The Brokens

4

4

“So, give us the play by play.” said Daniel. Marie dug her fingernails into her palms.

“I was walking down the street one day, and then the guy pulled me into the van.” she said blatantly.

“The guy?” asked Beth, obviously unimpressed.

“Yeah. The dude who grabbed me.”

“What did he look like?” asked Chenny.

“How the hell should I know! He knocked me out before I could give a damn about his nail polish color!”

“And you’re saying nail polish as a figure of speech right? He wasn’t actually wearing nail polish, correct?”

“No, I was kidnapped by a biker named Matilda who wears hot pink nail polish and works part-time at a circus-- of course he wasn’t wearing nail polish!” exclaimed Marie.

“Wow you are not going to make this easy, are you kid?” asked Beth. Marie shook her head.

“Okay what happened next?” Daniel questioned.

“I woke up in this-this uh, dark room. I couldn’t see anything. Then they just kind of shined a light at me and some lady said ‘proof of life’ into a camera.”

“Did you recognize her voice?”

“No she had one of those voice modulator things-” Marie said, “- by the way did you know that those things exist? Like I honestly thought that they were just in movies. Then again, I’m pretty sure it was a kid toy because I could still tell that her voice was female.”

“Wow, so we have Matilda the girly biker and a dinky kid toy. Productive.” muttered Beth. Chenny kicked her under the table. Beth glared at him.

“Sorry folks, that’s all I can say. Next thing I know I’m tied to a chair and the po-po are coming.”

“Wow. This was a waste of time.” said Beth.

“What kind of PI are you? You’re just going to give up?” asked Daniel.

“Nope, I’m going to get my own evidence.”

“Beth, just stay for a few more minutes. Marie, was there anything particular about the area were in. Smell? Sounds? Temperature?” asked Chenny. Marie shifted in her chair, bored.

“Um, yeah. It was kinda hot, maybe in the 80’s. There were definitely pipes around me which were making a lot of noise.”

“Maybe a boiler room?” asked Daniel.

“That’d be a start since a lot of places don’t have boilers anymore.” said Beth. Chenny smiled.

“And were you conscious when they transferred you out of the room?

“Uh, yeah.” said Marie. She honestly had little idea where the conversation was going, but it sounded like maybe, just maybe, the people put on her case might actually solve it.

“Can you give us a rough estimate of how long the drive was?”

“Sure, maybe twenty minutes.” Marie said. Daniel tapped his fingers on the table.

“Two minutes could feel like twenty if you’re in stressful situations.” Daniel commented.

“Still, it helps the location range. I suppose we could start out with all building within a 25 minute radius?” asked Chenny.

“It’s a start,” offered Beth. Chenny nodded.

“It’s a start.”

__________________________________________

Jeanine sat down on Marie’s couch. “So how are you doing?” she asked Marie, who had sat down at the other end.

“Fine. I gave the people on my case my statement today.” Marie responded. Jeanine’s expression grew glum.

“You know on my case, the detective, Oswald, never really did anything. Do you think that it’s possible that some of the police department could be on the NKTR payoff?” asked Jeanine. Normally, Marie didn’t like conspiracy theorists. She viewed people like that as ‘yearning for attention to the point of insanity’. Of course, that was just her theory. However, in this case, at the rate at which the crimes were being solved- 0 cases per eternity- it seemed like it could be plausible.

“I mean, sure.”

“Everything just seems to be going the NKTR’s way. I mean, I understand that taxpayers don’t always deliver, but isn’t a government salary supposed to be some incentive for the police to deliver at least a couple solved cases.”

“To be fair, I am pretty sure the police get paid barely more than your average fast food worker.”

“In this city, sure. Anyways, what were the detectives like? Anything off about them?”

“Well, it was two detectives and one PI. I think one of my friends hired her… the PI, I mean.”

“Elizabeth, Chenny, and Daniel right?”

“Yeah… how’d you know?” asked Marie, surprised.

“I’ve been looking into your case, it doesn’t seem right to me. The PI and Detective Chenny used to have their own firm which explains their business together but really, what’s the deal with her?”

“I guess my friend, Nicolette hired her? I don’t know nor do I really get it. Nicolette isn’t my best best friend or anything. Honestly, I am pretty sure she is trying to use me for a popularity boost.”

“Well I supposed that explains her. Then, what about the Daniel guy?”

“He kinda seems to be like the professional of the group, and honestly the only one who is focused.”

“Okay. He transferred in from another city right?” asked Jeanine.

“Yeah, he is trying to do the whole ‘this city is trash and I’m gonna try to detrashify it’ thing.”

“I’ve seen a lot of those. Hopefully he does good on your case and does whatever the other are lacking in.” Jeanine said. She quieted for a minute, and then spoke again, “Did anything, anything at all seem off about them?”

“Well, the Elizabeth woman seemed a bit off.”

“Okay… I’ll look into her.” said Jeanine. She was just ready to find any loophole she could exploit to find out what she needed.