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 inplace 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 ofBest Served Coldseemed 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 relativelycertain 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 mightythwack. “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 featuresfor 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.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
With every intake of breath, Lee prayed to an unknown entity that seemingly hated her that the air in her lungs would feel like enough to sustain herself. Alas, as she sat with her legs up to her chest upon the bed, and breathed in, she was never completely satiated, as if her brain had replaced all the crucial, subconscious parts of survival with fear, causing her to forget how to do even the simplest of tasks. And then the anxiety set in that she would never be able to breathe properly again.
She picked at the fingernails on her left hand, her right hand pressed firmly against her leg. Upon drawing blood from one of her cuticles, she switched to the other hand instead as her eyes focused on the wall in front of her. She stared at it until her vision blurred, and then shook her head as if the act would return everything back to normal, as if she could erase the memories of the past much like an Etch A Sketch erasing lines upon its screen. With an act as simple as breathing, she would return to their apartment on their five-year anniversary, and they would indulge in the meal she had cooked for them both.
Lee Holmes was fully aware of Morgan’s crimes,hadbeen aware the second everything went to shit, for lack of a better term. And yet, hearing it spoken through the voice of another in her podcast, an unknowing individual who saw her girlfriend as nothing more than a monster, didn’t just throw her through a loop, it threw her out of a plane and into perilous icy waters below. Perhaps that was why she was struggling to breathe.
She also couldn’t help but ponder the fact that if her girlfriend had a method of disposal that was well-and-truly hers, being so confident as to place a hyacinth upon each of their bodies, then why had she allowed Lee to devise her own plan for Edward Beckett? Was itjustto see what she was capable of?
“I know it’s my actions that got us here,” Morgan said, practically whispering beside her, as if scared of her own words. “But I think the next action should be yours. I could sit here with you and listen to the rest of the podcast. Alternatively, I could leave the room, or the apartment even, and you can listen to it alone. You also don’t have to listen to it at all, which is also an option in itself. If you need some time to think, that’s okay, too.”
Lee shook her head, albeit not to wipe away the slate, taking her back to her apartment on their five-year anniversary. “I don’t need time to think. I know what I want,” she said, regretting her use of phrasing as she ushered the word ‘want.’ “We will listen to the podcast together. If I need you to leave at any point, you will, and you will close the door behind you.”
Morgan nodded as a rock formed in her throat. She picked at her own fingers, now, an act in which she wasn’t accustomed to doing usually. Her own form of anxiety often came from playing with her hair, pushing it back, even when there was nothing there to push back in the first place. For a moment, it was as if Lee’s own mannerisms had bled into Morgan’s, like the worst kind of painting.
Morgan Finch perched herself on the edge of the bed, nervously, allowing herself an escape at any moment, as if Lee was about to hear her sing for the first time, or read a poem she had written aloud, perhaps. Instead, the room was about to be filled with sounds of another variety, as Lee Holmes turned up the volume on her phone, exhaled everything that was once inside her lungs, and hit play once again on the podcast.
On December 28th, 2021, the body of one Isabelle Jacques would be discovered in close proximity to Graniteville Quarry Park. What had once shaken up a suburb in New York would soon evolve into public disarray as more bodies were discovered across the state, all with the same key thread binding them together—a singular purple hyacinth placed directly across their torso.
Isabelle Jacques, 36, was the first amongst a confirmed nine killings, with many more believed to be undiscovered. With little connection amongst the victims beside the hyacinth calling card, it begs the question, what do we know about the suspect? Well, we know that their M.O. seems to be inconsistent. Toxicology reports highlight this finding, with cyanide poisoning perceived to be linked to three of the victims, a strangulation linked to one singular victim, and multiple stab wounds linked to the remaining five. This is deemed irregular in the world of serial killers, but I suppose leaving a hyacinth on each of the bodies could also be perceived as equally unconventional.
Local police have estimated the killer to be male, in their early thirties, single, and likely a recluse. With few leads, law enforcement has taken to exploring nearby florists in the area, reprinting receipts for the purchase of hyacinths, to no avail. The suspect is believed to be highly intelligent and pragmatic, with an attention to detail likely prominent in other aspects of their life.
Victim ages range from 36 to 58, Isabelle Jacques being the youngest victim, whilst Walter Pritchard is believed to be the oldest. “I just don’t understand it,” Emma Pritchard said, having spoken to Best Served Cold directly. “Everyone loved Walter. He was just a kind and down-to-earth human being. I’ll remember my uncle as the beautiful soul that he was.”
Lee Holmes paused the podcast momentarily, leaning back against the headboard as if positioning her face upwards would stop any tears from falling.
She didn’t know Walter Pritchard, though she could imagine he wasn’t truly the beautiful soul that his niece deemed him to be if he was on the opposing side of Morgan’s knife, and yet this had been the first time since Edward’s murder in which she saw the other side of it—the pain, the tragedy, each victim's family may or may not be feeling. Morgan Finch was the tornado that came into their lives and turned everything they knew upside down, and whilst Lee could not hold herself completely responsible for that, she couldn’t absolve herself from all culpability either. After all, she had allowed Morgan to remain free if only by helping her.
