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“Ah, finally he rings. I’ve been waiting with bated breath to hear updates on your sexy young priest.”
There’s a strange sound of air behind Phillip’s voice that Benoit can’t quite place, but never mind that, he’ll sort it in good time.
“Now, I never said he was a sexy priest, my dear,” Benoit said, tucking the phone beneath his ear, then allowed, “Though he is adorable. Pretty eyes. Blue. No, hazel.”
“You prefer blue, I think.”
“You might be right. Anyway, he’s hiding something, and I think I know what.”
“I assume it’s a side job at a very selective strip club.”
“Your odd little Catholic fantasies have no place here, husband.” Good lord, he’s lucky Phillip is far away from this one. He has the feeling Jud would be a flustered puddle before Phillip’s flirtations.
“What, none of them?” Phillip’s outrage is mostly hammed up, but Benoit detects a hint of genuine disappointment, and feels an overwhelming fondness for the fellow.
Over the air and miles between them, he hears movement, constant, predictable. Not an airplane, no, Phillip sounds far too relaxed and open for a public location. Not a car, far too quiet, away from the engine. Not a subway, that would be considerably louder, echoing beneath the ground.
A train, certainly. And that one particular clatter…
“Well,” he allows, still puzzling over it. “No place in this particular murder mystery.”
“Tell me more.”
“You’re not busy?”
“You know I love to deduce your little civic squabbles, darling.”
Benoit scoffs. “I’d like to see you try, from your empty dining car. Was it an ambassador who died there? Must be someone dreadfully important, to have you out of your office.”
Phillip gasps. “Darling! Are you deducing me? Even when you know it’s a matter of national security?”
“You wouldn’t have answered if you minded,” Benoit observes, hands folded over his belly, staring up at the ceiling of the dreadful little motel he’s deigned to inhabit this evening, as he waits for Jud to get his head out of his ass and come back to the investigation.
In the meantime, he wonders what Phillip is wearing.
Phillip loves to slouch around their home in comfort, old threadbare jumpers and holey socks, but on the job he’s always deliciously starched, sharp-cut suits and undeclared arms. Maybe the black; he does favor dramatics when out on the job. Downright debonair. Makes no sense he dresses down the way he does at home, almost like taunting Benoit with his slubbery.
“Maybe not,” Phillip drawls, “Or, maybe I so missed the sound of your voice I’ve abandoned my sense of professionalism and decorum and am doing something a bit foolish.”
Benoit considers the possibility; it seems unlikely, but then there’s the sound of a gunshot, and a distinct thud that denotes a dead weight that only a recently perforated torso can produce.
“Do be careful,” he murmurs, brow furrowing.
“You as well, Benoit,” Phillip says, sounding a trifle out of breath. He is getting on in years, to be running along the tops of moving locomotives. Benoit frowns despite himself. “I worry one of these days you’ll annoy someone into murdering you.”
“I have no idea what you mean, I am entirely charming,” Benoit protests. Besides, he’s perfectly equipped to spot the ill-intentions of the bit-penny players in this particular bite of dinner theater.
Phillip, on the other hand, plays a much more dangerous game.
Perhaps Benoit does prefer the Phillip who putters around their flat in aprons and dusted with flour to this version, upon reflection.
“Must dash, stay safe, don’t forget to pay the cat sitter for another few days,” Phillip says, and rings off before Benoit can reassert the lack of need for a sitter to care for the infernal, hair-shedding, tie-stealing thief Phillip calls a member of their family.
“You ring the cat sitter,” he mutters at the empty line, and sighs, and rings the sitter, and stews over his erstwhile fledgling, off playing the penitent out in the trees. Damn young fool will get himself killed, if not arrested.
Certainly adorable. Definitely not sexy. Far too earnest for that.
Well. Benoit supposes Jud has a sparkle of sarcasm that does make the old heart twinge a bit. Benoit has a bit of a soft spot for dark humor.
Anyway, Benoit has a murder to solve. He’s not worried about his very annoying, very dashing husband at all.
*
“Two calls in two days, you must miss me,” Phillip answers, sounding very alive indeed, and Benoit feels his body relax at last.
“Two answers in two days is far more unusual,” Benoit notes, and resumes pacing the library, waiting for dawn. Jud is off doing whatever anxious priests do. Count beads. Talk to pretend patriarchs in the proverbial sky.
Meanwhile, Benoit twiddles his thumbs and waits and does not worry. He is not a worrier. There is a wheezing sound, and he abandons the pretense.
“What are you up to, husband?”
“Oh, this and that,” Phillip demurs, and his voice sounds tired, but at least not wheezing. “How’s your priest?”
“Ah, now I understand why you answered again,” Benoit says, pleased and worried all at once. “You’re jealous.” Of course Phillip isn’t jealous. Well, possibly a little jealous. Phillip’s probably misappropriated some government surveillance technology, again, and seen how cute the twinky little boxer turned do-gooder really is.
More worrying, however, is that he wants to distract Benoit. And yet he’s answered anyway.
Benoit listens carefully to the slight static, the whisper of fabric. Wind.
“You’re on a train again?” He frowns. “But it’s not moving. Much.”
“Now how the bloody hell - never mind, don’t tell me.” The sound of a lighter. Now Benoit is really worried. “This is a bastard of a job, I’ll tell you that and that’s all I’ll tell you. Now, distract me, love.”
“I’m wearing my travel suit from Paris, the tan tartan,” Benoit says. “And my glasses, I know you like them.”
“Oh, not with the fedora.”
“You love it,” Benoit says. “It adds a touch of whimsy.”
“Tell me about your case, not your penchant for costumery, Ben,” Phillip says, but he does love it, deep down. Benoit can tell.
“Right, the case,” Benoit says, throwing his head back, staring out at the lightening sky. He lets himself rant about the foolish boy, the disgusting stench of that pathetic doctor and twisted monsignor, mingled in their own greed into some of the most unfortunate corpses he has ever encountered.
“And you know I don’t bother easily,” he says.
“I do know,” Phillip agrees. “Well, sounds like you’ve nearly solved it.”
“Just a few more pieces to put together, small ones, and then - well, I am looking forward to it, I will admit. A very pleasant little locked room puzzle. You know how I adore Christie.”
“Tell me you’re not regrowing the Poirot mustache,” Phillip’s voice, insultingly, is genuinely pained.
“It was dashing,” he grumbles.
“Not in the slightest, darling. Ah, just a moment. Well. Duty calls.”
“And you always answer for her,” Benoit sighs.
“Oh, go get your checkmate and bugger off,” Phillip retorts, and hangs up after blowing a raspberry and, from the sound, delivering a cracking left hand punch.
“Sacriligeous. I will not.” Silly to worry over the old fool, after all these years. Still, Benoit has his own foibles. They are neither of them easy men to love.
Perhaps he really better go check on Jud. The damn fool is probably trying to turn himself in again.
*
“Now, is it three trains, or all the same train?” Benoit asks when Phillip answers that evening. He’s on a train himself now, headed for the coast. He’s thinking of writing up this latest case, with some considerable name changes, perhaps a different location. He needs a good pen name. He’s sure something will come to him, while he’s waiting for a new case to call.
“Surely the great Benoit Blanc can tell the sound of one train car from another,” Phillip teases, and he sounds much lighter than before. Thank goodness. The kidnapping cases really take it out of the man. Benoit chuckles. “Now, tell me how you cracked the case this time, while I wait to reach the station.”
“No more henchmen to fight? Trains to derail?”
“Darling, we don’t call them henchmen anymore. Minions is much more gender neutral.”
“Oh, very PC, Agent Blanc.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, it was a delightful little diversion. Do you want to know something? The greatest thing? I didn’t solve it.”
He feels extremely proud of himself.
There’s a long silence. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Ben.”
“I admit, I surprised myself.” He’s still a little surprised, musing in the morning sunshine, remembering the colors through the stained glass with more fondness than he could ever have thought possible. “The adorable priest inspired me.”
There’s a longer silence. “You do like him. I rather thought you were done with the Church as an institution, Benoit.”
“Mm, well. The Church as an institution holds no spiritual interest for me. But humanity… Father Jud had a point about humanity, and the greater truths that institutions grasp at, that they are even sometimes capable of containing. At any rate, I suppose I was moved to show a little… grace.”
Phillip groans at the pun, and Benoit sits upright in his seat. “Aha! I knew it! You read up on my case! Phillip, you know that is unfair, when I have no access to your own exploits.”
“You know I’ll tell you everything when I’m home,” Phillip says. “You and your penchant for pillow talk.”
“Mm, full of dissections. Yes. Very thoughtful.”
“I’m happy for you, Ben. You sound more cheerful than you usually do at the end of a case, with no new one in sight.”
“Yes, well,” Benoit thumbs his nose, straightens his shirt. “Might be something to it, I suppose. Putting the needs of others above oneself, a higher purpose.”
“You still got to feel awfully clever, I assume.”
“Well, Father Jud knows I’m both clever and magnanimous,” Benoit says archly, and Phillip groans.
“That’s it, I’m having him killed.”
“Love you too,” Benoit says, and hears a small, indrawn breath. He supposes he really should say it more, given everything.
“Yes,” Phillip says quietly. “I love you as well, Benoit Blanc. I’ll see you at home next week?”
“Me and your infernal beast will be waiting.”
Before he hangs up, Benoit hears Phillip laughing, and beneath that, the distant chime of bells. Might be the train station he’s pulling into, or a church he’s passing, might be a wedding. Might be anything.
He won’t read too much into it. He’s not one to believe in signs, after all.
Still, it’s a nice note to end on.
He settles his fedora over his eyes, and goes to sleep.