Enough-Pt. 3

Part 3: Caught

            Four days since Nadine Beckett had been reported missing and Jenner had spent two of them stuck in her apartment on chief’s orders. Shortly after Linden had left her office, angry as he always was ever since he had received the pleasure of being named her partner, the Chief had walked in and told her to go home.

            Jenner argued there was no time for rest but the Chief argued if she wanted to keep her career, if she wanted to see another day as a detective, she had no choice. So Jenner had reluctantly stuffed all the Beckett evidence into her bag and stormed home. She had been furious on that first day, envisioning her face next to the word “useless” in the dictionary. Then, after she had calmed herself with a few beers, she had dived back into the evidence, growing more aggravated but this time over something new.

            Now, on her second day Jenner was reviewing the surveillance of the night over again. She focused on the Kenton footage, glaring at the screen and then at what followed after his realization of Nadine’s disappearance. He had come out of the theatre, a smile on his face and when he saw that she wasn’t around, he was bewildered. He looked around, his head moving up and down the parking lot. His lips were moving, calling for her. Then he had walked back inside the theatre, pulling workers aside and calling for the manager.

            But there was no proof. No proof even though Jenner could smell his lies from the screen. She couldn’t understand why the other cops couldn’t see it. It frustrated her, frustrated her that no one believed her and could see what was so plainly in front of them. Angry now, Jenner launched her half-full beer bottle across the room, relishing in the sound of it shattering against the wall. Watching the beer slide down the wall, the glass glistening on the floor, the puddle forming, Jenner felt her rage.

            She couldn’t help but think back to her time in New York. She had been the best in her department, the best detective New York had ever had and she wasn’t patting herself on the back. She had been up for the Chief of Detectives position and probably could’ve gotten more if she hadn’t let her past get the best of her. That was her only downfall. She was a cop and a hard worker. But all of the cases she took on always rang true in her heart. As a young girl growing up in Staten Island it had been easy for her, as a child to think the island was just below a prison. There was only one exit for her, a ferry. Growing up surrounded by landfills, crime was everywhere. It simply wasn’t normal to not hear or read about a body found in a dump, buried under the Christmas Trees like that poor girl Abigail Greco back when Jenner was ten. Then there was her own family, her father was the Sheriff and an alcoholic. Such a powerful man with an imposing stature and all he would do was let certain criminals slide and come home to drink his sorrows away. He was always upset about something, always yelling and fighting and calling orders. Her mother was no better. She had been a tough Brooklyn girl whose burning hatred of the island at times overpowered even Jenners.

            When Jenner turned eighteen, she decided to pursue a career in law enforcement and in turn not only escape the island but be a better person than her parents ever could. She had always hated that she couldn’t bring friends home because her father would probably be on beer number six or maybe her mother would be fighting with him, degrading him about how his parts weren’t adequate enough. So when Jenner hopped on that ferry she made the decision to never come back. When her father died five years ago from alcohol poisoning of all things after a rather brutal fight with her mother, Jenner didn’t bat an eyelash. All she could think was how much alcohol the six foot four man would have to drink to seal his fate. Then there was her mother who less than two years ago and practically overnight been diagnosed with stage four cancer. She had called Jenner up, cursing her out for not attending her father’s funeral and then ended the call with the announcement and also putting the blame and her father’s death on her.

            Jenner had landed a job after her stint in the academy fairly quickly. She had the best grades in her class and by the time she was 26, she became a detective. She was doing extraordinary work and her drinking had been fairly controlled before her mother called with the blame weight. When it was passed onto her, Jenner had been struck by a new worry. Had she been a good enough daughter? At 34, her emotions were diving inward and it was also about that time that her cases shifted. They weren’t about the latest gang or domestic violence allegations or even missing old people with dementia. The victims were younger, girls from battered homes, girls with bright futures, girls with good grades, women about her age or strikingly similar to her. She knew of course she was different from those girls but driven by a strong sense of revenge for her mother’s scorn and her father’s drinking and hurtful words through her childhood, Jenner wanted to do good by those dead girls or at least by someone. 

            She wanted to prove her use and wanted to prove that she could do enough, that that was what she had been doing all along. But all her sudden deeper dive into work did was fuel her drinking. Trying to be better than she was had driven her into a downward spiral. Her drinking increased and a brief stint with a psychologist revealed she was severely depressed. She had her demons and they were growing but Jenner believed that ignoring them would keep them at bay. She had to do more. Doing “enough” simply couldn’t cut it.

            But her drinking, behavioral problems and depression forced NY to look at her and toss her out. The transfer was sudden and though her Chief said it was for the best, that it would give her time to relax, the sudden rise in murders and missing children was proving to do just the opposite.

            Running her hands through her hair, Jenner squeezed her eyes shut. Nadine Beckett was her. Jenner remembered the days she pined over a boy in her biology class. She remembered the makeshift notebook she had written journal entries in about the boy in after school in ninth grade. She knew what Beckett was feeling and she also knew that the chances a boy like him would ever ask out a girl like her, no not her, Beckett was unlikely. Shit like that only happened in movies.

            It wasn’t that Beckett wasn’t pretty. In truth she was just average. Cute smile, hopeful. But there was something in her eyes. Friends said she was sweet. Her family said she was such a good girl, a rule abiding child. She was quiet. She was smart. She was going to have a fairly decent future and her family would be just as average. No struggles, just your perfect picket fence family who would love each other and as long as they worked together they would be okay. But, that was what everyone around Nadine said. In the sixteen year old’s eyes, Jenner could see something different. As much of herself as Jenner saw in the girl’s smiling face, the look in Nadine’s eyes proved otherwise. There was something in Nadine that Jenner had always lacked. Something Jenner had been searching a long time for. She had joined the cops trying to find it, trying to make it clearer but it hadn’t come to her yet.

            As she ruminated over the missing piece of her that was somewhere in the eyes of Nadine Beckett, her phone rang and rising from her desk after the fifth ring, Jenner lifted the handset to her ear.

            “Hello?”

            “Jenner? Jenner that you?” It was Linden and he sounded out of breath. The image of her partner running anywhere other than to the ice cream truck that liked to circle their office aroused her interest but only slightly. He hadn’t spoken to her for the two days since their argument and hearing him talk to her now a sense of urgency in his voice, Jenner knew it had to be important.

            “What is it?” She leaned against her wall, twirling and twisting at her phone cord.

            Linden coughed, a throaty, nasty flem-filled one that made her stomach twist a little. “We brought in that Fuller kid.”

            Jenner stopped twirling and twisting.

            “Turns out the little fuck was lying after all. Classmates overheard him in the bathroom on the phone with someone. Heard him talk specifically about the Beckett girl.” Linden said.

            Jenner’s blood ran cold. Her hand felt numb and stiff holding onto the phone. She was so unsure how to feel in that moment that all she could do was stand there like an idiot.

            “On top of the classmates bringing it up to the principal, his parents wondered why the phone bill was so high. Apparently the kids been talking to this unknown number for the past two months and when they asked him at the precinct who he was talking to, he went quiet.”

            “The parents aren’t getting him a lawyer?” Jenner asked.

            “It’s real fishy, Jenner. Real fishy. Parents say he has to help the investigation that he has to help bring that Beckett girl home and I saw the sick little fuck fight back a smile.” Linden coughed again. “Either way, Chief says to get your ass down here fast. He wants you and me to get this kid to squeal.”

            “Where is he now?”

            “I’m looking at him right now. Little fucker is sitting there staring at the wall. He’s nervous, Linden. I’m fucking telling you the kid is nervous.”

            With that, Linden hung up and Jenner carefully placed her phone back on the hook. She took a breath and before she knew it, she was grabbing her files, pulling on her uniform and running out the door.