Team Alexa
Previously: Jeannie, Paco & Mark attend Alexa’s funeral; a scandalous video gets posted to Pr3pSF.
To catch up on The Spring, please visit the chapter index here:
1:47 PM - Thursday, November 6, 2014
US Park Police Office, Ft Winfield Scott, The Presidio
Mark began to pace. The shady website, the video, the timing — it all meant something, but what?
“Okay Raj, trace the IP of the video origins AND the IP of the Alexa’s ghost account. I want to know who is where.” Raj nodded briefly and began typing again.
“I feel incredibly sorry for Jen.” Jeannie said ruefully. She remembered certain girls in her year that always seemed to have rumors surrounding them. No one could ever prove anything but the whispers followed for years. Even now, when hearing someone’s name from high school there was the thought of what they supposedly had done with some guy at some party. Luckily, not many people had cell phones, certainly not cell phones with cameras, and certainly “social media” was nascent. Proof didn’t exist, but the talk was enough. She felt grateful to not have to deal with all the scrutiny at that age — it was hard enough being the awkward younger sister of two popular brothers. “I know she’s a bit…mixed up, but this isn’t something she deserves.”
The back door banged and everyone jumped slightly.
“Hey — how was the service?” It was Steph with a paper tote bag in hand.
“Eventful. Did you find it?” Jeannie asked, looking up at her.
“I did —” Steph held up the tote. “There’s only two costume shops left on Haight these days and this was at the second one. They had it on the pile to go to the dry cleaners, but I said: noooo, that’s coming with me…” She tilted the bag to reveal the blue sequins inside. “I’m taking it down to Amanda.”
“Excellent work.” Mark said. Steph gave him a slight smile as she disappeared out the door. “Wait, Steph —” Steph’s smile appeared again in the doorframe. “When you come back, we need to you to take a look at Alexa’s phone. Go back through any photos, videos, texts — even deleted files. Especially what’s been deleted. If anything jumps out at you, create a list.”
“What’s this about?”
“I don’t know.” Mark paced again. “Maybe nothing? Call it a hunch.”
“Okay, I can get behind a hunch.” Steph took her bag and went downstairs.
“I have everything from Alexa’s phone.” Raj looked to Mark.
“I know, but I want this to be one person’s main job right now. What do you have on those IP addresses?”
“Well, the one that posted the video goes back to 2222 Broadway —”
“What? That’s the address of Holy Heart —” Jeannie turned to look at Raj’s laptop. “I don’t know about these things, but that sounds kind of sloppy to me.”
“It definitely narrows the field.” Paco tossed out. “It could only be Zizi, MJ, or Tally.”
“Or someone we don’t even know about yet.” Mark countered.
“My money’s on Tally.” Raj said quietly. “The Alexa ghost account seems to be posting from…an address right outside of the Presidio. 3235 Pacific?”
“And who lives there?” Mark asked.
3235 Pacific Ave, Presidio Heights
Paco rolled into a U-turn at the bottom of the hill, looping around to stop the SUV in front of the house. It looked sort of modest compared to the large houses just a block over; it was almost like a romantic cottage with a smaller scale and curved side entrance.
“I like this house.” He said simply, admiring it behind the wheel.
“She did say she lived in a Maybeck — but something about this one is a little more romantic than usual.” Jeannie said. She popped the door, but Mark was already on the sidewalk. Paco made his way around the car to join them.
“What do you think we’re going to find in there?”
“Alexa’s ghost.” Mark said simply, moving to the brick path that led to the side entrance. Mark rang the doorbell twice in a row, and the three of them shared a look. “You— you talk Jean.” Jeannie nodded, unsure of what she was meant to say. A woman who looked to be in her late 40s opened the door in a set of workout gear with a hoodie, open to reveal a set of cut abs above her leggings. Her slender height and hair color were remarkably similar to her daughter’s.
“Hello, I’m Jean Hagen of the SFPD — are you Mrs Parker?”
“Yes?”
“Hi — this is Mark Greenberg from the FBI and this is Paco Mayfield from the Park Police. Is your daughter at home? We’d like to speak with her, please.”
“She is — is this about Alexa? She’s very upset about it all, and the funeral.” The woman sighed, moving aside to let them in the door. “They’re all upstairs there — her room is around to the right at the back of the house.”
“All?” Mark asked.
“Yes, they’re all there. They came over together from the church.” Mrs. Parker gestured toward the stairway, encouraging them to go upstairs. “I’ll take you up.” Leading the way, Mark exchanged another look with Paco and Jeannie, who shrugged in return. The stairway wound its way up a single flight when it broke to a the next floor. A hallway went toward the back of the house while another end looped around toward the front, large windows revealing the tops of the cypress trees in the Presidio across the street. Leading them down the hallway, Mrs Parker knocked on a large door with no answer. Knocking again, she called out: “Carolina — there are some people here to speak with you.” Still no answer. “Carolina — “
“Can you open the door please, ma’am.” Mark commanded quietly. Mrs. Parker looked at him, fear in her eyes. “Please open the door.”
“I respect my daughter’s privacy.” She hissed.
“That’s all well and good, but you need to open that door, or we will open it for you.” Mrs. Parker looked scared and knocked again more loudly.
“Carolina —” The door snapped open wide. Carolina stood there in her floral dress from the church, face still pink and tear-stained. A bright room behind her had leafy green trees outside a wide set of windows that framed a wide desk with an iMac on top. In the chair at the desk was MJ Wong, with Zizi Zinn and Ryan Dominguez sitting on the floor.
“Carolina — these officers would like to speak with you,” Mrs. Parker said quietly, somehow sensing that their intrusion was an unwanted interruption. The entire group in the room stared at the doorway warily.
“We’d like to speak with all of you, to be clear.” Mark asserted, moving ahead into the bright bedroom. Carolina’s bed was all in shades of white with an array of folkish indigo-patterned pillows, which were accented by wallpaper in a similar deep indigo pattern. On the opposite wall, a large poster of Brandi Chastain’s jersey-less victory moment had a place of prominence, along with other pictures of soccer teams, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and movie posters of Bend it Like Beckham, Bring It On, and Almost Famous. A bookcase in the corner was full to overflowing, with more books stacked on the floor around it. Paco moved in and chose to stand near the bookcase as he’d done when they visited Tally’s room, but appreciated Carolina’s haphazard book arrangement more. Jeannie moved to prop herself on the desk next to the iMac, both to face the group and to ensure no one would touch it. Mark flanked it on the other side, making MJ instinctively scoot the chair backwards. Mrs. Parker leaned against the doorframe. Everyone was silent for a long moment, looking from Jeannie to Mark to Paco to each other. Jeannie saw an errant tear fall from Ryan’s eye as he pulled his knees up to his chest, his hoodie nearly drowning him. It looked like the hoodie the lanky figure wore in the video from the library.
“Who would like to go first?” Mark asked quietly, looking all of them in the eye in turn. No one responded. “Alright then, who had the bright idea to use Alexa’s login to Pr3pSF and start posting things?”
Carolina inhaled unsteadily. “I did. I gave Alexa her login — when a new account is made, the login goes out to the person that nominates you, so I had it.” Carolina tucked her chin at the admission, her eyes large. With her hair pulled back he features were overly sharp and wan.
“Ah, so by that logic, everyone can kind of sort out who everyone else is on Pr3pSF, correct?” Mark asked.
“Well, yeah sure.” MJ offered, pulling her knees up onto the chair and hugging them like Ryan. “If you’re good enough friends people would share.”
“I’m sorry — what is this Pr3pSF that you’re talking about?” Mrs. Parker asked from the door.
The kids looked at Mark who made a general gesture to them, encouraging an explanation.
“Um —” Zizi began from the floor, looking to Carolina’s mother, “it’s kind of like a chatroom site, or like a Facebook but just for the prep kids in San Francisco? It’s secret and private and no one knows who runs it. And you nominate friends and they have to have a prep email address to get in.”
“And you’ve been on this site, Carolina?” Mrs. Parker’s eyes narrowed at her daughter.
“Yes. We all have.” Carolina twisted slightly to look at her and then back to Mark. Mrs. Parker sighed and shook her head slightly.
“Tell me what goes on on this website.” Mrs. Parker asked in a quiet, demanding tone.
Again a look at Mark, who again looked at the group, eyebrows raised, expecting them to answer.
“Well, it’s kind of a place to burn people.” MJ offered, turning the chair slightly. “Like, people gossip and make fun of people and talk a lot of shit — “ MJ blushed, “I’m sorry.” She added quietly. “And it’s all anonymous for the most part, so people just say whatever.”
Mrs. Parker looked from MJ to her daughter to Zizi to Ryan.
“What does this have to do with what happened to Alexa?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Mark said simply, propping his hands on the desktop behind him. “So, while I appreciate the notion of Alexa’s account posting from the beyond, I have to say it wouldn’t take too much for someone to figure out who was doing it. Don’t you think the Admin knows who you are?”
“Maybe,” Zizi offered, “but no one knows who the Admin is, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“It’s only a matter of time though,” Mark countered, “and the Admin seems to be okay with starting conflicts, so I’d be mindful of that.”
“I think Jen knows who the Admin is.” Carolina offered softly. Everyone looked up to her. Mark considered her pretty, tear-stained face.
“Tell me why you say that.”
“I don’t know, I just, I think I said something about Pr3pSF to her the other day, after the meeting on Sunday about Alexa? Maybe it was at school, and I said something like I wanted to look on Pr3pSF about the party and see what happened or maybe the Admin would help, and Jen just laughed a little and said that the Admin wouldn’t help us at all. I don’t know why she said that.”
“Okay, that’s interesting.” Mark blinked slowly. “But for now, I’d like to know how you four joined forces and decided to start posting.”
“We knew if we didn’t then everyone would be shit-posting on Alexa and we didn’t want that to happen.” Ryan said quietly from inside his hoodie, looking up at Jeannie first, then Mark.
“But Alexa was well-liked by everyone, why would people come down on her on Pr3pSF?” Jeannie asked him.
“Because she knew what was going on —” Ryan looked at her pleadingly. “She knew Tripp had dosed Seb and Jen in Tahoe, and that he and Dash were trying to dose her too. She knew about me and Tripp and she had that picture of his Dad pushing me into the wall. She knew about Seb and Jen and it was just going to be a matter of time before all of them started to change the narrative and make her out to be the bad one.”
“You think Jen would shit-post about Alexa?” Jeannie asked.
“Maybe not Jen,” Carolina offered, “but Tally would, and Tripp, and Dash. They all have things they want to keep hidden.”
“What does Tally want to keep hidden?” Mark asked.
“That she was the one who tried to set up Alexa at Tahoe.” MJ answered.
“Why would she do that?” Jeannie countered.
MJ sighed a little and Carolina knelt on the floor next to her chair. “Tally likes to think she runs things. Alexa clocked it pretty early and didn’t like it. And then Tahoe happened and my guess is that Alexa figured out that Tally was the one behind it — well, Tally and Tripp — and wanted nothing more to do with the group.”
“Tally and Tripp?” Paco asked from the corner. “Since when are Tally and Tripp a united front?”
“Tally has a coke habit.” MJ said simply.
“MJ —” Mrs. Parker hissed from the door. MJ glanced at her.
“It’s true. Tally has a coke habit and Tripp supplies her like he does everyone.”
“What does he supply? Tell me specifically.” Mark said looking at MJ.
“Well, I’ve seen him give little bags to Tally first-hand, and I’ve heard he supplies Jen with whatever it is she takes all the time.”
“Do any of you know what that is?”
“It’s pills.” Carolina answered. “I’m not sure what kind, but she always has a bag of pills.”
“What color are the pills?”
“Sometimes blue, sometimes white — I don’t know.”
“Large? Small?”
“I — I don’t know. They’re different.” Carolina stammered. “I’ve seen her taking them at her locker and I know at parties she usually has something.”
Mark heaved a sigh and glanced at Jeannie. “Okay, so Tally is into Tripp for drugs, Alexa knows about the drugs so that makes her enemy number 1 for Tally and Tripp, is that what I’m getting?”
Slow nods from everyone.
“Okay, tell me about where you got the video from Tahoe.”