Free Homicide Related by Norah McClintock Page A

the funeral home for the second time. Maybe they’d been there before and he just hadn’t noticed. They were the same two cops he’d seen coming down the porch steps the night he’d found out about Lorraine.
    â€œRyan Dooley?” the taller and younger of the two said.
    Dooley nodded.
    â€œDetective Randall,” the cop said, flashing his ID. “We’d like to talk to you about your mother.”
    Just like Dooley’s uncle had predicted.
    â€œI have to get to school,” Dooley said. He couldn’t believe how glad he was of the excuse.
    â€œWe’ll drive you there,” Randall said. “After we talk.” He glanced up the street. “How about we buy you a cup of coffee?”
    Dooley knew he didn’t have to talk to them. He knew he could walk away. He knew that was his right. He also knew how it would look if he didn’t talk to them. He nodded and walked with the two cops to a coffee shop a couple of doors up from the funeral home. He let them pick the table and order—coffee all around. He watched while they opened their notebooks.
    â€œWhat can you tell us about your mother, Ryan?” Randall said.
    â€œNot much. We weren’t close,” Dooley said.
    â€œDid she use drugs?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œDo you know what kind of drugs?”
    â€œWhat have you got?” Dooley said, realizing too late that it sounded like he didn’t care and, because of that, was probably setting the detectives’ cop antennae all aquiver. Randall was looking directly at him, that flat cop expression on his face so Dooley couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
    â€œWhen was the last time you spoke to your mother, Ryan?”
    Spoke to her, as in had a real honest-to-God conversation?
    â€œIt’s been a couple of years.”
    â€œHow many years?” Randall said, registering no surprise that Dooley could see. But then, in Dooley’s experience, cops usually tried not to show surprise when they were dealing with civilians, even when they’d been bowled over by something that had never occurred to them. Besides, Dooley bet that Randall, a homicide cop, had a pretty grim view of human nature. He bet Randall thought that nothing could surprise him. He also bet that either Randall or his partner had already asked his uncle the same question.
    â€œTwo, maybe a little more than that,” Dooley said.
    â€œYour uncle tells us she was at the house a couple of weeks ago.”
    â€œOh?” Dooley tried to be as expert as Randall at hiding his surprise.
    â€œTwo weeks ago Friday, in the evening.” Randall glanced at his notes. “Nine o’clock. Did you see her then?” Another question that Dooley was pretty sure the detective had already asked his uncle. He probably had the answer written down right there in his notebook.
    â€œI was working,” Dooley said. “Four to midnight.”
    â€œWhere do you work?”
    Dooley told him. He also told him, because Randall asked, the exact time he had walked through the front door that night. He was pretty sure his uncle remembered to the minute. He made it his business to keep on top of Dooley’s whereabouts.
    â€œSo you didn’t see her that night?”
    â€œNo,” Dooley said, looking Randall right in the eye.
    â€œWhat did your uncle tell you about her visit?”
    â€œNothing. He didn’t mention it.”
    â€œHe didn’t tell you that she’d dropped by?”
    â€œNo.” His uncle hadn’t said a word about it.
    â€œHe didn’t tell you what the two of them talked about, whether they argued, anything like that?”
    Dooley shook his head. He wondered what his uncle had told the two cops.
    â€œDoes that strike you as unusual, Ryan?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou say you hadn’t spoken to your mother in two years. Then she shows up at your uncle’s house and he doesn’t even mention that to you.