"McCutcheon, I'm busy. Stop yanking my chain."

"Carmen and I want to come talk to you. We understand it's a closed case and all, but we'd like to look at the file. We believe Alice is innocent, and we want to help her. We'll come to your office, or wherever you want to meet. We won't even take up much of your time, if you'll just let us see the file."

There was a long silence on the phone. Carmen made a gesture, asking Shane what was going on. Shane made an inconclusive shrugging gesture.

"Hello? Lieutenant? Are you still there?"

"I'm here."

"Can we come see you?"

"When?"

"Whenever it's convenient for you. We can't come today, since we're up in San Francisco, but tell us when and where, and we'll be there."

"Let me check my schedule. Okay, Wednesday at 11, sharp. Just ask for me downstairs in the entrance lobby when you get here."

"Great, thanks, Lieuten-" Shane heard the click that told her Duffy had hung up.

"So?" Carmen asked.

"Wednesday at 11 a.m.," Shane said.

"But she hung up on you, at the end, there?"

"Uh-huh."

***

The Powell Street cable car crested the hill and then began the long decline down past Union Square. Shane looked over at Carmen and saw her smiling about something.

"What?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing," Carmen said, still smiling.

"C'mon, what? You always say we don't communicate. So communicate."

Carmen sighed a big sigh. "Okay, I'll tell you. But remember, I'm smiling now about this, right? Remember, I'm smiling now."

"I get it," Shane said. "Whatever it is, it's funny."

"Yes. Now, anyway. First off, before I begin, I don't have to tell you what the all-time worst day of my life was."

"Yeah, I guess I have a fair idea," Shane said.

"Okay, this was the all-time second-worst day of my life. Here it is. About a year after ... you know. Whistler, the wedding thing, I got back from a cruise, and a couple of girlfriends - no, not that kind, just the regular kind of girlfriend, pals, buddies - we decide to go shopping one Saturday. So it's me and Terri and Pat, and we hop on the cable car and we come here to Union Square and we shop for a while, we go in a couple places, and then we walk a block south to O'Farrell Street, that's it, right here at the next light, look to the left, halfway down the block. That's where the Hugo Boss Store was-"

"Oh, no," Shane groaned, knowing what was coming.

"Oh, yes. So we go into the Hugo Boss store. And we walk in, and I'm standing there and I see up on the wall, gotta be 15 feet tall, this giant tinted color photograph of one Shane McCutcheon, the famous fashion model, standing there topless with her hands cupping her tits and wearing nothing but a pair of Hugo Boss low-rider tighty-whities, and the caption says, 'You're looking very Shane today,' and I'm telling you, Shane, I just lost it. I'm standing there crying and sobbing, and Terri and Patty are staring at me like I've lost my mind, which clearly I have, and I'm just destroyed, and there's snot running out of my nose, and I'm pointing up at the poster on the wall, and all over the store people are looking at me, at this totally hysterical woman having a meltdown right there on O'Farrell Street in the Hugo Boss store. And I'm pointing at the poster and trying to tell them, and I'm going 'Shane! Shane! That's Shane!' which is crazy because, yes, it's Shane, it even says Shane, everybody knows the model's name is Shane. And then Terri gets it, she goes, 'Oh, my God! That's YOUR Shane?' and I'm shouting at her, 'Yes! Yes! That's my Shane!' And everybody in the store is, like, backing away, going to the other side of the store to get away from this lunatic woman who is pointing at the poster and blubbering. And Patty and Terri take me out of the store and start calming me down and blotting my face with tissues, and I'm still crying and babbling, and I'm trying to tell them about how you have your hands over your tits, and how you have the most beautiful, most perfect nipples in the whole world and nobody can see them, and I'm telling them how awful I felt and how humiliated when you left me at the altar, which they already knew about, and they understand how it's really you, MY Shane, THAT Shane up on the poster on the wall of Hugo Boss, and I'm telling them how I loved your nipples, kissing them and kissing you, going down on you through your tighty-whities only they were Hanes or Fruit-of-the-Looms or whatever, see, and there's people walking past us on O'Farrell Street looking at the three of us, and I'm babbling about your tits, and suddenly Terri starts to giggle, partly because people can hear me rambling on and on about your tits and your underwear, and Patty starts giggling, and then next thing I know I'm laughing at myself and the whole thing, and we just started laughing and howling and whooping, and people on the sidewalk are still laughing at us. And after a while we start to calm down a little, and I say, 'C'mon, let's get out of here and go find a drink.' And Terri says, 'Oh, no. This is like horseback riding. You've got to climb back up on that horse. We're going back in, and anyway, I wanna see that poster some more. So, come on, girl, let's go do some aversion therapy and get Shane McCutcheon out of your system once and for all.' And so we go back into the Hugo Boss store, and we stand there and admire this poster, this giant wall advertisement, and I'm perfectly fine looking at it. I'm not crying or anything, and we look around the store, and you know what? Terri buys a three-pack of Shane-type low-rider tighty-whities, and then I say, 'Oh, what the hell," and I buy a three-pack, and Patty rolls her eyes, and now she's gotta buy a three-pack, and we walk out of the Hugo Boss store with nine pair of Shane-0-Magic low-rider tighty-whities. And that was the day I was finally cured of my Shane McCutcheon jimjams and leftover heeby-jeebies. That was the day I got you out of my system."

"So ... that's how Terri knew who I was, the night I first knocked on your door. She recognized me and knew who I was."

"See? Your detective skills are amazing."

"That's why she had the attitude."

"Oh, yeah. She knew from the first second who you were and what you'd done. And right at that minute, she might even have been wearing a pair of your Hugo Boss panties for all I know. She might have been looking very Shane that night. Frankly, I think you were damn lucky she didn't come down the stairs and tear you limb from limb. She's pretty protective of me."

"Yeah, I noticed," Shane said. "So, anyway, after this hilarious incident-" Carmen was amused that Shane didn't think it was hilarious at all - "what happened?"

"When we got home I called Jenny and asked her why there was this giant poster of you in your undies hanging in the Hugo Boss store, and she told me about Carla abandoning Shay and you taking him in, and him breaking his arm on a skateboard, and you guys being desperate for money to pay his hospital bills, and so on, and how you got recruited to be a model. And she says, 'Jesus, Carmen, that advertisement campaign was in all the newspapers and all over television, didn't you see it? Haven't you guys got newspapers and Entertainment Tonight up there?' And I'm, like, 'Jenny, I just got back from a CRUISE! I've been gone for thirteen weeks! I've been to the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand! I've been on a ship, and no, we don't get Entertainment Tonight out west of Wake Island. Or if we did I was working. So, yeah, whatever publicity there was about that ad campaign, I missed it. I didn't know anything about it.' Jenny says it was a really big deal, though."

Shane was still processing this story when they got to the bottom of Powell Street at the last stop.

"By the way," Carmen said as they got off the cable car, "those Boss low-riders are pretty comfortable. I bought six more pair. I'm wearing one of them right now, as a matter of fact. That's why I'm looking very Shane today." She turned away, laughing, to cross Market Street, Shane following glumly.

"See that big building across the street? That's called the Westfield San Francisco Centre. It's a nine-story indoor mall, and its fabulous. It's got, like, more than 150 shops in it, plus a 9-screen movie theater, and even a branch of San Francisco State University."

"Is that where we're going?"

"No, we're going around the corner. The reason I mentioned it is that the Hugo Boss store moved into it. We can go in and see you're still on the wall, maybe pick up some panties."

"No thanks," Shane said. "I've got a lifetime supply. It was a perk of my modeling contract."

"Good to know you'll never run out," Carmen said. "You still wear panties?"

"Uh huh, usually. Why are you doing this?"

"Just working out my issues."

Shane said nothing as they turned the corner onto 5th Street and at the end of the block reached a coffee-and-sandwich shop that had a few outdoor tables, one of which had two chairs and was vacant. "Quick, grab that table," Carmen said. "I'll go in and order two coffees and bring us out menus. They make fab sandwiches here." On Carmen's recommendation they both got tuna melts.

After her first bite, Carmen said, "This morning while you were in the shower I called my mom. I told her I was coming to LA, which she expected anyway. Whenever I get back from a long cruise I usually go down there and visit everybody for a few days."

"I don't think you said. Where was your cruise this time? How much time off do you get?"

"We went to Australia and New Zealand, and back. It was a really long haul, let me tell you. A lot of days at sea. But now I'm on the beach for about two months."

"Where are you going next?"

"I don't know yet. In a couple of weeks I'll check back in and see what's coming up. So anyway, we need to discuss travel plans. You left your truck in LA, right? I think we should just fly down there. I'm gonna stay at my mom's, and she says I can borrow her car or one of my sisters' cars whenever I want, so I'll be mobile."

"Okay," Shane said.

"You know what I think about your pal Lt. Marybeth?"

"No, what?"

"I think she was trying to play tough-ass and hard-to-get, but I think she agreed to see us way too easily."

"Why?"

"Because she wants an excuse to re-open the case."

Shane said nothing.

"You going to participate in this conversation?"

Shane put her coffee cup down. "She knows Alice didn't kill Jenny."

"Oh?"

"Like everybody else, she thinks I did."