How to Play a Game Called Murder

Chapter 42: Reviewing the Facts

Molly pulled on her gloves with practiced ease, her hands shaking ever so slightly.

Sherlock and Lestrade watched from a couple chairs positioned several feet away from the bodies to avoid any stray splatters of blood.

All three were silent, the events of the day wearing their nerves raw, as Molly began examining the two bodies found in her favorite café.

"Wait, so explain this to me again?" John sat in the spare chair in Molly's tiny office, his head in his hands.

Molly lifted her head up from where it had fallen back to allow her neck to rest a bit. She peered over at John from her spot behind her desk, having to sit up straighter to see over the Detective Inspector in front of her. Lestrade was literally laying across the top of the work surface, his hands folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling in contemplation.

Sherlock was nowhere to be seen.

"Greg? Help me out here?" Molly asked, prodding him in the ribs with one finger. He giggled, flailing for a moment, before regaining his control and giving her a playfully evil glare. Molly grinned at his reaction but sobered quickly and he did the same, turning his head to look at John.

"Alright, well, once upon a time, long before you came into the picture, it was the three of us solving crimes. Well, to be honest, I just found the crimes. They did the solving," Lestrade said, referring to Molly and Sherlock, his eyes once again in the ceiling.

"But there's a beginning to everything and our particular beginning was about eight years ago. I'd found Sherlock, high as a kite, in a back alley. On the way to drop him off at the police station, I got called to a crime scene. When we got there, I left him in the back of the squad car but the bloody idiot picked the cuffs and instead of running away, he showed up right next to me and started spouting off all kinds of shite about the bodies."

John laughed. "Yeah that sounds like Sherlock alright."

Lestrade grunted. "Well yeah. So it was obvious that he wasn't just making it up, so I had him accompany me here to get the autopsy report. While we were here, Mycroft called and cleared him to work with me. Of course at the time, I had no idea who 'the British Government' was. Frankly, it was a bit frightening."

"I was still in residency then," Molly interjected. "But the overseeing Pathologist was sick in the bathroom and hadn't come out for hours so I had to do both examinations as well as the four that followed over the next few days."

"Six total, all killed the exact same way. Sherlock never worked with anyone but our girl again," Lestrade said proudly, making Molly blush and swat his arm.

"Ok but what does that have to do with what was found today?" John asked, not getting the connection.

Greg and Molly stared at John, the former sitting upright so he could better see the army doctor.

"The bodies that were found today were killed in the exactly like those were. I mean exactly."

"Well, that could be a coincidence, right?" John asked, hopefully.

Molly stood as Greg chuckled. "Let me show you something John." She beckoned for him to follow her into the morgue. "You coming Greg?"

"No, thank you. Once is enough for me. I'm just fine right where I am," he said, laying back down on the desk.

Molly grinned before pulling out the bodies and uncovering them. "See what I mean, John?"

John took one look and nearly lost his lunch.

"What the hell is that?!" he exclaimed, before clamping a hand over his mouth and turning slightly green.

"That," Molly said matter-of-factly, "is the trademark style of our serial killer. There are always two bodies. They are killed one day with a combination of poisons injected in the buttocks, then meticulously hacked apart the next day with the limbs reattached to the other body. Sherlock couldn't make head nor tails of it back then."

"And now?" John glanced around the morgue, as if expecting the detective to pop out from behind a box of gloves.

Greg sauntered up behind them. "He disappeared right after Molly confirmed that everything was the same as the old murders. We haven't seen him since."

"How long ago was that?" John asked, incredulously.

"Um…" Lestrade glanced down at his watch. "A little over an hour now."

"And you have no idea where he went."

Molly and Greg shook their heads simultaneously, concern shining in Molly's eyes and annoyance in Greg's.

"Alright, I gotta get going." The Detective Inspector nodded at Molly and John before turning to stroll out of the morgue doors, letting them swing shut behind him.

The pathologist and the army doctor looked at each other for a minute.

"Come on Molly, I'll take you home," John offered, lightly grabbing Molly's elbow.

She nodded at him, then jerked her head in the direction of her office. "Let me just get my purse."

Four hours later, and still no sign of Sherlock.

Molly, John, and Mary were all in the sitting room of 221B examining the autopsy reports for the old and new deaths.

Molly was staring at a piece of paper where she had listed the victims in order of death in hopes of seeing some new data that would link them together somehow.

December 11th 2005 - Miranda O'Reilly, female, Irish, 29. Renzo Iglesias, male, Spanish, 24.

January 3rd 2006 - Andrea Reddison, female, English, 38. Theresa Yarbro, female, English, 21.

January 18th 2006 - Alexander Nelson, male, English, 44. Daniel Madern, male, American, 32.

This morning - Orlando Rodriguez, male, Peruvian, 26. Alicia Newson, female, English, 56.

She pursed her lips, her brow furrowing in concentration.

There were no shared traits amongst the victims. They were all ages, both sexes, different nationailities, no pattern in their names or behavior. Nothing.

Sherlock paced back and forth, his hands behind his back. He was currently at the coffee shop where the last two bodies were discovered. He'd scoured the place again for something, anything, that would point him in the right direction, but it had been a fruitless search.

He ran his hands through his hair, exasperated, collapsing to the ground in a heap.

This was the only case he'd ever not been able to figure out and it had driven him nuts for years. Now, it was back again and he was no closer to solving it.

Sherlock was furious.

It was obvious now that it was somehow connected to whoever had been tormenting him and Molly. Sherlock's hands balled into a fist, his breathing rapid. If it was connected to the enemy, which he had no doubts about, that meant that this had all been planned for a very long time. Possibly ever since Sherlock had tried to solve the murder of Carl Powers.

He fought back an involuntary shudder. He'd never tried to attract attention. Not even when he'd had nothing important to him. If he lost now, Sherlock had so much to lose.

A best friend and his wife and child, another friend in Lestrade (though Sherlock was still rather irked with him for his attentions to Molly,) Mrs. Hudson who was almost a mother to him, and Molly. Sherlock knew that if their enemy was going to target anyone, it would be the woman he loved. Mycroft had upped the number of agents watching her to four but Sherlock still worried.

To that end, he got to his feet and walked out of the café, hailing the first cab he saw and giving instructions to Baker Street.