Once, as Anderson lay prostrate beside a body, minutely picking at a long, fibrous tissue that had attached to the gore of the victim's traumatic head wound with his long, cold tweezers, he received a text.
His instinct was to answer it immediately, but it was against the rules to even have one's phone on while gathering evidence at a crime scene, let alone start texting.
Then again, that never seemed to stop Lestrade.
Nonetheless, he finished gathering his grotesque harvest and stowed the evidence away in a sealed disc before even hazarding a glimpse at the caller ID.
It was the wife.
He shed his blood stained gloves and disposed of them in the bright red and yellow biohazard bin before touching his screen.
Wife:
Sorry, was on my way to Brixton this morning, and your ipod slipped off the counter. I'll replace it, don't worry. –Love you.
He read it three times before the meaning seemed clear to him. His wife had broken his ipod on her way to cheat on him, and this text was an apology… for the ipod. He laughed.
"There's a woman lying dead." Sally Donovan said mirthlessly as she stepped out from behind the wall of the next room, where she had been directing the collection of evidence. "What's so funny?"
"Ah. Nothing." He said stowing his phone in his pocket again. "Just the wife."
Sally cocked her eyebrow curiously. "Is she out?"
Anderson felt the wonderful, warm rush that thrilled him whenever Sally whispered breathlessly "Is she out?"
"No." he said blithely, letting the brief, delusional euphoria melt into his toes.
"Oh." Sally said, confused.
Sherlock Holmes stormed into the room, his black belstaff coat introducing a myriad of foreign contaminates into the crime scene, his great sweeping strides lifting the dust and evidence from the top layer of the great black floor. Anderson groaned.
Sherlock Hovered over the body for a number of minutes, scanning it with his little magnifying glass. Finally, when he was done he confronted Anderson.
"You removed participates from the wound. Where are they?"
Anderson held up the little dish which contained all of his hard work. Sherlock snatched it out of his hands.
"Interesting." He mused examining the dish from all angles.
When he had no further use for the evidence he shoved the dish back to Anderson, as though it were something truly abhorrent.
"Stuffed animal, probably from a Chinese manufacturer, not present at the scene, of course, but probably nearby. The killer knew the victim, gained entry to the house at an earlier date and switched one of these…" He paused and took a breath, gesturing at all of the bears and animals that stood on pink shelves above the body. "…toys with one that had some heavy object hidden inside. Possibly a dumbbell. The victim wasn't in the habit of taking down these things to play with…no. Look at the dust on each shelf. Look at the dust on each bear! These were collector's pieces. If someone were to pull on down she might have flown at them in a rage. Hoarders usually do. When the killer chose his weapon from the army of toys he incited an unknown wrath, hence the defensive wounds, even though this has all the signs of a premeditative attack. The killer is a friend or family member, or at least trusted, with scratches on his face and arms. Obviously a man."
With that, Sherlock Holmes left the crime scene and Lestrade went to arrest whoever fitted Sherlock's description, leaving him and Sally to finish gathering the evidence for the prosecution, feeling more useless than ever.
"Do you ever wonder if he is capable of deducing wrong?" Sally asked as she helped him check the body for fingerprints.
"The process of deductive reasoning is basically the same as police reasoning." Anderson rattled as he flicked on his black light. "He takes a bunch of evidence, and builds a conclusion out of it. It's not easy to prove wrong."
"If he does all the same things we do, then how come we both come to different conclusions?"
Anderson shrugged. "He uses a lot more evidence, with a lot smaller detail. He's more…" He searched for the right word, but being unable to find it immediately settled for " OCD?" then changed his mind: "Specialized?"
"Thank you, Anderson." The dark voice of Sherlock Homes wafted from the room behind them. "You're not completely incompetent. But..."
Due to the flush of panicked reviews I feel inclined to inform the world I did not intend to kill Anderson. He went to collect evidence, that's why he botherd wearing the gloves and taking off his clothes. He would have left his clothes on if it were suicide. See?