Chapter 8 Motive
It was after 2 p.m. when Carmen and Lauren got back to the conference room. They'd called Shane and told her they were leaving 14th Street, and did Shane want to join them for lunch someplace? She did not, since she was in a meeting with Chase in his limo somewhere out in the valley. Shane said she'd meet them in the conference room about 2 p.m. Carmen and Lauren stopped at Pink's for hot dogs; Carmen had the Guadalajara (no bacon) and Lauren had the Chicago Polish, mild. They split the regular fries.
"One time on a dare I came here with two other woman cops," Lauren said. "The dare was, could I eat the entire double pastrami Swiss cheese burger."
"How'd you do?"
"Well, the thing is, you should never dare a cop to do something. So yeah, I finished it, but it was a struggle, and I didn't eat for three days afterward. But oh, my God it was good. I was useless until end-of-shift, of course."
Shane was sitting at the conference table going through a sheaf of reports and financial statements Chase had given her to review. Lauren excused herself for a minute to go check messages.
"How'd the field trip go?" Shane asked.
"Okay. It was... uh, not fun, I guess. But Lauren saw what she needed to see. Have you been back there?"
"No. I couldn't. I went back just to get my stuff, but I couldn't go next door to Bette and Tina's."
"The woman who lives there now seems to like it. Their backyard seems about the same. The couple who live in our old place have let all my plants go to hell. Remember my roses? They replaced them with cactus."
"I hate to confess, but that probably started with Jenny and me. I went out and watered them and stuff, but I was never as good with flowers like you were. I probably don't have to tell you how Jenny was when it came to gardening."
"No."
Lauren came in and went directly to the white board, where she picked up an eraser, cleaned the board, and then wrote with a marker, "MOTIVE."
"Ready to get to work?" she asked.
"10-4," Carmen said, which made them laugh.
Lauren wrote on the board:
Shane:
Max:
Bette:
Tina:
Alice:
Kit:
Helena:
Niki:
Adele:
Tasha:
Studio/Aaron K/William H:
Unsubs:
"Unsubs?" Shane asked.
"Unknown subjects. Cop jargon. Just a catch-all for people we don't know about yet."
"Oh. Okay."
"Who are Aaron K and William H?" Carmen asked.
"Aaron Kornbluth, the head of the studio. William Halsey is a big shot investor Jenny roped into the deal. We may need to look into it for more details that may lead to motive. But we can probably assume he lost money because of the fiasco. So maybe revenge. We'll have to look at it."
"Right," Carmen said. "Go ahead."
Then Lauren started filling in the spaces:
Shane: J hid Molly letter, sabotages reconciliation
Max: J mistreat, cause bf breakup, jilted for Claude
Bette: J moral blackmail over Kelly incident
Tina: Thought J stole negs, cost studio, sabotaged movie
Alice: Says J stole movie treatment, got $1/2mil
Kit: Knew J blackmailing sister, believed Bette innocent
Helena: J divulged Dylan test, sabotaged reconciliation
Niki: J used/abused/humiliated
Adele: Usurped J as director. Mental?
Tasha:?
Studio/Aaron K/William H: Believed J stole negs, cost millions plus O costs
Unsubs:?
"What are O costs?" Shane asked.
"What they call opportunity costs. If the movie had been shown, the studio might have made millions."
"Or lost millions if it flopped," Carmen said. "Maybe Niki did them a big favor, from what I've heard."
"Well, maybe," Lauren said, "but I think we have to assume the studio was pissed." She consulted her notepad and then wrote on the board:
Paraphrases
Alice: Schecter is so fucking dead
Helena: [to Shane] I'm going to fucking kill your girlfriend
Niki: Jenny Schecter is a liar and user. You not going get away with this. You are dead meat, Schecter
Tina: Fucking Jenny, I'm going to fucking kill you
Max: I hate her. Hate these hormones, hate these tits and hips and hate Jenny Schecter
Bette: My family and life worked hard to rebuild for them means everything to me and there is nothing that I wouldn't do to preserve or protect them. All care about is that you [J] know I will not abide anyone who threatens my family
"Can anybody think of any other overt threats to kill Jenny?"
Shane and Carmen looked at each other, then shook their heads. "That's a pretty scary list," Carmen said. "Dead meat. I'm going to kill you."
"Yes, but we all say this kind of stuff all the time. Ninety-nine percent of the time it's just talk."