Clean Up Duty
"Greg?"
"Sally."
The voice was strained and drawn, and Sally was just able to make out the sound of people moving in the background, their voices overlapping each other. It didn't take great powers of deduction to hear the panic.
"I'm not on duty!" she protested into the phone, earning herself a few strange looks from the other supermarket patrons. "Just because you" don't have a life outside your work "are at a crime scene—yes, I know where you are, Greg, I've been at enough to recognize the sound—does not mean that you can drag me!"
If it had been anyone else, Sally would have sworn in court that his next words came out with a tremor.
"St. Bart's. Now, Sally. Do it for me."
The phone went dead, leaving the sergeant without someone to argue with. Sally returned it to her purse, her mouth becoming a thin line. She set down her basket of food and ran towards the exit.
Twenty minutes later, she got out of a cab, flashing her badge in response to the poor cabbie's ask for payment. He probably wouldn't have bought into it if not for the fact that the pavement in front of St. Bart's had been transformed into a crime scene. A line of yellow tape was barely visible through the crowd of onlookers, which a young officer was trying without much luck to disband.
"All right, all right, go home!" she said, shouldering her way though the crowd. "I said, move it!"
At that, the crowd dispersed somewhat. Sally allowed herself a small, satisfied grin. Even in her Saturday worst, Sally Donovan got the job done.
"What's this about, then?" she asked Greg, joining him at the edge of the tape.
She was used to bloody scenes, but God that was a lot of blood. She shielded her eyes as she tipped her head back to look at the roof, and then back down at the red stain. It would be gone the next day, invisible but to those who would be unable to wipe it from their minds.
"Suicide. Simple as that." Then her eyes narrowed. "No, wait. Let me guess. The Freak thinks he was pushed because the stain is the wrong shape."
Greg sent her a dark look at that. It was only then that Sally got the full appreciation for the tiredness in his eyes. His shoulders were slumped forward despite what looked like a valiant effort to straighten them. His hair was more frightfully tousled then it was even after a case solved at four o clock in the morning with only coffee to keep him going.
"He's not—Sherlock isn't on this case."
His gaze darted towards the ambulance. Sally followed his eyes to find John Watson sitting in its open mouth. That in itself wasn't unusual, but the lack of everyone's least favorite consulting detective was.
"Why's John here? What's going on?"
She took a closer look at the doctor. A bright orange shock blanket was tucked securely around his shoulders, and for once, John wasn't trying to struggle out from underneath it. He simply stared, eyes vacant, at the spot on the otherwise unblemished concrete. The pieces slowly formed in Sally's mind.
"Why is John here without the Fr—"
"Don't," Greg said in the voice he usually reserved for uncooperative criminals in an interrogation.
And slowly, the pieces fell into place. Sally glanced uncertainly from John to the rooftop and then at last to the nightmarish scene written on the pavement.
"Greg…he's not on the case…he is the case."
He nodded once, his face crumpling at last. He wasn't just the DI at the scene of a suicide. He was the friend wondering why. Sally had the same question. What had the Freak said of psychopaths again and again? They want an audience, recognition for their 'achievements.' The Sherlock Holmes Sally knew wouldn't pitch himself off a building after all of this.
"He doesn't feel remorse," Sally said, and it was a few seconds before she realized she'd said it aloud.
Greg wouldn't meet her eyes, though the slight catch of his breath told her he was angry. Instead, he pulled out his phone and checked the time.
"Molly Hooper can't see this. Explain to her what's happened, call her a cab and send her home. Then come out here."
She nodded and headed for the morgue. Out of the corner of her eye, a black car pulled up and the British Government himself stepped out, blinking in the sunlight.
Sally pulled open the door. Molly jumped about six inches, eyes wide.
"It's only me, sorry."
"Thought you might be someone else," Molly said, primly replacing the chemicals she'd nearly knocked over.
The open trust in Molly's face made Sally's gut wrench. She might not think too highly of the Fre—Holmes, but Molly thought the world of him.
"Is something wrong?"
"Molly…someone jumped off the roof?"
Molly clapped her hand over her mouth and sank into her chair, eyes wide.
"Who?" When Sally didn't answer her, she repeated herself. "Who jumped off the roof?"
The words stuck in her throat. "The world's only consulting detective."
Molly didn't move, didn't make a sound. Tears slipped down her ridged cheeks. She stared straight ahead, the same wordless, infinite grief that Sally had seen in John reflected in the pathologist.
"Was he pushed?" Molly asked, finally drawing her hand away from her mouth long enough to speak. "Or..?"
Sally was shocked at how fast the lie jumped to her lips. "We don't know yet. I've called you a cab, and Lestrade's already told your boss."
Molly nodded. Sally walked over and awkwardly patted her am. Within moments, Molly had buried her face in Sally's coat and started sobbing. Sally let her, until, five minutes later, she was free of tears.
"Thank you, Sally," she said, her voice choked. "You ought to—get out there and find out—find out what's happened."
Sally walked the other woman out the door and quickly past the crime scene tape to the waiting cab. Molly kept her eyes steadfastly ahead.
A nod to the retreating cab later, and Sally found herself at Greg's side once again.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
He took a deep breath and dragged his fingers through his bedraggled hair.
"I'm fine. Come on."
They had to pass the ambulance on their way into the hospital. John made to get up, but a hard look from Greg stopped him in his tracks. He responded by tucking the blanket tighter around himself and setting his jaw.
"Come on," Greg said, nudging another person.
Anderson. Sally offered him a stiff nod and the two accompanied Greg up to the rooftop.
"What the—" Anderson began.
Greg swore, turning away from the scene, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. Sally knew that the man was dead, but she couldn't help herself from running over and checking his pulse. Unnerved by the madness still clinging to his gaze, Sally shut his eyes.
Greg kept swearing under his breath, somehow stringing the words together into coherent sentences.
"Creative note," Sally said drily. "But then, I didn't expect anything else. It's Richard Brooks."
Sally didn't' have any difficulty seeing what had happened. Brooks and Holmes had gotten into an argument over something—most likely Brooks's betrayal. Holmes had pulled the trigger, then jumped rather than face the rest of his life in a boring prison cell.
"It's not."
Anderson wrapped his arms around himself and looked down his nose at Brooks's body.
"Of course it is—"
"His name," Anderson said in a low voice, "is Jim Moriarty."
Sally threw up her arms. The world had gone made. Anderson was defending the Freak, Greg was losing his mind and the great Sherlock Holmes had gone and thrown himself off a building.
"I'm not on duty," she said, turning on her heel and walking away.
Neither man attempted to call her back.