John will never tire of this, watching Sherlock apply that stupefying intellect to a problem, and Molly has presented him with one that checks all the boxes. Serial killers, if that's what this turns out to be, are Sherlock's favorite prey. Not for the reason he once claimed, (there's always something to look forward to), but because catching a killer who makes a hobby of taking as many lives as possible offers a special sense of satisfaction. Sherlock hates the limelight, and stopping murders before they happen provides the perfect combination of outsmarting his target while never revealing to those he saves that they unknowingly owe him their lives.

He is not quite pacing with excitement, but it's close. Shifting from one foot to the other, and occasionally crossing the room to look back at Molly from a different perspective, he's animated even when he's standing relatively still. He's been gently grilling Molly on her theory, and she's giving as good as she gets. There's a spark of defiant confidence in her that he's never seen before. It's the most fun John has had in a very long time.

"You're saying that the lack of defensive wounds on these two cases is a link to Hartman, but there's no proof that any of them was injected with a paralytic, or with anything at all. There weren't even any injection marks found on McConnell and Brandt."

"Injections aren't that easy to spot. And there is no need to hit a vein with succinylcholine. The full effect takes a bit longer to set in if you just jab where you can reach, but the duration is actually longer. The marks could have been anywhere. Not finding them doesn't mean they weren't there."

Sherlock paces to the workbench against the far wall, waving a dismissive hand. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I'm familiar with the concept, but it can also be exactly what it seems. There were no injections to find."

Molly crosses her arms. "I didn't examine the others the way I did Hartman. I don't think I would have found his injection if you hadn't asked me to look for it." She frowns. "And while we're at it, what even made you think I might find one?"

John sees Sherlock's eyes narrow. She has him. Sherlock lifts his chin and sniffs. "The lack of defensive wounds, obviously. What made you think that McConnell and Brandt might have been suspects in murders? It can't have been in the medical files."

"I already knew about Owen Brandt. I did his autopsy. Two of the investigating officers from Scotland Yard were here to observe, and they were talking about the case while I worked. They said his murder closed the investigation into his wife's murder as well. They called it a 'public service homicide'. I'd never heard the term before, but it wasn't hard to guess what they meant. It stuck in my head. I didn't know about William McConnell being a suspect until Greg looked him up when I called about the cases this morning." She puts her hands on her hips. "Even if we can never prove that they were injected with succinylcholine, what are the chances that three men who seemingly got away with murder just happened to end up being murdered themselves?"

Sherlock studies her for a long moment. John can see the answer in his eyes, but a nudge of encouragement seems called for. "You have to admit, Sherlock, the potential is there."

Molly gives John a grateful smile. Then, they both turn to look at Sherlock. She crosses her arms again. "Greg is very interested in this case, by the way. Are you really going to just stand back and let him have it?"

Sherlock's smile tells them he knows he's being double teamed, and it's not necessary. "Not if we want to catch the killer."

He's been officially resurrected for nearly two months, but the sight of Sherlock walking into Scotland Yard still manages to inspire a few stunned glances. This morning's visit is no exception. He enjoys it more than he'd like to admit, particularly when he recognizes one of the dozen or so officers who took such pleasure in hauling him out of the flat in cuffs the night before his 'suicide'. John, he notices, meets the shocked looks with a withering glare that he seems to reserve for these occasions.

Lestrade is waiting for them in his office with two fat files on the desk in front of him. "John! Great to see you!" He stands up and shakes his hand. "You're working on this one, too?" He's obviously delighted.

"Wouldn't miss it. Molly seems to have turned up a serial killer," he says with a smile that's mildly disturbing, given the statement that inspired it. "She's made a good case for it, too." He starts filling Lestrade in on what they learned from her earlier.

Sherlock grabs the files from the desk before he sits down, then flips through the contents while John and the DI chat. He finds the crime scene photos for McConnell and fans them out. Deep red marks on the throat made by large, powerful hands remind him strongly of the finger spread on Hartman's hips. Manual strangulation. And no fingernail scratches on his throat where he should have been clawing those hands away in a vain attempt to draw a breath. The expression frozen on his face is very much like the one Michael Hartman died wearing.

"Sherlock." Lestrade's tone suggests that this is not the first time he's tried to get his attention.

Sherlock looks up to find John and Lestrade frowning at him. "I'm not deaf."

"Selective hearing," Lestrade comments dryly. "Did Molly tell you that Hartman's time of death makes James Anderson's alibi good?"

Sherlock returns to the file. "I never doubted it."

John snorts. "Yeah, that's why you asked Molly to look for an injection site. I suppose it had nothing to do with him being a nurse with easy access to a paralytic drug."

"Belief demands proof. I was merely confirming." He closes the file and opens Brandt's. The autopsy photos show multiple stab wounds in the abdomen. He looks up. "I thought they were all asphyxiated?"

Lestrade nods. "The stab wounds? Just for effect, apparently. He was found folded up in the boot of his own car. Pressed in so tightly that he died of..." He searches his memory for the words.

Sherlock turns to the autopsy report. "Positional asphyxia."

"Right. He didn't actually bleed much. The position he was in acted like direct pressure and slowed it down to a trickle. Must have hurt like a bitch, though."

"I'd say that was the intent." He hands the photo to John. "The wound edges are very clean. Brandt didn't move while the blade was pushed in over and over."

"Sixteen times," John says, counting the marks. He looks at Sherlock. "Could the number have any significance?"

Greg shakes his head. "Doubt it. His wife was the same age as him. Thirty-four. They had no kids. Married eight years. If there's a point to the number, it's nothing obvious."

Sherlock looks at the crime scene photos of the body jammed in the boot. It's no wonder the man couldn't breathe. "Maybe that's all the time the killer had before the victim lost consciousness. How long would that have taken?" He turns to John.

"If the killer injected him with succinylcholine, he'd have been able to breathe for as long as two minutes. After that, he would have stayed conscious for another minute or two. Three at most." He winces. "It would have felt like the longest few minutes of his life. His adrenaline would have been pumping and it would have intensified every sensation. Nobody deserves to die like that."

Sherlock shrugs. "The killer would seem to disagree."

Lestrade sits back. "Okay, so what have we got? Is this a serial vigilante like Molly thinks, or just bad karma coming home to roost?"

Sherlock arches a brow. "Mixed metaphors aside, let's look at the probabilities. As Molly said, what are the odds that these three men, each suspected of murder but apparently safe from prosecution, became murder victims themselves? How common is that?"

Greg lifts his hands, palms up. "Depends on the circumstances. A career criminal has plenty of opportunities to make enemies and get himself killed in the normal course of business, but these three weren't career criminals. McConnell and Brandt were suspected of murdering their wives. That's usually a crime of passion. A one-time thing. Hartman had the potential to become a serial rapist, but he wasn't there yet. They were no more likely to be murdered than anyone else."

"That's both a similarity and a difference," Sherlock points out. "Two killed their wives. One killed a stranger. All three were their first murders, as far as we know, although Hartman didn't kill his victim. She died from her injuries. And there's another difference." He flips through the files. "McConnell was murdered eight months after his wife died. Brandt was eleven months later. Hartman was practically the next day." He looks up at Greg. "Speaking of probabilities, what are the chances of all three victims being autopsied by the same person?"

"Molly does a lot of autopsies on murder victims. Bart's is a favored facility," Greg replies. "But there are a dozen other doctor's doing autopsies there, and the murders were months apart. I see what you're saying." He pauses. "What are you saying?"

"If these three were killed by the same man, how likely is it that they're his only victims."

Greg's expression sharpens. "Molly needs to talk to the other doctors. See if anyone remembers similar features in a murder case they handled. And check with colleagues at other hospitals for the same thing." He pulls a notepad from his middle desk drawer and starts making notes.

"I sent her a text from the taxi on the way over here. She'll already be in the process of doing just that," Sherlock tells him, and gets an eye roll in response. "The more potential victims we can add to the pool, the more likely it is that we'll find what really connects them."

Greg looks at him. "You mean, more than the murders they got away with?"

Sherlock nods. "There has to be something else. The way they were killed, and the reason they were killed, can't be the whole story. It doesn't get us any closer to the man who killed them."

"We've never looked at them as a group," Lestrade starts thinking out loud. "If they were killed by the same man, how did he choose them? Where would a vigilante find deserving targets?" He frowns at where this leads. "It would have to be someone who had knowledge of crimes that were never prosecuted. These men were interviewed, but never charged. Outside of the officers investigating the cases, no one would have known they were being considered, except for the men themselves."

Sherlock dismisses the suggestion. "This isn't the work of a disgruntled policeman. You lot plant evidence and force confessions. You don't torture suspects with drugs and stuff them in the boots of cars. And why wait months to do it?"

Lestrade makes a face at Sherlock's left-handed absolution. "And they're all different investigators. Including me, on the Anderson case."

"What about the victims' families?" John asks. "Were any of them aware that these men were considered the main suspects?" He takes the folder that Sherlock isn't currently perusing and flips it open on his lap. "Or the media? Reporters do a lot of speculating with next to no facts."

Sherlock catches the fleeting wince in Lestrade's expression and shakes his head. "Not even the sleaziest reporter would risk naming a suspect who wasn't officially accused by the police. If you're looking for baseless speculation served up as fact, there's one obvious source." He lifts an eyebrow at John. "I believe we even have one contributor in our midst."

John has heard Sherlock malign his blog too often to bother taking offense. "There was something in McConnell's file." He flips pages for a moment, lips pursed in concentration, then pulls out one sheet and holds it up. "Lisa McConnell's parents had a website created to offer a reward for information when she went missing."

Sherlock has already pulled out his phone. He taps in 'Lisa McConnell missing'. The link to the website John just mentioned is repeated in a dozen results. He hands John the file for Brandt. "What was his wife's name?"

John quickly comes up with it. "Melanie."

Sherlock taps keys, then holds the phone up for John to read the screen. "It just became an eight."

John calls Mary from the cab on the way to Baker Street to tell her not to expect him for dinner, but his expression changes as he listens to her response, excitement fading quickly to regret. Sherlock pretends not to notice, but disappointment flares in his chest.

"I'm sorry, I completely forgot," John says into the phone. He's nodding as if she can see. "Yeah, I know. I'll be there in an hour." He ends the call and looks at Sherlock. "I-"

"It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"We've got people coming to dinner and-"

"I said it's fine. You can do some searches when you get home, if you have time later tonight." He meant that to sound neutral, but there's an edge to it that John obviously hears.

"You know I'd rather be doing this than making polite conversation with the neighbors."

The cab glides to a stop in front of 221B, and Sherlock opens the door. "Just search on 'missing persons' and 'reward'. Look for websites that have no current activity. There will be no need for continuing the search if they believe the killer has been executed. We'll have Lestrade check the Met database for any names we come up with." He gets out, then leans down to give John an absolving smile. "I'll text you if I find anything promising." He closes the door and gives the roof of the cab a dismissing pat.

Two hours later, Sherlock has a list of eleven names that potentially fit the criteria. Nine women and two men, all murdered within the past six years. Three of the websites actually mention that the only suspect in the crime was murdered. One goes so far as to post the name of the suspect and withdraws the offered reward. Case closed, it says without regard to the possible legal ramifications of accusing a dead man of murder. Sherlock adds Gerrold Wakefield as a potential victim of the serial vigilante.

Searching on the names from his list, he finds a site link that keeps showing up in the results. 'karmasabitch dot com ' is a title that seems a bit too obvious. A serial vigilante would be unlikely to advertise so publically with a site name that's a virtual manifesto, but he learned long ago not to underestimate the human capacity for stupidity. The site turns out to be more in line with the cynical Darwin Awards. Criminals snared by their own stupidity. Several of the cases cited involve murderers who died accidentally in bizarre ways. It's likely that the search keeps including it in his results because a high percentage of its visitors also frequent the missing and murdered persons sites.

There are other sites that come up over and over. 'Findme dot com ' is a catalog of missing persons. 'Bodysearch dot org ' sounds like a porn site, but turns out to be a repository of unidentified bodies from all over the world, complete with details on where and when each was found, sometimes including photo reconstructions of the faces or pictures of belongings found with the bodies.

Websites established by the victims' families are filled with images and stories that are clearly designed to inspire empathy and generate tips. Of the eleven potential victims on his list, only four have sites in their honor.

His phone pings a text notification at 3:30 in the morning. John's disjointed message is evidence that he's exhausted, but he's found sixteen possibilities, and mentions the same website Sherlock has been running into. He texts back that he's going to take the list to Lestrade in the morning. John's immediate reply is to ask what time Sherlock wants him to be there.

The third floor studio flat on Craven Street has been his home for the past ten years, but the only improvements he's made to its utilitarian decor in all that time is the addition of flat screen computer monitors to give him more room on the worktable that takes up the entire north side of the room. His tiny kitchen occupies the southwest corner, and his sofa bed takes up the rest of the south wall, leaving a narrow space for access to the tiny bathroom.

There are four desktop computers and two laptops on his worktable, all wired to a high speed Internet connection. It's a sophisticated set up that speaks of a hobby that turned into an obsession, and he spends nearly all of his free time and most of his disposable income supporting it. Money and time well spent. Very well spent.

He's waiting for his microwave dinner to finish heating up when one of the monitors emits a ping, and he glances over his shoulder. He has several multi-player games in progress, but this isn't coming from one of those. It's the PC at the end of the group. The one that monitors his favorite sites. The microwave chimes a moment later, and he retrieves his meal and takes it to the table to see what's triggered the alarm. He sits down and starts to bring a forkful of potato to his lips, then freezes. He frowns at the message.

His computer skills are entirely self-taught. The program he wrote to keep an eye on site traffic has recorded an unusual number of hits from the same IP address. Another ping draws his attention to a second site, and his frown deepens. Pushing the cooling dinner aside, he starts checking the remaining sites. Two IP addresses, the same on each site. Traffic well beyond what is normal. The same IP addresses hitting not only the monitored sites, but the links they contain. All related to the project.

It takes him less than ten minutes to identify one of them, and he's suddenly very glad that his dinner was interrupted. The way his stomach has begun to twist, it would have had unpleasant consequences. The IP address leads him to its owner's website. It's one he's visited himself, though not recently.

'The Science of Deduction'

Sherlock Holmes. Scotland Yard's favorite consulting detective. Looking at these sites. The implications are disturbing.

But it could be nothing more than coincidence. Curiosity. It's much too soon to be drawing conclusions, especially the kind that are currently tying his belly in knots. Don't overreact. Gather data, and make an informed decision.

He opens the settings menu on his tracking program and starts recording.

end of chapter 3