Hélène Mank

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Hélène ({{#invoke:IPAc-en|main}}; French: [e.lɛn];) Simone Mank (born May 22, 1988) is a patrol deputy with the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office, who first meets Cash Aldrick while responding to his report of aggravated assault. She has spent her entire life in the parish, and has been a police officer for over eight years. As one of the few women and one of the few African Americans on the police force in St. Charles, she is constantly forced to achieve perfection in order to avoid being criticized.

• Hélène is motivated by her curiosity, a desire to be a part of things.
• Hélène wants to help Cash avoid becoming lost in the mysteries he is trying to solve.
• Hélène is challenged by people who expect quick and easy answers and who, in the process, doubt her abilities.
• Hélène will discover a certain pleasure in disconnecting from everything, much as Cash has.

Hélène meets Cash during a routine police call. Her interest stems from the discongruity of his character, that he does not fit any mold, that he defies any attempt to classify him. When he is accused of Joey's murder, she feels compelled to help him, knowing that the other officers will seek the easy conclusion of that Cash. Hélène works in the background to keep Cash from being hampered in his own investigations. Called by Sandy to help Cash escape capture by Verge, Hélène becomes more deeply involved with the case and with Cash. ???

Biography

Early life

Hélène was born in Boutte, Louisiana, to Beulah (nee Hardy) and Antoine Mank. Her was a teacher in New Orleans, while her father owned a lawn and landscaping business. When Hélène was two, her mother helped lead a three-week teacher's strike against the New Orleans Public School system. Hélène spent much of those three weeks on the picket line with her mother.

They led a relatively simple life until Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. In the aftermath of the storm and the flooding in New Orleans, Beulah lost her teaching job. Antoine's business, however, picked up substantially as people sought to both clean their properties and make them more resilient to storms and flooding. Despite working long hours to help her father keep up with all the jobs that spring, Hélène graduated cum laude in May 2006.

Intending to take over her father's business, Hélène continued working full-time with him while enrolling at Southeastern Louisiana University to study Business Administration. She graduated in 2010, this time Magna Cum Laude.

Professional life

Hélène spent the next two years working with her father with the dream of expanding his business by adding a nursery and garden store. To gain experience running a store, Hélène begin working at JR Feed & Seed in Dutchtown. One weekend, as she was closing up the shop, two men forced their way in and demanded the money from the registers. Although Hélène kept her cool, her co-worker, a high school senior, panicked and screamed. One of the men shot the girl point-blank in the chest; the other, startled, fired his gun too, hitting Hélène in the lower torso. The bullet grazed her liver. During her recovery, Hélène decided to become a police officer.

Hélène took a job as a corrections deputy to gain experience and soon enrolled in the POST certification program. After the year-long program, she spent two more years in the correctional system before getting a job as a patrol deputy. When hired, she was not the only African American on the force, nor was she the only woman on the force. She was, however, the only African American woman on the force. As had been true throughout her life, and just as her father had told her, she needed to constantly achieve perfection simply to be seen as not incompetent. She spent most of her free time during her first year on patrol reading ever legal statute in St. Charles Parish and in the state of Louisiana. In her three years on patrol, she has received neither remprimand nor commendation.

The house in Boutte where Hélène still lives with her parents

She still lives in the house she grew up in with her parents who continue to run Antoine's Landscaping. When not at work, she spends much of her time reading, gardening, and kayaking on the bayou.

Relationships

Hélène dated little in high school, focusing on her studies and eventually her work with her father. In college, she continued to focus her energies on school and work, but she did date another Business major, Joe Nathan Malone, during her sophomore year, and an Art major, Randy Jenkins, during junior and senior year. She has avoided relationships since becoming a deputy, uncomfortable with the idea of dating someone she might have to arrest. Before the pandemic, she would venture out to New Orleans with friends for the occasional fling.

Cash Garland

Cash's status as an outsider appeals to Hélène's discomfort with dating within the parish. His seeming ability to not care what other people think is also appealing to her.

Characteristics

Physical Appearance

Hélène Mank

Small but in very good shape, Hélène's physical presence is easy to dismiss at first. She is stronger than she appears and more attentive than she seems. Her sleepy eyes make some people believe she is not paying attention when she is, in fact, hyperattentive. Her facial expressions, general very minute and easy to miss, hide someone who is highly attuned to her own emotions and the emotions of others. Likewise, her physical movements are very controlled, rarely making any movement that isn't absolutely necessary.

For work, she keeps her hair in a large bun in the back. When off duty, she is changes the style often, sometimes wearing it up, sometimes letting it hang loose, sometimes wearing it in galaxy buns.

When off-duty, she likes to wear loose fitting capri pants and tanktops. She owns eight pairs of Chuck Taylors.

Personality

Although she is no introvert, Hélène may often seem so given the restraint she always shows. She is in fact in constant search of human engagement. Her ties to her family go far beyond her closeness to her parents. Prior to the COVID pandemic, their extended family had numerous gatherings that Hélène has always adored, being surrounded by so many people. She has always had few friends outside of her family. Her best friends are her cousins Lorraine and Bessy -- all three were born the same year and have been close ever since. However, the person who she is closest to and who knows her best is her father, Antoine.

She keeps all responses, whether physical or emotional, in check, never allowing herself to lose control. While highly energetic, she rarely expends all the energy she has.

Hélène is very intelligent, but has never been very challenged, except by her parents. She sailed through the parish school system with little effort. She is very pragmatic, excepting things as they come, never allowing herself to be swayed by emotion or crisis.

Health

Sunrise on Bayou Gauche were Hélène often kayaks

Hélène is in extremely good shape, much more so than she is required to be as a sheriff's deputy. Although she can get by with only a few hours of sleep, she tries to get as much as she can, especially given her constantly shifting work schedule as a cop. She prefers to exercise outdoors -- running and kayaking, mostly. She is possibly the only person to ever put a kayak in the Bayou Gauche and has often, without knowing it, kayaked passed Cash's house in the early morning hours.

Plot Synopsis

Get It All Back

Hélène, like most of the cops in the area, knows about Cash but has never met him until she and another deputy respond to the call about the fight between Cash and Joey. Hélène is intrigued by someone as incongruous as Cash, given that she has spent her entire life in St. Charles Parish. She borrows a copy of his dissertation both out of interest in the topic and out of a desire to have a reason to speak with him again. When she visits him again to return the dissertation, she asks Cash what he is doing, assuming he has some grand plan for life.

After Joey is found dead and Cash brought in for questioning, Hélène drives him home. At the house, they find Rae who initially blames Cash for Joey's death. Hélène prevents a physical altercation and then stands by as Cash and Rae discuss Joey. During the conversation, Rae reveals information about Joey's SCD, which is more meaningful to Hélène than to Cash, since Cash is an outsider who doesn't "get it".

Hélène returns to Cash's place that night after discovering that one of her colleagues plans on planting evidence to make it easier to wrap up the Cash against Cash and after realizing that someone is spying on him via Twitter. She stays after learning about the story he is developing as he investigates the mystery, as well as his past with Greer and with Rose. [Is their affair ultimately the relationship between the author and the reader?]

The next day, while Cash is making progress in Sadie, he gets a call from Rae that Sandy is missing. Knowing it will be over an hour before he can get home, he texts Hélène, who gladly helps and quickly finds Sandy hiding out in Cash's house. While Cash is driving back, she and Sandy sit on his porch. Sandy shares her frustrations with her mother and being stuck in Dutchtown; Hélène shares her story of being shot during a burglary at JR Feed and Seed. Hélène sees Cash's willingness to ask her for help as a big step in their relationship.

The next day, when Hélène gets a panicked call from Sandy, she rushes to Sadie. After finding Sandy with her fireworks, Hélène busts into the shack and overpowers Hal. Cash is barely conscious after the beating. In the bedroom with Verge, she finds him also barely conscious from fever, as well as his laptop. When they drop Verge off at the hospital, she is told that Verge likely has COVID and that they all need to quarantine for two weeks. Hélène drives Cash's truck back across the Causeway with Cash and Sandy in the back.

Given Cash's condition, Hélène decides to stay with him during their quarantine. Their isolation mimics a honeymoon, and their relationship progresses quickly, but Hélène is frustrated at how little about himself he reveals to her and how obsessed he is with the mysteries that keep unfolding. She wants him to wrap up the job with Greer quickly and neatly, while he insists on following every new pathway, risking getting lost and never completing any of the "stories". As Cash remains inside with his work against Hal, Hélène works on unwinding the social network that she believes will reveal the spy and therefore the person who saw Joey break into Cash's house. Near the end of their quarantine, during a "yard visit" by Randy and Jules, Hélène is ultimately able to figure out that Randy had been hired by Greer to keep an eye on Cash [BUT WHY?] and that he was watching Cash's house when Joey broke in. Randy scared Joey off, but didn't follow him.