A Rage In Rome
A Midnight Summer's Murder
(Fitz)
The crumpled lilac dress lay in the muggy mist of decaying dirt. It wasn't a mistake. The blood was ominous on the hem of a child's dress. No one had thought to consume the dress for evidence how had it just been left, alone like the child. The child who's voice weeped in the woods,crying an aching sob. He lifted the midnight fedora from his sweaty brows. Georgia was merciless with its heat. It staggered Fitz with a dizziness. So much was happening, the dead little girl and the dress that his incompetent team left didn't think of himself a martyr, the cross of his choice was less burdened, but the brunt of hate didn't offer him pity. He was a loner of sorts finding beauty in every miserable thing, but this wasn't any kind of gem, it only held damnnation.
He reached behind himself for the stretchy gloves tucked in his back pocket. He poured them on his fingertips and tried as he might not to cry. He honestly couldn't help it, it was a nervous quirk of his, but his tears possessed their own sadness that he couldn't pinch. In his hands was the relic of a murder. A godless murder,that broke his heart. The dress felt like a boulder in his callous fingers. The trees held blood curdling secrets. The grime and stench of the wind made him woozy and desperate. He grunted as his legs ambled to the sleek onxy passenger door of his car. Rummaging through the aimless clothes and meaningless or meaningful junk he found the clear plastic bag,peeling it open with his right hand before delicately placing the lilac dress inside. He closed it holding it up close to his blue eyes , the blood stuck out. It called his name. Fitz dropped the bag to the floor of the car, before crawling out and slamming the door. He's surprised he hasn't collapsed.
His back met the window of the passenger door. Hurried and almost panicked he flung the gloves off his hands. They lay on the ground limp. The heaviness of his eyelashes blur his sight. An ugly sob rips from his ribs, and he wraps his palm around his mouth, as he cries helpless. He couldn't do this again. The dress. The blood.
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(Olivia)
Her lower lip trembled. She placed a shaking hand over her heart. She fingered her dead mother's pearls on her neck,it was ironic that they felt like a noose and yet she couldn't take the pearls of off,because she only did such a thing at night. The pit of her stomach was a wave of polluted glass, and she fell to her knees,clumsily. She was happy to be alone, and afraid to scream, because then she would know that nightmares aren't just the pity of sleep.
The porcelain of the toilet sears the delicate skin on her palm. Her mouth opens and she thinks she will sob again, but vomit splatters out of her throat making a dreaded sound. It's continuous and she's nearly afraid that there is a leak in her body, a hidden place that stores all of her vomit. It disgusting, really how the human body can torture itself. She had never been the kind of girl obsessive with her own vanity but at this very second, she feels hideous. Wiping her mouth she stands, just a little dizzy. She goes to the faucet turning on the warm water, her hands falling underneath the stream and she's rinsing her hand relentlessly and something in her goes numb. The water is now scalding, but she doesn't feel anything. If her teeth weren't clenching so tight, she'd be catatonic. This wasn't like her mother's death, which she never was prepared for because her sweet mother had died in childbirth. A dire death with a wailing child suckling at her breast. Her last breath so sudden. The cruelty implausible. Olivia mourned photographs and her father's face etched in a far away memory, if Olivia could just go to that faraway place with him.
She clutches tighter the pearls choking neck,every pearly shell a beam in the mirror. She can't look at herself, the weary dark brown circles hovering under her eyelids. Her nose bright and her lips chapped crudely. She was an awful mess the scorched strands of hair lay at her breastbone aimlessly, she wouldn't trim it this month, it was perhaps her off putting glory.
She felt her hands tremble and the ache over her heart mount like a riveting thunder storm. Her nimble fingers shaking toward the plushness of her lips. She thinks she will cry again, but her pupils haven't had enough.
The damn phone rings. It shrills as if it knows if she doesn't breathe for another second she will die, and to her in this moment it wouldn't be such a bad thing. She's so drenched anguish. It's laughing in her veins. Her body moves without her permission as she ambles out of the bathroom and into the hallway. The phone sits crudely against the wall in daringly red. Her father hates it, he thinks she spends too much time on the forsaken thing and of course he would because he hasn't had an honest friend to call since her mother died. Her fingertips hook around the handle of the phone and snatch it off the hook. She answers she isn't frightened of the voice, but she is frightened of other things like the garble of Southern tongues flinched in unbelievable hate. Shadowy signs that menace and envy. Whites and colored.
The phone is to her ear and for a second she almost hangs up, because she isn't in perfect shape to answer anyone's calls.
"Olivia, dear I heard the news. Are you ok?" Her eyes clench shut it wasn't the voice she had wanted to hear. She isn't sure who she thought would be on the other line; nervously she twirls the cord between her fingers. She makes her voice sweet as sugar, but she's bitter all over.
"Edison I'm fine." She whispers tears are deep in her bones and she wishes she could get her voice to stop cracking.
He doesn't believe her, his voice is bleeding on the other end. "Liv this is bad. It's almost inhumane who could do such a thing and to a child nonetheless. "
"Edison, please!" She almost begs unsure of how to respond to the gentleness of his voice. Another wall blocks her heart, immovable to him. He hadn't known when to be quiet and just listen to her. Even this call is about him, him being the caring upstanding boyfriend who is there for his hysterical girlfriend. She can't fathom fairytales of him sweeping her off her feet. There is nothing reckless just sheer caution the preacher's daughter a costly gem to admiring pursuers.
He tries again and maybe this time her voice will be less hardened. "I'm sorry I know this is heartbreaking for you." It sounds so sincere rolling off his tongue and it is. He has to be this guy, the prevailing hero. Olivia doesn't need heroism. She wants love she can't escape, love she can hide inside of.
She bites her lip tries to wipe the tears from her high cheekbones. "Edison I have to go." She says abruptly.
He exhales a frustrated breath and Olivia wishes he would give up. "No, Liv! I'm coming over. You need someone there for you. Aren't you exhausted with that façade of strength you portray." Edison sounds exhausted, his harsh breath vibrating through the phone.
Olivia chest is jagged with crooked contempt, her entire body winces. She's left speechless in this suspended second, how could he open his mouth and fling his insecurity at her. Couldn't he understand that Olivia was no one's pliable docile girlfriend? She couldn't make herself bend into inconceivable shape.
"Goodbye, Edison." She replies quietly slamming the phone down. Her hands are trembling she balances her shaking body against the wall.
There wasn't anything innocent about Edison's perusal of her. It would seem predestined that he would court her. She was essentially the golden girl of town. The Rage of Rome, Georgia. Her pristine elegance, the bravery of her intellect and she had beauty when she laughed. Her smiles the dream of heaven. It was easy to fall in love with Olivia from a distance, but Olivia and Edison were desperately not a match made in heaven. They were rockets dispersing into flames, Olivia sailing to the farthest star of the galaxy. It wasn't his face or his disarming curiosity of her thought. It was perhaps his persistence and partially her fatigue and failure to find a suitor that made her blush or even more damning meet her father's approval. Edison was simple and he craved her heart, but Olivia owned her heartbeat.
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(Fitz)
The pale blue house is out of place. It sits shipwrecked alone in the castle of dreary bricked houses. It is alone any many ways that can scar. Fitz slides out of his Cadillac awkwardly, his knees cramped underneath the steering wheel. He had yet to master the mechanics of the car's privilege. It had been a gift from his father. The man his father stoic handed him the keys in a lavish rush. He been bestowed a gift for being successful at incriminating. Giving no one the blame but a corrupt malignant system, and for once his father had thanked him for being heedful to his hammering about the price of being a citizen of justice. Fitz was a thinking man of mystery, but today a shadow offending gloom peppered his psyche. Could he do this thing that didn't really have a name? He was a lawyer detective of sorts. That's how he described it, completely official unofficial business. The incredulity at his task, but his mission first was to talk to woman whose name had left every one's lips. Olivia Pope. They would all get this mystic dreamy look in their eyes when they spoke of her. From what he had gathered she was a prodigal daughter who had gone off to the fancy Negro women's college in Atlanta, Spelman earning a degree in Vocal Musicality.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, his back centered against the car window. He was wasting time. He let himself think for a minute that what he was doing was right and that he wasn't a "nigger lover" as his grandfather had hurled at him. He was something other than oppressive infamy, but then again it was more than just his sincere sympathy. He takes a stick of cinnamon gum out of his pocket, unfolding the wrapper and shoving it in his mouth. He would die in this heat. Balmy California beaches was his mainstay. He'd have to get out the South quick.
Palms at his waist his pulls his body away from his car and trudges the few inches to Olivia Pope's doorstep. He's knocking at her door before he can comprehend anything else. There is moving on the other end, he knocks again, but he makes his knuckles soft, so he won't frighten her. A white man at the door of a colored woman's house is never ever a good sign. He figures to stand up straight and keep his face casual but he's sweating underneath his blue button and navy blue slacks. A hot steaming shower would be a miracle for him right now.
The door hinges open slightly and Fitz is paralyzed, there are words stuck helplessly in his throat that he wants to get out. He wasn't expecting Olivia Pope. She was unexpected. The luminous brown face peering behind the door with hesitancy and if he isn't mistaken fear. Her brown eyes are frantic and she looks as if she cried for a thousand years.
He extends his hand, clearing his throat noisily. "I'm Fitzgerald Grant. You were the last person to see Ardella Jackson." He swallows the curses underneath his breath. Why had he started with that bloated question?
Her eyes light up further with fear, she pulls the door open further and his heart is being bullied. He can't take his eyes off her. Fitz will admit he is a guy with a kind of exploding heart and an emotionality that is blood sucking. He's been gripped by love or something like it, but it isn't possible. She's standing before him arms crossed and aware of his heated stare. The yellow dress drapes off her shoulders and he could sink his teeth into the suppleness of her skin. Damn his very own thoughts. He can't do this, not with her gorgeous face a pyramid of faint divine sensuality and youthful delicacy. He watches her eyes narrow as he gulps what's left of his sanity.
She rolls her shoulders casually. "Yes that is true. I was the last person to see." Her bottom lip is suffocated between her teeth. Her body sways from one foot to another; he's reading the signs of her body. She's a nervous wreck, but her face doesn't give away anything neither does her voice.
He takes off his fedora clutching it in the palm of his hand. "Look you're not under any investigation. I just found it imperative to talk to you."
She nods stiffly. "I understand." She looks out beyond him and he almost turns around to see what she's looking at, before suddenly she whispers quietly. "Come inside before the neighbors see you."
She's turning away and his eyes are traveling to the hem of her dress that's demure. His hands fidget into the seams of his pocket. She's nothing but glory. He follows her cautiously inside. The house is a quaint museum of Christian vestiges of a blue- eyed Jesus Christ, and there is the dizzying array of pictures of a woman with Olivia smile. The pictures are everywhere. In the corridors that bridges the front door, on the regal white piano and canvassed on the wall like a memorabilia island. It's so sickly sweet in the house it makes his teeth rot. She leads them to a living room, furnished with the finest white silk chaises that it seems almost offensive to place his body on top of them. Olivia turns to him quickly her eyes are sweet with sadness, and he thinks to hold her cheek in the palm of his hand and kiss her.
She looks unsure and the uneasiness is rivaled in her body. Her hands clasped in front of her she looks like a statue. Awkwardly they stand face to face and he can't think of anything useful to say. His brain has left him in pieces. Darting her eyes over the room she says.
"There is peach cobbler and warm milk on the stove. I can offer you some it's the least I could do." She's touching her elbows aimlessly unafraid to look in his eyes now as she stands before him. He realizes he's towering over her and takes a slight step back, when he does this her eyebrow arches upward.
He half-smiles his words coming out like an apology. "Thank you but if you don't mind I'd like to get around to asking you a few questions." Everything he says sounds right like crippled mistakes on his tongue.
She takes a seat on the silky chaise wordlessly and he follows suit sitting across from her. She crosses her legs and he almost wonders if she does it on purpose. It's a ludicrous thought. Her feet are bare and he can see the bubble gum pink of her toes. If he can get this second to stare at her, it's an ocean of wonder. Like there had never been anything more beautiful to him. She's this precious thing made of soft mercy and honey. Olivia Pope could be his death. The room is not empty but a cavity of desperate awakening. There is no one lonelier than they are and it would be perfect that they have met, in the cruel crusade of life.
The ends of his hair are grasped in his fingertips as he hastily pulls his hair back from his dampening forehead. His voice darkens just like whiskey after midnight. "Did Ardella tell you where she was going once she left your house?" He's almost breathless, the bloodcurdling imagine of Ardella's brown body beaten by the winds rupture and the unchained snap of her neck. His jaw tightens his heart beating like a graveyard.
He watches as Olivia's body stiffens. Maybe she is remembering too her imagination less grim. Olivia does something unpredictable to him, a lightening smile cast over her features.
Softly she replies, "She said she was going home. Her mother was making country fried steak for dinner." Fitz nods along having taken out his small notepad scribbling down the most ineligible handwriting. It was good that he could only understand what he wrote; then again it was a miracle too.
He tries another question, that's innocuous. "Did she give you any indication that she was in trouble." He knows he sounds robotic and on edge, but he's a hurting cage of murder and deep simmering lust.
Olivia shakes her head, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "No Ardella was soft as a cloud. Her energy was bubbly. I couldn't quiet her down that day her pitch was perfect." Fitz wants to hear her sing, know that God lives somewhere.
"Did Ardella ever speak of any dangerous altercation? Did she ever express any fear of anyone at home or in town?"
"I'm not really sure. I think there are a thousand things she could have been afraid. The boogey man, a spanking from her mother for sassin' off or a white man." The tinge of venom she whips at him makes his stomach drop to his knees, like the lasting effects of rollercoaster.
Fitz gulps he could have flinched. He hadn't expected her crushing slow burn of anger. Olivia Pope isn't any plaything; he recognizes that although that had been acknowledged when he walked inside of her home. Underneath her beauty was hollowing whispers of fearlessness. If he thought that he could swagger in her home with his smooth bravado of masculinity, he would be called a fucking coward to his face. For a moment he doesn't know himself at all. He's a merely a man in damp clothes, reverting into the shy awkwardness of a teenage boy. He'd try another tactic. The heart is always slipping to be stolen.
He leans forward, eyes staring at the artful if not ridiculous décor of the room. If he looks so very sure of himself. It's an utter lie. "Miss Pope could you tell me about yourself."
She shivers, her nipples harden. He looks away. "That doesn't seem pertinent to Ardella's murder, because it is murder. Nine year old girls don't strangle themselves." Scorching passion, she's all bottled up coils of rage. Her eyes the gaze before staring at the barrel of a gun. He likes this pretty woman. He wants her.
"I can tell you something about me." The heaviness of his voice is penetrating. The words lost to the quakes of his throat. "I lost my mother when I was twelve. There was cancer in her breast. She shriveled to the most unthinkable frailty." He stops he can't think of what he is doing, telling her this terrible hidden tragedy of his life. He goes on but a lot less invisible. "I've seen death sink it's teeth into someone's heart. What I'm trying to tell you Miss Olivia is that what happened to Ardella Prescott broke my heart and I think it may have destroyed yours."
"Who are you?" Her face cracks, the perfect kind of ugliness. The kind that lets you know you found a hole in someone's heart to drop yourself into .That sweet sadness comes back to her eyes. The shadowy wrinkle of tears covers her eyelids the things he would do to never see that miserable look on her face again.
He shrugs casually. "I'm nobody special. My team and I just want to find whoever did this."
Her lips quivered like uncontrollable sobs. He isn't afraid of what she may say, but he's terrified of what she may do when she opens her mouth.
She's hoarse and her eyes have fallen to her hands. She won't look at him. God he needs her to look at him, but she says something that makes his heart stop. "My mother she died too in childbirth. I didn't know her, but I can't escape her." Olivia wipes at her eyes as if the tears are pesky flies, peering up at him he meets her teary gaze. "Is that what you wanted to know, Fitzgerald?"
A sad smile softens his rigid jaw. "No, Miss Pope. I want to know more."
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Author's Note" I think I should warn you guys this story is dark and if the subject matter is in anyway triggering let me know, but this idea wouldn't leave me, it moved me so much I was literally at work scribbling out this first chapter on receipt paper. Let me know what you guys thoughts I'm working on the second chapter now.