All Things Lost

by Josh Aterovis

  “Caleb, this is Killian. He's the one who's going to help us prove your innocence.”

  I tried not to wince at Asher's over-the-top dramatics. Caleb's eyes shifted to me again before sliding back to Asher. He reminded me of a puppy that's been kicked by its owner one too many times and now it's distrustful of all humans.

  “How's he going to do that?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “He's a detective,” Asher said.

  “I'm not a detective,” I interjected, “I'm a secretary at a detective agency.”

  “But you're just like a detective and you've solved a murder before.” Asher gave me a look that I interpreted to mean he wanted me to play the master sleuth for Caleb's benefit. I had no intentions of pretending to be anything I'm not.

  “I didn't solve anything. I was just as surprised as everyone else.”

  “Well, your boss is helping too, and he's a real detective. He used to be a police detective and everything.”

  I couldn't argue with that. Caleb's eyes darted back and forth between us as if he was watching a tennis match.

  “So you're, like, going to find out who really killed my dad?” he said guardedly.

  “We're going to try,” I said quickly, before Asher could make any promises.

  “How?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “We'll ask questions. Talk to people. Look around…”

  “And that's going to find out who killed him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What kinds of questions will you ask?”

  “Uh, well, we'll ask your neighbors if they saw anything that night. Stuff like that.” I decided that it was time to take control of this conversation, “Do you know who would want to see your dad killed?”

  “You mean besides me?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Everyone who ever met him? He was a bastard, plain and simple.”

  “Is there anyone in particular? Who should we talk to? Help us out here.”

  “He had a girlfriend. Her name is Nadine. I can't remember her last name. Tyndall? Tinkle? Something like that.”

  I pulled out a notebook and I had stuck in my pocket and jotted the name. “Anyone else? Did he have a job?”

  “He worked part time as a security guard at a hotel downtown. I can't remember who his boss is…was. I think it was the Ease Inn.”

  “What about your mom?”

  His eyes dimmed and he looked away. “She's dead.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I was little. I just woke up one morning and my dad said she was gone. When I asked him what he meant he said, `Dead, boy. Your mom is dead and gone.' Things got worse from then on.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “That's when he started hitting me. Before that he mostly just hit her, he only hit me when I was bad or did something wrong.”

  “Did he hit you a lot?”

  His haunted eyes found mine and locked onto them. I couldn't look away. “Every day,” he said as matter of fact as if he'd just commented on the weather.

  It took me a moment to find my voice again. “Is there anyone else who might have wanted to kill him?” I asked finally.

  Caleb shrugged.

  “What about your neighbors?”

  “There's old Mrs. Fields on one side, but she's deaf and half-blind. She wouldn't know if someone chopped dad up in the middle of her living room.” I flinched at the coldness in his voice. “The Haynes's live on the other side. They don't have any kids. Becky, that's the wife, she was real nice to me. She'd let me come over sometimes when Dad was drinking. And she always gave me food. I guess I don't look like I eat enough. Her husband, Terry, was alright too, but he was real quiet and he worked a lot.”

  I was scribbling the whole time he talked. It was easier than looking into those eyes. They seemed like endless pools of misery, their depths formed from years upon years of pain and torture. Now that he'd stopped talking, though, I couldn't avoid looking up. He was watching me closely.

  “Are you really going to help me?” he asked. There wasn't any hope in the question; as if he already knew the answer and it wasn't what he wanted to hear.

  “I'm going to look into it,” I said carefully.

  He frowned. “Don't bother.”

  “What?” I asked in confusion.

  “Caleb, Killian's good,” Asher said quickly, “He came here to talk to you today. Give him a chance. Let him help you.”

  “How can he help me if he doesn't believe I'm innocent?”

  “I didn't say-”

  “You didn't have to. I can tell you think I did it. If you've already made up your mind that's not the kind of help I need.”

  “If there's one thing I've learned from past experience it's that I can't go into something like this with preconceived notions. I miss too much that way. I have to keep my mind open and that means I can't go in assuming you didn't do this just because you say you didn't. I'm also not going to assume you did do it just because the police think you did. I'm going to be as unbiased as I know how, and since I don't know you, your dad, or anyone else involved that shouldn't be that hard.”

  Caleb thought for a minute and then nodded slightly. “Fair enough, I guess I have to take what I can get. It's not like I can afford to hire a decent lawyer.”

  “Is the State appointing one for you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Why do the police seem so sure you did it?”

  “Because I ran away from the group home I was in.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? It was better than staying there. If I wanted to get the shit beat out of me every day I could have just stayed with Dad.”

  “Where'd you go?”

  He looked away. “No where special.”

  “You had to go somewhere.”

  “I just wandered around.”

  “The police picked you up on the boardwalk, right? Is that where you went?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You've done some homework. No, I'd just gotten to the boardwalk when the police grabbed me. I didn't even know what was going on at first. I thought they were going to take me back to the group home, so I ran from them. They caught me, though. That's when I found out that my dad was dead. And that they thought I had done it.”

  “So you didn't know that he was dead before they found you?”

  “Nope, that was the first I'd heard of it. Not that I was all that broken up. I hated him.”

  I tried to think of any more questions. I wished Novak was there or that I'd asked him what kinds of things to ask. I was trying to remember every police show I'd ever watched.

  “Where were you when they say your dad was killed?”

  “I told you, I don't know. I was just wandering around, working my way towards the boardwalk.”

  “Why were you heading towards the boardwalk?”

  He shrugged, “I don't know. I thought I might run into someone I knew.”

  “And did you?”

  “I didn't see anyone until the cops busted me.”

  “So you don't have an alibi?”

  “I didn't know I was going to need one.”

  The door opened and a guard stepped in. “Times up, guys,” he said genially.

  Caleb stood up and looked intently at Asher. Then he placed his hand flat against the glass and Asher placed his against Caleb's. They stood like that for a second and then Caleb turned and walked away without another word. A guard was waiting to take him away.

  “What was that about?” I asked Asher as soon as we were outside.

  “What?”

  “That whole hand thing.”

  “He was just saying good-bye,” Asher said defensively.

  “If you say so.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Just forget it.”

  “No, I want to know what you meant by that.”

  “I just think there's something going on between you two.” I raised my hand to cut him off as he opened his mouth to deny it
. “But whether there is or not is none of my business. What is my business is the fact that there was something very odd about that interview.”

  “What do you mean odd?”

  “If you were accused of killing your father and you didn't do it, wouldn't you say that you didn't do it? At least once. I mean explicitly say, `I didn't do it.' He never once actually said I didn't kill my father, not even when he was walking away. And he doesn't seem at all concerned about who did kill him.”

  “He hated his dad, Killian. The man beat him every day of his life; for no reason. You can't expect him to be in mourning. A part of him is probably glad he's dead.”

  “A part of him? I'd say it's more like all of him. He's a cool customer, Ash. Be careful.”

  “You think he did it, don't you?”

  “Like I said, I try to keep an open mind. But if I had to say one way or the other right now, then yes, my gut instinct says he did it.”

  “Killian!”

  “Look, I never promised that I would believe his innocence. I said I would look into it and I will. But if I find more evidence that he did do it, I'm not going to hide that. I'll turn it over to the police. I can't even say that I blame him really. If I was in his shoes maybe I would have done the same thing. There were times when I hated my dad enough to kill him and he didn't beat me every day. The difference is I didn't kill my dad.”

  “And you don't know that Caleb did either. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? He's already been tried and convicted by the police and the newspapers and now you too.”

  “You know Asher, sometimes things are just as they appear.”

  “And sometimes appearances can be deceiving.”

  Chapter 9

  We didn't speak much as we got in the car and left the detention center. Finally I couldn't stand it any longer.

  “You have feelings for him, don't you?”

  Asher looked surprised. “What? Who?”

  “The Pope. Who do you think? Caleb.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Stop avoiding the question.”

  “Do you have feelings for Jake?”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “The same place your question came from. I can tell what's going on.”

  “Then please fill me in because I have no idea what's going on. All I asked was whether or not you have feelings for Caleb. I'm not even saying I have a problem with it. It was just obvious from the way you talk about him, your body language back there, everything.”

  “So you admit you have feelings for Jake?”

  “I didn't say that! Jake and I had a good talk last night. We're going to just be friends. I don't need any kind of relationship right now. I told you that.” We were quiet for a minute, then I said, “You still haven't answered my question.”

  “I thought you had answered it for me.” He sighed. “The truth is I don't know how to answer it. You say you're confused, well so am I. I have some sort of feelings for Caleb but I haven't figured them out yet; if they're attraction, friendship, protectiveness, or what. Like you said earlier, we're both pretty inexperienced in this whole area.”

  “Well, if you do like someone else, whether it's Caleb, or whoever, I want you to know that I'll be ok with it.”

  Asher looked over at me for a second before answering. “I'm not sure how that makes me feel,” he said quietly. I didn't say anything.

  After a few minutes, Asher asked if I would mind if we stopped by to see Will on our way back. I told him it was fine with me, I had been intending to call him anyway since I hadn't seen Darin since the day we brought him home from the hospital.

  “He's grown a lot,” Asher said as he turned the car in the direction of Will's house. We were both visibly relieved at the introduction of a relatively safe topic of conversation.

  “How much could he have grown, he's only a month old?”

  “To hear Will talk you'd think he was going off to college with us this fall.”

  I laughed. “How's Will doing?”

  “Ok, I guess. I think the baby is really keeping him worn out. I know he still isn't painting.”

  “Who would have time? I meant more in an emotional sense though. Is he still in mourning over Aidan?”

  “I don't know. He hasn't mentioned him lately and I'm not about to bring it up.” Avoidance seemed to be something we were too good at.

  We pulled into Will's driveway and Asher turned the car off. His mom's car was gone, which meant she was probably at work, but another car sat in its place.

  “It looks like he has company,” Asher said with his hand still on the key in the ignition. “Maybe we should just go and I'll come back another time.”

  Before we could make a decision, Will opened the front door. His face broke into a wide smile when he saw us.

  “I thought I heard a car pull up,” he said. “I thought maybe it was Mom with the groceries.”

  “Hey, Will,” Asher said as he climbed out of the car. “If you have company we can always come back later.”

  “No, it's ok. Come on in.”

  We followed him into the house and into his living room. A vaguely familiar young man sat on the couch holding the baby. The guy was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with sandals. I had a feeling that I should know him but I couldn't place him in the present setting. There was a slight sense that he seemed out of place.

  “You remember Bryan, right?” Will asked. It was clear by the way he said it that he fully expected us to know him. Asher must have been as blank as I was, though, since an awkward silence stretched out, making it obvious that we did not, in fact, remember Bryan.

  “He performed my wedding?” Will prompted. I was surprised at how easily he mentioned the wedding, without any outward sign of grief.

  “Oh!” I said, suddenly placing him, “You look different when you're not in a suit.”

  Bryan laughed. “I get that a lot.”

  “You're the pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church here on the Shore, right?” Asher added, proving he remembered now as well.

  “Right,” Bryan confirmed, “And if I remember correctly you're Killian and Asher. I've heard a lot about you guys. How's your dad, Killian?”

  I blinked in surprise until I realized what he meant, “You mean Adam?”

  “Yeah, did I mess that up?” He smiled in an appealing, self-depreciating manner. “Aren't you Killian Connelly, Adam's son?”

  “Well my name is Killian Kendall, actually. I'm not really Adam's son, although he's been like a dad to me; closer than a dad, really. He's good. Him and Steve, that's his partner, are buying a house and turning it into a bed and breakfast.”

  “I've met Steve. Where's the house?”

  “In Chicone.”

  “Not too far from here then.”

  “How do you know Adam and Steve, just from the wedding?”

  “No, I knew Adam before the wedding. That's why he called on me. The gay community is small enough here on the Shore that if you are out and at all social you pretty much know everyone. Hey, I don't mean to be dominating the conversation. You didn't come here to see me. I'll get going and let you guys talk.” He stood up and handed Darin over to Will. We made a token protest but he waved them away and let himself out.

  I waited until I heard his car door slam before I spun around to face Will. “So, does the Reverend Bryan come around often?” I said with a teasing grin. Asher carefully took Darin from Will's arms and settled in the middle of the sofa.

  “A few times,” Will said blushing, “It doesn't mean anything. He's just making visits, you know, like for the church.”

  I cocked an eyebrow, a trick I'd learned from Adam. “How often do you attend his church?”

  “Well, I've never been…”

  “And does he make all his visits dressed like that?”

  “It's a very relaxed church,” Will said defensively.

  I burst out laughing. “I'm just te
asing you, Will. Don't get your boxers in a bunch. Although, you never know, maybe he is interested in you.”

  “I'm not ready for that yet, Killian. Don't rush things.”

  “Ok, ok. So how are you feeling?” I sat down on one side of Asher and took Darin's tiny hand in mine. Will plopped down on the other end of the sofa with a sigh.

  “Tired! He's such a good baby, but if only he would sleep through the night, just one night. Mom tries to help out as much as possible but she works all kinds of shifts so she needs her sleep more.”

  “Are you painting?” I said even though I thought I knew the answer.

  “Are you kidding? I don't have enough energy to walk to the mailbox some days.”

  “Maybe you should get some help,” Asher suggested.

  “Like what, a nanny? I can't afford that.”

  “Well if you had, like, a daycare person you could get a job, maybe start painting again. Nikki would still sell your stuff, right?”

  He shrugged, “Maybe, I don't know. I don't know if I want to paint anymore and I don't know what else I would do. You guys want something to drink?” It was an obvious attempt to change the subject. While he was doing better, he wasn't completely healed yet by a long shot.

  “Sure,” Asher said, accepting the dodge.

  “Killian, would you give me a hand?”

  “Ok,” I said, caught a little off guard. I followed Will into his kitchen. “Are you and Asher back together?” he asked me as he pulled three glasses out of the kitchen cabinet.

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “I didn't know with the two of you arriving together and all.”

  “My car is out of commission and Asher wanted me to meet someone so we drove over together. I could have driven Adam's car but since we were going to the same place it seemed silly.”

  “Well, at least you're getting along. You're going to try the whole friend thing?”

  “I guess. It's awkward. Sometimes I feel myself slipping back into habits. I have to keep reminding myself not to kiss him or put my arm around him, little things. I think it's over between us, though. We've both started moving on.”