Suburban area. Minimal cover. The garden was fenced in but the area was much too in-the-open to risk jumping it. Would be seen. Friendly neighbours on the watch after a trusted member of their community was suddenly murdered for no reason. Scared.
Damn it.
There was no one in the streets at the moment. Four of the houses with a decent view of Campbell's previous residence had their blinds open— there were very few ways to tell if these unobserved windows were modes of spying, and Sherlock didn't trust the inconclusive data enough to trust it.
Instead of stopping, he continued walking around the block— he checked his phone, scratched his head, turned around. People will always find it hard to suspect you when you are clueless, when you are inferior.
He walked around for four hours— maybe. He returned when he was dark.
There were lights on, but they were easily avoided— no one minded when you walked in the shadows of their front gardens as long as they didn't see you. With a glance behind his shoulder, he hopped himself over the fence— the back door was easy to pick.
The house was still cluttered— it had around three weeks, but the family had made a minimal effort as to cleaning and selling and erasing the crime that had happened here. Did the family not care? No, if they didn't care they would have used some of his money to hire people to do it for them. Painful past, then. Memories.
Things they needed to say, but couldn't anymore.
The body was gone— obvious, but unfortunate. Someone had even tried to clean the blood from the beige carpet upstairs.
It was still there, though— Sherlock sat himself at the computer desk that Dr. Elijah A. Campbell, 39, sat at, sitting slightly hunched over in the way this man must have in order to sit comfortably in this chair given his height (easily deducible by the angle of the shower head).
The heat turned on— it was loud and sudden, and made Sherlock jump to his feet.
Just the furnace.
He sat again, ordering his heart to stand down.
He'd have his hands here and— yes, here, to type on the laptop that sat here before it was taken as evidence. He was left handed— so was the last victim, and the victim before. A new pattern? He'd have to take a closer look at the two other murders that had happened in December.
What if each new murder had something a little more in common with the last than the last had with the one before it?
Well, that would be neat, wouldn't it?
For someone who was so disappointed in him, Moriarty was certainly giving him exactly what he wanted— something new. Something very new.
An inkling of a voice in the back of his head tsked at him—Watch out. Nothing can be that easy.
Nothing is clever just for the sake of being clever. Not even you are.
From his vantage point at the desk, he had a poor view of the room— it was very possible that there could have been a killer in this room, had both the front and back doors and all of the windows been reported locked.
Campbell was in the habit of keeping his bedroom door shut, all the same— the stairs were old, and the door was creaky. No one would have been able to enter this room or even the top floor without his knowing.
He'd need to keep the window open, though.
The heat was astounding— the vent was high on the wall, right above the desk. It made the entire room stuffy and hot— it was cool downstairs, though. He would have to keep his window open, then—
Yep. The window itself looked unnatural closed and locked; the locking mechanism sat oddly over the bits of chipped paint that had sat and eventually become one with the window frame. There were watermarks on the sill— on the carpet and the drapes, even.
No, this window had almost never been closed.
He rushed back down to the desk, sitting on the chair in the same way, leaning his head and shoulders a little bit farther to emulate how a professor would linger over his laptop— exhausted, for hours. Then he craned his head to look out the window— not the house exactly across the street, but the one to the left of it.
The attic had one dormer window and that was where the shooter must have been.
With a handgun?
Impossible.
No. He'd seen someone make a shot like that with a handgun— through a pane of glass, too.
Improbable.
Impressive.
Fantastic.
That house was empty— it was for sale, and the sign was new and freshly placed there.
It had run its course then— filled its purpose, probably three weeks ago.
By the looks of the house (old siding leaky roof untrimmed lawn) it had been for sale a long time before that- Moriarty bought a house solely to shoot a man through an open window.
For what reason?
Why did Elijah A. Campbell have to die?
He waited before he let himself out through the back door— until it was well past one in the morning. All the same, he double-checked the road and the neighbours' houses before vaulting himself over the fence and across the street, keeping himself away from the ovals of yellow light that stained the sidewalks and portions of the dead grass and brown flowers.
Winter was such an ugly season. There was absolutely nothing good about it.
The back garden was dead, disgusting— it was cluttered with rusted lawn furniture and an ancient barbecue topped with a dusting of grimy snow. A stray cat scurried under the patio— No, no one had live here for a long time.
The back door was open. He proceeded with caution— there was no one in the house, but that didn't mean that there weren't any traps.
Rigged guns.
Military-grade explosions.
A man had exploded in front of him once before— just once. His body was torn apart so quickly Sherlock doubted that he even got to feel pain.
It wasn't even interesting.
Slowly, with one leather-gloved hand, he eased open the door— it was silent, and there was no tension in the motion that would suggest a trip wire.
He stepped into the house— it was dark, and it was empty.
Dusty, though.
This was too easy.
Bootprints led him upstairs— approximately two sizes larger than the man's actual shoe size, and with a longer gait than his usual; he'd meant to try and confuse Sherlock. Or had his employer? It was impossible to tell whether these prints were just following orders.
Three weeks old. Sherlock was quite confident that he was very much alone in this empty house.
The electricity was off, the water wasn't running— this wasn't a safehouse, or any sort of place Moriarty would visit regularly. He really had spent thousands of pounds renting a house for months just to use it for thirty seconds to shoot someone.
Why?
What made Elijah A. Campbell so important? Or the other twelve murders, for that matter? Moriarty could send anyone out to kill anyone else, but this took forethought, planning, and more than a small amount of money. It made—
No sense.
Was it clever? Why would it be clever?
It had to be something. Moriarty wouldn't do this just to kill thirteen unrelated men.
Would he?
In a fit of what Sherlock could have called confusion, he had to accept that he had no idea whether or not he would.
Up the stairs— eighteen creaky wooden steps. Sherlock scanned up the stairwell, taking the time to check for fingerprints and footfalls in the dust. He stumbled on the last one— one more stair than expected.
This person— the gunman, the killer— made no attempt to cover his tracks. But there were no fingerprints— he wore leather gloves. Worn, old- they were his shooting gloves.
A trained military assassin, shooting old men with handguns through dormer windows in the suburbs. What made him fall so far?
God, he had a headache. When did he get this headache? Had it been with him all today? He supposed it made sense— he hadn't eaten in a while. He'd forget about it, then. Irrelevant.
There was nothing upstairs. Correction— there was very little. It was a single room, with sloped ceilings and peeling wall paper, dull wooden floors covered with dust and plaster.
One wooden dining chair sat angled by the window— a streetlight pushed itself through the foggy glass of the window that had been opened for the first time weeks ago.
Judging by the angle and the distance pulled away in addition to the obviously faked gait of this man he is most likely slightly under average height well-built and confident obviously military—
What's this?
On the chair, an envelope.
Thick paper, written in a swirling green calligraphy—
Mr. Sherlock Holmes
On the opposite side, a familiar sight— this time in green wax, but the magpie seal still held the envelope together.
It pulled from the paper quite easily— it had been sitting in the cold for quite some time— and its contents slid out with a gentle pull.
It was a card— white, strong cardstock, Hallmark brand. On the front, in bright coloured-letters, just the phrase 'bye bye!'
Colourful stars littered the front. Slowly, he opened the card—
He jumped when the music started playing, slamming the card shut and whipping around, sure there was someone behind him.
The music stopped.
He peaked open the card once more, very slowly—
An 8-bit version of an early-millennial American pop song.
Written in bold sharpie across both sides of the inside of the card—
SMELL YOU LATER!
The music hit its last note— silence hanged in the lamplight.
It didn't make any sense— he was feeling lightheaded again, the black dots were clouding his vision. Did he already need to eat again? That wasn't fair, he just ate this morning. It had to have something to do with this headache...
Smell you later. A sickeningly familiar Irish accent lilted into his memory—
No you won't!
He felt sick.
That was probably just the carbon monoxide, though.
Sherlock stuffed the paper in one of his pockets, stumbling down the stairs two at a time, ruining his precious dust record.
Smell you later.
He pulled his jacket over his mouth and nose, as if that would help any—
Bye bye!
He burst out of the house noisily, collapsing in the dirty snow. He alternated between throwing up and gasping for air—
Oxygen—
Damn it.