A/N And finally, we present: the plot! Sadly, since all of the characters are split up right now, Molly can't narrate these events very convincingly. But she'll be back!
Warnings for gun violence, threatening behaviour, brief description of murder. For details, check the A/N at the end.
Now, kids, I wasn't present for most of these events. I can only tell you what I was told after the… uh… incident. You see, I had been blissfully oblivious to the progression of the case as I was having a nice, calm chat with your Uncle John. Well, until we were interrupted. But we'll get to that.
First things first…
Marshall looked at the row of colour-coded dumpsters and selected the paper recycling. As he lifted the lid, he was surprised to find a manila envelope stuck on the underside. It had a handwritten note on the top corner, saying: VITAL.
Marshall rolled his eyes. His experience as a lawyer told him that any 'vital' documents should never be thrown away like that. They had to be shredded first to protect confidential information. Whoever had chucked this in the recycling really screwed up – they even somehow got it stuck to the lid, instead of in the recycling itself! It was a good thing he was the one who'd found it, and not some identity thief or whatever.
He nodded to himself and pulled out the 'vital' papers, tucking them securely under his arm. There was a diamond-cut shredder back in the apartment, and he didn't mind playing the Good Samaritan here. It would only take a couple of minutes.
He threw away the magazines he'd brought with him, and tucked the envelope into the now-empty reusable bag. He would be sure to shred the papers soon, once he'd finished running a few other errands.
As he exited the alleyway, the lid of a dumpster slowly rose up like a shark's dorsal fin breaking the surface of the water. A pair of furious eyes watched the lawyer's retreating back, and a man climbed out of the dumpster with an irritated growl. The man had just had to dive into a half-full dumpster to avoid being seen by the oblivious lawyer. The experience had put him into a mood even fouler than the stench now emanating from his navy-blue suit.
With a curse, he checked his jacket for the weapon inside it. There was no knowing what the giant would do when he saw the envelope's contents, but he certainly wouldn't give it back unless the agent acted fast.
He stealthily pursued the larger man at a safe distance, waiting for an opportunity to get the envelope back.
xxx
Kids, your father tells me that the first time he asked me out he didn't feel it went very smoothly. Well, I suppose from his point of view, it didn't.
Ted stared at the phone, working up the nerve to call Molly. It wouldn't have fazed him before he realised that he liked her, but now…
"Oh, what the hell." Ted muttered, hitting the dial button and immediately regretting it. Before he had chance to chicken out, a cheerful voice greeted him.
"Hello?"
"Uh, Molly, hi. It's Ted. You know. Ted with the dresses?" He winced. Smooth, Mosby. Real smooth!
"Oh, hey Ted. What's up?"
"The sky." Don't try to be a smartass, Ted. "Uh, nothing much, I mean. I was just, uh, well I wondered if maybe you wanted to go and get coffee with me sometime? Maybe now?"
"Oh, Ted, that sounds lovely but I can't right now – I'm having brunch with John. But maybe some other time?" Molly suggested. "I'll call you, okay?"
"Yeah, fine, that's fine…" Ted mumbled. At least she'd let him down easy.
"Okay, see you soon!" Molly chirped, then hung up on him. Ted stared at his phone for a moment, then decided that what he really needed right then was a drink. Or several drinks.
xxx
Marshall paused as he walked along, seeing an elderly lady trying to gauge a safe time to cross the busy street. He went up to her, like the true gentleman from Minnesota that he was, and offered her his arm to safely guide her over the road.
"Why thank you, young man!" She said.
"No problem, ma'am. My mother always taught us to respect our elders."
"Oh, how wonderful. It's so nice to know that some people still have manners. Kids these days…"
The man tailing Marshall watched him from across the road. Did he know this woman or something? Was she a contact who he was passing the envelope on to? …He was handing her something!
"…And this is my son, Marvin. We're going to raise him to be an upstanding citizen just like my dad would have wanted…"
"Oh, he's beautiful! You seem a very devoted father…"
No, actually, she'd given the slip of paper back. Whatever it was.
Marshall moved on, re-crossing the road, and the man continued following him in the hope that there would be no more unexpected detours.
xxx
Mycroft's assistant tapped impatiently at her Blackberry, checking for the GPS signal that would locate Sherlock's phone – Mycroft did worry so.
Apparently the younger Holmes was stuck in a traffic jam only a few streets away.
Well, dealing with a grouchy Sherlock was still better than sitting alone in this café and totally not thinking about that man-stealing mortician…
She strode out of the shop with the brisk pace she'd honed to perfection even in high heels. It wouldn't take her too long to get to Sherlock's cab, which was currently moving at the pace of a snail, if that.
xxx
The agent watched in disbelief as the man he was shadowing perched on tiptoe to stretch up and retrieve a small tortoiseshell kitten from the tree in which it was stuck.
The crying child on the ground looked up at his saviour, awestruck, as the tall man gently scooped the kitten into his hands and deposited her next to the boy.
"Gee, thanks, mister!"
"No problem, Billy, but next time try to keep her on the ground! Kittens shouldn't reach that height, you know."
Marshall strolled onwards. Behind him, an increasingly disgruntled agent followed on.
xxx
Meanwhile, I had just come back from that conversation with your father.
"So what did Ted want?" John asked.
"To have coffee! With me!" I grinned.
"That's great, when are you going?" John smiled back. I think my good mood was contagious.
"Well, he wanted to have some just now, but I'm kind of busy with you, so I told him I'd call him later and we can reschedule." I said, sitting down at the table again.
"…Sorry, what? Did you actually say that?" John looked incredulous.
"I told him I was having brunch with you. Because I am." I said, somewhat defensively. I couldn't work out why John was looking at me like that, like he looked at Sherlock when the detective had said something really awkward.
"Molly. That was a bit…" John trailed off.
"What?"
"Don't you think that would've made him think we were…?" He looked really uncomfortable.
"We were wha– Oh! Psh! What? No! What? No! Ted knows we're not – No!" I squeaked. John looked at me disparagingly.
"Ted knows you're my date to my cousin's wedding and that you turned him down to have brunch with me."
"Oh. Oh dear."
It was not my most brilliant moment, kids.
xxx
"I'm so psyched about this wedding! We bought Marvin his first suit the other day! He has a tiny little bow tie, and…"
The agent peered round the end of the fruit aisle in the supermarket. Marshall was leaning against the wall, guarding his trolley, with his phone in one hand while he gestured wildly with the other.
It looked like half of the banana display next to him had somehow fallen into the trolley. What could one man possibly need so many bunches of bananas for?
He continued eavesdropping on the phone conversation. Perhaps it was a coded discussion on what to do with the papers…
"I know, man, I know! It's gonna be legen – wait for it – dary!"
The voice on the other line said something, but it was indistinct from this distance.
"No, what?"
Despite the distance, the sheer volume of the outburst from the other end made it audible to the stalker: "EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS WEDDING IS GONNA BE FREAKING AWESOME!"
"I know! It is!"
There was another, quieter comment from the phone. "We will! Yeah. See you there!"
xxx
There was a rap on the cab window. Sherlock turned to see Eve standing on the pavement, tapping her feet.
"Eve! Wonderful timing!" He said, opening the cab door. The driver glared at him and Sherlock held up his hands to placate him. "It's fine. She'll pay."
"Oh, will I?" Sherlock glowered at her.
"He wouldn't let me get out of the cab until I paid him, and I don't have enough American money. I didn't foresee how awful the traffic would be."
"Clearly not." Eve smirked and opened her purse to reveal an array of foreign currencies. She flicked through the notes until she reached the US dollars, then promptly paid the cab driver.
With that, Sherlock set off at a speedy walk. Eve, despite her expertise in walking in heels, found it a challenge to match his pace.
"Where are you going?"
"To interview a possible witness. Wendy Dearheart, waitress at MacLaren's and the victim's clandestine lover. Care to join me?"
"Where's John?"
"He's busy."
"So he just raised your hopes and left you hanging?"
"No, I sent him to the police."
"So he casually abandoned you for another detective?"
"I have no monopoly on John's time. Besides, he's still aiding my investigation. And I thought he might become distracted by the witness' emotional state. I have no patience for mollycoddling."
"Well, I'm sure he would leap at the chance to do plenty of that. No doubt he'd have gone after this Wendy character as well."
Sherlock cleared his throat awkwardly, shooting his companion a sideways glance.
"Er, is something troubling you, Eve?"
She didn't meet his eyes, instead she pulled out her Blackberry and checked it.
Sherlock caught sight of the New Message sign, but he didn't see its contents. He did note, however, that she read it without tapping out a reply. This seemed significant in some way, but he wasn't sure how. The depths of the female psyche, when not linked to murder, were really more of John's division than Sherlock's.
xxx
Marshall stood stock-still, delighted by the scene before him. A crowd of seemingly unrelated people had broken into song and dance in the middle of an intersection. This may not have been the best choice of location, as the police had doubtless been summoned by the irate drivers who were unable to progress – however, the traffic jam also meant that cop cars were having trouble arriving, and probably wouldn't get there until the end of the performance anyway. The performers switched from Call Me Maybe to Thriller. Marshall gave a squeak of delight and put down his bags of bananas and various other groceries.
His pursuer barely choked back his scream of rage upon discovering that the one bag still hooked on the lawyer's elbow was the one containing the envelope he needed. He could only stand in the crowd and watch, helpless, as Marshall joined in the flashmob's rendition of the Michael Jackson classic.
xxx
"She hasn't replied, Molly." John said forlornly as he stared at his phone. "It's been fifty seconds and she hasn't replied." He took a deep draught of his tea, wincing as it burned his tongue a little.
"Maybe she's writing a long reply!" I said with as much optimism as I could muster. I was on my fifth cup of tea, and still berating myself over my earlier blunder. I tried to distract myself by helping John with his love life, and advising him to text Louise/Anthea. That hadn't gone well either.
"All I said was 'Hey Anthea, want to go for a drink later?' – hardly cause for offence!"
Wow. If she didn't even reply to a yes/no question, maybe she wasn't interested after all…
"Oooh. Bit not good." I murmured.
"That was socially inappropriate? How?"
"What?" I was baffled.
"Uh, never mind. Sherlock thing." John shook his head with a wry smile.
"Sherlock would know what to do."
"About Anthea and Ted? No he wouldn't!"
"You're right! What hope is there for us?"
We both downed the rest of our tea and ordered some more from the concerned café staff.
xxx
Eriksen was now standing at the front of a crowd of small children and their parents watching a magic show. He had been excitedly waiting to be chosen to participate in the show, and was suitably distracted by the disappearing and reappearing plastic duck in front of him.
Seizing his chance, the agent squeezed through to the front of the spectators. He shoved children out of his way in as subtle a way as possible, to avoiding drawing attention to himself.
He managed to get behind his target, who was muttering about how much that damned baby of his would love this show. The agent reached out a hand towards the bag containing the envelope, confident that at last his hard work was going to pay off, when:
"You there! In the blue!" The magician cried, pointing with a flourish towards the agent. For a moment the stalker was sure he was done for. No magician could miss the feeble sleight of hand of a pickpocket. He would be arrested and the envelope would be lost to his employer, and then being in police custody would be the least of his worries.
"Come on up here! You look like the sort of fellow who knows how to find a lost duck!" The magician continued. The agent blinked in confusion, then hesitantly pointed at himself, looking for confirmation. Then soccer moms and vengeful children were shoving him forward and he was 'on stage' with no hope of escape until he had located a missing plastic duck.
Meanwhile, Marshall had given up on any chance of audience participation, and was now heading home to put the bananas in the cupboards and fetch Marvin.
Damn it.
xxx
Sherlock knocked sharply on the white wooden door. Eve smoothed her skirt as she waited for the answer. When the door opened an inch to reveal a round, pallid face, Sherlock addressed her.
"Ms. Dearheart? We're investigating the murder of Carl MacLaren and we'd like to ask you a few questions."
"But – but I just got home after being questioned by the cops!" She said with a quavering voice. Eve plastered a charming and sympathetic smile onto her face.
"We understand, but this will only take a moment. My name is Jane Doyle, and this is my colleague Sherrinford House. We're with Carl's insurance company. We're trying to determine the cause of his death. May we come in, please?" She said politely.
Wendy Dearheart sighed and opened the door to admit them. She looked awful, and was dressed in what amounted to pyjamas. Not that 'Jane' would ever consider wearing plaid cotton trousers and a spaghetti-strap top to bed.
"Okay, fine. But just five minutes. I've got a sitcom to watch."
"Of course, Ms. Dearheart. We understand you must be tired." 'Jane' said, following the smaller woman into the main room and sitting at the opposite end of the couch from her. "Firstly, can you think of anyone who may have wanted to harm Mr. MacLaren? Any enemies, ex-partners, perhaps someone odd came into the bar recently?"
"Erm, well, not that I know of… Sorry, what is he doing?" Wendy asked looking worriedly over the other woman's shoulder. 'Jane' steeled herself, and turned to see Sherlock lying on the kitchen floor sniffing at the skirting board underneath the counters.
"Mr. House?" She said patiently. He ignored her and she gritted her teeth. "Mr. House!" He ignored her again, but did stand up and start rubbing the countertop. Eve resisted the temptation to slap some decorum into him, and turned back to the witness. "My colleague is very thorough. How would you describe your relationship to the victim?"
"We were…colleagues. Friends." Wendy said, looking 'Jane' in the eyes for the first time.
"More than friends, judging by the stack of romantic comedies, the half finished chocolates, the empty Ben and Jerry's tubs and the used Kleenex littering the livingroom." Sherlock interrupted, turning towards her so that his coat tails swished out dramatically. "It's far more likely that you suffered a recent break-up and are reacting in this clichéd manner. Clearly you didn't see the break-up coming, so it was sudden. Unexpected. You were close to Carl MacLaren, and he was recently murdered. Not a huge leap, Ms. Dearheart."
Wendy frowned at him, confused.
"What? No. Carl and I were never an item. My boyfriend broke up with me like a week before Carl died. I just haven't had a chance to clean up yet." She protested. Sherlock scowled at her.
"Please! Your kitchen is spotless. Bleached within an inch of its life. All the dishes are done and even the empty ice cream tubs have been washed out for the recycling. You've obviously had ample time and motivation to clean. You've clearly not been crying today, your eyes aren't in the slightest bit red." He turned away from her to examine the kitchen again. "But then, you haven't left the apartment either: the rubbish is still here, and you're in no way dressed to go outside. So why are you so keen on cleaning the kitchen but not the evidence of your heartbreak?"
Without any warning, he swept off into the bathroom, and Wendy turned back to 'Jane'.
"Who did you say you were with, again? I'm not sure I want him here, if he's going to make comments about my personal life."
"The real question, Ms. Dearheart," Sherlock interrupted, barging back in, "is: what do you feel so guilty about?"
"G-guilty? That's it, get out!" Wendy demanded, standing and pointing to the exit.
"Yes, guilty. The kitchen is sparkling, and you've worn down the soap in the bathroom to the size of a thumbnail, thus you've had to open a new one. So your subconscious is desperately seeking an outlet for your nervous energy, and a way for you to start afresh. It would seem you're feeling guilty. Perhaps it's because you blame yourself for not being there when Carl died. Or perhaps you were there and could do nothing. Perhaps you know who did it, but feel incapable of reporting them… because of sentiment, most likely." Sherlock paused for dramatic effect. 'Jane' had to admit, his work was quite impressive in person – not at all like reading the reports or seeing CCTV footage. "So you see, Ms. Dearheart, there really is no point in trying to conceal the truth, or asking us to leave. The evidence is all there – "
"Okay!" Wendy cried, flopping back onto the couch, and burying her head in her hands. "Okay, you clearly know what's going on. Just…can I tell it from my perspective? Before this goes any further, I mean."
Sherlock nodded slightly and went to lean against the wall next to the bathroom door.
xxx
Marshall went back into the apartment building. Before the back door could click into place behind him, a hand caught it.
His stalker crept up the stairs a safe distance behind his quarry, careful not to make a sound as he went, grateful that he had managed to extricate himself from the magician's clutches. He had caught up with Marshall while the man was distracted by what he thought was a UFO sighting, but was in fact a hot air balloon. As the larger man returned home, his pursuer grabbed for the door before it could swing closed and then he walked into the unwitting thief's apartment.
The agent immediately had to duck into the kitchen to avoid being seen by the petite redhead who came out of one of the adjoining rooms, carrying the accursed child he had heard far too much about that day.
"Oh, Marshall! Thank God! Take Marvin, Ted's downstairs yelling for MacLaren's to open up and sell him some brandy!" She hurried out of the apartment, with no further explanation, shoving the baby at her husband.
Marshall cooed at his son, and deposited him into a pillow fort on the couch, thereby preventing him from falling off. The lawyer then reached into the bag dangling from his elbow and dumped the contents of the manila envelope onto his desk (inevitably, a few pages slid straight off onto the floor, as always happened when he tried to do such things). He was about to put the first bundle into the shredder when a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Mr. Eriksen."
"Randy?" Marshall spun around to stare at his co-worker, whose usual aura of ineptitude had vanished, revealing a hard, cold, businesslike character. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here for those papers." Randy said, slipping back into his usual hapless demeanour. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, moving out of the kitchen towards the couch. "I, uh, kinda forgot what I was carrying and instead of putting the outdated flyers for GNB's Super Saver Deal into the recycling, I ended up keeping them and nearly getting rid of the important documents I was taking to the boss. How about you just give those back to me, and we pretend I didn't nearly make a huge mistake? I'll buy you a round of drinks as a 'thank you'…"
Marshall looked at the smaller man, scrutinising him and his story. Randy was pretty useless, that much was true, and he'd been known to shred the wrong documents or bring irrelevant files to court. On the other hand, something was off. Why had he come all the way to Marshall's apartment building to dispose of the flyers when there were perfectly good recycling bins in every part of GNB? (Marshall should know – he'd organised the campaign for them.) And Randy following him up to his apartment was kind of creepy. Also, why had Randy not approached him from the outset? Had he been following Marshall the whole day? Not to mention the strange tone of voice Randy had taken to stop him from shredding the papers – something else was going on here.
His train of thought was interrupted by a waft of a truly awful smell. He was sure he had caught a whiff of that smell in the crowd at the magic show, but he had thought it was the children at the time.
"Ugh, God, where's that coming from?" Marshall muttered, wrinkling up his nose. "It smells disgusting!"
"Ahaha, sorry Mr. Eriksen, that'd be me. I took a bit of a tumble by the dumpsters outside…"
"O-oh. Okay…" Marshall said, his thoughts racing. That was definitely suspicious. For one thing, it was now apparent that Randy had been following him around. For another, who spends enough time hanging around back alleys to pick up that much of a stink? A quick fall next to the trash wouldn't have left such a strong smell. There was no way that this was just another example of Randy's general uselessness. Something was up.
"So, uh, the papers, can I have them back?"
"Sure," Marshall said, but made no move to gather them up. "What did you say they were for again?"
"Uh, I didn't, actually. They're classified. You know." Randy looked decidedly uncomfortable, like a witness when Marshall was onto a weak point in their testimony. The lawyer seized his chance.
"Oh really? No offence, pal, but I wouldn't have thought you'd be trusted with any confidential papers after that mishap with the –"
"Jeesh, Eriksen, that was months ago! Just give me the damn papers back and I'll get outta your hair, alright?" Randy seemed unusually vexed by the whole situation. In the whole time they'd worked together, Marshall had never seen him this close to freaking out.
"These papers aren't from GNB, are they…?" Marshall murmured, pulling the top ones over to examine them. There was something about shipping to Shanghai, but before he could read more he was paralysed by the sound of a gun's safety catch being clicked off.
"Nope. Now why don't you do yourself a favour and just put the papers back in the envelope?" Randy said, in a perfectly composed and rather ominous manner. There was no trace of the bumbling fool that Marshall thought he knew. Instead there was a man with a dark smile playing about his lips and a mistrustful gleam in his eyes. He held a pistol with a silencer attached, and was pointing it straight at Marshall's chest.
Marshall did what any adopted New Yorker would do in such a situation: he prepared to hand over the goods, pray for his life and try to think of an escape plan. Solving the mystery could wait until his life wasn't threatened. He could tell the cops about Randy later.
"Alright, just a moment…" Marshall said, slowly gathering the sheets on his desk and shuffling them into a neater pile. He scanned them as fast as he could while he did so; catching occasional words that meant nothing to him, and spotting photos of a few women he'd seen Ted fail to hit on. (This just kept getting weirder. Why did Randy want photos of them?) He put the papers back into the manila envelope and looked over at Randy, who was now perfectly composed and had slightly lowered his gun.
"That's it. No need to make life difficult. Just slide it over to me…" Randy said.
"I'm…not sure if I should give these to you, Randy…" Marshall murmured. Randy let out an enraged growl, rolling his eyes. Then, before Marshall could react, Randy had scooped up Marvin from the pillow fort.
"I really think you should just give me those papers, Eriksen." He said, coldly.
xxx
Wendy Dearheart sat with her hands folded on her lap, avoiding the detective's gaze.
"It started a few months ago. I noticed that some of the customers were staying late – later than me – it was just them and Carl! And that whenever they did, they wouldn't come back. At first I thought Carl was sleeping them, and so if they'd come back to the bar it would've made things awkward, but then there were some guys that stayed late too, and Carl doesn't…didn't swing that way. So I started looking into it. I never found any proof or anything, but Carl was definitely involved in some kind of shady gang. Then the other week, not long before my boyfriend broke up with me, Carl got this postcard. I have it somewhere…"
She stood and rummaged in a drawer for a moment, before handing Sherlock a postcard in a see-through plastic sandwich bag. He turned it over and read out the message.
"'Daddy's had enough now – you're in big trouble, mister! Hugs & kisses, M…' Any ideas on who sent it?"
"Um… No. Sorry. There was a guy who was hanging around the bar lately, Carl got really jumpy whenever he was around, but I don't know if he was part of the gang." Wendy shrugged. "I tried to get Carl to talk about him, but he just clammed up…"
"Ah."
"So I just swiped the postcard the other day when Carl was hungover. I put it in a bag in case it had fingerprints on it or anything, but I didn't have enough to report anything to the cops, so I just kept it here."
"I see."
"And then, he acted kinda weird…"
"How so?"
"He offered to buy me dinner. Just take-out, nothing fancy. I tried to refuse but he insisted, saying he wanted to 'redeem his gender' after my boyfriend broke up with me… Which was weird, 'cause he'd never taken an interest in my love life before. But still, it was nice of him."
"Did he make a move on you?" 'Jane' asked.
"What? No! We weren't…"
"But he did treat you to dinner when he learned that you were newly single." Sherlock commented, raising an eyebrow. Surely he couldn't be misinterpreting that? "Please don't try to conceal things, Ms. Dearheart. There really is no point in secrecy."
"I… No, he didn't! Make a move on me, that is. I mean… not that kind of move. He…" She swallowed nervously, licked her lips and took a deep breath. "He came at me. With a knife. And I'd been taking self-defence classes, because I don't live in a great neighbourhood, you see? And I just sort of… acted on instinct. And the next thing I know, there's a bread-knife in him, and he's sort of… gaping at me… and he's bleeding everywhere, and I was going to call an ambulance but I realised how it looked, and he'd already stopped breathing… So I just stashed his body in the closet, pulled out the knife and washed it up in the kitchen out back while I tried to figure out what to do. You have to understand; I'm scared that the gang might come after me for killing one of their members. I thought maybe if it was left a mystery I would be safe… That's why I didn't come forward… But I swear, Mr. House, it was in self-defence! I liked Carl, I didn't want to kill him… But I guess he didn't feel the same."
There was a stunned silence after her confession. Then Sherlock gave an exclamation as the pieces fitted into place and Wendy turned to look at him.
"The killer didn't threaten you. You are the killer! It's the classic sign, trying to wash the blood off your hands. The cleaning. The soap. The refusal to leave the safety of your home. When you add in the gang it all makes perfect sense. Those people who were staying late with Carl: maybe they weren't all gang members, but they could have been associates or collaborators. Drug dealers or smugglers, perhaps? Moving goods using MacLaren's as a front." He groaned. "I never should have tried to theorize without adequate data. It was a capital mistake. It biased my judgement."
Wendy, who had started crying, sniffled.
"You're not from the insurance company, are you? You're too clever. You know all those things, without even trying." Sherlock said nothing but he did turn back around to look at her. "Are you with the cops, Mr. House?"
"I'm a freelancer." Sherlock replied.
"Am I going to prison?" The distressed waitress asked quietly.
"Not at the moment. We need to gather more evidence. Figure out why Carl attacked you and what kind of business is going on at MacLaren's. I recommend that you give yourself up to the police now, as that will make you more sympathetic to a jury when all this comes to court, and will give you extra protection in the mean time." Sherlock said plainly.
"Papers." 'Jane' said suddenly. Up until this point she had been silent, absorbing Wendy's story. Now she grabbed the other woman by her shoulders and shook her a little. "Did you ever see Carl with any papers? He would have left them in an easily accessible public area with low security. Did you see them? Did you find any?"
"What? No, I…I don't know what you're talking about, Ms. Doyle."
"Jane…?" Sherlock murmured.
"There was a case I was meant to look into. While I was here. But my rendezvous fell through because of the murder. I'm starting to think it was Carl I was meant to be meeting…"
"And these papers, are they something to do with the gang Ms. Dearheart mentioned?"
"The recycling bins!" Wendy cried. The Brits turned to look at her. "I saw this guy hanging out by the recycling bins once. It was weird because he was reading a file. Seemed like a strange place for it."
"Where are these recycling bins?" 'Jane' demanded.
"They're just round the back of the bar. We only really put them in because Marshall…Mr. Eriksen…one of our regulars, asked us to. He's an environmental lawyer, so he's really into this stuff…"
'Jane' sprang to her feet, turned and ran to the door. Sherlock ran down the stairs after her.
"What's happening? Eve! Tell me what's going on!"
"Get Mycroft!" She shouted over her shoulder as she hailed a cab. Sherlock was jerked backwards as Wendy grabbed the back of his coat.
"Wait, please Mr. House! Don't leave me! I'm so scared!" She wailed.
"Go turn yourself in to the police!" Sherlock snapped. When he turned back to the road, Eve and her cab were already gone.
xxx
Marshall froze for a moment, then slid the papers across the floor to Randy. As the agent took his eyes off Marshall, bending down and shifting his grip on Marvin to pick up the papers, the lawyer leapt into action.
With a bellow of incoherent paternal rage, he threw himself at the agent. His only thought was for his son's safety. His mind was a blank… Normally it would have advised against rushing an armed man. But this armed man had Marvin.
The door swung open behind Randy just as he took aim. He turned to see Lily in the doorway, but his finger was already tightening around the trigger. Somewhere in the apartment building, a door slammed closed and there was the sound of running footsteps.
There was a muffled gunshot, and Marshall cried out in pain. Marvin wailed and began to sob.
Lily took in the scene with wide eyes: she saw her baby in Randy's grip, saw her husband collapsed on the floor, and stared at the gunman in outraged despair.
Randy, seeing that Marvin was the only thing preventing Lily from doing anything untoward, adjusted his arm to hold the infant more securely while retaining his grip on the envelope.
"Alright, that's enough. You're going to let me walk out of here right now, aren't you? Wouldn't want anything bad to happen, after all. Wouldn't want me to lose my grip…" He sneered. Lily, horrified, held up her hands and backed away out into the corridor outside. Randy followed, gun pointed straight at her. "That's it. Nice and easy."
Facing Lily, he had his back to the stairs. That was why he only had time to register her change of expression before something hard bounced off the back of his head.
He spun around to see an enraged brunette, who flung a high-heeled shoe straight at his face. He ducked out of the way instinctively, his head turned to the side, and Lily made a grab for the gun, wrenching it out of his hand from behind.
Unfortunately, it is not in the job description of a kindergarten teacher or an artist to know how to wield a gun.
Even if Lily had known what to do with it, she wouldn't have fired anyway, as Randy had pulled out a knife from somewhere and had it pressed to Marvin. The baby did not understand what was happening, but everything was loud, and the man was holding him too tight, and there was something cold and sharp against his skin. His sobs increased in volume and intensity.
"Enough!" Randy hissed, while the two women stood by, helpless to save the infant. "I'm getting out of here, and you're not gonna stop me." They reluctantly shuffled a safe distance away from him, and he began to walk down the stairs, sideways so that they wouldn't try anything.
Once he was out of their line of sight, he broke into a sprint and left the building. There was the distant sound of a car door slamming outside, followed by screeching tyres.
Lily looked at her baby's would-be saviour. Lily didn't know her name, but since she had just tried to stop Randy, Lily was inclined to trust her.
"I'm so sorry. I was too late, I couldn't stop him…" Said the woman in an English accent. Lily felt her eyes fill with tears. That had actually just happened. Like, all of it.
"Oh God…" Lily sobbed. "He shot Marshall, he kidnapped Marvin… What am I going to do?"
"Someone was shot?" The brunette exclaimed, rushing past Lily and entering the apartment to see Marshall lying near the sofa with blood soaking his shirt.
This was not good at all.
A/N And there you have it. Plot and even a cliffhanger, as this chapter is too long already. We hope you enjoyed it! Why not let us know what you think of these developments?
Warnings: a man stalks, threatens, and shoots Marshall. He also threatens Marvin with both a gun and a knife and general injury before kidnapping him to prevent Lily from stopping his escape. (Marvin is unharmed – we're not writing it that dark!) The description of Carl's death is not gory, it merely specifies the type of knife and shows the killer's 'motivations'. If you're still worried, just stop after the magician: everything up to and including that is just social stuff and silliness. (If you don't count the worst attempt at shadowing a guy ever as bad. We tried to make that bit light-hearted.)