Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 06

"She had been going with Carmen right then?"

"Well, yes and no. They had broken up, that was Jenny's doing, and she had pushed me and Carmen together. But I hear what you're asking, and no, I don't think her breaking up with Carmen had anything to do with her crack-up, I really don't."

"Okay. Her personality changed over the years."

Shane furrowed her brows. "It's hard to describe. She kept changing, little bits at a time. It's like over the years she kept trying on new personalities, trying to figure out who she was. Not the lesbian thing, I don't think that was an issue, at all. Or being a writer. If anything, those were the two most stable things about her, once she'd broken up with Tim, and got her orientation sorted out. She wasn't like Tina or Alice, never bi, and she was never going back to the straight side, even for a quickie visit. But ... everything else. She was very ambitious, right from the start, and it seemed to me the better she did, getting her books and stories published, the fame, and the screenplay, and then making that movie - the deeper she got into that Hollywood world the crazier she got."

"Success, fame, money and power have fucked up one helluva lot of people in this town. That's what this town does."

"I know, I see it all the time. But the money part, although Jenny suddenly came into a lot of it - and I mean a real lot of it - I don't think that changed her, not significantly. Sure, she spent it, bought expensive clothes, ate in fancy restaurants, bought herself a fucking Beemer. But I don't see where money, by itself, was much of a factor. I mean, shit, when she was filthy rich she still lived in the same house with me when she could have moved to Malibu or some canyon place. It was the fame and the power and the glamour, the Hollywood shit. Celebrity. Being able to snap her fingers and have assistants kiss her ass. Dealing with bigwig publishers and bigwig studio people. Tina deals with them all the time, and it hasn't made her crazy in the least. Bette deals with a lot of the same kind of people all the time, too, in the art world, and she handles it okay, just like Tina. Shit, Helena had money coming out her ears, and if anything she's gotten a lot better over the years, not worse. She was a little, you know, hoity-toity and snooty and a bitch when I first met her, but over the years, she's gotten, I don't know, a lot more human, you know? And I gotta say, she's become a real close friend, even though I don't see her all that much. See, she has kids in England, and she's always flying off to someplace fancy I never even heard of. But that's okay. She's got the bread, that's cool, and she'd give you the shirt off her back. She financed our wedding thing up in Canada, spent a small fortune, never batted an eyelash. Even paid for Carmen's family to come, airlines tickets, hotel rooms, the works. Helena's been through some shit, too, and it's made her a better person."

"Okay. You and Jenny, you were roomies and BFFs a couple years, and then one day you wind up in bed."

"Yeah. Never saw that one coming, swear to god. I'd been going with Mollie, it was getting pretty serious, and then like I always do, I fucked it up and let it slip away. I can't say I was over it, exactly, but, you know, I had moved on. Which I guess is just a way of saying I was fucking whoever came along, same as always."

"Were you in love with Molly?"

"Fuck, I don't know. I always seem to be the last person who knows I'm in love when I'm in love. Okay, that sentence doesn't make any sense—"

"It's okay, I know what you mean."

"Yeah, I was in love with her. Close as I ever get, anyway. I have some issues, as you might have heard."

"It's been rumored," Lauren said.

It made Shane laugh. "I bet. Anyway, Jenny. She was getting laid whenever she needed it, but nothing too excessive, nothing way out of hand, and then when they started casting and shooting the movie she started sleeping with Niki. And then they broke up, apparently Jenny treated her badly and Niki was pissed, and so she decided to come on to me right in the middle of this testimonial thing they were having for Jenny. We were out on the balcony, and, uh, you know ... "

"Getting it on."

"Yeah. Getting it on. I wasn't fucking her, I told Jenny that, but it didn't matter. I was, uh, well ... . Shit. I was going down on her. And Jenny comes out on the balcony and Niki sees her and the first I know Niki's yanking my hair. Jenny's all spooky quiet, then she says 'You broke my heart.' At first I thought she's talking about Niki, to Niki, that made some sense. But she's looking at me, not Niki. And I'm like, how the fuck did I break your heart? I'm only your roommate, your friend. Since when do you care who I fuck? And how many women did I fuck over those years we roomed together? I mean, how the fuck was I supposed to know she's suddenly in love with me? Everybody says I have this fantastic gaydar and all that, but I swear, I was completely unable to read the woman I'd been rooming with for years. My own best friend."

Lauren tapped her pencil on the table, thinking. "You said she could be manipulative and devious."

"Yeah?"

"Well, do you think she meant it? Was she sincere? Was she really in love with you? Was she playing you for some reason? A mind-fuck game? Was she just trying to take you away from Niki? I think I'm asking, what do you think was in her head?"

"Well, if she wasn't sincere, she sure fooled the crap out of me. Because I'm still fooled."

"Okay. Here's comes the hardest of the hard part."

"I didn't do it," Shane said.

"I wasn't going to ask you that," Lauren said. "You've already been asked and you've already said you didn't, and there's no point in repeating it just to hear ourselves talk."

"But you think I did it," Shane said.

"No. What I think is, I'm keeping an open mind, that's all."

"Marybeth thinks I did it."

"Well, that's hard to say. My opinion is she's keeping an open mind, too."

"Can I ask you something? Shane said.

"Sure. What?"

"Does this case bother her? Because I get nothing but bad vibes from her. I did way back when it happened, and every time I ever talked to her. You can deny it, but I know she thinks I did it."

Lauren thought a long time. Finally she said, "Yes, this case bothers her. A lot."

"Because you guys put the wrong person in jail."

"We didn't put that person in jail. She put herself in jail. But yes, Marybeth and I both believe the wrong person is in jail. And worse, we believe the real murderer got away with it, and that's what really sticks in her craw. And maybe it's a character flaw a lot of good cops have, but yes, we tend to care a lot more about bad guys who are still out than wrongly convicted good guys who are in. Maybe because the court system isn't part of our jurisdiction, but making arrests is."

"I interrupted you. I'm sorry. What were you going to ask? The worst part, you said."

"I want to ask you about your motive for killing Jenny. I'm not saying you did do it, I'm not. But you have to admit you had motive, and that's what I want to discuss. About why you were so mad at her. People seem to think it was because she stole the negatives and hid them in the attic, but there's something in the file about a jacket and a letter."

"Yeah," Shane said.

"Yeah? Can you be a little more forthcoming?"

"What happened was, I was in love with Mollie. I think so, anyway, as close as I seem to get to it, like we just said. I think she was in love with me. But her mother was the problem. See, Molly was - she is - very, very smart, super smart, smartest person I ever met by a long shot, at least book-smart. Carmen's really smart, too, but in a different way. Anyway, Molly wanted to be a lawyer, and even more, her mother really wanted her to be a lawyer. She got some real high score in some test to get into law school-"

"The L-SATs?"

"I don't know. I guess so. But whatever it was, Mollie finished in the top two percent, her mother told me. And because of that and maybe with some connections and her mother pulling strings, Mollie got this special internship at the Supreme Court in Washington that her mother was totally set on that Mollie should go. And Mollie just wanted to take the summer off, and just go surfing, and, well, hang out with me. That's what she wanted. First I even heard about the internship was at lunch with Molly and her mother, and I don't know jackshit about the Supreme Court, I had no idea just how important that was. They got into it a little bit, and Mollie basically told her mother she wasn't going to Washington. And I'm sitting there and I have no clue what they're arguing about except I seem to be in the middle of it but fuck if I know how. That was the same morning I told Mollie I loved her. So that same evening there's this big art gallery event that Bette and Tina asked me to come to, and I went, and Mollie's mother is there, too. Anyway, her mother - Phyllis is her name - takes me aside and tells me that I'm not worthy of Mollie. I had even heard them arguing about me once before, and Phyllis said she thought I was stupid. And then Mollie-"

"Yes?"

"Mollie kind of agreed with her, but then she said she just didn't care whether I was smart or not. That hurt a little, but Mollie and I talked about it, and it was okay. I'm telling this all out of order."

"It's all right. I'm following. Go on. There's this art gallery thing."

"Right. So Phyllis says to me, 'You're not worthy of her.' Right in my face. I say, 'Excuse me?' And Phyllis starts throwing the book at me, quoting Bette and Alice and all about my history. She throws Carmen at me, that the longest relationship I ever had was six months. Which is wrong because it was eight months. But anyway, she says I proposed to Carmen and then left her at the altar, which, I'm ashamed to say is true. And she says that's what I'll do with Mollie, too. She said some piece of ass would come along and next thing you know ... well ... . It was ugly. And it hurt because I didn't leave Carmen at the altar because of a piece of ass, that's totally wrong. It was like Phyllis was stripping the skin off me, and I couldn't do anything, say anything. Then she delivered the ... whadaya call it? The coo something."

"Coup de gras. The death blow."

"Yeah, that. She says I'm bad news. She says what am I gonna do, throw Mollie in the trash, too. Meaning like Carmen. Am I gonna throw her out like a piece of garbage? That's the words she used. Throw her out like a piece of garbage."

Shane had to stop a minute to collect herself.

"She says what am I going to do when somebody else comes along and I can't keep it my pants, her words again. Keep it in my pants. And I got nothing. I said nobody could predict what would happen, which even I know is pretty lame. She says most people have some self-knowledge, and did I ever hear of someone saying about the past is prelude. I said no, I hadn't heard of it, and of course she's making me feel stupid, that's her whole point all along, that I'm some fucking high school drop-out and her daughter's a genius."

"That's pretty tough," Lauren said.

"Tell me about it," Shane said. "Except it's true, every fucking word, except why I left Carmen. Oh, and you know what's funny? A few days later I looked it up on the Internet. Past is prelude. And I couldn't find it. Nothing. So I asked Alice. And Alice says, 'No, Shane, that's wrong. The quote is wrong. It's "The past is prologue." It's Shakespeare.' And I look it up again, and Alice is right. It's William Fucking Shakespeare. From a play called 'The Tempest.' See, Phyllis, this university chancellor and know-it-all who thinks I'm stupid, she's the one who totally fucked up a Shakespeare quote."

"You and Alice must have had a good laugh."

"No," Shane said. "I started to cry. And Alice wouldn't let me alone until I told her the whole thing. I think I need some more iced tea."

They got refills.

"Anyway," Shane said, "Phyllis delivers the knock-out punch. If you think you love her, she says, spare her. Don't turn her into another one of your heartbroken victims. And she walks away."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. So after the gallery thing a couple hours later I'm at this club and all the gang is there, and I'm dancing with Mollie. And I've been thinking about everything Phyllis had said. And ... so ... I did it."

"Did what?"

"Same thing I did with Carmen, at the beginning when I thought I was in danger of falling in love with her. I ... I deliberately fucked it up. I asked Mollie to go get me a drink at the bar, and when she came back I was flirting with some girl I vaguely knew. And just like Carmen did, Mollie asks me what the fuck I'm doing. They didn't say it that way, but that's what they meant. What's going on? Why are you flirting with some skank when I'm standing right here? And I basically say what I said to Carmen, you know, hey, let's not take this too seriously, blah blah. And Molly says, you made me promises, and I said, no, I didn't, and she says, yes you did, in bed this morning, those were promises. She's dead right, of course. And she says something like, 'Is this where the girl throws her drink in your face?' And I said something snotty, and she walks away and it's over."

"Oh, man, I'm sorry," Lauren said.

"You remember Harvey, the guy I was living with, who died in that accident?"

"Sure."

"Well, Harvey loved music, and he taught me about that musical, Man of La Mancha? And about Don Quixote, who makes this grand gesture of self-sacrifice? Well, that's what I did with Carmen, and with Mollie. They were better off without me. It's as simple as that."

"Nothing is ever as simple as that," Lauren said.

Shane shrugged. "Point is, I deliberately fucked it up. To save them. From me. I'm not saying it was the best way, but it was the only way I knew how, and it worked, that's all. It worked. The very next night was the wrap party for Jenny's movie. Everybody's there. And I'm wandering around and feeling sorry for myself, and I find Niki there, all alone, and she's down in the dumps, too. And ... I start flirting with her. She'd broken up with Jenny, like, ten days earlier. Jenny said Niki was dead to her, I told you that already."

"I know. Go on."

"So, you know, it gets dark and the wrap party is going full blast, and me and Niki, we're out on this pagoda porch thing, all by ourselves, and we start making out, and, well, it's kinda like with Carmen that very first time. We're hot for each other, there's no strings on anybody, you know? And ... I go down on her. Like I did Carmen."

"History repeats itself. That seems to happen a lot with you."

"You have no idea," Shane said. "That's when Jenny finds us. I'm on my knees with my face in Niki's pussy. I can honestly say that wasn't history repeating itself. That was a new one, even for me. Getting caught, I mean. Not eating pussy."

Lauren tapped her pen on the table, thinking. "You were out on the balcony with Niki, so you didn't hear Jenny's speech at the wrap-up party."

"I didn't even know she was giving a speech. I found out later that's what she was doing."

"No one told you about it? Afterward, I mean?"

"No. Why?"

"You don't know what she said?"

"No idea. What?"

"We got this story from two different people, Tina and Alice, and they pretty much agree. It started with the usual stuff you might expect. And then she asked if Niki was there. And somebody said she was out in the pagoda, that porch you were on. And then Jenny says she has something really important to tell Niki - that's she's in love with somebody. And everybody applauds, and they think she's talking about her being in love with Niki."

"Jesus fucking Christ."

"She wasn't talking about Niki. But she wanted to rub it in Niki's face. Humiliate her some more only this time in front of everyone. She wanted to tell Niki she was in love with you. And she wanted all of Hollywood to know it. To know it wasn't Niki, that she had rejected Niki in favor of you."

"Oh, my God."

"Yeah, well. Pretty twisted, that's my opinion. Manipulative. Sadistic."

"Oh, my God. And there I was --"

"Uh huh."

"Oh, fuck."

"Uh huh."

"She threw me out. That night. Jenny threw me out of the house. Threw my clothes out onto the porch. We'd been living together for five, six years, except that one time when she went back to Illinois."

"Tell me about Mollie's letter."

"I don't have it."

"I know. It's in the evidence box."

"Then you read it."

"I did. But I'd like to hear you talk about it."

"Not much to tell. She said she was sorry about what her mother said, it was wrong to say, she says, and it was wrong as fact, because I'm not stupid, she says, just different in how I process stuff. I'm guessing Alice or somebody told her that. And then she says I opened up new horizons for her. Made her think about things differently. I think she meant being a lesbian, but other stuff, too, I'm not sure."

"'In your eyes, I see things I know I can't touch, I know not to reach for them, I let them touch me, and I cherish these moments, that we're able to share, however fleeting they may be,'" Lauren quoted.

"Jesus, you really did read it, didn't you?" Shane said.

"A line like that, you have to commit it to memory."

"Except I didn't."

"It's not your thing," Lauren said kindly. "So. You climbed the ladder in the closet looking for the jacket and letter, and you found them, and saw the film canisters. What was going through your mind?"

"I wanted to fucking kill her."

There was silence.

"Guess that sounds bad. I don't care. You want me to tell you stuff, I'm telling you."

"I understand."

"I don't think I've ever been that angry at anyone in my entire life. Carmen says I don't get angry, that I turn my anger inwards against myself. I don't know if that's true. Carmen's usually right, so I'll take her word for it. But if Jenny had walked into that closet right at that moment, I ..." Shane went speechless, and turned her head away.

"Okay," Lauren said quietly.