THE BODY

A Criminal's Best Friend

We've all had them. Some of you still do. Asshole supervisors. You know the kind. They always think they are smarter than you, and they feel that they have to remind you of it every day. Which, in truth, I wouldn't mind if they were actually smarter, instead of just dicks. You see I don't mind dumb, ignorant, or even stupid. I can fix those. I hate dicks. Nothing short of a major life experience can fix those. Especially dicks with a gun and a badge. They are royal assholes.

We pulled up to the police department when my cellphone rang. My immediate supervisor, Sgt. Reyes, was on the line (he's not the dick), "Hey man heads up, Lt. Jackson (yeah, that's the dick) called me and asked me if anything was going on. I told him I gave you and Danny the green light to go in and work the missing girl case. You know him, (yeah, I know him, he's a dick) he'll probably show up at the department just to check on you two. So just a heads up. By the way, how is it going?" I told him things were fine and that we were going to go run down the witness (we weren't) who supposedly saw her leaving in a car, and then probably call it a day. He said okay and hung up.

Sure enough the Lt's car was in the parking lot. Danny and I walked in into the building. I wasn't in the mood so I told Danny to find the Lt. and get it over with. Find out what he wants.

I went to my office and started looking over the file. I went to the conference room and put everything we had on a board on a wall that we had there for that purpose. I placed pictures of Jo Ana, Jose, what we found at their home, phone records, all of it. I didn't think I was missing anything, but it never hurts to take a step back and look at it. I was doing just that when Danny walked in.

"He wants to know why we are out here on a weekend working a missing runaway case"

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing. I'm not stupid. I told him I'd ask you."

"Chicken shit."

"Me? You're the one that sent me over there!"

He had a point. I hate dealing with people like that. Supervisors like that are a criminal's best friend. But Danny was right. I should handle it myself.

I went over to the Lt.'s office. The cleanest office in the department. Not a damn thing on his desk but a phone, a pen, and a piece of paper. No files or books. Nothing. Typical desk of a lazy ass that gets way too much money to do nothing. He was sitting at his desk cleaning his finger nails.

"So hey Lt... What's up?"

"Why are you guys working this as homicide? It's a missing person's case. An adult missing person case at that. Technically, it's really just a welfare concern case."

God, I wanted to shoot him already.

"Didn't Danny tell you everything we know?"

"Yeah, I'm not convinced. She's 18. She's probably out there just screwing around. I can't authorize overtime on a welfare concern case that is going to show up next week after partying in Mexico for a couple of weeks."

God, I wanted to shoot him so so bad.

"Okay, so then, what, you want me to shut this down?"

"Yes, shut it down. Call the parents and tell them to call us when she returns so we can remove her from 'missing' status in the system. Let them know we'll follow up any leads they get. But she's an adult and she doesn't have to return if she doesn't want to. Hell, who knows. Maybe she was getting abused at home by the father. That happens a lot in those families."

Please. Please. I can shoot him. I'll call it self-defense. I'll put his gun in his hand afterwards. Then I'll rub some gun residue on his hand for the GSR test they'll run on him. I'll say he went crazy. Please.