“Our families have a shipping business back home. His gran bought properties here like my dad and mum did. How else do you think they fed and clothed eight kids?”
“I dunno. Guess I thought your mom grew veggies or something. Baked bread. Sewed all your clothes.” He shrugged. “Kane doesn’t talk about shit like that. Mostly he just busts my chops for getting shitty cars from motor pool.”
“Yeah, my mom sewing clothes is hilarious. Where the fuck is Kane? It’s been over an hour,” Riley muttered as the elevator doors slid open behind him.
“He was trying to get sobered up after tanking half a bottle of Dad’s best with Sionn.” Kane prowled into the loft, tugging a pair of latex gloves over his large hands. “I wasn’t on call today. Wasn’t expecting a 911 from you both.”
“So you get shit-faced at Mom’s?” His brother turned, lip curled in a slight snarl. “Really?”
“Shit happened. I only had a couple of mouthfuls. Sionn sucked down nearly all of it. I wanted to get some coffee in us before we headed over. Okay, let’s play catch up.” Kane nodded at his partner. “You want to get me up to speed? Who called it in?”
“Looks like the killer did. From inside here, using the landline.” Sanchez popped open his notebook and skimmed what he’d written down. “Said there was a fire and it was getting out of control. Fire responded in three minutes, forced their way up and found this.”
This was almost awe-inspiring in its horror. From the scattered body parts to the ichor trailing over the floor, Kane felt like he was caught in a nightmare battle between Pollock and Dali. He whistled and said the only thing that came to mind.
“Fuck me.”
“Yeah, that was pretty much what I thought,” Kel agreed.
“Any idea on who this all is?” Kane waved his hand around. The squeak of a gurney behind him warned them of the coroner’s arrival, and the three detectives moved out of the way, allowing the man through.
“Horan ran the prints, but we’ve got clothes and a purse.” Riley dodged out of the way of the gurney as it trundled past him. “You’re not going to like who it is.”
“I’m not going to like who it is no matter who it is,” Kane grumbled. “Someone’s dead here, kid. And from the looks of it, it wasn’t a go-peacefully-into-the-night.”
“Did you bring Sionn back with you?” Riley pressed his brother. “And… that other guy?”
“Damien Mitchell?” Kane frowned. “Yeah, he’s downstairs. I figured we could question him about everything all at once. Why?”
“Because Horan’s prelim came back, and it jibes up with the identification we found.” Kel flipped out the driver’s license and showed Kane their victim’s information. “The woman we found here? She’s Damien Mitchell’s mother.”
DAMIEN couldn’t remember when he’d been so tired.
He wanted to cry. Needed to cry. But nothing came.
The shock of what the cops were telling him had finally sunk in after an hour of sitting in the small room they’d put him in. As interrogation chambers went, it was comfortable. A matching threesome of plush chairs around a small rectangular table that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a conference room. Still, the off-putting drab green walls and the large one-way mirror reflecting his drawn, pale face left him with no doubt he was in a cop house.
Especially with the smell of burned coffee and antiseptic perfuming the cold air blowing through the metal vent above him.
If his life depended on it, he couldn’t have told anyone the time. It had been late when they’d finally gone through the station’s doors. They separated before Damien even had time to think and he found himself in a beige-green box of a room with a one-way mirror and uncomfortable chairs. After that, came the questions, followed by more questions, all driven at him by stern-faced cops who’d first given him condolences over the loss of his mother.
His mother.
He couldn’t think about her. Not if he wanted to hold himself together. Everything they’d asked him was a blur of sound, then a round of swabs in his mouth, and finally, a scanner sucked up his fingerprints, the passing light turning his palms green when he’d placed his hands on the glass.
The results came back, affirming what he’d already known.
Damien Mitchell, lead guitarist of Sinner’s Gin, was alive and well.
And sitting in a police station after being told his mother was dead and her decimated corpse had been littered all over his lover’s apartment.
“Welcome back from the dead, Damie.” He saluted his reflection in the mirror. Resting his head on his folded arms, he began to stare at the wall, counting off the seconds between blinks to force himself to stay awake.