She Thought it Was Wrong
Previously: The team meets with the Thomases and stops by Jen Tyson’s house.
Need to catch up on The Spring? Visit the chapter index here:
2:46 PM - Friday, November 6, 2014
2945 Pacific Ave between Broderick & Baker
Jen’s admission hung in the air of the room. Mark felt Jeannie’s glance but didn’t meet it; he didn’t want to break Jen’s stare. The overall glazed look seemed to have dissipated from the girl’s face for the first time, but that could be because she hadn’t had any Oxy in two days.
Jeannie fumbled into her pocket for her phone. “Jen — this isn’t official, but I’m going to record what we say here so we get everything straight, is that okay with you?” Her voice was soft and gentle, trying not to startle.
“Um — yeah, okay.” Jen whispered glancing at the phone on the table. Her lips formed a pout. “My Mom’s a lawyer.” She tossed out simply.
“I — I remember you saying that when we spoke on Sunday.” Jeannie reassured. “You’re not under arrest, Jen, we just need to know what you know. Will you help us?” Jen made another shrug that jolted her neck.
“Okay, Jen.” Mark began quietly, trying to regain the girl’s focus. “You just said that you knew some of the Trick-or-Tito’s on Friday night were dosed with GHB, is that correct?”
“Yes.” Jen blinked at him, her eyes huge in her bare face. She looked so much younger than she had on Sunday.
“How did you know that?”
“Tripp told me.” Jeannie felt her own eyebrows go north and tried to conceal any surprise that may have been on her face.
Mark considered Jen and inhaled slowly, “okay. Can you tell me when he told you? What was happening?”
“It was on Friday afternoon. Tripp came over here.” Jen’s face suddenly looked hard.
“Jen — “ Jeannie ventured slowly, “when we spoke with you on Sunday we asked you what you did last Friday and you said you walked to Fillmore for a coffee, and then you came home here until you went to the party. You didn’t mention that Tripp came over.” Jen shrugged sharply, her mouth a flat line. “Does Tripp come over here often?” Jen shrugged again with one shoulder, rolling her bottom lip.
“He comes by sometimes.”
“Are you friends with Tripp?”
Jen snorted a little, her eyes bent. “Um, no. He hooks me up with pills.”
“And he’s friends with Seb Podesta.” Jeannie offered. Jen gave her a long look, her blue eyes wide.
“What do you mean?” Jen whispered.
“He hooks you up with pills, and maybe tells you about the boy you like? That seems pretty natural to me.” Jen blinked, her pale face seeming to pinch a little. “What did he tell you about Seb on Friday?”
“Nothing.” Jen looked at Jeannie warily. “Just that he was coming to the party and that he would want to party with me.”
“Party with you?” Jeannie repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It means, PARTY.” Jen rolled her eyes. “What do you think it means? You’ve never partied before?” Jen’s eyes roved over Jeannie, moving over her uniform and landing on her face. Jen assessed her coldly.
“I’d lose the attitude, Jen.” Mark asserted, staring at the pouty teen. “Let’s back up a bit. You came home here at 4pm on Friday, according to what you told us last weekend. What time did Tripp come over here?”
“I don’t remember. Kind of soon after that.”
“Did he call you first?”
“No. We texted.”
“Does Tripp have a car? How did he get here?”
“I don’t know.” Jen was impatient. “Why does that matter?” Mark leaned back a bit and met Jen’s glare.
“You’re right.” Mark said simply. “It doesn’t matter at all.” Jen squinted a bit and worried the end of her robe’s sleeve, pulling at some loose terrycloth threads. Jeannie noticed it was stained along the cuff edge, probably overdue for a cleaning. “Did Tripp bring you pills on Friday?”
“Yes.” Jen’s tone was short.
“What did he bring you?”
“I told you, he gets me Oxy - he gets me tens of Oxy.”
“How did the GHB come up?” Jen shrugged again, shifting in her seat. She took her legs down from the chair and leaned back a little, pulling the fraying sleeves of her robe down to cover most of her hands, which made the robe slide down past her shoulders.
“Um — Tripp just said that he had GHB again. He hadn’t had any since we were all at his house at Tahoe on July 4th. He said he’d gotten some and was going to put some into some special bottles of the little Tito’s?” She looked to Mark to confirm, tone matter-of-fact. He nodded slightly, encouraging her to go on. “He said they were going to try to give some to Alexa and see if she’d party and he wanted my help.”
Mark inhaled slowly. “Did you pay Tripp for the pills he brought you?”
“No.” Jen looked uncertain, squinting her eyes again.
“So, Tripp gave you drugs free of charge, but asked you to help him?”
Jen nodded.“Yes.” She whispered.
“What kind of help did he want?”
“He wanted me to give Alexa the shot. He thought it would be easier for me to do since he knew Alexa hated him because of the Tahoe thing.” Jen’s voice faded.
“Why did Tripp think that Alexa would trust you? You weren’t very good friends, were you?”
Jen shook her head, staring at the table top. “No. We weren’t friends, but she’d been nice to me. We had our Culture class together with Carolina and Charlie, you know? She was nice. When I told her I was going to be a mermaid for Halloween she offered to help me make it cooler. I’d been over at her house on Thursday — she put the sea shells and the fishing net over the skirt. Then, she took this old headband she had and put sea shells on that — kind of like a crown, you know? It was really cool.” Jen sounded wistful.
“Very cool.” Jeannie agreed. “And very nice of her considering you were sleeping with her boyfriend the entire time they were dating.” Jen looked up at her, eyes narrowed. “Alexa was nice because she didn’t think there was any use in being mad or dramatic about the situation. She knew it was Seb who betrayed her that night at Lake Tahoe — Seb, Dash, and Tripp. She knew they were just using you to get at her. She felt sorry for you.” Jeannie felt awful saying it, but the look on Jen’s face showed the words landed. “And Tripp came over here to use you against her once again, is that it? And you went along with it again, even after how nice she was to you?” Jeannie shook her head slightly.
Jen’s eyes were welling up. She sniffed and moved her eyes from Jeannie to Mark.
“You know Jen,” Jeannie continued as Mark watched the girl, “we heard a few witnesses say that Alexa walked away from the party with you on Friday night. That she talked with you, and you both left the rock area where the party was happening at Inspiration Point, and you moved off on the dark trail toward the Redwood Grove. Now, given everything, I cannot believe that Alexa would do that. So please tell me, what did you say to her that made her leave the party with you?”
Jen’s tears spilled over. She wiped her face with the stained frayed end of her robe sleeve, her face damp and pink.
“Alexa was helping me.” She stuttered out.
“Helping you?” Mark repeated. “How was Alexa helping you?”
Jen took in a shaky breath. “The video.” She looked from Mark to Jeannie. “She told me that her friend Ryan had seen the video on Tripp’s phone. I — I didn’t know about it.” She finished in a whisper.
“The video from July 4th?” Jeannie asked. “The video that was posted to Pr3pSF yesterday after the funeral?” She tilted her head at Jen. “You didn’t know that Tripp filmed you with Seb and Dash?” She made her voice as gentle as she could.
“NO!” Jen wailed. “No. I — I didn’t even know he was in the room.”
Jeannie inhaled slowly. “Jen — were, were you consenting to both Seb and Dash that night?”
Jen shook her head slightly, face crumpled. “I - I don’t remember. Tripp told me in the morning he’d given us GHB. He was laughing like it was a joke. I — I didn’t think — I thought I was just with Seb...but I’ve been with Dash before so I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters, Jen.” Jeannie told her softly. “It matters that you always give your consent.” The girl burst into tears again and Jeannie sighed softly. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“You’re not sorry.” Jen accused her. “You think I deserve it because I hooked up with Seb when he was dating Alexa.” Jeannie knew this was Jen’s victimology, but she felt for the girl.
“That’s not true, Jen. I think Seb led you on again and again, and you didn’t deserve that either. He lied to his girlfriend and led you on — I know you have feelings for Seb, Jen, but a good guy isn’t going to treat you that way. And he’s certainly not going to allow his friend take a video of you while you’re having sex.” Jen sobbed.
Jeannie sighed and pushed her chair back, moving toward the hallway to find the bathroom and hopefully a box of Kleenex. The hallway was shaded compared to the main rooms with the sunny view, but the bathroom on the left had bright light coming in the frosted window. Jeannie found a box of tissues on the shelf and turned to open the medicine cabinet, revealing a row of pill bottles along the top shelf. Peering closely, Jeannie realized that none of the patient names were for anyone she’d heard of before. She didn’t want to touch anything, but knew somehow this could be important. Continuing down the hall, she found Jen’s bedroom, shrouded in dark shadows. The light switch turned on a bright overhead light and strings of white fairy lights all around the ceiling. The yellowish glow of the light was a contrast to the sparkling bright sunlight in the living room. Blackout curtains hid the beautiful view out the windows; the room smelled like body odor and a touch of mildew. Jeannie wondered how long it had been since the windows had been opened. The ceiling light revealed a heap of a white duvet that was haphazardly piled on the rumpled bed. Pillows, shoes, t-shirts, sweatshirts, lacy underwear, discarded jeans, towels, socks, and every other type of clothing littered the pale blue rug on the floor, along with magazines, random totes and shopping bags spilling junk, even a few random empty bottles of wine and champagne. Jeannie felt her own agita rising taking it all in. Exhaling slowly, she turned the light off again and went back to the dining room with the Kleenex box.
Pulling a few sheets of tissue, Jeannie handed them to Jen, placing the box in front of her.
“Thank you.” Jen grumbled, hiding her face in the wad of tissue. Jeannie nudged Mark slightly and nodded toward the hallway when he looked at her. Coming to his feet he followed her to the hallway.
“Bathroom cabinet.” Jeannie whispered before moving back to her seat at the table.
“Jen, how was Alexa going to help you about the video?” Jeannie began again.
“She told me she’d heard about it from Ryan.” Jen’s voice was low and tired. “She said she thought it was wrong and that if we could get a hold of it we could tell the school or our parents or something. She said we could get Tripp into trouble and get him to stop.” The girl dabbed her eyes, and then stared into the wadded tissue.
“What did you think of that plan?”
Jen looked at her incredulously. “What do you mean? Why would I get Tripp into trouble?”
“Because he took video of you without your consent, Jen. That’s illegal.”
Jen shook her head again. “I — I just wanted the video. I just wanted it myself so I could delete it and make sure no one would see it.”
“Well, now it’s up on Pr3pSF and everyone’s seen it.”
“I know.” Jen whispered, closing her eyes for a long moment. “And the comments.” She added, voice fading.
Jeannie considered her, “and you didn’t want Tripp getting into trouble because he gets you pills?”
Jen nodded slowly. “I - I mean. Yeah, I guess. Plus, like — his Dad is really mean, you know? If I got Tripp in trouble, I know he’d do something against me.”
“But your Mom is a lawyer — she’d help you.”
“Mom works for him sometimes, so — I doubt it.”
Jeannie was stunned at this admission. She considered Jen, wondering how a teenage girl could get so trapped. Mark reappeared wide-eyed, giving Jeannie a short nod before sitting down again.
“Okay, Jen…so you didn’t want to get Tripp into trouble, but you wanted to get the video.”
“Yes.”
“So what was the plan you and Alexa were going to do at Inspiration Point to get the video?”
“We agreed that she’d play along with the partying, you know? But that once the guys had been drinking a while that we’d find Tripp and get his phone and send the video to one of us.”
“And that’s why you two left the party — to go find Tripp?”
Jen stared off for a long moment. “No — no we left the party because Tripp wanted me to bring her to him.” Jeannie suddenly felt cold all over. “I — I told Tripp that she knew about the video and she was going to get him in trouble. He — he promised me the video was a joke and that he’d never share it…and when it went onto Pr3pSF yesterday I called him. He told me he wasn’t the one who posted it — he didn’t know who’d done it. He said someone must have taken it off of his phone.” Jen’s voice broke as the tears started fresh.
“So, let me clarify for a second,” Mark said, “Tripp wanted your help getting Alexa to party, and Alexa wanted your help to get the video for you, correct?” Jen nodded. “But instead, you made a fake plan with Alexa?” Mark asked softly, eyes huge. “And the real plan was with Tripp?”
“Yeah — yeah. I gave her the shot of Tito’s that Tripp gave me. He told me he made special bottles just for Alexa. Then we went over the trail — I told her that was where we were going to meet Tripp — but the boys were all running around with the wolf masks on.” Jen sobbed again. “I — I don’t know. I was drunk. It was scary. I — I was with her and then the next thing I knew I was alone on the trail and I didn’t see where she went.”
“What did you do then?” Mark asked her softly.
“I — I went back toward the rock, you know, where the party was? And someone told me Seb was up at the parking lot, so I went to find him.”