[ 3 ]

THE SUN was setting like molasses in the sky. Jodie felt a lot of things as she sat, arms crossed, in the midst of the Hawkins Police Station. The fluorescent light hung above her head, flickering every other minute. It was distracting. 

                     The Interrogation Room, back again. 

      Jodie didn't like being in this confined room. When she was younger, the old police chief tossed her into this place every once and a while, on the rare occasion that she was caught for doing something bad. It had almost been over a year since the last time Jodie sat in that metal chair, arms resting on that metal table. The situation hadn't been much different at the time. The furniture hadn't changed in over ten years. A testament to the sleepy state of Hawkins's police force.

      Jodie drummed her fingers on the table, waiting impatiently for Jim Hopper to return. Her tapping echoed back, a looped beating of flesh. The wood-panelled walls that lined the room were old, installed in the early sixties. They had been around far longer than Jodie Whittier, and Jodie was sure they would be around long, long after she was gone. Attached to the wall, an electric air-conditioning unit clicked to life, the loud whirring drowned out Jodie's nervous tap-tap-tapping. It wasn't a very large room, just barely big enough to hold a metal table, two interrogation chairs, and the necessary room for a frustrated policeman to pace in front of the detainee. 

      Jodie enjoyed watching them pace. Jodie liked being a thorn in the side of law enforcement. While she had never done anything worth a significant amount of jail-time, her past was littered with youthful pranks, binges, and 'un-womanly-like' behaviour — according to Josephine Whittier, her disappointed mother.

       The interrogation door swung open against the weight of Jim's side, a file jammed under his arm. "All right, Miss Whittier." He had his 'cop voice' on; Jodie hated the cop voice. Jim Hopper looked almost as hungover and exhausted as Jodie. He shuffled to the table, tossing the file onto it before placing a hand over his eyes, rubbing them raw. "You're here due to a piece of evidence found on the Byers' property after the disappearance of one William Byers, twelve years of age."

      Jodie took a deep breath, trying not to speak until Jim wanted her to. There were a million things that Jodie could have said, snarky remarks that cropped up in her mind. But, that wouldn't help them find Will Byers, and it would be wasting what little time the missing boy had left. However long that was.

     Jim Hopper shrugged off his tan police jacket and slung it haphazardly over the back of the metal chair across from Jodie. She watched him pace, running a hand through his sandy coloured hair. He was trying to come up with a plausible explanation, a good way to phrase what was coming next. Jodie braced for the impact, scratching her short nails against the arms of her chair.

      Jodie didn't enjoy watching Jim Hopper pace. Unlike the other cops that had paced in front of her many times, his pace was in light of another missing boy. It was a dangerous, wounded animal sort of lumbering that raised the hairs on the back of Jodie's neck. 

      "When was the last time you saw Jameson Whittier?" He wasted no time, leaning down on both arms to stare into Jodie's struck gaze. The question was like a slap, echoing off the wooden walls of the little room, silencing the pair.

     Angry, Jodie raised her defences, crossing her arms over her chest. "You really believe I abducted my brother, and what? What, Hopper, I'm collecting kids from Hawkins? Where the hell would I put them? Why the hell would I do that?!"

     Jim's face didn't budge, remaining solemn and tired. He lowered his towering frame into his chair and flipped open the manila file in front of him, thumbing through the contents. "I don't think that you are."

          "Because that would be fucking ridiculous."

           "Miss Whittier, I'm doing my job here; we have—"

     "—have nothing. Just a lighter, Chief Hopper." Jodie slapped her hand down on the cold metal table, arched a brow, and stared at the stern police chief. Even in the boiling rage she felt towards his cold calculation about Jamey, Jodie still found a way to be annoyed by his formality with her. She paused as Jim stared her down, waiting for her to grow quiet again. 

                     Everyone knew that the Whittier girl had a temper as wild as her police record.

     Jodie was aware that this was just a tactic. A probing to cover all the bases from last time, but the question still stung. Sighing, Jodie slumped down in her chair and exhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose with a deft hand.  

     Jim and Jodie watched each other for a good amount of time. The air-conditioning unit clunked off, leaving the room as silent as a graveyard. The light bulb flickered overhead and Jodie was the first to break.  

      Rubbing her robe-covered arm, Jodie's mouth turned down. "Do you think Will's disappearance is connected to Jamey's in some way?"

      Jim was silent for a moment longer, but he didn't need to say his opinion out loud. Jodie could read it on his face. "No... But, Joyce Byers is desperate. And, frankly, I don't blame her. Not with this station's track record for finding lost boys."

       "Hmph."

      Chief Hopper sighed and flipped through the file once more. Neither of them wanted to be there, under the fluorescent bulb as it flickered again. Jodie decided she liked Jim better as a man than as a cop. 

      "We just need you to confirm your alibi from your brother's disappearance and tell me what you were doing at the time of Will Byers's disappearance. Also, you're gonna need to explain how your lighter managed to get in the shed on the Byers' property."

       Once more, Jodie tapped her fingers against the metal table. No matter how much time passed, the festering wound was still just below the surface of her chest, the swelting weight of guilt blistering and bubbling over her scabbed heart. "I wasn't in Hawkins when Jamey went missing; I should have been, but I wasn't. I'd... I'd fought with my parents and I got pissed, so I boarded a bus out of the state." Jodie couldn't meet Jim's gaze. She picked at her fingernails instead, cleaning away dirt and dead skin, focused on the beds. "Even though I'd promised him I would stay for a little while. I was in Michigan by the time I heard that... that Jamey had gone missing. The last time I saw him was almost a year ago." 

— NOVEMBER 1982;

      The brightly wrapped package jostled around in Jodie's rucksack. It was a small, trivial gift, but Jodie knew it would bring a happy beam to her little brother's face. A Rubik's cube was something Jamey had been begging for from their parents for a little while. Though Jodie knew her parents had probably been saving the hot-topic gift for Christmas, she felt that Jamey had waited long enough. She'd take pleasure in being the one to give it to him anyway; she hardly gave Jamey things he truly took an interest in. 

                     He was so different than she had been as a kid. 

        Jodie was thirteen when her brother was born. She was already a budding teenager with insecurities and issues that weren't addressed by her busy-body parents. Jodie had felt that her parents thought she was the mistake they had at too young of an age. Fifteen was hardly a time to get pregnant, but it was the 1960s and people made mistakes. Frank and Josie Whittier were normal, spiteful people by far. So, when the little family settled down in Hawkins, Indiana, they decided to correct their mistake and pump out another; this time a little boy. 

      Until Jamey could learn to talk, Jodie considered him a scum, a pest. A wanted kid, sparking her years of rebellion. But, as soon as Jamey could form coherent sentences, he had her in the palm of his little, odd hand. He had been a quirky kid with quirky friends. Jodie had taken care of him when her parents were at work, which seemed to be most days, and that helped her grow a care for the, significantly younger, kid. 

        Generally, it should have annoyed Jodie whenever Jamey clung to her. But, the fact that the kid kissed the very ground she walked on was enough to feed her ego.

      It was the first time she'd been home in a while, and she couldn't wait to see him. Jodie had also made him a braided bracelet of his favourite colours: blue, brown, green. Jamey always liked Jodie's array of braided bracelets. He'd been asking her for months to craft of for him. But, Jodie seemed to always be travelling, taking buses across the country. Whenever she would come home, she would tell Jamey about all the fun things she did, and he always asked for a bracelet.

      Jodie would always remember the way Jamey's eyes lit up at the present of the bracelet that November. He immediately had her put it on his slim wrist. "You're gonna stay for a while, right? I've missed you." He asked, grinning like he had just been knighted by the Queen of England herself.

      "Oh, well..." Jodie's dark eyes trailed over her parents as they watched the pair with similar, tight frowns. Her parents loved her, Jodie knew that, but they didn't think she was a good influence in Jamey's life. And, Jodie had to agree with them on that front. "No, Jamey. I'll be here for the rest of the month, for Thanksgiving, but after that... After that, I'll be going North. I got a job at a diner, so I'll be living out there for a while."

       Jamey frowned, disappointed by her admission. "Well, promise you'll stay until after Thanksgiving." If only she knew that would be the last time she would see Jamey. She wouldn't have left.

      "I promise."

— NOVEMBER 1983;  

                       A promise that seemed all too easy to keep, and yet, she had broken it. Because of her own, selfish reasons. Jodie had long discovered that it was much easier to pack up and leave whenever strife came her way rather than stay and fight it out. Jodie didn't solve problems very well, she simply caused them.

      "All right. Where were you the night of November 6th?" Jim released a heavy huff, eyes guarded as he blinked across the table at Jodie, drumming away as she thought. 

      Jodie scratched at the side of her neck, thinking through the drunken haze. "I was at The Hideaway for most of the weekend, if I remember correctly. When I didn't want to be ogled at anymore by the damned drunks, I headed over to Bradley's Big Buy and picked up a couple cases of beer..." Jim arched a callous brow and Jodie groaned, tossing her head back. "Okay, I also grabbed a bottle of strawberry wine and maybe a bottle of Captain Morgan."

       His face crumpled in distaste. "Strawberry wine?"

       "I like it, bite me."

       "So, you went drinking, then picked up a bottle of rum and a bottle of wine. Can anyone verify your story? How'd you get home?"

      "Walked," Jodie said, picking her fingers up from the table to examine them. She picked at a scabbed over hangnail and frowned. "Big Buy isn't too far from my street. Just a mile or so. I guess you could talk to Robert Foreman, the store manager. He checked out my alcohol ... and my tits."

       Jim shook his head. "Sounds like a personal problem."

        "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Jodie smirked and leant forward, arms splayed out on the cold metal. Her wicked expression gleamed back at her in the smooth surface. 

       Chief Hopper didn't bother looking up at her, scribbling something down on the pages within the folder. "I'll kick his ass for you later, Jodie. First and foremost, explain why the hell your lighter ended up in the Byers' backyard. Then," he flipped the folder closed and slapped it down on the table, "we can both leave." Jim scratched at the stubble on his chin, a furrow carved into her brow. "There's a search party being rounded up at this moment to help search for Will, and I'd rather be there instead of wasting my time here. You get me?"

      "Some patience, Chief," Jodie said, sitting up and adjusting her sleeves as the drooped down her exposed shoulders. "There's not much to say, really. You were there, remember that day when you caught me and those boys setting off fireworks? Well, the little, shy, nervous one is the one I let have my lighter," Jodie explained. "Will has always been a quiet kid, so I tossed him my lighter because I thought he would have the most fun setting the fireworks off. You showed up, if you remember,—"

      "—Mhm—"

      "—and shooed them off. Whatever happened after that, I don't know. It's out of my hands."

     Jim pressed his burly, cop hands together and slouched onto the table, capturing Jodie's gaze with his stern expression. "Well, good news, Jodie. I believe you." He grabbed the file and stood from the chair, turning away from the woman and grabbing his coat. "Now, you sit tight."

      "What?" Jodie protested, watching him toss open the door. "Wait! You said I was free to—"

       "—Some patience, Jodie," Chief Hopper slung her words back at her with a wilted, half smile. "Callahan is gonna process you and send you on your way. Eventually. I recommend you go home after that, but we both know that you won't, right?"

      Jodie glared at his broad back as he stepped out from the Interrogation Room, tightly slamming the door behind him, leaving her alone once more. 

                     The air conditioning unit clicked on. The light flickered.

IT WAS at least an hour before Callahan managed to finish up Jodie Whittier's release.

     "You're good to go," Phil Callahan told the frustrated and steeming detainee as she seethed in the small room, the walls closing in around her. Jim had done this on purpose, Jodie wasn't going to let it slide. One way or another, he'd get what was coming to him. "You need a ride?" The officer asked as she jumped from her chair, knocking it to the floor of the room with a whap. 

       "Nope." Jodie pushed past him, adjusting her powder blue nightie and tossing her hair over her shoulder. She knew exactly where she was going, and she didn't need an escort to take her. 

      "All dressed up and nowhere to go?" Callahan asked, sizing up Jodie's nightie and robe as she stormed out from the Interrogation Room.  

       "Bite me, douchebag," Jodie spat, stalking through the halls of the Police Station. Officer Callahan quickly kept her pace, racing to fall in line beside her. Callahan reached out and grabbed Jodie by the arm, getting her to stop and shoot him an ice-coated glare. 

       "What's your deal, Jodie?"

       "What's my deal?" Jodie's eye twitched, her famous anger boiling over in the pit of her torso. "You don't give two shits about the Byers boy, just like you didn't give a shit when Jamey went missing. That's my deal."

        Callahan adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses and fought to keep the offended gleam out of his eyes. He failed, but Jodie wasn't the least bit ashamed by the sight. "That ain't true."

      "Well." Jodie yanked her arm from his loose grip and straightened herself out. "You would know."

     Callahan sighed and stuffed one of his hands into the large pockets in the front of his uniform pants and looked up through his lashes at Jodie, trying to think of what to say to the fuming female. He placed his other hand on her bare shoulder. "I'm sorry about Jamey, I really am, Jodie."

     "Get your hand off me." Jodie shoved his hand away, pushing her sleeve back up her shoulder. She didn't want to stay in this decaying police station any longer. Turning on her heel, Jodie called over her shoulder to the officer, stalking away. "Everyone's sorry. Everyone feels bad. I gotta tell you something, Phil: sorry doesn't mean shit. Find Will; that would help."

     Jodie pushed through the front of the Hawkins Police Station and shoved open the front door as Callahan called out to her: "Where you going?"

       "To join the search party. Where you should be."

      Callahan jogged after her, holding the door open as Jodie crossed her arms over her chest and let him pester her a bit longer. She could have left, but there was a small part of her that was beginning to act rationally once more. "You're in a nightgown."

        "And?"

⌱ ⌱ ⌱

[not edited]

thoughts so far? what do you wanna see in this book, i'm curious!

what do you think of jodie?