Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
After an entire week had come and gone since the broadcast, Lee began to settle back into her routine a little more each day.
She still jumped every time her phone rang; still tensed every time there was a knock at the door, and yet, she managed to piece parts of her life together around the apprehension, like building a home inside an abandoned city.
Diana had called Morgan multiple times since Oscar Tippits had been found, and they had even had lunch together, twice. Both times had ended with a pleasant goodbye and that was that.
Neither she, nor Morgan, had pressed Diana for answers in relation to the Tippits case, but at times, they didn’t have to.
Diana had been forthcoming enough with information here and there as to where they were currently at in terms of identifying a suspect.
Most importantly, she had yet to mention that any fingerprints on the body belonged to her daughter.
With each passing day, the case was getting colder, and Lee was becoming more at ease.
A media warpath had begun to surge against Arthur Strickland, conclusions drawn here and there about his involvement with Edward Beckett’s disappearance, and whilst it was the closest thing she’d had to a win all week, she couldn’t quite savor it as much as she would have liked.
Getting comfortable meant getting sloppy, Morgan had told her, and so, she remained practically the farthest thing from it.
Had remained the farthest thing from comfortable for the last two weeks.
She had continued her life as best she could, apologizing in her group chat for missing their reality show on Monday last week, claiming that she fell asleep “because she was tired," whilst opting to omit the part in which she essentially passed out from deliriousness after watching the news.
She continued on as normal, but she would not get comfortable. Wouldn’t allow herself to. Because getting comfortable meant getting sloppy.
Lee Holmes vacuumed the small space in their bedroom, grateful for once that their living situation took very little time to clean.
She laughed over the loud, humming noise of the machine as she pictured other criminals such as herself undertaking the mundane.
She wondered if Ted Bundy had ever donned an apron, for instance, or if Jeffrey Dahmer ever dusted off his shelves.
Further gratitude settled deep inside her when she acknowledged that unlike Ted Bundy, or Jeffrey Dahmer, she had never murdered someone, and would never murder someone, even if her own life depended on it.
Alas, she had helped her girlfriend of five years dismember and dispose of one of her own murders, and as such, thoughts such as this one brought itself into the fold as she finished vacuuming the final corner of the room.
“One thing done, ninety thousand more to go,” she exaggerated to herself, wrapping the vacuum cord around the handle as she traipsed her way over to the kitchen with the item in question firmly in her hand.
She had never considered herself a person to be house proud, after all, there was very little to be proud of in a space like this one.
She was proud of her paintings on the wall, a hobby that she used to love but had recently not found the time for.
She was proud of Morgan’s green thumb making its presence known in the hallway, but she was never house proud.
Despite this, with every sweep, and every vacuum, it felt as if she was setting the apartment anew, ridding it of events that were burned into her mind forever.
It also reminded her that there were beautiful things in this world, too. Beyond the deepest darkest thoughts in her mind, there were also blossoming flowers, and paintings that allowed her to see the spectrum of humankind.
Upon putting the vacuum cleaner away, Lee leaned against the tiny cupboard door in which it was originally housed, and prepared herself for cleaning the living room next.
She exhaled heavily, placing a hand against the door now as if to steady herself.
“It’s just a room,” she said aloud, convincing herself to get on with the task at hand.
Except, it wasn’t just a room, not anymore, at least, not to Lee.
Saying it out loud wouldn’t convince her of anything.
Sitting in it was one thing, cleaning it felt like another thing entirely.
“The sooner you get it done, the sooner you can lay in bed and watch a movie.”
Pushing herself back from the cupboard, Lee smiled at the thought, and grabbed the duster from the kitchen counter.
It was only when she reached the door which was currently hiding the living room behind it that she hesitated once again, standing in place with the duster in her hand.
“Fuck,” she said aloud, her head falling back in frustration.
“You literally share a bed with a murderer and yet you can’t even clean a fucking room? ”
Throwing the duster across the hallway now, she smacked at the door with the other hand, half expecting the ghost of Edward Beckett to tell her to quieten down. Despite events such as that one not coming to be, Lee did in fact quieten down of her own volition.
The fact of the matter was that the last time she had cleaned that room, she had been wiping blood from the floorboards.
She exhaled gradually, before making her way over towards the duster that she had just previously discarded, and decided that the living room could either wait for her to be ready, or Morgan could clean it later.
Listening to true crime podcasts after recent events was not too dissimilar to reading a book only to start at the last page.
To put it simply, the mystery had died the second that Edward Beckett did.
However, as Lee filled the kitchen sink with washing-up liquid and hot water, she decided that hearing the latest episode of Best Served Cold seemed more enticing than shuffling through music with soapy hands while she washed the dishes.
Upon opening her Spotify, Lee Holmes fidgeted with the volume buttons on the right-hand side of her phone, and turned the sound up to full, before grabbing the first plate and a sponge in order to get started.
It starts with tactile incisions, and ends with a singular flower placed delicately on top of the newly deceased's remains.
Such tragedies would later be known only as “The Hyacinth Homicides.” Join us over the next sixty minutes, as we uncover the truth behind the depraved atrocities resulting in nine confirmed murders, and zero suspects. This is Best Served Cold.
Lee wasn’t sure exactly when the room had started spinning, and the air had somehow grown thicker, but she was relatively certain of her knowledge of flowers.
Leaning forward, she placed her head in her hands and allowed herself some deep breathing exercises, focusing on the sounds she could hear around her to calm herself down—the car alarm outside, the sound of voices in the hallway, muttering outside her front door.
She allowed herself approximately three minutes which she had already deemed three minutes too long.
When she finally stood, she extended a hand to steady herself upon the nearby kitchen wall, before gradually taking small step after small step into the hallway.
I just know, Morgan had told her, when she had asked how Morgan knew why the murder of Edward Beckett would not be tied to Oscar Tippits.
Let’s just say the two murders have one key difference between one another, and leave it at that.
After three painful minutes in the kitchen of self-doubt as to her knowledge of flowers, she took one long look at the rows of hyacinths, Morgan’s apparent calling card, in their pots within the hallway before she hit the floor.
Lee Holmes awoke to a hand on her shoulder, and for a fraction of a second, forgot where she was, and why she had even fainted. When a voice came into the mix that she knew to be Morgan’s, reality slapped her with a mighty thwack. “Baby, oh my god, baby, are you okay?”
She felt herself be lifted from the carpet below, an arm latching itself around her, and then another, as she was carried into the bedroom.
“What happened?” Morgan asked, laying Lee down on her side of the bed, as her pupils expanded with worry.
“Tell me what I can do to help, and I’ll do it, anything you need. ”
With her head against the pillow now, Lee opened her eyes slowly and met Morgan’s own, who was scanning her features for any signs as to the decline of her physical state.
“I need…” Lee practically whispered, closing her eyes again for just a moment, as if it could somehow recharge her entire body.
“I need to know the truth about The Hyacinth Homicides. Did you…is that…are you?”
Lee Holmes allowed her mind to travel back to what she deemed to be approximately an hour ago as she was cleaning, seeing the beauty in the world in flowers and paintings.
If there was a God, she surmised, said God wanted her to see that the things she saw as beautiful were nothing more than a facade interwoven with dark black holes.
She saw no other way of seeing it. After all, their hallway lined the same flower that, according to her podcast, lined a dozen bodies.
And despite her current anger for Morgan, the fear tethered deep inside all of her vital organs, she couldn’t help but direct it at herself simultaneously.
She had lost her right to feel that fear because she had participated and made the black hole even larger.
Lee’s eyes opened once again, sensing Morgan’s desperation as her own pupils found two green eyes staring back at her, witnessing the glassy appearance to them as she blinked away a tear.
Lee Holmes debated at that moment if she herself was a monster, if only for not presently having the desire to comfort the woman she loved oh-so-dearly. “The truth is that I—”
“Just fucking say it,” Lee interrupted aggressively, surprising both herself and Morgan at her newfound strength as the pair of them jolted in unison.
She wasn’t sure who she was angrier at, herself or Morgan at present time, but right now, with a thousand new questions up in the air, whether it was appropriate or not, she decided to direct it all at Morgan.
Morgan exhaled a deep breath and pushed her hair back with a trembling hand.
“I’m the person behind The Hyacinth Homicides.”