The Lady, or the Tiger?
Chapter 21: Easy Tiger_T
As Julia tucked William's dinner back into the icebox, and readied to turn out the kitchen light and head up to bed without him, her eyes paused on the four roses in the center of the table – two yellow and the other two so very, very starkly dark in contrast. The drawing he had made in the margin of the newspaper, of himself walking all alone, appeared in her mind, his long shadow turning in search of hers next to it. She fought away the chill as her mind flipped the image and tried to place her in the drawing instead of him, alone, without him. She pushed the thought away, the one about how much she hated cases that included spies, particularly Terrence Meyers and Alan Clegg, and the thought behind that one, about William's life being in danger, burying them with the thought that she would have a small glass of whiskey to help her to fall asleep.
Up the stairs, leaving only the foyer lamp on for him, she remembered standing with William in the morgue just yesterday, and him reaching up and touching the exact spot on his neck as he remembered being shot with a dart, a dart that had probably been laced with a curare-based drug – the same chemical compounds that had killed their latest victim, back when he was investigating a murder involving one of James Pendrick's inventions…
She surprised herself with a smile. "William flew that airplane!" she thought as she remembered the Pendrick Arrow. And then the cascade of memories plummeted by… William descending down into the bowels of a rocket aimed at New York City to defuse it and save the world, or at least that piece of it, and in doing so stopping the war Clegg had planned between Canada and the United States that likely would have followed… The next memory – William flying, as close to a bird as a human can be, in a winged bodysuit, jumping bravely out of a hot air balloon up so high in the sky there was barely any oxygen, up in the stratosphere, so high that the blue skies of day begin to transition to the black, star-twinkled ones of night… Another memory, more recent – William hurled underneath Lake Ontario in the vacuumized tube of a deathly speed machine… And then – William chasing after the escaping Sally Pendrick – the first time, so many years before the Pink Panther Diamond, William ducked behind a horse-drawn, hopefully protective, reflective shield, and at the very last moment releasing that little chestnut hero-horse, "Sonny," Julia remembered the little horse's name – the same horse that had led her ambulance through the snowstorm, after William had saved her life by performing the Cesarean section surgery on her on their dining room table, and behind the horse blazing the trail ahead, next to her in the ambulance, he held their miracle-son in his arms, back so long before that, William the one almost shot with Tesla's microwave deathray, Sally Pendrick's criminal ticket to wealth, a weapon to kill masses and masses of innocent people, destroyed as the lethal wave bounced back off of the shield in front of William and exploded her carriage instead of his… and… and…
"And now?" her brain asked her, and her heart skipped a beat. "Now he chased after Terrence Meyers again," she answered herself and swallowed down the fear with the sweet burn of the whiskey. And then, thoughts going full circle, she wondered how William had not died, back then, from the curare-laced dart pierced into his neck, and she answered herself, "The dosage," and she walked passed their bedroom to softly push open William Jr.'s door, and she gazed down at their two-year old son sleeping in his bed and felt the warmth flow into her heart, and she was grateful for the moment.
)
By the time William came in, Julia had given up on falling asleep and was upstairs in bed, her senses on high alert, reading a novel. She wondered at the severity of her reaction to him being home, William home safe, as the flood of relief seemed to thoroughly drown each cell in her body leaving her with the sensation that she was filled with a thousand pounds of lead, and she reassuringly told herself that the incapacitating pain of it would pass.
She was up out of the bed and halfway down the stairs before she had even decided to go to him.
Julia stopped just after she rounded the corner of the stairway with the sight of him, stunned by the momentary forces soaring between them as their eyes met in the low lamplight. William's mind played a memory that stung his heart so deeply he felt his throat swelling shut with the hurt of it, and the back of his eyes burned with the hint of tears. Their places had been reversed, him the one halfway down the big fancy staircase, in the toff's house, questioning family members as he investigated a murder. She should have been in Buffalo, with her toff-doctor fiancé. She shouldn't have been THERE, touchable, reachable, in front of him, looking so incredibly beautiful that she stole his breath away, haunting him, sucking the heart out of him so that the blood ran to his feet and he had felt paralyzed and dizzy…
"Julia," he said, breaking the silent spell. And then he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her admitting, apologizing, for he had worried her – again.
"Did you find Meyers?" she asked, grounding them both back in the case at hand, as she went back to stepping down the remaining steps to greet him.
A sudden panic seared through him with what he had almost said, the heat of dread choking his throat closed. William swallowed and tried to push himself through it. "I… I, uh, had to wait…" He would say it, say her name, "Um, I had put a call in… in to Ettie… in Winnipeg…" his eyes, so gorgeous brown, tugged at hers. So much shared while unspoken between them with the look.
Ettie Weston – there was history there. It seemed to keep coming up, this madam from William's past. Her being back in their lives again made more poignant because Julia was pregnant, again, insecure and jealous, again, and once more, William had had a secret rendezvous with his past lover – "though this time just a phone call," the reminder came, "and he had not kept it a secret, not this time…"
"I see," Julia answered him. Her eyes held firm, she would try, try to trust.
There was no denying the pressure he felt, William reaching up to rub his brow, unaware of the betrayal that this particular gesture afforded to his current state of distress. "If anyone would know what Terrence Meyers has been up to, it would be Ettie. Um…" William reminded himself to breathe, "It's later there… the hour, in Winnipeg, to the west… as you know…" William's lips clamped together as he realized his discomfort could not be concealed. He decided there was no need to remind Julia that Meyers and Ettie were lovers. He added, in a rush, "And she keeps late hours… with her, um, profession…" He blew out the pressure through his pursed lips and rubbed his brow again, and then his heart wholly erupted with joy when Julia giggled.
"Yes," Julia gave and tucked her arm in his. "We'll heat up your dinner. You can tell me all about it," she pulled off sounding 'cheery,' she thought.
Together, they reviewed the case – cases, when adding in the first victim from six months ago, the one with the oddly shaped, month-old, bruise on his thigh. Both victims had been unidentifiable, the first victim shot in the back of the head, so lacking a face, and having fingermarks with no known connections to an identity. The second body, chopped-up with an axe into multiple pieces, and the pieces that would have helped to identify the man – his head and his fingertips, nowhere to be found, assumed dumped into the nearly frozen-over, wintry Don River which ran along their Body Farm property. It was this latest victim's odd wound behind his left knee that had given them their latest clue – an injection mark that had led William to search for Terrence Meyers. The mark was badly bruised around the site where the over-sized needle had entered into the victim's skin and punctured the deeper popliteal artery, the bruising suggesting the needle had impacted with unusual force. They had speculated that the victim had been shot with a specialized gun – a gun much like William's "weaponized capacitor," the electrified gun William had used to take down the "Big Game Hunter," the man who had intended to kill him back on that strange case where players sought to be the last man standing to win a prize, and ironically, it had been William who had won in the end – for truly he was an "Artful Detective." The drug shot into the current victim was a curare-based drug that paralyzed the muscles, and at the dosage used on the burly man, it would have stopped his diaphragm, and thus his ability to breathe, and also stopped the beating of his heart, leading to his death. The connection made was to William and James Pendrick being shot with tranquilizing darts in their necks, back when Pendrick's airplane had been stolen by Terrence Meyers, and then stolen from Meyers by Alan Clegg and the Americans. Enter the spies.
Julia sat around the corner of their kitchen table sipping her hot chocolate as William caught her up with what he had learned on the various spies' whereabouts while he ate his, very late, supper.
William put his fork down, chewing, and reached for his cup of hot chocolate. He swallowed and then sipped. "Ettie was with Meyers in Winnipeg when our victim was killed," he said. "But Meyers could have had someone else here in Toronto at the time, some other Canadian spy who could've shot our victim with the curare," William wrinkled his face showing his uncertainty. "She said Meyers had gone out west after that… She had heard him talking on the phone about Seattle, so there must be something up with the Americans…"
Julia felt the chill run up her spine. Truly, she despised that vile Alan Clegg. Yes, Terrence Meyers had tried to kill William at times, it was true – but with that slimy Clegg, trying to hurt William seemed nearly a guarantee. Clegg had not only tried to kill William himself, even recently while William was on the meat-packing case, but that deranged ex-American spy… "Graveson," Julia remembered the terrifying man's name. The man was so dangerous that even the Americans wanted nothing to do with him. Graveson had been set out to assassinate William… and had shown up right here – here in this house, to kill him!
Julia tried to focus. William had gone on.
Ettie had told him she would tell Meyers to call him, but she had no idea when that would be.
Julia sighed. Inside, she was making efforts to calm down.
"I've put calls out to all the stationhouses to be on the lookout for Clegg as well," William had dropped his eyes away from hers, sensing her battling with her fears. He watched his fork push the food around on his plate. "The man who had made the dart gun that shot us… myself and Pendrick. I remembered his name – Arthurs. Unfortunately, the man being a spy, I don't have much else to…"
Julia reached out for his hand, taking it with a degree of unexpected passion. Their eyes rushed to connect, and she instantly felt such a mix of emotions she yielded to giving him the "admitting-it" corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle. She exhaled some of the built-up pressure and half teased, "Easy there, tiger," she said, "It's better if it's NOT that kind of case, don't you think?"
She saw his reluctance.
"It's just…" she considered disclosing her worries, and with that she felt the potential of falling too deeply into a panic herself, and so she pushed her dread down as much as she could and tried to sound rational, "Well, I would argue that you shouldn't go snooping where the evidence doesn't lead…"
"But it does go there," William held his ground...
"Dog with a bone," Julia's head told her.
She caved, accepting what she wished she would not, "Perhaps," she gave, for she had to admit that there was a real possibility that there was a connection, even though that fact absolutely terrified her.
Now it was William who sighed, for he had considered it, her worry, the baby growing inside of her, their beautiful little son sleeping upstairs. They'd been here before. There was nothing he could say to alleviate her fear, he knew this. He reached over and tucked a curl behind her ear, and then he did the only thing he could. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, and took a deep breath, and rubbed his thumb along her beautiful, pink and silky-smooth cheek, and he looked into those magnetic blue eyes of hers, and he let her love, and his love for her, fill through him and pour into his heart. He remembered all of the times she had sobbed in his arms after their making deep and hearty and magnificently powerful love, and he loved her so much it ached down into his marrow, and he said "Sorry," to her, and he watched her eyes reveal her pain, and she nodded and pinched her lips together, and then she pulled up her courage…
And she moved on to something else, and she said, "Claire-Marie said that William Jr. used the toilet today. All day, clean nappies."
William chuckled. He glanced down at her belly and added, "One out of nappies just in time for the next one to be filling them up all over again…"
And by the time their eyes met again, there was only happiness in the air.
Julia pushed away from the table and brought his hand down to cover the small "Murdoch Bump." The intimacy between them strong, she confided, "I find I'm hoping, only a little bit, that it's a girl. Our little Mary."
"Oh?" William replied.
Her mind hurried to wonder, speaking aloud as it did, "I find when I talk… to her. It just feels like it's her that I'm talking to." Suddenly she felt embarrassed, for there was not one ounce of logic to what she was saying…
"A girl would be lovely," he said reassuringly. "And of course, a boy would too…" he gave her an opening.
And she smiled such a big smile and agreed, "I'd love a boy, our Daniel. Yes, that would be absolutely wonderful too."
"Good," he said in conclusion. And they drank down the last sips of their hot chocolates and cleaned up and went up to bed, for tomorrow there was another long day ahead.
) (
William had bought the surprise tickets weeks ago, the gesture heartwarming because going the opera was far from his favorite. The Murdoch's were going on a date – dinner and La Bohème! Added to the joy of the occasion, all pathways leading to any spy connections with their latest unsolved case – the second victim of the Body-Dumper, as the newspapers never seemed to let them forget, had led to dead ends. There was a modicum of relief in knowing that Terrence Meyers and Alan Clegg would not be showing up to spin their world into mayhem – at least not this time.
While up on the stage, a man of little means gave up the love-of-his-life so that she could go off to marry a toff, a man who could provide the wealth she needed to survive her illness, William spent most of the night glancing sideways, to enjoy more, watching his wife as she watched the story unfolding. Julia Ogden noticed this, inside her head giving herself her own Mona-Lisa smile, the one gesture that could have warned William that she had the upper hand somehow. "At least he's not sleeping," she kept the thought to herself, then added, "or obsessing over a case..." Just before the heartbreaking scene on the stage pulled her back in, she felt the piercing of the pain from the memory that rose up inside of her – William had watched the show that night, afterwards excitedly deliberating on the irony of "being earnest" and the title of the play, just before she had told him she was leaving him to go to Buffalo… It was the surging of that hurt inside of her that likely magnified the potency of the scene up on the stage, the hero's love dying in his arms, saying goodbye forever, the opera ending with such a deep sadness that the heart felt the need to be healed.
The devastation heavy in the theater, the applause was delayed. Sniffles everywhere, and men rushing to hide their own tears, many of them stood and swiped at their cheeks before they clapped, having had, as William had too, already passed their handkerchiefs to their wives. William guided Julia back down into their seats. She needed a minute. She turned to catch his eye, and she gave him the wrinkled-up-corner-of-the-mouth look. There was a hint of embarrassment, and William basked in the surge of love for her that he felt flaming in his chest. The couple leaned and huddled their heads closer together, and so tenderly wiping a tear from her cheek, he told her how much he enjoyed seeing the changes in her as she had watched the stage, her eyes dancing and twinkling, her gasps, and those glossy tears, "It's as if I could see a lifetime expressed in your face. And I find… I find myself so head-over-heels in love with you, Julia, that it astounds me…" And Julia's face wrinkled up into tears all over again as the flood of emotions completely overwhelmed her.
They had not noticed that everyone else had remained standing, and that the audience had all exited the theater around them. There had been photographs, flashbulbs strobing and popping off in the distance, muffled voices, the bustle of a slowly moving crowd. But now, now it was quiet, and he did what he nearly never did in such a public place as this theater, he kissed her. They would not know until the next morning that they had been photographed during this moment of romantic intimacy. It would not be the first time that their kissing, their love, had been made public – far from it. And, as usual, many of the headlines would use the picture as a way to dig at one of them, this time William would be their target. And, also as usual, Madge Merton would use the same picture and tell the public how remarkable this couple's love for each other was, using the latest secret photograph to make the power of it clear.
)
Arriving home, Julia reminded him they would need Eloise to send his tuxedo out to be cleaned right away, for they had her big charity event next week, and he had promised her that he would go. She watched him inhale deeply as he let the acceptance of his misery sink down into him more wholly, and she giggled, and, as usual, it lightened his soul.
) (
The next day the newspaper headlines ignored William's most recent three cases, all of the criminals involved in these latest cases caught and confessed, and instead the stories focused on William's incompetence in cracking the only two unsolved cases in the past year, the ones that each involved the victims being dumped at their controversial Body Farm. All of the papers included the same photograph and had headlines like, "Detective and Wife Attend Opera While Body-Dumper Still Runs Rampant."
Despite the intended venom, Julia found herself entranced by the picture of the two of them right there in black-and-white for all the world to see. In it they were just about to kiss, alone in the theater, or at least they had thought they had been alone. She remembered that the first time such a photo had caught her like this – it had been with fireworks in the background, with William kissing her in the doorway, she remembered with a jolt in her womb and such a flare in her heart as her mind added the words, "repeatedly, William kissing her repeatedly, over, and over, and over again," that magical, wonderful, beautiful, unbelievable night when she had told him that she and Darcy had parted, and he had told her, then, that he had seen his future, and then he had said those dizzying words to her, and in saying them he had completely given himself to her, he had leaned close and winsomely disclosed, "It was you," William Murdoch saying that SHE was his future, and she knew without a doubt that he loved her as wholly as she loved him, and the fireworks had fired inside of her as much as they had flashed and boomed and sparkled above them in the sky, with the pure explosive joy of it. And then, afterwards, there had been the fireworks of the public uproar, "The Scandal of the Century," for that breathtaking, fairytale, dream-come-true had happened during the New Year celebration of the coming of the twentieth century, and public scorn over a toff woman who was married to a toff doctor falling in love with a lowly Catholic policeman had sent her away to Vienna, but she had seen the headlines, and she had seen the beautiful picture, and like now, she had undeniably gloried with what she saw in it, the subtle truth, as if hinted at in the whispers of flickering candlelight, the profound love that the secret little picture revealed.
She took a sip of her coffee and said, "I quite like the photograph."
William and Julia shared a look.
The detective blew the rumbling pressure out through his pursed lips. He had never been one to be comfortable with public displays of affection, not to mention being publicly ridiculed for his failures. It tugged at her heart.
"You'll solve it, William," she heard herself say. And she knew in her heart that he would, because he was amazing and brilliant, and all he needed was a little luck, just the tiniest, tiniest budge in the case.
William smiled… so gorgeous, so unexpected. William Murdoch was going to tease…
"WE will," he corrected.
"You're right," she giggled, "We will."
Julia reminded herself that having the press hounding him always took its toll on William, and he would become wholly consumed all over again with his staring at his drawing board, and everything he thought, everything he spoke of, asked, dreamed, would be about these two victims. She reminded herself to be patient with him, and she reminded herself that this, too, was one of the things she loved about this man.
) (
It took nearly another week for Madge Merton's story to hit the newspaper stands. Eloise had been on the lookout for it, and today she had brought both the Toronto Gazette and the Toronto Daily Star for the detective this morning. The two newspapers were left at William's place at the head of the kitchen table, and as the Murdoch family ate their breakfast, William perused them.
Fortunately, the front page of the Gazette had nothing about the Constabulary, and even better news, Madge Merton's story in her column, "Page for Women" in the Star, looked to be favorable. William had turned to the page, knowing the column was always on page six, and read out its intriguing title, "Beauty in the Midst of Gloom." The uplifting story gained little more than a glance from William, who seemed more interested in searching the news for comments on the bothersome case at hand, but Julia had noticed right away that the same photograph from the opera was at the center of the page.
William handed the paper over to Julia almost immediately. She put down her fork and held the story out in front of herself with both hands, preparing the fully indulge. She would not know what had reminded her of the dreadful moment, but the power of it made her inhale, almost gasp, and it drew William's eye.
"Sorry," she said quickly. "It reminded me, for a second…" she exhaled before she explained, "Leslie Garland's photograph…" all she needed to say for him to understand.
Off in the background, it niggled Eloise, for the reference meant nothing to her. And she sighed, accepting the fact that this couple that she adored so much sometimes shared what seemed to be a secret code.
A gush of hot air shot out of William's nostrils with the recognition of which photograph it was that Julia had remembered, and his lips clamped together tight as he gave her a nod. "Logical," he answered her. His brain pulled the blackmailing photograph from their past forward in his mind, and he remembered that Julia had looked so incredibly beautiful that night, the night they had gone to see Rigoletto, in her golden dress and with those tiny little white flowers sprinkled in her fiery hair, and she had pulled him aside because he had been overly involved with his incessant thinking about a case rather than enjoying the opera, and he had shared with her that he was worried that he would fail, and she had reminded him that 'THEY' would solve it, and then she had looked over her shoulder as she insisted, and his heart thumped wild and breathless in his chest for he knew she was about to do something daring, and with a delicious air of teasing she had said, "Yes… 'WE," and then she had taken him to the wall and she had kissed him, and he had NOT been able to stop himself, for he was thoroughly charmed, and he had kissed her back… And it was THAT beautiful moment that had been so deviously captured – set-up actually, by Leslie Garland, with the intent to keep them apart forever, and now it remained a piece of their story, and it always would be… bittersweet.
For her part, Eloise had become distracted by remembering what she had read in the story earlier this morning. Madge Merton understood the inspiration she felt from this couple. And the famous columnist had written to the world about how this picture, from one romantic night in the middle of a raging lifetime of gruesome and horrific cases to solve, was also heartwarming, for it does each and every one of us good to see that such a strong love as this one, a love as exceptional as the one binding this couple together, can be found in such a dark place as the world in which these two people tread each day. Madge Merton had used the picture, and the timing of this picture, which the press had used as a reason for attacking the couple, to explain, once again, why it was that Detective Murdoch and Dr. Ogden were, and why it was that they truly should be, 'Toronto's Favorite Couple.'
Back at the kitchen table, having cut-up William Jr.'s ham and eggs into small pieces so that the little toddler could use his smaller fork to eat at the table with them, Julia was reading the story, her eyes moving left to right across the page. And it tickled in the back of her mind somewhere, and her heart surged as she realized it was important, even before she remembered what it was, or had made any connection whatsoever to this case, she just KNEW… it was important!
Her words came out without thinking them through, this time her gasp undeniable, William homed in with all his might. There was something about the look of her…
"It was about an elk, I remember," she started to chase after the clue.
William tried, his brain firing down multiple paths with lightening-speed.
Eloise dumbstruck with such a strange clue, and spoon dropped down to the stove, "An elk?" her brain tried to solve the puzzle too.
Julia's eyes remained fixed down on the blurred-out newsprint. "Yes. Yes. The article was about an elk, a female elk that had been…"
"Gored by the male," William finished her thought, letting her know he was with her.
She lifted her face out of the paper and their eyes met. The thrill, the fascinating, magical ride these two had shared together so many times before, was beginning anew.
William's brain ran forward, thinking, remembering. "The male had gored the female because he'd been frustrated by the cruel teasing of a bunch of teenage boys… on the other side of the pen…?" he asked her.
Julia nodded. "Yes. Um, but…" Suddenly a wave of doubt hit her. She did not see. Her lips clamped tight feeling impatient with herself and she looked down at the paper again. She took a deep breath, sensing the weight of William's eyes on her. She heard William take a deep breath… "Patience isn't his high suit either," she teased herself.
Dog with a bone that he was, William would not let go of this possible clue so easily, and so he dug into what he remembered hoping it would recharge her spark, "They had to euthanize the female, right?"
William twitched seeing Julia's jaw tighten with annoyance. She sighed, "Yes." Then she regretted her irritation with him, for after all, she had started it. "William, I'm sorr…"
But his next question, William somehow making the connection her own brain had so vaguely sensed was there but had lost, this wondrous man floored her as he interrupted, "Did they use the dart gun… and the poison?"
Now this look between them – this one, had fireworks.
"You are amazing, William Henry Murdoch…" she said shaking her head. And then she giggled, with seeing how much it bothered him, his having to wait, through her marveling, and her complimenting, and her adoring him, instead of telling him what the clue was, the clue that he needed to know so desperately that it burned down to the inside of his very bones. Julia put the paper down and turned her whole body to face him. "I assume they euthanized the female elk using the same drug cocktail that is commonly used to put animals to sleep, and that is not our murderer's curare-based drug…" she started, finding the need to repress the bubbles of giggles rising upwards in her chest when she noticed that William was holding back an exasperated sigh. "But… Well, I believe the article said… and well, if they didn't then somewhere else I got the idea in my head…"
William did sigh…
"Picture it William. Picture the scene. A crowd watching on in horror as the male elk runs haywire back and forth across the fenceline wanting nothing more than to get out and trample and stomp and kick and stab those horrid boys, and so frustrated, and pumped with panicked rage that he turns on his mate and flings her gored and punctured body into the air, the female landing, blood spewing and opened flesh, and he, the male, he is only more crazed after that, rearing and pawing, goring at the pen's fence, his antlers getting wedged and his whole body fiercely, wildly, shaking them free, the fence threatening to give way…" She paused, her own brain catching up to what she was saying, suddenly remembering her little son was sitting right there next to her and regretting the vivid detail. Her eyes dropped away, down to the table, overtaken with shame. Subtle, her glance in the little boy's direction. She focused so intently on William's expression, as seen out of the corner of her eye, with a surge of dread… Was HE disgusted and shocked with her too…?
William glanced at William Jr., the little boy's big brown eyes touching his father's. His mind replayed the bedtime story he had told his son that night, that night not so long ago, with his hand-shadow puppets up on the ceiling. "The female elk had a guardian angel, too," he told his little son, "Don't you worry about her, Little Man. God's keeping her safe now."
"Sorry," Julia said. She reached over to her son and rubbed his back, then trickled her fingers up into his black curls as she leaned down and kissed his head. "Sorry," she whispered to him.
She imagined what she wished the little boy would do to relieve her guilt, she imagined her little, only a few months older than two years old, she imagined her little son saying to her, "It's O.K. Mommy," and going back to kicking his little legs under the table and focusing, with so much intent it always reminded her of William, on 'perfectly' poking his "little-boy fork" into each piece of food and getting it to his mouth without a spill…
"He's too young to know," she told herself, "to know 'how,' even if he could grasp 'what." And then it came to her – to try to teach him.
She whispered to him, "Mommy feels bad for saying scary and upsetting things… my Little One. But Daddy's right, the elk doesn't feel any pain any more. And I think you are so sweet for caring about that elk, hmm?" she asked, as she gave him a squeeze and another little kiss to the fluff of curls atop of his head. "Can you tell Mommy…?" she said, "Cause Mommy's worried," and she lowered her voice even more and she whispered, "and I would feel so much better if I knew you were O.K."
There was a pause, and, in it, Julia realized that she was asking too much from one so little.
"Wanna go zoo… See baby hip-mus…?" he asked.
Eloise jumped in, explaining, "Claire-Marie, um, and Mrs. Jones… They told him and little Alice about the baby hippopotamus that was born at the zoo a few weeks ago."
"I see," Julia responded, her heart filling with relief.
Eloise added, "There's a baby elephant expected soon too."
"Well that's wonderful," Julia declared, and she gave her little boy a hug. Then she looked over at William and gave him her wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth apology look, and said "It's a bit cold for a trip to the zoo…?"
William replied, looking to his son, "Maybe in a month, when it's a bit warmer." And, even with all that drama, William Murdoch looked back to his wife, edgy, for by-golly, he still really wanted to know…!?"
Julia sighed and ran the facts through her head thinking to find a way to finish… "to get to the point, about the dart gun and the curare…"
Her voice low and calm, she said, "The staff…" her blue eyes honed on her husband's beautiful brown ones, checking for his nod, which came quickly, "They needed to get in there, but it was… dangerous…" She saw William begin to connect the dots, and the thrill churned back into her gut.
The first memory to rise up emerged into William's mind, "Higgins and George, Yes, it was Higgins and George that had seen it. An escaped tiger from a circus. Saber – its name was Saber," William remembered. Higgins had been the brave one, hit it with his truncheon. A circus hand shot it – killed it. Julia autopsied it, it had killed its trainer, starved to desperation by the murderer… Did zoo officials kill this male elk too?" the question followed…
"I believe the article said that they sedated the male – with a special dart gun, so that they could keep their distance without killing him. So, I think, at the z…"
"Yes," William's excitement was bursting, "Yes. It would need bigger needles… and bigger doses, for the large size of the animals… That matches with the wound on the back of our victim's knee, and the blood and the maggots?!"
A smile back on Julia's face, "Yes, yes it would," she agreed. Then she added, "And, if they used the curare, it would paralyze the animal quite quickly."
Such a twinkle in his eye, he concluded, "It could be our murder weapon?!"
"Yes. Yes, I think it could be," Julia agreed again.
William pushed away from the table, suddenly in too much of a hurry to finish eating.
"Oh," Eloise reacted from off to the side. "Uh… I'll clean up," she recovered quickly, adding, "I can watch Master Murdoch until Claire-Marie comes back down."
"That would be wonderful, Eloise," Julia thanked her.
Both parents lifted and hugged and kissed their little son good-bye, and William thought to himself as he readied to leave for the day that he would be bringing a toy animal of some kind home tonight for the boy… "Maybe they'll have one at the zoo, in a little shop. If not, the toy store then…" he was still thinking about it as he held the sleeve on Julia's coat for her, and then he tapped his homburg to his head.
Out the door – the hunt was on.
) (
Ever since Murdoch had gotten married it was rare that the detective was in the Stationhouse before the Inspector arrived, and, like today, it usually meant that he was excited about some obscure clue or other on a troubling case. This time, Inspector Brackenreid had the 'Murdoch-double-barreled-shotgun' to deal with, for the man was waiting for him in his office – with his wife.
"Murdoch. Dr. Ogden," he greeted the couple as he hung his coat and hat and tilted his cane into the stand. How was it possible that he already wanted a scotch!?
The couple laid out their latest discovery and its connections to the most recent victim in the Body-Dumper case. The Inspector agreed that there was good reason to go to the Riverdale Zoo and get the possible weapon – this "dart gun" thingy, as they were calling it. Murdoch argued that they needed to bring along a few constables to question workers there. The Inspector suggested that he was overreacting, seeing more smoke than fire. But then Murdoch took it a step further.
"Perhaps we need a warrant for a search…" the detective seemed to be thinking out loud more than conversing.
The Inspector saw that zealous look in his man's eyes.
William went on, "Alderman Lamb owns the zoo…"
Dread flowed over the Inspector's face. It was Julia who saw it. She looked to William. Her husband had no idea…
"There's a good chance Lamb won't want to let us search," William continued, oblivious.
The Inspector stood from his chair on the other side of his desk.
So surprised, William finally looked at him.
The Inspector leaned over, wedging his hands down firmly onto the top of his desk, and his face began to redden, and his air became gruff, and he warned, "Murdoch, you bloody well know that Alderman Lamb is the kind of TOFF you want to stay away from. Tread lightly. Bollocks. It wasn't enough for you, huh? Him taking the Pink Panther case away from you!? Because you were too gung-ho, Murdoch. And you wouldn't bloody listen. He'll kill this case, too, if you're not careful. You'd best go easy, tiger," the Inspector said that last part with a growl aimed right in the detective's face.
Julia watched the stare down. Really, sometimes men just astounded her.
"Gentlemen," she used the term with the slightest edge of sarcasm in her voice. The doctor placed her hands on her hips and tried to sigh more than huff, but she caught William's worried look, and, as a result of it, she felt her insides repress a giggle. She would be the rational one for a moment, and sometime from now all three of them would realize how ridiculous it was that the pregnant lady was the one in the room who was reasonable. "May I suggest the Inspector accompanies you, William… to the zoo. Inspector Brackenreid lends an air of authority to your enquiries, and there's a good chance they will give you the dart gun without even calling Alderman Lamb," she offered the compromise.
The Inspector stepped back. "Your suggestion is worth a try, doctor," he gave. Then he added, "Besides, if you're going to go after the bigwigs, Murdoch, you'd best not bugger it up. You have to have some real evidence first. Even if there is a connection to the man's zoo, there is nothing to involve Lamb himself…"
"Yes sir," William humbled. He had been unwilling to say what was really bothering about Alderman Lamb, because it didn't really make any sense. He had to admit to that, even if it was only inside his head. But still, it bothered him. There was a connection, albeit coincidental, seemingly too far off from the facts, but it was there – the body had been chopped-up into tiny little pieces with an axe, and it was Alderman Lamb's son, retired, and CONVICTED, Detective Malcolm Lamb, who had committed the similar crime in the past. And yes!, that coincidence, most definitely, bothered him.
From somewhere off to the side of his mind, William remembered Julia had said, "accompanies you, William…" and that implied that she was not going. And so much happened inside him for a second that he seemed to just stand there, dazed. Worry and guilt… and then he chased down that string of thought – "Dr. Elizabeth Mole! Oh yes," he remembered. The woman was very… voluptuous. And he remembered that pressure-filled night when Inspector Marcel Guillaume, from France, and the very modern Frenchman's wife… "Oh," William's brain rang up the racy woman's name, "Angelique," had shown up for dinner and… "Oh, holy Lord. Maybe it was better if Julia didn't go!?" And another part of his brain told himself how much of an asset Julia was at a crime scene. Julia would know what to look for – the dart gun, the right sized needle, the curare drug. She was amazing in reading witnesses, with her psychiatry training, and she was… she was Julia, that one amazing, brilliant woman who completed his life, and he wanted her by his side…
"Julia," William said, "You will be joining us?" the question came.
The Riverdale Zoo was a bit of a long carriage ride away, and she did have a class tonight, and she wasn't explicitly needed… but she had really, really wanted to go, so she found herself stuck for an answer, resulting in a prolonged pause.
In that pause, William had an idea. Mindful of the presence of the Inspector, he tried his best to take her aside. The Inspector saw the writing on the wall and stepped out, saying, "I'll have them ready the carriage, detective."
William stepped closer.
"The Inspector is a wise man," Julia said.
"That he is," William agreed. He cleared his throat to change the subject, to get to the point. "Um…" he reached up and rubbed his brow, "I believe there are not any attendings today, um, over at the morgue…"
My God, the man's eyes are gorgeous…
"No," Julia said in response, wondering where this was going.
"You promised you wouldn't be alone," William stepped intimately close, and his eyes glanced down at her belly.
"Oh," she said, her maternal instincts bringing her had to cover her womb, "You're worried… about the baby."
He nodded.
"William, we said after four-and-a-half months. We're not there yet," she reiterated.
His eyes dropped away, so much on this topic, and she was right. He sighed.
Oh, how he loved to hear that teasing in her voice…
Through that sly Mona-Lisa smile of hers, Julia said, "But, detective, I do believe I may be of some help…"
"Most definitely, doctor," he jumped to grab the chance, "I could argue that your contributions are often pivotal."
"Well then, I have been persuaded…" she giggled.
William smiled.
"But mind you," her tone grew more serious, "I must be back in time to be at the University by three o'clock for my lecture," she stipulated, and then added coyly, "And I had best have an answer for those eager young students of mine, detective, about when you will be giving them your lecture."
"Very well, doctor," William shifted and offered his arm to go. "I was thinking I would need at least another week to prepare. Though…" he considered, "It seems this case is heating up. Perhaps we should say in two weeks?"
"That would be lovely," she agreed, "Maybe, we… um, you, will even be able to use evidence from this case," she suggested.
He chuckled, "Yes, if all goes well, perhaps WE will," he gave her a bow, winsomely, winsomely as ever.
) (
It wasn't really until they stepped down from the police carriage and William patted his favorite horse, Sonny, on the neck, and he noticed the steamy puffs rushing out of the horse's flaring nostrils into the chilled March-morning air, that he realized that keeping so many exotic animals healthy in the wintertime would be a challenge. He wondered how they kept them warm enough.
The man at the Riverdale Zoo gate had let them in, and now the gatekeeper led them down the path between cage after cage of animals. William's answer came quickly as he spotted potbellied stoves within tiny cages inside some of the animal enclosures. Also, many of the cages were boarded up on some or all of their sides to block the wind and keep in the heat. Others, such as the cage with the wolves in it, had small shelters within them available to the animals.
They had asked to speak with Dr. Mole. The gatekeeper was unsure where to find her, so he led them through much of the zoo as he searched. Of course, William would take the opportunity to investigate. "Are there any specific qualifications required to work here. Um, well obviously Dr. Mole is trained. But what of the others?" he asked.
The Inspector stopped at one of the animal cages, reaching out to catch the doctor's elbow. "Oh look, doctor," he exclaimed. Murdoch and the gatekeeper stopped as well.
The gatekeeper answered the detective's question, "Many of the men who work here are untrained... Actually, most are inmates from the Don Jail…"
"Oh yes," William answered, remembering that he already knew that from back when he worked with the zoo to protect the Pink Panther Diamond while it was on display here.
The Inspector was speaking baby talk to the capuchin monkeys in the cage. "You're a cheeky monkey, aren't you?" he cajoled one of the small monkeys who was putting great effort into reaching its fingers through the bars to try to touch him.
The gatekeeper had gone on, elaborating on qualifications of those who worked at the zoo. "Most of the prisoners are only in for minor crimes like vagrancy, but some who possess more needed skills may have done more. Anyone with medical training… And a really big one is carpentry – animals come in here faster than cages can be built for them. They even need bookkeepers…" the man had said.
For his part, William had only been partially listening, for his mind had been drawn backwards into a string of memories stirred-up by seeing the Inspector with the little monkey. "Athena,' that was the monkey's name, that ridiculous little monkey in that poofy, pink skirt, running free all over the stationhouse. The monkey was part of the circus. It had 'taken a shine' to the Inspector…" William's mind had gone into much detail as they stood there watching the Inspector become enchanted all over again with a similar monkey. The monkey's tiny little fingermark had been left on the knife Julia found inside the stomach of the dead man, Jake the Magician – the same knife that had been used to kill Count Leoline while the overly-hairy man was sleeping in the cell next to the one with the Magician and the other circus performers in it. But then William's mind had changed track, from case to heart, and he remembered Lady Minerva, the Gypsy fortuneteller, and her cards, and being told what he already knew and what it was that he most feared, and with such a flame in his heart he reheard the gypsy's fateful words – "You love a woman. She's your match in every way. And… Oh dear… She doesn't appear to be in your future…"
Julia's voice drew him out of his thoughts.
"Have you worked here long… Mr…?" she asked their guide.
"Mr. Rankin, mam… uh, sorry, 'doctor' I mean, mam," he stammered his reply. His eyes stayed too long on her face, for he found the woman to be incredibly beautiful.
Julia felt the impact of his gaze and felt a warm blush rush to her cheeks. There was a sideways glance in William's direction. "Mr. Rankin," she said, "have you been employed by the zoo for a long time?"
The man kneaded and squeezed and mutilated his poor cap in his hands as he replied, "Oh yes. I started here when I was an inmate, but they kept me on after my time was done. I've been here since the beginning. I was one of the men who worked on the landfill they built the whole place on…" He had an idea, his face lighting up, and he turned them all back, "Look, there's a part of history right in here," he said gesturing for them to look on the floor inside the monkey's cage. "See there," he pointed, "That big divot in the cement…"
"Yes," Julia replied. The Inspector and William nodded.
"That's where one of our hippos laid down when the cement was still wet, back when the zoo was first being constructed."
"Oh my," Julia declared…
"A bit too enthusiastically," in William's opinion. Impatience in his voice, he pressed, "Dr. Mole…" he reminded, "We're looking for Dr. Mole, Mr. Rankin," and he pinched his lips together, stopping himself from saying more.
As the group resumed their walking, Julia tucked her elbow into William's and leaned close, whispering, "Oh yes, the perky, bouncy brunette veterinarian here at the Riverdale Zoo, the woman that Angelique Guillaume was so enthralled with, the one who would "turn all the men's heads…"
And she giggled with William's scornful frown.
Back to the case, and intentionally steering clear of directly asking about the dart gun, William continued his questioning of the gatekeeper, "I see there are many dangerous animals in the zoo. What means do you have here to handle an escaped or otherwise out-of-control animal?"
Mr. Rankin explained that the veterinarian had a special tranquilizing gun she used to shoot into the animals from a safe distance. "Dr. Mole is an incredible woman," he elaborated, "You'll see," he added with a widening of the eyes as he looked at the Inspector. "Besides overseeing the care of all the different animals here, handling things like suturing up injuries, and lots of births, she's the expert on what they should eat, and what kinds of cages they need and stuff like that," he went on, "And you're right Detective Murdoch, it is really dangerous. People get hurt here at the zoo all the time. About a month ago even Dr. Mole got hurt, got herself quite a shiner, and one of the inmates helping her had really bad injuries too – broken nose, ribs. He ended up in the infirmary for nearly a week, I think…" Rankin paused, fearing he'd gotten off track. "Oh yeah," he thought to himself, "the detective asked about 'out-of-control' animals…"
"You know," the gatekeeper added, "I dare say, she's a really good shot too. Dr. Mole hit a buffalo, a mother water buffalo, with the Tranq, and put her down from at least fifty yards last week. The animal went crazy on some poor guy who went in to help free her calf from the water-trough the dang thing went and got itself pinned behind."
"Impressive," William said. Oh, how he wanted to ask WHERE this "Tranq" was… Instead, he stared at the Inspector and nudged.
The Inspector started, "Uh, this tranquilizer gun, Mr. Rankin, 'the Tranq,' do you know where Dr. Mol…"
But the Inspector never finished his sentence, because right then they all saw it at the exact same moment. Two people up ahead at a juncture in the path, one of whom was very clearly this famous Dr. Mole, for she – and THIS woman was most definitely a SHE! – she was in the midst of giving rather passionate and specific instructions to the man standing with her up ahead. What stood out, besides the fact that Dr. Elizabeth Mole was an outstandingly curvaceous, and jiggly, and round and ample woman in all the right places, was what it was that the female veterinarian was wearing – a very, VERY, tight, black-rubber suit. And she was absolutely, dripping, wet.
"How is she not freezing?" Julia asked, as they picked up the pace, and the gatekeeper called ahead to Dr. Mole. Her jealousy already riled, she said to herself, "I guess those huge flippers on her feet keep the cold from the ground out at least," with an air of sarcasm at the outrageousness of the sight, and a bit deeper inside her mind she remembered the day she told William she would wear her trousers, and the memory echoed of herself hopping across their bedroom to him, a land-dwelling dolphin, a mermaid, and her hand wrapped around her pregnant belly, and she felt suddenly way too much like a whale.
"Elizabeth" Julia had noticed the Inspector and her husband had both used the woman's Christian name in greeting the shapely woman…
The three of them standing there in front of this extremely attractive, dripping-wet woman, in a skintight rubber suit, Julia was keenly alert to body language. The man Dr. Mole had been talking with before they had arrived had already taken his leave, as well as Mr. Rankin. Elizabeth explained to them, "The wet suit is for working with our water mammals. One of the sea lions – she needed stitching-up, and it turns out she was too unsteady with the blood loss and being under the influence of the tranquilizer – got herself into trouble under the ice…"
"How very brave of you," the Inspector said, all starry-eyed, and impressed.
Julia watched William's face doggedly to see if his eyes would drop down to take in a better look at the voluptuous woman in front of them. Certainly, the Inspector's had, and his eyes had not yet come back up, either, she noticed.
William had been prepared, alerted to the danger ahead of time – in his mind replaying the memory of years ago when Julia had been so devastatingly, collapsed into a sobbing-mess, upset by his STUPID, STUPID ogling of a seductive and flirty waitress, back the first time Julia had been pregnant with William Jr. As if his head and eyes were made of stone, William looked into the woman's face… "ONLY, ONLY her face," his inner-voice warned.
The flash fired inside of Julia's head, of remembering William FAILING, deliciously and utterly failing, to keep his eyes off of HER naked body, right after she had saved George's life with the shovel, suddenly finding herself completely naked as William and the Inspector had unexpectedly showed up at the nudist colony. Oh, how she glowingly gleed that William had managed to avoid looking at this woman right here and now, but he couldn't, he just couldn't, keep his eyes off of HER back then, no matter how briefly he had faltered in restraining his wanting.
The greetings shared, Dr. Mole requested that they head to her offices so that she could get a towel and get someplace warm, and the group headed off.
Dr. Ogden had been right, the veterinarian gave them the tranquillizer gun without hesitation. Even though Elizabeth had seemed uneasy about the initial request for the gun, asking why the Constabulary was so interested in it. The Inspector had covered up well, thus Dr. Mole had not been alerted to their true suspicions, Inspector Brackenreid claiming that they had recently learned of its existence from a newspaper article and that they wanted to keep the details of the tranquilizer gun on file in case it ever turned up as being stolen from the zoo in the future. The implication that it could be used as a weapon loomed unspoken in the room. Dr. Ogden promised to get it back to Dr. Mole as soon as possible, knowing it was necessary to have it on hand here at the zoo for any emergencies with the animals that might come up.
Julia got William off to the side to tell him about the tranquilizer gun. "On first glance, detective, it looks like this "Tranq," as they call it, could definitely be our weapon. The needle used in the dart is the right width and length. I'll need to test the drug once I get it back to the morgue," she informed. "Did you notice where she keeps it?" Julia asked, glancing over at the everyday cabinet where the tranquilizer gun was stored.
"Yes doctor," William nodded, and then added, "I suppose they don't want it locked up in case someone needs to get to it quickly…"
"Yes," Julia gave, "That makes sense."
William frowned and then reached up to rub his forehead, "But of course, anyone could have taken it."
"Unfortunately, yes," she agreed.
Wise, Julia would push to find more clues. She returned to ask Elizabeth, "Dr. Mole, I'm quite intrigued," she flattered, "Could you show me around? Do you perform surgeries here?"
"I'd be honored Dr. Ogden. Your reputation as a brilliant doctor, yourself, proceeds you. It is quite good to have other women making such a big mark on the world besides just myself…"
And Julia fought off the urge to find the woman overly arrogant, telling herself that, as a woman in today's world, Dr. Elizabeth Mole had accomplished much and thus she had every right to be proud of it.
Dr. Mole began her tour as she explained further, "I only perform surgeries rarely, when they are direly needed. There are some doctors, like yourself, who come in to help with more elaborate surgeries, sometimes. And we had…"
The woman's sudden halt in her speaking tingled the hairs on the back of William's neck. Whatever she was about to say, there had been high emotion there, possible deception hidden by the hesitation, the startled need for deletion. He listened intently, and Julia Ogden truly amazed him, for so subtly, she pushed…
"You had someone special?" she asked nonchalantly.
"No," came the quick answer, "Um, not special, just lucky for us, I guess. There have been occasions, uh… when an inmate from the jail has the training…"
"Oh, I see," Julia waited for more.
William and the Inspector, in the background pretended not to be that interested.
"There is no one… no one right now, though, I'm afraid. It's all up to me," Dr. Mole said with an air of regret. Her face became cheery, "Perhaps you would be interested, Dr. Ogden?" she asked the other woman in the room. She enticed, "Some of the surgeries are quite interesting. Our resident pelican had over half of its beak bitten off at the wolf enclosure…" Dr. Mole frowned as she added as a side-note, "It was an ill-advised visit. Honestly, putting a pelican in with wolves…" and she rolled her eyes before she went on…
And Julia remembered that William had come home from his work protecting Inspector Guillaume's fancy diamond while it was on display at the zoo, telling her about how struck he had been by this veterinarian's concern for the animals in her care, specifically about how strongly she had protested when Thurston Howell, the 1st and Alderman Lamb had requested that she dye a female lion pink for the big to-do with the Pink Panther Diamond.
Dr. Mole finished up her surgery story, "We grafted a duck's bill to the remaining pelican bill using horsehair. It was brilliant," she marveled, "He was able to eat… well, diced fish, anyway. He's still here, doing fine. Anyway, I could sure use the help, doctor…?"
"Oh, I would," Julia replied. And inside her head she rambled on a bit about how interesting it really would be to work on such cases… "Unfortunately, I have so little time," she answered. Looking over to William she said, "We have a young son…"
William nodded, and smiled, and ever so briefly, Julia's heart unexpectedly skipped a beat.
She went on, "And I teach at the University, besides my work as a pathologist for the Constabulary, and… I'm pregnant again," she added, her hand covering her belly, "Oh, and William… um, Detective Murdoch, uh, my husband… I'm sure you know we're married…"
Everyone in the room looked at William, who charmingly said, "Happily," and gave his wife a winsome bow.
It was subtle, but then Dr. Elizabeth Mole ogled her way down the detective's body, surging William's face into a panicked, pleading look in his wife's direction. Way too slowly, the female veterinarian lifted her eyes back up and said, "Yes, Toronto's Favorite Couple. You are both in the papers quite often."
Eyes back to Julia, and as she fought the urge to either roll her eyes, or laugh, or punch the woman in the nose, she said, "Yes. Well we, uh, that of course can be both good and bad… um being in the newspapers all the time, so…" Infused now with anger and jealousy, and suddenly wobbly, thrown off-kilter, Julia forced herself to take a breath… and remember what it was she had been saying… "And yes, in the middle of all that, William and I are planning on writing a book together, and I… You see," then giving Dr. Mole the wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth look, Julia concluded, "Despite how fascinating some of these surgeries may be, I just don't think I have the time."
"The zoo's loss, doctor," Dr. Mole concluded.
William stepped forward, next to his wife, closer now to Elizabeth Mole, who glanced into his eyes, and noticed, again, how handsome this remarkable other woman's husband was. The veterinarian tucked some of her wet hair deeper into the big fluffy towel draped around her shoulders and patted at it working it dry. "Was there something else detective?" she asked.
"Our son," he turned to catch Julia's eye, "He is uh…" William chuckled, "He's enamored with zoo animals. We were wondering… Are there any shops, where perhaps we could purchase a souvenir, maybe some little toy animals?"
Elizabeth Mole smiled. "I believe I can help with that. I'll call someone to take you there and let you in. It's closed this time of year, but please consider it our treat."
"How delightful," Julia declared.
The tour of the surgery complete, a man came to accompany them to the zoo shop. As they took their leave, Julia promised Dr. Mole to have the tranquilizer gun sent back to the zoo by the end of the day.
)
Heading down yet another path within the zoo, William held Julia back behind the Inspector and their latest tour guide. He wanted a chance to say what was on his mind. She sensed his pent-up energy. "What is it, William?" she asked.
"Too many coincidences," he answered with the wrinkled, doubtful face. "I know the Inspector wants me to stay away from asking about Alderman Lamb…"
Julia chuckled, "Of course he would go there," she giggled to herself in her head. An inhale, reminding herself to be kind, and she said simply, "Yes. I'd say he made that quite clear."
For his part, up ahead, the Inspector was thinking to himself that his suspicions were falling on the pretty lady. She was the one with the weapon, and the know-how to use it. A string of pretty women villains ran through the Inspector's mind, half of which the buttoned-down Detective Murdoch had been too taken-with to see them for the criminals they really were. "Sally Pendrick, now that was a big one, Murdoch completely duped into going after the woman's husband when it had been the sultry wife all along. Oh, and Eva Pearce…" The slightest blush ran over the Inspector's face as he remembered the good doctor, now Murdoch's wife, back then teasing himself and Murdoch so mercilessly about their both being taken-in by Eva Pearce's charms – "Miss Pearce is a classic manipulator. She uses provocative, distracting gestures. Her smile. The smoothing of her dress. Her choked tears. Cleverly portraying herself as the victim, holding you in her gaze. That's how she disarmed you. Looking at you like you are someone she wants to remember. As though you are special to her…" An embarrassed rush hit him as he thought to himself that it wasn't only Murdoch, he himself had been taken-in. Thomas remembered how out of control he had felt with opera diva, Madame Rosa Hamilton, outright flirting with her and trying to hide it from Margaret the whole time… "Oh bloody hell! Even with Annie Oakley – well at least SHE didn't do it in the end." He sighed, and his thoughts drifted back to Murdoch's foibles, remembering that there was also that beautiful Egyptian lady-doctor archaeologist Murdoch fell for, too – It was God who got that one in the end, stealing the Holy Grail, struck her with lightening… "Yeah," he thought, "it was probably the pretty lady."
William leaned closer to his wife and explained, his voice low, "It's not actually 'Alderman' Lamb…"
"Oh…?" her mind raced to other Lambs…
"It's more his son," William gave, "Malcolm Lamb."
She turned to look into his eyes as they walked along, and in the recesses of her mind she saw William's pencil sketch in the margin of the newspaper again, of what was meant to be, what should have been, the two of them walking together, just like this, but William had been missing her, and in the drawing, he had found himself alone. She looked down onto the path, and she saw their two long shadows stretched out before them together with the sunlight still low like this, for it was still morning, and it was wintertime, "Almost spring," she reminded herself, the equinox just around the corner, she and her students would have another trip to the Body Farm for their seasonal-effects on buried bodies study… And all that happened inside her head in just that mere glance into his eyes, and then she clarified, "The detective at Stationhouse 4 before you? That Malcolm Lamb…?" and her mind so quickly flashed down the same track as William's had – Malcolm Lamb had been the killer on that intriguing case when William had sent her the pieces of the three chopped-up victims that were dumped near the Don River while she was in Buffalo – the body pieces that all had been in that one, same, cement block...
William leaned even closer, their pace slowing to a near stop, and he whispered, "Malcolm Lamb is doing twenty years at the Don Jail. And they use inmates here at the Riverdale Zoo, to construct the cages. Lamb is good at carpentry…"
"He was a former policeman, William?" she countered, "What makes you think…"
William interrupted, anticipating her question, "It was the piece of evidence that clinched Lamb's confession for me at the time, a small square of wood that Lamb had used as one of the sides on one of the wooden boxes he had made to hold the pieces of the bodies in cement with while the cement set. The wood had made a specific knot-pattern mark in the cement, and it matched perfectly with a square of wood that Malcolm Lamb had in his carpentry shop. He had used it to make birdhouses. Julia…" Now he stopped her, turned her to face him head on…
Oh, how his eyes danced and twinkled, and she felt the cherished chill tingle through her whole body, not love necessarily, not mere excitement, just a somehow perfect vibration surging down alighting her very core…
"Julia – Malcolm Lamb chopped those bodies up with an axe. He is an inmate at the Don Jail, with carpentry experience, and inmates from the Don Jail with carpentry experience work here at this zoo, THIS ZOO, which is exactly where the weapon that killed our chopped-up-with-an-axe victim is located. He has means and opportunity…" William argued his case.
"Easy tiger," Julia used the Inspector's same words from earlier to add weight to her warning, "We are not sure, yet, that this gun IS the weapon…" She saw William reach up and rub his brow…
"True," he said.
She went on, "And you have no proof that Malcolm Lamb was ever even here at the zoo, only that he could have been," she paused waiting for his nod. He gave it.
William's mind rushed ahead. "There would need to be an axe…" his mouth said, his eyes suddenly perusing the area as if he would just see it there, waiting for him. Meanwhile, his brain raced down multiple paths, "I'll need to see work rosters, probably at the prison… There would have been a lot of blood… Where would he have hidden the body before he chopped it up, or after it was chopped-up? How did he get it out of here? To our Body Farm? Why would he be so stupid as to dump it there?! He would have known I'd make the connection… I wonder if I should question Lamb? Not until I've got him…" And it was that last thought that did it – that stopped him. Julia was right. He was going too fast. He resumed their walking, his arm tucked into hers. His heavy sigh spoke his frustration.
She waited at his side.
"I do believe I'll need that warrant," he said.
"It will be easier to convince a judge to write one once we can prove this was the weapon, hmm?" her tone was reassuring, grounding him when he needed it.
"The woman is perfect, just like Lady Minerva's cards had said all those years ago," William thought to himself inside his head, "absolutely my match in every way."
)
Once the three of them were alone inside the zoo shop, the Inspector shared what he had learned from the man waiting for them outside while they each considered the various toys and souvenirs for William Jr. "Murdoch. Doctor," his voice hinted at having something important, "I took the opportunity to ask our escort a few questions. It turns out that the lovely Dr. Mole is married…"
"Oh!" Julia instantly regretted revealing in her gasp how happy she was about that newly revealed fact.
"Yes, I am aware of that," William said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Julia's head turn to gaze at him. William kept his attention down of the toys, considering a toybox painted with zoo animals, zebras, elephants, giraffes… "It's a bit too big to take back with us," he reasoned.
The inspector lifted a box of tiny toy zoo-animals up into the air for inspection. "The little tyke'd love all these different little animals!" he enthused.
Looking to the Inspector's suggested toys, Julia said, "Too small. He could choke on the tiny pieces. He still puts everything in his mouth…"
"Of course," The Inspector replied, putting the box back down, "It's been a while for me… a toddler."
Julia smiled, warm, authentic. The shared warmth of being a parent passed, and she casually asked her husband, "So, detective, how did you know Dr. Mole was married? Did she tell you herself, or perhaps you had reason to ask her?"
Both men felt the heat rising in the room.
Blowing pressurized air out through his pursed lips, William replied, "She told me back when she was working with the lion, the one she had to dye pink to make it like a Pink Panther."
Then, getting back to the case, safer ground, and what his instincts drove him to do anyway, William asked, "Is the veterinarian's being married relevant, sir?"
"Well Murdoch," he said, confident and strong, in a way that it got their attention, William and Julia each stopping their shopping to turn to him, "I think I've got most of it worked out for you. Mr. Mole worked as a guard at the Don Jail and has been missing for a few weeks. Now, according to what our Dr. Mole reported, he just up and left her one night to go back to his first love, back wherever it was that Mr. Mole originally came from. The worker outside gave me a description of Dr. Mole's husband, described Mr. Mole as a big man, and a mean man…" The Inspector's face reddened as the pace of his words rushed, "A bloody bully, cruel to inmates, cruel to his wife. Bollocks, I hate a man who hits his wife!" the Inspector's teeth gritted tight. He took a breath. He went on, "It seems Elizbeth Mole often had injuries, and even though she always claimed they were caused by the animals here, the word among the workers is that the bloody animal that hurt her was her husband."
"So, sir," Murdoch checked, "You think Mr. Mole is our victim, our second one anyway…"
Julia jumped in, "It fits, William. Our victim was big, and he had the boxer's fracture, remember. He would have been the type of man… He punched… people. And the timing of his going missing matches, our victim was killed about a month ago. Perhaps she simply had had more than she could take…"
William went on, "So, Elizabeth Mole used the tranquilizer gun to kill her…"
"Abominable husband!" the Inspector charged, "Yes, Murdoch. We have the victim, and we have the murderer, and the murderer has both means and opportunity, and now we would have motive too."
William sighed. Facts were facts. "We will need much more…" Inside, his doubt began registering in his gut. It made him wince.
"William…?" Julia asked.
Murdoch rubbed his brow – he was getting one of THOSE headaches. "Let's check the weapon, and I'll have to bring her in for questioning, I suppose…" A puzzled look covered his face, wrinkling it into doubt, "We need more…" he concluded, nodding his head to himself, "before I interrogate her." He was trying to convince himself, but he felt regret, he felt conflicted, for his lines of inquiry were narrowing, and he was working to give up on his 'hunch,' as Crabtree called it. William told himself to stick to the evidence, take the next logical step. So now it turned out that he did NOT need to go to the jail and check to see if Malcolm Lamb worked at the zoo about a month ago after all... But still, he needed the axe – they still didn't have the scene of the crime… "If the weapon matches, sir… matches the wound and the curare-drug, then we'll need that warrant Inspector," he added.
"Bloody well gonna tick Alderman Lamb off," Thomas forewarned himself. "Bloody Murdoch!" With a labored sigh, the Inspector agreed, "Get as much as you can, Murdoch, before we take it to a judge. I think Judge Rafferty has had some qualms with the alderman. We'll try him."
Julia reassured them that she would be able to analyze the chemicals in the drugs in the tranquilizer gun relatively quickly once she was back in the morgue, that would be a good start if it was a match as they suspected.
William had a thought, remembering that his most recent 'hunch,' the one about the victim being the missing worker from Davies Slaughterhouse, had been wrong, too. William's teeth gritted tight, he hated this feeling, pitted insecurity… absolutely hated it. He said to the Inspector, "And we need to look into Mr. Mole's whereabouts, see if he can be found."
The search for a toy for William Jr. resumed at a quicker pace, for there was much to do now. Julia found it almost immediately – four simple wood carvings in a sack, an elephant, a giraffe, a rhinoceros, and a tiger – no paint, the details done with the carver's knife, whittled into the little figurines, their eyes, their mouths, even the tiger's stripes. The detail was impressive. William wondered to himself, off on the side, if maybe it had been Malcolm Lamb who had made them.
As Murdoch stayed back, insisting on paying for the toys, the Inspector and the doctor walked ahead alone together to the police carriage. Julia found herself once again staring down at the shadows gliding along out ahead of them on the path.
"So, doctor," the Inspector's tone that fatherly one he got with her sometimes, "Did he pass the test… our man?"
"Test,' Inspector?" she asked.
Inspector Brackenreid continued on, "Bloody hard test if you ask me, given the woman, and the circumstances. But if there's a man in the world who could pass it, it would be your husband…"
And now Julia knew that the 'test' the Inspector was asking her about was about how well, or not, William had done when confronted with the very attractive, skin-tight rubber wet-suited, dripping-wet, gorgeous and very sexy, Dr. Elizabeth Mole.
"I'm only glad Margaret wasn't there," he blew out pressure, then added, "Bloody hell, I am glad about that," he admitted, shaking his head with even just the thought of the aftermath he would have had to face. Still, he found that the whole thing reminded him of the time that himself and Murdoch had come upon the good and lovely doctor here, naked, au naturel, quite voluptuous herself… And he felt the oddest twinge of secret, delicious guilt hit him with the next memory, this one of Murdoch finding his sketch of the nude Dr. Ogden, Murdoch's wife, the drawing sketched from his haunting memory of seeing her LIKE THAT, left in among his other artworks in his portfolio that he and Murdoch were collecting after he had been an undercover artist for a case. The sketch had been from that unforgettable, lingering moment when she had turned to be caught, so gorgeous, and remarkably strong, despite all those womanly curves, in that endless moment when they had appeared, unexpected, half-a-second after the woman had saved Crabtree's life with nothing more than surprise and a shovel. It had captured him, the mesmerizing beauty of the woman's contradictions, so much so that he had had to draw it to try to get it out of his head. The Inspector turned and caught the doctor's eye, "Bet Murdoch looked when it was YOU, though, heh doctor?" he said.
Her reaction struck Thomas as wise, this rare woman who was Murdoch's wife, and his Constabulary's coroner, and who annoyingly defied society's convention over and over again, and, in so doing, spiced up the world around her, Dr. Julia Ogden smiled.
Tucking her arm into the Inspector's and resuming their walking along, feeling his sideways stare, knowing he saw her happiness despite her best efforts to hide it, Julia answered simply, "He passed both tests, Inspector."
"Both tests?" the Inspector raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. And then her meaning hit him, and he smiled, "I see, doctor. I see." And it seemed, for a moment, that such happiness was delightfully contagious.
) (
The Inspector and Dr. Ogden took the police carriage back to the stationhouse, while Detective Murdoch remained behind. The case against Dr. Mole required more evidence, and he had much to investigate in the area. To ensure that Murdoch did not get overeager and muck up any dealings with Alderman Lamb, who, besides owning the zoo, was quite influential at the Don Jail, the Inspector insisted that he, himself, would be the one to take care of investigating the missing husband's work records as a guard at the prison.
William called a cab and asked the driver if he knew where the veterinarian – Dr. Mole lived. He did, and the driver took him there. With the driver waiting at the front of the house to take him to the train afterwards, William searched for evidence.
There was a wood-chopping block and some firewood. No axe to be found. Also, importantly, there was no evidence of blood on the block, or any he could see in the snow, even after digging down to deeper levels. The evidence suggested that the body, possibly that of Elizabeth Mole's missing husband, was not chopped-up into pieces here. William sighed, for as he let his eyes peruse the whole scene, the evidence, that someone had been looking for evidence, was far and wide. He had left quite a few of his own footprints in the snow, and you could tell someone had been digging around in the snow around the chopping block – "enough that it was noticeable," he thought. "It had been unavoidable," he decided, and he figured he could at least mask his theories, and what it was that he had been specifically searching for, by making more of a mess, all over the area. It was in the process of making 'more of a mess,' that he came upon a place where a pit had been used to burn something. Based on the amount of snowfall over the ashes, he determined it could have been from as long ago as a month that whatever it was that had been burned here had been destroyed.
Access to the house was possible, on the sly, through a window in the kitchen in the back, and William decided to bend the rules. He used a long board he had seen near the woodpile to use as a ramp up to the window ledge, thus hiding his own footprints up to and out of the window. If he did it right, no one would be able to tell he had gone into the house. Inside he found that there were a few items of men's clothing in the home, enough to appear that there had been a man – a relatively large man, living in the house, who could have taken most of his things and moved out, supporting Elizabeth's story.
Next, William questioned a neighbor who said that the Mole's had a horse and a wagon, but it had been gone since about a month ago, back when "Nick left that pretty wife of his." It was reported that Nicholas and Elizabeth Mole fought a lot, and the neighbor described Nick Mole much as everyone else had, as a brute. He had said of Nicholas Mole that he had not been sorry to see the backside of the man, and the neighbor didn't figure that Mole's wife had been either, although from what the neighbor had seen, Elizabeth Mole had not taken on any lovers since her husband had left her.
On the train ride back home, William found himself wondering about why he felt so reluctant to think Elizabeth had done it. "Perhaps you're being fooled by her beauty," he wondered of himself. He tried to imagine what could have happened, the brute husband showing up at the zoo. Elizabeth not ready to go. Nicholas Mole getting outraged and accusing her of having a secret lover. Hitting her – giving her the blackeye the gatekeeper spoke of. Then she would have gotten the tranquilizer gun, followed him outside, his back to her, she would have shot him in the back of the knee with the dart. There, his train-of-thought stalled however, and he sighed, for try as he might, William had trouble picturing Elizabeth Mole chopping-up her husband's body with an axe. He tried to push through it, "But, if she did, whether she shot her husband with the dart at the zoo or had taken the tranquilizer gun back to their home, wherever she chopped-up the body, there would have been an axe and blood. There was no such evidence at her home… It niggled – that it was odd to have a chopping-block and a woodpile, but not to have an axe. Perhaps she had disposed of it?" He sighed again. He would have to ask her about it when he interrogated her. He jotted it down in his little book.
)
Returning to the stationhouse late, William found Julia's report on his desk. With it, she had left the sack of William Jr.'s carved zoo-animals and a note. She had already left for her class at the University. She would be late for dinner. The tranquillizer gun and the chemical in the darts was a match for their weapon. William wrinkled a corner of his mouth at himself, "Why didn't finally getting a break in this case make him happy?"
The Inspector had seen him come in and knocked at his door. "Murdoch," he greeted, "Our suspected victim, Nicholas Mole, had been a guard at the Don Jail for five years. The last day he showed up at work was February 17th. I spoke to the warden there myself, and, no surprise, Mole had a history of being violent. The other guards helped to tamper him down, the warden said. The warden reported that it was Mole's wife who was the one who had informed them that he had left town. That was the next day."
The Inspector shifted, stepping deeper into Murdoch's office. Suspecting Murdoch was reluctant to accept Elizabeth Mole as the murderer, giving the detective the next piece of information promised to rile him. "I need a scotch," his mind tried to avoid it. "Bloody Murdoch! This'll only slow him down more, half the speed of molasses!" his brain complained. "Murdoch," he alerted, "This whole story, it's all from Elizabeth, so it could be just more malarkey to cover her tracks…"
"Sir," William frowned. He anticipated a disagreement.
He would just get it over with, already knowing the detective would want to go there himself, drag the whole thing out. "The warden said that Dr. Mole reported that her husband had left the area to return to his hometown – Sudbury," he said. It was this next part, "blasted woman was smart," he yelled at himself inside his head, "covering the bases." The Inspector sighed and added, "There was a contact, a phone call to the warden, requesting Nicholas Mole's records be sent to Sudbury Jail…" He glared into Murdoch's eyes, seeing the man's brain jumping, "But Murdoch, it was just a cover-up, it could easily have been done, just a phone call. I had Crabtree check it out. Sudbury Jail's got no record of Mr. Mole applying there, not a month ago, not ever. And there's no Nicholas Mole working there now either."
William conceded, "I see." His brain started to consider, "Sudbury is far off…"
"She's smart Murdoch," he pushed, "You know that."
William blew the pressure out of his lungs and rubbed his brow, accepting. He told the Inspector about what he had found at Elizabeth Mole's home, and they argued about whether or not to try to get the warrant to search the zoo before or after William interrogated her. The inspector finally yielded, seeing the logic to Murdoch's point that if they called her in for questioning before they had had a chance to conduct a search, it would alert her that she was a suspect, and she might get rid of whatever evidence they might find at the zoo if the body had been stored and chopped-up there. This was the first time William had noted it, wondered about it – "it had appeared to be too cold at the zoo for flies. Yes, in the offices in surgery it was warm enough, but not out in the animal enclosures. And there had been no evidence of any flies in the offices and surgery. Where would the body have been in order to have gotten the maggots…?" his brain puzzled, and his headache flared.
The twist occurred to him as he remembered a similar, but in some ways, reverse, case. His eyes drifted over to the curtain closed in front of his back room, where he had kept the Junebug pupae in the rotting liver. "Opposite problem, that one," he thought, "There, the body had had to be kept COLD somewhere." That had been the clue that had gotten him to the icehouse. He frowned at his 'hunch,' his hunch that this clue about the temperature and the flies, seemed to be important. But then William Murdoch's mind had gone off track, and, as often was the case, the thing that had had enough force to pull William Murdoch's mind from a case, was Julia Ogden. Back then she had complained so about the stench in his walls, he giggled to himself. And he smiled, because he had impressed her, with his unique ways, and his tenacity, back in that backroom. His eyes wandered over to the sack of toys on his desk, proof that they were husband and wife, proof they had had a child together. "Who could have known?" he thought.
Suddenly aware that he had gotten lost in thought, the Inspector's voice registering, the detective's eyes darted up. "Sir," he wrinkled a corner of his mouth, "Sorry sir."
"You'll prepare what I need to take to the judge?" the Inspector asked as much as ordered.
"Yes. Yes, sir," he quickly agreed, "That'll be good. Thank you, sir."
Heading for the door, the Inspector said, "I'll deal with the bellowing phone calls from Alderman Lamb." "I need a scotch," he mumbled as he left.
) (
Julia brushed her hair at the vanity up in their bedroom, dressed in only her robe after her shower. William was closing up the house for the night. "It was a good day," she thought. There had been a break in this troubling, troubling case. "And William Jr. loved his toy zoo animals," she chuckled to herself, "Well, except for the tiger. He wanted to banish the tiger." Julia's mind drifted, firing up the image of Dr. Elizabeth Mole standing in front of them today at the zoo, looking so sexually enticing. Her womb tweaked, "Mmm, yes, definitely," she thought breathy and lusty, there was a bit of a wanting looming there. "William Murdoch had passed the 'test," she thought gleefully, "He deserves a prize for that."
She sighed.
She went back to brushing her hair. Back to the University class, her students were excited for William's lecture in two weeks. Her lecture this afternoon had gone very well, preparing them for their third trip to the Body Farm, for the data collection for the Spring-season portion of their study…
William's footsteps up the stairs. "He'd check in on the baby first..." Devilish the thought blazed, "Oh, he is so mercilessly about to be seduced," she told herself in the mirror.
She remembered that William was still wearing his vest and his tie, just before the door had opened. Her mind zinged the images before her, luscious, frantic, wildly sexy images…
"Juli.." he couldn't even finish his surprise, for she had already captured him.
Her fingers around his tie. The door pushed closed. His body… centrifugal motion, the breath stolen from his lungs with the whiplashing sonic boom of the unexpected and sudden change of direction, she flipped him. Bam, her back against the solid wood of the door. Wham, the tug of his tie pulling his body into hers. "She had no clothes on!" his brain finally screamed it. His nostrils flared, the fast, hot steam dizzying him. "Julia," he tried again, only to have his lips devoured by her kissing, and his red blood rushed to thunderbolt his groin. And he felt himself, not his idea, press against her mushy, mushy body, pinning her to the door underneath him. My God, he wanted her.
Instincts took over, uniquely Murdochian instincts, to fight his lust. "Pull back. Pull back," his brain ordered. "My tie – she's untying the knot!" the warning, the electrifying deliciousness of the warning, flared. "Think of something else. The case! The case!" the advice came.
William pushed himself back, his lips, a hesitation – they wanted to stay, they wanted to stay, his lips free. He would speak. He would speak – words. "What words William? What words…?"
So out of breath. Both of them puffing, chests heaving, lifting, sinking, so fast, the throbbing, stuck in the gravity of the push and pull.
"Oh. Oh, the collar's unbuttoned... Lower, lower buttons, the vest. How can she do this this fast…?" William's lustful wooziness threatened from the margins.
A swallow, so dry, "Do you think, doctor…" He somehow had done it – he had found the words!
Oh, he wouldn't dare, Julia's eyes narrowed accepting the challenge.
"Do you think the way they kept the animals…" William barely said, before Julia scratched her fingers into his hair, and pinched clumps of the short, black, strands of it tight within her grip, and pulled him down into her, and she drown him in a hungry, sucking, moving, moaning, juicy kiss.
William planted his palms, solid, hard, finding the door behind her. "Push back," his orders came.
He pulled out of their kiss. Had to clear his throat, still, "Um, with the potbellied stoves, and the wooden walls for wind-barriers…" he tried to finish his question, the one about the case. Deviously, he avoided her mouth as it reached for his, ducked his face down to tuck it into her neck, rageful now, his impulses, "Mmm, she smells so good," he fought against the lure, "Words, William…"
"Do you think, doctor," his voice muffled into the tunnel of her flesh, "that it was warm enough for flies…"
Julia nearly giggled with the delicious sudden stopping of his speaking.
Pants, she's undoing my pants…
He reached for her mouth, he kissed her. My God, the way he kissed her. And Julia's knees weakened so severely she had to hold onto him to not to drop down to the floor.
Then he broke it off. His breath flooded over her in gush after gush, hot, so hot. "Remember our victim…" he scratched out, "He had maggots…"
Julia slipped her hands inside his now-unbuttoned shirt, felt the smooth pure skin of him.
And William's breath caught…
She was going to… her naked, succulent body, she was going to…
William's moan betrayed him, heartily, as Julia pressed her flesh into his. Squishy and soft, at the front of him, and she firmly dug her fingers into his muscly back, and she wiggled and molded all that womanly lusciousness all over him, pouring and crushing herself all over him, covering him, smooshing him everywhere, everywhere, and she tilted just right, to find it, his eagerness, hard, so very, very hard, and very, much, more, than, ready.
"William," she wasn't sure if her gasp was in her head or out in the room, right before she kissed him.
Trying again, William broke off the kiss. He felt it, the savageness so close. "Malcolm Lamb!" his brain hurried the name forward, the thought, the string of thoughts associated with the name, so tenuous. Go, William – say the words… "Malcolm Lamb…" his brain trumpeted with the accomplishment, so slight, the shift back towards control. But then, the thought that sounded somewhere out there in the room lacked connection, as he asked her, "Why do you think we didn't see the more exotic animals? There should have been elephants, lions, hippos… and what about that baby hippo? And he worried that, despite his best efforts, his brain had turned to a wonderful, lustful soup.
Julia played her best card then, her fingers slipped down into his opened pants, and he was gone, he was just gone.
William Henry Murdoch lost all control. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he would take it, beastly and jungle-wild and greedy, he flipped her around to plaster her scrumptious, mushy, bosoms hard into the door, and centered himself, low, admiring those two round, succulently plump buttocks. He took her then, Julia's moan, primal and desperate, rapturously only adding fuel to the fire. Grumbly, his voice told in her ear, "Woman, you make me gloriously glad to be alive, every day, it's you. You drive me crazy." And William's mouth, warm, wet, a tingling sharpness with the nip of his teeth, took her earlobe in, sucking and squeezing, releasing, erupting, every drop of want for him inside of her, wrenching and wringing her insides so tight with needing him that it ached her to the bone with helplessness. "Please, William," she heard herself beg. And he began that perfect, perfect rhythm, such that this man thoroughly rocked her world.
"William," she gasped.
Striving so hard to get closer, and closer, and closer, every inch of him stretching with all his might to touch that one perfect spot so that they would both implode, covering her, covering every inch of this deliciously sweet, sweet, woman with his pulsating, throbbing, ramming, pounding heat, and he heard that little… weak… whimper… so desperate, she was so desperate, for him to touch her so perfectly, fill her so completely, that every molecule vibrated with want for his touch, demanding every morsel, every drop of him, that that little tiny whimpering sound, so defenseless, such aching in it, that it pushed them over the edge, and the whole world flipped over and the wave loomed huge, soaring above them, boundless below them, unstoppable, the rumble before the crash, so magnificent they wouldn't be able to withstand it, the scrumptiousness flowed through them, gooey, and melty, ripple after ripple so good it hurt, and the only thing to be done to survive it was to wish it would never, never… never… end.
Breathless, exhausted, thoroughly spent behind her, thoroughly covering her, dizzy with the fuzzy edges, no edges, he pressed heavy against her. His heart pounded so inside his chest he wondered if it touched to hers. Out of breath, his voice dry, he told her, "I feel like my heart might explode…"
And, feeling the ferocious beating of it forging into her back, she marveled at its, at their, synchronous drumming, and she whispered, breathless and warm, "Your heart is strong, William."
"It's yours," he swore, lush and humid breath flooding, pouring over her, rapidous and assured, like the tide rolling up on the shore, "My heart is yours, Julia. It's always been yours."
Rolling, rocking, splashing, the rushing of the gentleness of the all the salty water in the world broke against the rigid walls of her world, and she loved him so much it collapsed her, and he said to her, "Until all the stars go out, my heart is yours," and the tempo of their recovering from such a strenuous bout of merged euphoria changed, for there was a shaking with the strain, and Julia Ogden began to cry.
"Hey, hey there, now," he whispered as he turned her to face him, and he shushed her, so tender, in her ear. "Shh. Shh. I'm right here. I'll always be here. Shh. Shh. Inside, all around you, all through you. I'm yours… Shh. I love you. Shh. Shh. I'm always yours," laying down over her, over her troubled, quivering, soul, stilling her troubled waters, he held her, held her for as long as it would take. Then William reached down and took hold of the backs of her thighs and lifted her legs up around his waist, stepped out of his trousers pooled down on the floor, and he carried her over to the bed in his arms. He laid her down with him, laid his body down over her, stroking her, loving her.
Eventually, she whispered to him that she was better, and he rolled them over to rest her head down on his chest, and he teased her then, saying, "It seems you ambushed me, Mrs. Murdoch."
"It seems you quite liked it, Mr. Murdoch," she retorted.
"That I did," he gave, with a kiss to her head, "That I did."
Then he turned off his lamp and the dark of nighttime surrounded them there together. Amazing, how quickly, how deeply, the deliciousness of sleep came.
And dreams get longer, more elaborate, the deeper you fall.
)
It felt so comfortable, so familiar, being up in the front of the lecture hall, all those eager students' eyes on him. Strange, that he remembered them as being male faces, young men, in the seats, instead of all these pretty young women. That is, it was all men, except for Julia, when she had come in, and their eyes met across the vast space, him down by the blackboard, her up in the rafters, and his heart broke, because they were apart, and then he remembered that that was a memory not a dream, and he gloried in his heart, because it was true, back then, back when he had lectured Robert Perry into confessing and turning on James Gillies, back then they had been parted, but now, now they were together, and they were married, and maybe it was because it wasn't his first time actually doing it, that it felt so safe up here giving this lecture.
Back then his lecture had been on physics, the equation and forces involved in hanging a man. Now his lecture was on the forensic use of marks, fingermarks, footprints, cut marks from an axe, all sorts of marks. He was telling the class about using ultraviolet photography to find old bruises that would otherwise remain hidden from view. On the blackboard he drew the bruise that had been on the first Body Dumper's victim's thigh. All of these lady students oohed and ahhed, for they had been at the Body Farm themselves that day – they had discovered the man's body. The chalk flat against the board, he'd drawn a somewhat central circle, and then four fat ovals extending out of it.
Suddenly he was struck by it, by how much it resembled a handprint, "but too big, and the fingermarks weren't long enough to be from fingers…" But then all of a sudden, he saw it happen in his mind, a giant monkey slapping the victim's thigh to make the mark, to make the bruise. His heart jolted with a panic, for it seemed so real. "It was an animal!" suddenly he was telling the Inspector, "The bruise is from an animal, not a machine as had thought," and that little monkey, Athena, was sitting on Brackenreid's lap, in that frilly little dress, and she had the knife with her own wrong-sized fingermark on it in her hand, but then he remembered, that that was a memory too, and right now, right now, he was lecturing Julia's University class.
"It was an animal!" he turned to the class declaring. "It was an animal! Didn't you see it… at the zoo?" he asked them, and then, that's where they all were, at the zoo, the lecture hall somehow gone now.
He hadn't noticed that Julia wasn't there, and he continued with his lecture, getting back to the point about using marks as clues. He stood in front of the blackboard, now in the center of the Riverdale zoo, and he found he was much enjoying the banter, the play, with the students. It was so much fun, the sexuality of their flirting with him just barely visible under the surface. It only intensified the thrill, his keeping their amorous attentions at bay by managing not to respond directly to their seductions.
From a side door, he heard it up in the rafters, resounding through the lecture hall, Julia's stern voice bellowed out, "William Henry Murdoch."
The room responded with gasps, heads turning in the direction of the source. Whispers and exclamations rippled across the wind…
It's Dr. Ogden."
"She's angry…"
"She agreed to let him teach us, didn't she?"
William stood, 'deer-in-the-trainlights,' as Julia marched to the front of the room, marveling in, thrilled by, the way she moved when she was mad – her chin jutted out and high, defiant, confident and challenging, her arms pumping erratically, and laterally, left swings, then right swings, creating a float, reminding of one being on cross-country skis in the pure, white, frozen snow.
Her huff, the moment she stood before him, her eyes magnificently on fire, her face aglow…
"She is so beautiful, stunning… this woman," the thought in his head tried to register, to make sense with where he knew they were, with all those amorous students watching them, as if on a stage. And in that moment, he felt his mouth hanging opened, felt her warm breath blow over his face…
Her huff seemed to draw him out of his trance. "Julia," he said it, his tone revealing his surprise, his confusion. He watched a change flow over her, faint, but most assuredly there. She softened.
As she felt her love for this man flare and surge in her heart, her anger seemed to switch. Still present, still unbearably driving her to act, she sensed the trigger of it behind her, all those infatuated feminine eyes watching them. Every atom in her body shifted its magnetic pole, turning towards the students.
But… when she turned to face them, steam escaping, seeming to hiss with the suddenness of her turn, their young faces – so much like hers had been at that age, admiring her, adoring her, wanting to BE like her. And she felt her love for them under the jealousy and fear and the pain and anger. And it, too, warmed her from within, and softened her harsh stance.
Julia paused there to let the ground settle… breathed before she spoke, "My dear and esteemed students, I feel I must point something out. As you have surely noticed, William Murdoch is a brilliant man…"
As a whole, the class seemed to exhale relief. There were abundant nods.
"As a matter of fact, I have never known someone brighter," she added, briefly turning her head to catch his eye. "But, in matters of the heart, in matters of human connection, in receiving and sending messages sent on a more subtle level… messages with the eyes, with the posture… he lacks the skills sometimes," Julia stopped momentarily, thinking of changing the train of thought. "More direct, I think," William heard Julia's inner voice coach her, but her voice's sounds were inside his head.
"William Murdoch is a good-looking man…" Julia stated the facts.
So quickly, every female head in the room took to quick nods of agreement, and William Murdoch's eyes dilated so wonderfully, and he blushed.
Julia fought the urge to giggle, her current insecurity – so unfamiliar, strangely odd and disgusting to her – fizzing away when touched by the flame of the love she had for this particular man here, who she loved so profoundly, temporarily amazed once more that it could flutter deep inside of her so that it completely caught her off guard at times. How did William know this, know Julia's thoughts, the oddity sparkled, but from too far off to keep his attention?
"Let's face it," she went on, "He's gorgeous, really. He's an EXTREMELY attractive man. And what you cannot see…" And with that, Julia's eyes toured and perused their way down William's body.
And he could feel all the eyes in the lecture hall doing the very same thing to him.
Julia made the most silent sound of appreciation, a sort of, "Mmm," before she went on, "Yes, what you cannot see is magnificent as well, believe me."
Oh, they did.
"… And I am certain that many of you fantasize about being with him, for you are human, and healthy." Her focus turned back to the young students. "And I, as his wife, I am fully aware that he, too, may have noticed how attractive each of you is. He may even have had flashes of fantasies about being with you as well. But, to be honest, I doubt it. And that's what you should know. William Murdoch may likely not even notice that attraction. And if he does, I promise you, it is more likely to make him feel uncomfortable than aroused. And…" with this track, with this thought, William thought, William knew that Julia felt the floor under her lift, and a tiny spin in the room dizzied her a bit, for where her mind had gone was somehow so crushingly powerful, potent, and the truth of it made her giddy with a warm joy.
She swallowed, for her throat had gone dry, and William saw her eyes watering with tears, and she took a piece of her efforts to cease the building of the wave of it, to hold the emotions back. Julia took a breath and said, "You should know that HE LOVES ME," she announced finally. "He will not act on your advances, I assure you," her eyes dropped down to the floor. She had an urge and she was fighting it, William somehow just knew.
But then, however, and to loud gasps in the room, Julia Ogden lost that fight.
She spun, suddenly dressed in that extremely sexy, red-leather, low cut, cleavage-revealing, bodice, and that short, very short, up to her ears short, scandalous skirt… He recognized it, his fear only adding to the tumult thoroughly souping his brain, it was the outfit she wore in that dream when she questioned him about Mrs. Jones – questioned him with a truncheon – all those many, many, years ago. She approached, jumped into William's arms, plastered him backwards with a 'thud' as his back hit the wall, hit the blackboard, behind them, and she planted a huge kiss on him – right there, in front of the whole class.
The students responded with only total, enthralled, silence, eyes wide, soaking it in, most of them longing for it to be them up there in place of their professor.
Julia broke off the kiss, which she had felt William succumb to, soften to, open to, and she reveled in the way his lips had bent and molded under hers, and then his lips stretched to hold their connection as she pulled away, to the point that his balance wobbled as he tilted, following her departure, eyes still closed, wishing she would stay.
Her eyes on him, keeping stuck to his, but her voice seemed to wrap around her body and address the class behind her instead of him… "Perhaps it was a ricochet – off of the blackboard," a part of William thought… somewhere? And Julia said, "William Murdoch is mine. Not because I won him years ago, but because HE IS IN LOVE WITH ME…"
And his eyes darkened as they reached for her, and tenderly, gently, he nodded.
"He's in love with me NOW. I promise you, I'M THE ONE FOR HIM, and he knows it. And that's why I say, he's mine." Julia's blue, magnetic eyes dropped to his lips, noticed, once more, that they were full, and lovely, and she wanted them so, to feel them move and yield, to taste, to be inundated by his scent... "His lips are mine," she said, her voice still loud, but now mistier, right before she placed her lips on his.
William's response to her now was more familiar, less rigid, and he knew, her insides tweaked with want, by the way she arched her back, and because he heard her make that little weak sound, like a secret – that desperate squeak.
She broke off their kiss, her lips still close, lingering. Quieter, the class straining with all their might to hear, she said, "His jaw is mine. It's prickly stubble, in the morning, is mine." And her lips kissed his chiseled jaw, and she breathed in his smell so deeply, and her soft, soft lips traveled a beeline to his ear. And she said, her voice tumbling down into him, stirring him, igniting him, "His ears are mine."
And he felt the eruption shoot to his groin, as her nibbles and her kisses and her breaths filled him.
Pulling back again, she continued her list of possessions, "Those eyes, those scrumptiously warm, chocolate, melty eyes, their twinkles and sparkles… those are mine," she watched his long dark lashes close downward as she leaned close to him, so close to him, to kiss next to an eye, and then turned her face to feel his lashes, their butterfly-soft quiver – tickle, as he re-opened them, against her cheek.
He just about buckled at the knees with the loss of oxygen as he felt her fingers find and pinch opened the button at the top of his suit vest. So quickly her hands were gliding up and down the curves of his chest through merely the fabric of his shirt. She stopped over his nipple, and it reached for her, growing hard and firm under her fingers, and she pinched it, and his breath caught, and it was the last moment he thought it… "Everyone would see."
"His chest is mine," her words seemed so close and so far away, inside and outside, and her explorations suddenly switched from, what was now is bare chest – the unreasonable loss of his shirt, weird, but barely noticed, to his bare arms. "His strong, muscly arms are mine," and he felt the fall beginning, feeling it was so high, so mountainously, mountainously, high.
And then she leaned into him… down lower, she touched him, she found him.
Oh, what a bolt! He was magnificently alert.
William swallowed.
Her voice whispered, screaming it to the class, "This is mine," her tone changing to one of warning as she pressed her body into him, repeating, "THIS is mine, William."
Densely, he asked, his voice scratchy with the pressure and the pleasure of it all, "This?"
"Yes this," her voice sang into him, and she rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed over him, on him, and what he desired, what he lusted so hard for, what he wanted so badly that it seemed to threaten his very life, what he ached for so deliciously, was so very, very close. Her voice raspy told, "This is mine, in our marital bed, in our standing bath, under the rain of the shower, against the wall, on the desk or the foyer table, even bent over the bathroom countertop."
Then, just as he imagined, as he considered, spinning her around into the wall, ripping off his trousers, lifting her thighs up around him, taking her, taking what he wanted…
The lights thundered with a roaring 'click,' and the blinding luminescence filled the lecture hall. And suddenly Julia was halfway across the room. And all the female students! Oh my God, all the female students were wearing skintight, black, rubber suits. And he could see every curve of them, breasts – big, and round, and bouncy, and that succulent slope inwards to their small waists, and then that sweeping outward curve to those wide, wide hips. Oh my, his world rumbled.
Abruptly, the chorus line of them jumped and jiggled and then turned, so that he could see their backsides hugged tight in the rubber. His eyes were drawn downward to the rounded curving of their buttocks tucking inward to form a deep, sumptuous crevice. And, OH, how he wanted to be there – right there. Altogether, each of the beautiful women spread their legs and then seductively, enticingly, slowly, bent forward, as he watched, and the world seemed to twirl and spiral. His eyes stuck on the rear-end of the closest woman… and then, he saw it! And it plummeted him, what he imagined he would do, feeling himself THERE, his hands ruggedly traveling the plump, contours of the woman, up her ribcage through the rubber of the skintight suit, squeezing her, locking her in place under him, and he wanted so, so, badly to take this woman…
AND IT WAS IF HE COULD HEAR IT, the teardrops that were pooled so shimmeringy large in Julia's beautiful blue eyes, as they dropped and cascaded down her cheek and plopped into the puddle at her feet.
And he looked at her and his heart broke, for he had strayed again, like he had done with the waitress back when she was pregnant with William Jr. And he had hurt her. And the only reason he didn't crumble up and die right there was because he had to fix it. His eyes filled with tears and he wished, he wished with all his might, that he could take her hurt away.
"Julia! Julia please," he begged and he wept and he cried, "Please! Please!"
And she nudged and kissed him to wake. And she pulled him over into her arms, there in their bed, safe and together, and she told him it was alright, and she loved him, and she knew he loved her, and it was alright. "It was just a dream, William. You were having a dream. You're alright. Shh. Shh," Julia's voice, the voice he heard in his soul, promised him that everything was alright.
His racing heart slowed, his head tucked down into her bosom, so sweetly she caressed him, soothed him. And William recovered enough to dare to look backwards into the dream, and it poured in, him giving the lecture, Julia jealous, and then… And the high-pitched hum in his ears just before he remembered the shift, the switch, its arrival secretly revealed in the loss of the ability to breathe – the black rubber suits! The wanting! And Julia crying! Julia crying…
Shame, guilt, too wretched to be loved like this by her, William suddenly rolled away, rushed to throw the covers away, sat up on his side of the bed, hoping distance would hide him, and darkness, and that upright gravity would lighten the load. But he felt… disgusting… and dizzy, sick, so sick and nauseous…
He felt her, the waves of shifting balance underneath him as she moved the mattress behind him, her beautiful voice calling his name… The muscles at the tops of his thighs twitched – almost, almost, he ran away.
He felt her stop, not next to him yet, still behind him. She was waiting. She's so wonderful, and I don't deserve her, I don't. William tried to push them away, but those memories of him ogling the waitress, of the aftermath of him desiring the waitress, those images in his head, they would not stay down, and a part of him knew he deserved the pain, and so he looked, in his mind, back to seeing the woman he loved so much he would die for her, Julia, his precious, precious Julia, sobbing so hard with absorbing the hit of what he had done to her, pregnant with his child, and he had coveted another, and it had hurt her so badly she fell to the floor with the pain, and she cried and cried so hard that she made herself sick, and she rushed into the bathroom and vomited in the toilet, and they sat together on the floor, and he tried to stop her from heaving , and shaking, and crying… And he wasn't sure he could survive hurting her like that again.
But she was waiting, behind him.
And he felt it, deeper than the pain, warm in his heart, it was a part of him now, and he took a deep breath, because he trusted her, trusted himself, trusted their love. And with that trust came truth, and so he needed to tell her.
She heard, she saw his back, his naked skin and his defined muscles lustrous in the subtle white glowing from the moon through the window, William took a deep breath. He was ready now.
The solemnness in his voice called to her, as William said, "It was like the dream with Eva Pearce…" he needed to push to finish, "I was seduced by the suspect – sort of, um," he blew out he pressure, "same… um, same… clothing."
And Julia knew it was Elizabeth Mole, and the rubber suit from today at the zoo, that William had dreamed of.
William's mind rushed so fast, judging, correcting – actually it hadn't been Elizabeth, it was Julia's students. But the rubber suit, it WAS the rubber suit… suits. But closer to the surface, he was remembering telling her about his dream with Eva Pearce in her office at the asylum, lying down on her couch. He had been ashamed then too…
William's voice in the room, "When I told you about the dream, with Eva Pearce, you asked directly if I had desired her, and I told you then, the truth, that I had, that I had desired her, and it didn't hurt you. But then, when it was…" he still found it hard to say the words, "when I desired the waitress… "
"Yes," she whispered, heavy, soaked with remembering the pain.
"And I saw you so hurt. I had hurt you so badly, I think it was more than you could bare. Julia, I don't think I've ever felt so awful, ever. Not Constance Gardiner," he shook his head, "not…" he swallowed, "not…" Unable to fight the tears, he yielded to them, and they could be heard in his voice, heightening the tone, slippery and damp, deepening the resonance, "And now I… I have…"
"William," Julia swam, rippling the mattress, to sit herself next to him. "William, listen to me," he heard her voice, so close to him, and in her words, he heard her tears, too. She took his face in her hands and turned him to her.
Only dim pure moonlight, he saw her, so beautiful… He made himself nod. He needed to swallow down the upsurge.
She spoke from the heart, and it touched straight into his, and before she even began, the healing had begun. "I did feel hurt, when you told me that you desired Eva Pearce in your dream. I did, but I managed to stay professional. And…" she shifted, took a deep breath.
He felt her fingers, so delicate, touching him so perfectly, a little bit, into his hair, so soft across the outer edges of his ears.
Julia sniffled and found the words, "And I loved you so much, even by then, before we married," she smiled, "before I loved you this much," her voice had become just a squeaky whisper. She nodded her head, agreeing with herself and went on, "Before I loved you so much that at times it destroys me," she wrinkled her face at him in the dimness, "I love you so much, William…"
"Julia…"
"And it does hurt. I won't deny that. But I know that you love me in a way that is special in the world. I do," he felt her eyes tug at his. She chuckled and dropped her chin down, dropped her eyes away. "I want you to remember… it was terrible when it happened, but now, now I think… um," Julia sat up straighter, suddenly more sure, stronger, and said, "Remember Neil Catfrey, William…"
And he did with a searing pain in his gut…
"We both are human, hmm?" she asked him. She chuckled again, rolled her eyes, "You're just a better human, I think. But we can't wholly avoid our subconscious William. If nothing else, it will get you in your dreams." And she pinched her lips into a smile, and she won him there, she won him then, he mirrored her smile, and pulled her close, into a hug, and he cherished her, and she cherished him, and the storm had passed, and they were alright, and they were together, and together they were alright.
) (
Claire-Marie stared after him.
William Murdoch took his leave from the downstairs playroom, having completed laying out their parental instructions with the nanny for the night, tonight another big night out for the couple.
She had not been able to keep her eyes off of him, AGAIN. Eloise warned her ,all the time, not to gawk at the gorgeous detective – her employer, she wanted to smack herself in the head, "your employer, Claire-Marie!" she scolded herself.Tonight, the man was dressed in a tuxedo, "now that is downright irresistible – Ooh la la, monsieur…"
William tugged at his cufflinks as he rounded the corner of their staircase. Julia should be ready by now. He sighed. He hated these big toff-gala things. He sighed again. He didn't want to be too early, that was awful, harder to hide, he guessed that was it. But too late, and somehow all the eyes seemed to turn, and William reminded himself that at functions like this one they have that nauseating tradition of announcing you so publicly – "Presenting Detective William Murdoch and his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden," he heard the booming voice echo inside his head. And all of a sudden it hit him, behind his discomfort, underneath his uneasiness with trying to be one of them when he was not, surprise, surprise, he was puffed-up proud to be married to her. "Huh," he shook his head and chuckled to himself.
William hovered for a second in the doorway, just that brief second, she hadn't spotted him standing there yet. Julia Ogden looked stunning. He let his eyes travel down her body, and the curves of her tempted and swayed under his eyes, and the warning, strong, and manly, and formidably rigid, jolted inside of his tuxedo trousers, suddenly making them feel much too tight. He stepped in.
"We've talked about this particular dress, Mrs. Murdoch, have we not?" his eyes danced so, as he teased her.
She saw the look of him, it made her own voice breathy. "We have, Mr. Murdoch. I thought it might not fit... Um, well, I thought, perhaps, it'd be too tight," she giggled, and wiggled, and jiggled - so sexy, and said, "It seems my current state only enhances the bosom, and it looks even more…"
He stepped close – too, too, close.
"There is only one thing that dress makes me want to do, Julia…" his voice was way too warm, the breeze of it in her ear, "And that is to take it off of you. And if I don't do that right now…" William leaned closer, electromagnetic, the force, "It is the only thing I'll be able to think about all night," he confided, uncommonly cocky for William Henry Murdoch.
William's fingers took themselves a curl.
And Julia felt the stupendous pull, the floor wobbling up so fast, flipping her womb over inside of her, as his eyes dropped down to her breasts, and she felt them heaving up and down underneath the weight of that look.
"Easy tiger," she gasped, wanting him to lose control so much it buckled her, wanting him to release that tiger, set all that secret wildness loose on her…
She cleared her throat, seeking strength, "It took over an hour to get ready for this party, mister, and we'll be lat…"
He kissed her, oh, and she melted, so deliciously with the heat of him. His fingers in her hair, his silky-smooth tongue, "there was not enough air, not enough air," his body, "Mmmm, his strong, strong body," so hard against hers…
Breaking-off the earthshattering kiss, "My hair," she cried out, her last attempt at resistance.
He held his gorgeous eyes to hers, and his jaw was so… tight, and he looked so GOOD…
And it crashed, wild and lusty and uncontrollably fierce.
His lips took hers, wiggling and squishing and pushing into hers, so amazingly soft and warm. Such a jolting panic, "He's unbuttoning his trousers… His tuxedo," a small swirling strip of her brain remembered they were supposed to be going to her charity function, "His pants – down on the floor." She helped, found the grommets of her dress, rushed to unfasten them for him. His hands – ALL OVER HER…
)
Detective William Murdoch thoroughly romanced his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden, before they went to her fancy toff charity function, by then, the tiger back in its cage, his wife wearing a different dress than the one she had first put on, all the ballroom's eyes turning to see them together – Toronto's Favorite Couple, when the announcement of the arrival of "Detective William Murdoch and his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden," had rung out through the big, elaborate, marble hall – it seems the Murdoch's were a bit late, for the big to-do. ( ;
)) ((
William Jr. had wanted to banish the toy tiger, the one of the little zoo toys that could not be trusted. His parents had had a talk with him about it, though. They thought the moment held within it a teachable lesson, for they hoped that their little son would understand that it is tiger nature to hide, to stalk, to hunt, to kill. That such instincts are not evil, that they are necessary for the tiger to survive. And that every being is intrinsically valuable, and that all of us are interconnected to the others in our world, that we cannot live a full and meaningful life without impacting others, and without having them impact upon us as well. It's like the jagged rock tumbling in the stream, it's the bumping, and the knocking against others, that makes us well-rounded. It is only in this way that we find our true balance in our world, that we become wise. They reminded him of the bedtime story that unfolded up on his ceiling that night, and they coaxed him to remember what the guardian angel had said, that you can learn your most important lessons from the tiger, for the tiger reveals to you what it is that you value the most.
The expression, "easy tiger," is used when we want someone to calm down, not to get over-emotional, or not to rush into something. It does give one the feeling, though, that something big, and wild, and dangerous, and important, is just around the corner. I wonder if, perhaps, it might be the tiger?
)) ((
