Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 26

Chapter 26 Evidence

Carmen's cell phone jolted awake playing A Mi Manera by the Gypsy Kings, bringing her out of a sound sleep. Groggily she reached to the nightstand for it, saw that the call was from Lauren, and that it was 5:30 a.m.

"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked, panicked.

"Nothing, it's okay, I'm sorry to scare you. There's nothing wrong."

"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. It's five thirty."

"I know, I'm sorry. I'm not going to ask something stupid like did I wake you."

"Uh huh. Good to know. Have you even been to bed? You been up all night writing parking tickets? Beating suspects with a rubber hose? Having hot lesbian sex under the Santa Monica pier?"

"Oh, I wish. Either of the last two. No. But I got home, poured myself a glass of wine, had another one, nodded off, and didn't wake up until 3 a.m. I putzed around for a while, then said fuck it and came in."

"You're in the office? In the conference room?"

"Yep. Something was bothering me, so I went looking for it. Well, I found it."

"I'm not going back to sleep, so don't fuck around. What did you find?"

"Remember how you said maybe Jenny lied about not hiring a private detective? The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. So I started looking through her bank statements and withdrawals for a payment or retainer."

"And you found it?"

"Nope," Lauren said.

"Lauren!" Carmen said. "You're starting to piss me off."

She heard Lauren chuckle. "Jenny had a fair number of cash withdrawals beside the blackmail payments, some of them large enough to be a retainer, but the times weren't right. She didn't have an unexplained cash withdrawal in the right time slot, which was right after she and Niki made the last blackmail payment, and Jenny and Niki argued about hiring the detective."

"Cut to the chase."

"Jenny didn't pay cash. She put it on her American Express card. It was right there in front of us all along, on her credit card statements. We were just looking in the wrong stack of paper."

"I don't understand."

"I figured if Jenny went to talk to a detective or a detective agency, she wouldn't know ahead of time what the retainer would be, or even if she was going to hire them. Her decision was going to be based on a spur-of-the-moment decision, go or no go. We know she didn't write a check, because there's none in her bank statement, and she wouldn't say, okay, I'll be back tomorrow with the cash. So what she'd say was, 'Okay, you're hired, do you take American Express?'"

"Right. She'd want to hire them immediately, that day, that morning or afternoon, because she only had a few weeks before the next payoff was due. The one on March 6."

"Right."

"And you found the agency?"

"I did."

"And?"

"You need to be sitting down."

"I'm in bed."

"Excellent. Are you naked? Never mind. The name of the detective agency she hired was ... ta da! Drum roll—"

"Lauren—"

"Spade and Archer."

There was dead silence on the phone. Lauren gave it nearly a full minute. "Did you nod off?"

"No way. No way there's a detective agency called Spade and Archer. No fucking way."

"That was my first thought, too. But you know what? It's brilliant. If your name was Harold. F. Hooker and you risked people nicknaming you Happy whether you liked it or not, and you were a detective working in the movie industry, what would you call your detective agency?"

"That's his name, Harold Hooker?"

"Babe, this is LA, Hollywood. Movietown U.S.A. Maybe Niki and Justin Bieber never heard of Spade and Archer, but everyone over forty in this town has. So back in the day when they had phone books and you were going through the Yellow Pages looking for a private eye to see if your movie star wife or husband was cheating on you, and you see a quarter page ad for Spade and Archer, who you gonna call? Not Ghostbusters. And if you want to specialize in the movie industry, as opposed to, say, real estate or aerospace, or bikini sugar-waxing, how do you sell yourself? With a famous movie name the generation of his day would recognize and remember. It's marketing, and like they said in that movie, it's Chinatown, Jake. You don't need Lindsay Lohan to recognize the name Spade and Archer, you only need Lindsay Lohan's lawyer and agent and accountant to recognize it. But why am I telling you? You're the Hollywood expert and movie trivia buff."

"Have you ever heard of them? I never have, but that doesn't mean anything."

'No, I never did. But it's a big city and LA County's an even bigger county. Spade and Archer was only one guy, anyway. There was no Archer. And I'm not in the movie industry like he was. Or like you were."

"I was down near the bottom of the industry, though. I was just a field hand in the trenches. Okay, mixed metaphor, never mind. I haven't had my coffee yet. When can we go talk to him? This morning?"

"We can't talk to him."

There was another silence. "Don't tell me," Carmen finally said.

"Yep."

"When?"

"A week after Max was murdered."

"Oh, my god," Carmen whispered. "How do you know?"

"I Googled his name. There was a story in the LA Times that he was missing, and then a couple stories about the search effort, then the story just disappeared. He hasn't been declared legally dead or anything, but the wife is sure he is."

"Another accident? Does she suspect something? How did it happen?"

"Down in Ensenada. Apparently Hooker liked to go deep-sea fishing. Went down there on vacations with his wife. He went out one morning on a charter boat, just him and the boat captain he liked to go out with. They'd been out before maybe a dozen times. She went to a pottery class, she told reporters she didn't do well on small boats and going after swordfish was boring, and there was nothing to do but watch or read a book. She didn't start worrying until mid-afternoon, when the boat should have come back. They were supposed to go out to dinner, and he'd want to shower and change clothes, have a drink. When he didn't show up she called the harbor master and the Mexican Coast Guard. Neither had heard anything, no SOS messages or distress calls."

"No helicopters, anything like that?"

"There's dozens of boats out there, maybe, hundreds on a bright, sunny afternoon. So how do you tell which one is the boat Hooker is on? They fly around, nobody waves at them, no distress signals. Even if the radio's out they have flare guns, flags, lots of ways to attract attention, but nobody did. At least, nobody who was Hooker and the boat captain."

"So they just disappeared?"

"So it seems."

"And it was never a missing persons case? You and Marybeth never worked it?"

"Nope. Missing fishing boat in Mexico. Not our problem, not our jurisdiction. Nothing suspicious. Rickety Mexican fishing boat. Happens all the time."

"Do we believe it?"

"If you were betting ten bucks on it, how would you bet? Totally unrelated accident, sinking with no witnesses and no trace, or somehow related to two previous murders that were tricked up to look like accidents? It's the 'no trace' part that really bothers me."

"Lauren, you're scaring me."

"Good."

"I can't believe it. Three murders."

"Four. Gotta figure the boat captain was murdered, too, unless he was in on it. But he had a wife and kids, and hasn't been seen since."

"Right, four. Have you told Marybeth?"

"Car, it's not even 6 a.m."

"Oh, yeah. Okay, I see why you had to call and wake me up. When are you going to tell Marybeth?"

"Soon as she comes in."

"What do you want me to do? Come in?

"Unless you want to go back to sleep."

"Oh, yeah, right. Like I could do that, now. There's not enough Ambien in LA for me to go back to sleep."

"On your way in, how about picking up some breakfast? I'm starved. I've had nothing but coffee and a bag of Fritos since last night."

"Sure, okay. What do you want?"

"How about some breakfast tortillas from that place near you that you like?"

"Sure, you got it. I gotta take a shower first, but I'll get in as soon as I can."

"Cool. Text me a photo."

"A photo? Of what?"

"Of you in the shower."

"Hey, don't go all Harvey Weinstein on me."

"Who?"

"Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer. He did The Crying Games, Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love. A lot of movies."

"That's your specialty area. What about him? He a bad guy?"

"I don't know, but there's rumors."

"Oh, I see. Rumors. In Hollywood. About bad behavior. Hard to believe. I heard Gomer Pyle was gay."

"No! I'm crushed."

"You're crushed, I'm hungry. Go jump in the shower and hurry up, no morning bliss with the magic wand."

"Oh, you know me so well. Not even a quicky?"

"Bite me," Lauren said, and hung up. Carmen laughed.

***

It was 7:15 by the time Carmen got to the conference room with a brace of tortillas, a container of her favorite pico de gallo, and better coffee than they could get down the hall in the break room, from The Planet.

"You didn't get this from that restaurant," Lauren said, opening a Tupperware with the tortillas in it. "I'm so hungry I could -- hey, did your mom make these? Oh, god, I love her food! And is this her pico? Her pico de gallo is to die for."

Carmen had brought paper plates and real silverware, and they dug in.

"When I said get some tortillas from that place near you, I didn't mean your mom's refrigerator."

"Subconsciously that's exactly what you meant."

"Please don't go rooting around in my subconscious. You don't know what you'll find. Anyway, I suspect I could make a list of 47 damn good reasons why Shane was a complete, total fool for not marrying you," Lauren said, half her tortilla gone, "but right near the top of the list is your mother's cooking."

"Would that be right before sex, or right after it on the list?" Carmen asked.

"I don't know. We haven't had sex, so I'd just be guessing," Lauren said.

"That's what keeps the mystery alive in our relationship," Carmen said. "I mean, for all you know, maybe I'm really lousy in bed."

"Anything's possible, but I'll take my chances," Lauren said. "But just in case, I have a fix for that, just in case you suck at sucking."

"I'm all ears," Carmen said.

"Hardly. But what I'd do is just smear this pico de gallo all over your body, and lick it off. Then I wouldn't care if you were any good. Except to turn over, you wouldn't have to move. Hell, you could sleep through it."

"Interesting," Carmen said. "And when it's over instead of lighting cigarettes we could have a couple of churros."

"Works for me."

"Are we done sexually bantering? Because I had another idea."

"Boy, you're a major buzzkill this morning. Did I call you too early? Okay, Sherlock, hit me."

"Remember we talked about how the stalker, who we now think was Gabe, was a smoker? And he used to come out into the back yard to smoke so he didn't stink up somebody else's house?"

"Rings a bell. He smoked when he was up on the cliff at La Jolla cove, too, so Niki said. And if he was camped out somewhere near the observatory and the Hollywood Bowl for the money drops, he probably smoked there, too."

"Right. But here's what I'm thinking. What if there are still cigarette butts behind that house? Somewhere in the yard, probably back by the lot line by the fence if he was peeping on Shane and Jenny's house, or even watching the action in the pool."

"They'd be old, decomposed cigarette butts by now."

"I know. But would they still be there, and can you get DNA from them?"

Lauren looked at Carmen.

"Because if you could—" Carmen started.

"—it would show it was Gabe back there. It would tie him to the scene. But we don't have Gabe or his DNA on file to do a match to the cigarette butt, at least not that I know of. And anyway, I don't know if you can get DNA from a two-year-old cigarette butt that's been out in the weather."

"You can get DNA from Shane, right? Her father's would be similar, right?"

"A defense attorney would poke a ton of holes in it. If the match wasn't dead solid perfect, he could say it was Shane's DNA on the cigarette butt, not Gabe's."

"Yes. But why would Shane be standing around smoking in somebody else's back yard? She'd smoke in her own house, and in her own yard. Which she did, but she put her butts out in an ash tray on the back porch. She never flicked them out into the yard. But see, it might not be good enough for court, but would it be good enough for a warrant? Whaddaya call it, probable cause? And even if it didn't stand up in court, it would tell us we were on the right track. If we can prove conclusively it was or wasn't Gabe--"

"It'd be good enough for us. We'd know what to do next. Which suspects to eliminate, which to keep working on. Hang on, I know somebody. What time is it? Five of eight." Lauren picked up her cell phone, went into the contacts, and found a number. She put the phone up to her ear. "One ringy-dingy ... two ringy-dingies ... Hey, Janice, this is Detective Lauren Hancock in Missing Persons ... yeah, good, how are you? Listen, I know it's early, but is Margaret in yet? ... Okay, anybody else back there who knows a whole lot about DNA? I have one fairly simple, quick question ... okay, I'll hold." Lauren put the phone on speaker and set it down. They looked at it.

"Detective Hancock? This Mike Allison. What can I do for you?"

"Good morning, Mike, I hope I didn't pull you away from your coffee and e-mails."

"You did, but I have my coffee in my hand, so it's all good. What can I do for you?"

"Simple question. Is it possible to extract usable DNA from a two-year-old cigarette butt?"

"Simple? You're kidding, right? How well preserved? Indoors, outside in the weather?"

"Probably outside. I don't know how decomposed."

"What's it look like?"

"I don't have it yet."

"You don't have it?"

"No, but if it's usable I'll try to go get one. That's why I'm asking."

"Well, short answer is 'maybe,' but you know how it goes. Yes, it's theoretically possible. There's been some research. Wait, let me Google it for you." The line was silent for a minute. "Ah, here we go," Allison said. "Got a pencil? Write this down. Advances in Forensic Haemogenetics 4. You spell it H, A, E, M, O, genetics, all one word, then roman numeral 4. Edited by C. Rittner and P. M. Schneider, S, C, H, N, E, I, D, E, R. 14th Congress of the International Society of Forensic Haemogenetics, Mainz, that's a city in Germany, September 18 and 19, 1991--"

"Nineteen ninety-one? That's a pretty long time ago in terms of DNA research."

"Yes," Allison said, "so they've undoubtedly gotten better. But here's the part you want, it's on page 62. The presentation was called quote SDS-PAGE Typing of HLA-DQA1 and pMCT118 after PCR Amplification unquote." He waited while Lauren wrote it down, following his careful spellings. "Ready? Let's see, two samples, amplified by ... you don't need that ... Quote. In both cases only highly degraded DNA could be extracted. The first case involved two suspects and two-year-old cigarette butts parentheses four butts close parens were investigated. The band pattern shows that both suspects could be excluded with YNZ22 parens Figure 9, -- there's a photo of the DNA banding -- close parens, and MCT, close quote."

"Which means...?"

"The DNA was highly degraded, but they got enough data from it to clear two suspects."

"I assume it could also have proved it was them, if it can be flipped around, right?"

"Yes, basically it's them or it's not them. Yes. Here's another article, looks like by a Russian guy, Aleksandar Apostolov, no, it says he's from Sofia, Bulgaria, same difference. It's called quote DNA Identification of Biological Traces on Cigarettes: Vices Reveal. Biotechnology & Biotechnological Equipment, 26:3, 2994-2998, DOI: 10.5504/BBEQ.2012.0044. And it's from 2014." Allison explained what all the citation data meant. "Here's what the abstract says. Quote. We present two cases representative of a group of 28 cases with cigarette butts that were from 10 days to 2 years old. The proper collecting and storage of the material is very important for successful DNA typing from saliva traces and epithelial cells from the lips and oral cavity. Meeting these conditions would increase the chances for successful DNA profiling of biological traces on evidence of an earlier date. Unquote. Got it?"

"Close enough for what I need. Thanks, Mike, I owe you one."

"Any time, detective. Good hunting."

Lauren closed out the call and looked at Carmen. "Refill your coffee and let's go."

"Back to the scene of the crime?" Carmen asked.

"Roger dodger. 10-4. Copy that," Lauren said, making Carmen laugh. She stood up and put on a leather jacket that had been hung on the back of her chair.

Carmen realized Lauren was dressed the way she had once described Dani Reese. She thought about saying that, but decided to keep silent. Instead, she asked, "Should we call Shane and have her meet us there?"

"Hell, no. I don't want her DNA anywhere near that back yard. If we do find something, I don't want there to be the slightest suspicion Shane contaminated something, spit on something, or sneezed, or even breathed on it. And we don't want her to know we're looking at her father."

"Right. Understood," Carmen said. They'd have to start lying to Shane.

***

It was just after nine when they rolled up to the Creep House and parked at the curb. The front door opened and a man in his late 30s in a military uniform and carrying a small briefcase came out and walked toward one of the two cars parked in the driveway. He didn't look creepy. He stopped and looked at Lauren and Carmen as they got out of Lauren's car and approached him. He smiled. "Whatever you ladies are selling I'm buying."

Lauren got out her badge case and flipped it open so the man could see the badge. She read the bars on his shoulders. "Captain Scofield? Hi, I'm Detective Lauren Hancock, LA County Sheriff's Department, and this is my partner, Carmen Morales. We're not selling anything, but if you have a moment we'd like to talk to you."

The man looked at them suspiciously. "Is there a problem?"

"No, nothing like that," Lauren said. "We working on a cold case that happened in the house with the pool diagonally across from your back yard two years ago. We know you and your wife were in the military and out of the country when it happened."

"Jenny Schecter," the man said.

"That's right," Lauren said. "Did you know her?"

"We talked to her a couple times, over the back fence. And when we moved in she brought us a housewarming present. Flowers, a tea rose, I think. That was nice of her. My wife planted it. I think it was Jenny's way of saying our lot needed landscaping, which it did. She was kind of proud of how their lot looked, a lot of plants and shrubs."

Carmen kept her face still, but was strangely moved. She was the one who had done the lion's share of gardening when she'd lived there. She had no idea Jenny had even noticed it, much less had liked it. Jenny had never said anything about it. And that was annoying.

"Did you also know Shane McCutcheon? She was Jenny's housemate."

"Yes, not so much to talk to but I knew her on sight. She'd come out and sit on the back porch and smoke."

"Speaking of smoking, can I ask if you smoke?"

"Me? No. I did when I was a kid in high school, but I quit when I went into the Air Force after college."

"How about your wife?"

"Betsy? No, she never smoked, even back in the day."

"Anyone else in your household who smokes? Now, or within the last few years?"

"No. There's just my wife and me."

"You ever have barbecues or cook-outs in the backyard with friends who smoke?"

"Yeah, we've had a few cook-outs, but I can't remember anyone smoking. Most of our friends are military or ex-military, not smokers. Our parents don't smoke. I've got a brother in Florida, he smokes, but he hasn't been here. Why all the interest in smoking?"