It Makes Sense
Previously: Jeannie re-writes the team to-do list. Jen Tyson makes some admissions.
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3:08 PM - Friday, November 6, 2014
2945 Pacific Ave between Broderick & Baker
Mark exhaled slowly and leaned back in the chair.
“Jen — I need to clarify this again: you told Alexa you needed her help to get the video, but all along you were working with Tripp to — what exactly?”
Jen heaved a deep sigh, wiping her face with the tissues roughly. She looked at him with big blue eyes in a pink, puffy face.
“It was a prank. Tripp said it was a prank to try and scare her. The boys had those wolf masks and they were running around scaring everyone, but he wanted Alexa to be alone so they could really scare her. Tripp knew she’d tell her parents and the school about Tahoe and the video — she’d told me she’d seem the video already, someone had sent it to her on Pr3pSF. But, but she knew it wasn’t any good unless they could prove it came from Tripp. Tripp knew that too, so he was trying to mess her up.”
Jeannie could hardly contain herself sitting in that chair in the white apartment looking at this strange, mixed-up girl.
“Well, he definitely messed her up, Jen.” Mark said it, but Jeannie was about to say the same. Jen looked at him and swallowed hard. Everyone was silent for a long moment.
“Yesterday after the funeral —” Jeannie began slowly, “when everyone was gathered outside, I saw you speak with Talbot Briggs.” Jen gave a short nod. “Are you friends with Tally? What was that about?”
“Not — not really. She’s not a nice person.” Jen huffed a deep breath. “She saw me talk to you and told me to be careful.”
“Why be careful? What did she mean?”
“She — she knew about the video too. Tripp had showed it to her. It was like — like she didn’t want me to tell you any of this.” Jen’s eyes were wide at this admission.
“Why are you telling us, Jen?” Jeannie asked softly. Jen’s face crumbled again.
“I — I don’t know. I don’t like this! I don’t like any of this! I - I didn’t mean for Alexa to get hurt — she was nice, I was terrible to her and she was only ever nice to me. I just, I just…I don’t like that bad things happened. It didn’t use to matter to me, but it does now. I don’t know.” She faded, gulping in breaths. “I don’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t know what the prank was going to be. I didn’t know it would hurt her. None of this makes sense.”
Mark sighed slowly. “You’re right, it doesn’t. Which is why we need to know exactly what went on and who knew about what.”
“What do you mean?” The girl gasped, wadding up her wet tissues onto the table as she pulled fresh ones from the box.
“Do you think Tally had the video herself?”
“Maybe?” Jen’s face wrinkled as she added things up. “Yeah, I guess.”
“So then, Tally must have gotten it from Tripp.” Mark asserted. “Are those two friends?”
“Tripp gets her drugs too — cocaine I heard. Sometimes adderall.”
“How do you know that?”
“Tripp told me. He said that Tally owes him money.” Jen pursed her lips slightly, still taking shaky breaths.
“Tripp and Tally.” Mark raised his eyebrows. “Could Tripp have asked Tally for help in pranking Alexa too? Was she a part of it?” Jeannie flashed back to Sunday at Holy Heart when Tally called out “it was a prank!” to the room.
“Maybe?” Jen squeaked out. “Tally likes being mean.”
“Has she been mean to you before?” Jeannie asked her quietly. Jen nodded slowly.
“She’s the one who called me Tyson the Dyson — she made it up and told all the boys.” The girls eyes were huge and sunken slightly in her pink face as another tear rolled away. Mark thought she looked broken; a broken doll.
“That’s awful.” Jeannie’s voice was a whisper of sympathy. “Why would Tally pick on you like that?” Jen shook her head, staring at the table.
“I — I think she thinks I’m dumb. That I won’t fight back. She knew I always liked Seb and made fun of me for it, but knew the boys liked having me around, so she’d make fun of me just enough to prove a point.” It was the most coherent insight Jen had given to date. “We grew up together, but she’s all fancy now and has a stick up her ass. I try and ignore her but she just keeps doing it. Seb used to defend me sometimes, but he’s different now.”
“How different? Since when?” Mark probed.
“I don’t know — just like, different. He was different when he met Alexa, just like, more distracted and distant. And over the summer after they broke up…” Jen paused, thinking. “He used to come over sometimes, during the summer?” She glanced up at Jeannie and Mark. “But like, he just wanted sex. He barely spoke. It was like he’d never known what it was like.”
“What what was like?”
Jen looked directly at Mark. “What it was like to be into someone and them not care at all.”
Mark nodded at her, huffing a deep breath. Jeannie didn’t know what to say to comfort this girl, who for all of her apparent spacey-ness was actually incredibly self aware. And deeply damaged.
“Jen we need to know another thing and we’re hoping you can help?” Mark began. Jen looked at him warily, but nodded.
“We heard that you may know who the Admin is on Pr3pSF? Or at least had some ideas about who it is?” Jen considered him.
“Who— who told you that?”
“Just a rumor.”
Jen sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I thought it was Marjorie Sands at school.” Mark felt a jolt go through his body, considering the implications. He couldn’t help but glance at Jeannie as he leaned forward slightly.
“Wh-why would you think it was Marjorie? She’s a guidance counselor, right?”
Jen shrugged a little. “I went into her office one day when she wasn’t there, and the Pr3pSF site was up there on her computer, but there was that window of code open? You know how you can do on certain websites to see what the code is?”
Mark nodded, eyes narrowed. “The source code.”
“Yeah. Well, that window was open, and all the pictures and comments were there, and like, adults aren’t allowed on there, you know? You have to have a prep email address just to get admitted on there, so like how could she get on there? I sat in the chair and waited for her and pretended not to notice, and when she came in she was kind of like…flustered I guess that she’d left that on her screen? She sat down and immediately turned her screen away to hide it from me, but she didn’t touch it — like I know she left it open on her computer.”
“Why would Marjorie —” Jeannie began, trying to piece it together.
“I thought about it —” Jen cut her off. “I mean, it makes sense, right? Like, a guidance counselor wants to know what all the dope is on everyone, right? Like, all their problems and who has it out for who…and Marjorie is so nosy. I just, you know I saw it there and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and like, it just makes sense to me, but I don’t know anything.” Jen tucked her chin and looked at them, her defensive pose belying the confidence she’d just shown.
Jeannie licked her lips, wondering what to say next. Glancing at Mark, she saw the shock on his face as he marinated on what Jen had just put together.
“That’s a really compelling theory, Jen, thank you.” Jeannie said, not sure if she’d been able to deliver the calm assuredness she was pretending to have.
“Yes, we’ll definitely — “ Mark blinked at the girl. “We’ll definitely look into that.”
Jeannie and Mark were silent in the elevator down to the street, both of their minds processing the entire conversation with Jen Tyson. Both moved at a fast clip to the SUV and slammed their doors shut, both turning toward each other simultaneously.
“Do you —” Jeannie began.
“I can’t believe —” Mark started. “Sorry — you go.”
“No, you.”
“I can’t — the guidance counselor?”
“You saw her at the funeral, Mark — she was the one smiling all around? I definitely think the Marjorie Sands angle holds up. And remember at the Thomases at the wake, the Headmaster said that she and her husband had moved here from Seattle — that they’d both been in tech? But she wanted to get into education? It’s not entirely out of the realm…I mean, it was pretty clear to me when we talked to her at the school that she centered herself among those kids.”
Mark huffed and shook his head looking out at the street in front of them. “I suppose we have to run it down.”
“Not right now. We need to get back.” Jeannie pulled out her phone. “I’m calling the Headmaster - that girl needs someone taking care of her. Someone not Marjorie Sands - that’s completely creepy that she also excused Jen’s absence just because? Covering for a minor and lying about her truancy is way out of bounds. I’m going to tell him that he needs to contact the mother and insist she come home, or send another relative over here. Immediately.”
Mark nodded, starting the car. “Yeah. And I’ll get a subpoena for her work computer.”
“And we need Owen to look at all of the texts on Jen’s phone — see who she was texting on Friday afternoon and make our best guess at Tripp Hartman’s number and cross reference everyone else. Maybe we can extrapolate what Tripp was masterminding on Friday.”
“Good thinking.” Mark offered quietly as the SUV pulled away from the curb.
“What’s wrong, you’re being weird.”
“I’m — that — that was disturbing. That girl is disturbing. And she was relatively sober without the Oxy in her system, so at least she was coherent.”
“More than coherent — she’s smart. It’s too bad…why is Seb Podesta the guy all the girls fall for? I don’t really see it myself.” Jeannie thought of Chris when he and Brandon were seniors in high school, and how deep and consuming her crush was at the time. A time when he seemed to just shimmer over the world with a big, handsome smile, athletic insouciance, and tall, dark good looks. A time when he barely acknowledged her presence. “I mean, I understand how it feels, but Seb?”
“No one says no to Seb.” Mark murmured.
“What do you think about the bottles in the bathroom?”
“I mean, I took a picture of them and the labels, but we didn’t have a warrant or probable cause to even look in there. There’s nothing we can use, but if we see other labels like them…” Mark shrugged. “I’ll tell the DEA guy, but it isn’t much. It just means there’s likely a doctor involved.”
“Jen Tyson needs a doctor — a psychiatrist. A good one. Not whomever she has giving her sertraline, someone who’ll help her figure her shit out. It’s shocking that people would neglect their child in such a way. Even if she’s 17, she’s still a child and still needs parenting.” Jeannie felt her ire rising and shot out a deep exhale to tamp it down.
“I agree.” Mark sounded far away. “Do you buy the double-cross? Between her and Alexa and her and Tripp?”
“Yeah, it’s the only way it makes sense.” Jeannie swallowed. “Even if — even if she didn’t want to hurt anyone, she went along with it because he’s her supplier. She can’t piss him off. Do I think she had it in for Alexa since she dated Seb? Yeah, but I think that was her own internal conflict. Maybe that’s motive for a prank, but not much more. Alexa and Seb hadn’t been together for months. Alexa was with Charlie —”
“But no one knows that. Not even now.”
“The point is, Alexa wasn’t interested in Seb. She was trying to be nice to Jen, to maybe help her? I don’t know, but that sounds like something Alexa would do. She just didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“That Jen couldn’t be trusted.” Mark made a small chuckle in response. “What?”
“Alexa was smart enough to know that — that girl had been schtupping her boyfriend for months. Why would Alexa think she could trust her?”
“Fair point, but maybe that was Alexa’s motive: get Jen to trust her and then Jen wouldn’t have a reason to betray her. Offer to help get the one thing Jen would have been embarrassed to have everyone see—”
“The video.”
“The video.”
“And it didn’t matter because Jen played her, and then Jen got played because everyone’s seen it now.” Jeannie shook her head looking out the window at the houses moving past them. “What a mess. It’s all so stupid.” Both were silent for a long moment, thoughts whirling.
“Jen was sincere about wanting that video.” Mark pondered. “Alexa offers help thinking it’s the one thing the two of them can come together on, and even helps make her costume in the bargain. Alexa was trying. Makes you wonder why she put in so much effort.”
“It wasn’t about Jen. I mean, anyone seeing that video would be horrified by it, but Alexa was worried about Ryan — certainly more than she cared about Jen. But Ryan didn’t have any proof against Tripp. Jen’s video was something that could really punish Tripp — but they needed to get it from his phone. Meanwhile Tally already had the video and had shared it with Alexa, but she couldn’t prove that either. She couldn’t even prove it had come from Tally.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?”
“What?”
“We can’t trust Jen Tyson either.”