Detective Nell Wesley

Concept: Narcotics Detective/Adrenaline Junky

AKA: Nell goes undercover fairly often. She’s developed a few personas that she uses with back story and documents to back them up. Within the department proper, they’ve started to call her “Tyson” Because she has a right cross that will make you re-think your life path.

Desc: Middling tall, built like a brick house. Muscular, but she’s working on flexibility too. because she doesn’t want to get TOO muscular to the point it stands out. Very dark skinned. Tends to keep her hair braided and out of her face. Because of the nature of her work, she doesn’t go in for anything elaborate with her hair. Eyes that betray a certain amount of laser-like focus. She has a smile like a sunrise, but you don’t get to see it very often. Walks like a boxer. She has a tattoo on her upper bicep of two Feminine symbols that have been conjoined side-by-side. Most of the guys in the force have already figured out what that means.

History: A girl grows up in the hood, she’s going to see some things. Some of those things will mark you. Maybe you see someone from the neighborhood get gunned down in a drive-by. Maybe you had a classmate fall in with drug-pushers, and the Mexicans cut his balls off and stuffed them in his mouth. Maybe you had a cousin OD on crack and had to sit next to your Aunt at the funeral while people lied to her about how “natural” he looked. They meant well. They always mean well.

   So maybe at some point, you have a teacher who sits down with you and seriously talks to you about making a difference in the world. And you chew that over for a while in your head, and while that’s taking place the crack dealers are muscling for territory in your corner of the city. And maybe you decide you want to be a cop because you want to make a difference.

     Nell gets a job with the police and she does okay. She’s not super smart, but she knows what’s what and has good experience. She makes detective (Although probably slower than some straight white dude...) and when they’re asking her where she wants to go. She makes it very clear that she doesn’t give a DAMN how short-handed Vice is for women police. She wants Narcotics.

They looked into her eyes and realized she was pretty serious.

   So they put her into Narcotics. And that’s where she’s been ever since.

And if you ask her, on any given day, she goes back and forth on whether she’s made a difference or not. The thing that makes her worry, though, is that she feels like she’s getting reckless. undercover work is fraught with perils and traps of all sorts. Addiction from having to take drugs in front of the dealers. Dealers who have very good cop radar or are twitchy and paranoid. inter-departmental politics and internal corruption.

   The thing that worries her is that the edge of adrenaline has replaced that need to make a difference. She prays at night to a God that her pastor says has damned her for her sexuality, to regain that sense of purpose...To not need the adrenaline.  But she’s seen enough junkies in her time to know how deep she’s in.

Attitude: “Tommy. You have the right to remain silent, and if you so much as twitch, I’m going to hit you so hard your tomorrows are going to fall off. Now get up motherfucker.”

Skills:  As far as she goes, Nell has worked very hard over the years. She’s not the best mentally, but she’s got better than average resolve so that makes it easier for her to stick to a program. She’s as good as any police person with a gun or a hand weapon, but she’s excelled with the Boxing and she’s kept it up because it’s great for emotional management. Physically, she’s wire tight and in GREAT shape. SHe’s got Fleet of Foot because all dealers and junkies run. Socially, she’s pretty solid. No Animal ken, and despite her size, no real Intimidation to speak of. But the rest of the social skills get plenty of practice and her Streetwise is practically off the charts. Her antenna is almost always up and it’s kept her from getting killed more than once.  Her Composure is damn near bulletproof. Having the occasional Meth addict wave a hunting knife in your eye puts your other problems into perspective for you.   Her subterfuge is also pretty damn good. She routinely has to act as if she’s high, stupid, and totally willing to fuck a guy for whatever hard narcotics he’s got to offer. She is not usually any of those things.

Gear: Nell carries her usual weapon, and a holdout weapon on her ankle when costuming permits. Her personal vehicle is a dull-as-dog-crap Toyota Camry. She has a nice little smart phone and additionally has a regular Skype number along with a program that transcribes voicemails. While this little set-up has been pressed into service for gathering evidence, it also serves as Nell personal notebook. She’s got this half-assed idea that she’s going to write a book about her experiences.  What makes this interesting is that Nell is not a very good writer, but has enough solid Resolve that she still going to write the damn thing and worry about prettying it up later. She’s also something of a game nerd, so she’s got a PS3 with a lot of music on it too.  Pity the poor bastard who gives any girl down the road for being a fake gamer girl within earshot of her.

Home: Some years ago, Nell met Moira. They got together and they were good with one another. There was the usual stress over being with a cop, that made it hard on Moira sometimes, but by and large they were good together.  They bought a house together.   But then Moira got sick. And this was before you could get gay-married in this state.  So her parents came up and shut Nell out of their daughter’s life. Even tried to sue the bank for the return of their daughters investment. (Thankfully, the judge wasn’t having it.) Refused to let her visit at the hospital and didn't let her have any of medical information about what was going on. (HIPPAA makes that sort of bullshit trivially easy.)  They even tried to prevent Nell from attending Moira’s funeral along with all of her other gay friends. Moira’s father finally went too far and put hands on her and she broke his jaw in 3 places.  Officers who were called to testify in the assault case that came afterward, said that they hadn’t seen a thing. “I didn’t see a thing, your honor. Polar bear fell on top of me.” Was pretty much what every one of them said.  So, as a result, Nell has this lovely old victorian styled house, that is too big for her and has too many memories. Mama is having trouble seeing these days, so she’s moved her into a bedroom, but that does mean that Nell can’t bring a lady friend home. Not easily.  Not that Nell’s wanted to for a while.

Circle: Nell still attends church although not as often as she used to. She got recognized on a buy-bust because one of the dudes involved also went to her church. Hey, it happens. She's got her cop friends and some of her people in the gay community. Her various aliases are cover for buy-busts and usually this mean going out to some club and dancing some.  It’s just putting the hook in the water. Any women working Vice are usually happy to act as a wing woman for her so they don’t have to put on the hooker boots and go trolling for johns.

Story Uses:

“You want to put that shit in your veins, that’s fine. You want to sell that shit to other people one block from a public school, I’m going to beat you into paste and THEN arrest your ass and throw you up under the jail.”

Nell, for all her worry, does make a difference in the drug business in the city. She’s not hooked on anything or jonesing for anything at all. She hasn’t been offered enough money to make her pause, and the brass get the idea that if they were to try to pull her off something, she won’t go quietly. Not by a long chalk.  If your PC is a user, That won’t bother her all that much, But if your PC is a dealer or distributor, well, you’ve just made a new “special friend”

“it would be a good idea to play this one close to the vest. Narcotics has never been all that good at keeping secrets.”

If your PC is working on THIS side of the law and order divide, odds are good that you know that Nell is one of the good ones. Where your PC falls on that whole Good Ones/Bad Ones scale, is up to you.

Connections:

*It's good thing Nell doesn't work Homicide because then she'd be in close proximity to Detectives Blanchard and Skiggs. Skiggs doesn't make a ping on her radar, but she and Blanchard don't get along. It would like come to blow and the betting would be fast and furious because they'd be a pretty even match.

*While Detective Dana Crowley never worked Narcotics, They know one another and kept bumping into one another socially. Dana likes Nell, and moreover, considers her one of the few cops she'd probably never have to worry about. Nell, for her part, is a bit attracted to Dana, but truthfully loves her as a friend, and admires her detective skills. When Nell feels really stuck, she buys Dana lunch and they hash it out.

* Reverend Dr. Miranda Goines is one of Nell's cousins. On some issues, Nell is a bit more conservative than Randa. Working in a field where you get to see people at their worst, and you also get to see the needle and the damage done will do that for you. So at family gatherings, they argue.

While Nell isn't as crazy smart as her cousin, she's got way more experience and after these arguments, she'll go off and look things up and formulate a response. Don't misunderstand. They both enjoy these little talks. Everybody else in the family is terrified of getting involved in any of that. Weirdly, the two women have a kindred spirit.

* All of the Gangbanger sets in the city have their mitts into drugs on some level so she's not exactly a fan of any of them. But she and Jamal Cooper are going to run headlong into one another someday. It's not going to be pretty.

* Darla Grumman "Come a little closer white girl. I don't bite. unless you like that sort of thing."

* Rick Deluca "Yeah. I heard of the "Eskimo".  I hope he fucks up some day, and I can be there to see it.

* Sits one desk away from Detective Bela Janofski in the bullpen. "Bela's good people and damn, if only he'd come back to Narcotics. We could use him."