Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 04

"Well, she succeeded beyond her wildest dreams," Lauren said, "and Marybeth was really pissed about it. She was walking around her office muttering and cursing and slamming stuff down on her desk. Finally she put on her coat and comes stomping out of her office. 'Where you off to?' I asked her. 'Need me to come along?' This is like three in the afternoon. 'No, I'm going the fuck home,' she says. She doesn't normally talk like that. 'What about the Schecter case?' I asked her. 'Fuck it,' she says, 'it's solved. One of the bitches confessed. One of the ADAs is in with her now and they're just waiting for her attorney to arrive.' 'So what's wrong?' I ask. 'Bitch is lying her ass off,' Marybeth says. 'Look, I'm outta here. I'll see you tomorrow.' And like that she goes home, and believe me, when we were in homicide she never went home early, ever."

"So how do we start?" Carmen asked.

Lauren opened the manila folder and pulled the legal tablet in front of her to take notes. "What I like to do starting out is make some lists," she said.

"That's good," Shane said. "Carmen's good at making lists, too."

Lauren wasn't sure if that was a dig of some sort, but Carmen knew it was just Shane being Shane, and it didn't bother her. Lauren was looking at Carmen.

"She means that as a compliment," Carmen said. "To both of us. Don't worry about it. What sort of lists?"

Lauren hesitated, checking to see if there was something going on between Shane and Carmen. She was picking up all sorts of stray vibes and tensions, but there didn't seem to be a pattern. Sooner or later everything would become clear.

"A list of everyone in the vicinity who had access to her during the critical time period. A list of people she was emotionally involved with, not necessarily intimately, although that would be a high priority. Her love life and her sexual history. The financial angle, who she owed money to, who owed her money, anyone who profited by her death. It's a cliché, but follow the money, right? And a list of her enemies, if there were any. "

"We're going to need a bigger boat," Carmen said, under her breath.

"Huh?" Shane asked.

"It's a line from the movie Jaws," Lauren said. "I think Carmen means these are going to be long lists."

"Oh," Shane said.

"Why is her sexual history relevant?" Carmen asked.

"Because it's a good place to find enemies," Lauren said. "Angry exes. Jilted lovers. Grudge holders. Revenge seekers."

"Ah, got it," Carmen said. "Like me wanting to kill Shane." She laughed, and Shane frowned.

"Let's start with the party that night," Lauren said, wanting to steer toward safer territory. "There's some information about it in the folder-" she tapped the manila folder on the table "—but it doesn't help us much, and I'd like to start over, right from scratch. Shane, you were there, and Carmen and I weren't, so how about you walk us through what was going on that night."

"Okay. Well, it was a going-away tribute party for Tina and Bette. Tina had gotten a job in New York, and they had their house up for sale and had a buyer, and they were getting ready to move. We had all decided ... well, I guess Jenny had decided ... that we'd make this video for them of everybody saying goodbye, with Jenny filming each of us saying our goodbyes, and other people from around the country sending in videos. Carmen sent one, and Mangus, who was already in New York, and so on. There were videos still coming in, three came in that morning I picked up for her. She was cutting it and adding stuff in right to the very last minute. And that's what we were watching."

"Okay, so it's a party, sort of, but not exactly a party like the word sounds like."

"No, it wasn't this happy kind of party with people drinking and dancing and having a good time, no."

"Okay, right. And there's what, not counting Jenny herself, seven lesbians watching this farewell movie—"

"Six," Shane said. "Kit's pretty much straight."

"Sorry. Six lesbians and Kit."

"Five," Carmen said. "Max has been a guy for a while now. Although he gave birth."

The look on Lauren's face was priceless.

"Technically three lesbians," Shane added. "Alice and Tina are both bisexual."

"Well, that's true," Carmen said, "but Alice hasn't had anything going with guys for years and years. She says she still thinks about guys once in a while."

"And they found Niki Stevens outside, so we're up to eight people, but only seven watching the movie," Shane said. "Niki was lurking around outside."

"Is she lez or bi?" Carmen asked Shane. "I never really knew, from all the media stories."

"She's pretty much totally lez," Shane said. "Before she came out she used to pretend she was straight, but that was mostly cover. But she claims she fucked both Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, so she said, but I don't know if it was true or not, you know how that goes, especially in Hollywood. Before she hooked up with Jenny, she had been sleeping with this boi in her entourage named Jimmi."

"That wasn't your Jimmi, was it?"

"No, my Jimmi was this Jamaican woman, from a couple years before you and I met. Niki's Jimmi was some boi groupie she hung with. I met her once at some party. She was nothing special." Shane saw the look on Carmen's face. "And no, I didn't," she said, firmly but softly.

Lauren watched Shane and Carmen swat the Did-You-Fuck-Her shuttlecock back and forth, then finally broke in. "Okay, we're getting off track, I think. When I said 'eight lesbians' I should have said eight women. All I meant was it wasn't a mixed, guys-and-gals party. I didn't intend anything by it."

"Well, no, there were no guys except Max. But there would have been if Mangus had been in town," Shane said.

"Uh, okay. Mangus. I don't know Mangus, but I'll look him up. I don't remember seeing his name in the murder book."

"Murder book?" Carmen asked. "You mean there's a book about Jenny's murder?"

"No," Lauren said. "A murder book is the master file on a homicide investigation. It's that big three-ring binder in one of those boxes, and as reports are developed and things happen, a copy of everything is put into the murder book. Autopsy stuff, interviews, forensics, everything."

"What's that folder you're working out of?" Carmen asked.

"It's my own file on the case, summarized from stuff I pulled out of the murder book and photocopied, key reports and stuff. Okay, first list, people on scene." Hancock said the names out loud as she wrote them down. "McCutcheon. Alice Pieszecki. Helena Peabody. Kit Porter. Bette Porter. Tina Kennard. Max Sweeny." She glanced at a paper in her folder. "This says Angelica Porter-Kennard."

"Right, she's Bette and Tina's little girl. She was there, too."

"And I've got Tasha Williams and Niki Stevens. Who's Tasha Williams?"

"She was Alice's girlfriend until just a week or so before the party," Carmen said. "They'd just broken up. She's an LA police officer now; she was in the police academy at the time Jenny died."

Shane looked at Carmen, amazed. "You know Tasha? I had no idea."

"Oh, sure," Carmen said. "She came up to San Francisco with Alice two or three times."

"Two or three times?" Shane asked.

"Shane, I told you the other day, I stayed friends with everybody. Yes, I know Tasha."

Shane just grunted. To Lauren she said, "Sorry. Keep going."

"Niki Stevens," Lauren said. Shane looked away. Lauren made eye contact with Carmen.

"Don't know her. Not a fan," Carmen said. "I've seen a few of her movies. Meryl Streep's career is safe."

Shane shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I don't even know what the hell she was doing there." She looked at Lauren. "Did she ever give you guys an explanation? Somebody said something about she wanted to talk to Jenny, but hiding in the bushes, that makes no sense to me, even for Niki. Especially for Niki."

Lauren looked at Shane, glanced at Carmen, then looked back at Shane.

"What?" Shane asked.

"Shane, who stole the movie negatives from the studio?"

"What do you mean, who stole them? Jenny did. I found them in our attic, I showed them to Tina. Everybody knows that. That's why I was so pissed at her, that and my jacket with Molly's letter she hid up there."

"Okay, that's what I thought," Lauren said.

"Wait - Oh my god!" Carmen blurted, clamping her hand over her mouth in shock and sudden realization. "Ohmygod, ohmygod."

"What?" Shane asked turning from Lauren to Carmen back and forth. "What's going on?"

"Shane," Lauren said quietly. "Jenny didn't steal the movie film. She probably hid your jacket up there, like you said. But she didn't steal the negatives. Niki Stevens did."

Shane scowled, disbelieving, looking from Lauren to Carmen. She was processing, and still a thousand miles behind.

"Shane," Lauren began, but Carmen held up her hand.

"Give her a minute. She needs a minute."

Shane looked toward Carmen, but her eyes were turned inward, her mouth open, slack. Noise, like a freight train. In her head. Climbing the pull-down staircase to the attic. Finding her jacket up there. Finding Molly's letter in the pocket. Incredible anger at Jenny, like no kind of anger she'd ever felt before. Reading Molly's letter. Then, almost by accident, seeing the twelve stolen film canisters.

Jenny didn't do it.