Close to Home - chapter 3
Close to Home
3
"We do have all those blueberries in the deep freeze," Martha said. She was sitting in her chair, thumbing idly through her recipe box.
Kon sat cross-legged in the middle of the couch, a shallow pan to either side of him, carefully cracking walnuts and separating the meat from the shells. "Nah," he said, "he hates blueberries."
Martha looked up at him in surprise.
"I know," Kon said, laughing.
"I just can’t believe one of Bruce’s boys doesn’t eat blueberries. Alfred makes these muffins-"
Kon interrupted her with a groan. "Oh God, yes, the muffins. But he always makes Tim some with cranberries."
Martha frowned at her handful of recipe cards and started shuffling.
"And I think maybe orange? Or maybe it was apricots. Something like that. Tim never lets me have any. Bart and I stole some, one time, but he said he'd stop bringing the cookies if-"
Tim was awake. Kon wasn't quite sure how he knew, because he couldn't hear him moving or anything. He was lying still in Kon's bed, and breathing evenly.
"Time to save the day from certain doom?"
Kon dialed back the hearing and shook his head. "What?"
Martha was watching him with a fond, indulgent smile. "When Clark gets that look, there's usually a tidal wave or an alien invasion."
"Oh," Kon said, "No, just-"
"Where is my uniform?" Tim called, from the top of the stairs, frustration obvious in his tone.
"Okay," Kon said quietly, grinning as he set the nuts aside. "Maybe a little doom." He crossed the room to peek up the stairwell to the landing, where Tim was all wrapped up and tiny-looking in Kon's fuzzy bathrobe, his arms crossed over his chest and a disapproving frown on his face. "Have a nice nap?" Kon asked cheerfully, and the frown deepened.
"Where are my clothes?" he growled.
"You slept right through lunch, but we saved you a plate. Lots of greens," he added. "Ma thinks you're anemic."
"I take supplements. Where are my pants, Kon?"
"First food, then pants."
Tim sighed. "I don't have time for-"
"Food," Kon insisted. "Will you come down here? There's fried chicken, and cornbread, and yesterday's cobbler-"
Tim's frown started to melt. "I - fried chicken?" he asked, "really?"
*
Matthew Stephens had lived with his mother in a small, neat brick house not far from the clinic where she worked. There was a little garden in the back, with a few flowers, and some stakes for vegetables along the fence. There were no weeds in the garden, but the yard needed mowing. That had probably been Matt's job.
"So," Kon said, when they landed, "is the mom a suspect?"
"Everyone's a suspect."
Kon rolled his eyes and watched Tim cross the yard to examine the blue sedan parked in the driveway. "Okay," he said, "sure. Is she really a suspect?"
Instead of answering, Tim motioned Kon over to where he stood behind the car. There was a brightly colored PFLAG sticker on the bumper, right below one of those chrome loop-de-loop fish.
"I'm thinking no," Kon said, in answer to his own question. "I'm also thinking maybe you should let me do most of the talking."
Tim opened his mouth, but Kon cut him off. "If she makes you suspicious, or I miss something stupid, you can take over, but until then, we go easy on her. You saw what a wreck his dad was. This lady's had a bad enough week without-"
"Okay," Tim interrupted, and started for the door.
"Okay?"
"Batman used to send me in to handle the victim's families."
Kon shook his head and followed him. "Well," he said, "I guess if I had to pick between you and Batman…"
"It's a division of roles. People have to be afraid of Batman. Robin is more accessible."
"Must have been a hell of a role reversal, with Dick and the brat," Kon muttered.
There was a grapevine wreath on the front door, a little dusty, with a tiny American flag stuck through one side and a bow hanging from the other. Kon knocked, and then paused to tighten the loose wire.
"Superman gets to be accessible," Tim continued, and Kon gave him a look. "One of the perks of near invulnerability."
"You wanted me to talk to her," he realized. "You could have said."
Tim shrugged. "Your case," he said, and smiled a little, which Kon chose to believe meant Tim thought he was doing a decent job.
The door opened, then, and Kon put on his best hero smile. Tim was a step behind him, so Kon couldn't see his face. He hoped it was appropriate.
Matt's mother was petite, with short, dirty-blond hair. She was dressed in track pants and a rumpled t-shirt, and she looked pale and washed out, except for the redness around her eyes. "Oh my God," she breathed when she saw them, and covered her mouth in surprise.
"Ma'am," Kon said. He gave her a few seconds to process the presence of superheroes on her doorstep, and then added, "May we come in?"
"Oh my God," she said again. Her eyes darted to Tim and then back to Kon, still a little dazed. "You're Superboy." She shook her head. "Yes, ah, come in." She stepped back and opened the door wider. "It's a mess," she said, combing her fingers through her hair, "I haven't - I haven't cleaned."
The extent of the 'mess' seemed to be a blanket on the couch in the living room, half covering a box of tissues and a pile of magazines.
"Um," she said, as she shut the door behind them, "Would you like something to drink? Or eat, or - oh, do you eat?"
"Yes, ma'am," Kon said, smiling.
Rebecca smiled nervously, managing to look both relieved and embarrassed at the same time. "I - come into the kitchen. Please." She led them through an open doorway, where Tim paused to give him a look that was probably all about proper investigatory procedure. Kon pretended not to notice.
Tim looked seriously out of place in the bright, cheerful kitchen, and Kon was pretty sure he knew it. Since there weren't any handy shadows to hide in, he seemed unsure where to do his lurking from. He finally settled on a spot near the door, and Kon rolled his eyes at him when Rebecca turned to open the fridge, which was stuffed with foil covered casserole pans and two untouched bundt cakes. Kon squinted, curious, and found a dish on the bottom shelf that looked an awful lot like Martha's strawberry salad.
"I have tea," Rebecca offered, "Or I could make coffee. Or there's Soder. Um. Diet."
"Tea's fine for me. Red, you want some tea?"
Tim just stared at him like he'd lost his mind.
"You have any Zesti?" Kon asked as he watched Rebecca fill a glass with ice and pour the tea.
"Oh," she said, looking stricken. "No I - I don't drink much pop. Matt only really liked Soder. Did you want-"
"Nah," Kon said. He cocked his thumb at Tim. "I was asking on behalf of my silent partner, here. East coast boy. He's picky about the weirdest things."
"East coast?" Rebecca asked, turning to Tim and falling into the rhythms of small talk just like Kon had hoped.
"Gotham," Tim said, speaking for the first time since they'd crossed the threshold.
Rebecca's eyes widened a little. "Oh," she said, and it was like he could see into her head, see her thinking who else was from Gotham. "That's - that's a long way to come..."
Tim didn't answer, so Kon stepped between them and took the glass from her hand. "Red Robin here is kind of shy, but he's a hell of a detective…which is why we're here."
Rebecca turned and put the pitcher back in the fridge. "I don't know what I can tell you that I didn't tell the police. I-" She broke off when she turned back around. "I'm sorry. I still can't believe there are superheroes in my kitchen."
I probably cracked the nuts for that strawberry salad, Kon wanted to say, but held his tongue. Instead, he pulled two chairs out from under the bleached-oak table and sat down in the one closest to Tim. After a moment's hesitation, Rebecca joined him. Tim didn't sit down, but he did lean against the counter, which made him look almost as short as he really was, and probably seem significantly less threatening if you'd never seen him in action. It was a decent compromise, so Kon didn't push it. "We've spoken to Matt's father-" he started, but Rebecca waved a hand.
"It wasn't Patrick," she said, quietly. "He was so sorry - he hurt Matt. You probably know that if you went to see him first. But he was so, so sorry, when he realized what he'd done."
"You don't think he might have felt financially pressured by the unofficial child support?"
Rebecca frowned at Tim, but she answered anyway. "I never asked him to send any money - he did that on his own, and he could have stopped anytime. Patrick is an old-fashioned man, and he had old-fashioned ideas about a lot of things - including a father's obligation to support his family."
Kon, for his part, did more than frown at Tim. "We know it wasn't him," Kon told her. "That's why we need you to tell us everything you can about your son - anyone he may have argued with, or who might have a grudge…"
"No. No, there was no one. Matt - he was a good boy. Everyone liked him."
"Obviously not everyone," Tim said, and oh, Kon was this close to burning a hole in his stupid fucking cowl. Tim ignored his glare, though, and Rebecca's shocked look, pressing on. "Children - teenagers especially, don't always tell their parents everything."
"Matt did."
"I'm sure you thought he did. Most parents do."
This is not the time for your fucking issues Kon thought, but Tim still wasn't looking at him.
"Matt did," Rebecca repeated, suddenly defiant. "We could talk about anything. We talked about sex. He knew to call me for a ride, if he'd been drinking at a party. He told me about trying marijuana at a friend's house and throwing up in her pool, for heaven's sake. We were close."
"Was he sexually active?" Tim continued.
Rebecca sighed, almost seeming to deflate as she slumped down into her chair. "Yes," she said. "The cat was out of that bag before Patrick...left. He…acted out, sometimes, at first. Testing me, I guess. But he settled out. He was responsible. He was a good kid."
Kon sat back and narrowed his eyes. Would she have told them all that if Tim hadn't gotten her mad, first? He really wasn't sure, but he decided to stop glaring daggers and just pay attention.
"Mrs. Stephens-" Tim started
"Martin. Ms."
"Ms. Martin. Your son was gay. He was killed in a school locker room."
"I know that," she sighed. "I know what it looks like. I really can't tell you -" She broke off, frowning. "I made a decision when I divorced my husband, to not be around…people like that. We stopped going to church, mostly, even though I raised Matt right and faithful. I stopped talking to most of Patrick's friends. Matt was the same. I taught him not to hide, but not to make himself miserable, either. I'm sure there are kids at that school who've been taught that kind of hate, but I don't know any by name."
"Did he ever mention being bullied or harassed at school?" Kon asked, thinking about what he'd witnessed in the hall the day before.
"No. Not since middle school. I transferred him right away."
So…maybe Matt didn't tell his mother everything, after all. Maybe Tim was right. Again. Kon really hated when that happened.
"There are a lot of cases of people being attacked for perceived homosexual advances," Tim ventured.
"No," Rebecca said, shaking her head emphatically. "No, Matt wouldn't-"
"Perceived advances. Possibly casual flirting."
"No," she repeated. "Matt was very committed to his boyfriend."
Probably Tim's tiny little exhalation of breath wouldn't have sounded like a laugh to anyone who hadn't known him since before his voice had cracked. "He was sixteen," he said, dismissively, and then finally - finally - seemed to register the look on Kon's face and the set of his shoulders and shut the hell up.
Kon breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to Matt’s mother. "Can you tell us about this boyfriend?"
Rebecca frowned and shot a wary glance in Tim’s direction. "You aren’t going to bother him, are you?"
"We just need to get a picture of Matt’s life, ma’am - people he knew, places he hung out…"
Rebecca didn’t answer, at first. Kon was pretty sure it wasn’t just his enhanced hearing that made the tick of the wall clock seem so loud. Eventually, though, she shuffled through a stack of photos and slid a few across the table.
The one on top showed Matt and a tall black boy in thick glasses that Kon recognized vaguely from the halls at school. They stood together in dark suits and matching boutonnieres, under a wooden arch covered in silk poinsettias. Kon hadn’t gone to the Christmas dance, but he recognized the arch from the pictures everyone had passed around the week after it. "They were out at school," he said. At the edge of his vision, he saw Tim shift.
"Yes," she said. "That’s Clarence Moore. He and Matt were seeing each other for a little less than two years."
"Did they ever fight?" Tim asked.
"Everyone fights. Just silly things, though, and it never lasted long."
The next picture showed Clarence, grinning and holding Matt in a head-lock he wasn’t trying very hard to escape, his glasses askew on his face. There was one of Clarence and Rebecca dancing cheek to cheek in front of a Christmas tree, and Matt laughing in the background. Another showed Matt with a group of people that were probably the rest of the Moores - a middle aged couple and a man in his twenties who could easily have been Clarence’s brother or cousin. "His family got along okay with Matt?"
"They loved him," she said, with a sad smile. "It took them a little while to get used to the idea, but they really opened up their hearts to both of us. The boys were good for each other."
There were a few more pictures of the two families together, at what looked like a Christmas party, and then one that made Kon blink, because Matt had his arm around the short, dark-haired girl from his English class who’d shot Peter Miller down the day before, and things were starting to click into place. Maybe the hassling hadn’t been random jock posturing after all.
"That’s Lilah," Rebecca told him. "Delilah, actually. Roberts. She and Matt were best friends from sixth grade on. She - she’s the one who found him. The police questioned her for a long time, yesterday. And they went straight to the Moores' last night, after they left here. His friends have been through enough. We all have."
"Ma’am," Kon started, but she cut him off.
"Please," she said quietly, her voice suddenly rough. She ducked her head and wiped her eyes. "Clarence is - Charlotte went to talk to him last night, and he wasn’t in his room. They couldn’t find him anywhere, and we were all so worried he’d been attacked, or - or hurt himself, or-" she choked on her words.
Tim frowned and leaned forward, attentive. "Has he been located?"
"Yes, I - I found him this morning, curled up on Matt's bed with one of his shirts. He'd forced the window to get in. Said he didn't want to bother me, knocking. We talked, some, and I drove him home. He's just so angry, and I can't blame him. They had their whole lives ahead of them, and now that's ruined and -" she sobbed once, and sucked in a gasping breath, hiding behind her hands. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"No," Kon said, at the same time that Tim stepped forward and offered her a - was that a handkerchief? Did he keep that in his belt? Like, a Bat-kerchief? She wiped her face with it and scrunched it up into a ball, and stared down at it where it rested in her fist.
"Ms. Martin," Tim said, laying a hand on her shoulder and crouching so that they were eye to eye. His expression was too soft for the cowl. "We understand how painful this is -"
"How can you? He was my son. My son is dead."
"And we can't know how that feels. But neither of us is a stranger to grief or loss. That's why we're here. We're going to find who did this. We're going to find them and bring them to justice."
Rebecca looked up at him, then, her eyes bright.
"I promise," Tim said.
*
It was supper time when they got back to the farm, and before they even hit the ground, Kon knew that Martha had been busy while they were gone. He took a deep breath, filtering out the hay and the dirt in favor of the fry smell and the bread smell and something with onions and tomatoes.
"You're sure you don't want to visit his friends?" Tim asked as they touched down.
"Delilah's in my English class," Kon said. "Even if I wanted to harass them, I don't think I ought to risk them connecting the dots, you know?"
"Hm."
Kon started up the steps to the porch, talking over his shoulder. "And if I can get them to talk to Conner Kent, they don't have to get interrogated by superheroes."
"Okay," Tim said, "Keep me posted," and then he started walking away from the house.
"Wait," Kon called. "What?" He zipped over to hover in front of Tim. "Where are you going?"
"I have obligations in Gotham."
"Right, okay, but supper-"
Tim detoured around him, headed for the barn. "I really don't have time. We took too long, this afternoon. You shouldn't have let me sleep."
"You were exhausted! And you can't leave! Ma's probably been cooking since we left!"
The barn doors were open, and Tim disappeared inside. "You'll have to give her my apologies," he called back, and Kon hurried after him.
"You jerk," he said, "At least come -" He broke off when he saw where Tim was headed. "Whoa. I thought you flew out here."
"I did," Tim said, straddling the robin-red monster he called a motorcycle and picking up his helmet. "But I couldn't exactly land in your front yard."
"You still owe me a ride on that thing…"
"Not tonight, I don't." Tim said. He slipped the helmet on and started the bike, revving the engine and frightening swallows out of the rafters overhead in a great cloud. "Some other time," he shouted. "And I really am sorry about dinner."
He peeled out of the barn with a roar, kicking up a cloud of dust and hay, a lot of which wound up in Kon's open mouth.
Index | 4