Film / Kid Detective (2020)

Abe: "I've solved over 200 mysteries."
Mr. Chang: "How many of them were murders?"

The Kid Detective is a 2020 Canadian mystery/comedy-drama. Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody) was a Kid Detective solving mysteries of petty theft, vandalism and missing cats in his small hometown. As an adult, he still works as a Private Detective... solving mysteries of petty theft, vandalism, missing cats, and who in town is gay. He barely makes ends meet, has issues with drug addiction and alcohol, gets no respect from his overbearing parents and is still haunted by the unsolved disappearance of his childhood friend Gracie Gulliver, who went missing when he was a teenager.

After the violent murder of local teen Patrick Chang, Abe is contacted by the victim's girlfriend Caroline (Sophie Nélisse), who's looking for answers the police are unable to provide. This is Abe's chance at solving a real case, which forces him to confront various members of his hometown, who he has ostracized over the years, and to find some sense of redemption.

Be careful. A lot of these trope headers themselves are spoilers, so proceed with caution.

---

Kid Detective provides examples of:

• Adorably Precocious Child: A lot of people saw Abe's mini-detective agency as cute, though over time he made numerous enemies. This has led to serious attempts by adults to sabotage his detective agency. As a child, Abe is found hiding in the closet by an old woman whose bedroom he was searching for clues. She remarks on how cute this is. When this situation is later inverted, with an adult Abe hiding in a little girl's closet for the same reason, he gets a brand new reputation as the "town pedophile".
• Affably Evil: Principal Erwin is seriously evil, what with kidnapping and raping a teenage girl. But he's also a genuinely affable person who seems to treat Abe with genuine care and he's very (creepily) protective of his daughter, that he had from said rape.
• Alliterative Name: There's the protagonist, Abe Applebaum, but the supporting cast is also rife with alliteration: Gracie Gulliver, Ellis Erwin, Clive Cunningham, Constable Cleary (later Chief Cleary), Melody Miller, and Mindy Martingrove.
• Ambiguous Time Period: It's hard to pin-point when the story is set. There is particularly strong contrast between flashbacks of Abe's teen years and the present times, while in-universe merely 16 years have passed.
• Armor-Piercing Question: "Are you the bad guy?"
• Asian and Nerdy: The murder victim, Patrick: an excellent student and the only Asian guy at his school.
• Bad Guy Bar: There's one, The Boiler Room, filled with bikers playing pool and serving as the headquarters for the drug ring in town.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: The Boiler Room, the headquarters for the drug ring in town, is filled with bikers playing pool.
• Bat Deduction: One of Abe's first real cases as a child was to find the money stolen from the school fundraiser for animal rescue. He figures it must be the local rulebreaker who had once been bitten by a dog, and they find the cashbox in his desk the next day. This was deliberately staged by the principal as a test of Abe's abilities. When he saw that Abe just leapt to his first suspect by stream-of-consciousness, he knew he had nothing to worry about, so he planted the cashbox and abducted Gracie the next week.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • In his youth, one of Abe's client was a kid who wanted to know why there is blood on his dad's car. Abe takes a pause and explicitly asks if he's sure he wants to know. Two scenes later the dad is taken by police in handcuffs and the kid is clearly unhappy about it.
  • Abe wants to be taken seriously as a detective and for his reputation in the town to improve. By the end of the film, he's solved That One Case, cleaned up his act, and finally earned the respect of his parents and the other townspeople — but the emotional weight of it all has caught up with him and he's (at least for the time being) unable to enjoy any of it.
• Binge Montage: Abe's drug and alcohol use spirals out of control in the middle of the movie when he realizes that he can't solve the case and really is the washed-up failure that other people think he is.
• Bittersweet Ending: Abe solved the crime — both crimes — and managed to finally save Gracie after all these years. But Gracie is traumatized from twenty years of captivity, Caroline has had her whole world turned upside down, and the emotional weight has left Abe a crying wreck.
• Black Comedy: The film has its fair share, like Abe's drug use treated mostly a joke, but the real kicker is Erwin stabbing himself in the chest and, after several seconds of silence, waking up just to go through his death throes again.
• Blunt "Yes":
  • When Abe beats up the leader of a group of drug-dealing teenagers who gave him a false lead, the kid incredulously asks if it makes Abe feel like a big man to beat up a kid. Abe says that it does.
  • When Abe starts to really dig into the drug-dealing angle, he barges into the Bad Guy Bar where the real criminals hang out. After walking through several guarded doors, getting frisked, and demanding to speak about the murder, the drug leader just says "No". Abe turns and walks away without protest.
• Book Ends: The story opens with Abe rolling out of bed and his parents coming over to see how he is doing. The movie ends with them doing the same thing.
• Bunker Woman: Gracie, although it's a garden shed rather than a bunker.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Abe as an adult. He's a Manchild and a total slob, clearly regarded as a joke by most of the townspeople, but for all his faults he still has a pretty sharp intuition for detective work.
• Canada Does Not Exist: The only clue that this film is actually set in Canada, as opposed to merely filmed there, is the brief referral to a policeman as "Constable" rather than "Officer."
• Cerebus Syndrome: The movie takes a turn for the very serious after Abe comes to his realization about the flowers in Caroline's locker.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Caroline talked about her boyfriend leaving origami crafts in her locker, although when pressed she admitted she just assumed it was him and never talked to him about it. When the crafts continue to show up after his death she hands it to Abe, who recognizes the style of paper as identical to a clue in Gracies' disappearance.
  • Abe being familiar with Gracie's preference for grape soda.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The principal Erwin.
• Child by Rape: Caroline, born to Gracie in captivity.
• Closet Shuffle: As a teenager, when Abe investigated other people's houses, he'd hide in the closet when they returned home. As an adult, he tries the same strategy to detrimental results.
• Condescending Compassion: A friend of his parents praises Abe for sticking with detective work well into adulthood and sticking to following his dreams. It's intended as a compliment, but thanks to the delivery, Abe dismisses it as unintentionally patronizing.
• Deadpan Snarker: Abe as befits a character played by Adam Brody. Although his snark is his own way of dealing with his guilt, trauma and general unhappiness with his life.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • The film offers a Deconstruction of the concept of a Kid Detective. For all his apparent brilliance as a child, Abe was only that - a smart kid. Not only this greatly limited his ability to solve cases, but the principal actively set him up just to see if Abe was a real deal, or just a child acting on first assumption. Once he was sure Abe is just playing a smart-ass, he proceed with kidnapping Gracie. Then there is the fact Abe apparently never did anything in his life to train in detective work as an adult, running his agency solely on his childhood "experience" - this makes him an utterly terrible private dick, still acting as if he was a character in a teen crime novel and put to question if he's even licensed.
  • It also deconstructs the Hardboiled Detective. All the staples of the archetype - cynicism, persistence, a well-hidden soft spot, boozing to deal with stress - are portrayed as a set of coping mechanisms of a Manchild who can't grow up past his adolescence.
• Died in Ignorance: The mayor committed suicide after his daughter, Gracie's, disappearance around twenty years ago. This robs him of discovering, in the present day, that Gracie is not dead but was kept as a Bunker Woman and, not only is she still alive, but she has a teenage daughter.
• Down in the Dumps: After a night of unchecked drug use, a depressed Abe wakes up in his apartment block's trash collector, having apparently been thrown out with the junk.
• Dramatic Irony: Abe warns Caroline that even the simplest investigations tend to uncover unpleasant truths. He is correct, and should have applied these words of wisdom to himself as well.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Gracie's father, the town mayor, killed himself after her kidnapping years ago.
  • Principal Erwin kills himself after Abe confronts him about his crimes.
• Dull Surprise: Caroline is pretty wide-eyed and bland; Abe suggests partway through that the reality of the murder hasn't really hit her yet.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Abe is well and truly stumped on the entire mystery until a childhood friend explains that he was wrong about one of his very first cases. Realizing that he was wrong about who stole the school fundraiser money makes him realize that the Principal set him up on that case, and that puts the later Gracie kidnapping into a whole new light.
• Evil Mentor: Principal Erwin was one of the first authority figures who gave Abe an assignment, and Abe took pride in exposing the theft of a fundraising box. He found out decades later Erwin actually manufactured the situation and then framed the classmate Abe deduced was the thief. This was actually a test to understand Abe's thought process and determine whether he really was as smart as the rumors said. When Erwin realized he was just a reasonably clever child and not some infallible genius he abducted Gracie the next week.
• Expy:
  • Abe is one to Encyclopedia Brown; the film is an examination of what this type of character would be like as an adult.
  • Caroline is one to Sandy from Blue Velvet: a blonde Girl Next Door who seems morbidly fascinated by the investigation despite her otherwise wholewome demeanor.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Calvin, one of Patrick's friends that Abe goes to for information, tries to explain that Patrick had a dark side. He says that Patrick would say he saw movies he hadn't seen and he compulsively collected bottlecaps. Abe recognizes these claims as Calvin trying to tear down Patrick as much as possible, hinting that he's secretly in love with Caroline. It is only after a few rounds of similar nonsense that Calvin reveals that Patrick was actually having an affair.
• Foreshadowing: Caroline tells Abe that the principal always calls to check if she misses school, giving an early hint about his unusual interest in her. (It's unlikely he does that with every other student who misses school.)
• Friend on the Force: One of the town cops would occasionally consult with Abe when he was a kid. He refused to let Abe participate in the Gracie investigation, because involving a kid in small-scale things was one thing, but he couldn't ask a twelve-year-old to be involved in something like that.
• The Generation Gap: A minor recurring theme throughout the movie is how much the town has changed since Abe was a child, and also the way some things haven't changed. There's a whole new set of slang referring to criminals and their hangouts, but they refer to the same places (and even the same people) whose names have changed in the past twenty years.
• Genius Burnout: Abe was something of an Insufferable Genius as a kid because he was quite talented at the Sherlock Scan and ran a small scale detective business. He continued running a private detective agency into adulthood, but as his reputation deteriorated, he was forced to juggle small scale clients and hold onto every little success he had as a kid. Friends and neighbors view him as still trying to make an unrealistic childhood dream come true, which he finds condescending.
• Glory Days: Abe is still fixated on the days when he was a successful kid detective and adored by the whole town. His office is covered with framed news stories from his childhood, and he defensively claims that he has solved over 200 "mysteries" whenever his competency is questioned. He has taken down all of the frames from his office walls by the end of the film, but Caroline notes that now the office seems empty.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Abe tells Caroline directly that no matter how straightforward something appears, every investigation winds up more complicated than it looks. He quickly digs up dirt on seemingly innocent honor student Patrick, discovering that he was cheating on her with an older girl and had a secret stash of drugs in his jacket.
  • Caroline herself counts; she knows that everyone thinks she's an innocent kid who has never done anything slightly risky in her life, which isn't true.
  • Abe too. He's regarded by most of the town, even the few who still like him, as caught in a state of arrested development and who desperately needs to grow up. But it's clear he's still deeply traumatized by his failure to find Gracie and knows full well how pathetic he comes across and hates himself for it. He also proves himself to be a genuinely capable detective when dealing with a much more serious case than usual.
• High School: The victim was a high school student, and some sleuthing takes place at his alma mater.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Abe bitterly remarks his early success didn't translate into a satisfying adulthood, and while the town found him competent and likable as a child, they couldn't afford him the same grace once he grew up.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After confronting principal Erwin and his subsequent suicide, Abe is in shock and eventually decides to ride Erwin's fridge for a beer. While he pops one open, he spots Gracie's favourite grape soda, realising she's still alive and somewhere in the vicinity.
• Inelegant Blubbering: The movie ends with Abe dissolving into messy sobs.
• The Ingenue: Caroline is a classical innocent pawn in the overall story. It's stated several times that being raised by her grandparents left her less familiar with the more worldly crowd.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Abe always refers to his cases as "mysteries", cementing how much he's still hung-up on the concept of being a brilliant kid detective, decades after his initial fame and success.
  • Played for some dark laughs when Gracie's mother is always referred to as Widow Gulliver. With the capital W.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Played for laughs: Caroline assumed Patrick was the one leaving her origami flowers in her locker because he's the only Asian in their school. After meeting with his parents Abe noticed that they were Chinese whereas origami is Japanese. Caroline muses if she was unconsciously racist.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Abe (32) and Caroline (16-17) develop a friendly bond throughout the investigation, probably helped by the fact that Abe never quite matured out of his teenage years, while she's behind the curve herself, being raised by her grandparents.
• Introverted Cat Person: After the kidnapping of her daughter and the subsequent suicide of her husband, the Widow Gulliver's only company is her cat. He seems to run away on a semi-frequent basis.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Abe is a cynical, sarcastic, immature disaster of a human being but he isn't a bad person and does care about helping people.
• Kid Detective: Deconstructed: Abe is basically an expy of Encyclopedia Brown who's aged into a burned out adult trying to ride on his early success. It didn't take long for him to start ostracizing people in town for exposing all their minor infractions.
• Kids Hate Vegetables: Partially implied and justified with Jackie, Calvin's younger sister, who fibs to her mom stating that she's finished with her potatoes, as an excuse to stay in her room while playing the exact same computer game as Calvin did from earlier.
• Manchild: In terms of emotions and habits, Abe's still stuck at the age where people looked up to him (i.e. his early teens) and has had considerable difficulty moving past that point in his life. As the antagonist notes, "you of all people should know that age is relative".
• Missing Child: The kidnapping of Gracie Gulliver looms over the entire town. This is the case Abe was never able to solve, and her missing posters are still posted all over town. Her father killed himself when she couldn't be found, and her mother has become lonely with only her cat for company.
• Missing Time: Due to his drug and alcohol use, Abe frequently doesn't know what day it is. This causes problems when he forgets that it is the weekend and thinks people will be at work, and instead finds them at home when he is snooping around their houses.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Abe's teenage sleuthing would lead him to investigate people's houses and force him to hide in the closet when they returned home. When he tried to pull the same shtick as an adult he accidentally wound up in the closet of a 10-year-old girl. After being caught and arrested, the next day the papers reported that he was caught masturbating in a little girls closet. Dejected, he has to dryly correct that he wasn't masturbating.
• Mood Whiplash: The entire finale is an emotional rollercoaster, going from comedy to tragedy in a span of seconds, only to rebound in the other direction and then start again - few times in a row.
• My God, What Have I Done?: As monstrous as he is, Principal Erwin seems genuinely moved when he realises he killed Patrick over a misunderstanding. He asks Abe twice if he's sure the girl in a tiger mask wasn't Caroline.
• My Greatest Failure: The case Abe could never solve as a child was the abduction of his friend Gracie Gulliver. No can-do kid detective attitude could crack her disappearance, and the pressure he placed on himself to do so still haunts him.
• Never Grew Up: Gracie had been locked up the entirety of the time since her kidnapping, so was never able to mature or face the world after being fourteen. After she was freed, Abe asked Caroline if Gracie had ever reached out as a mother, but Caroline explains that mentally she's just a kid, and a "younger" one than Caroline.
• Nostalgia Filter: Abe comments several times on ways that the town has changed, and also the ways that it seems like things have changed but really haven't. He just remembers things a certain way.
• "Not So Different" Remark: The antagonist of the film says this nearly verbatim to Abe, trying to make himself seem more sympathetic.
• Overly Long Gag: In a sequence lasting well over a minute, Abe decides to get into the Boiler Room and confront the local drug-dealing ring. After going through a set of guarded doors, getting frisked and finally reaching the leader of the gang to talk about Patrick Chang, he's simply told "No". After which the up-tempo music dies and Abe simply turns and walks away without any further inquiry.
• Papa Wolf: A very, very dark example. Principal Erwin, secretly Caroline's father, murdered her boyfriend Patrick because he believed Patrick had "stolen her innocence".
• Pet the Dog: Abe and his secretary Lucy seem to barely hide their contempt for each other, but when the phone was off the hook Abe got worried and ran to the office to see if she was okay.
• Petty Childhood Grudge: Abe gets beaten up on a regular basis by a childhood bully who he caught stealing when they were both kids. Or so he thinks. It's pointed out by Caroline that this seems like a massive overreaction. This leads to Abe's realization that he falsely accused the kid due to him being kind of a rough jerk. In actual fact, Principal Erwin framed him to check that Abe wasn't that good of a detective, and it's this false accusation and subsequent ruining of his life that powered the grudge.
• Police Are Useless: Caroline hired Abe because the police weren't giving her any information, and Abe manages to track down Patrick's "concubine" in a day and figures out that Patrick was involved in a drug dealing ring at school that the police apparently have no clue about. However it turns out that Patrick's death had nothing to do with drugs at all, and was only tangentially connected to the fact he was having an affair. As clever as Abe was, most of his investigation really had no connection to the actual murder case.
• Private Detective: Abe is now an adult running a detective agency. However most of his clients give him the same types of petty cases he had as a kid, like finding out which friend stole a broach at a birthday party or proving that a classmate is lying about having played with the NY Mets. The most 'adult' case he gets before the main plot of the movie is a gay man asking him to find out if another man is also gay. (He was. Probably.)
• Private Eye Monologue: Like so many detective cliches, played for very dark laughs. At first they are somewhat silly and childish, but when the story wraps up, Abe delivers a genuine "burn-out detective" monologue, like he always want to.
• Pronoun Trouble: When Abe calls the Widow Gulliver and tells her that he found "her", she has to correct him that her missing cat is male. Abe was trying to tell her that he found her long-missing daughter, and he has to repeat himself before she realizes what he's trying to say.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Abe finally solves the case and finds Gracie after all these years, but his whole perspective of the world and his work has been flipped inside-out, and the fame and work brought about by him solving the case causes him too much pressure, leading him to break down in tears at the end of the film.
• Raised by Grandparents: Caroline. Subverted; she is adopted and of no relation to them.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Chief Cleary really does like Abe and does his best to keep him from getting into too much trouble, saving him from official charges for breaking and entering, but he also tries to impress upon Abe that he is no longer a kid and can't pull the same stunts as he did then and expect everyone to still treat him like a child prodigy, sincerely trying to get Abe to finally mature for his own sake.
• Red Herring:
  • Abe quickly learns that despite Patrick's good reputation, he was involved in a drug dealing ring at the high school. The drug dealers had no reason to want him dead, and the crime is ultimately unconnected.
  • As the case starts gaining steam Calvin becomes a suspect due to his crush on Caroline. Despite this, he's ultimately harmless and not the killer.
• The Reveal: Nearly the whole third act is a seemingly unending chain of reveals. It's revealed that the murder of Patrick Chang and the disappearance of Gracie Gulliver are connected. Then it's revealed Principal Erwin was responsible for both (as well as the frameup of Rory Beans). Then it's revealed that Caroline is actually his and Gracie's daughter by rape, and that's why he murdered her boyfriend. THEN it's revealed that Gracie is still alive, kept in Erwin's shed for the past sixteen years.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Abe beats up the leader of a group of drug-dealing teenagers who gave him a false lead, the kid incredulously asks if it makes Abe feel like a big man to beat up a kid. Abe says that it does.
• Running Gag:
  • Abe not knowing what day of the week it is and running into awkward situations as a result.
  • The Widow Gulliver hires Abe to find her missing cat at the start of the movie. He keeps running into her throughout the film, always promising he will get to it later.
  • Abe and Caroline keep confusing each other with slang references to the town's criminal underground, since all the terminology has changed in the past twenty years. They are almost always referring to the same thing by a different name.
• Sassy Secretary: Inverted, Lucy is more of a Goth in appearance and mannerisms and more of a Beleaguered Assistant in terms of role, but is occasionally still snippy with Abe.
• Serious Business:
  • Most of Abe's childhood cases were small-time and petty events, but as we see in the opening montage some of them involved real crimes. At least once he got a friend's father arrested after looking into the blood on his car, and a masked man chopped down the tree with his treehouse office in an attempt to shut him down. He even claims to have worked three murder cases when talking to Patrick's parents, although this may have been a face-saving lie since earlier his parents claimed he had no experience working murders.
  • When Abe is going to the Boiler Room to question the head of the town's drug dealing conspiracy, he is frisked by a guard who takes the candy bar Abe had in his pocket. The guard points out the "No peanuts" sign since the leader has a peanut allergy.
• Sherlock Scan: At several points throughout the movie Abe explains how there are several small tricks a detective can use to get meaningful information from innocuous tidbits. By asking Patrick's parents about changes to his eating habits (learning he preferred peaches as a child, but recently switched to bananas) he can infer that Patrick may have been depressed since bananas are easier and less messy to eat, so they satisfy the body's needs without requiring as much energy.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In the film's final scene, light upbeat music plays as Abe breaks down crying in front of his parents.
• Speaking Like Totally Teen: There are several scenes where Abe and the teen he is talking to confuse each other with crime-related slang. In almost all cases they are both referring to the same thing, but the name has changed in the past twenty years.
• Stalker with a Crush: Calvin is gradually revealed to have a big crush on Caroline, and was a rival to her boyfriend.
• The Stoic: Caroline takes the numerous tragedies of her life in stride, from her orphaned childhood to the murder of her boyfriend. After learning her biological parents are a pedophile rapist and the missing girl he's held captive in a shed for the past sixteen years, Caroline gets a new haircut but otherwise seems to have made peace with these facts.
• Suburban Gothic: The quaint little town hides many dark secrets.
• Sunshine Noir: The film's set in a seemingly idyllic small town with a hefty share of gang activity, drug cartels, kidnappings, and murder.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • When Abe was a child, real authority figures in the town would occasionally ask him for help with cases. When Gracie disappeared and he tried to join the official investigation, his police contact refused to return any of his calls or involve him in the case in any way because he was twelve. Consulting him on petty events was one thing, but he couldn't be involved in a kidnapping investigation.
  • Abe has spent 20-odd years working (minor) cases in his small town: things that wouldn't land anyone in prison, but can still fracture relationships or tarnish reputations. As a result, many community members blame Abe's sleuthing for their troubles, and he is disliked and distrusted by the locals, many of whom regard him as a buffoon who refuses to grow up.
  • When Abe finally finds adult Gracie, she's quite pudgy - which is more than expected from a person that spend 16 years locked inside a tiny shed.
  • Abe mentions the trope of breaking into someone's home, hiding in a closet and getting found out. As a kid, this was seen as adorable and harmless by the people he did it to. When he does the same as an adult in a kid's room, he's arrested and it's only his relationship with the local police chief that prevent him from being formally charged, as breaking and entering is a very serious offense and the fact that it was a kid's room just makes it worse.
  • A pretty tragic case with Gracie and her daughter Caroline. Since the former has spent two decades locked away with no contact but her rapist and abductor Principal Erwin and is generally a deeply traumatized woman mentally stuck in her early teen years, Caroline acknowledges that they have pretty much no chance of forming any kind of mother-daughter relationship so there isn't and never will be any kind of heartwarming reunion.
  • A minor case with the ice cream store owner Mr Hepburn. As a thanks for solving a case years ago, Abe was granted free ice cream for life. Abe is still making good on that twenty years later by which Hepburn has gone from happy and appreciative to deeply resentful as he clearly expected Abe to move away long ago or at least no longer take the reward seriously.
  • One played for laughs when Abe gets a case of a kid who wants to find out that his classmate is lying about having trained with the New York Mets. Abe doesn't even bother investigating at first and just says he is since it's clearly an absurd story, only changing his mind when offered fifty dollars. His "investigation" is simply calling the kid's mother and asking her directly and she seems confused by such an obviously ridiculous question.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: Actually clients, to show how mundane Abe's work is. One is a young teenager asking him to find evidence that a classmate lied about going to New York and getting to practice with the Mets over the summer. Abe told him up front it was a lie, but took $50 and called the kids mom for confirmation.
• That One Case: Abe, and the town as a whole, cannot let go of Gracie's kidnapping twenty years ago. Her missing posters are still up around town, and Abe kept all of his investigation records in storage all this time.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Patrick was stabbed 17 times.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: It is (very lightly) implied that the Widow Gulliver is hiring Abe because she knows he is down on his luck and still guilt-ridden over not finding her daughter. She keeps giving him small tasks, like repeatedly finding her lost cat.
• Trashy Trailer Home: Played for Horror. Grace is held captive as a Sex Slave in a shed in Principal Erwin's garden.
• Unkempt Beauty: Abe is generally a slob with messy hair, a few days of stubble, dirty clothes and even a few bruises from old grudges. He's still played by the boyishly handsome Adam Brody.
• Unusual Euphemism: Calvin says that Patrick had "a concubine", which he then explains to mean "second girlfriend".
• Villainous Parental Instinct: Erwin is a truly horrible person - a pedophile and a serial rapist. However, he does genuinely feel protective to Caroline, his own teenage daughter (with Gracie), and actually leads to his own exposure and suicide once Abe figures out who killed Patrick - a move principal Erwin made to protect Caroline.
• Wham Line: "She didn't last long. Her spirit softened after we gave our daughter away."
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The lady with a missing cat contacts Abe several times throughout the story, and he says he will work on that later. At the end, after reuniting her with her daughter Gracie, Abe muses "The cat's probably dead."
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • When Abe learns that some high school drug dealers gave him deliberately false info as a joke, he returns and beats up their ringleader. When the kid incredulously asks if it makes Abe feel like a big man to beat up a kid, Abe says that it does.
  • On a darker note, the plot involved the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl, later revealed to have been abducted, repeatedly raped and held captive by her high school principal.

---