Chapter 3: Counting Bodies Like Sheep

Sherlock was a realist, he knew that it was just a matter of time before the bodies started adding up. Anne Wakely's killer was obviously someone who had experience in that line of work. Therefore it was inevitable that he would be either a mercenary or a serial killer. In both cases, another one of Miss Olympia's family members was bound to be targeted. Then, they would either have more clues that would point to the murder or a body to examine.

It did not take long for the pile of bodies to start adding up.

After Anne Wakely there was Simon Barnes. His identity was confirmed by his parents. Like in Anne's case, one of his parent's was not his biological parent. In some cases that could have pointed to motive, especially when there's teenagers in the mix, but in both cases Anne and Simon were both on good terms with their step-parents.

Simon's body was found near a gym that he visited often. His throat was brutally slashed, and beyond a few bruises that he obtained when he tried to struggle, Simon had no more injuries. From the previous case this pattern seemed odd especially since Simon struggled more. Anne's body was more damaged then Simon. The odd part being that since, while the killer was hired to hunt down Miss Olympia's relatives, it was clear the killer enjoys his work.

For a second it reminded him of Moriarty and the games he liked to play, but Moriarty was dead, no point in wasting time in thinking about it.

As the murders show, the killer liked his work, and the killer prefered torturing woman more than men, though that can only be confirmed by another victim, so far it was only a coincidence.

Since Simon did struggle, he could have injured the killer which could make him more identifiable. The forensics were still testing the body but he could have bitten the killer or left some evidence at the crime scene that was yet to be identified. There was a footprint found at the crime scene which has been clearly identified but from the weight distribution it is likely the killer was not wearing his own shoe size. Sherlock was not sure if that would mark the killer as smart or as poor. If so then they would know what kind of places he hid in. Only time will tell when they establish a clear pattern.

While the killer was experienced, clearly there was a small chance that a victim survived the attack they only had to him them. Sherlock thought to remind himself to check the latest reports or even the older reports to see if there were any victims that survived and can identify the killer. He will have to do it quickly before the killer makes sure to make the victims quiet, permanently.

At the crime scene, there was blood spatter on the wall identified as Simon's. So far no blood from the killer was found. The pattern confirmed that there was a struggle so Simon must have been prepared or seen the killer at least.

No CCTV cameras were in the area near the murder. There were a few in the gym due to security and harassment issues. There were a few in various shops, after a discussion with the police, they had someone watching the videos to list all the possible people in the vicinity of the crime scene. Identifying victims seemed to be very long as some of the shops had substantial clientele. Luckily the police department had allowed for more assistance on the case due to it's inevitable long list of victims if the killer was not caught. The staff of the shops were notified to recall any suspicious or new clients who came through on that day.

As Sherlock shifted through the information in his head, he could hear John's voice faintly as he tried to get his attention. Sighing Sherlock decided to finish up his review for the time being.

"What is it," Sherlock asked.

"Glad to have you in the Land of the Living," John said sarcastically, "It has been days since we arrived in New York and you still haven't told me what is going on with Miss Olympia."

"Like I said before you would ask too many questions and I don't want you to get attached to what she had proposed," Sherlock reminded John.

"You will have to tell me someday," John warned him, "Often the things you don't tell me tend to place us in the line of fire. We've been here for days and the killer has already murdered again. This is moving along very quickly and I'm afraid I might not being able to keep up. I have Rosie now, I can't keep putting myself in danger, I can't keep putting her in danger. She is a baby, she has no idea of what's going on. She can't protect herself, and you are lying to me and that isn't doing us any favors."

"I think we both know that's not why you want to know what's going on. You miss, it. You miss the adventure and now you are trying to do both: be a father and go off on adventures and your blaming me for why you can't seem to do both adequately."

John sighed, "Now your just deflecting. You might as well know another body arrived, thought you might want to see it."

"Why didn't you start with that?" Sherlock said giving him a look.

"Then we wouldn't have had that nice chat, you would have just rushed off," John replied. "You should know that I already took a look while you were in your mind palace. The victim is Susan Moore, she was found barely recognizable with all the blood and lacerations. If I didn't know any better I would have thought Jack the Ripper is back from the dead," John remarked.

"Why's that," Sherlock asked.

"Her corpse was badly mutilated, was found in an alley, and her friend said she was a prostitute. Poor girl, the pain she must have been in," John said thoughtfully. He knew Sherlock wouldn't see the horror of the crime so much as the puzzle. Sherlock's excited attitude at a crime scene can be quite unnerving.

"I will take that into consideration when I assess the crime," Sherlock said, "if what you say was to be true it could be a copycat, though I don't see why it's of any relevance to the case we are working on."

"You'll know when you see it," John said cryptically.

At the Morgue...

"Say hello to Susan Moore. Miss Olympia said she is not a relative so I had doubts. I wouldn't have called you if I didn't see the injuries. Different motive, same injuries as your murder. The cause of death was strangulation, by hand that is-" the Medical Examiner began saying.

"Very aggressive, repressed anger, abdomen ripped out," Sherlock said as he walked around looking at all the injuries. "John said it reminded him of Jack the Ripper." He glanced at the ME.

John wasn't wrong. There was something ridiculously familiar about the injuries inflicted by this killer and Jack the Ripper. Sherlock would know, after all it was a fascinating case to play with when he was a child. It showed him the incompetence of the police.

"Well sure, I didn't want to say anything, I know you don't like to start with assumptions. I checked the old case files of the Jack-the-Ripper-like cases in New York and there is a similar pattern, but there's no way it's Jack the Ripper."

"No, of course not," Sherlock said. It can't be, he thought. "We should expect a copycat killer. If the murderer is really working for an enemy of Miss Olympia then they must also be getting tired of it, seems like the killer has a hobby."

"There's something else too," the ME said, "If this continues, it's going to be an FBI matter. The killer is moving, he knows we're looking for him, he has a long hitlist, he will want to get out of state soon. You better find something soon or he might just get out of state before then."

Meanwhile, across town…

In a bar in Hell's Kitchen a woman wearing a black Acne Studios Moto jacket over a black shirt with a grey scarf around her neck was drowning her sorrows in a shot glass. She wore torn blue jeans, and her feet had Sofft Acasia boots. The woman had black long hair that only reached her shoulders. Her eyes were brown, and her expression was far away as if trying to escape some bad memory. Which also explained why she was on her fifth glass.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" the bartender asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No," the woman replied, "Not until I'm unconscious."

"Well," the bartender said walking towards her, "I do. You should go home."

"You're not my boss," the woman said before draining the rest of her alcohol, "Another."

"No, I'm cutting you off. Your not getting any more tonight," the bartender said, "This is my bar, and if you don't go home now and rest, I will not let you back in here."

"Great," the woman mumbled drunkenly as she stood up, "Now I have no choice but to head home since this is the only bar that allows me entrance."

"Thank you," the bartender said relieved.

The woman only grunted as she exited the bar, then she turned right and began heading down the sidewalk. As she did so she noticed that it had now turned dark and the streets were barren. It's so strange to see the city that never sleeps go quiet, the woman thought to herself. When she arrived at the curb of the sidewalk she didn't even bother waiting for the signal to let her cross the road, since there weren't even cars driving around. When she got to the otherside she continued walking, and was passing by an alley when she heard a crash. When she looked down the alley she saw something in the hand of a dark shape glint in the moonlight.

"Hey!" the woman yelled startling the man, "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?!"

"Well well," the dark shape said in a Geordie accent, "This is rather unprecedented. Two whores ripe for the ripping."

"Say that to my face, jerk!" the woman snapped angrily as she walked towards him.

"You whores are going to die," the man replied, "It is my god-given right to rid the world of whores."

The man then swiped down at her, but she caught his hand and squeezed breaking his wrist in the process. The man cried out in pain and surprise before glaring at her.

"Rid this you son of a bitch!" the woman snarled right before punching the man in the chest at the same time as she let go of his now broken wrist. The punch resulted in him going flying into a wall, and was rendered unconscious as he fell down to the ground.

"Who… what…" the woman laying on the ground in some trash from a fallen trashcan stammered.

"I'm Jessica Jones," the woman replied as she hoisted the woman to her feet, "And you're lucky I'm drunk. Otherwise, I would've just ignored the crash. Now go home."

Back with Sherlock…

It was now morning and Sherlock was still in bed when John walked into the room. John sighed at Sherlock's prone form half under the sheets and half over it. He also saw what looked like a syringe on the bedside table.

"Damn it Sherlock," John muttered as he picked up the syringe, "That stuff will kill you."

John then left the room and returned with a glass of cold water which he promptly tossed into Sherlock's face causing him to splutter as he woke up with a start. Sherlock stared around the room sleepily before his brain finally woke up completely and he stared at John who was giving him his expression of disappointment.

"John," Sherlock said slowly as he sat up on the bed, "Why are you in my room and why did you splash water on my face?"

"I'll answer both with one answer Sherlock," John replied, "I came in here to wake you up because Castle called and told me there was a survivor of the serial killer last night."

"You could've just nudged me," Sherlock grunted as he stood up to go over to his suitcase, "Throwing water on someone to wake them up is a bit overkill, don't you think?"

"Not if you dosed yourself with heroin the night before," John countered.

"What makes you think I…" began Sherlock before last night's activities flashed in his eyes again, "Oh. That's odd. I don't usually forget things… unless they're unimportant to any cases of course."

"Just hurry up Sherlock," John said massaging his face, "If you want to interrogate the survivor personally then we need to get there fast."

"Go ahead and call the person, John," Sherlock said, "That'll pass the time till I'm ready to go out."

"You take as long to get dressed as a woman does," John snorted, "Are you sure you're not transgender?"

"If I was John," Sherlock said, "Then I wouldn't be wearing men's clothing now would I?"

"Sure you would," John replied, "If you were a woman that decided to become a man."

"Fair enough," Sherlock conceded, "However, I am 100% male. Now go."

Later at the NYPD…

"Sherlock! There you are!" the Detective Ryan said. "I was waiting for you to show up. Change of plans. We are going to meet the victim at the hospital. The victim, Agatha McAdams, isn't feeling well enough to come into the station for questioning."

"Why didn't you just call?" Sherlock asked frustrated.

"We only had John's phone number on record, we don't seem to have yours," Ryan said showing him the form they had to fill in earlier, or at least the form John filled in.

"Why didn't John call me then," Sherlock asked.

"Didn't he tell you?" he asked, "He went out with his daughter to show her the city. Someone got him a brochure of the city and he found some interesting spots to visit. He thought he could go to Central Park, or to the Zoo in Central Park, or to the Museum of Modern Art. Haven't realized just how many sites the city has to offer till you have to show a tourist around."

"Yes, yes, but we have a case," Sherlock said annoyed. John can get in the way of his investigations but he was his friend and him just leaving him stung him.

"And he has a daughter," the cop said waving away his concerns about John's absence. "My friend's kid is all grown up now but when she was small he was just as protective as John." The cop looked far away, then he shook his head and picked up some files and closed others, "Now let's get to the hospital."

At the hospital…

There was a knock at the hospital room.

"Agatha McAdams?" the nurse asked, "these nice policemen are here to ask you some questions. If you feel uncomfortable you can send them away at anytime." He looked at Agatha for confirmation. She nodded.

The nurse looked at the police behind him, "You can come in." The nurse left the room.

"Agatha McAdams?" Sherlock asked looking at the form of the girl who even with her size tried to make herself look as small as possible. She hugged her knees to her chest and looked like she might start crying again, adding to her already tearstained face. Sherlock took note of the bruised throat where her assailant had tried to hold her still. There was a bruise on her arm where she was grabbed. Along her jaw on one side ran a bandage probably from a cut that was meant for her throat.

While Sherlock was looking at the woman, the cop tried to get her attention. "We have a few question. My name is Detective Ryan and this is consulting detective Sherlock Holmes-"

"The detective with the funny hat," the girl asked with a weak smile.

The cop looked at Sherlock.

"One picture and now everyone knows me as the 'hat detective,'" Sherlock said bristling, "the hat was a one-off I assure you."

"Right," the cop continued gently, "and we are here to ask you to say or write down all you can recollect that happened to you. Take all the time you need."

She nodded. "I was walking home from an afternoon with my friends. I don't live far from where the we each split up so I walked the rest of the way. I stopped when I heard my phone ring and I wanted to check who it was. Then out of nowhere this guy comes out and I screamed before he could stop me. I've taken karate lessons when I was a kid but I wasn't any good but I still remembered some of the lessons because I managed to stop him from cutting my throat open-" She started to shake, "Sorry, this is unlike me to be this emotional. I never thought-." Her sentence ended in a sob.

"Take your time," Detective Ryan reassured Miss McAdams.

"Preferably, you don't," Sherlock cut in, "the more we know the faster we can find him and stop him. At the moment his total amounts to three deaths happening at an exponential rate which means his next murder could happen today or tomorrow, since he didn't get you he will take that anger out on someone else. Which is why we need to know what he looks like or we will have another body in the morgue by the end of tomorrow." As per usual Sherlock favored being blunt when a person is wasting his time. The cop turned to him and gave him a not so subtle look to stop being insensitive. Agatha just looked at him blankly before her composure faltered and she put a hand over her mouth.

"It's alright," Detective Ryan rushed in to comfort the witness, "he's used to dealing with bodies." The Detective turned to Sherlock, "How about you go check if her doctor is back yet? Maybe you can get a look at her hospital records," he turned to the witness, "if that's alright with you?" Agatha nodded and looked as if she was trying really hard to calm down.

"Alright," Sherlock said, he was more likely to actually get some useful information out of the doctor anyway. He turned to leave and shut the door on his way out. Before he got far, the cop opened the door again and seeing him said, "The closed door makes her feel trapped." The cop turned back to Agatha.

Sherlock turned back around and went back to the main desk of the unit. Turning to the nurse he asked, "Is the Agatha McAdams' doctor in?"

The nurse didn't even respond as she was busy typing in her computer, so Sherlock tried to be patient but after five minutes he asked again but like before she didn't respond. As Sherlock got more and more impatient he decided to grab something heavy, but before he could drop it on the desk in front of her another nurse walked up.

"Sir," she said, "Is there something I can help you with?"

"For starters," Sherlock said as he put the object down lightly, "tell me why Ignoramus over there didn't even respond to me."

"Her name is Sally," the nurse said frowning, "And she's deaf. She's not even a nurse… not really. She's more of a secretary than anything else."

"I don't care. As a secretary she should be aware of her job responsibilities," Sherlock said looking around, "Now are you going to help me or shall I find someone much more useful than you and your 'secretary?'"

"Why should I help a colossal tool like you," the nurse said as she crossed her arms.

"I can give you several reasons Janet," Sherlock said as he used his extremely high intelligence and his eyes to make deductions about her, "Reason number one, you're a nurse so you don't really have a choice. Reason number two, you dug your nails into your arm when you asked that question. That indicates your anger at either me for being who I am or yourself for even implying that you won't. Reason number three is the most important reason because I'm investigating the attacker of Agatha McAdams."

"Oh," Nurse Janet said suddenly feeling bad, "Okay. I'll tell you what I can, but the best person to ask is her doctor."

"Where is her Doctor?" Sherlock asked, "That is who I was looking for in the first place."

"Agatha's doctor is currently performing surgery on another patient," Nurse Janet said.

"In that case," Sherlock said, "I'm leaving. I'm not going to wait around just to appease you morons' love for protocol."

Later…

Sherlock was not pleased. He had a case to solve which kept evading him.

The killer was obviously a Jack the Ripper fan. He was acting out a fantasy. He wouldn't be surprised if he turned up at comicon in a stereotypical Jack the Ripper costume.

An option is that was a scare tactic. As she did not state why this is happening he has come to make his own assumptions. Hire a mercenary to take out her family to threaten her and clearly Miss Olympia does not want to be threatened.

The Jack the Ripper perona was either for the benefit of the public or the mercenary was developing a hobby. If the latter was true then it was possible the killer might slip up. A job was a job but a hobby often lacks professionalism as evidently the last murder does.

Of what he's seen, the latter must be true. There was a clear pattern of escalation from what little he had seen.

Understandably with Miss Olympia's family absurd belief in the Greek mythology, the killer would want to play around with urban legends, in this way he would be sending a clear message of whom it was addressed to. Now the question is why. Sherlock would be a fool to really believe in Greek myths but even so why? Even if the family was targeted by "monsters", what about it? A gang perhaps? Maybe Miss Olympia's family was a gang which was involved in gang wars? So what if they reference Greek myths? If your rich some might let that slide. Money is everything. Religion, well, that's usually ignored.

It's obvious that the killer or mercenary who was hired to kill off Olympia's family had his own preferences and portfolio. As Miss Olympia, who he presumed had connections, did not recognize the other victims, it can be assumed those people were insignificant. In this way, he can guess this was who the killer wanted to kill, and therefore this was his true preference. The killer was clearly inexperienced, back from a long period of dormancy. He obviously killed before but it was not recent as per the police records. The other option was he was too good to get caught before.

If one assumes that 'Jack the Ripper' was back, what could that be code for? Was it a signature of a gang? Seems like he needed to have a talk with Miss Olympia who, to him, revealed her name as 'Athena'.


Yes Jessica Jones is now a part of the sherlock based chapters. unsure how much we'll use her, but she'll definitely play a role in the story.