The town of Sioux Falls was small enough for the locals to know each other almost on a personal level, yet large enough to let go the fear of outsiders coming upon their land. Sherlock had more than once been chased out of a small town for asking too many 'inappropriate' questions.
It doesn't take much to learn where the safe house was located at. Talking to the adults were useless, but children provided so much information without prompt. "The old drunk near the edge of town," one small blonde girl had told him. She was only seven and already she was using words like, 'drunk.' "The scrap yard. That's where I've seen a black car."
Sherlock has never driven so much in his life. How can the Winchesters keep doing this, day after day, for years on end? With only each other for company? Sherlock tried to imagine traveling with Mycroft, and every fantasy ended with Sherlock murdering him.
As Sherlock did one loop around the scrap yard, he could see the strategic appeal of the place. The house sat in the middle, surrounded by dozens and dozens of piled, rusted cars. The house could barely be seen from the outside. Behind the scrap yard laid a lush forest.
The scrap yard belonged to a Robert Singer. Widowed, mid-fifties, arrested a few times on public drunkenness, lived in the area for nearly thirty years. The most interesting tidbit? He's been investigated by the FBI at least twice. Been accused of housing fugitives, but evidence has always been circumstance.
Entering the house was shamefully easy.
Either Singer was a stupid man or he was so confident in his home defense to not bother with cameras, dogs, or motion sensitive equipment.
Sherlock was still cautious when he entered the house, making sure the front door wasn't booby-trapped. He closed the door quietly behind him, locking it.
There was a kitchen to his left, which he promptly ignored. A staircase was straight ahead, and a living room to his right. He saw the large bookcase and immediately went towards it.
He stopped as soon as he crossed into the living room. He looked up.
A large detailed drawing was painted on the ceiling. Besides the scorpions and the occasional bits of Latin, Sherlock didn't recognize any of the symbols. He took a picture of it with his phone.
The next hour of searching had proven to be very fruitful. Mr. Robert Singer had very eclectic tastes and if Sherlock wasn't so sure there were bodies buried underneath the scrap yard, he and Singer would have been great friends.
Singer had various skeleton pieces scattered all over his home. He had a large collection of rare books, dating back four hundred years. There were weapons hidden in nearly every crevice where a weapon could be hidden. And in his fridge, sitting next to beer and a plastic-wrapped cheese sandwich, was a jar full of animal blood.
It wasn't until Sherlock noticed the phones did he gasp in surprise. There were four house phones, each one labeled differently.
Home. Police. FBI. CIA.
Sherlock nearly giggled. "So clever!" He said out loud. This! This was how the Winchesters kept escaping! So much made sense right now.
Oh, Sherlock's fingers were itching. He wanted to search more of this room, look for the fake ID badges he knew were hidden somewhere. But he had two more floors to search through and he'd only given himself a strict time to do it.
The upstairs had nothing of interest, other than blankets and spare clothes.
The basement nearly proved the same, a general work space full of tools, and trinkets hanging from various points. It was the giant metal door that caught his attention.
It looked like a door that was fit for a prison: heavy, with a sliding lock and a peep hole. Sherlock pulled the peep hole opened, revealing the inner room empty.
He opened the door with some difficulty. The door was incredibly heavy and though well oiled, Sherlock still needed to dig his heels into the ground to move it.
Inside… was nothing special.
There was a cot, a metal cabinet with more weapons inside and an old weathered poster of a blonde woman in a bikini. High above was a large ceiling fan, illuminating a five pointed star. The whole room was made out of iron and Sherlock made a mental note to check out Singer's financials. To build such a thing must've cost a fortune.
There were traces of blood on the ground. A few drops. Sherlock scrapped them with a pocket knife, dropping the flakes into a small glass vial.