Chapter 8

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Spoilers: Could be anything

They had finished their investigation. They had collected all of their evidence. Now the three boys: Murray, Tom and Graham were waiting in the interrogation room for Brass, Sara and Greg. The three of them were laughing together at some inside joke. Totally unaware of what was about to happen.

The two CSIs and the detective entered the room.

"Do you think we could finish up here as soon as possible? We have tickets to a basketball game," said Graham.

"I have a question for you," said Murray. "Why did you barge into all of our houses yesterday and demand to see everything? You didn't even tell us what you were looking for," the statement ended in a laugh.

"We just have a few questions for you guys," said Brass quietly.

"OK, that's fine. Just don't take too long," this came from Tom.

So the interrogation began.

"Where were you three on Monday night?" asked Sara.

"We were at Tom's house playing video games," replied Murray.

"Where either of your parents home to confirm that?" asked Greg.

"Nope, they were both out of state visiting relatives," said Tom.

"You don't recognize this man do you?" asked Sara as she held out a photo of Finbarr Sheehan to the boys. She could see all of them flinch as they looked at it. Then the smiles were back.

"No."

"Don't know him."

"Never seen him in my life."

The interrogation went on like that for a little longer. With the boys denying that they had been anywhere near Sheas house at the time of the murder. Greg and Sara never said that it was at Sheas, just to see if they knew. Then they decided to get to the point.

"Lets' get to the point. We know that you three were at the Sheehan house on Monday night. We also know that you were the ones that killed him."

"What, we would never kill anyone. How could you say that?" came the shocked response from the three boys.

"I'll tell you how we know," Sara said to them. "We have video records of all of you outside the Sheehan house at the time the murder was committed. We also found shoeprints in the backyard, which means that you jumped the back fence rather then use the front door. When we searched your houses we took all your shoes and matched them to the prints found in the yard. Another piece of evidence, your clothes that you were wearing, covered with blood, was in the bottom of your laundry baskets. We matched the blood on the clothes to Finbarr Sheehan's. We also matched hairs from you, Graham, which was under Mr. Sheehan's nails. That places you at the crime scene. Last of all, we found epithelial's from you, Tom, and you Murray, on the clothes of the relative living in the house that you tried to frame for the murder. You three would have gotten away with the whole thing, but for one little detail."

"And what might that detail be?" asked Graham.

"The relative that you tried to frame knew you. So she could identify all you from the video recording."

"Could you tell us who this person might be?" asked Murray.

"Normally we wouldn't, but in this case you need to have those smiles wiped off your faces," said Brass.

"Oh do tell," said Tom with an even bigger smile.

So Sara told them. "The relative that you tried to frame, who's uncle you killed. That person is Shea."

They had been right. The smiles disappeared like someone had pulled the plug.

"As in Shea Hewson?" asked Graham.

"The one and only," Brass said quietly. "The very one who moved here from Boulder, Colorado in July with her father and brother. And her brother also died of HIV related pneumonia in August."

The three boys were now staring in open mouthed panic at the detective and CSIs.

"It couldn't have been him," whispered Murray.

"Had you ever seen Mr. Sheehan before you killed him?" asked Sara.

"No," whispered Graham. "Shea never took us to her house. She was planning for us to meet her uncle next week."

"Why did you do it?" asked Sara. "Why did you go out and kill an innocent man?"

There was no answer from the boys for a few seconds.

"We could try to go easier on you if you guys told us why," Brass said to them.

They looked at each other, and then Graham started to speak. "A few weeks ago we met up with these guys. They seemed cool, so we hung out for a while. We found they were part of this really cool club, and we could be part of it if we did this one thing. A kind of test. The benefits were amazing. We could go anywhere we wanted. We could carry guns. And we could make big money for doing little jobs."

"So it's a gang," said Brass. It wasn't a question.

"They don't call themselves a gang," Tom said defensively.

"But that's what they are," Brass persisted.

No response from any of them.

"Go on."

"We met with the boss on Saturday, and he told us what he wanted us to do. Our test to get into the club. He would pick a random address from the phone book, and we would have to go out and kill a man from that house, and bring back……………."

"His manhood," finished Brass.

"Yeah."

"Well, we have all the evidence we need. You three are all under arrest for the murder of Finbarr Sheehan," Brass told them.

"The officers went behind the boys and cuffed them as they stood up.

The final stab in the heart came when the officers lead the boys out of the door. Shea was leaning against the wall across from the interrogation room. They three boys stopped dead.

"Hi guys," she said very quietly.

"Shea," Graham said, trying to walk towards her, but was stopped by the officer. "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah I did, every word. I was in the observation room next door," she told them.

"Shea," said Tom, stepping forward one step. "We swear, if we knew it was your house we never would have…."

"Never would have what, Tom? Wouldn't have gone in and killed him? I know, you would have gone to another house and killed an innocent man from that one.

That left all three of them silent. Finally Graham stepped forward a little, as if he wanted to give Shea a hug. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't good enough for what you three did. Nothing will ever be good enough. Get away from me, I HATE YOU!" The last phrase came out as a shout.

"Get them out of here," Brass whispered.

The officers lead the three boys down the hall towards lockup. Brass followed them.

Shea at this point was curled up in a little ball against the wall. Sara and Greg went over to her and sat down, one on either side. Nothing was said for a moment, and then Shea put her head against Sara's shoulder.

"I want my brother. I want Finbarr," she whispered. Then Shea started to cry. The crying was not loud, if anything there was no sound, but the tears were streaming down her face in rivers. Sara reached out and put her arms around and hugged her. Greg put his hand on Sheas shoulder, just to comfort her. It was as though 13 years of bottled up emotion was poring out of Shea right now, and Sara and Greg were there to see her through it.

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I'm almost done. Just one more chapter to go. Please review on how it is.