Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) (6 page)

“I’m your FTO, not your friend, Officer Miller,” he said curtly. “I’d prefer those lines not be blurred.”

The left side of my face twitched as though I’d been slapped. “That’s affirmative.”

+ + +

The city of Minneapolis was divided into five distinct police precincts. District four, sector three—my new beat—was the Webber Camden neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city. The area had several industrial zones and a mix of middle- and working-class homes. Statistically the sector had a higher crime rate than the rest of the city—largely property crime—but Minneapolis was relatively safe compared to similarly sized cities. The jewel of the neighborhood was Webber Park, directly on the Mississippi River, which, in addition to a playground included an impressive natural swimming pool popular with residents on hot summer days.

The sun was bright that morning and the day only got hotter and more humid as our shift wore on. Instead of turning on the air conditioning, Mendez drove with the windows open, left arm dangling out the driver side window. I’d solved the mystery of the too tan arm.

It was the only mystery I had to solve that day though. Mendez and I drove the streets of our beat in silence with only the occasional squawk or crackle of the in-car radio as interruption. There was nothing remarkable about my new partner that would have set him apart from the other men in our unit. My first impression of him was of a man who’d struggled all his life to be noticed in a crowd.

When we reached Webber Park, I was glad for the excuse to get out of the car and stretch my legs. We could drive down most of the wide, paved walkways, but some areas of our patrol required we get out of the car and walk.

“You can take a look,” Mendez noted, speaking to me for the first time since leaving the city garage. “I’ll stay with the car.”

I took my time walking the narrow pavement paths that crisscrossed through the park. I smiled and nodded my head in greeting at passersby. Couples pushed infants in strollers, the elderly shuffled along with miniature dogs on leashes. Children on scooters zipped along the pavement. Patrol on the streets of Minneapolis was a far cry from the dusty, makeshift streets of Farah City.

I paused when I reached the park’s large, natural pool with its shimmery sea-green water. Young children splashed around, dunking each other, and stopped only when a lifeguard in red swim trunks yelled at them. Their shrieks of joy filled me with a kind of wistful reflection. I had missed being able to swim when I was in Afghanistan. We’d been landlocked, stationed far away from any major body of water, and any smaller creek or river had looked too suspect to risk a quick swim.

I hadn’t been back in the water since returning to the States though. I worried that the beach would remind me of all that desert sand. But maybe the prospect of seeing Julia in a bathing suit could prompt an upcoming visit. It made me wonder if she was a two-piece or one-piece swimsuit kind of woman. She certainly had the body for a bikini, but her personality hinted at a classic one-piece, probably paired with an oversized floppy hat, sunglasses, and an expensive scarf tied at her waist.

I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket as I continued to walk around the city park. We were allowed to have our phones on us while on duty, but for official business only. There would be no playing Candy Crush in the car on slow days. I was tempted to text Julia with an update on my day if only for a little human interaction, but unlike the rest of the western world, she wasn’t connected at the hip to her cellular device and probably wouldn’t see my text until later that day.

A text came through as I stared at the phone’s screen:
How’s the first day back?
It was from Rich.

I glanced around the park, looking for Mendez or any other curious eyes before I responded:
My FTO’s a piece of work.

Why don’t you tell me all about it at Spencer’s when you’re done
, Rich texted.
I’ll see if anyone else is free.

The police radio at my hip squawked. “Miller,” I heard Mendez’s voice over the crackly reception, “back to the car.”

After leaving Webber Park, Mendez and I stopped at a sandwich place for lunch. My new partner and I ate our pastrami on rye in silence. The quiet was punctuated only by the rattle of ice cubes in empty soda cups and squeaky straws jammed through the center of plastic lids. My original FTO, a guy by the name of Goodson, had told me to avoid donut shops while on duty so as to not feed into the stereotype. Mendez seemed to buy into that same school of thought, but he shared little else with my old FTO.

I had enjoyed an easy rapport with FTO Goodson. He’d given me a hard time about being a Viking’s fan, and I’d teased him about being in the Coast Guard in his twenties. In my experience, if someone wasn’t busting your chops about some detail from your life, they didn’t like you. And based on my first day with Mendez, he hated me.

By the end of our shift, I was verbally bursting at the seams. Eight hours of unreciprocated conversation had left me agitated and ready to see some friendly faces. I was more than eager to ditch the uniform and make my way to Spencer’s, the local cop bar. It had been built sometime in the 1960’s and looked and smelled like it hadn’t been updated since first opening its doors. It was definitely not the kind of place I’d be taking Julia Desjardin on a date to anytime soon.

State, city, and county cops co-existed uneasily at Spencer’s with a few current and former military personnel looking for the camaraderie of those who worked in harm’s way. Rich had first introduced me to the place when I was a new cadet. I think he’d been trying to impress me, the pretty new blonde on the squad, but I’d quickly squashed those advances. I was glad he hadn’t let his bruised ego get in the way or else I’d be missing out on one of my closest friendships.

Upon entry, it took me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the low lighting. The bar had few windows to allow natural light inside. The sun could be high in the sky outdoors, but Spencer’s was always dimly lit, not that you’d want to see the décor in high definition. A standing joke was if you black lit the place it would look worse than a crime scene.

I spotted Brent sitting by himself in one of the larger booths. Our eyes met, and he jerked his head in greeting.

I had met Brent in the academy and my three other closest friends—Rich, Adan, and Angie—had already been working the Fourth Precinct when I had first been assigned to the unit. Rich had hit on me before he really knew me, and Adan was just a really decent guy and a really good cop whom I’d instinctively wanted to be able to call my friend. Angie and I had quickly bonded as two of the only women in the precinct. It wasn’t a natural pairing though. A lot of female cops tried to avoid palling around with other women in the department for fear of being seen as lesbian or at best, man haters. The military had been the same way. But neither Angie nor I really cared if people thought we were together.

I had never envied Angie’s position in the department. She had two identities to overcome—the color of her skin and being a woman. Despite being gay, I only had to overcome my gender. My sexuality might have even helped me on the camaraderie front. The guys could objectify a pretty girl in a skirt in front of me without blushing. I also didn’t have to worry about jealous wives getting in my face, thinking I was making a move on her man. I used to worry that I’d be seen as an inadequate cop or worse yet, a badge bunny—someone who’d become a cop because she was attracted to men in uniform. But I was just myself, and that seemed to work out just fine.

My steps stalled when I noticed that Brent looked different than when I’d seen him that morning at roll call—he was clean-shaven. His upper lip where I’d gotten accustomed to seeing his regulation-defying chevron mustache was bare.

I walked the rest of the way to the corner booth and slid into the bench across from my friend. “Rough day?” I asked in a neutral tone. I made eye contact with a passing waitress and ordered myself a beer.

Brent stared down at the near-empty beer bottle in front of him. “I couldn’t get the stench out of my nose. It got stuck in my mustache,” he said. “Had to shave the fucker off.”

Our waitress set my beer down on the table and I smiled my thanks. “What happened?”

“Property manager let himself into an apartment unit. He hadn’t seen the old man who lived there in a while and was worried about him.”

I swallowed down the rising bile. I knew what was coming next. “How long had he been dead?”

“Couple of days at least. Air conditioner had been on the fritz. Stunk to high Hell.” His words were halting, staccato.

I sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry, buddy. That’s never fun.”

I had been twelve-years-old when I saw my first dead body. My cousin Johnnie had gone ice fishing with friends. They’d had a few laughs and a few too many beers, and he’d never made it home due to a snowstorm and impaired judgment.

I remember standing in front of his casket. It never should have been an open casket. The hair on his head had been shaved away. A long line of rough, ugly stitches had stuck out from his swollen forehead. He had no longer looked like my cousin; he might as well have been Frankenstein’s monster. Since then, I’d seen more dead bodies out of caskets than any regular person should.

Brent rubbed at the freshly shaved skin above his upper lip. Luckily his Scandinavian skin tone didn’t tan or else he would have had one hell of an awkward tan line. “How was Mendez today?” he asked.

Before I could answer, I spied Rich across the bar. He waved in our direction when he spotted us in the corner booth. He was still in his work clothes—a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His dark navy dress pants were creased in the front and at the backs of his knees from sitting at a desk all day. He’d unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, and his necktie was probably balled up in one of the saddlebags on his motorcycle.

Now in Internal Affairs, Rich no longer worked in the Fourth Precinct with the rest of us. Internal Affairs was ugly business. Being a member of the police, much like being in the military, was dependent on fellowship to a specialized group; we looked after our own. Officers who worked for Internal Affairs were often seen as narks, like the MPs on a military base whose sole assignment was to make life difficult for the rest of us. Rich had never explained his decision to seek a promotion and reassignment. The title of Detective had come with a pay bump from a regular beat cop, but I couldn’t image being trapped in a windowless cubical all day. A future of being chained to a desk had been the primary catalyst for my temporary move to Embarrass.

“Shove over, Miller,” he told me. Not allowing me time to move over on the bench, his thigh and hip slammed into my side as he tried to sit down. “Geez,” he complained. “Someone’s getting a little broad in the beam. Is this what married life has done to you?”

“Always the comedian,” I replied.

“So what are we talking about?” Rich asked.

“Miller’s new FTO,” Brent said.

“That’s right,” Rich remarked. “You texted me about him. What’s his deal?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t talk much.” I shuffled my beer bottle back and forth on the table’s surface. “We got out to the car this morning, and I’m just shooting the shit when he interrupts me and makes it very clear that he and I are never going to be friends.”

“That must have bruised your delicate ego, huh?” Rich teased. “At least you don’t have to worry about him getting too friendly and having to break his heart.”

“Like I did to you?” I taunted back. “Don’t tell me you’re still sore about that.”

Rich grabbed my beer and took a slug. “They should make your kind wear a sign or something—Dick Free Zone.”

I swiped my bottle back. “Whatever,” I snorted. “That’d only make
your kind
try even harder.”

Rich’s grin made him look years younger than his early thirties. “You’re probably right,” he conceded.

Angie was the next to show up. She whipped off her sunglasses as she approached the table. “Who’s the dickhead that didn’t warn me about third shift? I have no idea what time it is anymore,” she complained. “Hell, I don’t even know what day of the week it is.”

When I’d first been hired, Adan, Rich, Angie, Brent, and I had all worked the same shift in the Fourth Precinct, which meant we saw each other all time. Now, we were spread all over the city, working different hours at different precincts. It would take some work to make sure we didn’t drift apart.

“That’s your own damn fault for taking a promotion,” Rich chuckled. “Could have stayed first shift like the rest of us.”

“Yeah, Ang. You’ve been holding out on me,” I piled on. “When did you get all fancy and become an FTO?”

“You didn’t hear? I’m the department’s poster child for inclusivity,” she said, sliding into the booth beside Brent. “It’s the only time being a black woman’s ever worked in my favor. Too bad I’m low FTO on the totem pole though. Graveyard shift sucks.”

“Too bad you look like one of those Children of the Corn kids, Cass,” Rich smirked. “You’d be leapfrogging through the ranks like our Angie here.”

“I’m not looking for anything but my own beat,” I insisted. “You guys can take the headache of more responsibility,” I said, gesturing towards Angie and Rich with my beer bottle. “I’m looking forward to keeping my head down and doing the job I’m assigned to.”