Street Justice

“I see, so Victoria was lying about what happened yesterday and has become more promiscuous since then,” Jennifer surmised thoughtfully, as the grey-green Ranger jeep accelerated into town. Kurt nodded in the passenger seat along with her words, indicating that she’d understood his explanation of the situation. “And you don’t know what occurred in the apartment to make her act out like this, but you believe it has something to do with either Shawn or Dustin?”

“Right,” Kurt agreed, continuing to nod and clarifying, “Victoria says that it was all Dustin’s plan, but I find that hard to believe. Like you said, he was a good kid, and when I was kidnapped, Shawn didn’t sound like he had noble intentions.”

“Did he actually threaten her?” Jennifer asked, her voice full of dread.

“Not in so many words. He was mostly talking about teaching Dustin a lesson,” Kurt said thoughtfully, trying to remember Shawn’s precise words. But a lot had been happening at once and a lot had happened since, so it was difficult for the young teen to remember exactly. “But I told you he made us listen to Victoria’s date. He kept rubbing it in my face about how slutty she was for getting fingered by another man because he thought I was her boyfriend.”

“Yes, I remember, while the other girl, Kendra, was it?, gave you a blowjob,” She chuckled, and glanced at Kurt with a sly side glance. “I notice that you’re not terribly torn up about that.”

“The girl gave good head, alright, I’ll cop to that,” Kurt replied, blushing slightly, not so much out of embarrassment but simply because it was Jennifer who was teasing him. “And listening to Victoria getting off during the erotic film in the theatre, I couldn’t really help getting an erection. It was just like listening to porn really…ugh, I should never have told you that part.”

“Oh, Kurt, I’m just joking. I appreciate the honesty,” She reached out and placed a hand on his leg, comforting and reassuring, but it lingered, just long enough to be sensual and provocative. She whipped it away, lightning fast, and placed it back on the wheel. Coughing, she changed the subject, “And as good a kid as Dustin is, he skipped out on work to take part in whatever this was, and he went along with it in so far as it seems to have benefited him. By the sound of it, Shawn did teach him a lesson. And how bad has Victoria really been? Because to call her a slut for just skinny dipping in the lake is over-the-top. Aside from that she seemed like the same sweet, shy girl I met before.”

“That’s because it wasn’t just skinny dipping,” Kurt said simply, leaving the implication unspoken.

“Victoria with you AND that other boy?” Jennifer’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. “Shit, maybe I really should have booked you kids for public indecency.”

“You’re not completely wrong though,” Kurt admitted, his thumb resting against his bottom lip. “Victoria was more herself around you. That only leads me to believe that she purposefully restrained herself so as to not to rouse your suspicions, since, in your position as a Park Ranger, you could probably do more than just wait for her to slip up like the rest of us.”

“Possibly, but even my role as ranger has its limits,” Jennifer noted, biting her lip. “All the evidence in the world means nothing if Victoria isn’t willing to make a formal accusation. She’s the victim, or injured party, in this situation, but if she refuses to implicate Shawn, either out of regret or shame or sometimes even misguided notions of love, the law’s hands are really tied on the matter.”

“This is why people end up taking the law into their own hands,” Kurt grumbled, clenching his hands in to tight fists as she thought of Shawn avoiding punishment. “If he goes on unchecked, and he doesn’t meet justice in a courtroom, he’ll meet justice on the streets.”

“That that’s how good people end up in prison rather than the bad guys who should be there,” Jennifer warned him, her face turning stony, and taking his vigilante threat seriously. “The law isn’t perfect but it’s a process. The best-case scenario is that we find something in this apartment to tell us the truth, and perhaps it will help us get through to Victoria. When faced with others who know what really happened, she might realise that she can't hide anymore.”

“Do you really believe that?” Kurt asked sombrely, thinking back to how willing and encouraging Vicky was of the two going to the apartment. “That we’ll find something there?”

“It’s worth a look, isn’t it? This Shawn guy sounds like the kind of guy who has an ego, and people with egos are sometimes the easiest to catch because they can’t even fathom a scenario where they fail or get caught,” Jennifer said as she navigated through the streets of Azure Rocks. “At the very least, maybe Dustin is still there, and he can shed some light on what really happened.”

“I guess. I just wish I could remember where that damned warehouse is,” Kurt lamented with a deep frown. “Unfortunately, I was driving a strange car through a part of the town I don’t know well. It was dark, and I was rushing to get to Victoria, so I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings.”

“Kurt don’t worry about it. If I really needed to know the location, it wouldn’t be difficult to get a list of properties owned by Shawn and Dustin’s father in Azure Rocks. The only problem is that we would need probable cause, and without Victoria making an official complaint, I have no room to go investigating,” Jennifer assured him, the fact that the ranger legally couldn’t search the warehouse supposed to be a comfort to him. “Even going to this apartment is a grey area. I can say I’m checking up on a fellow employee who didn’t show up to work, but legally it falls out of the park’s purview. If anything were to happen, it’d technically be in the jurisdiction of the Azure Rocks Police Department.”

“So basically, I shouldn’t feel bad because even if I did, you can’t do anything about it anyway?” Kurt reiterated, Jennifer’s speech only having the opposite effect of making the young, blonde teen even more despondent.

Shawn seemed to be protected in every possible way, by his money, by the law, by the people around him. It was frustrating, and Kurt was beginning to feel that even if they had him dead to rites, he would still somehow slip past them. Even when he seemed to be making some progress, such as taking a sneak peak at Victoria’s phone, it only raised more questions than it answered. Everything hinged on Victoria and her testimony, and finding something in this apartment to **** her to tell the truth. And Kurt was increasingly sceptical of even doing that.

“Well, yeah,” Jennifer replied, realising her words weren’t quite as reassuring as she first thought they would be. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. You said it was around here?”

“Yeah, it’s that building up head,” Kurt said, pointing forward at a tall block of apartments.

“And you know which apartment it is, right?” Jennifer clarified, as she parked on the street outside, peering up through the front window at the height of the building. It wasn’t the tallest in Azure Rocks, but she still wasn’t keen on having to knock on every single door. Of course, she could probably narrow it down to someone living on one of the upper floors in a luxury apartment, but that was still a lot of tenants and no guarantee all of them were home or knew who lived where.

“Kendra told me when she let me go,” Kurt informed the ranger as they both stepped out of the car.

They walked through open-spaced, minimalist lobby, Jennifer following Kurt, Kurt following the instructions he remembered Kendra giving him. They entered the elevator and he punched the button for the top floor. The ride was nerve-wracking. Kurt folded his arms across his chest and incessantly tapped his foot. The smoothness of the lift made it feel like he wasn’t moving at all, and that only made the young teen even more antsy. He was so close to the apartment he could feel it under his skin.

The elevator doors opened onto a corridor. Kurt bolted through the opening as soon as it was wide enough, powering down the hallway, almost sprinting to the final door, past three others and just before another with a sign leading to the roof. He went to try the handle, but Jennifer’s voice stopped him.

“Wait!” she said, deep and powerful, mustering all the authority and respect that her uniform and position held. “We have to knock.”

Kurt made an irritated, exasperated face, but Jennifer ignored him and rapped her knuckle against the door. Then, they waited. And waited. And waited for, what seemed to Kurt, several minutes. Clearing her throat, Jennifer knocked again, harder and louder, and called out, “Dustin. Dustin Lewis. It’s Jennifer White. Open Up.”

Many minutes of silence later it was clear that no one was home, or if they were, they weren’t opening the door. Kurt tried the handle, as he’d wanted to initially, but as expected, it was locked. Jennifer pouted in thought and took a step back from the door. She supposed that she might be able to find a superintendent, or a building manager, to open the door for them. But, it might not be easy to convince them, especially because they would have to lie since there was no good legal reason for them to be allowed into the apartment without going through that proper procedure she’d mentioned to Kurt before.

She was shaken from her thoughts and plans by the sickening crack of wood. Kurt rammed the door with his shoulder, finally catching a lucky break. Despite the price and up market style of these apartments, the security was bottom tier, and the strong, young nineteen-year-old was quite capable of just smashing his way through the door. Jennifer was taken aback by the sudden ****, speechless for a moment as she watched Kurt finish breaking down the door and step through the wreckage into the room.

“Kurt, you can’t just do that,” she hissed, her voice losing its power and authority, instead becoming like a child, annoyed that another kid wouldn’t play by the rules of the game.

“Come on and help me look for clues,” Kurt insisted, peering up the short reception hall, looking towards the open plan kitchen, dining and living area. “You can tell them you followed me in to arrest me for breaking and entering later. Right now, searching this place is more important.”

Jennifer clenched her fists and chewed her lip, torn between what was right and what was lawful, knowing the line was blurring but that crossing it would mean risking her job as a ranger. She glanced around the hall, and saw no cameras, the privacy of the residents in these apartments having been paramount. So, if she did join Kurt, it was possible that no one would ever know. But, she’d know…

Swallowing hard, and fearing she might regret it, she stepped over the chucks of wood and followed Kurt into the apartment.