Chapter 6 - Jenna’s Interlude
A black cruiser pulled up to the crime scene in the evening hours, following a veritable massacre inside of a distribution warehouse nestled in the industrial park of the south end urban district.
Multiple lights from police cars and a number of ambulances flashed across the faces of a dozen handcuffed goons sitting on the truck dock, right in front of the camera debris being picked up and placed into evidence bags.
Two men in suits stood smoking cigarettes in silence as everything was collected.
But these were federal agents, not local PD.
The black cruiser pulled up to the scene, and then a woman stepped out. Her red hair was long and luscious, framing her ivory face, with the rest of her straight strands kept in a tidy ponytail.
She wore a sleeveless, white halter top that accentuated and showed off every curve of her ample inner cleavage, her bare midriff exposed with a short black pencil skirt beneath that.
And she was wearing a badge around her neck.
“What the hell,” said the lead fed, a black-haired man with pasty skin as he chucked his cigarette to the asphalt and stepped on it as he made his way over. “Excuse me, lady. This is a crime scene. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“It’s not ‘lady’, it’s Detective. Detective Jenna O’Brien,” the woman didn’t even look at him as her eyes scanned across the dock, lifting her necklace to flash her badge. “And you’re on my turf, Mister…?”
“Okay, Detective,” the fed sighed as he gestured to the guys lining up bagged corpses. “I see your badge, but where’s your gun?”
Jenna narrowed her eyes and hiked her skirt to show off the gun holster on her inner thigh. “Like what you see?”
“Right… I’m Special Agent Ramsey, and this building was operated by a criminal outfit moving highly controlled substances across state lines, making it a Federal case. And as you can see, we don’t need your help. Especially from an officer of the law dressed like that.”
“I’m in plain clothes, my clothes— and I don’t care about what these boys are doing over state lines, I care about what they’ve been doing in my precinct.
“And unless you plan to stop me—and trust me, you really don’t—I’m going to canvas this scene before whatever happened spills into the streets.”
Jenna marched right past Agent Ramsey to go up to the dock, pacing in front of the handcuffed men all sitting in a lineup there.
“Where’s your boss?” she questioned broadly. “Mr. Gaines couldn’t make it in tonight?”
“They’re not talking,” Agent Ramsey hollered from the gravel lot below. “They won’t talk. Not here, anyway. And we already catalogued everything. Guys from a rival gang shows up, shoots a few guards, then makes out with the money. Criminals robbing criminals.”
“Oh yeah?” Jenna turned her head to smirk at Agent Ramsey before pointing her thumb over her shoulder as the busted divot that used to be a camera mount. “With a fifty caliber BMG?”
“It wasn’t a fifty cal, it was a shotgun.”
“Oh yeah?” Jenna then marched toward the nearest federal cruiser, opened the passenger side door and started rummaging through it with her booty sticking out of it.
“What are you doing?” Agent Ramsey questioned as he stepped forward. “That’s my car!”
“I fucking hope so,” said Jenna before exclaiming, “Here it is! I knew you had one.”
Jenna backed out of the door and stood back up with a big grin on her face, holding the black pump-action Remington shotgun she’d just acquired from Agent Ramsey’s car.
Then she swept it around and pointed it at Agent Ramsey, aiming high.
“Duck,” she said.
Agent Ramsey immediately went down. “Oh shi—!”
Jenna blasted the spot where the camera had been with a loud bang, the recoil shunting her shoulder back as the guys on the dock all dipped onto their sides to avoid her shot.
Agent Ramsey slowly uncovered his head to turn and look at where she’d fired.
A perfect hit.
Only the chunk she’d blasted out was far smaller than the initial hole.
“Yeah…” Jenna tossed the shotgun to Agent Ramsey, who caught it with an incredulous stare. “Not a shotgun.”
“So they were packing some kit, what’s your point?” Ramsey protested as he started unloading the shells before giving the gun to his partner, a portly, olive complected man.
Jenna giggled, her chestnut hazel eyes eyeing Agent Ramsey like he was a silly boy on her way toward her handiwork. “I thought you were an investigator? The slug’s trajectory would’ve been right from where I’m standing, which means they got up close. There were no other bodies except these guys?”
Agent Ramsey exhaled in exasperation as he stepped up onto the dock platform. “We’re still identifying the deceased.”
“Of course you are. Mind if I have a look inside?”
Agent Ramsey’s eyes narrowed slightly into a controlled glare. “You’re wasting your time, but by all means.”
He gestured to the main shutter door entrance, which was open. Jenna nodded courteously before walking in where racks on racks of boxes were stacked beside inoperable conveyor belts.
“Where’s the security room?” Jenna asked as she took out a flashlight tucked behind her back to look up around the rafters.
“What for?”
She clicked off her flashlight and sighed up to the ceiling. “So I can see the footage, dumbass.”
Agent Ramsey chuckled and lit up another cigarette. “There is no footage.”
“What?”
“They took all the DVRs. We got nothing.”
“Oh, come on!” Jenna groaned. “There has to be a cloud copy or something.”
“Nope, closed circuit.”
“Shit…” Jenna took a deep breath and hung her head low, staring at a conveyor control box near a stack of toppled metal crates.
Where a glint of golden light caught her eye.
She slowly turned to see Agent Ramsey saying something to his partner as the arrested men were shuffled onto a transport bus, then casually walked toward the crates and kneeled down to swipe the golden glint with her finger.
A golden pebble the size of a child’s tooth, melting into a liquid and coating her finger within seconds.
“Ichor…” she spoke in airy realization. “Fucking shit.”
“Are you done in there, Detective O’Brien?” Agent Ramsey called after her.
“Yup!” Jenna quickly pulled out a small plastic bag and scraped the Ichor into it with her nail, then tucked it into her skirt, then stood up to rush out of the warehouse. “I’m done here. Good work, boys.”
“You’re done?” Agent Ramsey frowned with suspicion. “Weren’t you in the middle of sniffing out some big conspiracy?”
“The evidence is shit, and you’ve got all the witnesses. It’s a cold case,” Jenna declared as she went to her car. “So unless you’ve got something else you wanna share, I’m leaving.”
Agent Ramsey held a silent stoic gaze.
“Thought so,” she said before opening the door and sticking her key in the ignition.
The headlights beamed across the federal agents, casting their silhouette against the warehouse before she pulled out of the parking lot and drove away, taking her only lead with her.
Agent Ramsey’s partner walked up to him, staring at her brake lights as they got further away. “What did she get?”
“Nothing,” Agent Ramsey replied, staring with narrowed eyes. “Keep an eye on her, anyway. Just in case…”