Chapter 5
Officer McGill stormed out of the office. A wastebasket caught his pants leg and tumbled over as he hurried past. Drafts of reports and messages to call home covered the floor as the lawman grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and went home without a word. Officers Lee and Jenkins looked on with the rest of the unit in shock.
“I’ve never seen Eric so pissed off.” Lee told Jenkins as he righted the mess.
“I’d be upset too if they booted me off a case and practically said I should’ve prevented the crime. Wouldn’t you?” Jenkins asked.
Officer Lee peered up at his rookie and shook his head. He knew she had a point, but you tend to identify with someone’s struggle after working with them for a decade.
“Yeah, but we all know it wasn’t his fault. Eric was just out exercising. He was the first on scene; he should be allowed to help catch the guy who did this.”
“He’s a potential witness and you know Internal Affairs has to rule him out as a suspect before he can do anything. It’s protocol, not personal.” She retorted.
Officer Lee scoffed and slid into his own chair. Opening a folder, he started jotting words on one of the dozens of reports he needed to turn in.
“For being so smart, rookie, you can be pretty dense. Just because something is protocol doesn’t necessarily make it right.”
***
Jenny pushed her cart through the supermarket. Yet another person playing on their phone shoved their cart in front of her without so much as an ‘excuse me’ or ‘sorry’. She stopped short of collision and gritted her teeth. The woman tugged up her leggings that were four sizes too small and patterned like something the 80s rejected.
Jenny pictured the woman screaming as her lower half was trimmed down to fit into the florescent tights. She smiled as she proceeded across to the meat section. The mental image delighted the murderer, but she knew this was not the time or place for such entertainment.
CRASH.
“Why you ain’t looking where you going?” Shouted the twenty-something man with both basketball shorts and boxers hanging out of his oversized jeans. Jenny said nothing as she laughed inwardly at wearing layers of pants wrapped with a belt and fancy buckle if the point was to have your ass hanging out. He could’ve at least worn clean drawers.
“Something funny to you?” The man got in her face. “You gonna apologize for hitting my cart or what?”
“No. I’m not apologizing for you running into my cart while I was already stopped. Go fuck yourself.”
Jenny spoke even and calm before pushing past the hostile man and picking up a stick of pepperoni. She was feeling a little braver than usual. The man reared up and cut her off; he put his hand on her bicep.
“What did you say, bitch?” He snarled.
Jenny smiled and let a flurry of images run through her head: all the things she could do to him. He looked in her eyes and for a brief instant she saw the recognition of something dangerous. The man leaned back a few centimeters and eased his grip almost unperceptively.
“I said go fuck yourself because you are probably the only person who wants to get in those nasty boxers you have on display.”
Jenny rammed the man in the crotch with the pepperoni stick she held. He dropped and held himself. She tossed the food into the buggy and turned it so that the wheel smashed his knee before leaving for the register.
The killer reprimanded herself for letting her nature be seen like that as she climbed into her Acura. She adjusted the rearview mirror and found that no one had raised any fuss over the jerk with sagging pants ‘falling’ in the aisle. Jenny started the ignition and drove home to feed her cat before going hunting.