Chapter 21
Jenna sat in furious silence as we drove away from her apartment, with a trunk full of her things and a single box of esoteric documentation she was using to build her case against Alistair Gaines.
Given the tense atmosphere, the girls in the back didn’t say anything either, though I could tell that Monica was waiting for the teacup of gossip.
“You’re not talking,” I commented as we headed toward the vicinity of her cruiser. “Having second thoughts?”
“What am I supposed to say?” Jenna vociferated, “You executed a wounded suspect in my apartment—in my bedroom—on my bed!”
“What I did was save your life.”
Jenna whipped her head to look left at me. “Is that what you think? I’m a detective with two corpses in my apartment. What I have is a warrant for my arrest if I don’t call it in!”
“Let’s try to get some perspective—”
“Perspective? Wow… My perspective is that you just murdered the only guy who could have directly connected Gaines to the Ichor.”
“Arresting those guys wouldn’t have done shit except confirm that you don’t have the Ichor before they got hung in a county jail. A trial would’ve painted them as junkies looking for a fix, and then they’d send someone else,” I argued.
Jenna glared at me, but didn’t immediately contradict me.
I continued, “Gaines obviously thinks your department confiscated the Ichor instead of the Feds—he sent those guys after you specifically. And you have to ask yourself how they got in without a key.”
“They used the window,” Jenna immediately countered. “I left it cracked because I like the breeze.”
I sighed. “That’s not my point. My point is that they know where you live. You’re afraid, I get it, but you gotta get out of your cop brain and confront how things really work. You can’t trust the system, Jenna, not even your co-workers. Not even your boss,” I voiced.
Jenna hissed begrudgingly. “They set me up as a sacrificial lamb…”
“Can't trust piggy pirates at all,” Monica murmured from the back seat.
Jenna scowled into the rearview mirror, then looked away and crossed her arms, looking out of the passenger side window.
“Believe it or not, it’s not all fucked,” I said with a grin. “If he knew what he was dealing with, he would’ve sent more than some low level bums. He knows about you, not about me. Or about the fact that I’ve got ten minutes of his face in footage beside a truck full of Muties and Ichor…”
Jenna suddenly perked up with manically wide eyes. “He’s in the security videos?”
I made eye contact with a sidelong glance, then nodded.
“You have to give it to me,” Jenna implored.
“We’re not using it to arrest him, we’re going to use it to shake him down.”
Jenna’s chestnut brown eyes contorted into slits of fury. “This again?”
“Be honest with me, Jenna,” I stated. “Forget the rules, forget society, forget everything you were ever told to do. If you could do anything you wanted to this guy, what would it be?”
Jenna’s mouth clamped shut, sinking into her seat as she stared off into the distance, with us passing by the otherwise tranquil traffic.
She answered after a pause. “I’d take everything from him, and then I’d kill him.”
I looked into the rearview mirror as Cassie and Monica jerked their heads to look at Barry, who didn’t warp us all into a horror dimension with him as the final boss.
Jenna was being honest.
With that established, I pressed on in my line of questioning. “And if you arrested him, even with ironclad evidence, what do you think would really happen? Guys like that can reach you from inside prison, assuming he didn’t plead out to a corrupt judge. You wanna get this guy, don’t you?”
“Of course I do…”
“Then tell me what he did to you, and we’ll make it right.”
“Nothing can make it right…” Jenna answered wistfully. “He’s already dead.”
“Who is?”
“…My father.”
Everyone kept quiet for a loaded moment.
“You wanna tell me what happened?” I inquired, my voice low and sympathetic.
Jenna met my eye with less vitriol then before, her eyes glistening with the bloodshot rage of a vengeful daughter.
“He was a cop like me. He wasn’t even investigating Gaines, he was investigating a trap house apartment peddling his poison. But that was close enough for him, I guess.
“He went to ask Gaines some questions about the tenants and was killed in a ‘gang shootout’ before he even left the building. That’s how he gets away with it, that’s how he’s always gotten away with it. Friends in high places; friends in low places.”
“Then it is personal.”
“Yeah.”
“Good. It’s personal for me too.”
Jenna looked at me. “What did Gaines do to you?”
“Not Gaines. The people backing him. They tried to take everything from me, and I’m coming to collect.”
“So…” Jenna paused as she looked at me. “You want revenge too.”
“We all do,” I replied. “Monica wants revenge on her past, Cassie wants revenge on her ex, and as for Mimi? Well…”
“I’m just here to have a good time!” Mimi answered.
“Of course you are,” I said, flashing a smile through the rearview mirror before turning my attention back to Jenna. “The fact is that the world is a fucking scam, so we’re gonna do what we want in it.”
“And run its fuckin’ pockets,” added Monica.
“Damn right…” I smirked before taking on a serious expression. “The rules won’t help you against those who don’t play by them, Jenna. We’re gonna have to play by our own. Will do you that? Can you do that?”
The redheaded detective kept quiet for a long time, her hands gripping the hem of her skirt.
“You’re asking me to betray everything my father stood for, everything I stand for,” Jenna uttered.
“Actually, he’s supporting you,” Cassie interjected from the backseat. “I’m really sorry about what happened to your dad, but I don’t feel like this is letting him down. You became a cop to stand for your dad, and I’m guessing he became a cop to stand for justice.”
“So what’s your point?”
“So, justice isn’t something the police invented, it’s between people, and it was around way before they invented that badge,” Cassie stressed as she leaned forward.
Monica had something to say too. “Not that I care or anything, but, if somebody hurt my daddy, his ass would never make it to jail. I’d pull up before the cops ever got the chance.”
“And I’d help hide the body!” Mimi enthused.
Mimi and Momo gave each other a fist bump.
Jenna pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “God… I can’t believe I’m doing this… Fine. But what are we supposed to do about the fucking bodies around my bed?”
“It’s already taken care of,” I stated.
“What? No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is. I sent the text on our way out. It’s being cleaned up.”
Jenna looked at me in abject disbelief. “Who are you?”
“Jaxon Dirge,” I said like it was obvious. “And I’m gonna need to know about every property this Gaines guy owns…”