When he got to the scene, Lestrade pounced on him. "We've been waiting almost an hour. You know, Sherlock, I stick my neck out for you two in these investigations. My team's been milling around waiting for you. Thankfully John's been here poking about. He's trying to look at things, but honestly, he doesn't do what you do, does he?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes at the Detective Inspector. "He's learned a great deal, Lestrade. He'll probably tell me everything he's managed to observe."
"Where were you anyway? John said you were stopping in for a coffee and would be here any minute."
"I got distracted," Sherlock began. Something inside him wanted to confess he'd been sideswiped by a ridiculous fascination for another person. A romantic fascination at that! But, he couldn't bring himself to say the words out loud. Perhaps he'd never be able to say them.
Lestrade watched him a moment with an odd expression on his face. "See what you can make of the scene, would you?"
"What has the Yard discovered?" Sherlock asked trying not to let the contempt he felt for Lestrade's team leak into his voice.
"We found a white female, 31, lying in an alley near a skip. We've identified her as Alexandria Medford. She'd just come out of a nearby shop where she'd just purchased almost 500 pounds worth of stuff; it was the salesperson who identified her. She'd been carrying an armload of bags. She comes from a wealthy family near Sussex. As far as we can tell, she was shopping along this street when she was robbed and murdered in broad daylight. However, no one has seen a thing and this alley is one of the few blind spots in London. No CCTV. And, no murder weapon. I'd like to get anything you have."
Sherlock nodded and left him to walk over to the taped off area. A woman's body lay stretched on her side near a skip in an alley. The buildings nearby were primarily upscale businesses. The woman was attractive and dressed in expensive clothes, covered with a designer coat. She was, however, missing her shoes. Her bare feet sported an expensive pedicure. She looked as if she had fallen face first then tried to roll over a bit. Her head had been bashed in with a heavy, blunt object and a pool of blood had collected under her neck and shoulders. The contents of her handbag lay near her outstretched hand. It looked as if the assailant had simply upturned the bag and let the items spill everywhere. Sherlock noted several prescription pill bottles among the cosmetics, wadded up tissues and loose change.
The detective approached the body stepping carefully. John stood a few feet away in the ubiquitous, blue protective gear Lestrade forced his team to wear. He took a moment to watch the doctor as he approached him. His partner and best friend looked over his shoulder as he approached and smiled. His face radiated relief at Sherlock's arrival. Sherlock felt a pang. He hadn't meant to make him wait so long.
"Where've you been?" John asked. "I've been standing here looking like an idiot for the better part of an hour."
"Sorry," Sherlock said. "I got held up." What was wrong with him today. First, young Carter got under his skin, and now he'd cared about John's feelings than the perfectly good crime right in front of him. He wondered briefly if he were growing a brain tumor.
"Held up?" John asked. "What held you up?"
Sherlock found he couldn't answer. He hadn't been held up by anything tangible, simply a desire, and didn't think he could explain himself anyway. He sighed and looked at his feet. How could he convey to his mostly straight flat mate about the little jitter of pleasure he felt thinking about Carter's saucy wink?
John watched him a moment letting the puzzlement at Sherlock's silence show on his face. "What do you think of this, then?" he asked finally.
"Tell me, Doctor," he said already knowing what John would say, "What kind of condition those prescriptions treat?"
"From what I could see, she's got three different types of seizure-controlling meds. Going by the types and dosages, she had severe epilepsy. We can't know for sure without looking at her medical records…"
"Solved it," Sherlock said.
"What?" John said gaping at him. "You solved it? Sherlock, are you sure."
"Of course, I'm sure," Sherlock said as he scanned the scene again noting the woman's house keys sported a Chanel symbol. The backward-forward "C" unmistakable.
Sherlock waved Lestrade over. "You're looking for a couple of teenagers or young adults in their early twenties. The victim came out of this store carrying an armload of very expensive items in bags. She probably had a grand mal seizure and fell here near this skip. She'd have been incapacitated for some minutes."
Lestrade looked at John for confirmation. "It's possible," John said shrugging. Her meds indicate she had epilepsy."
"She fell here, and a pair of teens happened to be passing by at the time. Most likely a boy and a girl. But, instead of helping her, they noticed her expensive gear and began helping themselves to her handbag, her shoes, and her shopping. Going by the amount of money she spent on her outfit, and her Chanel keyring, I'm sure her handbag and shoes would have fetched a couple of thousand pounds on the secondary market."
Lestrade shook his head and rubbed a callused hand through his hair. "How do you figure about the skateboard?"
"Here," Sherlock pointed at two track marks on the pavement near the skip. "These are fresh, only a few hours old. The boy had been riding it down the sidewalk and turned into the alley when he saw your victim lying near the skip. It rained last night so marks like these wouldn't have lasted long. Only" here Sherlock hesitated.
"Only what, Sherlock" John prompted.
Sherlock shook himself and continued. He turned to John as he said, "Her seizure didn't last long. She began recovering and tried to push herself up onto her feet. I believe one of them panicked, picked up the skateboard and hit her over the head to knock her out. Only they hit her too hard."
"Incredible," John said. "How do you know there were two?"
"Educated guess. The teenaged girl would have been more likely to have known the value of the woman's shoes and handbag. The boy would have been riding the skateboard, and most likely had the strength to hit the woman hard enough to kill her. I believe this is a crime of convenience, and I don't think this pair would have attacked the woman had she not been venerable and seizing."
"If that's true," Lestrade said with a look of both amazement and horror on his face. "I can't wait to haul this pair in. This is a new low; that's for sure."
"Indeed," Sherlock said, and secretly reflected the woman's need to flaunt her excessive wealth to all who knew about such things might have had some hand in her attack. But regardless, no one should have to die in an alley over a pair of shoes and a handbag.
"Use CCTV to see if you can see a young pair with a skateboard carrying bags leaving this area," he advised Lestrade.
"Donovan," Lestrade yelled moving toward his milling team. "I've got a job for you."
"Come on, John," Sherlock said walking briskly away from the scene. "Before he makes us help him."
"Don't you want to finish this and find them?" John asked falling into step beside him.
"Why? I've solved the crime. The rest is just watching CCTV video and applying facial recognition software. Tedious."
"All right then, if we're done here, tell me why you were late?" John said suddenly halting and putting a hand on Sherlock's arm. "You seem a bit more out of sorts than usual."
"I'm not "out of sorts," John," Sherlock said petulantly.
"So, you're not going to tell me?"
"I got a coffee," he said pointedly. "That's all. Oh, and I got you this," he said remembering the blueberry muffin in his pocket. He pulled it out and handed it over.
John peered into the bag. "A slightly bashed blueberry muffin. How thoughtful. Aren't these your favorite?" he asked tilting his head to the left. John used this particular gesture, Sherlock observed, when he was trying to sort out a possible lie. Was he trying to deceive John?
"I participated in a conversation," he began and started walking toward the end of the street.
John's eyebrows shot up into his fringe. "Did you?" John said hurrying to catch up, "With who?"
"With a fellow in Speedy's café. I got into a conversation with someone in Speedy's, and I lost track of the time," he explained noticing how his heart rate had sped up.
"What about? Sherlock, why you being so cryptic?"
"John, I…" he began and then decided not to reveal it afterward. "I've got an experiment at Barts I'd like to check on."
"I have a shift at the clinic in an hour. I'll see you tonight, afterward. Maybe we can celebrate?" John asked hopefully.
Eating out, a standard reward for solving a case didn't sound appealing to Sherlock this time. The case had taken him minutes to solve, and his mind already flitted back to his strange morning. "This was barely a 2, John. Hardly worth celebrating," he said distracted by thoughts of a certain volunteer fireman.
"Oh," John said his face falling slightly. Again Sherlock felt guilty. Why should it bother him at all if he'd disappointed John? There'd be other cases, much better cases, and they could celebrate those, right?
"Yeah, maybe another time, then?" he said. "I'm going to head to the clinic a bit early and catch up on some paperwork."
"See you later, then," Sherlock said as John headed towards the nearest tube station. As he watched the doctor go, he wondered how much longer John would want to solve cases with him. If you'd asked him yesterday, Sherlock would have said with certainty, forever. But today, he wondered if the thrill of the chase would keep John Watson interested and felt a second flutter in his belly. This one, however, was not so pleasant. This one felt more like panic.