A Two Patch Problem
"Hey. Is it a bad time, or can you talk?" Molly asked as Sherlock picked up the phone.
"For you, Molly, it is never a bad time." He replied charmingly, "I'm glad you called, I was getting bored just refreshing my inbox every 5 minutes to see if any new cases have come in. So far all I've got is a business man who wants me to find out which one of his employees his wife is sleeping with so he can sack them; a tedious waste of my time. Or a young child asking me to help find his Daddy, who apparently left after an argument with his mother, who won't say when he'll be back; standard domestic problem, also not worthy of my time. Please tell me you have something more interesting for me to look at?"
"Actually I think I do." Molly told him; it was why she was phoning in the first place. "White British male, mid-thirties, died of a nicotine overdose. He forgot he was wearing two nicotine patches and went out for a cigarette break, was found dead 10 minutes later by colleagues."
"Two patches and a cigarette shouldn't have been enough to kill him; I sometimes wear three." Sherlock interjected.
"Okay, we'll talk about that later, but you're right, it shouldn't have been enough to kill him. And here's where it gets even stranger; I've just finished with his blood work, and there's far more nicotine in his blood stream than two patches and a cigarette should have given him. Definitely a lethal dose there, but where did it come from?"
"Could he have smoked multiple cigarettes?" Sherlock asked, more to gather information than because he thought it was the cause.
"He might have done, but it would have taken a whole pack to get close to the levels I'm seeing here." Molly told him, rechecking her findings.
"Really. Well this is interesting. Mind if I come down to have a look?" Sherlock asked. She could already hear him putting on his coat and knew he was asking merely out of politeness.
"I was hoping you might." Molly flirted
Sherlock paused, uncertain. "Is everything okay?"
"Of course, I just missed you." Molly responded, laughing to herself at how Sherlock still seemed to struggle to understand things like this.
"But you only saw me last night." Sherlock pointed out.
"Doesn't mean I can't still miss you" Molly fiddled with her hair, enjoying herself.
"Oh. Well I'll be there soon, okay?" Sherlock said, trying to be reassuring, making Molly laugh internally again.
"See you soon. Love you." She replied affectionately.
"Yes." Sherlock replied. Molly wasn't offended that he didn't say it back, she knew he wasn't comfortable using the term so casually, but felt it none-the-less. "John! Come on, we have a case!" She heard him shouting to his flatmate as the call ended.
15 minutes later, Sherlock swept into the lab, with John close on his heels. Molly jumped up from the paperwork she'd been filling out as she waited, going to uncover the body for them. Sherlock wrapped an arm around her waist, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head in greeting before examining the body.
"So what do you think?" Molly asked, as if asking what he thought of dinner, or a gift.
"You were right to call me in, this was no accidental overdose, this was murder, and a clever one too. Oh Molly, you do know how to make my day." He smiled at her over the corpse, winking.
"Murder? How do you know?" John asked. Thankfully he was over Molly now, and could easily ignore their flirting without awkwardness.
Sherlock pointed to the man's left upper arm. "Gummy residue from the nicotine patches are on the left." He said, as if it explained everything.
"Yes, that's right, I took them off when I got him in." Molly agreed.
"Yes, but how does that prove that he was murdered?" John asked patiently "And don't roll your eyes at me, we can't all be genius'."
"Look at his hands, John! Nicotine stains predominately on the left, shorter nails on the left,
the slight difference in musculature…" Sherlock reeled off.
"Of course," John sighed as it clicked "Left handed, so the patches-"
"Would have been applied with his left hand to his right arm, not the left, if he'd applied them himself, which he clearly didn't. The murderer applied them post mortem to make it look like they were the cause of the overdose." Sherlock finished for him.
"So how did they get the overdose of nicotine into him then? I can't see any needle marks." John said, examining the body himself.
"I didn't see any either." Molly contributed. "I don't know how much more I'll be able to find out when I open him up, but I'll let you know if I do find anything."
"Thank you. We'll let you get on with that, while we see what we can find out from his place of work." Sherlock said, flicking through the dead man's file for the address. John nodded and started heading out the room, while Sherlock turned to Molly, stepping in closer to her for a kiss.
Molly gave him a quick peck on the lips. "Be careful." She whispered.
"Don't worry, I doubt this will be a dangerous one. The killers MO suggests a more passive aggression, surreptitious, unlikely to resort to violence." He assured her, then looked down at her hand moving up his arm. "I see. I'm only wearing one."
Molly smiled sheepishly. Of course he would know what she was doing. "I'll see you tonight?" She changed the subject.
"Of course. You'd miss me otherwise." He smirked, pulling back with a wink before leaving.
AN: Yay, I did it, I managed to squeeze in time to write an update for today. It's a bit on the short side, but it's better than nothing. Attempting to write a proper case, apologies if I fail a little at it, I'm good with feelings and such but not very imaginative when it comes to cases and details and all that stuff.