You know...I like to think that...you're a part of this family, and that no matter what happens between the two of you...we don't blame you.
I just...wish that we could have met under a different set of stars...woken up in a different world, a different bed, a different life...
I just wish...that you could realize just how much you mean to her...how...how she just lights up when she thinks of you...
Brian...what have you done? Where...is she?
The Kamner family had been a match made in hell: Brenda was a recovering alcoholic and lover of the fine arts, mostly sculptures and oil pastel work, where as Jerald was a vengeful recipient of far too many failed get rich quick schemes who had spent most Saturday afternoons hemorrhaging money making wagers at the racetrack. His temper was as troublesome as his troublesome track record, a pitiful seven successes after a total of twenty six attempts, more often then not he would be lucky to break even at the end of the day...but yet the store the duo were the proprietors of had continued to run without even the slightest of hiccups. Like with most inconsistencies in Gotham, people hadn't been able to spare the energy to attribute any sort of disbelief to such claims that their humble wares weren't more then meets the eye. Many questions were raised and even more rumors were tossed back and forth in an attempt to dispel the curiousness of the masses, some would claim that the mob had been holding underground meetings downstairs in a reclusive, yet furnished floor beneath the front desk. But all of that is no more a fact then believing in any one of the number of baseless conspiracy theories floating about, right? Well, regardless of whether or not the better business bureau was taken with their tactics, I had gotten the opportune ability to see them up close and personal and away from the smoke and mirrors of one's own lust for the almighty dollar. Logic might dictate that you were to believe the two of them to be some measure of monstrosity, thanks to the first description I've given you, but it's fare more true to form to say that they were simply a more blackened shade of humanity. Could they be monsters? Perhaps, but there's a far more bare bottom line you need be considering, and that is this: not all human beings are monsters, but all monsters are human.
As far as residential suits in Gotham were concerned, they had managed to secure for themselves one of the nicest places that money could buy, I myself had always been more a fan of the art nouveau movement but their own streamlined fixtures and hearty fragrance was delightful in its own right. Not once in all of the time I had known Lilly had I found myself visiting this place, and as far as the feel to things and what little I could make out from the faint light emanating from the mock stain glass windows, they hadn't been here for very long either. Towards the tail end of my time with her, there were murmurings of her family needing to pack up their things and leave for another residence in a more sanctioned part of the city, but once it all ended I had no more of an insight into the situation then a fly knows the tribulations of the mange-ridden dog it hovers around. The front door was given a sort of plating to mimic the sense of it being entirely comprised of a single sanded and polished wooden board, the door knob was a bit more rounded on all sides and was of a golden brass, my outstretched hand reached for it and a single spark of static went soaring up the length from my fingertip to my elbow. Tilting my head upwards to the small pane of glass in the middle of the door, I could make out a figure scurrying about further inside the house, although the finer details of the house and what they were doing were lost on me. With a deep breathe and my fingers raised and clenched into a fist, I gave the door a trio of soft knocks and then watched casually through the glass to see if they had taken notice to me, after a few more moments and a second set of steadily louder knocks, they had. A Pencil thin figure had shuffled about and through the shadows of the unknown expanses of the house and was now moving headlong towards the front door, and by a few minutes time had passed I could hear the faint tinging of the tumblers being called back to life. With the entrance now being revealed to me and the blackened silhouette now being cast into the light of day, a pair of earthen bloodshot eyes pierced their way into my skull and refused to lose sight of my own auburn orbs.
"Hey...I-uh, I know it's been a long time, could I maybe...come in for a bit?" It had been quite a long while since I had found myself feeling so incredibly undressed in what would be otherwise considered a normal bout of conversation, but here there was this sense that I didn't have anything to really bargain with for the information which I desired. And not to mention, while I had seen others whom had known of me outside of my own anonymous exploits, they hadn't seemed to be attached to something which had meant so much to me and for so long. The woman at the door motioned for me to follow her into the depths of lightlessness which to me in this exact moment had felt like being culled within the hellish night that had seemed to oppress us all even with the reassurance of daybreak, but despite my own qualms I began to mimic her direction and entered unto the stale air and nervous vibes which clung to all. Walking through the two rooms which had separated us from our destination: one being a small studio with stray newspaper and surplus paint and art supplies strewn from one side of the room to the other, the only meaningful addition to the space had been the decorative canvas which had been prominently and proudly standing on its stand, but even though the mess had remained she hadn't seemed to have a single spec of color on her. For the second room, not much could be said of it, as the only feature I could get a good grasp of was the copious amount of freight boxes which had managed to pile up, filled with unspecified belongings and accompanied by a few postage forms and a roll or two of packing tape. For one solitary moment, my mind dwelled on the two rooms before my body would take a seat in the seemingly ornate and pristine kitchen which would call a perplexing context to them, the whole lot of it just seemed to feel as if this house hadn't been fully a home to the both of them.
"I heard about your case in the news a while back, congratulations...what can I do for Gotham's newest member of the "let them eat cake" club?" She spat, all the while oozing this pure ordinance which had made me feel a bit unwelcome, and my words were to stumble for a moment before I regained my focus and shrugged off her foul behavior.
"I know that one of your stores was recently broken into...I also know, that you for some reason don't seem too upset about it, is there any reason for that?" I asked, trying my best not to give away the reasoning behind the questioning.
"Why is it any of your business? And how do you even know about that in the first place?" She was becoming a bit more aggressively defensive, and I knew it would be necessary to cut to the point, but yet still I would need to find a way past her own emotional guard to get any answers.
"I'm a great listener...I always have been, Jerald would spend hours going over his work and all of the plans for bringing in exotic new merchandise, do you really think that he wouldn't be the least bit phased by any of it being stolen from him? But yet, he doesn't want to file a report with the police? If...if he's involved with something, I...I want to try and help you guys out." It was my honest rationale, at this point, they were the face I saw beyond the curtain of nameless victims and fruitless losses to companies and organizations who had all seemed to blend together in this place by this point.
"You know...if you wanted to help...I mean, if you really wanted to help us out. You would have been around three months ago, when we buried our daughter, and the one person who we had to hear tell us so many times that he couldn't live without her...couldn't be bothered to show up!" My mouth sprung open like a defective trap door, and all of the planning I had under my belt, hadn't meant a thing: I was speechless. "She left a note, saying that she saw you just before, and yet you knew about and didn't do anything? The mob isn't the problem...it's you, you're the murderer!"
