AN: Hello people! This is my first Murdoch Mysteries fic, but, as my stupid country won't let the show air until the end of the season, the little clips I have been getting have been driving me insane! So here it is; a little drabble-esque thingie of my own creation! Oh yah and PS, I don't own anything, (of course… well except for the words and stuff, but not the characters or story line or any of that stuff!)
Detective William Murdoch sat hunched over his desk, half asleep in melancholy dreaming, watching the rain as it rolled leisurely in its path down the window. Dr Francis had it all wrong; he had it worse than wrong.
The infuriating little man figured that he could just traipse in and ignore basic pathologist protocol. He claimed to know what he was doing, yet Julia, with only a picture and scant evidence, could piece together a viable, and often correct, portrait of a victims last hours; from Buffalo.
Murdoch clenched his fists on the desk just thinking of the mistakes Francis had made recently. His mistakes were elementary and sloppy. Higgins could have made more intelligent observations with no practice in the field.
Brakenried blamed him for the problems at the station; threatening his job. So much for finding a place to belong, Murdoch thought bitterly. George had been adamant about his taking leave to visit the Falls, claiming, with one of his usual stories, that his aunt Jess had spent five weeks in their presence and watched her melancholy slip right away.
Maybe he did need a vacation, he thought. He found himself growing increasingly agitated with the men, and even George found himself on the receiving end of certain angry expletives from time to time.
He had kept the ring hoping that Julia would come back, waiting patiently like a puppy dog for his master to come home from work. It had been months, and he found that Julia's letters had become less as her new life settled, little knowing that her correspondence was like food to him; essential and, when lacking, unbearable.
He had lost weight the last months, and he noticed with an agitated sigh one morning that none of his trousers fit him around the waist, preferring instead to find a comfortable position more around his ankles. His weight was not the only thing to be affected, however. While he continued to excel at his job to the best of his abilities, he found sleep to be a desired, but for the most part impossible, companion.
To pick up slack for Dr Francis, he had been forced to spend countless midnight hours scouring over books, and the occasional corps, to prove his often protested theories and solutions, saving the skin of not only himself and the doctor, but often of unwitting suspects who the doctor was more than willing to see hang if it meant he could carry on with his bodies, which, he had so eloquently said, "had a habit of dying, sometimes in bunches."
The case he had been plumbing away at, coincidentally, involved people dying in "bunches," so, he figured, the work would be enjoyable to Francis.
It was a rather simple case, really. The bodies of three men had turned up in a creek outside Toronto near a small log cabin, owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Deschamps, unfriendly hermits with a nasty collection of guns matching the bullets in the men's wounds. All that was left was to decide who had committed the crime.
Murdoch was sure that it was one of them, but positive it was not both. Mrs. Deschamps claimed that her husband, in a booze-fueled fit of rage, killed the men who, in his inebriated state believed to be his wife's lovers, and promptly passed out in the woods nearby with a nasty head wound. Mr. Deschamps, however, claimed that the wound was from his wife, muttering that she had a great gift for throwing rather heavy objects, like bricks, with astounding accuracy.
He claimed his wife had set him up, intent on stealing his "fortune" and "fine estate" if he went to jail, and held fast to his story that "the old hag" had come up behind him and smashed the said bricks over his head, knocking him unconscious. "I was sober as a judge, I was," he said in a solemn voice when asked about his state that night.
One thing was sure, though. Either it was a fit of rage over "lovers," or it was a sloppy and badly played-out attempt at gaining the pennies that the husband owned, and that the wife desired. It just left to be figured which one it was. They were both in custody, in different cells, and Murdoch could hear them from down the hall, bickering loudly and cussing each other.
A clap of thunder rent the air as he roused himself from his semi-conscious state, causing him to jerk violently in fright, upending his papers on the floor. He bent to pick them up, but wacked his head against the top of the desk when a familiar voice said, "Hello, Sir. I thought you might like some tea, with the weather and all."
Murdoch was about to reply rather crossly, but, finding his patience, pulled out from under the desk and said, "My god, George, it must be midnight. Why are you still up?" George was soaking wet, his hair falling across his face in damp strands and coat thoroughly saturated with the stuff. Under his arm he held a thermos, and in the light it showed that his nose was very red from his walk to the station.
"Well sir," his innocently kind young protégé replied, "I simply didn't feel right about leaving you here. I mean, sir, with all the extra work you have been piling on to compensate for that dunderhead Dr. Francis—,"
"Who calls him that?" Murdoch demanded sharply.
"Well, everyone, sir," Crabtree said, slightly taken aback, "we all see how he overtaxes you and bungs up continually. I mean, if he wasn't from Scotland Yard, I'm sure the Inspector himself would have no qualms about sacking him."
"That has been bothering me," Murdoch replied, coming to take the supplies from his friend, "If he is from Scotland Yard and has had so much experience dealing with murders and such, why does he give so little regard for our cases? Is it that he believes our policing to be beneath him?"
"Or is it that he never worked for Scotland Yard at all?" Crabtree finished the question with a quizzical turn of his eyebrows.
"No, no," Murdoch shook his head, "I thought of that; he has credentials, references, certificates; the lot."
"Well perhaps he is like Orgille," Crabtree suggested, pouring an amount of tea into the thermos lid and handing it to his boss, "first killing the real Dr. Francis to impersonate him, then carrying it out… think of it, sir. It would not be the newest or oddest occurrence ever."
"Impersonating a pathologist, George?" Murdoch asked skeptically, taking a sip of the tea. He promptly gagged and spat it out into the cup. Making a face, he looked up at Crabtree and said, "George, what is this?"
"Oh, a special brew, sir," he replied in a jolly voice, "My aunt Myrtle taught me how to make it. Just mix up an orange peel, rose hips and a few worm segments and there you go—," Murdoch gulped and pushed the cup down on his desk, placing it away from him with delicate horror.
"At any rate, we should both be off to bed," Murdoch reasoned, ducking back under his desk, gathering the fallen papers. "We have a full day ahead of us tomorrow."
"Sir?" Crabtree asked, taking Murdoch's vacated cup and downing the contents. Murdoch could have sworn he felt his eye twitch when Crabtree finished the cup and refastened the lid of the canister.
"We all must sleep well if we are to survive another day of the doctor's idiocy and that couple's bickering." Crabtree nodded, and pulled a small package from his greatcoat pocket, handing its contents to Murdoch, who eyed it suspiciously.
"A donut," Crabtree clarified, "from Betty's. She makes the best ones I have ever tasted." Betty was Crabtree's new beau, a cute brunette with frizzy hair that framed her face like a halo and bright hazel eyes, the color of changing leaves in the fall, as an enamored Crabtree had once put it.
Murdoch bit into the treat, and, finding it quite delicious, scoffed it down in a few swift bites, as he had not eaten since the morning. After that, he himself gathered his things, wiping his hands on his trousers as he adjusted his own coat and hat against what he knew would be a tempest awaiting him outdoors.
"Ready?" Crabtree asked at the door, wind lashing cold rivers of water across his face.
"Ready," Murdoch affirmed. "George?" He asked.
"Yes sir?"
"You were kidding when you mentioned the segmented worms, weren't you?"
AN: I will add more soon, I hope, but in the meantime, R&R! Tell me what you think. Yes, I know I put in Mature, but it gives me a little slack for future chapters.