The cloud blurring the view from Break Merino’s damaged left eye swells and recedes with memories: A drug dealer’s kid, covered in feces and unable to speak after years imprisoned in a pen. The limp weight of a drowning victim. The daughter of a man whose skull he fractured with a baton.
But in the center of it all, where his vision is clearest, Merino can track a theme in the stress of his life as one of Salt Lake City's most street-savvy investigators:
It started with his sources — the relationships he cultivated and sometimes burned.