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Name/Nickname: Chad Jenner
Gender: Male
Birthdate/"Permanent" Story Age/Astrological Sign: NA; thirties/forties; NA
Birthplace/Current Location: Minot, North Dakota; Bismarck, North Dakota (North Dakota State Penitentiary)
Height: 6'0"
Weight/Body Type: Lean/fit
Eyes: Hazel
Hair: Medium brown; short
Race/Ethnic Background: Caucasian; European-American
Relationship Status: Divorced
Orientation: Aromantic asexual
Siblings: Unknown
Profession: Former police officer, Minot (ND) Police Department/former cult enforcer/hitman; currently an incarcerated felon
Distinguishing Characteristics: High-functioning sociopath--superficially charming and friendly, easily wins people over, good at feigning normal emotions, but certain people, including his ex-wife, report feeling uneasy or unnerved by him; psychologically manipulative, though usually in a subtle, nonthreatening way--convinces others to willingly give him what he wants; easily bored and quickly loses interest in mundane experiences; likes to bargain with others for some sort of mental stimulation; although almost certainly a murderer, isn't particularly prone to violence or emotional outbursts, instead displaying annoyance when frustrated; disgusted by sex crimes, but only because he considers them "beneath him"; doesn't bear grudges, and considers his crimes to have been "nothing personal"; skilled at reading others and picking up subtle cues (prison warden claims he's "like a sponge"), so is very difficult to deceive
General Appearance: Well groomed, takes care of himself; generally well behaved and obedient to authority, at least on the surface; friendly and approachable; appears harmless and trustworthy, "like a Boy Scout," except to a handful of people who sense this is just a mask over his true manipulativeness (as Keith Jeffries, the prison guard tasked with keeping an eye on him, put it, "It's like watching a snake be a snake; you can't blame him for just being what he is, but at the same time you don't dare go near him, because you might get bit"); seems eager to be helpful, though there's always a price involved, and he knows which information to slowly dole out and which to keep to himself out of self-preservation (in fact, has explained that this is the main reason he's so well behaved in prison, to protect himself, although so far everyone else has been too afraid to try anything with him)
First Appeared In: Minot
Character Summary: Not much is known about Chad Jenner's early life; it's assumed it was generally uneventful, with no known criminal activity and, by Jenner's own admission, no abuse or trauma, though he likely gave off certain signs of budding sociopathy early on, just not enough to get him into serious trouble. He never particularly stood out in school or displayed much ambition, though he did manage to graduate from the police academy and joined the Minot Police Department, primarily serving as a patrol officer. Jenner later explained that he went into this line of work not out of any desire to help others, but for the sense of excitement he hoped it would provide. When the majority of police work proved to be anything but exciting, however, he found himself growing bored and resentful, and would take on any unusual or potentially dangerous cases he could, though these were relatively few, and he often had to suppress his annoyance at having to deal with trivial crimes.
Jenner married Minot resident Sonja Galvin after a brief relationship, both to help maintain an appearance of normalcy, and again out of a dim hope that married life would provide a distraction from daily tedium. It helped with the former, but not with the latter, as he found love and even sex (which Sonja always had to initiate) to be bothersome and repulsive things; the two remained together long enough to have a daughter, Chelsea, before divorcing when Chelsea was still very young. Both he and Sonja described the marriage and divorce as uneventful, with no abuse or violence of any kind from either party, just indifference on Jenner's part, which led to occasional arguments over their general lack of compatibility. He didn't contest the divorce and asked for nothing, not even shared custody of Chelsea, though he was granted visitation rights and agreed to pay child support. Sonja stated that he was always kind to Chelsea on visits, playing with her and giving her gifts, though it always rang hollow and he showed little interest in maintaining a fatherly role beyond their visits. She admitted that she was relieved about this, as, despite him never being abusive or threatening, he'd long given her an uneasy feeling, like his attitude of vague benevolence was just an act to cover up something sinister: "Whenever I looked in his eyes I'd just see nothing. Like, dead. You ever see a snake's eyes or a shark's? Like that. Like there was nothing inside. Creeped me the hell out. I never wanted to find out what might really be in there."
Despite their agreement, after some time Jenner occasionally found it difficult to keep up with his child support payments, which, along with the tedium of his job, just annoyed him even more. One night he pulled over a speeding car, fully ready to issue tickets for this and expired license plate tags, when first the driver--a rather sophisticated older man in a suit--and then the passenger--an attractive young woman--asked if there were anything they could offer him to get out of the ticket. Jenner rebuffed their attempts at bribery ("You're not very good at this"), pointing out that he'd also spotted a gun in the glove compartment while the driver was retrieving his registration, and he hoped he was licensed to carry it. At this point, the driver asked him to check out his driver's license again, and maybe look behind it as well. When Jenner did so and located roughly $1500, the driver suggested he could "confiscate" what he'd found, in exchange for letting them go on their way. After some hesitation, Jenner did so, telling the man to get new tabs before heading back to his vehicle. Once off duty, he found himself wondering if he'd accepted the bribe more because he could use it to catch up on his child support payments, or because the incident had been the most interesting and risky thing he'd done in ages.
Some time later, the female passenger of the vehicle approached him again with an offer of yet more money, should he choose to do her employers a simple favor. Skeptical, Jenner nonetheless agreed to make a copy of two old police reports, the "Wesley Singer" case and the "Mark Kincaid" case. As he copied the files in the nearly empty station, he browsed them and learned that the first concerned an undercover criminal investigation centered on the vast property of a Minot doctor, while the other was about a raid conducted on a suspected drug house, where an injured and amnesic teenager--Alan Doe, later Kincaid--who was now on the Minot police force himself--had been recovered. Largely uninterested in the details, he took the copies to the designated meeting place, and upon handing them over, was given the money as promised. By the second time he was approached for help--this time, in obtaining a copy of Sgt. Mark Kincaid's autopsy report--he was definitely more interested in the motivation behind these strange requests, than in any financial gain he might make. An attempt at outright asking resulted in a polite explanation that one of the reasons her employers liked him was because he didn't ask questions. Annoyed but intrigued, Jenner called in a favor of his own, convincing a morgue assistant whom he'd caught in possession of drugs to copy the medical examiner's report on Sgt. Kincaid's autopsy, in exchange for him not reporting the crime. The woman seemed surprised when he brought the file to her, as if she'd expected his effort to fail, but paid him a third time. Jenner again asked what they were up to; this time when she suggested he not ask questions, he countered that he should at least know what he was getting himself into. The suggestion that he was interested in more than a temporary job with her employers didn't go over her head, and she said she'd get back to him.
Several days later, Jenner was contacted and asked to meet with the woman at a secluded location; he hesitated only briefly (remembering the fate Det. Singer had met in his investigation, disappearing and presumed dead) before going. Once there he was asked to leave his car and accompany her and her driver to an undisclosed location. Jenner at first refused to wear the blindfold she requested, but relented once he realized they wouldn't take him to their destination, otherwise; though they themselves agreed to let him keep his gun after initially asking him to hand it over. After a long and meandering drive (Jenner was certain they took a circuitous route on purpose), they arrived at an apparently empty warehouse; Jenner's irritation at possibly being pranked grew the longer they walked through it, until they met with a few other men in suits, one of them the elderly driver of the vehicle Jenner had pulled over previously. He explained that Jenner's willingness to take a bribe and overlook a relatively minor crime had marked him as a possible resource for future use by their group. Jenner found the idea of being considered a "resource" to be used as insulting, but listened as the man explained that it was still too early in their potential partnership for him to reveal too much about his "group's" motives, but Jenner could learn more if he proved to be trustworthy and useful. If he could continue to perform relatively minor services that were difficult for them to achieve without police assistance, he might be given more information in the future. Jenner neither agreed nor refused, instead saying he'd like to return to his car. Once they'd returned and the woman tried to convince him they'd been looking for someone like him for quite a while, Jenner replied that he'd hoped to do more than "play fetch." The woman said that this could be possible in the future, but they couldn't trust him so quickly; she referenced the Singer case as proof, and told Jenner to do some more reading before departing.
Officer Jenner again looked up the Singer and Kincaid cases in private and read them more thoroughly. He realized the Kincaid case was merely a continuation of the earlier Singer case, and the criminal group being investigated in both was presumably the same. Comparing the two official reports (which he knew must be redacted, since certain details were quite vague, and there were a few references to information which wasn't present) to news articles archived at the library indicated that the investigation had been related to a cult rumored to be active in the Minot area, and responsible for numerous animal killings/mutilations, Satanic-themed graffiti, and other petty crimes; the Singer/Kincaid case, however, hinted that they could be responsible for much more serious crimes, including the past kidnapping and trafficking/abuse of Alan Kincaid. He also figured out what his contact's comment about trusting him too quickly had meant--apparently Det. Singer had attempted infiltrating the cult by pretending to be a crooked cop. This information intrigued Jenner rather than deterred him; he contacted the woman (who had given him a card with her number) and told her he was interested.
For a while, he had to bite down his irritation with copying reports and coercing information out of petty criminals and informants; when he followed through on a request to intimidate--and then pistol-whip--another affiliate of the cult who hadn't completed his own designated task, the woman arrived and, as the injured man was led away, pressed her fingers to Jenner's neck and said, "Your pulse is going a mile a minute...you enjoyed that, didn't you? Probably the most alive you've felt in ages, isn't it?" Jenner was offered the option to take a step up in the group, if he agreed to submit to special psychological testing, and to carry out the other man's task if his profile proved compatible. Jenner was mystified by all this but consented. He found the psychological test tedious and senseless, and the followup polygraph test--where he was instructed to answer the first question honestly, and then lie on all the other questions, such as "Do you currently work for the police department?" and "Have you ever murdered anyone?" as convincingly as he could--to be bizarre. Waiting for the tests to be scored was most mind numbing of all; yet when the woman returned and let him know he was exactly the sort of person they were looking for, he was cleared to take on the other man's unfinished task as his "introduction" to the group. It was revealed that the task in question was a hit on an ex-cult member. Jenner's immediate reaction was to bow out, as he hadn't considered murder to be part of the deal, but a few moments' discussion with the woman convinced him to finish the job first, and then see if he were still interested in taking a more active role in the group. He visited the man in question and shot him with a gun provided by the group; the woman arrived shortly after and called for a "cleanup crew" to handle the scene before escorting him away. Jenner had rather mixed feelings about killing a total stranger, but just as she'd told him, he felt more alive than he had in a long time, and didn't balk at the thought of having to do it again.
Jenner was then taken to a large, high-end apartment building where he met with the same men as before, who explained that they were a more "elite" branch of the cult known as the Four P Movement, and informally referred to themselves as The Company. It was their job to oversee the more complicated affairs of the cult, such as recruitment, training, enforcement, and raising funds, which they did behind the scenes while "regular" members of the cult handled more day-to-day tasks such as those which occasionally made it into the news. Four P passed itself off as a "Satanic" cult when in reality, this was primarily a guise to attract regular members, frighten off superstitious people, and provide a smokescreen for their more unsavory activities. While many regular members believed in the religious/spiritual aspects of the cult, those directly affiliated with The Company were mainly atheist and used Satanic rituals mostly as a cover or intimidation tactic. Jenner's morals, abilities, connections, personality traits, and basic world view made him an ideal candidate for a Company enforcer, whose primary job would be to keep other members in check, sometimes by means of force, while using his police position to continue gathering information; in particular, The Company wanted him to spy on Alan Kincaid, who had been trafficked by the cult in his childhood/teen years, and who had shown interest in keeping his deceased foster father's, Sgt. Kincaid's, cult investigation going. Jenner was also informed that Four P already had a member on the Minot police force, though that person's job was merely to observe, as they'd lacked the other skills Jenner possessed; Jenner wasn't given their identity. In return for working for The Company, however, he was told he would continue to be financially compensated, had his own suite in the building if he wished to stay there (he didn't), and would be protected by other members should the need arise. All of this mattered little to him, however, since it was the excitement of the new job that attracted him the most.
The decision was made that the woman, whose name he finally learned was Angela Gunnarsson, would be Jenner's "handler" and he would be her "charge" (Company terms for a mentor/mentee partnership); as it was explained, this was very unusual, as women normally weren't given positions of any great power or command, especially as handlers. Angela herself seemed reluctant to take on the job at first but was convinced to do so by her own handler, Archie Lennox (the elderly driver Jenner had pulled over), who pointed out that the two of them already shared as much of a rapport as a "normal" person and a sociopath could share--since that was exactly the result of Jenner's tests, and the reason The Company had employed him.
This "diagnosis" mildly perplexed Jenner (it had apparently gone undetected on his police psychological exam), though Angela helped explain it to him as she introduced him to his new Company duties and checked in on his tasks. It was the reason he'd gone through life feeling apathetic, disconnected, and easily annoyed, why he'd taken two risky jobs and why his interpersonal relations, including with his own family, were so stunted. Fortunately, she added, Jenner was high functioning and not as reckless or impulsive as many sociopaths were, so he could pass as normal and hold down a job, so far. Despite knowing this, and additionally being warned by Archie, Angela admitted to Jenner that she was developing feelings for him, which he of course couldn't reciprocate; once when she gave him a long kiss and then asked, "Anything?" he had to reply, "No."
Officer Jenner's two jobs crossed paths when he became acquainted with Mandie Armstead, a known hanger-on of several people affiliated with Four P ("But not even skilled enough to be bait," Angela said), and Mitchell Barnes, a minor troublemaker and self-described Satanist with aspirations of joining The Company as an enforcer, himself. Jenner was informed that Mitch often overstated his own importance to the cult--technically, he'd never even been formally recruited, though Four P tolerated his presence so far, since he proved useful at impressing/intimidating other young people in the area, and his rather trivial "cult"-related offenses helped fuel the local urban legends that both boosted the cult's spooky reputation, and obscured its more down-to-earth crimes. In short, he was a decent and willing patsy. Both Mandie and Mitch were made aware of Jenner's position in Four P and he often found himself fending off Mandie's advances, and alternating between giving Mitch orders to commit petty crimes, and mock-threatening him to stay out of trouble. (These threats were occasionally more real than fake, as he sometimes had to intimidate Mitch into not overstepping his bounds by committing bigger offenses.) Mitch, for his part, was both inspired by Jenner and terrified of him, so he didn't have to act cowed very much when they interacted, since the emotion was genuine.
A few years into Jenner's new job, Archie and another Company member became involved in a dispute; Jenner and Angela were unexpectedly caught in the middle one day when the other cultist's charge and enforcer shot and killed Angela. Instantly infuriated and without thinking, Jenner shot him twice in the back as he turned to walk away. After pressing his fingers to her neck, he transported Angela back to the Company headquarters, briefly explaining things; Archie wept over Angela's body while another Company member hastily ordered a cleanup crew to take care of Jenner's victim. He escaped punishment from The Company for the act of killing another enforcer, as Jenner and Angela combined were considered a greater resource; The Company also decided against assigning him another handler, since he was older and more experienced than most charges and was performing well on his own. Archie spoke with him privately, however, requesting that he terminate the other Company member with whom he was in conflict, and avenge Angela's death; not only that, but he should make it slow and painful. Jenner didn't much care for the concept of revenge, and hesitated to engage in any sort of torture, since he preferred clean kills and looked down on killing incapacitated people; but the loss of a skilled handler did pique him, and he followed through on Archie's request, making sure the other cultist knew why it was he was being killed before it happened. The hit was disguised to look like a robbery gone wrong, and was even investigated by the Minot police; despite suspicions on the part of both Lt. Alan Kincaid and Company higher-ups, no other concrete motive could be determined, and Jenner's involvement went unproven. Archie thanked him, and assured him that if the true story was ever discovered, he would fully cover for him. Jenner couldn't really understand the grief Archie displayed, but refrained from asking more.
Cult activities on the part of lesser Four P members began to proliferate, with vandalism and animal mutilations appearing in various areas; Mitch exacerbated the issue by placing a dead goat with a warning aimed at the police behind the Falcon's Nest, a diner popular with the Minot PD and Ward County Sheriff's Department and a prior repeat target of such activities. The MPD responded by calling in outside parties and actively investigating, with Lt. Kincaid in charge. Officer Jenner was instructed to keep a low profile, observe the investigation, and try to keep Mitch and Mandie from complicating the situation; however, everything began to go sideways when both Kincaid and the outside investigators, including an avowed psychic and "empath," were tipped off to his involvement by July Lockett, an ex-cult member who had managed to fly below the radar so far. Mitch followed through on Jenner's order to kill her off, but Jenner was thwarted in his effort to kill the psychic (who had picked up on something being "wrong" with him when her attempt to read him empathically had resulted in nothing but a blank) when Lt. Kincaid--who had also long suspected him of Four P involvement--arrived to confront him. Jenner ended up shooting Kincaid instead (non-fatally), but surrendered without protest when the rest of the MPD arrived, and was taken into custody.
In the ride to the police station, Jenner happened to glance up at the rearview mirror in time to make eye contact with the police officer who sat in the passenger seat. He realized this was the other member The Company had in the MPD, whose cover was still intact. Jenner broke eye contact and said nothing of this.
His feelings toward Mitch's bungling of things, however, weren't so civil, and he and Mandie--who was merely a witness to events, though Mitch had also vandalized her apartment in an attempt to throw off the investigation--agreed to help the MPD build a case against him. Jenner's motivation was anything but altruistic; essentially, he sacrificed his own jobs, both with the MPD and with The Company, to make Mitch take the ultimate fall, as well as to eliminate him from being a thorn in Four P's side, as his recklessness had worn out his usefulness and letting him go free was too much of a risk. Despite refusing to give up any of Four P's secrets, Jenner freely admitted his role in things; and, ironically, along with a recuperating Lt. Kincaid, ended up being the prosecution's star witnesses in the case against July Lockett's murderer. Jenner himself pled guilty to avoid a trial, getting a life sentence for both his involvement in July's death, and his attempted murder of Lt. Kincaid. Mitch was found guilty and sentenced to life himself, while Mandie went into hiding, and Sonja took back her maiden name and moved out of the city with Chelsea. Although Jenner and Mitch ended up in the same prison, they were housed in separate areas and never interacted.
Being formerly involved in law enforcement, Jenner was supposed to go into solitary confinement for his own safety, but there was no room available; instead, the warden assigned a guard to keep an eye on him 24/7, and he was assigned no cellmate. To the warden's surprise, two unexpected things happened. First was that nobody picked a fight or started any trouble with the former police officer, and his stay at the prison began unusually smoothly, with no attempts or threats on his life--for the most part, the other prisoners simply avoided him. Second was that the guards assigned to Jenner kept striking up informal friendships with him, getting quite chatty, sociable, and trusting. The warden began changing the guards out on a rotating basis to try to prevent this from happening until he came across one, Keith Jeffries, who seemed unaffected by Jenner's charm and always kept a suitable distance; when asked why this was, Jeffries offered an explanation similar to that given by Jenner's ex-wife, comparing Jenner to a "snake" whose inborn nature was to bite people; he added that, while Jenner never caused trouble or even seemed to be actively attempting to manipulate the guards, he could never be trusted due to this nature. The warden decided to make Jeffries Jenner's permanent guard since he was apparently immune to the former police officer's influence, and aside from when Jeffries was on vacation or off duty and other guards needed to take over the role, the arrangement worked pretty well, despite Jenner's complaint about how dull his prison stay now was.
Another surprise came--for Jenner, this time--when Lt. Kincaid visited him in prison, seeking information on Four P. Although he couldn't reveal everything he knew and refused to divulge any information on specific cult members or activities in order to maintain his safety, Jenner agreed to tell Kincaid what he knew about how the cult functioned and what it believed. In exchange, he just asked for Kincaid to share information in return, such as his own experiences with the cult. Although the Minot police chief, Don Bowen, frowned on it (Jenner was dead to him), and the warden expressed concern that Jenner could try to manipulate Kincaid, the two visited repeatedly over a long period of time, and Jenner later expressed wistful disappointment when their meetings ended; he'd considered the rather socially eccentric Kincaid to be a kindred spirit, in a way, and admired him for coming to talk to him even after his shooting, which Jenner insisted was "nothing personal."
Others from the Minot Police Department, Det. Max Kristeva and Det. Chance Devetko, would later visit Jenner in prison, seeking more information on the still-unresolved Singer/Kincaid case. Jenner's personal information on the case was somewhat weak--when shown the case files, he realized there was a large section of the report that he'd never had access to or seen when he'd copied the rest for The Company--but he did hint to the detectives just how deep Four P's involvement in everything might be. His daughter Chelsea--now grown--visited him as well and attempted to catch up with him by showing him the old letters he'd sent her, something which didn't interest him until he realized she'd subtly altered them to conceal a code--it turned out she'd taken more after him than after her mother, and she hoped to find a way to carry on his work. And when an unknown party began picking off other members of the cult, suddenly the safety of everyone involved--including Kincaid, Mitch, and Jenner--would become a pressing concern.
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