The day turned out to be rather exhausting for Watson and her investigations on vets, who might have had dog bodies stolen from them or even sold them. As she had to discover, there were a whole lot of veterinarians practicing in Brooklyn. And not all of them found it too good to be accused of selling the dead bodies of their former patients, once they had turned out not to have been robbed of dead dogs, which again obviously wasn't something a vet liked to hear about. Watson discovered that vets apparently took their patients quite as serious as she had during her practice. Which sure was a good thing, just not all that helpful when you weren't owning a sick pet, but trying to solve a murder case.
When she finally headed home late afternoon, it already was dark. The lights were on and she again felt that certain Christmas Spirit stir within her. She already was looking forward to a nice, warm mug of coffee wrapped in her blanket in front of the cosy fire with her lovely Christmas decoration. Hopefully Holmes already had gotten over himself and retreated with the mall's security videos. Sometimes a woman just needed her cosy time.
"Hey! I'm back!" Watson called, when she entered the Brownstone. No answer. No surprise. She got out of her coat and boots, then proceeded on to look for Holmes. When a glance into the living room made her stop in her tracks and take a step back again. Her eyes grew wide and she felt her innards begin to start to boil. Where were her things! The entire room was demoted of her Christmas decoration! No lights in the window, no stockings over the fireplace, no tree, no candles, no little Christmas trinkets! It was as if her decoration spree never had happened!
"SHERLOCK!" Watson yelled, before heading up the staircase, already having quite a good idea of where he was and indeed, he was sitting in his tv room, watching the footage of an empty mall at night on every screen. Yet, Watson cared little about the mall right now, she had a far more obvious issue at hand.
"Sherlock! Where are my things?" she said in a stern voice, to which he merely turned to look over his shoulder at her for a short moment, before returning his attention to the screens.
"Watson, you're back. Good. I hope you made some discoveries?" he said.
"I...hey, don't try to drop the subject! Where is my Christmas stuff?" she crossed her arms.
"You mean the trashy nonsense that cluttered the entire living room and robbed me of every bit of concentration, knowing such a ridiculous heap of kitsch celebrating the most fake of all holidays is in the same house as myself?" Holmes said challengingly, not looking away from his screens, which only angered Watson more.
"Yes, exactly THAT!" she huffed, "You stole it! Sherlock, you can't just steal my things! Tell me where they are?"
"I'm sorry, but I do not think myself implied to do so." he just stated.
"Well, if you don't tell me where my things are, I shall make sure you're sorry of what I'll see myself implied to do to you." she threatened, to which Holmes merely peeked over his shoulder briefly, his gaze saying everything. He knew it was a bluff.
"Come on, there were things inherited from my grandmother too." Watson eventually sighed.
"Personally I don't understand how keeping trinkets inherited from a passed person will help the loss of said person in any way. Not to mention, as far as I know, you grandmother died when you were a girl, so your memory is most likely scarce to begin with."
"Don't be difficult Sherlock. I won't put the stuff into the living room again." Watson offered with a roll of her eyes. She should have known that trying to get to Holmes goodwill would be fruitless.
A pause followed, before Holmes turned to look over his shoulder again. Watson twitched a brow slightly. Had she really gotten him?
"You are free to look for your items, Watson. See it as yet another exercise." he then said and for a short moment, Watson felt like strangling him, "If we are done with this petty argument now, I'd like to brief you on my own discoveries?"
Watson sighed, it was true, there still was a murder case at hand, but she would not give up so easily. Still, she nodded.
"Before I came back to the Brownstone to dispose of your lapse of good taste...no, the things are not in the bins, I shall spare you to look there...I happened to talk to the employer of our poor Saint Clause and was informed, that just a couple of days before, the man was hired, because the former holder of this questionable position happened to be let go due to extensive consume of alcohol and pick-pocketing." he told.
"So you think the bad Santa is a suspect?" Watson quirked a brow.
Holmes shrugged, "The man had access to the mall and knew his way around, he also worked as an IT technician, before his downfall into addiction after a particularly dirty divorce. He may be as good a suspect as any other, especially since he went missing apparently."
"Missing?" Watson tilted her head, "That's odd."
"Precisely. He might be our prime suspect, our second victim or just an addict that fell off the wagon. Three possibilities, isn't that exciting?" a short smile washed over Holmes face.
"Very. So, why are you watching the footage?"
"Captain Gregson said he would inform us, as soon as there was news from our missing Santa, in the meantime I'd like to find out on which day the footage was stolen to replace the time of the murder, so to know if it was before or after the other Santa was fired." he told, "What about the hearts?"
"Yeah, so one veterinarian had had a break-in, there were no meds stolen, just the bodies of 3 dogs she had to put down that day. I checked with the files, but there were no fingerprints or anything found and because it were just, well, dead dogs that got stolen the case was dropped pretty quickly and turned into an insurance case. She couldn't say she noticed any odd people around her practice the days before though." Watson told about her rather unsatisfying discoveries.
"Hm." was all Holmes said, before he fully returned his attention to the screens.
"What is it?" Watson asked quizzically.
"Three dogs...isn't that a bit unsettling?" was all he said.