Taken: Day 12

Word Count: 72,012

Summary of Events:

Mitchell was struggling to figure out why one of the trucks he was tasked with repairing wouldn't start, and had been for over a day already, but was relieved to take a break for lunch and talk with his coworkers about Marion Edgar again, although this time one of his coworkers actually brought up the assault allegations as a whole, commenting that he was tired of hearing about them . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“Why are you tired of it?” Mitchell asked.

“Because I think they’re trying too hard,” Nelson replied.

“To do what?” Mitchell asked.

“Keep it in the papers,” Nelson replied. “I mean, it’s been, what, three weeks since that happened?”

“Something like that,” Jokes replied.

“And yet here it is, still front-page news with nothing really more to be said about the story,” Nelson said. “It’s like they’re bound and determined to make this Sergeant Becker kid out to be worse than Hitler.”

Mitchell nodded. He certainly felt like he was being portrayed as one of the most evil of evil men, and yet he’d fought on the good side during the war.

“It’s as if they mean to drag his name through the mud so long and hard that his name becomes one with the mud,” Nelson said. “It’s ridiculous. They didn’t even talk about Hitler like this.”

“Have they talked about any other criminal like this?” Mitchell asked. “Or purported criminals?”

“Not that I can remember,” Nelson replied.

“The whole thing with Marion’s daughter coming to visit, though,” Bertie said. “That is the thing that still sticks with me. I haven’t heard anything about her being in town before, but here she suddenly shows up in town and creates front-page news without a suggestion that this is the first time she’s been in LA since the divorce.”

“How bad was the attack?” Mitchell asked.

“It doesn’t sound like it was all that bad,” Nelson said. “No one’s mentioned her having any bandages or scars from it.”

“Oh,” Mitchell said. “Then why are they still talking about it? Is the trial happening?”

“No, I don’t think the trial’s expected to happen until next year sometime,” Nelson replied. “Besides, I’ve heard nothing about Sgt. Becker’s side of the story; it’s almost as if he disappeared off the face of the earth or something like that. The only time he’s talked about is in the sensationalist articles about how Marion’s daughter’s recovering.”

“What does he look like?” Mitchell asked. “This alleged culprit?”

“I don’t really know,” Nelson replied. “In most of the articles — no matter the publishing paper — he’s described as fat and generally ugly, with it even being suggested he’s somewhat old, but yet he’s also described as a young man, and the one article said he was handsome and muscular, a typical young GI.”

“Seeing as he’s a soldier you’d hope he’d look the typical young GI,” Jokes said.

“Especially when he’s only a Sergeant,” Bertie said. “It’s not until a soldier gets to being a General, hyphen or not, that they get fat and rather complacent.”

“Yeah,” Nelson agreed. “So it can’t really be said what he looked like. No one seems to actually know.”

“Interesting,” Mitchell said. 

“It’s just a strange case,” Nelson said. “The whole thing has inconsistencies and unexplained, unanswered questions.”