Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 27

"Personally, I'm on board with that," Carmen said quietly, "but Lauren and Marybeth probably won't go along."

"Don't make jokes," Shane said.

"You're right," Carmen said. "I'm sorry."

Shane wasn't crying, although tears streamed down her cheeks. "That motherfucker. He hurt so many people. My mother. Shea. Carla. Helena." She turned to Carmen again. "You. He fucked up your wedding."

"Not my wedding. Our wedding. He hurt you, too. Maybe you more than anybody. And he took Shea away."

"Our wedding," Shane repeated. "And ... you're telling me he killed Jenny. And Max."

"Yes," Carmen said. "We're pretty sure."

"Who figured it out?" Shane asked. "It was you, wasn't it?" she said, again turning to Carmen.

"Shane, we all—" but Shane cut her off.

"It's okay. I'm not mad. I knew it would be you. Alice even said so. She said, 'Get Carmen. Carmen will figure it out.' She said that. And I knew she was right. I didn't tell you, that night I went to your house in San Francisco. But I knew, if anybody would, it would be you. Alice thought so, too." She closed her eyes, opened them, took a tissue from a box on Marybeth's desk, and blotted her eyes and cheeks. "How long have you known?"

Lauren felt the need to jump in. "We got confirmation last night—"

"Last night?" Shane said. "But you knew before that, right? So how long have you known?"

"Shane, we didn't know, not for sure. But the answer to what you're asking is, we kind of suspected only about three or four days ago. We got the idea—"

"You got the idea."

"Okay, I got the idea, and talked it over with Lauren, and we figured out a way to see if we were right. We didn't want to say anything until we were sure."

"So now you're sure? You can prove it?"

"No, we can't prove it, but yes, we are sure."

"I don't understand."

Lauren didn't want Carmen to suffer unnecessarily, so she took over.

"Shane, you remember Gladys Wilkinson telling us that the guy who was hanging around the house behind yours was a smoker, and he'd come out of the house to smoke? And you remember one of Jenny's suspects was somebody either in the group or close to it. Jenny never told you she was being blackmailed, and you were gob-smacked she never told you. But it wasn't because she didn't trust you or thought you were the blackmailer. It was because one of the people she suspected might be your father, but she wasn't sure. She also thought it might be somebody connected to Niki. Remember Niki told us Jenny wanted to hire a private detective, but Niki argued her out of it? Shane, we now know Jenny hired the private detective anyway, in spite of what she told Niki. She lied to Niki, and kept both of you in the dark to protect you until she was sure."

"Shane, I want to say something," Marybeth said. She had been quiet so far, letting things develop and unfold. "I told Lauren I wanted this meeting to be in my office when we told you who we think killed Jenny and Max. The reason is that I want to give you my personal promise that the entire Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and Lauren, and me, we will not rest until we find Gabe McCutcheon, arrest him, charge him with the murder of Jenny, your friend and your lover, and of Max, your friend, and try him, convict him, and watch him get life in prison for what he did. Shane, we're going to get him." She met Shane's look with her own determined face.

"Okay," Shane whispered.

"So don't kill him first," Marybeth said. "We've got this."

"Okay," Shane whispered.

"Good," Marybeth said. She glanced at her watch. "It's coffee break time. Everybody pee and re-caffeinate, and be back here in ten minutes. We have work to do."

After Marybeth and Lauren left the office with their empty coffee cups, Carmen turned to Shane. "You okay?"

"No. Fuck no."

"That's not what I mean. I meant ... I don't know what I meant. Maybe I meant, are you mad at me?"

"I don't know. Should I be?"

"For the last few days we didn't tell you what was going on. What we were thinking."

"Jenny never told me what was going on, either."

"No, I guess not."

"Welcome to the club. How long do you think she knew? That it was my father?"

"She may have suspected for a month or so. But I think it's probable she didn't know it was him for certain until the last day or two, and maybe even the last two or three minutes, right when she met him in the back yard, and he pushed her off the deck."

"A month," Shane said. "Even maybe a week."

"You're thinking, how could you have not known? You, who are always so good at sensing what other people are thinking or feeling."

Shane didn't say anything.

"Shane, you've said it yourself a couple of times. For those last few months, when you and Jenny were sleeping together, everything was weird. You even said it was like you yourself were helpless. There was all that shit going on around you. Everybody mad at Jenny, each for her own reasons. Helena and Dylan, that was a train wreck, and Jenny was in the middle of it, stirring up trouble and plotting with Niki. Bette and Tina and the adoption, and planning the move to New York. Alice and Tasha and Jamie, another train wreck. Kit and that guy she was involved with, and Jenny accusing Bette of being unfaithful with Kelly. Adele getting Jenny fired. The missing movie negatives. Your breakup with Mollie. What Mollie's mother did and said. Jenny accusing you of cheating with Niki, when you didn't."

"I didn't, but only because I got sick. I think I probably would have. Even when Jenny was wrong she was right, in a way."

"Understood. But the point is, for those last couple of months all you guys were living inside a full-blown Category Five shitstorm. So, no, with the noise level in your lives up around three hundred decibels, there's no reason you should have picked up vibes that Jenny was keeping a secret from you. How could anyone tell? Jesus, Shane, she was up to her neck in secrets and plots and suspicions and bullshit all the time. That spaceship from Independence Day could have hovered over your house and you guys wouldn't have noticed it got dark outside. So, yes, she kept a secret from you, a big one. It was one of the five hundred and eighty-six secrets and lies and and paranoid ideas and fantasies and general bullshit going on."

Marybeth and Lauren came back into the office, each carrying their own coffees plus cups for Shane and Carmen. She handed one to Shane. "You guys all right?" Marybeth asked.

"Not yet. But we're getting there," Carmen said, taking her refill from Lauren. "Thanks."

"Nobody said it was easy," Marybeth said, sitting down. "Lauren, kick the door shut, please." Lauren closed the door quietly. "Shane, take a deep breath. Take a sip of coffee." Shane just looked at her.

"I'm serious," Marybeth said. "Stand up. Good. Now sit down. Good. Take a sip of coffee."

"Marybeth—"

"Shane, we need your head in the game. I know you've had a shock. Now pull your head out of your ass. Where can we find your father?"

Carmen and Lauren realized Marybeth was using tough love, playing Bad Cop, to get Shane to start functioning again.

"I have no idea," Shane said.

"Okay. But what was the last thing you knew about where he was, where he lived. Who would know? I understand you have a younger brother somewhere. Where's he? Gabe was married, last you knew, right? Carla, wasn't it. Where is she now?"

It only took ten minutes, but it was brutal and hard to watch. Shane gave it all up, willingly, but it was painful. She gave Marybeth Gabe's last known address up in Oregon City, where she had visited him, and had dinner with him, Carla, and her brother Shea. She gave them Gabe's telephone number and his e-mail address, as best she knew it, from her cell phone. Then she told them how, after Gabe had come back and taken Shea away, she had tried to contact him, track him down. To yell at him. To scream at him. To call him motherfucker motherfucker motherfucker. But the phone number was disconnected. The e-mail bounced back, undeliverable. There was no way to contact Carla. She couldn't find Shea. They were all "in the wind," as they said on the TV cop shows. Shane described meeting Gabe in the restaurant. She described the dinner at their house. Meeting Carla. Meeting Shea. Her brother. Talking. Telling them about the wedding. Inviting them. She told them, Gabe and Carla and Shea, about Carmen, who at that moment was sitting in the same room, with her hand over her eyes, while Shane talked, listening. Tears streamed down Shane's face.

Gabe smoked Marlboros, she said, in response to a very quiet question from Lauren. He was a Marlboro smoker. Back then, anyway.

She had no idea where he was. Damn good thing, too. She wanted to kill the motherfucker.

"Lauren, what's up next?" Marybeth asked. "I think we both have some ideas."

"Yes. I see two immediate things we need to do. One is talk to the police in Mexico about the fishing boat. Maybe we'll have to go down there, I don't know yet. On Friday I put in a call to Ensenada but haven't heard back yet. In a way, it's like our trip to Bakersfield. We could have done it by phone, but it was important for me to walk the crime scene myself, and talk to their detective face-to-face. Maybe Carmen agrees."

"Oh, absolutely, no question. I had to walk the scene. I'd have driven out there all by myself, I think. We spent a couple hours talking to their detective. We couldn't have done that effectively over the phone."

"So I think we'll need to go down there as soon as we can. The second big thing is, I tracked down Henry Hooker's widow, she lives in Rancho Palos Verdes a few blocks from the ocean. I knew we'd be in here most of the morning, so I told her we'd like to come talk to her this afternoon after lunch, but I'd call and confirm this morning as soon as I could. She said she'd be there, she had nothing planned. So that's what I think we should do next."

"We're on the same page," Marybeth said. "That's pretty much what I figured, too. Did you ask her if she still had any of her husband's case files?"

"Sure did. Guess what? They're in the garage."

"Terrific. Go to it, Angels."

"Uh, Marybeth," Shane said quietly.

"Yes, Shane?"

"I ... uh ... can I take a pass? I ... you know. I need some time. I, uh, just want to go home and uh--"

"I get it," Marybeth said. She wanted to say, "You want to smoke a couple of joints and put down half a bottle of booze. I would, too. Anything to tamp down the pain." But she didn't say it. "Yes, by all means. You have a lot to process. Take whatever time you need. You okay to drive home?"

"I think I can get that far," Shane said ruefully. It made them laugh, if a little nervously.

"Okay, everybody out," Marybeth said. "Keep me posted."