Happenstance ⌱ Jim Hopper

[ 3 ] I FOUGHT THE LAW

[ 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.