CHIMERAS (Track Presius)

by E. E. Giorgi

  Where else can I go at night?

  She’d taken the sleeping drugs hoping for a dreamless rest. It didn’t happen. Like a scratched disk, her brain stumbled over and over again on the same image: her own body collapsed on the kitchen floor, auburn hair matted with dry blood, and a red slash gaping across her throat. She knows it’s herself she’s staring at, and yet she feels detached. It’s just another body. She stares at the wound, her thoughts reeling over the usual technicalities: blade-inflicted, straight incision across the tracheal rings, quick death by suffocation, as the victim inhales her own blood and chokes. And that’s when she realizes she can’t breathe.

  The elevator chime startles her. Not my floor, she thinks, grateful for the diversion. A man steps inside. She grimaces, the tension in her jaw unyielding, making her unable to reciprocate his smile. A few minutes later, her heels drum nervously on the linoleum of the third floor. Her eyes dart around, searching for a familiar face—one face.

  “Ms. Kyle?”

  She startles. “Sorry, I’m uh—a little tense.”

  “Detective Presius said the meeting won’t be for another half hour,” the officer tells her.

  Diane winces. “What meeting?”

  “The one with the deputy D.A. You can wait in the evidence room if you wish.”

  “Where—Where’s Track?”

  “Closed meeting in the lieutenant’s office.”

  Is he in trouble? Should she say something? He rescued me last night. “Can I wait at his desk?”

  The officer shrugs. “This way.”

  “How did he—I didn’t tell him I was coming.”

  “He told me you were coming from the west wing elevators one minute before you showed up. He does weird things like that all the time. Are you sure this is where you want to sit?” she asks, staring at the deranged status of the desk they have come to. Diane nods.

  CHAPTER 32

  ____________

  Thursday, October 23

  Gomez drummed his fingers on the desk, his eyes fixed on the OIS report—Officer Involved Shooting—in front of him. Wide, flat phalanges, with nails clipped so close to the flesh a rim of dried blood decorated his thumb. I tried to follow his stare, guessing which line his eyes where at. Not that it mattered. Half of it was circular nonsense, vain attempts to justify the events of the night before. All I could remember was rage. Throbbing inside, blinding me. Screams reverberated in my ears, it could have been my own voice though, I couldn’t tell. Something splintered, a tree branch, or maybe a bone. I remember the distinct sound of a crack, followed by the smell of blood. A metallic tang on my nose and palate, foul, and disgusting. Seeping all over me. Like tar it stuck to my skin. Stained me. What the hell happened?

  They had taken me to the station, seized my revolver, and had me sitting at a gray desk where two officers from FID—Force Investigation Division—stared at me with dull, icy-cold eyes. One of the two—a hefty cop with a crooked nose and a boxer’s jaw—I had the pleasure to meet over the Carmelo OIS investigation. He wasn’t wearing deodorant, and the raw scent of his skin hit me like a first violin going out of tune in a Vivaldi concerto. He stood in front of me with his hands dipped in his pants pockets and his cock leveled at my face. “What happened this time, cowboy? Did your finger slip on the trigger?”

  “I’d like to slip a fist on your fat mouth,” I replied to his cock.

  The two officers kept asking the same questions and I kept giving the same answers. They hated my guts for making them work through the night, I hated theirs for exactly the same reason. By four a.m. the coffee tasted like lukewarm water, and the ticking of the wall clock felt like nails hammered in the head. I sat through the turnaround between the graveyard and morning shifts, through the arrogant steps of those coming in, freshly showered and deodorized, and the shuffling away of the tired ones, with droopy eyes and yawning jaws. Until finally somebody came to tell me I could go home to shower and shave. I would’ve argued it was the FID officers stinking up the place, but I figured the privilege I’d just been given might be revoked. So I got up and left, only to come back a few hours later and be summoned into the LT’s office.

  Gomez never turned to page two of the report. He pushed it aside and produced a computer printout—the con’s rap sheet. “Burglary, twice, street dealing, three times, and innumerous counts of robbery.”

  “Somebody paid him to break into Kyle’s apartment,” I said.

  The LT sighed, swiveled away from his desk and got up. He shoved both hands in his pockets and started pacing. “I just got off the phone with the M.E.” He looked out the window, refusing me the privilege of eye contact. “I understand you disarmed the man in the victim’s house, is this correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then he fled outside and you chased him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I told the M.E. to bump up the priority on this one. The con’s on his table as we speak.”

  I shifted in my chair. “Why?”

  Gomez spun around, his breath exuding billows of frustration. “You ask me why, Track? He told me about his findings on the scene: broken ribs, numerous contusions, and a bullet hole at the back of his skull.”

  I chilled. “A bullet—where?”

  “He was whacked in the head, Track. A disarmed man, one you’d already shot in the arm with a weapon which—you’d been warned before—you’re not even supposed to carry!” He stared at me for a few seconds longer, his eyes bulging and his brows clamped together in one long eave across his forehead. “You’re getting a suspension for carrying a non approved weapon, and if it turns out that weapon killed the—”

  I swallowed and held his gaze. “I fired inside the house because he was armed and dangerous. I chased him after that. I didn’t kill him.”

  I’d shot the man in the shoulder, not in the head. There was no way he’d jump off the balcony with a hollow point in his skull. I thought he’d died from shock, from the gunshot wound. What the Lieutenant had just told me changed everything.

  I had not killed the loon.

  Somebody had been waiting in the bushes and acted quick, as soon as the fugitive reached the bottom of the arroyo, those two seconds before I reached him…

  Gomez resumed his post behind the desk and opened my package. He read aloud: “James A. Phillis, age 26, shot three times, two to the chest and one to the head.” His eyes surfaced above the rim of his reading glasses.

  I swallowed. “Armed robbery, solo foot pursuit. Clean shooting.”

  Eyes back on the file. “Karl T. Yates, age 54, one shot through the forehead.”

  The other one was a miss. “Domestic call. Suspect opened fire from the window. Clean, again.”

  “John K. Carmelo, age 32, six rounds, one to the head and five to the chest.” I didn’t reply this time, and Gomez flipped the page. “Danny Mendoza, age 19, slit throat and numerous stab wounds, two to the chest, two—”

  I slammed my hand on the desk. “Self defense,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

  Gomez’s partner was one of the responding officers at the time and he never believed my story. At the bail hearing he testified the crime was unusually cruel. I served one month of preterm jail, rotting in one of the most violent juvies in the US because I wasn’t granted bail. I was beaten up, locked down, drugged, and ridiculed. I learned to thrive on discipline. It taught me to control my instincts, to channel my drive.

  I learned to hate killers and chase them down.

  I learned to hate myself because I’m a killer.

  Gomez slid off his reading glasses and closed the folder. “I’m sure you had your reasons to put your boots to the sleaze last night, Track. All I wanna see on the fucking M.E. report is that it wasn’t you who killed him. He was disarmed, do you understand that? You’re going down this time, and you’re going on your own.” He stared at me one more minute and then gestured to the door. I got to my feet, but by the time I touched the doorknob he called me back. “I’d hate to take
your badge, Track,” he said. I nodded and left.

  * * *

  I felt the glares. Conversations hushed as I walked by. I glimpsed the smirks on the young officers who sought my job. A badge like mine, only with their name on it.

  “Deputy D.A. Udall’s here, Track,” Satish said poking his head into the break room. “And—”

  “Diane, I know.”

  I looked at the Styrofoam cup in my hand. Black coffee, Colombia roast. Bitter.

  Satish bobbed his head, then stepped inside and flashed me one of his ecstatic stares. “Do you know the best part of hitting rock bottom, Track?”

  I replied with a heartfelt no. He smiled. “You’ve hit it. And all there’s left to do is pick up your sore ass and get going again.” He snatched the half empty cup from my hand and tossed it in the trashcan. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Not true,” I replied, my hands still cupped around the no-longer-there Styrofoam cup.

  “What?”

  “What you just said. Get going again is not all there’s left to do. Occasionally, rock bottom may turn out to be awfully comfortable. So comfortable, one may consider spending some time down there.”

  He chuckled. “Good answer, Track. You’re starting to become more and more like me.”

  I shook out of my daze. Gee. Did I hit it that hard?

  * * *

  Deputy D.A. Enrique Udall was smirking as Diane showed him the Conrad Troy paper and explained the implications of the study. He didn’t do it on purpose. The man always smirked, his jaws stuck in an airy dolphin smile. Even when his eyes frowned, his lips twitched upwards. Ironically, it worked to his advantage in the courtroom: he smiled through opening arguments, motions to dismiss, and objections; through the bantering of the opposition and the closing arguments. In the meantime, the opposing lawyers wasted energy wondering what the hell he was sneering about and felt the pressure.

  Diane raised her head as we stepped into the room, and for a moment our eyes met.

  I don’t know what happened, Diane. Don’t ask me.

  “I understand Ms. Kyle will unveil the mysteries of gene therapy for us, won’t she?” Satish said, taking a seat.

  “Not just that. I’ll tell you how Chromo screwed up.” She was looking straight at me. “I found Huxley’s data, Track.”

  She passed me a printout and I read it as she walked to the dry erase board. It was an e-mail to Jennifer Huxley from a Jodi Thistlerthorn. It read:

  Hey Jen, I apologize for the delay—I got swamped with a lot of work and couldn’t get to your data until yesterday.

  I ran a paired t-test and came up with a highly significant p-value. Even if you drop the standard assumption and use a Wilcoxon, the p-value is still less than 10^(-4). Attached is the spreadsheet with the details. I hope this helps!

  Jodi.

  I read it twice, then turned the paper over. “And where’s the data?” I asked.

  “It was attached to the email. I called Amit and he retrieved it for me.”

  I brought a hand to my forehead, the first sign of a migraine gnawing its way through the bridge of my nose. “Are you telling me we’ve had the data all along?” I thought of the decryption code still running in Amit’s warehouse. We had it all along.

  Satish chortled, always ahead of me on these things. “It helps to know what to look for.”

  “That’s right, Satish.” Diane’s voice was a crescendo of sourness. “I had no idea what we were looking for until I found Troy’s manuscript. Jodi Thistlerthorn is a statistician at USC. I called her this morning. She met Huxley at a workshop, and the two became friends. It wasn’t unusual for Jennifer to email her with a particular stat question. When I asked her specifically about this data set, though, Jodi admitted that sending unpublished data to a non-collaborator was out of line.”

  Udall took the e-mail I passed him and then stared at Diane over his round lenses. “Even though I don’t understand the technical language, she seems to have answered Huxley’s question.”

  Diane nodded. “Exactly. Jodi told me Jennifer pleaded with her, stressing the importance of these particular data and how she couldn’t have the analyses run by her own collaborators at the Esperanza Medical Center.”

  “Did she say why?” Satish asked.

  I snorted. “Because she had a lovely, nosy boss. Can you translate the answer for us?”

  Diane uncapped a marker, drew the schematic outline of a chromosome and circled one leg. “This is a non-coding region of chromosome eleven. People believe it has no biological function. When the Human Genome Project was completed five years ago, one of the major findings was that the vast majority of our DNA does not serve any purpose. They call it ‘junk DNA.’ This is the region Huxley was looking at, and this is why I think Cox disapproved of it. Cox wanted to look at specific genes that were linked to leukemia, whereas Huxley was wasting time and resources looking at a portion of DNA that doesn’t get transcribed.”

  I inhaled. “So then why did Huxley even bother looking at it?”

  Diane turned to the board. “Because in this region she found this, this, and this.” As if stabbing the chromosome she’d drawn, Diane inflicted little marks along the circled leg. “Remember those twelve patients in Huxley’s manuscript? They all had these three mutations. The other children didn’t have them. I searched the literature and found nothing about these mutations: they’ve never been observed before.”

  We all stared at Diane. I wondered what she thought of us, of our wrinkled foreheads and furrowed brows, trying to look at least half as smart as her, while grappling the concepts she was throwing at us.

  “Why would those mutations matter if they all occur outside the genes?”

  “I don’t know, Track. And Huxley didn’t either. But when she handed the data to her friend Jodi, the numbers spoke for themselves: whatever effect they have, it’s there, and it’s deadly.”

  “Meaning they caused the leukemia?” Satish’s turn to look smart. Udall instead sat back and smirked. His dolphin smile did the work for him.

  “Yes. That’s the meaning of Jodi’s email.”

  “So where did those mutations come from?”

  Diane sighed. “Well. Suppose those twelve kids in Huxley’s paper are the Proteus kids. And suppose Huxley believed that Proteus kids was a code name Chromo used. Hence these kids, just like Gaya White, came out of Chromo’s magic hat. Given Conrad and Troy’s statements in the paper I showed you, we can reasonably assume that the magic hat involved meddling through gene therapy. Are you guys with me?”

  Satish and I nodded. Udall smiled placidly. Diane turned to the blackboard and drew two circles, one small, one big, then tapped the small one. “Imagine this is the virus that’s been modified so it carries human genetic material. You would expect it to attach to the cell—the big circle—and deliver its genes.”

  “And that’s not the case?”

  “Not always, Satish. Because what the virus often does is a little reshuffling. Mother Nature’s way to ensure genetic variation. Conrad and Troy claim they have a way to keep the reshuffling under control by modifying further the viral proteins. They do, in fact. But they have completely overlooked regions outside the genes. The so-called ‘junk DNA.’ Their mistake was to believe that because those regions are non-coding and are lost after the DNA splicing, they would be harmless. Huxley’s data proves otherwise. Twelve kids developed an aggressive form of leukemia because of these mutations.”

  Non-coding DNA. Pseudogenes.

  The non-coding genes Watanabe talked about.

  “They may very well call it junk,” I said, “but if that region gets activated and those mutations are deadly, then it’s the end.”

  Diane nodded.

  I stared at the board and heaved a big breath. Jennifer needed proof. More data, and it had to come from Chromo. Tarantino’s smell on Huxley’s couch. Did a friendly conversation take place that night, or was it threatening? And if so, who threatened whom? Diane’s voi
ce became a soothing background as I drifted off, and my mind reeled back to the meeting I now knew had taken place the night before Huxley disappeared. I could finally see what happened that evening.

  Her hands shake as she pours the glass of wine. Liquid sloshes out of the bottle and stains her pristine counter. “Shoot,” she mutters, the spill fogging her brain like the static of a bad reception. She puts the glass down and reaches for a cloth to wipe it off.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she says to her unexpected guest as she brings him the wine. He takes the glass from her, smiles, and then sits on the couch. His eyes are kind, she finds. Maybe it’s all those years of Sunday preaching, or maybe the same yearning that compels her to clean the house and organize the closets, which now prompts her to fix his wrongdoings. Whatever the reason, she believes she can trust this man. She wants to redeem him, wipe every red stain off his speckled conscience and make it as immaculate as her floors and windows. She tells him what she’s discovered. “What you did is bad in the eyes of God,” she says. Are those the right words? “Innocent lives. Imagine what those children went through. Imagine the parents.”

  Robert Tarantino listens while sipping his wine. What is he thinking? Is he seeing what she’s saying?

  “What do you want me to do, Jennifer? I want to make things right. I want another chance.” His eyes look truthful. “Tomorrow morning,” he tells her. And then he leaves her a note with a passcode.

  “I want a search warrant for Medford’s office and home,” I said.

  Udall raised a knotty hand in the air. “Hold your horses, Track. I haven’t heard of any crime so far.”

  “What else do you need?”

  Diane heaved a deep breath and joined us at the table. “He’s right, Track. There’s no crime. When you dig out Chromo’s records you will find that each one of these parents were handed a ream of consent forms to sign in order to get the services they requested—and note the choice of verb here, requested. All Chromo did is perfectly kosher: they provided a service, and the recipients were at all times informed of the risks and caveats.”