Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 07

"Sure," Lauren said. "I understand you bought the house directly from Tina Kinnard and Bette Porter, is that correct?"

"Yes, that's right," Gladys said as they entered the kitchen. "They put it on the market because they were moving to New York, and I had a small rental I was sharing with some other nurses, and I was looking to move closer to the hospital. When it came on the market I knew it would get snapped up, and I was lucky, working nights I was available to come right over about an hour after it was listed and the computer popped it out to my real estate buddy. It was like a race to see who got here first."

"This was before the murder happened?"

"Yes, right before. I looked at the house, told Tina and Bette I wanted it, and we shook hands on it. Then, it was a few days later the murder happened."

"That didn't bother you?" Lauren asked.

"Me? No. It might have freaked out a lot of people, living where a murder occurred, but hell, I'm an ER nurse, you know. I've seen it all. I guess you have, too."

Lauren nodded.

Carmen stood quietly at the entrance to the kitchen, lost in memories. She looked over at the sink under the back window, where she had stood in her tiny white bikini, washing a ladle and eavesdropping on the conversation between Alice, Helena and Bette during a pool party they'd held when Dana had come home from the hospital after her radical double mastectomies from the cancer that had finally killed her. Alice, Helena and Bette were plotting to get Carmen to drop her bikini bottoms so they could finally get a peek at Carmen's famous but heretofore hidden pubic tattoo, her famous flower boxes. There was no way Carmen was going to tell these two women that story. Nor could she tell them about the four or five times she and Shane had babysat Angelica in this house, making love in the living room on the couch while the baby slept peacefully in her crib. She thought about the week Bette's father Melvin had been brought here to die, and how she and Shane had helped Bette and Tina with hospice care that week, and during and after the funeral. She remembered how she'd chatted with Gloria Steinem in this very room at the reception after the funeral.

Lauren turned to her, her hand on the kitchen door leading out to the back yard. "Ready?"

"Yes," Carmen said. "Go."

Lauren opened the double French doors and the three of them walked outside into the backyard. To the right was the stairway up to the second-story deck, and in front of them was the swimming pool. The stairway had two steps up to a small landing, then twelve steps to the top.

Gladys stood next to Carmen, both their arms folded, while Lauren walked over to the sidewalk between the pool and the stairs. She put her hand up on the stair rail, feeling its strength. It seemed solid.

"Were you here that night?" Gladys asked quietly.

"No," Carmen said. "I live in San Francisco, and I work on cruise ships. I was 800 miles out into the Pacific when it happened."

"But you knew her?" Gladys asked.

"Yes, I knew her. We were, you know, involved, at one point, but that was three years earlier."

"I see. I'm very sorry."

"Thank you."

"I'm ashamed to admit I forgot her name. I knew it at the time, I read all about it."

"Jenny. Her name was Jenny Schecter. She had moved out here from Illinois, with her boyfriend. They were the tenants of the house next door, that's how they met Tina and Bette. Then Jenny broke up with her boyfriend, and, you know, she had some other relationships, and then one day there was her and me, in a relationship. And that's how I met Bette and Tina and everybody.

"Everybody?"

"Well, there was a whole group of us. Tina and Bette, Jenny, our friend Alice, a woman named Helena, another woman named Shane who was Jenny's roommate, a woman named Moira, who was transgender, so she's a he now. There was Bette's sister, Kit. Do you know who Dana Fairbanks was, the tennis player who died from breast cancer?"

"Oh, I remember her. She was a friend of yours?"

"Yes, she was. One time we had a pool party for her right here when she came home from the hospital."

"I see. I guess this place has a lot of memories for you."

"Yes, it does. In fairness, not all of them are bad ones. We had some good times here. Great times. Pool parties. Cook-outs. Skinny dipping at night--"

Gladys laughed.

"Like I said, Jenny's roommate was named Shane. She and I were having a relationship, and one day Jenny had a nervous breakdown, and went home to Illinois for six months, to recover. So I moved in next door with Shane. I lived next door for eight months. So we were over here all the time. We babysat for Tina and Bette's daughter--"

"Angelica!" Gladys said. "I remember her. She was so adorable."

"She was, she still is. Bette and Tina e-mail me photos all the time. She's a little ballet star in New York, now."

They had watched Lauren climb up and down the stairs, testing the strength of the handrails, as though one that had been there the night of the murder, instead of just a yellow caution tape. Lauren had walked all the way around the pool, was standing near the back lot line, looking at the house and making notes in her small notepad.

"Does it bother you to talk about, you know ... Jenny."

Carmen shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

"I was never real clear on what happened."

"They found her floating in the pool, drowned. She had been standing on the deck. The second story had just been added, and the carpenters hadn't finished the railing, there was just a ribbon or tape. Somehow or other Jenny fell through the tape onto the sidewalk, and somehow rolled or was pushed into the pool. She had a head injury. I don't know if it was from the fall or somebody hit her over the head, or what. Maybe Lauren knows if the autopsy could determine it, but I don't know. But anyway, she wound up in the pool, unconscious, and she drowned."

"I see."

"The reason she was here, all the girls were having a going-away farewell party for Bette and Tina, and everybody was up in the TV room watching a farewell tribute video Jenny had made. Throughout the evening people were coming and going, and at some point they went looking for Jenny and found her in the pool."

"But they caught who did it, right? It was one of the women?"

"Well, that's where it gets really complicated. Yes, Alice was one of the women here, one of our friends, and yes, she confessed. She's in prison now, up at Humboldt. But the thing is, she lied, she was covering up for somebody else. And that person didn't kill Jenny either, but somebody did. So her friend Shane and I asked the county to re-open the case. They said no, but said we could look into it on our own, if Detective Hancock babysat us. So that's why Detective Hancock is here. We're hoping to find the real killer and get our friend Alice released from prison, because she didn't do it."

"Wow. That's like something you see on TV."

"I know."

"How's the investigation going? You have anything?"

"Not really, no. One problem is, back in the day, the murder wasn't investigated very thoroughly because Alice confessed so quickly. It's not the cops' fault they didn't do a thorough job, it's just that Alice's confession stopped them. She confessed, so the police and DA accepted it, case closed."

"I see. But you think the real killer's still out there?"

"Yes."

"Think you'll find him. Or her?"

"I have no idea."

"Have any good suspects."

Carmen laughed a little harshly. "Too many. We're up around ten or so, at the moment."

"Ten?"

"Rough count. Here's the thing. Everybody who was here that night at the party had a major grievance against Jenny. She had done some bad stuff to a lot of people, some petty, some not. So every one of them had a motive, including Alice, my friend Shane, Bette, Tina, Bette's sister Kit, our friend Helena. They were all mad at her, in varying degrees of anger, each for their own reason. Not enough to kill her, of course, but that's just my opinion. And there were people who weren't even here who had a motive, people at the movie studio where Jenny worked."

"That's right! I forgot about the movie thing. Jenny had something to do with a movie, and there was that crazy actress--"

"Niki Stevens."

"Right, her, the one who's always in and out of rehab, and getting her picture taken getting out of a limo while flashing her cooter--"

Carmen laughed. "Yes, that's her. She was here that night, too, they found her in the bushes over there where Lauren is looking around. She had motive, too."

"I'll have to rent a copy of that movie. What was the name of it, again?"

"It was never released. Jenny wrote a book, a memoir, about all us women who were her friends. You can buy that most anywhere. And then she sold the screenplay of it to the studio and they had just finished making the movie when Jenny was murdered. But a few weeks before that somebody had stolen all the negatives. Turns out it was Niki Stevens, and she hid the negatives in the attic right next door, in Jenny's house, to make it look like Jenny stole them. The missing negatives were discovered there just a few minutes before the murder."

"Oh, my God, really? Wow. Was this on the TV news? I'm sure I'd have remembered--"

"No, most of it never came out, there was no reason for it to. Alice had confessed, and her confession, false as it was, had nothing to do with the film negatives. The studio eventually got them back and sat on everything, all the information about their end of it. The whole thing had been tainted by all sorts of scandals and problems during the shoot--"

"No kidding!"

"—so they hushed that part up and put the movie on a shelf somewhere, or burned it, I have no idea. But all that never got thoroughly investigated, and it's something we have to take a fresh look at."

Lauren came over to where they were standing. "Mind if we look around upstairs?"

"Sure, that's fine. Follow me," Gladys said. They followed Gladys up the stairs to the outside upper deck, and went through the sliding double door into what was still the master bedroom. "The house is still structurally the same, I haven't done anything to it except paint, things like that. And of course the furniture is different. This was Bette and Tina's new master bedroom, right off the new deck. What they called their media room is down this hall and to the left past the master bathroom and the guest bathroom."

They followed Gladys down the hall into the guest bedroom.

"This used to be the media room, right?" Lauren asked, rhetorically. "It's at the front of the house. If most of the women were in here and watching a video, they wouldn't have heard anything out on the back deck, especially if the master bedroom door and the outside sliding doors were closed at the time."

"I only knew the house when it was one story," Carmen said, "but yes, that sounds right to me, too. Do we know anything about the argument at the moment Jenny was killed?"

"No," Lauren said. "We have Alice's confession, which we believe to be false, and what she said was they were mostly hissing at each other, trying to keep the noise down, and then Alice says she pushed her, Jenny fell to the cement pavement below, and then Alice rolled her into the pool. But even if it's a false confession, it sticks to what little we know. There was no railing, Jenny had a bump on the head, there was some of her blood on the sidewalk, and she was face down in the pool. So whoever did do it didn't make much noise. We can assume there was no yelling or screaming, because even if your friends didn't hear it in the media room, none of the other neighbors heard anything, either, according to our reports. If she was talking to someone, they weren't loud enough to cause alarm. And we don't even know if there was any talking at all before she fell. We're just guessing." Lauren looked around the guest bedroom one last time. "Carmen, you have any questions? Anything else you need to see here?"

"No, I'm good."

"Okay, then, let's go next door. Gladys, thanks very much for letting us look around."

"Hey, no problem, glad to be able to help. Could you guys let me know how your investigation turns out?"

"Yes, sure," Lauren said, "if we find anything. In the meantime, though, would you mind keeping a lid on this? I have no authority to prevent you from saying whatever you want to whomever you want, but -- and I know I speak for Carmen, too -- we'd appreciate it if you didn't talk to the media, don't tell anybody what we're doing. I mean, you can tell your mom or your boyfriend or significant other as long as they don't--"

"Not an issue," Gladys said.

"Okay, good. Well, again, thanks for letting us look around."

All three women walked down the hall, through the double doors, and out onto the deck.

"I'll say goodnight here," Gladys said. "Time for me to get some sleep."

"'Night," Lauren said, going down the stairs.

"'Night, and thanks," Carmen said. "It was nice meeting you."

"You, too," Gladys said. "Hey, if you talk to Tina and Bette, tell them I said hello, and that I love the house and their renovations."

"I will," Carmen said.

At the bottom of the stairs Carmen stopped and looked around the pool and the backyard one last time.

"Need a moment?" Lauren asked. She wondered if Carmen was remembering the sex she'd almost certainly had in the pool, but didn't ask.

"Yeah. We had some good times here. All right, let's go." Carmen passed by Lauren and opened the gate in the fence between the two properties. "How about I show you the studio first?"

"Great."

"Once upon a time this was a garage," Carmen said, leading the way. "Tim converted it before he and Jenny got here. Jenny used it for a writing studio, and later on I did too, for my music and DJ stuff. They also rented it out when they needed the rent money. And yes, before you ask, a lot of sex happened here. This is where Marina was going down on Jenny when Tim walked in on them. So this is where Jenny's marriage blew up, right here. You have the keys?"

"Yes," Lauren said. She held a key ring in her hand with half a dozen keys. "I think it's ... yes." She unlocked the door and let Carmen walk in first.

"Shane and I repainted it when I first moved in with her," Carmen said. "Then we got silly and had a paintball fight."

"Messy," Lauren said.

"Yeah, it was. We were naked at the time."

"Good planning."

"This is also where I confessed to Shane I had cheated on her."

Lauren said nothing.

"It was with Robin, my deeply closeted schoolteacher friend in San Diego who I'm apparently no longer having even a casual fuckbuddy relationship with."

"I sense a little bitterness."

"Maybe. Anyway, let's go in the house." Carmen led the way out, waited for Lauren to lock up, then went to the deck by the back door. "See all these flowerbeds? I worked my ass off on them. Rejuvenated them, cleaned them out, planted flowers of all kinds. It's all gone to hell now."

"Metaphoric," Lauren said. Carmen glanced at her. "Sorry."

Carmen turned and looked back at the scruffy yard. "This is where Shane proposed to me. She was sitting on the step, right here. I was gardening. We had just returned from Dana's funeral. Shane was crying. I mean, really crying. She took Dana's death really hard. I was letting her get it out. I was weeding over there where that dead rose bush is. And she just says, out of the goddam blue, 'Will you marry me?' Open the back door, please."

Lauren turned away and used her key collection to open the door to the kitchen. She went in, Carmen following. "Different," Carmen said.

"How so?"

"New refrigerator. They put in a dishwasher. New microwave. Either new cabinets, or at least they put on new doors or refurbished the old ones. We had a rectangular table, these people have a round one. But it looks neat and clean. That's nice. You know anything about who lives here?"

"Not much. A young couple. He's in accounting or something, and she a secretary. No kids."

"Not gay, then."

"No. I'm told there's some straight people even in West Hollywood."

Carmen walked into the dining room and then the living room. "Art work on the walls all different. And they like Swedish modern, Ikea modern."

"No, not to my taste, either," Lauren said. "But all in all not a bad starter home. Did you like living here?"

"Yeah, I did. One of the differences between me and Shane, I'm a nest-builder, like I said. I put a lot of work into this place. Painting, fixing up, swapping out old, bad furniture for better stuff. Upgraded the carpet, new area rug. New, big-screen TV, right before everybody switched over to those new flat screens."

"But you were still renting, right?"

"Yes. But the landlord was a good guy. He liked that we were protective and improving his investment. He reimbursed us for all the cost of paint and split the cost of carpeting with us. You have to understand, it was my intention that this was a long-term relationship. A forever relationship."

"I don't think anyone ever doubted that about you," Lauren said. "I want to go look at the infamous walk-in closet and the attic."

Carmen led her down the hall to what had been Jenny's bedroom. The blinds were down, so Carmen flipped on the light switch. The bedroom was neat and clean -- the couple knew Lauren was coming. Lauren opened the door to the closet and found the light switch. Two-thirds of the space was devoted to her clothes and shoes, and one-third to his. Carmen stood watching.

"So this was the popular spot," Lauren said. She looked up. "And the infamous pull-down steps."

There was a small rope pull hanging from it. Lauren reached up and carefully pulled the steps down. The steps folded in half, and she unfolded the bottom portion. Then she climbed upstairs. Carmen came to stand at the bottom. "When you get up there, reach up and feel for the pull-string to the overhead light."

A moment later the attic light came on. Carmen climbed the ladder and stopped waist-high into the attic. "I don't know where the tapes were," she said.

"I do," Lauren said. "After Shane had found them she left them here, but showed them to Tina. When they were investigating the murder they were still up here. The crime scene people photographed them, and also drew a map. They were right about there, where that suitcase is now. Apparently Shane also found her jacket there, with Mollie's letter in it. She took the jacket downstairs with her."

Carmen looked around.

"Did you store stuff up here?" Lauren asked.

"Oh, sure. Suitcases, luggage, travel stuff. Some boxes of extra china and kitchen stuff I brought from home. Boxes of clothes. Couple cartons of old cassettes I didn't need for my DJing, but never got around to throwing out."

"What did Shane keep up here?"

"Same thing, the usual stuff. She didn't have much, though."

"Okay," Lauren said.

"What are you thinking?" Carmen asked.

"Well, let's see. Niki put the film canisters up here. She knew about the attic because she'd been in the closet, and looked up. It took a few minutes, carrying in the pile of canisters, pulling down the steps, carrying the canisters up. My guess is at least two trips, maybe three. They aren't that heavy, but it's awkward climbing with one hand if you don't have someone to hand them up to you. So it means she had a window of time and wasn't worried about being discovered. Then, at a later date, when Mollie had dropped off Shane's jacket, Jenny had come in here, pulled down the stairs, gone up, and then my guess is she just tossed the jacket without ever turning on the overhead light and looking around. Had she looked around, she'd have seen the canisters, but it's pretty clear she didn't. That sound right?"

"Yes. And maybe she was in a hurry, worried Shane would be home soon. So she just tossed it, like you said, and never looked around."