AN: So, is this chapter secretly a commentary on how I feel about Facebook? Surprisingly, no, I've got to be the worst culprit in the universe, I post everything on Facebook. The trick is to never, ever do anything you're ashamed of.
That philosophy is working for me so far.
The case is heating up. You will get only one more domestic moment before we go hurdling into the very depths of intrigue, so brace yourselves.
There was to be none of the promised breaking and entering that day, but there was to be a great invasion of privacy. Facebook wasn't so much John's stride, but Sherlock considered social networking his fourth most useful crime-solving tool (and if you had asked him, he would have said that yes, The Homeless Network was a social network, albeit an unconventional one). The first was his brain (obviously) the second was his body (transport) the third was the lab at St. Bart's. As for the fourth, Sherlock had eight separate and unaffiliated personae on Facebook (and dozens of others on other sites), each of which had at least thirty friends. John never quite got over his amazement at the fact that dozens of people who had never met "Kelsie Bauer" or "Timothy Reston" would willingly add a stranger to their friends list, but Sherlock just smiled and said that it was human nature to desire popularity, to assume that everyone knew them. John couldn't help but wonder silently if he was referring to his "friends" or to himself. His most extensive alias had over five hundred of them, none of whom had ever met a very attractive fictional person named Valentine Curran.
Mariana Van Orden had a Facebook account, one that Sherlock considered critical to the case, but he decided not to waste time with the formalities, as he knew by now that her account had almost certainly been abandoned. He found her email on her WordPress site and was somehow able to determine that she had certainly used the same email for her Facebook account. The password was a bit more of a challenge. Routinely guessing the password of your closest friend and cohabitant was hardly the same thing as unravelling that of a complete stranger. He had to resort to software other than his own brain, something that was always a blow to his pride, but he still had access to Ms. Van Orden's profile in a matter of minutes.
"John, look at this," he piped suddenly, drawing John's attention away from his Twitter search to the same – if less fruitful – ends. He crossed the room to peer over Sherlock's shoulder, scanning the woman's profile page. "What's relevant here?" He leaned back in his chair, clearly knowing what was relevant but wanting John to work it out himself.
John screwed up his mouth a bit and leaned over to finger the scroll pad. His arm bumped Sherlock's ear, earning him a scalding look, but he ignored it.
"She's…a bit of a feminist, looks like," he ventured, noticing a number of supported causes. Sherlock said nothing. "And, well, obsessed with music, but that's a given. Erm…married…to Erin Ulmer, so she's playing for the ladies I suppose." The barest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of Sherlock's lips. "And…" he clicked on her photos and started scrolling through. "Some pictures of the kids, their kids, I guess, adopted. Er…last status update was more than two months ago, so I guess the account's been abandoned. Same as her website, like you said, but I guess she stuck with Facebook a bit longer."
Sherlock didn't immediately respond, but his nose did crinkle slightly. "Click through to Erin Ulmer's page," the detective advised, and John complied.
"Still active," he remarked, "last update was…last night, a photo from her mobile." He enlarged it. The slightly blurred, poorly lit photograph framed two women, both dressed as though they were clubbing. One was apparently passed out, the other giving her an exaggerated kiss on the cheek as she held up a pinkish mixed drink in a toast to the photographer.
"The spouse has a bit of a wild streak?" He wondered aloud.
"Go back a few months."
Clickclickclick… "Family photos, mostly, Ulmer and Van Orden at the park with the little girl, a few of them out to dinner and such. Little girl playing with dolls, at a violin recital…"
"So where's the boy?" Sherlock asked pointedly, glancing over his shoulder at John.
He chewed his lip for a moment, then shrugged.
"You're getting there, go on."
"No, I'm not, Sherlock, just lay it out and stop mocking my stupidity."
Sherlock sighed, looking rather disappointed, but turned his attention back to the computer. "Ulmer and Van Orden are in the middle of a very sloppy, very emotional separation. Ulmer is the instigator, obviously, she gives no information on her relationship status, while Van Orden's still says married. Ulmer was the breadwinner, going by her clothes, professional sort, lots of name brands, as well as by the size and location of their house. You don't make that sort of money teaching music to kids. Maybe a lawyer, upper management somewhere, doesn't matter. Point is, Ulmer left Van Orden, and while she's off revelling in her newfound freedom, her starving artist of a spouse is beset by anxiety. Her social life has been abandoned, and she's taken to pacing as she desperately tries to sort out her options."
"Wait, how –"
"The rug, the one in front of the fireplace," Sherlock interjected. "You could see a sliver of the sitting room from the door, and there was a path worn into the rug that wasn't along a thoroughfare. That sort of repetitive wear on a low-traffic area can only mean pacing. However, her failing relationship isn't the only source of her anxiety. There's the boy, Adrienne."
"Problem child?" John inferred.
"More than that, I should think," Sherlock mused, pressing his fingertips together. "This is what I needed to be sure of; this is why I went to Facebook. There are dozens of pictures of the girl on both women's profiles, but they're all fairly recent. The oldest is three years ago, likely when Ulmer first created the account, but out of more than two hundred pictures between the two of them, Adrienne is in exactly three. Yet in the house it's the other way around. In the hallway there were eighteen framed pictures, some of the two women together, but all others of the boy, only the boy. Not a single photo is recent enough to feature the girl. Also telling, nearly every photo of Adrienne, from the time he was old enough to grasp an object, shows him with a violin."
"So…he's exceptionally good, just like the dead girls. Something of a prodigy?"
"Perhaps, though it seems to me that it's more nurture than nature." He nodded toward the computer again. "Did you see where she was trained?"
John had to click back a few pages, and Sherlock tilted his head to the side to avoid the tickle of John's jumper on his temple. "Juilliard? That's an American school, a music school. New York, right?"
Sherlock nodded. "Pretentious, I would say, but very exclusive. It's the sort of school that turns out world-class musicians. Yet now, Mariana Van Orden is not playing in the London Symphony Orchestra, not playing anywhere, in fact. She's teaching music to primary school kids out of her sitting room. And like you said, she's nothing if not obsessed; I hardly think such humble means would be enough for someone so ambitious."
John straightened up slowly, planting his fists on the back of Sherlock's chair. "So she's living vicariously through her adopted children," he muttered, "grooming the boy for greatness first, then…he turned out to be mediocre, I guess, so she started again with the girl."
"You're not half bad at horseshoes, are you, John?"
"…What?"
"You're close, very close, but the children aren't adopted, nor is the boy anything less than genius."
"Then how…" it hit him. "They had a donor."
"Two, in fact. Both women have brown hair, did you notice? But Adrienne's is black, the girl's is blonde, and a bit curly, and both children bear some resemblance to Van Orden, but none whatsoever to Ulmer, I've examined all their photographs carefully, measured facial structures. Vastly different hair colour would suggest adoption, but Van Orden was being careful with her genetics. She wanted, specifically, exceptional musicians. She – valuing herself very highly – gave birth to both of them, and was very selective about her donor's profile. Lo and behold, she did produce a genius. The mark on Adrienne's neck was one of the worst I've seen. He plays like a fiend, always has, so she got what she wanted. Yet the marked difference in appearance suggests she used a different donor for Lizzie. Why switch? Why argue with success?"
John shrugged, eager for Sherlock to continue, caught up entirely in the web of intrigue he was spinning.
"There is something wrong with Adrienne Van Orden," He announced with an air of finality. He brought up a photo of Erin Ulmer. "Split lip," he indicated, pointing it out on the screen, "and bruises on her arm." He selected another, of the little girl this time. "Her cheek is swollen, and in this one there are cuts on her hands." He had gathered a litany of evidence, going through every photo to find all the signs of abuse on the other three family members. He stopped at the fifth, certain that John was getting the idea. "No three people are consistently and simultaneously that clumsy."
"The boy's...violent," John confirmed, slightly breathless.
"Probably psychologically unstable," Sherlock confirmed, leaning back in his chair. "Hard to say what ailment exactly, but the parents are all too aware, that's why they wanted a different father for the girl. That's why Ulmer is trying to escape. That's why there are no photos of him recently, they're blocking him out. They've given up trying to control him, now they're pretending he doesn't exist. Ulmer fled, but Van Orden is stuck with him now."
"There were tears in that girl's eyes when he grabbed her arm," John recalled, attaching significance to it suddenly. "And he didn't look the slightest bit afraid of us when he opened the door. It was like he was egging us on."
"Exactly." Sherlock's eyes were wide with revelation, his voice tense with the thrill of the chase. "Somehow, it's because of him that those girls were killed. Van Orden did it, physically, but he compelled her. Both had something to gain in murdering them, the girls were competition, they were standing in the way of something, some path to greatness, and Van Orden was smart enough to execute the murders and then cover them up. That's why we need to search the house, John. The DNA was consistent among the three girls, meaning Van Orden is pulling from a cache. If we can find it, better yet, if we can prove that it matches either of those two children, we have a case."
"I'll phone Lestrade," he offered immediately, turning back toward the sofa, but Sherlock interrupted him mid-stride.
"Don't bother; he's far too good an officer to order a raid on such flimsy conjecture. It's one thing for me to know that my assumptions are correct, but quite another to explain it to ordinary people, on legal forms. We'll handle this ourselves."
John wanted to protest, really he did, but that tingle of adrenaline somewhere between his groin and his navel…the little kick in his gut that snarled could be dangerous won out over reason. Always did. Always would. "How're we to know when they're out of the house?" He asked instead.
"People are stupid, John. They reveal every moment of their lives on the internet, every tiny, intimate detail." He said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. A few clicks, some scrolling, and he was on the page of a friend of a friend of Erin Ulmer, where she had left a message:
I can't do it on Saturday. Mari wants me to take the kids and I couldn't come up with a decent excuse in time. She's dropping them of at like 6 in the frigging morning.
"Tomorrow is Saturday," John pointed out.
"Yes, thank you, I had not been informed." He grumbled sarcastically.
"We're breaking into Mariana Van Orden's house tomorrow morning."
"Does repeating it aloud help you deal with it psychologically somehow?" Sherlock scoffed, throwing out his hands and narrowing his eyes critically.
John pursed his lips. Riding out the rest of the waiting game that was today with his over-enthused consulting detective flatmate was going to drag for chaotic eons, and he was going to have to clean it up afterward. But god, he couldn't help the quivering of excitement that was rising steadily in his chest.