Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. But if I did, there would be way more yaoi scenes that we'd have to be put on a late night slot on TV. :3
Author's Note: I had to change one point of the plot. The Oak Hook-tip that I had originally used for the first death is now a Northern Broken Dash. I'm using the excuse that I didn't want to ruin the "butterfly" thingie by using a moth. :3 I think this is important for those who are trying to find out how the butterflies tie in. Mwahaha.
The young man nervously switched on the light of his bathroom, his breathing loud and shallow. It was empty, with the warm water in the tub fogging up the mirrors and the lone window up high above the wall. He slipped out of his clothes and slowly stepped into the bubbly bathtub, keeping his eyes on the door. There was no way he would make any mistake that would get him killed like the others.
Ten minutes flew by with his worries unfounded. Relaxing slightly, he closed his eyes, keeping his ears alert for any unusual sound. He sighed, trying to forget his problems, trying to forget that his co-workers were dead, and trying to forget that he also had a chance of being attacked.
His ears perked up as he heard a small creak in the silence. He sat up in the tub, his eyes wide open, searching around for whatever could have made that noise. The door was still closed, that couldn't have been it. He glanced at the sink. The faucet was off, the cabinets were closed. Also not the culprit.
There. He heard it again. This time, he could tell in which direction it came from. Slowly, he looked up, to the now pushed open window above the tub. As if it was in slow motion, he scrambled to get out of the tub, slipping in the water and the soap as a taser fell down toward him into the water, the switch held down by duct tape wrapped around it tightly.
He let out a scream of agony as the implement touched the water, and within seconds, he was dead. From the window, a little fishing hook on a line dropped down, attached to it a small slip of paper with a butterfly, and landed on his forehead, sealing his fate.
"Taxi!" John called out into the street, stopping the first cabbie that came around the corner. Sherlock had been missing for days, and this was getting ridiculous. There was no doubt that he was hot on a lead, and would come back any time now proud at a new find that would help him get closer to the killer.
Why he suddenly jumped into it was bothering John, since up until the third murder, he was quick to dismiss the killings as the work of a boring serial murderer. But now, John mused, he has more time searching for her than he has spending time at home.
John shook his head. He was being stupid. He didn't miss Sherlock. Him not being there was a relief for him, as he didn't have to deal with his random childish outbursts.
The taxi took him to Wapping, where a seven story high apartment complex was surrounded by three police cars and meters of police tape. Tipping the cabbie, he hobbled out, getting let in by Sergeant Donovan who just smirked at him, perhaps with the knowledge that Sherlock had left him high and dry again, and proud that she would end up right about their relationship. John ignored her.
The seasoned doctor flinched slightly when he saw the electrified and burnt out body. Sure, he'd seen worse, in the war, but this was not a war site, it was only a bathtub. He squatted down at the tub and took a good look at the dead body. He was still smoking and was giving off a horrendous stench that could have been a BBQ, if his mind hadn't seen this person before him.
Both the weapon and the butterfly were bagged and laid out on the table the police had brought to the outside of the room. As John approached it, he came face to face with Sherlock.
"Morning, John." Sherlock said, his voice quite chipper. "How's the crime scene?" John cleared his throat.
"Male, throughly burnt through, so much so that we can see the bone tissue." he said, after a pause. Clearly, Sherlock didn't want to explain himself at the moment. Not to worry, I can wait. John thought, breathing slowly. He didn't want to show Sherlock his anger. Instead, he continued. "I need to ask Lestrade which detective he is, since when the skin is that far gone, there really is no such thing as discerning skin color. Except red and black."
"Very good, John." Sherlock said, pulling his rubber gloves on and picking the butterfly's baggie up. He peered in the bad "It's a Black Hairstreak," he said, quietly. He leaned down toward John. "You can tell it's not the White-letter Hairstreak by these wings, there's these rows of orange-"
"Yes, thank you, Sherlock." John said, irritably. "Never mind the butterfly, where have you been?" he finally exploded, not able to contain it much longer.
"Following a lead." the detective said, simply, before the angry voice of Detective Inspector Lestrade boomed down the hall. They turned toward the noise.
"It's a damn SAFE HOUSE!" Lestrade yelled at a poor probie. "How could he die in a safe house? On the second floor?"
"I-I-I-I-I-" the young officer stammered under the pressure of his superior. Lestrade was basically leaning over him, feeling the man feel so little. He waited, breathing down his neck. The officer swallowed. "We-we had been keeping wa-watch outside the-the-the apartment, but nothing came." he swallowed again as Lestrade continued to loom over him. "S-sir." he added quickly, his knees knocking together, almost making a constant rhythm.
Lestrade sighed and backed off of the trembling subordinate. His eyes caught Sherlock and John staring at him from down the hall and he froze. Had they been watching that whole thing? He walked briskly toward them, nodding curtly.
"Sherlock, Doctor." Lestrade said, a scowl on his face, addressing the two flatmates. He threw up his hands in exasperation. "How is this still happening? We moved both Rowling and Orpheous to two different safe houses, and somehow, Orpheous was still killed just three days after Harding. Three days!" Lestrade cleared his throat and adjusted his suit jacket. "Because of this, I can only conclude we have a mole in the homicide division. Somehow, somehow, the information as to where these two detectives are have gotten out." He looked up expectantly at Sherlock, as if waiting for his approval at this deduction. Sherlock couldn't leave him hanging.
"Congratulations, Detective Inspector. Seems like you have a handle on things." Sherlock said, giving him one of his small smiles, before turning back down to the table. "That's a first." he mumbled.
"Come again?" Lestrade asked, missing the last few words. Sherlock looked up again and gave him another fake smile.
"Oh, nothing." he said. He picked up the butterfly and waved it in front of the DI. "So, about this butterfly. I assume that you've figured out it is a Black Hairstreak." Lestrade nodded and opened his mouth, as if to start speaking, before Sherlock continued. "I'm trying to think of the connection between these butterflies, but Nothern Broken Dash, Orange Tip, and Essex Skipper pretty much have nothing in common. Even where they can be found are different. The Northern Broken Dash is only found in America. The other two, over here. Why?
"I can only conclude that our murderess is an avid insect collector, well, either that or she has been going out and capturing these butterflies purely for these murders. But since butterflies like the Black Hairstreak are quite rare, and one can't produce them in a few days without staking out a butterfly reservation, it's more accurate to assume that these were already in her possession." Sherlock started to monologue.
"Sherlock-" Lestrade tried to interject. Sherlock ignored him and continued.
"I visited the precinct and borrowed some of the crime scene photos that your tech people had been taking at the motel, and found one that had that woman in it. I snapped a picture of her face from that photo with my phone and sent it to the internet, to find any matches; you won't believe the apps they have nowadays that are so handy in these kind of things, it only took a few seconds to get back a hit." Sherlock had brought out his phone by this point, as he came to the climax of his investigation. "Her picture was linked to the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, otherwise known as Bedlam, or London's oldest institution for mental illness. I went there and asked around, and they gave me her name." He proudly showed the profile of the woman from the private files of the Mental Hospital to John, and Lestrade.
"Casey Marionak?" John asked, taking the phone and looking at the face. It was definitely her, all right. He scrolled down the page. "It says she was released a month ago. Who in their right mind would release a psychopathic bi-"
"There's a notice there that says that she was deemed fit for normal every-day life, and was let go into the custody of her cousin, Jimmy." Sherlock said, one of his 'I'm-so-brilliant' grins widening on his face. "She was also known to collect insects." John cocked his head.
"But this here says she doesn't have any living relatives." John said, handing the phone to Lestrade. Sherlock's grin, if such a thing was possible, widened even further.
"Exactly." he said. "Who's cousin Jimmy?"
Lestrade looked at the face on the phone before giving the phone back to Sherlock. He breathed in and let it out slowly, calming his nerves. "Right. Sherlock, email that to me, so I can get started on the investigation on her. We'll put a BOLO out for her, and give her picture to every precinct in the area." He took out his phone to call his Sergeant. He pointedly shook it at Sherlock. "If she has anything to do with that Moriarty guy…" Sherlock gave Lestrade a stoic look.
"Detective Inspector, when I failed to capture him at the pool, I knew that I would rue that moment. But for him to break out a woman from an insane asylum? I'm not sure if that's how he would operate." Sherlock said, racking his brain for any information he had on James Moriarty.
"Yeah, but." John interjected. "How much do you know about him, anyway? Other than the fact that you two are very similar." Sherlock shot him a nasty glare. John put up his hands in peace. "I meant that both of you are extremely brilliant, and you use your ingenuity to your advantage, you for crime solving, him for crime making. Even if you have similarities, I don't think you've completely learned why he does what he does." Sherlock sniffed, slightly angry.
"John. Ever since that day, I have studied up on him. James Moriarty. His name floats on the wind of all the ill-doers wherever I go. From the rich and corrupt to the poor and seedy, he appears, never in person, but through some sort of interface, either a subordinate or internet. His first crime started way before Carl Powers, if these stories I've gathered are to be believed, even though he himself was an adolescent at the time. One can only assume that with his massive intellect, he had no equal, and instead fell to criminal activity…" Sherlock trailed off as he caught John and Lestrade both staring at him. With a scoff, he gave them both an unbelieving look. "Really, gentlemen, other than our quick processors, we are nothing alike. He is a psychopath, I am merely a sociopath. Two different beings on two different planes."
John and Lestrade exchanged glances. The DI cleared his throat.
"Well, I have to get her information out, as well as find my mole." Lestrade said, nodding at the two men in goodbye and leaving the scene with nothing more than a twirl on his heels. John turned to look at his friend.
"Sherlock?" he asked, as the brilliant consulting detective had suddenly grown quiet. As if he didn't hear the aged doctor, Sherlock peered into the bathroom and stood over the tub where the body still laid, minus the water that had been drained when they first found him. He glanced up at the window above the corpse. It was closed, yes, but the lock was open. He could tell, by the hinges on the frame, that the window pulled inward, making a kill from the outside that much simpler. He climbed onto the edge of the tub, careful not the step on poor Lester Orpheous, and wrenched the window open. Sure enough, it came towards him a few inches and he could just see outside the window a wooden awning. He smirked. Even if it was the second floor, someone who was limber enough would be able to climb up here. The only question was, what happened to the officers who were supposed to be watching outside?
He climbed back down and met up with John in the hall, who had been watching him intently during his thinking process. "Come along, John." Sherlock said, waving his friend toward him. "We're going up to the roof!" The two men found their way to the fire escape window and climbed the ladder to the top of the apartment complex, where the roof was empty under the wide open sky.
"There was a wooden awning under the window," Sherlock started explaining to his comrade, as he approached the edge of the building. He kneeled, checking the ledge out, finding small pieces of concrete that had been scraped off by something, or someone rubbing against it hard.
"Um, Sherlock?" John called from behind him, and the Consulting Detective turned to find his friend on the other side of the building, holding up a few black ropes that Sherlock could tell, even from the distance that there were rappelling gear. She must have been extremely lucky to not have been caught by the guards on the outside. Either that or they were stupid horses with blinders on that didn't even think to look behind them at the actual house.
How did she get on the roof? Instantly ideas formed in Sherlock's head, but he quickly shook them away. Where would she get the funds to parachute out of a plane to land on this apartment complex? No, there had to be another answer.
He walked over to the left side of the building, where the complex's neighbor, a flat roofed grocery store stood, at approximately the same height, only four feet away. If she had the limber ability to rappel down the side of a building, who's to say that she couldn't climb or jump from one building to another.
He took a few steps back and prepared him self for a long jump. Running as fast as he can, he could faintly hear John shout out his name before he leapt across the gap, landing and rolling on the other building. In one swoop, he dusted himself off and whipped out his magnifying slider, looking for any signs that the structure had been disturbed recently. Sure enough, he was able to find specks of broken off concrete, as well as black fibers. She had jumped, the same as him after her murder, and, it seems, scraped a bit of her gear as she landed. He tweezed the fibers he found and put it in a small baggie in his pocket, with the full intention of giving it to Lestrade later.
"Sherlock!" John shouted from the other ledge. He could see his partner almost eye to eye, and with his experiment there, he was able to prove that this was the way she must have gotten to the apartment. She rappelled down five stories to get to the window of the second floor, and no one saw her? Sherlock frowned, trying to imagine how that was possible.
Sure, this apartment wasn't on a main street, and it is in a more seedy area of the city, but there must have been at least one person who noticed that a person was hanging on a rope off the side of the building. Furthermore, how could it be that none of the cops outside noticed?
Could it be that the mole that Lestrade was talking about was one of those on guard outside? That was probable. He could have distracted the other men, while Casey did the dirty work. Now, all he needed to do was to find Lestrade and ask him who he had on outside duty. The mystery of the mole would be solved.
"I'm going to go see our last detective, John." Sherlock shouted back, finally. John sighed with more visible irritation than before, at Sherlock's recklessness. It's like he could just jump gaps like this without a worry at all for his safety. What I wouldn't give to live in his shoes.
"What should I do?" John asked, raising his voice so that his friend could hear him. Sherlock gave him a small smile.
"Go to Bedlam, for me, John. Get more information about Casey Marionak." he said, before sprinting to the door behind him to get off of the roof. John scratched his head and sighed again, making his way back down the stairs.
"Guess it'll be another long night alone." he mumbled to himself as he left the building. A uniformed officer let him out, and he found his way to the main road to call a cab. He shuddered slightly as he relaxed in the back seat of the taxi, as he thought of how close they were to the murders, and perhaps they would be the next targets. He breathed in and let it out slowly, thinking of what he had to do to protect himself and Sherlock, if the occasion called for it. After all, better safe than sorry.
"Excuse me, can we take a detour?" he asked the driver, leaning forward to get his attention. "Please stop for a moment at 221b Baker Street."
Author's Note: The last name for the killer comes from my friend, whose name is Marion, and her alter ego is named Mak. Therefore, Marionak. She almost killed me for naming my killer after her. But I thought to myself, she's been helping with the plot points, why not?