Songs My Mother Taught Me; A Collection Of Short Stories

Marlon

Every cop will tell you that there's always one that sticks with you. One that stands out from the rest so that every case from then on becomes before and after that particular victim.

Mine was Jenelle Williams. 

Jenelle's entire life can be summed up in a single sentence; Runaway from an abusive background who worked the streets in Vegas until she was brutally murdered.

That's it. That's Jenelle right there. It's the basic outline and I bet even if you spent hours colouring in the gaps, like a kid with a new bunch of crayons, you still wouldn't get anything that stood out and made her unique.

I wish that wasn't true. I wish I could say to you, well, Jenelle was a prostitute but she was an amazing artist, or she supported a family, or she had dreams of getting somewhere. I wish Jenelle had one redeeming quality that I could cling to, to make you like her, to make her matter to you.

But if I told you any of that, I'd be lying.

Jenelle was a drug addict. She'd have stolen from you, given half the chance. Her son was, and is, so far as I know, in the care of the state. Jenelle had a foul mouth and was frequently in violent bust ups with neighbours and other hookers. She had an arrest record the length of my arm.

To all accounts, Jenelle offered nothing to this world that could be measured or quantified. The only people who would even feel the loss of her, so far as we could ascertain, were the johns who frequented her little strip of the road and even that was soon filled by another girl who'd had her eye on it for a long time.

But she touched me from the moment I arrived at the scene. Just after 6am and the heat was already sitting heavily, building up to a scorching Nevada day where the dust hangs heavy in the air and seems to coat your lungs with every inhale. That's how it felt that morning anyway. We'd just driven out from central Vegas, from a scene where a young dealer had been nailed to the wall. I was fairly sure that my grossed out scale had reached full capacity today- and all before 6am.

And it had. Jenelle's death was vicious, but not nailed to a wall vicious.

You know, Jenelle was one of at least 3 bodies I saw that week alone. In a single month working that city, I'd see so many cadavers that I could never remember their names. So what made her stand out?

I don't know. My first impression was anger, I remember that. She had been left, no, positioned stark naked and spread out on the ground and that indignity upset me. Not only had he raped and murdered her, he took all dignity from her death. He knew she'd Be found in this obscene position and the sick bastard probably got off on the idea.

My partner, Frankie Delongi was already there, of course, conducting the crime scene like an orchestrator. He was less than 6 months away from dying of aggressive lung cancer, although neither of us knew it then. In fact, as he greeted me he winced, clutching his side and complaining about getting old. His voice was raspy and thick, but it always had been. We used to joke that he was born talking like an old gangster, so I never saw any reason to worry.

He looked pissed that morning and I remember him telling me that we were dealing with a sick bastard. It always sticks in my head, the way he said it; spat it from the corner of his mouth as he dangled a cigarette from his lips.

"What have we got?" I inclined my head towards the small tent that had been erected, a flash of white in the rust coloured desert.

"Female, Caucasian. Early twenties at the most. One of the boys thinks he recognises her as a hooker who has a patch on 5th Street. It's not a positive ID, of course, but he seems sure." Frankie nodded, loosening his tie against the heat.