The case, the latest in a series of peculiar and unnerving events which left one wondering at their own place in such an unscrupulous and conniving world, had been solved.
Making his way down a short flight of steps, Benoit Blanc paused. Petrichor from the afternoon's downpour, one that had only recently passed over the city stirring in his nostrils, he hesitated, swaying on his feet. The space where his wedding band usually resided felt unnervingly cold and empty as he took hold of the metal railing beside him. The private investigator stared at his hand before taking a deep breath of cool, moisture filled air. Letting the breath out he used the stability of the railing to lower himself down to the city block's concrete foundation.
He was tired. Lord, was he tired!
Over the past several days his mind had been set to a powerful frenzy! A maddening, itching whirl of ants marching through his cerebellum and calling it home. They marched this way, they marched that way, all the while gnawing to get loose, fighting to be freed, and casting his mind ablaze in their fury. With their fire the case had burned Benoit through like an inferno until, not unlike a spent match, there was nothing left but smoke, and the charred husk of what once was.
But if there was truly nothing left then why did his bones feel so damned heavy? Weighing him down, down to where he sat; uncomfortably wet, and cold, staring at a gray sky veiling a gray city. One to be forever changed by what had happened here today. As he was.
Yes, Benoit thought as he took in the morose scene around him, the world was full of grays. Rights and wrongs. Rights done for the wrong reasons, and likewise wrongs done for the right ones. What he'd done, his theft of evidence in a case that made for a startling parallel to one he'd thought previously solved, was one such gray.
Deftly Blanc brushed a hand over his jacket's face, both alarmed and assured by the presence of the documents he well knew resided beneath. They sat slumbering, held close to his heart while their contents were kept, quite decidedly, out of mind. It didn't bear thinking, not just yet, not while the pieces were still in play, he told himself. He needed to wait, and see how the die was cast. He needed to take his time. But taking his time never truly came easy for the man, and he wanted- no, needed answers now.
As the warmth slowly seeped out of Benoit's body thoughts of his husband Phillip, and the life they had built together, sat heavily in his mind. Never had their relationship seemed more reckless, foolhardy, or outright snakebit, than it did here and now.
How Benoit had ever convinced himself that he could be happy, let alone safe, and secure with the man he loved was mind-boggling. Hubirus, no doubt.
The man sat rubbing his ring finger with an overwhelming sense of malaise. Keeping the ring at home while he worked had been his idea. All these years Phillip had kept it safe for him while he was away. It had been Benoit's means of protecting the ones he loved most. It was also why they had never taken one another names.
Now however? Now he didn't feel protected. He felt vulnerable, alone, scared even, without his ring.
Scarcly tangible, it stood there, he thought, like the devil at a crossroads, poised between the man and the truth. His past and his present laid bare, and with each a connection to the case, one that hit uncomfortably close to home. It felt as though uncovering that which would rather stay buried, Benoit would undoubtedly be risking his very soul.
He shuddered.
The sound of approaching foot-falls stirred the private investigator from his troubled reverie. Conscious of his demeanor and any misconceptions one might gather from his posture or even the shudder Benoit straighten himself out, back rigid, and adjusted his lapel. Let whoever was coming up behind him believe that it was merely the weather getting under his skin, and little else.
Glancing up as Toby sat down Benoit caught the fleeting image of a man devastated by that which he had once desired above all else: The truth.
Allowing himself to relax, Benoit leaned forward, elbows resting just above his knees. He could think of nothing worth saying. So, the somber pair sat watching alternating pools of red and blue wash over the buildings that surrounded them, listening to the indistinguishable chatter of the police officers who worked with single minded determination behind them.
"So, that's it?" Toby asked with a meek sense of defeat.
"That's it." Blanc confirmed as he fished around for his cigarettes.
"So, everything gets exposed, and people go to jail, and everything... everything my family built crumbles down into nothing?" the young man ventured with a crease to his brow that spoke volumes of the weight his suspicions had crushed him beneath for all too long.
"In theory, if things work out the way they should," Benoit couldn't help but laugh as he placed a cigarette between his lips. "Yes."
"So... life just, goes on?" Toby ventured, his words muttered in hollow tones.
"As steadily as it ever had before." Blanc confirmed.
"The money?"
Benoit raised a brow, half turning towards the young man who had employed him. "I suspect if you had, had any true concerns regarding the money that you and I would never have met."
Toby laughed. It was an abrupt, nervous sound as his expression contracted with bittersweet humor. "You know, I think you're right." he agreed, fingers intertwining, palms squeezing together, knee bouncing.
"So yes. The money will be gone." Blanc confirmed with a nod as he took in the tumultuous disposition of the man beside him.
"Good. I don't want a cent of that blood money." Toby declared, jaw set with a conviction as fresh and clear as the rain that was softly starting to fall once again.
"And you, you're just going to leave?" Toby added after a while, breaking through the light mist that was attempting to wash away the filth that now and forever stained Ellesworth Enterprises.
"My part in this whole dirty affair is, thankfully, over." Benoit confirmed aloud as he savored the smooth, familiar ache of his lungs filling with smoke. Though, his heart bespoke of the man's silent doubts, those that said his part in all this was truthfully just beginning.
"What if you're called to testify? Oh God- What if- What if I'm called to testify?" Toby's voice had taken on the cold sharpness of fear.
"When we are called to testify, which, I assure you, we will be, then we testify." Benoit mumured evenly. Beside him he felt the burden settle heavily once more about the young man who hunched his back, as if bent by the very strain of his responsibility.
Toby, or Tobias Ellesworth III, as the papers were sure to call him, was a fool. Well-meaning, noble, honorable, even, but a fool nonetheless. He'd been blind to the evil of his family legacy, and the corporation his father ruthlessly headed. Even when he'd come to Benoit Blanc for help he'd come in ignorance, suspicious of his father's dealings, but oblivious to the true insidious nature of the man himself.
"What better justice is there, than the justice of the ugly truth for the tyranny of a monster who profited most from beautiful lies?" Benoit asked gently, doing his best to remember that the monster in question was still this man's father.
"Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I know you're right. That was why I needed your help in the first place." Tody let his head fall into his hands. "But all this? I never- I never imagined-"
They sat once more in the unnerving quiet of a crumbling empire.
"You know." Toby broke the silence with that impetuous nature which came so freely to the young. "I don't know how you do this."
"Its simple, really, you just follow the clues." Blanc murmured, motioning with his cigarette as he spoke.
"No!" Toby laughed. "And bullshit, if it was that easy my father, hell, my grandfather would have gone down for all of this a long time ago. What I mean is, how can someone just move on after something like this."
"You'll find a way, I'm sure." Benoit said fixing the troubled young man with an empathetic stare.
"How do you do it?" Toby asked.
The invisible barriers, the levees, Benoit used to keep his personal life contained and prevented it from overflowing into his professional life strained against their task. Toby was a good boy, with a kind heart, but Blanc's privacy, and his family's safety was worth more than any comforts he could provide.
"I imagine my ways are quite different from your own." he shrugged lightly, though compassion won out and he added, "But finding someone you trust, and I mean trust implicitly, to talk to, never hurt a lick."
Toby took this advice in stride before asking "How many cases have you taken like this, how many mysteries-?"
"Cases like this? None. Mysteries? Too many to count." Benoit broke in.
"And yet you've solved them all." the other man laughed, a tinge of spite coloring his esteem.
"You think so?" the detective scoffed.
"Well, you're Benoit Blanc." Toby choked out the words, this time the hatred in his tone directed at himself.
Guilt colored Benoit's perception of the young man. He needed something to hold onto, a friend, someone he could be vulnerable with. Perhaps, just this once, the levees were in the way. Blanc sighed heavily, weighing his next words carefully in mind before speaking them aloud.
"You know, I dare say there is one mystery that I truly believe that I will never solve." he murmured towards the sky.
"What women want in a relationship?" Toby joked.
"What? No. Don't be an imbecile." Benoit who couldn't help but feel sorry for every lovely creature known as "woman" on this good green earth. The number of times he'd heard this question as either a poor attempt at humor, or clear evidence of a systematic lack of empathy and awareness in the common heterosexual man was astounding.
"Women only want the same things as men." Benoit added, unable to let go of the passing remark. "They want an equal partnership, to feel loved, validated, and seen as more than maids, or-or baby factories! No, women are easy. I'm talking about the one true mystery of life to which no man has been able to come up with a satisfactory solution."
"What?"
Appraising the young man who had ripped the mask off of his family's enterprise, and ensured his own father's lifelong incarceration, Blanc felt a deep sense of kinship with Toby. Still, he wondered at how his answer would be received. Toby was strong enough, Benoit reasoned then, and it would help close the divide between them.
Choosing to press on the private investigator couldn't help but smirk into his cigarette as he spoke. "Fatherhood."
Toby was quiet for a long minute, his gaze clouded with trouble. "Yeah," he whispered hoarsely. "Its quite the mystery alright."
"And I assure you, it is one no man has, or ever fully will, solve. Not even me." Benoit softly intoned, baring a pained expression of his own.
Toby measured Benoit aknew with his gaze, as if the revelation that the great detective was also a family man had in someway altered his appearance.
"Though, do bear in mind, I didn't have the most exemplar of upbringings." Blanc muttered, his lashes fluttering against a curl of smoke that shifted with the winds to waft back across his face.
"You too then?" Toby asked.
"Me too." Benoit confirmed with a slow, thoughtful nod. "Me too."