Take Away the Saints

Mimesis : The Last Supper || Nick Blakeslee

Something cold had taken hold of me. Certainly looking back, I'm surprised I didn't panic. I should have felt something. Didn't even show an emotional response to finding out my partner was intimately connected to a case. Ginny was right, I let the job override everything else. Except, in a way I didn't this time.

Because my job dictated I confide in someone, certainly Chief, but my loyalty to Reyes (a bond stronger than any friendship or marriage) said I couldn't risk it. Biggs had answered the call first, and I had a personal connection to the case. Meaning I'd be put in the back seat or taken off the investigation. So what choice did I have?

I gave Biggs the box's contents—without the letter or badge of course—and drove off the East Barrington in a decommissioned cruiser, since Ginny had dropped me off. I knew I'd have an hour, maybe two before I'd get a call. I had at least the night to see this out, see where it took me, then I'd spill it all to Chief and hope he didn't take my badge and gun.

East Barrington is on the other side of town, in the hills. Old real estate built for millionaires in the late seventies and early eighties. The area was filled with either 20th century has-beens—the kind of oldie that appeared in a TV drama that fizzled out after two seasons, or divorcee gold diggers living off the fat of some rich accountant they married back in '82—or it was for people with money they had made under the table. Pot growers.

Everyone on the force knew it, but, to be honest, neither demographic put up much of a fuss, beyond the occasional public indecency call (fresh off the operating table, the swollen chested cougars liked to strut their stuff) we never really came out here.

435 East Barrington was at the end of a cul-de-sac. Great, gaudy pillars held the front frame of the house upright, it looked like a plantation house straight out of the 19th century. It rested on stilts, rising high above a tree line that looked planted just to provide a contrast to how tall and wonderful the house was. In the 80's, they didn't build on zero lot properties, no sardine houses here, even in the pitch of midnight I could see the large lot, what looked like gables for a garden and the top of a greenhouse.

I swung the car around and parked it on the end of the street. The air was cool against my neck when I stepped out.

I opened my glove compartment and pulled out my father's service revolver. A snub nose Model 85. It wasn't my standard issue Glock 17, wasn't nearly as accurate and held only five rounds instead of the Glock's seventeen, but I wasn't on duty and this was personal, which called for a more sentimental weapon.

There was a gate in front of the house. For a fleeting moment I wondered if I'd have to jump the fence, but before I could check for cameras I leaned forward and the gate creaked open on hinges in desperate need of some WD-40. I took another cursory glance over my shoulder and walked through the iron fence. Concrete stairs climbed up a small rock side that lead up to the front door. I checked the cylinders of the Model 85 one more time and placed it back in the shoulder holster beneath my jacket.

Somewhere someone was playing music.

I thought about going back to my car and grabbing my Maglite, but the house was lit up like a Christmas party. I felt terribly exposed, the large landscape windows shone bright like spotlights, illuminating the pitch black midnight outside.

Still, I crept up to the front door. I tested the handle, to my surprise it turned. The great world beyond the threshold of that doorway greeted me. Classical music danced through speakers. Strings and oboes and brass instruments flurried to and fro, chaotic and yet somehow organized singing its sweet song. The home was like something taken from a dramatic recreation on the History Channel. A grand staircase ran around a semi-circle wall, the foyer expanded outward, and a living room was to my right.