CHIMERAS (Track Presius) Read Free Page B

He tipped his head backwards. “In fact, I’m the one who ran the lady on your desk.”
    I blinked. Only my usual chaos reigned on my desk. “What lady?”
     
    *  *  *
     
    I rapped the glass pane of the lieutenant’s office, opened the door, and poked my head in. “I’m back,” I said.
    Lieutenant Al Gomez was on the phone. Late fifties, bald forehead, protruding eyes, and bulging upper lip, the Lieu had the dazed look of a toad. Unfortunately, no princess had ever kissed him, only an ex-wife of whom he talked very little and never in a pleasant way. As soon as he saw my face poking through the door, he wrapped a webbed hand on the phone. “Huxley file, on your desk. Give it a couple of days. If nothing happens, file a cold case. Yeah, I’m here,” he barked into the mouthpiece.
    A couple of days . A missing persons. What the hell?
    I didn’t leave. Gomez ignored me, his voice trailing off into a litany of complaints over lack of funds, unacceptable working conditions and understaffing, until his glare fell back on me. “I’ll call you back,” he mumbled and hung up. He rubbed the archipelago of pink moles on his wide forehead. “Look. Captain Hu called. They’re slammed at the DSV division and could use some help.”
    He stared, I stared back.
    He rolled his eyes and sighed. “It’s not a setback, Track.”
    “A missing persons?” I said.
    A fuse at the back of my head buzzed. Getting into RHD, the LAPD Robbery and Homicide Division, had been the dream of my life. We handle high-profile crimes, like the Brown-Goldman double murder, or the Grim Sleeper serial killings. We’re the cream of the crop. The competition to get in is fierce and for a guy like me with zero connections and a controversial acquittal at age seventeen the chances were close to zero. I made detective four years after entering the LAPD academy and was promoted into Narcotics three years later. For four years, I cleared all cases I was assigned and made it to RHD in 2003. At the time, I was the youngest detective on the team. And now the lieutenant tells me a missing persons is not a setback?
    Gomez exhaled a ruthless whiff of halitosis. It made the fuse at the back of my head buzz louder. “Do you know how many rounds we tallied on Carmelo’s body?”
    The fuse blew. “The son of a bitch opened fire on my partner. My only fault is that I let it happen. I should’ve protected my partner.”
    I looked over my shoulder. Half of the homicide table stared back at me. I stepped inside Gomez’s small office and slammed the door behind me. The blinds—a whimsical illusion of privacy granted only to the higher ranks—rattled against the doorframe. “BSS cleared me,” I snarled. “It was a clean shooting.”
    “In his report Washburn strongly recommends a second session. And with your package—”
    “I’ve been cleared for every fucking OIS on my package.” I was fuming. Each time I squeezed the trigger, the Behavioral Science people went through my file—or package, as us coppers call it—with a fine tooth comb and sent me to spend quality time with their shrink, Dr. Adam Washburn. I hated the man. He had the sadistic habit of fixing me through long stretches of silence while pinching the skin below his lower lip, probing for more: a tiny detail, or maybe a little vice of mine I thought I’d be excused from mentioning.
    I’m not stupid, Doc. I know what to hide from you .
    Gomez looked like one of those stress-relief gadgets whose eyes bulge out when squeezed. “The Danny Mendoza case,” he said, very carefully.
    I squashed my voice down to a hiss. “That was a long time ago.”
    His features curled into a grimace. “We all make mistakes, Track. We bury them—some of us quite literally—and then move on. Somehow, your package seems unable to do that. It keeps popping up, and I’m getting quite sick of it. Huxley’s missing persons report is on your desk. Clear it, and then we can talk again.” He swiveled back to