There is a large, helpful sign outside the state Penitentiary in Walla Walla Washington, like the Hollywood sign only smaller. A penitentiary is a mini-city unto itself.
Agent Leland met Sherlock at the gates. His team had already begun processing the whole prison. It was going to be a long job. Or so they thought. For once he felt like they might be able to actually process a scene without Sherlock's intervention.
He was shocked by Sherlock's appearance. In just a week he had to have lost ten pounds, leaving him nearly skeletal. His eyes were sunken and dark, skin dry from dehydration and there were yellow nicotine stains on his fingers that hadn't been there before.
If we don't come to the end of this adventure soon, he thought, it's going to kill him, forget about his friend.
"You eaten anything for a week?"
"Some."
"Slept?"
"Maybe."
"Ok, son, we're going to go to that Chinese restaurant over there and you're going to eat something, if I have to have the waiters hold your mouth open while I shove it down your stubborn throat."
"But I need to see the prison," there was a broken whine in his voice, whereas a week before it would have been more angry.
"Sherlock, I can't just let you roam a prison. For one thing, it's enormous, and for another, well, it's a prison. I've got a team of fifty people working this case. They're scouring the area; they're looking at prison records. They find anything, they'll come get us. No problem."
Reluctantly Sherlock allowed himself to be led away, casting looks over his shoulder as if he thought he could break free of Leland's guiding arm.
Leland pretty much ordered everything on the menu, up to and including lychees.
"Spoke to your— sorry, spoke to Detective Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard."
Sherlock focused on him. "Why?"
"Well, he's had dealings with this Moriarty before," and you, he thought to himself, "just trying to cover all my bases."
"Did you learn anything from him? He's the best of a bad lot, but that isn't saying anything. He let him get away last time."
"Mm-hm," heard that was more due to a certain arrogant SOB not telling people what he was doing. "Told me you liked Chinese food."
That finally got a rueful smile from the slender Brit.
For once Sherlock seemed eager to eat, to the point where Leland had to tell him to slow down lest he make himself sick.
"Do you believe in evil, Sherlock?" he asked while the other man finished off a pot of Oolong and picked at was left of the Pu-Pu Platter.
"Evil, no…well, I say no…evil presupposes the opposite good."
"And you don't believe in good?"
"I don't believe in God, if that's what you're getting at." Sherlock sighed rather dramatically. "I suppose you do and this is one of those boring American things where you try to lead me in prayer."
"For a man who prides himself on observing people, you sure have a lot of preconceptions and stereotypes in your head. We're not all street preachers. I like God. I figure he likes me just fine, but we don't bother much in each other's lives.
"The man in your puzzle, Westley Allan Dodd. One that brought you here. He was what anyone would call evil. He even believed it himself. Pretty much the worst evil in the world in my eyes—torture, rape and murder of little children. He said he should die fast, or he'd escape and do it again. Of course, by the end he said he'd found Jesus and that people could change.
"Reckon your guy can compare with that?"
"No, I mean, I don't know. Do you consider terror evil?"
"Yes. To kill, 'cause you have to, that's one thing. Kill in a moment of rage, that's another. Not good, mind you, but it's over fast for both of you.
"But to want to extract pain, terror, humiliation from your victim. To enjoy watching them suffer, where the death is the least of it. That, that is evil. What causes it, I don't know. I think the devil is an excuse we like to use."
"He likes terror. The cabbie, he liked to make people take their own lives. The bombs on people. Hearing the terror in their voices. Making John and Lestrade hear the terror in their voices. I don't know how far it goes after that." If it was possible, Sherlock went even more pale, and for a moment Leland thought he was going to have to catch the man as he fainted.
"And he has John," he moaned.
It took six and a half days for Leland's team to find it. As they cleared areas Sherlock was allowed in to look, but he couldn't go down into the cells and that drove him mad. Leland found himself in the unenviable position of standing watch over a man who was going out of his mind. He felt like he had Sherlock on suicide watch, only a very slow suicide by self-neglect.
In the end, it was the most ridiculous thing and so easily missed if Sherlock hadn't insisted that they search at night as well as during the day. The glow was caught in the edge of an agent's night-vision goggles.
So, they dug down until they found a wooden box with a puzzle on the lid.
Leland watched Sherlock visible relax when the dusted and cleared box was placed in his hands. Here at last, was a puzzle that he could solve.
