Episode 17: Kanes and Abels
Last episode, Veronica found out Abel Koontz has a daughter (Amelia DeLongpre), which explains why he took the fall for Lilly’s murder. The Kanes’ payoff wouldn’t mean much to Koontz (who’s dying of cancer), but if the money went to his estranged daughter, that would give him incentive to take the blame for something he didn’t do. Unfortunately, Jake Kane’s security chief (Clarence Wiedman) knows Veronica’s onto his shenanigans, so she has to find Amelia before Wiedman does. She quickly determines that Amelia goes to college in Los Angeles, which isn’t very far away. The scene shifts to the college, where Wiedman shows up to find Amelia. he’s disappointed to learn she just left with a friend (who Amelia’s roommate describes as “tiny, blonde, cute as a bug”). Veronica stashes Amelia in an out-of-the-way hotel, which Amelia thinks is great since she’s cramming for exams. Veronica tells her that the tuition money
she’s using was a payoff from Jake Kane for her father to take the rap for Lilly’s death. Amelia thought it was a settlement from some lawsuit, so Veronica asks her to call her mom (on a burner phone) and get the documents sent out as fast as possible. Amelia says she has to be able to take calls from her boyfriend and Veronica makes her promise not to give anyone else the number and to check the caller ID. Amelia asks about her father and Veronica says he’s fine … leaving out the part about him dying of cancer, since Amelia would have no reason to help clear her dad’s name if she knew he was dying.
At school, Veronica has her own exams to worry about, and one of her classmates (Sabrina Fuller) is really having trouble handling things. She talks her teacher into letting her take the exam later, since she’s been 
getting weird phone calls at all hours and someone put her photo in a phone sex ad. Another student (Hamilton Cho) thinks that’s not fair, but the teacher says if he’s the target of personal attacks, he’ll get the same consideration. Hamilton figures Sabrina’s mom being school board president might have something to do with it too. Sabrina asks Veronica to prove who’s behind the harassment (she’s sure it’s her ex-boyfriend Caz) so she can get back to studying. Veronica needs the money, so she talks to Caz, but naturally he denies everything.
At the office, Keith meets a potential client who wants him to set up her husband with a hooker so she can get out of her pre-nup. Keith explains that’s entrapment and she says she’ll try another detective, Vinnie Van Lowe. Keith warns her that Vinnie might screw her over if her husband
offers him more money. While Veronica’s distracted by all that, Logan snoops on her open laptop and sees that she’s been digging into Lilly’s murder and has files on everyone close to Lilly, including him. His alibi is airtight, so he’s not too worried, but he wonders how Lilly would feel about Veronica investigating the people who loved her. Veronica says she loved Lilly too, which is why she can’t let it go. Logan gives her a check for the time she put in looking for his mother, but Veronica says Lynn was always nice to her, so she rips up the check.
Veronica goes to the hotel to see Amelia and shows her the evidence she’s found against the Kanes (all of whom have fake alibis for the time of Lilly’s murder). Amelia talks about how her dad kinda turned into a dick after he 
was cheated out of his software patents. She asks why the Kane payoff to her father would come to her and Veronica says it’s probably his way of trying to say he’s sorry … still not mentioning that Koontz is dying. Veronica goes to Sabrina’s place to be on hand if there’s any more harassment. She notices an old truck drive by as she’s on the porch. Sabrina is studying like crazy and says something will happen, since something’s been happening every night lately. Veronica put a tracker on Caz’s car, so they’ll know if he comes anywhere near Sabrina’s house.
Veronica takes care of a horny caller who saw Sabrina’s sex ad (by looking up his info and shaming him) and notices the old truck go by a couple more times. She pushes a baby carriage in front of the truck to get it to stop and it
turns out to be Caz. Sabrina gives him shit but he says he was just watching the place, hoping to catch whoever’s been messing with her so he could be a hero and she’d go out with him again. There’s a knock at the door and it’s a bunch of stoners who were told there was a big dope party at Sabrina’s place. Veronica goes to see Amelia, who tells her the proof of the Kane payoff should be there tomorrow. Amelia wants to visit her father in prison and Veronica says she’ll arrange it.
At the office, Vinnie Van Lowe comes by to offer Keith some work (since he has so many clients he can’t handle them all), but Keith doesn’t want to work for someone as slippery as Vinnie. Veronica attends a dinner at the 
Kane house for high achievers. The Kanes have established a scholarship in Lilly’s name and Veronica’s on the list of candidates for next year; Sabrina and Hamilton are on this year’s shortlist. The Kanes are a bit surprised to see Veronica, considering all the tension between them lately. (They’d be a lot more tense if they knew she was ripping apart their alibis and suspected that they—or Duncan—might’ve had something to do with Lilly’s death.) She runs through possible scenarios of Jake or Celeste killing Lilly, then has a vision of Lilly out by the pool. Veronica goes out to think and Duncan joins her, saying he likes to come out there too, to think about Lilly.
At school, Sabrina tells Veronica the harassment is getting to her; she got a B on a bio test and now she’s one-hundredth of a point behind in the race for valedictorian … and the Kane scholarship. Veronica wonders if that
might have something to do with the harassment and asks who the new front runner is. Turns out to be Hamilton Cho, so Veronica drops by his family pizzeria to ask a few telling questions. Hamilton’s not too sad for Sabrina, since she’s rich and gets all the breaks while he has to work his ass off at the pizzeria and study his ass off without the benefit of tutors. Veronica agrees it’s unfair, but puts a tracker on his car anyway.
At home, Keith catches Clarence Wiedman trying to break in. Wiedman pretends he was there to ask about Amelia, saying Kane Software wants to give her something. Keith says she’s not there and tells him to look around. 
Wiedman leaves, but they both know the other is full of shit. When Veronica gets home, Keith asks her why Wiedman would be nosing around and she tells him she’s hiding Koontz’s daughter and she’s going to turn over the phony documents soon. Turns out all the stuff Veronica’s been turning up—the false alibis, the wrong time of death—were things Keith already knew or suspected from other evidence. He tells her Jake’s phone records show him calling Wiedman five minutes before Lilly’s death, according to the “official” timeline, but actually after her death. Veronica wonders if Kane killed Lilly and called Wiedman to clean up the mess.
That night, Veronica watches Hamilton but gets a call from Sabrina. Someone’s been setting off a car alarm down the street for hours, but as soon as she calls the cops, it stops … then starts up again. Veronica tells her to get the car’s license number so she can check it. At school, Veronica asks Logan if he’s going to tell everyone she’s been looking into Lilly’s death.
Logan saw her file on Duncan and asks about Duncan’s strange epilepsy, since he had no idea about it. Veronica says it could manifest as uncontrollable laughter, crying fits, or even blind rage. Logan says last year he was at Duncan’s place and heard a commotion, then walked in on Duncan freaking out and trying to strangle his father. Logan pulled him off and Duncan snapped out of it, then couldn’t remember it the next day. Logan says it happened the same week Duncan broke up with Veronica.
Veronica looks up the license number of the alarm car and finds out it belongs to Vinnie Van Lowe’s ex-wife, who’s currently in Europe. She borrows some cheerleader crap and goes by Vinnie’s office, selling a couple boxes of cookies to his secretary and giving her a free Spirit Week badge. 
She talks to Vinnie, telling him there’s no hard feelings from her dad, and gives him a pen from the Mars Detective Agency. She asks about his ex’s car, but Vinnie plays dumb, which seems to come naturally to him. Outside, Veronica and Sabrina listen to the microphone in the pen, but Vinnie’s not quite as stupid as he looks; he starts singing “Private Eyes” and tosses the pen out the window to let Veronica know he saw through her little trick. If you’re thinking the pen thing was too obvious, you’re right; there’s a camera and microphone in the Spirit badge Vinnie’s secretary is wearing and Veronica soon figures out who hired him to screw with Sabrina.
Turns out it was Hamilton’s dad, who was trying to level the playing field for his son. Sabrina’s mom is pissed off and wants Hamilton out of the
running for the scholarship. The Kanes say they’re willing to split the scholarship between Sabrina and Hamilton, but Mrs. Fuller is adamant, threatening t press charges unless Hamilton bows out. Hamilton withdraws and Veronica feels shitty for screwing up his chance to go to Oxford, but he says he’ll work his ass off and go to a state school (“Proust is still Proust, even at UCLA.”) Veronica hopes Amelia’s love for her father is as strong as Hamilton’s for his.
Sabrina calls Veronica to tell her the papers came and Veronica and Keith head over to get them. Unfortunately, Wiedman got to Amelia first (by using her boyfriend’s cell phone to call her) and told her Veronica’s been lying to her. When Keith and Veronica show up, Amelia’s gone but Wiedman is there, with the proof Veronica wanted. He says Amelia is gone (after getting 
more “settlement” money from Kane) and she’s pissed off at Veronica for not telling her Koontz is dying. Veronica’s mad at herself for letting Wiedman get the better of her, so Keith tries to cheer her up by opening his safe and going over the Lilly Kane files with her. Keith tells her that he was the first one there when Lilly was killed and the Kanes claimed they’d just gotten home and found Lilly a few minutes later. They said Duncan (who was basically in shock) was in the shower when they got home and hadn’t seen anything. But the buzzer on the washing machine went off while Keith was talking to them and he found Duncan’s soccer uniform in the wash. Veronica wonders if Duncan had one of his freakouts and killed his sister.