Queer Behaviour 2
Chapter 2
Chris was late, as usual, he was always amazed that he'd never been fired or even in trouble for his tardiness. Although this time it wasn't necessarily his fault, it was supposed to be his day off but he was woken by an emergency call. A young male had been murdered in the Dún Laoghaire area and he had to go and investigate the scene. First he had to get ready, have a quick breakfast and grab his camera. Of course he knew that there were crime scene photographers but he preferred to take his own photographs so that he could put his own perspective on the crime scene. Also he still didn't know how to drive so he was forced to use public transportation and as helpful to the environment as it is, it's so unreliable. Dublin Bus was always late and the fare was too expensive. He'd thought many times of making a demonstration or something but then he'd think he might as well learn to drive.
Chris ran into Spar and bought a takeaway coffee, his apartment was thankfully only 2 minutes from the 46A bus route but the queue in Spar was ridiculously large. After two quick sips plus ten minutes of waiting the 46A arrived. The bus was always packed whether it was going into town or out of town, Chris thought he was just lucky to be able to sit down. Most mornings he'd have to stand and he was tired enough in the mornings without having to stand for forty odd minutes. Sure he was lucky in having gotten a seat but he had to sacrifice a relatively quiet journey. Chris was surrounded by people listening to their MP3's very loudly and the bus was engulfed in a symphony of disarray. Many genres of music were clashing to create aural chaos.
While on the bus Chris was thinking about his boyfriend, how he hadn't seen him in a while and that he missed him. He realised that the little fight they had over the weekend was technically his fault but it still annoyed him how calm his boyfriend was. Chris decided to call him and arrange to meet for dinner as a means of showing that he was sorry. The phone rang but there was no answer so he decided to leave a message on the voicemail
"Hey, it's me! Listen I'm really sorry about the other night I want us to forget it and move past it. As a way of saying sorry I want to treat you to dinner. Call me later and we can arrange the details" Chris wasn't too good with expressing his feelings but he was slowly beginning to learn. Past experiences have taught him that everyone gets hurt and if he could keep those close to him at a distance he could spare himself a lot of pain. His boyfriend however made him open his heart and begin to trust his emotions again.
Finally Chris arrived at the house of the murder and he ran inside. Normally he should've gone to the Depot in Phoenix Park but he was late enough and the Sergeant just gave Chris the address of the victim and to hurry. The "apartment" was huge, it was like a house inside an apartment complex, obviously the tenants had well paid jobs if they could afford something like this. The hall leading to the bedroom was adorned with tacky pictures of cats, flowers and other "cutesy" paraphernalia. The bedroom was big, large wardrobes surrounded the walls and where there were no wardrobes the remainder of the walls were painted sky blue. The bedroom was unnaturally clean for a young man. Chris could only imagine who this man was. How was his life? What was his job? Who was he? Chris would make sure that this young man's voice would be heard and this voice would put his killer behind bars.
The bedroom was full of Gardaí and detectives, photographer's and forensics. Chris gave a brief head nod to his partner Edwina Tully or "Eddie" as her friends called her. The Sergeant turned around to face Chris, he obviously wasn't too happy with the lateness of his subordinates. Sergeant O'Neill, or 'The Wolf' as he's known by his colleagues, wasn't a small man, but by no means was he a tall man either. He was quite rotund, definitely on his way to obesity and his face was always red. No one could tell if he was always worn out from walking all the time or because he was always angry, either way he wasn't doing his heart any favours. He was a busy man and his work showed on his normally unkempt, dirty hair and his once fine moustache had become a messy beard. His most recognisable feature was his piercing eyes, the eyes of a wolf. Sergeant O'Neill earned himself the nickname "The Wolf" because of his eyes and his ability to "hunt" a suspect down once he was on the trail.
"Christopher how nice of you to finally join us. I hope I didn't interrupt any sweet dreams" There was an unmistakable tone of sarcasm in O'Neill's voice.
"Sorry Sergeant but the traffic wasn't the best today"
"Enough! We have a killer to find"
Chris often wondered if the Sergeant was ever happy. "What have you got for me Sergeant?". He looked down at the body there was a reddish glow which he paid no attention to, he was more interested in the pool of blood that had accumulated around the body, staining the carpet permanently.
"Name: Michael Morgan. Nationality: American. He's been living in Ireland for the last two years, he moved here to attend university. According to forensics he was killed more or less 7 hours ago, his throat had been slit. They say he was killed while having sex or shortly after"
Chris did a quick look around and there was no sign of a second victim anywhere else so it was safe to assume that the lover was the killer.
O'Neill continued "One of the house mates, a Miss Mairéad Sullivan, had come back from a holiday this morning and discovered him about an hour ago".
Chris began taking photographs of the entire bedroom, of the victim and anything else that looked of interest within regards to the investigation. Nothing from the house had been stolen or disturbed which ruled out theft as a possible motive. He crossed the room many times, stopping at the desktop and little library in the corner. There were plenty of text books on psychology and a few on child minding. Studying to be a teacher.
Chris moved from the desk and back to the corpse, then took another long look at the body, it was covered in red bumps and splotches.
"What's wrong with the victim's skin?" Chris had never seen anything like it before.
"According to forensics the goddamn sonovabitch bleached Mr Morgan's skin to burn away all evidence" O'Neill didn't take his eyes off the report he was reading.
Chris moved from the bedroom into the bathroom, it was impeccably clean too. It was strange to see such cleanliness for young students. He took a few photos of the bathroom and left. He followed the hall back to the stairs and went in search of the woman that found the cadaver.
Chris saw a woman sitting at a kitchen table from the bottom of the stairs. As he got closer he could see she was drinking something, he assumed tea or coffee.
"Miss Sullivan? My name is Detective Moreno, could you tell me where you were last night?" Chris took a quick glance and he acknowledged that Mairéad Sullivan was a very good looking woman. Brown hair, green eyes, fair skin with faint traces of freckles, she was around 5"3' with a rare hour glass shape. Even though he was gay, Chris knew she was a knock-out.
"I was on a plane returning from Rome" Tears were building up in Mairéad's eyes as she brought the cup back up to her thin lips and sipped.
"What was the purpose of your trip to Rome?"
"My mom and I decided to go as a small getaway." a single tear rolled down Mairéad's porcelain skin.
"What happened when you got home this morning?"
Mairéad was desperately trying to hold it together, she didn't want to seem like a baby in front of so many people but considering the circumstances she guessed it would've been acceptable.
"Well Michael asked me to wake him up when I got back. I looked around the house first to see if he was already awake but he wasn't." Two more tears rolled down her face. " So I went upstairs and went to his bedroom... and... and that's when I saw Michael lying there... in blood."
"Did Michael have any enemies?" Chris pulled up the seat beside Mairéad and sat while he asked her.
"No!" Mairéad said with a somewhat proud tone in her voice "Michael was a very popular guy, there's no one who could say a bad word about him..."
"But someone did!" Chris interjected. "Did Michael have a girlfriend that we could talk to?"
"No he didn't, you see the thing is... Michael only recently came out of the closet." Mairéad took a deep breath before continuing "He told me just before I left that he was gay, I had my suspicions to be honest and that he wanted to explore his new sense of freedom but now..." Mairéad began to cry.
"I told him to wait until I got back, that we could go to some gay clubs together but he couldn't wait" she took a tissue from her pocket. "Michael you goddamn fucking bastard! Why couldn't you fucking wait for me?"
Chris took Mairéad in his arms and her crying became hysterical. He comforted her as she got more hysterical, screaming obscenities in between moans.
"I promise you Ms Sullivan, we'll catch the sicko that did this to Michael" even as Chris said it he wasn't so sure.
Hey everyone, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or whatever please e-mail me at: watermage97@hotmail.com