Caleb turned to look at him. He was tall. Taller than Caleb, who was five-eleven and still growing. The man had short brown hair and regarded Caleb steadily from gray-green eyes. He was as calm as Uncle Nelson was upset. Something in his calmness quieted the riot of questions and anxieties in Caleb’s head.
“Yes, I’m Caleb. Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Frank Harriman. I’m with the Las Piernas Police Department. Why don’t you have a seat?”
“No thanks.” His palms were sweating, and he felt an urgent desire to escape the room, because he knew that whatever was coming wasn’t going to be good. He found himself watching this big cop, waiting, somehow knowing the answers would come from him.
Harriman said quietly, “I’m so sorry, Caleb. There’s no easy way to tell you this. Your father died at his studio this morning.”
His voice was calm and sincere, but the words made no sense.
“Died?” Caleb said, thinking back to breakfast early this morning, his dad alive and well. No. He wasn’t dead.
Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.
“Murdered!” Uncle Nelson choked out.
“What?” Caleb felt the room spin. “No-there’s some mistake-”
“Your dad and Jenny, too!” Uncle Nelson said.
“Jenny…?” None of this made sense.
Harriman quickly said, “Your sister is missing, so it is far too early to jump to any conclusions about what has happened to her.”
Caleb’s mind rapidly issued refusals, denying that any of this could be true. He made himself ask, “What happened to my dad?”
“Some sick fuck beat him to death!” Uncle Nelson shouted.
Caleb got that dizzy feeling again. Beat him to death? No…Think of something else! Why was Uncle Nelson here, and not his mom? Oh, she must be telling Mason. Or looking for Jenny…
Detective Harriman said, “Mr. Fletcher, please.”
Uncle Nelson buried his face in his hands.
Harriman put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder, watched him for a moment, and said, “Maybe you should sit down. Why don’t I get you a glass of water?”
“Thank you,” Caleb said, feeling as if he had stumbled into the wrong room after all, that any moment now the red-haired girl would come by to guide him out of this impossible universe.
The chair was close to Uncle Nelson’s, and his uncle pulled him into a rough hug. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say…Oh, Caleb…” But the rest was lost in heaving sobs. As Caleb felt the force of his uncle’s distress, something in his own mind started to accept how possible this universe was after all.
When Detective Harriman came back, Caleb still hadn’t completely found his way out of disbelief.
“Who did it? Who hurt my dad?” Hurt. That sounded better.
“We’re working on the answer to that,” Harriman said.
“You don’t know? You haven’t arrested anyone?”
“It’s very early on in the investigation.”
Caleb took a drink of the water. Somehow he managed to swallow it.
“My dad…no one would want to hurt him. He’s a graphic artist, for God’s sake. He never hurt anyone. He’s good to everyone. He’s always helping people, he’s…he’s…no one would want to hurt him.”
“Do you have any idea where your brother is?” the detective asked.
“Half brother,” Uncle Nelson murmured.
“Pardon?” Harriman asked.
“Technically, Mason is my half brother,” Caleb said, feeling irritated. “But I call him my brother.”
“So do you know where he is?”
“Isn’t Mom telling Mason? I thought that might be why-” He glanced at Uncle Nelson.
“No,” Harriman said. “No, she doesn’t know where he is, either. She’s working with the detectives who have charge of this case. I’m just helping them out. They’re doing all they can to locate your sister and your brother. We want to make sure everyone else in the family is safe. We’re hoping Jenny is with him.”
“Yes!” Caleb said, latching on to this. “Yes, he might have stopped by the studio and taken her so that Dad could get some work done.”
“That’s what your mom thought, too. So you don’t know where he might have taken her?”
Caleb named some places-the park, an ice-cream place, a beach-and Detective Harriman wrote them down but said, “I think these were on your mom’s list, too. Can you think of any other places? Maybe ones your mom wouldn’t think of?”
Caleb frowned but shook his head.
“Friends that he might be hanging out with?”
Caleb shook his head again. “He never takes Jenny around to his friends’ places. He’d never do that. He’s like-you know, protective of her.”
Detective Harriman wrote that down, which Caleb thought was a strange thing to write. Uncle Nelson reached over and patted Caleb’s hand. Caleb pulled his hand away.
Uncle Nelson wasn’t crying so hard now, he noticed.
Caleb wondered why he wasn’t crying himself. What was wrong with him?
Because this isn’t happening, he told himself. This is not happening.
Detective Harriman asked a few more questions and then asked Caleb if he needed to go to his locker for anything.
He felt an urge to lie and say yes, just to flee the room, to get as far away as possible. But he said, “No, not really.”
Harriman’s pager went off, and the detective silenced it and read the display. He excused himself and stepped out into the hall to make a call on his cell phone. To Caleb’s relief, Uncle Nelson didn’t try to converse.
When Harriman came back in, he said, “Your mom’s back home now, so if you’re ready to go, I’ll give you and your uncle a ride there.”
“But my car-”
“Probably best to come back and pick it up later.”
Caleb didn’t argue. His resistance was failing him, leaving him hollow and numb. He didn’t want to try to drive.
Caleb worried about his uncle Nelson as they walked. When they got to Detective Harriman’s sedan, Harriman opened the door on the passenger’s side of the front seat. But Uncle Nelson ignored him and got into the back. Feeling awkward, Caleb sat up front.
“Are you okay back there, Uncle Nelson?” Caleb said, but his uncle didn’t answer him. He seemed lost in thought.
As they drove away from the school, Caleb turned to the detective. “Are you sure…” he started to say, then fell silent.
“That it’s your dad?” Harriman asked. “The coroner’s office will make absolutely certain, but in the meantime, your mom has identified the victim as your father.”
After another silence, Caleb said, “Can I see him?”
“Not just now, but maybe later.”
“I need to see him.”
Harriman hesitated, then said, “Your mom will have to make that decision. She seems like someone who would understand why it’s important to you.”
Why can’t I cry? Caleb wondered, disturbed by the thought and yet half-relieved that he wasn’t losing control in front of this stranger.
Caleb looked back at his uncle, who was still staring out at nothing in particular.
“Why did you bring Uncle Nelson?” he whispered to Harriman.
“You’re a minor. Your mom agreed that I could come by to pick you up and talk to you in your uncle’s presence.”
Something in that confused him, but everything was confusing and out of place. His dad was dead. One
