MOSAICS: A Thriller Read online

  MOSAICS

  A Track Presius Mystery

  E.E. Giorgi

  Cover art and design: © E.E. Giorgi, all rights reserved.

  Stock image © zdenek kintr.

  MOSAICS

  Copyright © 2014 by E.E. Giorgi

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording, or otherwise – without prior permission in writing from the author.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN:978-0-9960451-1-7

  Kindle Edition

  Also from E.E. Giorgi

  CHIMERAS

  GENE CARDS

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  PRAISE FOR CHIMERAS

  A Readers’ Favorite Book Award Winner (Silver)

  "A riveting and entertaining read. The prose is so much fun to read, such surprising descriptions and enjoyable dialogue. I do hope there are more adventures lined up for him, as he is a genuinely interesting and original kind of protagonist."

  Dr. Rob Brooks

  author of Sex, Genes, and Rock 'n Roll.

  "A great debut novel and has a satisfying ending. The descriptions are vivid and a great sense of time and place are created."

  the Kindle Book Review

  “E. E. Giorgi has created a fine ensemble of professionals pursuing what might happen if biotechnology and the desire to overrule nature clash.”

  Dr. Ricki Lewis,

  author of The Forever Fix

  “A scientist herself, Ms. Giorgi uses science--genetics, specifically--to create a compelling story that has you not only asking "who did it" but pondering the ethics of genetic manipulation and just what it means to be human.”

  Laura Mullane,

  author of God Sleeps in Rwanda

  For my mentor Bette

  MOSAICS

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or they have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  ____________

  The eyes.

  The first to burn are the eyes. They crackle and hiss inside their sockets until there’s nothing left but two gaping holes. The nose dissolves next, skin receding over cartilage flaps.

  Then the lips.

  Flesh liquefies.

  It bubbles and oozes and evaporates, leaving behind clean, white bones.

  He tilts his head and smiles.

  Such pretty cheekbones.

  For you, Laura, he thinks, gripping the scalpel. The next toast will be for you.

  ONE

  ____________

  Sunday, June 20, 2009

  The air smelled sweet, the vaguely rotten reek of algae mixed with drenched wood, toyon, and yucca pollen. The fog had dissipated and the wind was starting to pick up now that the sun was out. My boat rocked, Will growled. The poor mutt had the stomach of a kitten when it came to water.

  I patted him on the head. “Almost there, buddy.”

  He wagged his tail, licked my hand, then resumed his post by the gunwale, his wet nose stuck up in the air, sniffing.

  Dawn had been perfect for angling. No other boats on the lake at five a.m.—just the distant lilt of crickets, a full moon, and bass feeding in deep waters. I’d driven the boat up to the dam and dropped a heavy sinker and frozen anchovies. The weight carried them into the cool waters. I caught three stripers within the hour.

  The hardest part was to keep Will from barking and scaring the fish away.

  Dogs were meant to hunt, not fish.

  The sun was high now, the cooler full with our limit of stripers plus two large catfish and a couple smallmouth bass. Despite the mucky smell of lake fish, the thought of grilled fillets for dinner made my mouth water.

  I drove to shore, the wind behind me, and docked. Will jumped on the pier and went running on the beach.

  In just a few hours the place had changed completely. Kids had gathered by the launch ramp to fish. The lull of the waves lapping against the docks was now covered by the roar of the jet skiers and the loud stereos of the sunbathers. The wind carried the familiar reek of humanity—beer, different brands of lotions, fried food, and gas exhaust from the motorboats.

  There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the temperature was already in the seventies. An F-150 started beeping loudly as it backed up into the launch ramp with its boat trailer, getting ready to launch.

  I tied the boat and lifted the cooler on the dock.

  A small kid came running to me as I climbed out of the boat. “Look what my big brother got.” He stretched out skinny arms that smelled of sunscreen and mosquito repellent and showed me the small perch in his bucket.

  “You’re missing some scales,” I said.

  The kid blinked. “What?”

  “You didn’t count the scales? If some are missing, you have to throw the fish back.”

  I winked. The kid stuck his tongue out at me and ran away.

  You’re an asshole, Ulysses.

  I stooped down to pick up the cooler. Something bit at my ribs—a small pain I’d never felt before. I inhaled, waited. It passed.

  Man, you’re getting old, Ulysses. Can’t sit in a boat for too long no more.

  The cooler felt heavy in my arms, yet I kept grinning at the kids watching from the ramp and pretended I was carrying a feather pillow. The mutt trotted behind me, wagging his tail.

  By the time I got to my pickup I was out of breath. I set the cooler on the ground by the boat trailer and dumped the bag of leftover anchovies for Will to finish up. As I stood up again, my head spun. Pain clutched at my chest, burning. I leaned against the truck and clenched my teeth.

  What the hell’s going on?

  My cell phone rang. I inhaled, the pain now seeping to my throat, not letting go. The cell phone kept ringing. Will licked up the last of the anchovies and came to snuggle against my legs.

  I reached for the phone in my pocket, the pain quietly ebbing off.

  Satish Cooper, I read on the display.

  I took a deep breath and the pain was gone, just a dull ache left in my ribs.

  “Yello,” I croaked.

  “May I ask you where the hell you are, Detective Ulysses Presius?”

  I took a minute, readying myself for the pain to come back.

  It didn’t.

  Satish’s words rang in my ears—it was nice to hear the old man’s voice.

  “Silverwood Lake,” I replied. “And you must be in a load of shit to be calling me by my full name.”

  Satish’s creamy voice melted into a chuckle. “How you doin’, Track?”

  Back when I was in Gang and Narcotics, I could smell a closed thermos full of sherms faster than the K9 units. Dipped in PCP, the brown cigarettes stink like hell in open air, but once sealed in a thermos, even the police dogs have a hard time finding them. The dicks in Gang started calling me Track, and the nickname stuck. These days, only the rookies called me Ulysses.

  “Not bad,” I replied. “Life’s a bit slow. Can’t complain, though.”

  Since I’d started freelancing six months earlier, ninety percent of the calls I got were for lost pets and cheating brides. The remaining ten percent paid too little for me to survive on.

  Satish clicked his tongue. “Your badge’s still sitting on your desk.”

  The pain was gone now. My muscles started to relax. I unlatched the tailgate and let Will jump up in the truck.

  “I cleaned u
p my desk last fall. I don’t miss my badge.”

  I heard a loud honk, then a jazz tune playing on a radio. He was in his car, driving.

  “How long we been partners, Track?”

  “Five years, give or take.”

  “Hmm. Five years, and you still can’t shoot a damn lie to my face—not even through the phone. You been away, what? Six months now? The guys over at the Force Investigation Division are bored. Their workload has been cut in half without you. Ours has doubled.”

  “Very funny, Sat. Undetermined leave means I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.”

  It was more complicated than that. And I was a bad liar. Hell, I missed my job. I put the phone on speaker, set it on the truck bed, and picked up the cooler. The pain bit me again, just a nibble, a subtle reminder it wasn’t done with me yet. I shrugged it off.

  Nothing a double espresso can’t heal.

  I hopped on the pickup bed and tied the cooler at the back. Will wagged his tail and yapped.

  Satish’s voice came amplified through the speaker. “I take it you haven’t been watching the news lately, Track. Somebody’s been on the prowl again.”

  I grabbed the phone. “Wait. Say that again?”

  “On the prowl, Track. Watch the news.”

  And with that, he hung up.

  Damn, the man knew how to get me.

  * * *

  The jacaranda trees were blooming, shedding slivers of purple on the hills. Blue skies loomed over the oaks and sycamores bordering Chevy Chase Drive in Glendale as it climbed up the San Gabriel Foothills. All around, houses perched on the slopes like seashells on rocks.

  I lived in one of those houses.

  It was noon when I backed the boat trailer into the open shed on my property. Will paid his respects to the neighbors’ dogs, yapping and howling to his heart’s content, then trotted inside the house and conquered my couch.

  “Thanks a lot for the help, buddy!”

  I hauled the cooler inside the garage and set it on the washboard at the back. I squeezed between my workbench and the 1980 Porsche 911SC I’d been fixing, and almost stepped on the heat gun I’d left on the floor next to the fuel tank.

  I should learn to clean up the garage before going fishing.

  I’d acquired the 911 from a mechanic friend last March. No other baby can tear up the track like a Porsche turbo engine, so when my friend told me he had a 1980 model in need of a little fixing, I jumped on it.

  A guy’s gotta have his toys.

  Over the past few weeks, I’d removed the gears, disassembled the crankshaft and cam, and gotten everything reground, rebuilt, and resurfaced.

  The engine now lay in pieces on the floor next to the body, waiting.

  I patted the hood. We’ll get you back in shape, babe.

  In the kitchen, my answering machine blinked with five new messages, which I had no intention of listening to. The King, my antisocial cat, came mewing and purring as soon as he smelled the fish on my hands and clothes. I normally would’ve played Pat Metheny on the stereo, but Satish’s words had teased some fuse at the back of my head. If I knew my partner well—and I did—the prowling he’d mentioned over the phone came with one or two complimentary stiffs. I brought the radio to the garage, tuned it to one of the local news stations, and let it blabber in the background while I set out to clean the fish.

  The King hopped up on the workbench, on standby for scraps, and watched me with his tail swaying.

  “Your Majesty’s on a diet,” I said, giving him a couple of spines and dumping the rest in a bucket.

  The headlines on the radio skimmed over a couple of shootings, a bank robbery, a high-speed chase, and then rambled about the economy and how the new president wasn’t going to bail us out of our misery. Stephanie Lazarus, the highly decorated LAPD detective arrested on June 5 for a twenty-three-year-old murder, dominated the rest of the news. Reporters were already speculating about cover-ups, insider jobs, and all the like.

  The LAPD cracks the case, and the LAPD gets egged in the face.

  I deboned and filleted the fish, set a couple aside for tonight’s grill, and stored the rest in freezer bags. Some of the innards I froze for The King, the rest I dumped in trash bags. By the time I was done, my hands and nails were dirty with blood, my armpits stunk, my back was damp with sweat, and I had dinner for two weeks. I was the happiest guy on earth. Let the rest of the world fill their kitchens with polyester, plastic bags, and chipboard boxes. I get my food at the source.

  I washed the knives and buckets, scrubbed the sink, hauled the trash bags out. When I returned, I turned off the radio and padded back to the living room to try the TV. Lieutenant Al Gomez stared at me through the screen, round eyes bulging out of his toad-like face. The camera zoomed out and panned over the media conference room in the new Metropolitan Communications Dispatch Center. It was still as new and shiny as the day they inaugurated it, in 2003.

  Detective Satish Cooper was sitting next to the lieutenant. The minute I laid eyes on him, the man smirked, as if satisfied I’d finally tuned in to watch him. I turned up the volume and dropped my ass on the couch.

  Gomez appeared to have already delivered his spiel, which, from the banner at the bottom of the screen, was about a Montecito Heights medical doctor found murdered in her home.

  A reporter from the very back of the room shot his hand up in the air. “When will the victim’s identity be released?”

  Gomez scratched his wide forehead and cleared his throat. “As soon as we’re done rounding up every possible witness.”

  “Can you tell us if you already have a suspect?”

  “We’re leaving no stone unturned.”

  Diplomatic non-answer.

  Another eager reporter raised her voice. “But why was the case transferred to the Robbery and Homicide Division? The division only handles famous crimes, like the Grim Sleeper or the Cosby case—”

  Magnificent question.

  “The RHD has assumed the primary investigative role on this case,” Gomez interjected. “We’ve put together a task force of detectives from both the RHD and the Hollenbeck station. Again, this is a collaborative effort between LAPD divisions.”

  On that note, the lieutenant invoked his right to remain silent, waved off all other questions, and marched out of the frame, followed by two officers as stiff as Swiss guards, and a still smirking Satish Cooper. The camera panned to the right and showed a view of the dispatcher floor fanning out below the media room. I turned the TV off, trudged to the bedroom, peeled off my camos and T-shirt, and started the shower.

  Fifteen minutes later, skin dripping and hair steaming, I came out of the bathroom, picked up my cell and dialed Satish’s number.

  * * *

  The face was gone. Holes gaped where the eyes and mouth had been. Shreds of charred skin clung to the white plate of a cheekbone, the flesh eroded all the way down to the ear. Naked teeth were locked in an eerie grin. Black hair framed a surviving strip of forehead and fanned over the red and gray pattern of a rug.

  A tag at the bottom of the photo read, “Amy Liu, age 34, Case ID AZ3964.”

  The next page offered more photos of the victim sprawled on her back in a red tube dress. No gunshot or defense wounds, no slashes across her body, no blood pooling on the floor—just the eerie mask of her non-face. A close-up of the back of her head showed the area where the killer had carved a flap of skin and hair—a four-inch long triangle cut out of her scalp. I wondered about the possible meaning of removing scalp from the victim—I’d never seen it before.

  A black, U-shaped indentation scarred the neck from side to side. A ruler held next to it marked the distance from the jaw.

  Except for Satish sitting at the desk across from mine, the squad room was deserted. All its old smells were still there, though—mold, rust, a banana peel left in one of the trashcans to rot, the infectious odor of old office furniture.

  It was late June, and the Glass House—the old LAPD headquarters—was a
lready a boiling cauldron. The building was so old the AC had become a historic relic that served a purely decorative function. Two fans swooshed quietly from the ceiling, pointlessly blowing hot air against the dusty Venetian blinds. Honking and gas exhaust from Los Angeles Street leaked from a window left ajar. And yet, as my eyes skimmed the crammed desks—some clean and tidy like Satish’s, others strewn with piles of blue murder books, crime scene sketches, and smiling pictures of spouses and children—I felt a little something tighten up in my throat.

  A squad room is like a woman you’ve slept with too many times. The excitement is all gone, yet you always end up coming back.

  I returned my attention to the murder book. The next photo showed the vic’s naked feet, a pair of black thigh-high stockings neatly folded next to the body. Nice lace garters, the kind you’d want to peel off a nice pair of legs. The killer left the stockings but took something else—skin, again, judging from the lesions at the base of the victim’s toes and down the sole of the foot: two wide incisions to remove a flap of skin, five millimeters deep according to the notes typed on the side, and several other small cuts all around. No apparent pattern. Failed attempts to make the proper incision? It seemed improbable.

  “Was there anything missing? Belongings, clothing—”

  Satish left his chair and came over to lean against my desk. “None that we could tell. We did a walk-through with the victim’s mother, and she didn’t notice anything missing from the house. Except for the stockings, the victim was fully clothed. No apparent sexual activity in, out, or around. Whatever this loon had in mind, it wasn’t sexual.”

  “What about the acid?”

  Satish crossed his arms. “Acid is a powerful weapon and relatively easy to find. You can buy either the muriatic or the sulfuric kind at any hardware store. Sulfuric acid is found in lead-acid batteries, liquid drain openers, household cleaners, pool chemicals—the list goes on.”