Cerulean Sins--chapter 38-39

I think sometimes Anita--and by extension, LKH--forgets how to girl. I'd say "human" and leave it there, but she's the one who keeps bringing sex up. And while I know I am not the most educated and nuanced human being on planet earth, it bugs me that we get long rants about HOW GIRLS HAVE TO BE LIKE MANLY MEN BECAUSE MANLY MEN DO MANLY THINGS AND THIS MAKES SENSE and then we get this shit:

 I OPENED THE Jeep and heard my cell phone ringing. I kept leaving it in the car, forgetting I had it. I slid onto the warm leather of the seats, fumbling for the phone from under the seat, even as I closed the door behind me. Yeah, it would have been cooler with the door open, but I didn’t want my legs hanging out the open door while I lay across the seat. Not because bad guys were after me, just normal girl paranoia.

I'll give her the loss of cell phone thing because back then smart phones and are addiction to them did not exist (seriously. I lost my old phone all the time. My smart phone? In a year and a half I have left it behind exactly once. At my work. And I was so happy to get it back)

But what the blue fuckity fuck is "normal girl paranoia" and what does it have to do with shutting yourself into your car before you fumble around under your seat? I'd say "ANITA'S LIFE IS DANGEROUS FOR SERIOUS" but this is implied to be some kind of "normal" behavior for girls. I've had to fish things out from under seats before. Step one is get out of the car so you can bend over without slamming hands and legs and heads into dashboards and gear shifts. Seriously. If your neighborhood is so fucking dangerous you can't kneel outside your car while you are in the parking lot of a police station, you shouldn't have parked there in the first place.

Yeah. She's worried about being grabbed and/or raped in the PARKING LOT of a POLICE STATION.

Of course, this is all so that Anita can be laying across her front seat, gear shift sticking into her side, while Jean Claude croons into the cell phone.

Anyhoo, the police have arrested Jason in connection to a murder. Probably because Anita dragged him through a crime scene without gloves or a hair net on, and he left trace evidence of his presence in a victim's blood. Because, you know, the whole reason for wearing a paper suit, booties and googles is to look cool, not to keep evidence of your presence to something approaching zero.

I haven't read ahead this time, but I'm calling it. I'll also bet money that Anita will now have to prove Jason's innocence by swearing they had sex the night before.

Anita promises JC that she'll get Jason out and complains that she wants a new life, and forgot where she put the receipt for her old one. Because having a good friend and sex partner get arrested for shit that is totally your fucking fault (BOOTIES AND GLOVES, ANITA. BOOTIES AND GLOVES. THESE ARE WHY GOD GAVE YOU POCKETS) is all about how much YOUR life sucks. And not about how much trouble you get your friends into.

End of chapter. Start next chapter.

...isn't Anita already at the police station? Right. She has to go to RPIT headquarters. And apparently it's her version of Cheers, because everybody is like "HI ANITA" and she's probably all like that dude that comes into bars and has a couple drinks and leaves without smiling.

And then she bumps into Jessica Arnet.

I "met" Jessica when I read Kiss the Dead, and I have to say, somebody REALLY pissed Laurel off IRL. Jessica likes Nathanial, as in she'd like to date him, and for now Anita considers Jessica a good match for Nathanial for when the Ardeur wears off. Because pairing off your current lovers with new people in the event you dump them, without first checking to make sure said pairing is okay, this is totally cool and completely alright.

Dolph is here. I guess Laurel didn't know how to add tension to her story without fucking her continuity over the head. Zerbowski meets Anita in a hallway while Dolph "talks" to Jason.

Anita talks her way into the interrogation room. It seems that Dolph pulled Jason in because he is LWWW (Living While WereWolf) and has defensive wounds on his body.

DEFENSIVE. WOUNDS.

Seriously. Laurel. Forensic Files is NOT the place to do real crime scene research stuff, especially not when you don't listen to the important parts of the episode.

(FYI Defensive wounds are what you get when, say, you put your hands over your torso and your assailant stabs through them in an effort to get to your heart. Attackers do not get these. Only attackees)
 
However, Laurel did not get this memo:

“He’s a werewolf and he’s got defensive wounds,” Dolph said, “if he didn’t rape our vic, then he raped somebody.”

REPEAT: DEFENSIVE WOUNDS ARE SOMETHING YOU GET WHEN YOU ARE DEFENDING YOURSELF. THE WORD "DEFENSE" IS IN THE FUCKING PHRASE. HOW DO YOU MISUNDERSTAND THIS? HOW?

And yes. Anita saves Jason by saying "I did it to him during sex". Because everybody knows that rape victims manage to defend themselves so well they damage their attacker. I think what LKH is getting at are the scratch marks that victims sometimes leave behind, but these are not "Defensive wounds".

Oh, but we're not done yet.

I raised the sleeves on my shirt and showed my own healing scratches. “When I was afraid I’d hurt him more, I scratched myself.”

HOW. HOW DID WE JUST GO FROM RAPE TO SEX TO SELF INJURY WITHOUT PAUSING FOR BREATH? And did we seriously just turn S/I into a self-sacrificing gesture of love?

I am running out of words.

Anita gives Zerbowski times for when Jason was with her. Apparenlty this covers him for a second nasty crime scene involving rape and bloody murder, because Dolph immediately begins accusing Anita of being pregnant by a vampire.

Anita brings up the fact that his son is engaged to a vampire.

They are both terrible people.

Dolph then tosses the table, the chairs, and everything else he can get his hands on while the three other adults in the room pick a corner each and stay there.

And then, because trivilizing the pain of other characters into shit that makes Anita look good is just great characterization, Dolph tells Anita that his son's lover is going to turn his son into a Vampire. Yep. It's not the fact that Anita fucking sucks at this cop thing that's the issue. It's that Dolph has personal things.

He then shoots his career in the ass by saying bigoted things about Jason. Zerbowski gets Jason and Anita out of the room, and then tells them to leave and go home. Inprisonment of werewolves is brought up, bounced around like a vollyball, and then dropped.

The chapter ends with Anita moaning about how she's so much better at breaking things than fixing them. Because of course, the total mental breakdown of a good friend is completely about her.

I hate this book.