“The prosecutor said that Mason went over to my dad’s studio, had an argument with him, killed him, and then killed Jenny. I don’t believe any of that happened. I think someone framed him.”
“What makes you think so?” I asked.
“Start with Jenny. He never would have harmed her-never. The prosecutor said that she must have surprised him killing my dad. That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“We didn’t-We weren’t like these people who have nannies, you know? We took care of Jenny ourselves. My mom had two built-in baby-sitters. Mason and I watched her a lot, but mostly it was Mason. He loved spending time with her. He’d take her places even when he wasn’t baby-sitting her. I-I wasn’t as patient as he was.”
He fell silent.
“Preschoolers can try anyone’s patience,” I said. “She lived under the same roof with you, so you probably had your patience tried. You were studying hard, still in high school, right?”
“Yes,” he said, not forgiving himself anything.
“What did Mason do?”
“He was-He’s an artist.”
“He worked with your dad?”
Caleb shook his head. “No, they didn’t get along about that. My dad wanted Mason to work with him. He wanted to teach him things about art. But Mason wanted to be on his own. He had already sold a couple of pieces.”
“He was able to support himself with his own art?” Frank asked.
“No, he had a band, too. Played keyboards. He wasn’t making a lot of money, but they had a steady gig at one of the clubs downtown.”
“You were saying that he watched Jenny,” I said. “Is that another way he earned money?”
“No-I mean yes, he watched Jenny, but no, he didn’t take money for that. My mom wanted to pay him for it, but he wouldn’t let her.” He took a deep breath, let it out in a rush. “My mom never would have let him take care of Jenny if she thought Mason would hurt her. If you had ever seen Mason and Jenny together…Anyway, he would have known that if Jenny wasn’t with me or my mom, she would be with my dad. He knew my mom’s work hours. He knew I was at school.”
“So he knew Jenny would be with your dad.”
“Exactly-no way would that be a surprise.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “But he was found drunk-”
“That’s another thing that’s all wrong,” he said.
“Drunk and full of barbiturates, as I recall.”
“That’s how he was found, but he didn’t put himself in that condition. He didn’t drink or use drugs.”
Ethan, who had almost nodded off, sat up at that. “What?”
Caleb laced his fingers together and rested his hands on the papers. His shoulders tensed. “No one ever believes this,” he said, “unless they knew Mason. The minute they hear he was an artist, or learn that he was in a band, they assume he must have been high all the time. He wasn’t.”
Ethan said, “I know what you mean about the stereotypes, but speaking from experience, some people get pretty good at hiding their habits.”
Caleb looked up at him.
“Another time,” Ethan said. “Keep telling us about Mason.”
Caleb’s shoulders relaxed. “Okay. When Mason was in high school, he dated this girl named Jadia. She was kind of wild, a little bit of a loner, and so was Mason. You talk about people who could hide their habits-that girl drank and did who-knows-what else, but until it got kind of late in the day, you’d hardly know it.”
“And Mason was with her a lot?”
“Not really. Typical high-school romance-didn’t last more than a few weeks. That was long enough for Mason to figure out that she had a drinking problem.” He paused. “I know that a couple of years before he met her, he was running with a different…well, I won’t make excuses for him. He tried all kinds of things and he had done some drinking, but he was never big-time into that stuff. By the time he got together with Jadia, he had already done all his experimenting…it was no real thrill for him.”
“He’s six years older than you?” I asked.
“Yes. I was this total pain in the ass-uh, I mean nuisance-”
Ethan laughed. “Dude, she’s not your mom. You can say ass and all kinds of other stuff. They’re cool with it.”
Caleb’s face reddened.
I could see the amusement in Frank’s eyes, which undoubtedly had more to do with the “mom” business than anything else, but I decided to ignore him. “So,” I said to Caleb, “you looked up to your big brother?”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. My brother isn’t a saint. I’d never say that about him. He wasn’t always easy to get along with. He liked being the rebel.”
“Hard on the rest of the family sometimes,” Frank said, none of the amusement of the previous moment anywhere in his voice. “My older sister was a rebel. Diana was always making it hellish for my parents, and I didn’t like that, but at the same time I also admired her. She was more daring than I was, but she was also always getting into trouble.”
I tried not to let my shock show. Frank was twelve when his sister Diana died, and his family had developed a code of silence about her that had lasted decades. That ban had been lifted awhile back, but old habits lingered-this was the first time I had heard him mention her to anyone other than his closest friends.
Caleb, unconscious of this honor, said, “Yes! That’s what it was like for me, too. Did she outgrow it?”
“No, she was killed in an accident, so we didn’t get a chance to see if they would have been getting along later.”
“Sorry.” He paused. “I guess that’s what I hate most about all of this-losing all the chances. I’ll never know my dad any better than I did when I was in high school. I don’t know what he’d say to me now, or if we’d even get along. I’ve already missed knowing what kind of bratty kid Jenny might have been over the past few years. I haven’t been able to be a brother to her. At first I thought it would only be a few days before someone would find her.” He paused again, and this time the silence stretched out before he went on.
After a while, he said, “Another thing-Mason and Dad never got the chance to be adults with each other. Our family was close, and I didn’t like to hear him giving my mom and dad shit all the time, but I think they were seeing that he was growing out of it. Mason was always braver than I was-still is. He can be funny, too.” He grinned. “I think I was ten before I realized that his biological father was probably not a guy named Mr. Jar. He replaced that story with half a dozen others, including one about my mom naming him after a jar because of the way she got pregnant with him-I was completely freaked out, of course, and he knew I’d never ask my mom if it was true.”
“That’s disgusting,” Ethan said, but he was laughing.
“Does he know who his biological father is?” I asked.
“No. Mom didn’t want the guy’s name on anything, because she didn’t want him to try to get custody of Mason. She’d never tell anyone the guy’s name-claimed she didn’t know, but none of us believed that. I asked Mason once if he wanted to know, and he said, ‘Only as a matter of idle curiosity.’ He also used to say that we had different fathers but the same dad.”
“Which doesn’t exactly fit the picture the prosecution painted of their relationship.”
“No.”
“You were saying that you know he didn’t drink because of this girl he dated,” Ethan said, demonstrating one of the reasons I think he’ll be a great reporter one day-he never loses track of any thread in a conversation.
“Right,” Caleb said. “Jadia. The way that happened was that one day Jadia showed up at our house, and she was drunk and wanted Mason to go somewhere with her. She was going to drive. Mason didn’t have a car of his own yet. My dad wouldn’t let Mason go with her. Mason acted all pissed off about it, but to be honest, I think he was relieved to have an excuse not to go with her.”