Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 30

Just then Marybeth came up to Lauren's cubby, the sheet of paper with Gabe's new CDL license in her hand. "How sure are we this is him?"

"Hundred percent, now," Lauren said. "Gabriel McKenzie with the same Social Security Number died in 1991. He'd would have been two years older than Gabe was at the time, so it was a real good fit, fraudulent identity-wise."

"Not a good fit, a great fit," Marybeth said. "It can't be coincidence they have the same first name and a Mick-something last name, and a close birth date."

"Carla told us he liked to keep something close to his true name. That's how we got him in the first place. We went looking for Gabriels."

Marybeth looked at Lauren's computer monitor with the Oregon license plate photo. "Who's that?"

"I was just going to tell you. This is Gabe McCutcheon's Oregon license, and that's the photo we put out on the BOLO."

Marybeth looked at the print-out in her hand. "Son-of-a-bitch," she said. "We've been looking for the wrong guy."

"Right guy, just wrong face," Lauren said. "But if we didn't have Shane and Carmen here to ID the correct face, we'd go on looking for the wrong one from now until Doomsday."

"Carla told us Gabe didn't have all that many computer skills," Carmen said. "You do, and you have access to all this databases the average person wouldn't have. So how did Gabe manage it?"

They all looked at each other. But it was Shane who said it. "Max," she said.

After that everything happened very quickly.

***

"We have to start from scratch," Marybeth said. "Run the fingerprints from Oregon on the mystery guy, see what pops. If McCutcheon found a way to swap out the photo, maybe he found a way to swap out the print file, too. He has an arrest records for drugs and stuff, right? So get on the phone to Sacramento, and to Oregon and Texas, and get people to dig in their old hard-copy files to get some fingerprints of paper copies. Somebody's got to have an old hard copy somewhere, even if it's in a warehouse. Anybody gives you crap, tell them our guy is wanted for four murders, and talk to supervisors until you get stalled, and then tell me and I'll get upstairs on the line police-chief-to-police-chief. I'll get the FBI, Interpol and the KGB if I have to. When we've got good prints, re-issue the BOLO and make sure everybody knows about the bogus ID."

"Got it," Lauren said.

"I'll give it to Lockhart and Tom Osaka," Marybeth turned to Carmen and Shane. "You guys have earned your keep, after all. Sorry, that didn't come out right. What I mean is, I'm glad you're here."

"This ID swap doubles up Gabe's motive for killing Max," Lauren said.

"I don't understand," Shane said.

"We've been assuming his motive was because of Max's role helping him with the blackmail. But Max did even more than we ever suspected. Now we think Max also found a way to change Gabe's identity. You can buy a piss-poor fake driver's license for a hundred bucks in any college town. But hacking into the Oregon DMV and swapping out the photo, that's significantly harder. You don't do that for a hundred bucks.

"Tell me this," Carmen said. "How much skill does it take to find a dead person whose general profile matches something you want?"

"If you've got really good computer skills, like you say Max did, it isn't too hard," Lauren said. "Gabe McCutcheon was born in 1956. So you search for everybody named Gabriel who was born from, say, 1954 to 1958, who is now deceased. He'd probably start with Oregon, Washington and California. Pull up that list. Delete everybody but those starting with M, c, or M, A, C. If you don't get something useful, throw in Nevada, Utah, Arizona. He'd want Texas, too, come to think of it, since he was born there."

"Then what?"

"Try to find the SSN, obituary, other information you'd need to create a new identity on top of the old one."

"Give me copies of your paperwork," Marybeth said to Lauren, "then start your new warrant and BOLO, with a note that says fingerprint records have been compromised. I'm going to call the Napa County Sheriff's Department and Napa city police. You're not gonna like the next part."

"Get on a plane," Carmen said.

"One-third right," Marybeth said. "Lauren goes, not you two. If it goes the way I hope, the Napa folks will put together some sort of SWAT team. They're going after someone who committed four murders, so they won't mess around, and they'll never let you two within a hundred miles of what they have to do."

Carmen, Shane and Lauren all looked at each other.

"I need to hear a 'Yes, Lieutenant, ma'am, sir,' from you two," Marybeth said.

"Yes, Lieutenant, sir, madam, your honor," Carmen said.

"Your turn," Marybeth said, looking at Shane.

"Ten-four. Roger dodger. Copy that," Shane said quietly.

"Shane, don't fuck with me," Marybeth said. "This is where it gets really serious. You and Nancy Drew here go home and get some sleep. Charlie's Angels is officially retired. Nod your heads. Make affirmative noises."

"Got it," Carmen said quietly.

"Okay," Shane said.

"Go home," Marybeth said, not unkindly. "You guys done good. Let the professionals do their jobs now. 'Kay?"

"'Kay," Carmen said. She turned to Shane. "Let's go turn in our horses at the livery stable and find us a saloon with some whiskey and some bar gals can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. I'll buy you a drink."

***

Lauren drove to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, and caught the last flight to Sacramento. The obvious choice was San Francisco airport, which was 55 miles from Napa, but on the south side of the city; she'd have to drive through all the San Francisco traffic and across the Golden Gate Bridge. Sacramento was 60 miles, but the drive west to Napa would be much easier.

The plane was a propeller-driven puddle-jumper, half empty, with just two seats on each side of the aisle. Lauren's badge got her seated first, and she had the window seat. She leaned her head against the bulkhead and closed her eyes. Two minutes before the flight attendants were going to close the door Carmen and Shane came aboard with carry-ons and walked down the aisle to their seats near the back. Lauren looked at them, and they smiled as they went past.

Lauren was waiting for them at the end of the enclosed walkway in Sacramento. "You guys are so in trouble," she said. "Soon as I get my gun out of checked luggage I'm pistol-whipping the pair of you."

"You didn't think we were going to just follow orders and disband the posse, did you?" Carmen asked.

"Call me naive," Lauren said. "Call me stupid. Call me a cock-eyed optimist."

"It's Shane's fault," Carmen said. "I was going to buy her a drink, just like I said, but she wanted wine. She said the wine in LA wasn't fresh enough. It was old and stale. Shane likes her wine really, really fresh, you know? And I could hardly disagree. We immediately thought of Napa Valley. The wine is really fresh there."

"It was spooky how we both had the same idea at the same moment," Shane said.

"What about the bar girls sucking the chrome off your trailer hitches?" Lauren asked as they walked to the baggage carousels.

"We don't have trailer hitches," Shane said.

"We're city girls," Carmen said. "We don't know which end of a pickup the trailer hitch goes on. I don't. Do you, Shane?"

"Top, I think. Pretty sure it's the top. But could be the bottom, I guess."

"You'd think with all our extensive knowledge of tops and bottoms we'd know where the trailer hitch goes," Carmen said.

"Beats the fuck outa me," Shane said.

Lauren was immune to banter. "Did you follow me to Burbank airport?" she asked.

"Hell, no!" Carmen said indignantly. "We would never do that! We got there first. You were diddling around on your computer. And if I may say so, you took your sweet-ass time getting there. We waited, like, an hour. We were beginning to think you weren't coming, or you were flying out of LAX or something. Then you finally showed up."

"How did you know I was flying to Sacramento?" Lauren asked as they walked to the luggage carousels.

"We didn't, until we saw which gate you went to. Then we ran to get tickets. We barely made it."

"I noticed."

"It's all in the Nancy Drew Handbook for Girl Detectives" Carmen said.

"Very funny."

"We couldn't even show up at the gate until you got onto the plane," Shane said. "Then we waited until just about the very last minute to board."

"In case I wouldn't let you on the plane," Lauren said.

"Yes."

"You know I'm going to have to tell her," Lauren said. Marybeth. Dragon Lady.

"We know," Shane and Carmen said simultaneously. Carmen added, "Tell her we came along as your bodyguards. We didn't want you to get hurt."

"Uh-huh. You realize that after I pistol-whip you guys, Marybeth's gonna pistol-whip me within an inch of my life."

"Can we watch?" Shane asked innocently.

"Will you be naked?" Carmen asked.

"You fucking wish," Lauren said, picking her overnight bag off the luggage conveyor.

Lauren had used a specialty web site to rent a Mustang; cops always like lots of horsepower, and it was always hard to depart from the Steve McQueen car chase stereotype. It meant Shane was crammed in the backseat, but she didn't mind. Lauren took the 5 west to Woodland, then south on the 113 just past Davis, and then it was almost 30 miles of high-speed cruising on the 80 to Vacaville and then Cordelia. When she saw the first exit sign for Vacaville, Lauren said, "There's two big prisons here. The California Medical Facility is the largest prison medical facility in the state. They say it's pretty good. They've got about 2,500 men there. They've got a big psychiatric section too, for the nut jobs. Timothy Leary did a year or two there for marijuana and a jail break out of San Luis Obispo. Charles Manson was in and out of there a couple times until one day a fellow inmate threw paint thinner on him and set him on fire. Unfortunately he survived, but with second- and third-degree burns. Then they shipped him to San Quentin. This place here has a big hospice care section, and a section for seniors. It's basically where old prisoners go to die."

"Maybe my dear old dad will die there," Shane said. "Good to know he'll be well taken care of in his golden years."

Lauren left that alone. "The other prison here is Solano, medium security. It made a lot of news years ago, because of over-crowding. It was designed for, like, 2,500 men, but they were up over 5,000. Capacity rate was something like a hundred ninety-something percent. They had to bring in emergency triple-high bunk beds. They got it down to something like 3,500, capacity is something like a hundred thirty, hundred forty percent. You get shanked there, it's just a short way to the medical facility."

"Handy," Carmen said.

"It's been bugging me," Lauren said. "I know I know it."

"What's that?"

"The sucking-the-chrome-off-a-trailer-hitch line."

"Willie Nelson in The Electric Horseman, 1979," Carmen said.

"Right! Redford and Jane Fonda. Good flick. I forgot Willie was even in it. Man, you know your movies," Lauren said.

"You have no idea," Shane said from the backseat. "A few years ago they had a film festival thing at Cal U about Western movies, and Carmen and I and the gang all went. One of the guest speakers got hung up in traffic, so they didn't have a speaker. We all pushed Carmen into going up on stage, and she gave this incredible talk, totally without any preparation, no rehearsal, no notes, just off the top of her head, and it got a standing ovation. She was terrific. You should have been there."

"I wish I had been," Lauren said. "I didn't know I had a learned celebrity guest lecturer in the car."

"You don't," Carmen said, "but here's a celebrity story you probably never heard. Do you know the cowboy actor Bull Connor?"

"That the guy who came out of the closet a couple years ago?"

"That's him. And he's not the first gay caballero, either. Here's what you don't know: Jenny once auditioned to be the ghostwriter of his memoirs. This was before she got published and got famous and drifted into Crazyland. She had some meetings with him, and Jenny got him to admit to her that he was gay. So that led to them talking about whether the memoir she was going to write would be dishonest. Which of course it would. Long story short, Bull fired her as his ghostwriter because she was a lesbian, but it was kind of mutually agreeable. When he finally came out a few years later I was on a cruise somewhere and Jenny e-mailed me to call her when I could. We docked in Honolulu and I called her, and we laughed and laughed when she told me he'd come out. Jenny was sure it was because he'd been thinking about the conversations she'd had with him, until it finally got to him. For what it's worth, I think she was right."

"So Jenny is responsible for Bull Connor coming out?"

"Well, I think so, and I know Jenny did. Shane, you agree?" Carmen asked.

"Yes," Shane said. "Jenny and I laughed about it, too. I didn't know she called you, though."

Carmen decided not to point out that she was the one who called Jenny, but kept quiet. Shane was annoyed whenever she discovered Carmen had kept in touch with the group after the Whistler disaster.

"Should we have had Bull on our list of suspects when we started this?"

"No," Carmen said. "As far as I know Jenny never had any more contact with him. And then after he voluntarily came out, what motive would he have had? None that I can see."

"I agree," said Shane.

"Okay," Lauren said. It was silent in the car for a while, all three of them thinking basically the same thing none of them wanted to discuss out loud: Jenny's greatest talent seemed to be her long history of pissing people off, until finally one of them had killed her in the heat of an argument. Carmen seemed to be the only person who had never been really pissed at Jenny for anything, and maybe that was because her friendship existed long distance after Whistler. If Carmen had stayed in LA and part of the group on a daily basis, would Jenny have eventually pissed her off, too? Would she have dragged Carmen into a PA job on the nightmare that was the filming of Lez Girls? Betrayed her in some way? Fucked up some relationship Carmen might have had with someone, just as she had meddled with Bette and Tina's relationship, and Helena and Dylan's relationship, and Max and Tom's ... and maybe even Shane's relationship with who knows?

The other thing they were all thinking was that if it hadn't been for this investigation into Jenny's murder, Carmen and Lauren would likely never have met each other.

Lauren broke the silence. "Before I left the office I got a reservation at a motel in Napa. The room has two double beds. You guys want to bunk in with me, again? I don't know if they even have another room, the hotel guy said the only reason I got this one was a cancellation. Or you could look for another motel nearby."

"You mind us rooming with you?" Carmen asked.

"I'm really conflicted," Lauren said. "I'd much rather you were both in LA, or Chicago, or Budapest, anyplace but here. But on the other hand, I really need to keep the pair of you where I can see you at all times."

"Does that include in the shower?" Shane asked.

"I'm thinking seriously of driving this fucking Mustang right into a tree," Lauren said. "Do me a big favor and unbuckle your seat belts first."

"I think we finally plucked her nerves one time too much, Shane," Carmen said.

"I know. But you gotta admit, she really took one helluva lot of our shit."

"She did. I vote we give her a break. All those in favor, say aye."

"Aye," Shane said.

"Aye," Carmen said.

Lauren wanted to laugh, but she kept a straight face.

"She didn't vote," Shane said. "Is she sulking? In a snit? I hate it when she's in a snit."

"I think she intends to shoot us. Probably you first."

"She's a dedicated, straight-arrow police person. Can she do that?"

"Well, probably not legally. She'd need good cause."

"She hasn't said anything," Shane said. "Think she can still hear us?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Carmen said. "Have you noticed how good she is at her job? I bet her hearing is just fine."

Lauren sighed. "Okay, here's what's going to happen. After we check in, you two bitches are going to buy me a drink. An expensive one. Then after we eat, I'm going to bed, because I'm going to get up real early, about 3 a.m. What you don't know is the Napa police are going to raid Gabe's house before dawn, like about 5 a.m., and I'm going to be there. You two are going to stay in the motel room if I have to fucking handcuff both of you to the toilet bowl. I'm deadly serious about this. You are staying put. No fooling around. I need serious promises from both of you. I'll call you and tell you what happened when I can."

Shane and Carmen stayed silent, thinking about the pre-dawn raid.

"It's getting serious, isn't it?" Carmen said.

"Yes. I haven't heard any promises yet."

"I promise," Carmen said.

"I promise," Shane said.

*`**

"This sucks," Carmen said. She was in the motel swimming pool, dressed in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt, because the only things she and Shane had brought were their travel bags from the trip to Portland the day before, and full of dirty clothes. Neither had packed a bathing suit, and jumping in the pool seemed as good a way as any of washing clothes. Two birds with one stone.

Carmen had her arms folded on the side of the pool, her chin on top. Shane had just come out to the pool, having just come from the motel's breakfast room, where breakfast was free from 6 to 10 a.m.

"Tell me about it," Shane said. She walked down the steps into the pool and came beside Carmen. She, too, wore shorts and a T-shirt, no underwear. Underwear wasn't something Shane wore all that often. She folded her arms on the side of the pool, like Carmen, and rested her chin on them.

"What time is it?" Carmen asked.

"Couple minutes after ten," Shane said.

"You get any breakfast?"

"There wasn't much left," Shane said. Breakfast ended at 10, and she'd got in there about five minutes before it was over. "I had some raisin bran, and decaf coffee."

"Decaf?'

"All the regular was gone."

"I tried to get you up at nine," Carmen said.

"I know. Thanks."

"What time did you get to sleep?"

"I don't know. 1:30, maybe 2. Just before Lauren's alarm went off. I think I got back to sleep about 5. How about you?"

"I think I finally drifted off about midnight."

"Lauren was sound asleep by 9."

"I know," Carmen said. "She was snoring a little. I don't know how she does it. She got, like, six hours sleep, right before a raid. Cop training, I guess."

Their cell phones sat on the concrete in front of them. What they didn't want to talk about was whether Shane's father had been arrested for four murders, or possibly killed in a shoot-out. Or whether Lauren had been killed in a shoot-out. Or.

Whatever "or" might have been. They didn't want to talk about it.

"You dating anybody interesting?" Carmen asked.

"You kidding? No. You know me," Shane said.

"I was sorry to hear about you and Mollie," Carmen said.

"Who told you about that?"

"Everybody. Jenny. Alice. Tina and Bette. Helena. It was on Morning Joe and 60 Minutes, too."

"You know who fucked it up? Mollie's mother. She said I wasn't good enough for her daughter. Then she sprang that saying you see in head shops. If you love something set it free. So I did."

"I heard."

"And then Jenny. She fucked it up, too. Mollie wrote me a letter, she wanted to get back together, and Jenny hid it in the attic."

"I know. It's in Jenny's murder file. You found it when you found the negatives. I read it."