Nightingale (And Not the Lark) - Chapter Four
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CHAPTER FOUR - HUMILITY
DAY 24 - 2:55 AM
“So, that ring you’re wearing, what does it mean?” Brendon asks between bites of his veggie burger, nodding his head in the direction of Patrick’s left hand.
Patrick looks up from his coffee and sends Brendon a questioning look over the brim of his cup.
“I thought that would be pretty obvious.”
“Well, I can see that it's a purity ring,” Brendon says. “But what does it mean to you?”
He doesn't know why he's asking exactly. It's really none of his business. But there's something nagging at the back of his head whenever he looks at Patrick-as though Brendon is missing a huge and glaring piece of evidence; it makes him uncomfortable.
Patrick looks at him intently, as though sizing Brendon up, deciding what version of the truth he will get to hear. “Some things are worth waiting for,” he says finally. “Having this reminds me of that.”
Brendon turns the words in his head, opens his mouth to ask another question. The sound of the door opening makes him hesitate, and they watch together as Ryan Ross crosses the room to put a beaker of something extremely suspicious-looking in the community fridge.
“And sometimes, you need to know when you've waited long enough,” Patrick says with a small smile, gathering up his things and leaving the room.
Brendon watches Ryan through the corner of his eye and thinks that yeah, maybe you do.
***
DECEMBER 24
Midnight Mass.
For sixteen years, Christmas Eve has been Patrick’s favourite time of the year. The music is beautiful and everyone is filled with hope. Patrick likes to watch people enter the cathedral. If you look closely enough, it’s as though you can see the stress of visiting relatives, buying countless Christmas presents and preparing a turkey big enough to feed an army just melt away from people’s faces.
Today, he doesn’t look.
What’s the point, really?
He volunteers to help with communion since there will be several hundred people more than on a normal Sunday and he already did the required training the year before when one of the deacons broke his leg in a car accident. The choir starts at the back of the church for procession as usual, and Patrick keeps his eyes firmly on one of the angels in the stained glass window above the altar as he walks down the aisle.
He keeps his eyes on the conductor when he sings and on the priest when he doesn’t until about half-way through the service. One of the deacons is reading the Gospel of Lucas, same as Patrick’s dad does every Christmas morning before they leave for the obligatory spend-time-with-all-relatives-within-a-fifty-miles-radius round. Patrick can’t help the smile that spreads on his lips. He turns his head a little, looking through the first lines of faces. He sees his mom, who smiles back, and then his dad, who is tilting his head to make a quiet comment to the person next to him.
Pete's back.
Patrick turns his head to focus on the man reading, because he doesn’t know what would show on his face if he kept looking towards the front pews. And he doesn’t want to make a big deal about Pete being there if it turns out he’s there for any of the normal reasons to why a person would want to go to Midnight Mass at Christmas. Seeing as he’s sitting with Patrick’s parents, it’s pretty likely that it wasn’t even Pete’s idea to begin with.
During prayer, he chances another look out of the corner of his eye. His parents both have their heads bowed and their eyes closed. Pete is mimicking their stance, but his gaze is not on the joined hands in his lap.
Patrick’s eyes begin to sting. There is too much meaning in Pete’s eyes-and maybe it’s the weeks apart or the fight they had or the sum total of the painful, introspective moods Patrick has been going through lately, but sitting there on the choir bench, Patrick can’t feel anything but crushing hope and a need so strong it chokes him.
Looking at Pete now, Patrick doesn’t know how he could ever have doubted him.
He half-expects to completely fuck up his solo of Ave Maria a few minutes later. Everything inside him is just jumbled and turned upside-down, and he doesn’t even feel most of his body as he walks up to the solo stand. Fearing the worst, he closes his eyes, lets everything just surge through him and opens his mouth.
He’s never made the piece sound like that before.
Patrick knows about transcendence; he’s brushed the edges of it often enough to recognise the feeling of light coursing through his body, stripping the world away. What he’s felt before doesn’t even come close to what he experiences when he sings the first line now, though. Patrick barely registers what comes out of his mouth, just knows that it’s right and something much larger than perfection. There is light inside him pushing the notes out, making the low ones burn and the high ones soar towards the vaulted ceiling. He doesn’t notice the wetness in his eyes until he tries to look at his mom and can’t see her as anything more than a blurry splotch of colour in the dark pew. His vision clears with a few blinks, and Patrick sees that his mom is teary-eyed too. He meets his dad’s eyes next, soaks up the glowing pride there, and tilts his head back, letting the light and music take him over completely. He doesn’t look at Pete. He doesn’t need to. Pete is already with him.
It will be alright.
The gratitude is overwhelming. So is the sense of humility and reverence. Patrick keeps his eyes closed once the last note dies from his throat, mumbles a heartfelt thank you and barely notices as the whole room bursts into spontaneous applause.
The people closest to him in the choir pat him on the arm or do thumbs-up when he gets back. The conductor is beaming like a small sun just fell down and settled on his face. Patrick runs a thumb under his eyes quickly and tries to smile. He can still feel the light linger on his skin. Or maybe it’s just Pete’s eyes now.
Things will be alright.
The feeling stays with him as he holds up his hands to receive the silver goblet of wine from Father Francis and goes to stand at the edge of the altar circle. Both his parents pick different lines, and Patrick is relieved, because there is no way he could keep everything he feels out of his eyes when Pete kneels before him. Patrick tilts the cup to his lips, says the right words. Pete’s eyes meet his over the brim, and the world rights itself.
***
They get a moment alone together in the commotion that is well-wishing and networking when everyone is exiting the church. Pete walks up to him, words carefully quiet as they walk down the steps, side by side.
“If we’re wrong about this and I lose you, I’d rather never have had you,” Pete says. “I don’t want to be able to remember being all the way inside you if I can’t have it for the rest of my life.”
Patrick looks up, nods. Pete only lets their eyes lock together for a second or two before dropping his head. Too many people. Always too many people.
“I want to wait,” Pete says, and Patrick can see the slight tremble in his smile now. “I-I just-I’m not too used to the whole-you know-guy thing either, and we’ll do other stuff, just not… that, okay?”
“Okay.”
It’s not even hard to say. Not with the promise of forever still running strong and bright inside him. He gives Pete a smile and turns around to look for his parents.
Their hands brush briefly as they move together out of the area in front of the cathedral, making Patrick’s heart skip a beat or two as they cross into the parking lot.
It’s Christmas. Everything is new.
***
DAY 24 - 7:00 PM
“Okay, so as you all know, we now have four victims,” Ryan says, going over the information on the walls. “William Beckett, Gabriel Saporta and Victoria Asher were killed with the same MO. The fourth victim, Hannah Saporta, we believe to be collateral damage. She was killed with the same poison as the other three, but was not arranged in the same way and not given a ring. According to the evidence, she was suffering from depression, had tried to commit suicide several times and was completely dependent on her brother. We’re likely looking at a coup de grace where she’s concerned.”
He hands a pile of photos to Pete together with a thick file of autopsy reports. Pete puts them to the side for the moment, nodding for Ryan to go on.
“Each victim was given a wedding ring with an inscription of one of the heavenly virtues inside. Beckett’s was ‘kindness,’ Saporta’s ‘patience’ and Asher’s ‘charity.’ I think we can now safely conclude that we are dealing with a serial killer and that we are likely to see the other four virtues play out as murders as well, unless we can find him before this happens.”
Brendon fidgets in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. Spencer turns on the projector, taking over from Ryan to go through the details from the different locations and the specifics on the rings.
“We believe the killer to be a man, based on DNA samples at the scenes,” Ryan continues once Spencer’s presentation is done. “We believe him to have been in an intimate relationship with Beckett, based on semen splatters on the victim’s lower abdomen and evidence of light bruising consistent with consensual anal intercourse. We also believe him to have known the Saporta siblings well enough to have cared about them. Evidence from interviews points to a previous relationship between Gabriel Saporta and Beckett, which might have overlapped with Beckett’s relationship with the killer. That, we don’t know. There are no known ties between the first three victims and Victoria Asher at this point.”
“COD in all four cases was heart failure due to overdose. Tox screen showed high levels of tropane alkaloids scopolamine and atropine, as well as high doses of morphine. Based on the evidence at the Saporta scene, we believe that the toxin was derived from the Brugmanesia plant, more commonly known as 'angel’s trumpet'. It is a member of the nightshade family, just like mandrake, deadly nightshade and belladonna, very toxic and easy to get hold of. Hannah Saporta was found with flowers from this plant woven into her hair. Toxin derived from these flowers match the toxins in the victims’ blood.”
“Do you have any theories about motive?” Pete asks, flipping through a pile of pictures with practised movements.
Ryan glances at Spencer and then turns back to the board. “We think that he might be trying to make angels,” he says, and Pete nods. “There is nothing in the evidence to really suggest that the killer is following a specific religious ritual, but the dress, the flower toxin, the rings and the fact that he kills them in a way that is both painless and physically unaltering points at reverence.”
“Okay,” Pete says. “Thanks for the update. I’ll head back to the strip club where Asher worked. See if I can shake up some more information. Meanwhile, who is doing the reconstruction of the production-company-executive-who-raped-and-killed-his-secretary case at the Palace later tonight?”
“I am,” Spencer says. “With Ryan, I think.”
“Could you maybe switch that around?” Pete asks. “I kind of need Ross to go over the tapes for the Parker murder from last month again. The case is still open and getting colder by the day.”
“Sure,” Ryan says. “Jon, could you fill in? I know you’re technically supposed to clock off for tonight, but this is kind of important.”
Jon looks at Spencer, an unreadable expression on his face. Spencer looks back, and they both seem to falter for a second, as though they don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. “Yeah,” Jon says finally, clearing his throat when the word comes out rough and raspy. “No problem. I can do that.”
***
DAY 24 - 10:30 PM
“Anything new?” Ryan asks as he walks into the Ballistics Lab after finishing up with his reports for the evening.
Brendon looks up from a tank of brightly-coloured rubber balls and shakes his head.
“Bullet doesn’t match anything we have on file. How are you doing with the angel murders?”
“We pulled some more files from Dr Beckett’s computer. It looks like he was the one supplying the killer with morphine, thinking it was for some close relative in pain from cancer or something. Pretty ironic when you think about it.”
Brendon puts down the gun he’s tested and returns it to the evidence box. He looks up, and their eyes meet. The familiar sense of being locked in a single moment settles over Ryan’s chest, burning there, hot and bright. He takes a deep breath and prepares to look away, dispel the tension with some kind of flippant comment. Brendon is faster.
“Ryan, can I ask you something?”
“Um… sure, yeah.”
“How long is long enough?”
“What do you mean?”
“This,” Brendon says, taking a step closer and crowding Ryan against a battered desk, sliding both hands into Ryan’s hair and holding him still while he leans in and brushes their lips together. “I mean this.”
***
DAY 24 - 10:35 PM
Pete had been on his way to Archives to collect copies of the photos from the Victoria Asher case, so really, walking through the dark corridor and stopping suddenly by the door to the Ballistics Lab was purely accidental.
The fact that he remains there, still and silent so as not to give himself away to the people inside, is maybe slightly more difficult to explain.
The crack in the door is wide enough to show a perfect, dimly-lit cut-out of Brendon Urie grabbing Ryan Ross’s hips and hoisting him up on a desk before going back in for more kisses. There are virtually no sounds in the room except for lips coming together and the clink of metal as belts are opened and zippers pulled down. It’s like an old Hollywood movie-everything beautifully choreographed in muted black and white.
“It’s rude to spy on people, you know.”
Pete doesn’t jump, but his heart stops for a second before his brain registers the voice in his ear. Patrick slides an arm causally around his waist, moving in close enough to put his chin on Pete’s shoulder.
“They are really beautiful together,” Patrick says, and Pete can only nod, because, yes, they really are. There is something extremely intimate about the way Brendon leans forward on straight arms, eyes closed and mouth sort of just mindlessly wandering over Ryan’s cheek.
“We would eclipse them.” The words end up rolling off Pete’s lips on a breath, and before he can say something more to make them… something else-he doesn’t really know what-Patrick leans in and presses a warm mouth to his ear.
“Could you really be that quiet, though?”
There are moments like this that Pete is fully able to simultaneously grasp concepts like ‘denial,’ ‘double-think’ and ‘eternal hope.’ He turns his head and nods. Patrick has a bit of red in his cheeks.
Pete can feel Patrick’s fingers tighten around him He doesn’t move for a long time, just returns his attention to the opening in the door. Brendon Urie has a really nice back.
“One sound and I’ll stop.”
Pete drops his head a little to the side. Patrick’s lips brush across the skin, travelling smoothly over the sensitive spots, careful not to leave marks. Pete lets his mouth fall open to take in long, silent breaths. In the next room, Ryan leans back against the desk, pulling Brendon up on top of him.
Patrick’s right hand inches its way under Pete’s shirt.
“God, Patrick…”
It’s no more than a whisper, and yet, it’s far too much.
“Told you so,” Patrick says quietly in Pete’s ear, and then the warm pressure is gone. Pete listens to the soft shuffle of sneakers fading into silence as Patrick disappears down the empty corridor.
***
JANUARY 19
A good thing about Catholic cathedrals is that there are a lot of different places to hide. Pete finds his spot on a small balcony at the top of a spiralling staircase. There's a door at the other end of it, bolted shut. Pete thinks it probably goes to the bell tower. Since church bells are nowadays activated by a button somewhere far below, no one really has a reason to come up to this place anymore.
It has a really nice view.
The choir usually stands to the left of the altar during Mass, and, to be able to see the left side of the second row properly then, you need to sit in one of the first ten pews or so. Pete tries to avoid it as much as he can. There are too many people watching, too many who know him well enough to realise that it's not in Pete's character to be attending Mass every Sunday. So he tries to stay away. He's lost the battle four times so far.
It kind of disgusts him how beneficial not having enough self-control is proving to be for his career.
Then again, gaining the Undersheriff's approval is a plausible excuse for his sudden craving for spiritual nurturing. Pete is disturbingly okay with people he likes thinking that he's an opportunistic asshole if it means that he can have this. If it can be okay for him to see Patrick in public once in a while.
Down below, the choir is warming up. Pete moves a little closer to the edge. Not enough to risk being seen, just so that the faces focusing on the conductor come into sharper focus. He hasn't seen Patrick for almost a week. Work has been hectic and Patrick's parents haven't been travelling lately. Pete is slowly but surely turning into a chronic insomniac, staying back at the station or wandering aimlessly around his apartment when he's home. The bed just feels wrong now with only Pete in it.
It’s winter. They've been together for close to three months. Pete's not sure how much longer he'll be able to hold out, as much as the prospect of making things official-forever-even if it’s just between the two of them-scares the shit out of him. (Pete doesn’t have a good track record with forever. He loves easily and is prone to throwing himself off of cliffs. Not quite so good with making sure that he’s actually wearing a parachute.) He closes his eyes as Patrick's voice fills the cathedral, strong and pure, mixing with three other harmonies in a quartet. No matter how often he hears it, Pete can’t get enough. Patrick’s voice is more of a sacred experience than Pete has ever found in anything the Church has had to offer.
Well, up until it offered him Patrick, that is.
God, he's so completely fucked. This thing they have-Pete couldn't stop it even if he wanted to.
He's never been so humbly grateful for anything in his entire life.
“Mind if I sit over there?”
Pete turns around slowly, giving his body time to relax and his face a chance to show polite indifference rather than naked fear. There's a man at the top of the steps. Medium height. Short hair. Unremarkable face. Unremarkable everything really. The kind of painfully average look that's nearly impossible to draw a profile picture from or pick out in a lineup. Even the guy's clothes are forgettable.
“Go right ahead.”
The guy smiles. It's a nice, friendly smile, and something in Pete automatically relaxes. The guy walks past him to the very end of the balcony before sitting down against the wall. He takes out a pen from the inside pocket of this jacket and opens a blue notebook. He sets to work, writing or sketching, Pete can't quite tell. The guy looks up every once in a while, fixes his eyes on something in the distance. Pete spends about half an hour focusing on the new altar piece until he realises that the other guy isn't even paying attention to him. So he goes back to watching what he wants to watch, smiling at the way Patrick moves impatiently from foot to foot while some of the girls struggle through their parts. Pete might not get a new chance to sleep properly for another week or two, but at least he'll have more memories to play on repeat in the dark.
He leaves ten minutes before the practice is over. The other guy gives him a brief nod.
They share the balcony every now and again after that, never speaking or otherwise attempting to get to know one another.
Pete kind of likes it that way.
***
DAY 25 - MORNING
Jon hesitates on the front porch. He showered and changed his clothes down at the lab, so he knows he looks normal-no different from when he left the house the night before. He doesn’t get how that works, though. He doesn’t feel anything close to normal.
A cheater. Jonathan Jacob Walker is a cheater. He can’t really wrap his mind around that. It clashes with everything he believes in; he should be on his knees with guilt.
It doesn’t feel real.
Jon feels happy. How can he be happy when he’s, very probably, just lost his chances at having a real marriage with the mother of his unborn child? It’s completely surreal.
And yet…
“Cass?” he calls out as he closes the door behind him. “Cassie, you still home?”
No answer. Jon checks his watch. It’s 7:56. Cassie usually leaves for work around seven thirty.
It’s kind of ridiculous how relieved he feels that she’s gone.
He’s in the middle of making himself some breakfast when his pager beeps. 419, St Mary’s on Newlane. Jon stares at the message for a minute, feels a chill travel down his spine. Fuck. Not another one.
***
DAY 25 - 8:15 AM
St Mary’s Evangelical Church is the home of a small, Protestant congregation. The building is made of white-painted wood and flanked by willow trees on both sides. The yellow and black tape looks very out of place.
Ryan is the first one of their team to arrive on site. He parks his Denali and greets the officers sipping coffee on the front steps. The morning sun is filtering down through the trees. It’s eerily beautiful.
Ryan’s phone buzzes. Spencer is on his way. Jon told him the same thing about ten minutes earlier. Only Brendon left.
Brendon.
Ryan stops short. The kit in his hand is suddenly far too heavy, and he manages to set it down on the floor before grabbing on to the church door for balance. He takes out his phone, checks outgoing messages. The number to Brendon’s pager is listed exactly nineteen minutes earlier. As long as Ryan has known him, Brendon has never failed to answer a page straight away.
(This includes the time when Spencer sent him one by mistake when Brendon was away on vacation and had no earthly way of actually making it to the crime scene.)
Ryan pulls up Brendon’s number from his contact book and hits 'dial'. One ring and the call goes to voice mail. Ryan does it again. Same result. Ryan closes his eyes, tells himself he’s being ridiculous.
“Morning, Ross,” Dr Hurley calls cheerfully as Ryan walks through the door.
Ryan keeps his eyes on the wooden floor. The church isn’t big. He only has another five yards or so before he will inevitably reach the altar.
Brendon.
The side of a desk cutting into his hips. Hands on his face. Lips moving mindlessly over his cheek…
“I love you.”
Why the fuck couldn’t he bring himself to say it back?
“You okay?”
Ryan jumps. Dr Hurley is right in front of him.
“Just tell me.”
“Female. Early twenties. Looks like another one of your angel murders.”
Ryan head snaps up. “What?”
“See for yourself.”
Ryan does. There’s a girl lying on the altar, white bathrobe wrapped around her slender body.
About twenty seconds later, Brendon bursts through the door.
“Sorry,” he calls out, hurrying down the aisle. “My phone died. What did I miss?”
Ryan thinks he manages to pull himself together fast enough for the surge of relief not to bloom all over his face. From the strange look Dr Hurley gives him, he’s not one hundred percent sure, however.
“No, it’s fine,” he says, looking away quickly and focusing on the victim, because Jesus Christ, Brendon is still wearing the same clothes. “Spencer and Jon should be here in a minute,” he continues, turning to Dr Hurley. “When do you think you’ll have the body ready for processing?”
Andy looks up from his clipboard, flips a page. “Fifteen minutes maybe? You can start with the pictures if you want.”
Ryan nods. Beside him, Brendon pulls out his camera. The clicking of the shutter is loud in the room. Andy softens it slightly by humming an old song under his breath.
“Um, Ryan?”
Ryan pulls himself out of the thoughts of how easy it would be to just take a couple of steps to the side and wrap his arms around Brendon. Reach out a hand and turn what happened the night before into something undeniable.
“Yeah?”
“She’s wearing two rings.”
Ryan frowns and steps closer. Brendon snaps a few frames of the girl’s left hand.
Ryan looks at Dr Hurley for confirmation. Andy nods, and Ryan puts on a pair of gloves and takes a small jar of Red Creeper out of his kit. He lifts what might be another partial from the simple gold bands on the girl’s finger and then slides both of them off her hand. The first one is identical to the three they’ve found before, the word Humility curling beautifully around the inner surface. Ryan puts it in an evidence bag and takes up the second one.
Jonathan Walker, 09/15/09
Chapter V - Diligence