THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT
By Midnight Rose 1994
Part 5
“Darkness stirs and wakes imagination…”
---Phantom, Act One, Scene Five.
The December night is bitter cold and still. Too still. Nature sleeps in its frozen blanket dreaming of Spring’s first warm breath. The endless rows of long, narrow city homes sit quietly, their heart and hearth glowing warm with light. The smell of smoke wafts in the air, even the breeze is too cold to blow.
The streets are deserted despite the nine o‘clock evening hour. His feet are eager to set foot on sidewalks not his to tread. No. The shadows wisely hold him in their protective cloak like invisible chains. He is not foolish to walk so boldly, yet he yearns. The lit streets of this city will never be for him.
A flash of headlights, a familiar car---a familiar presence fills his mind. She is close. How did she know he walked here this winter night? The simple sight of such beauty warms his bones growing numb in the chill.
A stirred breeze whispers her beloved name. Hear me within the silent voice of your heart! Come to me! Warm me with your smile, your voice, and the love in your eyes---your kiss.
Lo, she does not hear. Danger is near. She can sense it as she steps up on the wooden porch and raps on the door. The panic that she is too late and the fear for another cries out from her heart. She knows he is near. She takes courage from his unseen presence knowing what she must do.
His feet take him swiftly to the rear of the same dwelling, to the only lit window, to the angry voice, and the pitiful cries inside. He peers inside like a snoop or robber---he is neither. Anger burns in his soul spreading its flame through him as he watches a hand come smashing down on a fear-filled face. The hand rises again and takes pause.
The mirror across the room is the bridge between his world and the forbidden one of light. Yes, see me! Feel me! Be afraid! I, of the shadows have seen your cruelty and I am the silent witness to your hard-hearted crime. Feel my anger and be afraid!
***
“Angel of darkness…Cease this torment…”
---Raoul, Act Two, Scene Five.
The office Christmas party was, in Catherine’s opinion, a bust. She stayed long enough to be polite and then excused herself.
Catherine was worried about Dana Kenworth. Joseph was a free man because Dana would not press charges against her husband. The restraining order was not a guarantee against further abuse. Dana was home alone and emotionally vulnerable, a prime target for more abuse from Joseph.
As she parked her car on the street in front of the Kenworth’s modest city home, her worst fear was realized. Two houses down and parked on the opposite side of the street was a red Honda belonging to Joseph Kenworth. Catherine had to keep herself from running up the four porch steps to the door and pounding it down. She rang the doorbell and prayed.
Joseph was a deceptively charming fellow and Dana would not have hesitated to let him in the door. Dana did not know how to stand up to him or defend herself. Catherine felt like a parent with a stubborn child. She cared too much about Dana to let Joseph continue to torture her with his empty promises and angry hand. In the few short years as a DA, Catherine had seen too many abuse cases end with a funeral.
Catherine impatiently pounded on the door again and listened for any sound on the other side. “Dana…It’s Cathy Chandler!”
There was a muted, “Just a minute” and hurried movement to the door. A fumbling of chains and the click of a lock preceded the opening of the heavy door and the puffy face of Dana Kenworth appeared. The woman would not even look at Catherine, her eyes downcast.
Without any warning, Catherine grabbed Dana by the arm and pulled her out on the porch. “What are you doing?” Dana cried as Catherine marched the woman down the shoveled stairs and walkway without a coat or shoes to protect Dana from the sub-zero temperature.
Catherine opened the passenger-side door of her car. “Saving you from him and yourself. Get in!”There was barely contained anger in her voice. Dana obeyed without a second thought or a look back as the sounds of a madman and breaking glass echoed in the bowels of the house behind them.
***
“Let me be your shelter…Let me be your light…Your safe…”
---Raoul, Act One, Scene Ten.
“Thank you, Detective. ”Catherine set the phone receiver in its cradle. This would be Joseph Kenworth’s last night on the streets---with or without Dana’s cooperation. She was filing charges against Joseph and she would testify as a witness to the abuse.
Catherine crossed her tiny apartment from her bedroom to the narrow kitchen. Filling two mugs with fresh brewed coffee, she set them on a tray and turned to the living room. Dana sat in the loveseat closest to the bedroom doors, a defeated heap wrapped in a power-blue blanket and nursing a bump on the back of her head with a bag of ice. The young DA sat down beside her frail guest and offered a steaming mug without a word.
“Thank you,” Was the withered reply for the coffee.
Catherine sat back with a sigh and sipped her coffee in the uneasy silence.
She had had few words to say to Dana on the trip home and in offering the comfort of her own home. She used the trip to cool her anger and to carefully choose the words to say to the broken woman. Two things she had learned from Vincent, one was to step back, take a deep breath, and try to see the situation from the other person’s point of view and second, choose the right words before you speak.
What could she say to Dana that had not already been said?Her initial anger at Dana’s foolishness for letting Joseph in the house in the first place had passed. She could not be angry with Dana, who had suffered years of emotional, mental, and physical abuse and instinctively cowered and submitted to her husband’s every whim. It was the only way Dana knew she could survive. He had crushed her spirit; she no longer had any self-esteem or sense of self-worth. The only thing that kept her going was her love for her husband and the hope that he would someday change.
The time to be sensitive to Dana’s hollow emotional state was over. Catherine had to make the woman see that her husband would never change and that Dana had a duty to herself to punish Joseph and reclaim her spirit.
“So…There was a knock at your door and before you opened it you knew who was standing there,” Catherine began coldly, breaking the silence. She stated this as fact without sounding cruel or sarcastic.
Dana stared into her coffee mug.
“What was his excuse? What was his promise that made you let him in? Did he come to gather his belongings…or did he bring a Christmas gift with a huge apology attached?” Catherine’s voice was husky, almost a whisper, holding an edge.
“He brought a red silk nightgown. ”Dana’s voice was small.
“He wanted to come back. ”
The bruised and battered woman slowly nodded.
Catherine continued her scenario. Too many abuse cases went like this. “You let him in…He made small talk…He was very, very nice, a perfect Prince Charming. But it did not last, you did something that made him mad…” Catherine’s voice slowly rose like the approach of a menacing storm.
Dana was still as death.
“He mentioned the police arresting him and asked if you had done it…if you called them. ”
Tears began to flow down the swollen cheeks darkened by bruises.
“When Joseph gets mad at you…he hits you. No. When Joseph gets mad at anything…he hits you. He hits you for no reason…just hits. ” Catherine stated.
“No. ” Dana whispered through a sob, holding her head in her hands, trying not to hear what the DA investigator was saying.
“Tonight, Joseph hit you again. Tonight, he hit you AFTER he promised to never, NEVER, hit you again…Didn’t he?”
More tears and Dana began to rock in her seat sobbing.
“Didn’t he!” Catherine demanded. If Dana would just admit this out loud, it could be a turning point.
“YES!”
Catherine continued, “Why do you hold on to Joseph’s broken promises? Why do you let him keep hitting you…yelling at you…treating you like a piece of trash? Why? Do you like it?” She took a deep breath. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life fearing that Joseph will hurt you again? He almost killed you, Dana. He put you in the hospital, intensive care. Are you waiting for him to kill you? He will kill you! Joseph will not stop beating you until you are DEAD! Do you want to die, Dana? Do you!”
“NO!” Dana cried out, sobs racked her slim, battered body. “Stop! Please stop!” The poor woman was doubled over, her head in her hands, wailing and crying uncontrollably.
Catherine brushed the tears from her own eyes. Her heart went out to the poor helpless woman, she knew her words inflicted deep pain. Catherine wanted to reach out and hold Dana, to comfort her and carry away all her hurt and hopelessness, but she had to stand firm.
It took many minutes before Dana’s sobbing quieted.
Catherine’s voice was softer now, “Dana, help me stop Joseph from ever hurting you again. ”
Dana shook her head. “No. ” she whispered, barely audible.
“Why won’t you help me? Why won’t you stop him?” Catherine pleaded. What invisible thread of power still held Dana in Joseph’s iron fist? Why was Dana afraid to step through the open door of freedom and leave a life of hell behind?
“Why?”
“I love him…” Dana whispered. She looked up and their eyes locked for the first time. “I love him. . . Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Catherine carefully weighed her next words. Dana needed an answer, an answer to free her from the bonds of fear and empty love. Catherine took Dana’s hands in her own, turning the woman to face her.
Catherine smiled, “Love is the most precious and wonderful gift anyone can give to another person and receive from another person. ”Her face fell as Catherine shook her head sadly. “But, love, when it is given never hurts the one who is to receive it…I know, Joseph once loved you, Dana, but that was long ago. That love is gone and in its place is bitterness and anger---an uncontrollable rage you cannot stop. A rage so deep that your love cannot reach it. ”
Tears began to trickle down Dana’s face. She dropped her eyes.
“Joseph is angry at life and you have become an object to take his rage out on. Dana, if you love Joseph, you must help me stop him from hurting you or anyone else. I can get him professional help…but I need you to help me stop him. ”
“But I will be sending him to jail…he’ll be gone…I don’t have anyone else…I will be alone,” Dana said weakly. “I’m so afraid. ”
Catherine moved closer and put her arms around the broken woman, Dana’s head against her shoulder.
“You will live…It will be hard at first, but you are strong, Dana, and there are many, many people waiting to help you. You are not alone,” Catherine encouraged. “I will be beside you all the way. ”
Dana sat up, her tentative resolve making her stronger. She searched deep into Catherine’s green eyes, seeing truth and compassion in the beautiful DA’s steady gaze.
Dana dropped her eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this…I don’t have the strength to fight anymore,” she whispered.
Catherine lifted Dana’s chin with her hand until their eyes met again. Catherine smiled at the broken woman as the memory of words spoken to her by a beautiful, velvet voice echoed in her head as she voiced them. “You have the strength, Dana, I know you do. ”
***
“Christine, I love you…”
---Phantom, Act Two, Scene Nine.
A shadow on the balcony outside an eighteenth floor apartment moved away into the night stillness. He carried a smile on his lips and the warm glow of love in his heart.
***
“Little Lotte thought: Am I fonder of dolls…”
Or of goblins, of shoes…”
---Christine, Act One, Scene Three.
Dress rehearsals were less that a week away. Mary and her tireless crew of seamstresses kept track of each actor’s chosen wardrobe and were making sure all mending and alterations would be done in time. Simple solutions to costumes had to come from each individual’s own clothing or borrowed from a friend.
The Broadway Opera production slated six costume changes for each principle actor, but this was far beyond the ways and means of the tiny underground community that had very little in the way of extra material wealth. The tunnel’s mix-and-match layers of patchwork clothing came in very handy. To make a costume change, one had only to add or remove a coat, sweater, or shirt, with this in mind costumes were selected.
Vincent, The Phantom, would wear his best set of clothes, black slacks, white ruffled shirt, a dark-brown waist coat, black belt, and his thigh-high boots. Over this, he would wear his cloak. In the Masquerade scene, the Phantom appears as Red Death, shrouded in red and hiding his face behind a skull mask. Catherine had a wide, long red chemise shawl that Vincent could drape around his broad shoulders like a Roman citizen. One of the tunnel urchins produced a large, red, Musketeer hat complete with ostrich feather, origin unknown. Brooke supplied the two glossy white, clay masks molded for Vincent’s unique facial structure.
Catherine, as the beautiful Christine Daae, chose to use the multi-layered, multi-colored gown the women had lovingly made for her as a wedding gift. The lace strapped under-bodice was light blue with a knee length skirt of handkerchief points that would serve as her ballet dress; the other ballet girls wearing similar dresses. To this, she would add the long undershirt in angled layers of yellow and lavender in the first Act One scene transformation from ballet girl to opera diva. In later scenes, the soft pink long-sleeved top, with a yolk of fuzzy white fabric threaded with pale ribbons would be added. Catherine would drape her cape over the whole assembly for the graveyard scene in Act Two.
Raoul was a military officer and Michael remembered an old blue Calvary uniform in an old trunk that belonged to an elderly deceased tunnel founder. It was two sizes too big but perfect for the role of the young lover.
Jamie, as Carlotta, wore a simple white turtleneck sweater and a long, colorful Persian print shirt that she mixed with outrageous costume jewelry and various shawls; the more they clashed in color the better. Rebecca required no costume change as Giry; she was dressed in layers of black for the entire play.
The principle men wore their best tunnel clothing, substituting vests, sweaters, and coats in various scenes, while the rest of the cast was dressed in the similar patchwork layers unique to the underground world.
***
“Learn to see…to find the man…behind the monster…”
---Phantom, Act One, Scene Six.
“Miss Chandler. ”
Catherine looked up from her paperwork to see the rumpled and robust Detective House standing over her desk. Catherine sat back and smiled.
“Detective House, what a pleasant surprise…you just saved me the trouble of tracking you down,” she exclaimed.
House frowned; he was not in the mood for small talk. He was all business. House handed her the manila file he was carrying. “Joseph Kenworth…We picked him up last night at his home after complaints from some of the neighbors about a disturbance. Your arrest warrant came in while we were on the scene. ”
“Excellent. I am happy to tell you that his wife, Dana, will be pressing charges. ” Catherine pulled papers out of the folder and signed them where indicated.
“Good. ”
House made himself comfortable in the chair beside Catherine’s desk. “Chandler, according to your report of last night, you were only at the Kenworth house for a few minutes…correct. ”
“Yes…Maybe five. Why?”
The detective leaned forward, keeping his voice low. “You didn’t by any chance notice anything…unusual lurking in the shadows around the house or in the alley. ”
Catherine thought carefully before answering. She did not need to see Vincent to sense that he was there. “No, I don’t remember seeing anything. My main concern was getting Dana as far away from Joseph as possible. I had to act quick. ”
House shrugged.
“Why?What’s up. ”
“Oh,” House said waving his hand as if to brush off the subject, “When we arrived at the scene, Mr. Kenworth was already in police custody. They said they found him running through the house like a madman breaking windows and smashing mirrors. He kept babbling that he saw a hideous ghost or monster peering in his window. He saw only the reflection in a mirror, but it spooked him something awful. He said he felt death itself in those fiery eyes…”
Catherine raised an elegant eyebrow that said Oh really. She was well practiced to act nonchalant about subjects that involved Vincent’s hidden presence.
“When Mr. Kenworth turned around nothing was there. It scared him into a full confession. ”House sat back and ran a hand through his short salt and pepper hair. “If he hadn’t been stone drunk I would have possibly believed him—the ghost part. A drunken hallucination doesn’t make a good report for the paranormal. ”
Catherine sniffed. “Someone should give Joseph a taste of his own medicine…I hope he felt death. ”
“Don’t you wish,” House chuckled, “The Phantom should not have stopped at the window. ”
The detective meant it as a joke and Catherine laughed with him. Good. House was taking the whole Phantom case lightly. Catherine needed to laugh to hide the fact she knew more than she could ever let on. She had not been surprised by Vincent’s presence in the neighborhood. Lawrence lived around the corner from the Kenworth’s house.
“Did I hear the name-The Phantom?” Joe asked walking up with a cock-eyed grin on his smug face.
“Yeah,” House grumbled, rolling his brown eyes. “The Chief has me chasing a mysterious vigilante…I nicknamed him, The Phantom. ”
Joe’s eyes shifted devilishly to his beautiful DA investigator. “Radcliffe here, knows a Phantom. ”
“What!”Catherine’s mouth dropped open. The grin on her face denying every word.
“Right?Christine. ”Joe had been relentlessly ribbing Catherine about the Opera libretto she had mistakenly handed him.
“You know who it is?”House sat alert, thinking they were talking about his Phantom. The joke carried on at Joe’s encouraging wink at Catherine. Just then, behind the two men, Catherine spied Geoffrey, a boy from the Tunnels, delivering her lunch from Grandma Malone’s Deli. Grandma Malone was a long time Helper and employed a number of the tunnel teenagers as delivery boys.
“Sure…I know him,” Catherine said in all seriousness, she gave Geoffrey a shy smile. House readied his pen and pad.
“The Phantom is blonde, blue-eyed…” Jeffrey stood straight and tall. “He’s about four-foot six and is twelve going on thirteen. ”
House looked up, puzzled. He glared at Catherine. “You’re kidding, right. ”
“No,” Catherine insisted, “It’s true. He’s standing right behind you. ”
She grinned. House turned around and Geoffrey shyly waved a gloved hand at him. Joe was belly laughing.
“I don’t believe this,” House muttered, discovering he had been the blunt of yet another joke.
Catherine beckoned the teen forward, took the lunch bag and paid the boy. As the street kid left, Catherine let House off the hook. “Geoffrey is in a children’s Christmas production of The Phantom of the Opera. ”
“And you are his Christine?” Joe said to Catherine.
“No. I’m the director’s assistant…” she smartly replied.
House threw up his hands. “I’m out of here.” He retrieved the papers Catherine had signed, got up and left.
Catherine turned back to Joe as she stood and prepared to head to Computer Central downstairs. She thumped the stack of folders in her hands on the desk to straighten them. “…And the understudy,” She grinned wickedly.
Joe groaned. It was all part of the game they played with each other, always keeping the other off-guard and giving no peace on any petty matter.
***
“Those who have seen your face draw back in fear…
I am the mask you wear…”
“It’s me …they hear. ”
---Christine, Phantom, Act One, Scene Four.
The first full dress rehearsal came off, almost, without a hitch. The combining of scenery, transitions, music, lights, cast, and crew came together with an almost magical quality; although, it was still rough in spots. The Great Hall’s twilight atmosphere held an air of mystery and the actors found it easy to lose themselves in their roles.
The crew was caught not paying attention too. During the first Act, Vincent and Catherine were performing a scene together and when it ended, no one moved. Everyone had forgotten themselves and had been transfixed by the scene.
Vincent stood out as the magnificent Phantom amidst all the other costumed players. His flowing black cloak, golden mane, and intense blue eyes peering from behind a stark white pottery mask gave him an unsettling, but commanding presence. This effected everyone, but not as much as it did Catherine. Vincent’s Phantom manner kept catching her off guard as she sang her lines, making her absentmindedly stumble.
*
Catherine quietly retreated to Vincent’s chamber and changed from her multi-layered gown to the soft dark maroon one with its ribbon accents criss-crossed down the sleeves and the seam of the flowing skirt. She let the wide neckline fall from one curved shoulder as she brushed out her honey-brown tresses, readying for bed. Her mind was filled with tumbling thoughts that troubled her.
Vincent soon arrived and Catherine watched him move about in the reflection of the freestanding floor-length mirror. He folded his bulky cloak over the arm of the leather chair beside the lower entrance and set his Phantom mask on the small octagon table along with his director’s binder.
His gentle, calm gaze met his soulmate’s shy emeralds in the reflecting glass. He moved to stand behind her, golden and impressive. He slipped his strong arms around Catherine’s slender waist, pulling her against him. She leaned back as his head dipped and bristled lips kissed the creamy curve of her bare neck and shoulder.
“I love you,” He whispered into her silky hair, their eyes meeting in the mirror once again. Catherine smiled sweetly.
“What troubles you, my love,” his voice silk on sand.
Catherine diverted her eyes. “I don’t know exactly. ”Her towering spouse gently turned her to face him. She rested her coppery head against his hard chest, hugging him fiercely around the barrel of his ribs. She whispered back, “I’m not sure how to explain it. ”
Vincent released her as Catherine pulled back from his embrace. He moved across the room to sit on the deep green velvet day bed half buried with pillows and bathed in the apricot glow of stained glass. He instinctively knew when to give Catherine room to gather her thoughts. The bond told him many things about her tumbling thoughts but it was best if she voiced them herself.
Vincent silently watched her emerald gaze fall to the Phantom mask and she moved to the table to pick up the glossy white pottery.
“Vincent,” she said quietly after a moment of contemplation, “tonight, when I spoke Christine’s words to the Phantom…I kept feeling like I was saying them directly to you and not to the character…Does this sound strange to you?”
Thoughtfully, Vincent cocked his elegant, golden head. “No. ”
Catherine pondered this, all the while fingering the smooth lines of the pearl white mask that was cast with a hint of the leonine features of its wearer. Vincent spied the original Phantom of the Opera novel on the lamp table and reached for it.
“Tonight, it was if you and the Phantom were one in the same…Your personality blended with the character’s…” Catherine set the mask down and sighed. “ Am I making any sense?”
“Yes,” Her lifemate replied his eyes on the worn book in his large clawed hands. “The Phantom and I are very much alike, more than anyone realizes. ”He stated this as though he knew it was true.
Catherine walked around to the daybed and sank down beside her tawny husband, her brows narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I see myself in the character of the Phantom and I fully understand why he was driven to do the things he did,” Vincent said. “We are both outcasts of society and are forced to live hidden from people who fear us at face value. It was a source of bitterness in the Phantom and I would be lying if I did not admit I sometimes feel the same way. ” Vincent paused then went on. “We are both well-educated, cultured men, gentle and sensitive, but buried within the depths of our souls brews a dark and uncontrollable rage…”
“The Phantom was a cold-blooded killer,” Catherine countered.
“And I am not?” Vincent said, his piercing blue orbs met beautiful green. “When the rage of the beast consumes me, I am just as cold-hearted…I strike without thought or reason. ”Catherine was shaking her head. “Yes, Catherine, you cannot deny it is true. You have witnessed it. ”
“Vincent, you only have killed in the name of protecting those you love,” Catherine defended, “Only as a last resort…”
“The Phantom is doing the same for Christine. ”
Catherine looked puzzled. Vincent explained, “The Phantom loved Christine. She was his life, the inspiration for his music. He wanted her to achieve the fame and glory he could never possess for himself. In his own twisted mind, those who stood in the way of Christine’s rise to fame were considered a threat and he hunted them into submission…or killed to make his point clear. ”
“I don’t see that as love or protection,” Catherine said.
“Isn’t it?You see me as a sort of Phantom. ”
“I don’t know what I see,” Catherine said sadly. Her eyes dropped to her lap where she was twisting and untwisting her hands in the waist cord of her gown. “All I know is…that it hurts me to say those hateful lines in the final scene because I would never say such things to you…yet I feel like I am saying them to you…that they somehow apply. I don’t know. I’m sorry, I am babbling in circles. ”
Vincent placed one of his large, claw tipped hands over Catherine’s twisted in the waist cord of her gown. “No need to apologize, Catherine. These same thoughts have crossed my mind. I am afraid of getting so wrapped up in the role that I may go mad as he does,” Vincent revealed. “The Phantom reacts on twisted logic and I am constantly catching myself thinking the same way as I study the character and seek to understand him, to give him heart and depth. I look back on my life and for years I walked the same fine line between coherent thought and insanity. ”
Catherine understood what he meant. She had watched the war of the man and beast rage within Vincent to the point of death. Miraculously, Vincent came through the madness and found a peace within himself, became whole in mind and soul.
“Maybe, this story hits closer to home than we want to admit…We have never been…” Catherine offered, echoing the words Vincent once said of their relationship.
“Perhaps,” Vincent agreed with an elegant cock of his golden head, a gesture Catherine adored, “but there is one important factor that sets us apart…”
“What is that?” Catherine asked, her emerald gaze met shining sapphire.
“Love,” Vincent smiled. “I have grown up surrounded by those that love me for who and what I am; the Phantom did not. Paracelcus saw that if Father’s love had not intruded I could have been a raging creature. Love is a heavy weight that swings the balance of who a person becomes. ”
Catherine drank this in. “Love did win out in the end for the Phantom. He let Christine go. ”
“Yes, love did,” Vincent thumbed the yellowed pages of the Gaston Leroux tale, then set it back on the lamp table.
Catherine thought of the abused woman she was helping. “Dana Kenworth had to make the same sacrifice of letting Joseph go even though she still loves him. ”
Vincent simply smiled and nodded as he gathered Catherine into his arms and leaned back into the chaos of pillows taking her with him. They drew their legs up and snuggled together bathed in the burnished light.
Catherine rested her head against his shoulder and whispered,
“Let me be your shelter,
Let me be your light.
You’re safe:
No one will find you-
Your fears are far behind you…”
Catherine felt Vincent’s lips curl with a smile where they rested against her forehead. These were the words Raoul spoke to Christine but Catherine felt that these words were meant for her Phantom.
“Say you need me with you
Here, beside you…”
“I need you,” her golden husband said in the softest whisper. Vincent shifted to his side facing her and pulled her even closer, molding her soft curves against his hard panes of muscle. His beloved feline features were inches from hers and Catherine found herself lost in two glittering eyes quickly becoming fathomless pools of rising passion. His deep love for her bubbled like champagne within the bond that connected them. Catherine reached into his tumbling antique gold flax as he softly brushed his lips over hers. Before they melted into a long lingering kiss, Vincent breathed,
“Love me-that’s all I ask of you. ”
***
“Too long he has preyed on us-but now we know:
The Phantom of the Opera is here…”
---Mob, Act Two, Scene Nine.
December twenty-first---One afternoon left before seven well deserved days of Christmas vacation. One last round in the court battle to set a trial date for the Kenworth case. One last trip to the Investigation Department at the police station before going back to the DA’s office to put her caseload in order for seven days of limbo. One day left before Winterfest and Phantom of the Opera. Catherine was ecstatic; she could not wait for the day to be over.
When Catherine arrived at Detective House’s desk, he was taping the lid down on an office file box labeled Phantom with a ten-digit file number preceding it.
“Cleaning up for the holidays, Detective?”
“Oh hello, Chandler,” House said looking up for a second. “Yup, Cleaning up so it can collect dust. ” He thumped the file box. “McGee! Come get this box of tree pulp. ”
Catherine was relived to hear this. “Case on ice?”
House sniffed. “If you want to call it a case to begin with. This Phantom has no MO, there is no pattern to his activities, there is no hard evidence, and most of it is hearsay anyway. The Phantom could be one person or a dozen…I don’t know and I don’t care…Then just this morning the Chief adds all the bizarre mauling and mutilation cases and I said ‘forget this. ’I have better things to do then chase ghosts. Besides, some of these files date back fifteen years. ”
Catherine had to keep herself from signing with relief. A stack of disjointed files made no case, only open speculation. No one would be hunting for Vincent---even if they did, they would be wasting their time.
“Maybe the box should be marked Leftovers. ” Catherine proposed eyeing the file number and committing it to memory.
House chuckled, “We have enough of them without this Phantom. ”House sat down in his chair, leaned back, and laced his hands behind his head. “I say, let the public have their Phantom if they believe he is out there. At least his legend is making the criminal element think twice. ”
Catherine smiled as she agreed with a nod. “The masses could use a friend out there. ”
Balancing his coffee in one hand and a mound of cookies in the other, House’s partner McGee returned from the refreshment table across the room; its surface this morning piled with Christmas cookies rather the usual bagels and donuts. He greeted Catherine with a cheery “Merry Christmas” and was promptly sent off to the file room with the Phantom box.
“Yeah, right,” House snorted. He sat up and put on his rough business air. “So, what can I do for you? I know you aren’t here to discuss the Phantom…or spread any Christmas cheer. ”
“No, I’m not…on both points, Detective. ” Catherine said handing the burly House a very familiar piece of blue, tri-folded paper.
“Oh great!” House moaned.
“I came to tell you that the Kenworth case is going to trial and you and McGee have been called as prosecution witnesses…Merry Christmas. ”