Chapter 25 - How To Make A Murderer.

“Why the fuck would you care who knows about you, Justin? Whatever shit your father did to you, nobody’s going to arrest YOU for that. And it’s not illegal to be gay - not even in fucking West Virginia.”


“No. But it IS still a crime to shoot your father, even if he was a drunken, abusive, homophobic, bigot that didn’t deserve to live!” Justin screamed back at a now completely shocked, paralysed and speechless Brian Kinney.

“I’m really sorry Brian. I know I should’ve told you a lot earlier. I just didn’t know how,” Justin apologized as soon as they made it back to the house and into the Greatroom. “Just give me a few minutes to get some of my stuff together and I’ll be out of here. I promise you’ll never have to see me or hear from me again.”

“Sit your ass down on that couch, Ghost,” Brian ordered, pointing with one imperious finger towards the sofa. “You’re not going anywhere. At least not until you tell me the whole fucking story. Start from the beginning. And this time, I want the entire story. Don't leave anything out.”

Justin meekly obeyed, shuffling over to the couch and lowering himself onto the cushions, then pulling his legs up and hunching over into a little ball as if he could protect himself somehow from the consequences of his actions just by making himself smaller. Brian moved around so that he was standing about five feet away, his legs spread, his arms crossed, and a stern look on his handsome face. He felt an almost overwhelming urge to go sit next to the boy, gather him into his arms, and shelter him with his body from all the bad things out there in the world. However, he knew that Justin needed to get this out. He needed to tell his story. He’d never be able to fix things, he’d never be able to heal, until it was all out there. So Brian refrained from showing too much overt sympathy, and held himself aloof while waiting for his ghost to start talking.

Justin took a deep breath, blew it all out, and then, with his eyes downcast and focused on the past, began his story. “You already know what happened that day I got caught making out with Chris Hobbs at school. I think you also know that it wasn’t the first time my father had hit me.” Justin‘s voice got even quieter, forcing Brian to take a couple steps closer so that he could hear. “Before my mom died, the situation was at least manageable. She always kept him from completely losing control. But after she died, there was nothing - no one - to restrain him. Things got really bad, really fast.”

The little ghost shrugged and seemed to decide to skip over some of the less palatable parts of the story.

“Whenever my father was drinking, which was pretty much all the time by then, he just had no self control at all. He blamed me for mom and Molly dying, and took it out on me as often as he pleased. But, like I said before, I didn’t think I really had any options - or at least no good options - so I mostly just tried to avoid him as best I could, and when I couldn’t, I put up with it.”

The kid looked so dispirited by that point, that Brian‘s resolve crumbled a little. He couldn’t just stand there looking down on the sad ball-of-boy. Without even realizing he had done it, he found himself sitting next to his ghost and reaching out to grab hold of one pale hand.

“In some ways, it was actually better after he locked me in the basement. At least then I didn’t get hit all the time. He pretty much never came inside the room, even before I managed to reverse our positions and lock him out. But, unfortunately, he was probably even better at the whole emotional abuse thing than he had been with his fists. There were days when he would literally stand there, outside the door to the crawlspace, and scream at me for hours. He would call me every foul name he could think of. He blamed me for every bad thing that had ever happened to him in his life. He made me feel like I was . . . Like I was completely useless. Like I didn’t deserve to take up valuable oxygen. Like I had less value to the world than a pile of dog shit.”

Brian might have intervened at that point, offering empathy and commiserating over the fact that he had once been there too, but he was afraid that if he interrupted, Justin wouldn’t be able to go on. So he held his tongue and just held onto the boy even tighter.

“I don’t know. I guess, at some point, I had just had enough. It was like, all of this resentment and anger and pain had been building up inside me for so long, that I couldn’t contain it anymore. It was too big for my body.” Justin finally looked up from the carpet, turning so he could see Brian‘s sympathetic hazel eyes, and offered up a wistful little smile. “I guess I snapped.”

“That day . . . That day it all just seemed to be too much. My father had started screeching at me as soon as he woke up. I could tell he was under even more stress than usual judging by the tone of his insults. From what little I could understand amid all of the drunken ramblings, it sounded like the bank was pressing forward on the foreclosure of the house and Craig’s ruin was imminent. Which, of course, was somehow all my fault.”

Justin’s attention returned to some indistinct spot on the floor as he continued.

“He kept saying that he’d had enough. That he was done. That he wasn’t gonna put up with me anymore. Eventually, he started threatening that he was going to get the sheriff and have him throw me out so that Craig could be rid of me for good. Which completely freaked me out because I knew I had nowhere to go. If he really did toss me out, I would be out on my ass, penniless and homeless, with no education or prospects. It was pretty much my worst fear come to fruition. But even that didn’t get me out of my hole, or prompt me to stand up to him.”

At that point, Brian‘s ghost became re-energized. The boy uncurled from his ball of woe, jumped to his feet, and began pacing around the room. Brian stayed where he was at, not wanting to interrupt the flow of the memories that were coursing through the boy's psyche.

“What finally did it was when my father ended all his threats by announcing that he was going to go get the sheriff right then and there. Granted, he was so drunk by that point that it was actually difficult to understand what he was saying. But, from what little I could understand, it sounded like he had decided he would drive to the sheriff's office that evening. When I heard the door between the basement and garage opening, I knew he was actually serious. And that made me so furious, the dam just broke.”

“I pulled open the crawl space door and stomped out after him. I just couldn’t believe that he was going to get in his car, as drunk as he was, and drive to the sheriff's office. He could barely speak a comprehensible sentence, let alone drive a fucking car safely. And all I could think about was the fact that he was going to go out there and probably cause an accident just like the one that had killed my mother and my sister.”

Justin turned and looked at Brian with imploring eyes, his fists balled at his sides, his face suffused with an angry red undertone.

“It was one thing for him to beat on me, or scream at me, or make MY life miserable, but the thought of him getting in his car while drunk and then hurting or even killing some completely innocent person, was just too much. I just wasn’t going to let that happen. And, I’m not really sure how it happened or why I did it, but as I ran after him, passing through the garage, I grabbed Craig's hunting rifle off the rack on the wall where he’d always kept it. Then I rushed out after him, determined that he was not going to leave the property in that car, in that state.”

“I probably didn’t have to run - he was so stinking drunk that he’d barely managed to get the door open by the time I got there. He sort of half slumped into the driver's seat, but then dropped the keys on the floorboard and had to fumble around for them. I don’t think he even realized I had followed him or was standing there next to the car holding a gun on him. I ordered him to get out of the car, but he ignored me. Or maybe he was just too drunk to realize I was talking to him. It doesn’t really matter. It made me even more incensed than I had been before and I knocked the barrel of the gun against the side of his face. That, of course, got his attention. But, instead of being afraid of me, or begging me not to hurt him, the bastard just looked up at me and started laughing.”

By that point in his pacing, the ghost had come up next to the large picture windows looking out over the front of the property. He paused there, looking out through the window at the stormy night. Then, apparently resigned to finishing his story, Justin sighed, swallowed hard and resumed his narrative.

“I mean, I can’t really even claim self-defense. Craig was so far gone by that point he probably couldn’t have even thrown a punch without falling over, let alone hurt me. I could’ve just taken his car keys away, run back into my room and locked the door, which would have easily prevented him from driving. But I was so angry, so fed up, and I’d just simply had enough. At the time, it seemed like my only recourse was to end it all then and there.”

“You know how in the movies or in books, the bad guys always panic and that’s what finally ruins their evil plan? Well, that’s not what happened to me. I never panicked. I felt perfectly calm the entire time. Everything seemed so clear, so simple, so logical. One minute Craig was sitting there looking up at me and laughing, and the next minute I was shoving the barrel of the gun into his disgusting, nasty, laughing face. And I just . . . pulled the trigger.”

“It was so easy. I almost couldn’t understand why I hadn’t done it before.” Justin’s voice had become so ethereal, it was almost as if the words were coming from some source other than out of the sweet, innocent-looking, young man that Brian was watching tell the story. “And I’m not sorry for what I did. Not at all. He fucking deserved it . . . He deserved worse, actually.”

“Anyway,” Justin resumed his tale, his voice returning to a matter-of-fact tone and cadence, “as soon as I realized what I’d done, I calmly and carefully started to set everything to rights. I reached down, pulled the lever, and shoved the seat back so I had enough room to wedge the gun on the floor between Craig's feet. I propped it up so it looked like he’d been holding it in his own hands, and I even repositioned his head so it was pointing towards the dashboard. Then I took off the shirt I’d been wearing, using it to wipe down the gun and to close the car door. Rifles are pretty messy, though, so I figured I better go quickly clean up before I did anything else. I closed up the garage behind me, locked the house door - just in case anyone bothered to come by - and went into my room, where I washed up and changed into some clean clothes. When it got dark, I ran to the gas station about a mile down the road from the house, and used the pay phone to anonymously call the sheriff's office and tell them about Craig‘s death. Luckily for me, the local PD isn’t exactly a rapid response type of operation. I had plenty of time to get back to the house and lock myself away in the basement room before they got there and found Craig dead in his car in the driveway.”

“Of course, there were some pretty glaring problems with the crime scene. If this had been something that happened in the city, there would almost certainly have been an investigation. I could hear them talking when they were walking through the house, and there was more than just a little speculation about whether or not it was really a suicide. Something about the blood splatter going the wrong direction and no gunpowder residue on Craig's hands. But, Matthews, the sheriff, is notoriously lazy. And, I guess, there was enough other evidence pointing to the fact that Craig had long been at the end of his rope, to make any minor discrepancies seem irrelevant. Everybody knew the bank was about to foreclose and kick him out of his house. They also knew he was a horrible drunk and had become completely ostracized by all of his former friends because of it. Plus, there was no one they knew of who might have any motive to harm him . . . So, rather than waste everyone’s time and a bunch of resources on a possibly fruitless investigation into the death of someone nobody cared about, Matthews just decided to declare it a suicide and be done with it.”

Justin turned and looked over at Brian, his expression unreadable, but his demeanor still eerily calm. “Of course, none of them knew that I was still here in the house. They didn’t know what Craig had done to me. Nobody knew he was an abusive father because nobody - not my mother, not my teachers, not even me - had ever had the temerity to file a complaint against a fine, upstanding, pillar of the community, like Craig Taylor.” Justin took the five steps needed to approach the couch once again, ending up standing right in front of a seated Brian. “If they HAD known I was here, things would’ve been different. They would’ve known that Craig hadn’t been alone in the house and they most certainly would’ve done a more thorough investigation. There would’ve been questions and I would have been caught. It would’ve all come out. The fact that I’d never really been sent away to some distant friend or relative's house. The fact that I’d been locked up here the whole time by Craig. The fact that he’d abused me, held me prisoner, practically tortured me . . .”

“The fact that you had both motive and opportunity . . .” Brian finished the boy’s thought.

“Bingo.” Justin sighed and sat down on the couch again, seeming released from the trance of his memories finally. “Which is why I decided to stay hidden even after Craig was gone. And why I still can’t let anyone know that I’m here. As long as everyone thinks I’m either long gone or dead, they have no reason to suspect that Craig’s death was anything other than a suicide. But if I ever reappeared, I’m sure the sheriff would start rethinking his decision to close the case.”

“So . . . Then what? You were just going to stay hidden in the basement of this house forever?” Brian asked. “I know you had that big-assed freezer full of food, but that would’ve run out eventually. Did you have some kind of plan? What if I hadn’t bought the house and moved in?”

“I don’t know. I had never thought that far ahead. My plan was only to lay low for a while and let any possible suspicions die down. I sort of thought that I’d eventually leave, go somewhere far away, start a new life . . . But I really hadn’t gotten that far before you showed up.”

“So, I ruined all your plans?” Brian teased the boy, hoping to lighten the mood at least a tiny bit.

And it seemed to work, since the ghost actually gave him a tiny, uncertain smile. “Yep. But I didn't really mind. You were an incredibly tempting distraction from all my problems. Up till now at least. I guess my time’s up, though.” Justin rose to his feet and looked down on his lover with a wistful half smile. “I really am sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier. I feel like I’ve lied to you by omission. I just couldn’t bear to lose you. But I won’t take up any more of your time now. Just give me a little while to get my stuff together, like I said, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

The wistful wraith had already turned and started moving towards the stairs before Brian managed to catch up to him. With a hand on his ghost’s shoulder, Brian halted Justin’s steps and then turned the younger man around to face him. The sad little blond looked up with a questioning glance.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Brian demanded. “You’re not going anywhere, Ghost.”

“But I thought . . . Damn, I didn’t think you’d actually turn me in. I get that you’re probably angry at me, Brian. I’d be pissed off too. But . . .” Justin heaved a heavy sigh, his shoulders dropping in defeat. “Fine. Now that you know the whole truth, I really can’t ask you to continue to cover for me. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble too. I’m sorry I ever put you in this position to start with.”

Brian watched his sad little ghost drag his feet as he returned to the couch, wringing his hands and slumping down dejectedly in his prior spot.

“You stupid little twat,” Brian muttered under his breath, trying to hide a smile as he joined the boy on the sofa. “Why would you think I’d turn you in, Ghost? Didn’t I tell you, about a hundred times, that NOTHING you might tell me would change the way I feel about you? I meant what I said, Ghost. I told you I didn’t care about your past and I fucking well meant it.”

“Well, yeah, but that was before you knew your boyfriend was a fucking murderer. I’m not going to hold you to that now, Brian,” the Ghost offered. “I mean, obviously, I’d prefer if you just let me leave so I don’t end up rotting in jail for the rest of my natural life, but if you feel like you’re obligated to turn me in because of what I’ve done, I won’t hold it against you. You have every right to . . .”

“Damn, you’re stubborn!” Brian interrupted before Justin could fall further down the self-despair hole. “I’m not going to fucking turn you in, Ghost. And I don’t want you to leave either.” Brian rolled his eyes when he noted that his ghost was still unconvinced. “When are you going to get it through your thick, blond head - I don’t CARE what you've done in the past, Justin! I certainly don’t think you deserve to go to jail for killing a fucking bastard like Craig Taylor. As far as I’m concerned, he got off easy. If I’d been in your shoes, I’d have fucking killed him too.”

Brian was glad to see a renewed flicker of hope ignite in the gemstone blue eyes at this pronouncement. Maybe his ghost finally believed him? Or not, knowing his pig-headed boy.

“Thank you, Brian. I’m really grateful that you’re not going to turn me in. I don’t think I’m exactly cut out for prison life, you know,” he added with a mirthless laugh. “But, even so, I can’t stay here with you.”

“What makes you say that, Ghost,” Brian asked, curious about the trickster’s twisty thought processes.

“Well, even setting aside the whole issue of me having to hide in your basement for the rest of my life so I’m not caught,” Justin began, looking at Brian as if he might be a little slow or something if he truly didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation, “Now that you know the truth, I wouldn’t think you’d want a cold-blooded murderer for a boyfriend.”

“Why not? It’s not like you’ve changed or anything. You were already a murderer when we fucked this morning, whether or not I knew about it, and that seemed to work just fine. I don’t see why you telling me what you did changes things.”

“Come on, Brian! That’s bullshit,” the perturbed little blond ghost crossed his arms stubbornly. “You can’t seriously tell me you‘re okay with fucking a murderer!”

“Why not? You haven’t seemed to mind it much, and we’ve been fucking now for ages . . .” Brian stated, then leaned in to kiss away his ghost’s adorably confused frown.