The class filed out, and Calvin packed up her bag for the day. She hailed another cab and started the ride back home... when she noticed a bundle of police cars and a load of 'DO NOT CROSS' tape marking off an area in the street. She saw a familiar head of dark hair and smiled to herself.
"Stop right here, thanks." she said, handing the driver a note before stepping out of the cab towards the police barrier.
She hurried across the street to where the yellow tape started, trying to get John's attention to bring her over.
"Who are you, then?" a young female officer asked, walking up to Calvin from the other side of the tape. Calvin smiled at her.
"Calvin Baker, I'm a friend of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson." she said, motioning towards them with her head. "Mind getting them for me?"
"A 'friend'? The freak doesn't have 'friends', hon." the woman snorted. "I'd run along if I were you, this is a closed police investigation. Not one for a delicate little thing like yourself."
Calvin's grin only grew wider at the condescending tone that the officer was using. "You're referring to Sherlock as 'the freak', I presume?" she asked, completely ignoring the officer's suggestion for her to leave. "That's not very nice. In fact, I believe that falls under the category of 'bullying'. Were you maybe bullied as a child, officer?"
"Alright, that's it. Lestrade, call someone to get this girl off the premises?" the woman called, and the man deemed 'Lestrade' turned to stare at her, as well as John. Sherlock, however, was crouched next to what seemed to be a body.
"Calvin!" John called, trotting over to where she was waiting. "What are you doing here?"
"I was passing on my way home from work and saw you two and thought, hey, maybe I can see a body today." Calvin answered, glancing at Lestrade as he also approached her from behind John. "I do specialize in criminal psychology, after all."
"You know this girl?" he asked, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, she lives in the flat below us." John explained. "She wants to help with the investigation."
"Yeah? Why?" Lestrade asked, narrowing his eyes at Calvin, who shot him a dazzling smile.
"My name is Calvin Baker and I'm a psychology professor. I've been working in the fields of psychology, especially criminal psychology, for almost a decade. It'd be a wonderful experience to be able to be on the scene... and I can possibly help."
Lestrade sighed and thought for a moment. "Fine. Let her in. We need all the help we can get at this point, what with six bodies within four days and no leads." he grumbled, nodding to the officer that had originally greeted her. Delighted, Calvin lifted the tape and followed John to the side of the dead woman Sherlock was thinking over.
"No connections to the other victims, John, other than... oh for God's sake why are you here?" Sherlock asked as he turned to speak to John.
Calvin waved. "I'm here to observe and also to help, Mr. Holmes. I hope that's alright with you." she said cheekily, and he rolled his eyes.
"I don't need any of your help. I require only the help of professionals with backgrounds in topics of relevance." he told her.
Calvin raised an eyebrow. "And the psych of a murderer has nothing to do with solving cases, then?" she asked, turning her eyes at the body. The woman had been stabbed repeatedly. "Or the sociology of the situation of the murder?"
"You're a teacher, not a practicing psychologist nor sociologist." Sherlock sneered.
"Wonderful observation, Mr. Holmes, but unlike most professors I make a life out of what I study, it's not just a job to me. I've been exposed to the innerworkings of a human mind since I was a young girl, being born to, not one, but two practicing psychiatrists who spent their lives analyzing me, my siblings, the people around them, and each other." Calvin said, crouching down to get a better look at the victim. "I'm not claiming to be an amazing analyst such as yourself, but I am good at what I do."
The woman's body had been burned slightly after being stabbed at least six times. All of her hair was gone and it was her face that received the burns before the flame went out. The wounds were shallow, however, and concentrated to the middle of the torso. Two had simply bounced off the sternum on contact. They had two inches of unmarked skin between each of them.
"An amateur, and a desperate one at that." Calvin said, looking up at them. "A practiced killer would not have made the mistake of hitting the sternum when stabbing a victim, however this one did it not once, but twice. The stabbings are shallow and done in a quick succession with very little precision, as if the person were looking around for bystanders while killing her. The body is also only slightly charred, as if burned merely on an afterthought. Whoever did this probably left several clues behind, check the back alleys for anything."
She stood up, smiling at John, Sherlock, and Lestrade.
"Well said, and in a way that we can understand." Lestrade commented, glancing at Sherlock. "Oi, you two! Go down the alleys and check for any evidence, we're dealing with an amateur, here!" he called to a few officers, smiling at Calvin as he passed.
"What kind of fluid was used to burn the victim?" Sherlock asked, crossing his arms at her. Calvin cocked her head and shrugged.
"I don't know, Sherlock. I'll leave that kind of deduction to you, I'm just analyzing the murderer's habits. I'm no forensic anthropologist." she told him easily, smiling up at him.
He snorted. "There wasn't any. The killer just lit the body with flame, possibly a - "
"We found a lighter, Lestrade!" one of the two men who had gone into the alleys called as they trotted back to the scene of the crime.
"- a lighter or a match." Sherlock finished.
"Which supports my hypothesis that the killer was an amateur." Calvin pointed out with a grin. "Every experienced killer knows to use a type of fluid to light up their victims, right?" John chuckled at this while Sherlock seemed unamused by her cheek.
Lestrade had the lighter in his gloved hands. "Barely used, brand new." he told the trio as they approached. "Dropped in the alleyway."
Sherlock snatched it away and inspected it. "Flakes of skin on the ignition. Used once." he said, handing it back. "I'll take a look at it back at Bart's. Come along, John."
Calvin wasn't surprised that he didn't invite her to come along. Smirking, she simply backed up and turned around to head home for herself.
"Hey, uh, Ms. Baker!" Lestrade's voice called after she ducked under the police tape. She turned around and saw him jogging up to meet her.
"Thanks for your help today. Feel free to come along with Sherlock on his cases if you feel like it. We could use an extra pair of hands that -"
"That doesn't contaminate my crime scene!" an irritated male voice called as a dark-haired man passed them.
"Yes, thank you, Anderson." Lestrade yelled back. "I was going to say that can help us by - "
"Not being a pretentious prick to the rest of us who aren't freaks?" the woman from before suggested, following after the man from before.
"Yes, that too, Donovan." he responded, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, we could use someone here that analyzes a scene solely for the criminal and not the crime as a whole. You were a big help today."
"Thanks, but I'm sure Sherlock could have done it just as well. Better than I did, most likely." Calvin said, waving a hand. "And I'm sorry I don't think you ever told me your name."
"Detective Inspector Lestrade." he said, shaking her hand. "Just call me Lestrade."
"Okay." Calvin agreed, turning to leave. "Have a good night, Lestrade. I don't think you'll see me very often, Sherlock doesn't seem to enjoy having me 'stealing his thunder', as it seems."
"Yeah, he's like that." Lestrade agreed, also turning to leave. "I'd say I hope to see you again soon, but that'd mean we probably have dead bodies to inspect."
Calvin laughed, putting up a hand to hail a cab. "I understand what you mean." she called, climbing into her cab. "Have a good night."
As soon as the cab drove off, she realized that it was not a normal London cab. She turned and a young woman was sitting on her phone, dressed professionally.
Calvin stared at her. "Hello." she said, her voice still pleasant but suspicious. "Who are you?"
"Hmmm... Lydia." the woman answered, only glancing up from what she was doing on her phone to look at Calvin for a second.
"You sure?" Calvin asked, and the woman smiled, shaking her head.
"No."
"Okay, then. Mind telling me where I'm going? I'm guessing it's not home... I never told the cabbie the address." Calvin said, and then woman merely smiled and nodded. Calvin glanced out the window, watching the city whizz by as they drove towards her predetermined destination.
When the cab stopped, 'Lydia' got out of the car and motioned with a quick flick of her head for Calvin to follow her. She did so warily, glancing around at unfamiliar surroundings with concern.
"It's a wonder you don't fall and crack your head on the pavement, climbing stairs with your eyes glued to your phone like that." Calvin commented as the woman led her up the stairs of what seemed to be an abandoned parking garage. The clicking of the keys on the iPhone was her only answer.
Calvin knew she'd reached her final destination when a man, leaning on a black umbrella, came into view on the third floor of the parking garage. Calvin's blue eyes swept over him quickly, trying to access anything about him before he spoke. But she found nothing to go off of, besides the fact that he wore a very expensive business suit indictated that he was wealthy and possibly had a government job.
"Ah, if it isn't Miss. D-"
"Calvin." the woman in question snapped before the name even slipped from the man's lips. He smiled.
"Apologies. Of course, Miss. Calvin Baker. How lovely for you to be here today."
"Well it's not as if I had a choice. Who are you, then?" Calvin asked, crossing her arms and accessing the man from closer up with her usual self-assured smirk gone. She didn't like this man already, mostly because he almost used her real name. And because he basically kidnapped her. That, too.
"No one of importance." he answered with a smile.
"Oh, come now. Everyone's important. You must be, to have the gall to get me in a phony cab and drive me here with some strange woman who blatantly uses a fake name." Calvin said, though her voice had gone back to its usual flippant, teasing tone that she so loved to use. "I'd like to know yours."
"You seem to care a lot about names, Miss. Baker, when you don't even use your own." the man told her confidently, and Calvin blinked at the comment. She smiled, running a hand through the end of her dark hair.
"You don't know anything about me."
"Ah, but I do. In actuality, I know a lot about you, Miss. Baker. I make sure of that with anyone who is close to Sherlock Holmes."
"So this is about Sherlock. Interesting." Calvin murmured, looking down at the floor, then grinning up at him through her lashes. "But I certainly hope you mean close in proximity, Mr. Smith. Because as you may have noticed, Sherlock Holmes does not like me."
"Ah, yes. But that's honestly as close as Sherlock gets to, well, anybody. I tend to look past that, it's not uncommon." the man responded, shifting on his feet. "I want to know your connection to Sherlock Holmes."
Calvin rocked on her heels. "I've known him for two weeks, approximately, and he is overwhelmingly obsessed with deducing why I call myself Calvin." she told him. "It's interesting. I suppose that you've already uncovered my secret, have you?"
"Of course." the man said, smiling wider still. "Though that's not why I'm here. I have no interest in exposing your secret to Sherlock, he can find that out on his own if he is truly that interested. I'm here for a different purpose."
"Brotherly love?"
"Ah, you've figured me out already, have you?"
"The way you say his name gave you away, Mr. Holmes. I've studied or been exposed to psychology for my whole life. I recognize patterns, such as the way a sibling says the name of their brother or sister. It's different than any other family member, any other relationship." Calvin explained, feeling her body relax with the realization. "Why did you bring me here?"
"I've brought you here to ask if you plan to continue to associate with my brother, as it seems."
"That's entirely according to how long Sherlock can tolerate me, but yes. I plan to be associated with him as long as he'll allow. Why?"
"I'm prepared to offer you a large sum of money in exchange for information."
"About Sherlock?"
"Yes, about my brother."
"Why? Can't you just call him up? Visit him?"
"Not exactly."
"Ah, I understand." Calvin said cryptically, smiling at the other Holmes. "But I'm afraid I must decline. I already have much too much money to know what to do with, as it seems." Calvin started to turn back towards the woman who had brought her here. She was ready to leave.
"And what happens when Sherlock grows bored of you?"
Calvin stopped, turning back around. "You mean after he discovers my oh-so interesting secret?" she clarified, smiling. "Well, Mr. Holmes, my life doesn't exactly revolve around your brother."
"You are a rather strange woman, Miss. Baker." the older Holmes called after her as she headed down the stairs, 'Lydia' beginning to go after her.
"Thank you!" she called back, starting to descend the stairs. The man said nothing more after her, and she was led to the car after the woman, though it was a much more fancy car this time. Calvin glanced up at the third floor of the abandoned parking garage and could see Holmes still standing there, watching her as she climbed into the car.
Just like Sherlock had that afternoon.
Arriving at home, the driver already knowing where to go, she unlocked the door and headed inside the apartment complex that she had become so accustomed to in the past two weeks of living there.
Entering her flat, she quickly wrote Sherlock a note and tacked it to his door for him to find when he got home from St. Bart's later that night.
Your brother is lovely.
-CB
OoOoOoOoOo
Yay fourth chapter! I enjoy writing Calvin the more I work on this, and I hope that you all like it as well. A lot happened in this chapter! Calvin met Lestrade and Donovan and Anderson and MYCROFT. Basically all the main characters.
Except Molly and Moriarty *DUNDUNDUN*
i am sooooooo excited for Moriarty's bits. I'll be moving on to the events of The Great Game soonish, after they solve this little case they're on right now. Calvin will find Moriarty's brain VERY interesting.
And then of course Irene Adler comes directly after. Oh Irene how I love thee.
OKAY. So. I'm going to sign off and go watch the Fall because I feel like I need to cry. Really hard. For an hour and a half. YAY.
Okay, thank you all for your reviews and keep them coming!
Jess