Distant Minds {{Sherlock Rp with Circledude5}}

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera rolled her eyes at him as she walked out of the flat and stopped on the sidewalk, watching as Sherlock hailed a cab and hopped in. John followed at a slower pace and Ciera laughed at the annoyed look on Sherlock's face.


She turned her attention back to the street as she waited on another cab to roll by. As it was, there were hardly any other cars on the road, let alone a cab.

 

[Circledude5]

Sherlock impatiently supplied the cab driver with the address he'd been given by Lestrade, and they were off to the crime scene. John was unusually silent, as he normally liked to ask the briefing question on the way there.


"You're quieter than normal," Sherlock remarked.


"Yes, well," John gave his usual irked sniff.


"What?"


"I accepted my cousin's request in the hope that -"


"That what? I'd make a new 'friend'?" Sherlock scoffed, "Honestly, John. You know what happens even when I try to make friends."


"No, no. It's just that I thought you might find it in you to not... well, you know..."


"Be me. Yes, I'm well aware. Unfortunately for you, I don't have an on-off switch." he said as the taxi slowed, "Here, right here. You can pull up right here."

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera finally hailed a cab and hopped in. About a half hour later she was dropped off at the precinct and walked in. After a very hasty interview with Anderson, he beckoned her to follow him back out.


"Sorry about the hast but we need to get down to the crime scene and begin collecting the forensic evidence." He said as he hailed another cab.


A short while later, they got out of the cab at the crime scene. "Great." She heard him mutter as they approached the building. "Lestraud, what the Hell is he doing here?!" Anderson yelled to the lead detective. He had evidently noticed Sherlock's presence.

 

[Circledude5]

"Ah, Anderson. The ray of sunshine in everybody's day. I'm so happy to see you too." Sherlock said sarcastically. "Now, if you don't mind, don't contaminate the crime scene! Come on, John."


He'd pulled on his elastic gloves and then bounded into the house. He poked his head out to see what was taking John so long to follow, and rolled his eyes.


"Ciera," John was saying, "What are you doing here?"


Before he could hear what she had to say back, he'd gone back inside, Lestrade at his heels.

 

[Shadow Cat]

"Working with forensic. I applied for a position online as soon as I found out I was coming and they needed me to start early. Something about an influx of evidence needing processing. And I'm apparently overly qualified." She explained as she pulled on a pair of elastic gloves to follow Anderson inside.


Anderson was clearly not happy about Sherlock's presence. The two obviously had history, and not a pleasant one.


Looking back, she watched as John pulled on his own pair of gloves and began following.

 

[Circledude5]

"You know how on the other four there was not a single shred of evidence?" Lestrade asked Sherlock as they walked down the hall to where the body was found. "Well, take a look."


They had come to a stop, and Sherlock took in the scene. On the previous crime scenes, there had been a body, and that was all. No fingerprints, no footprints, no clue as to how it had gotten there or who had killed them. Well, except for the bullet hole straight through the heart and out the back. Sherlock and John both concluded that that had been the cause of death on the first scene. And when an identical body turned up two days later, it was assumed that that had been the cause of death as well. The thing was, they were working with an experienced, precise serial killer who killed offsite and left nothing to go on. Even the bullet hole had been a dead end. It had come from a Webley, which was essentially the most common gun on the streets these days. Like he had once said...they had to wait until the killer made a mistake. And now his time had come.


The body was as it had been on all the previous scenes; on it's back, spread-eagled on the floor. Only, unlike the previous scenes, there was something else. The body's face was covered in what appeared to be mucus and saliva, and the room smelt strongly of sweat.


"We know it's the same bloke because of how it's been wiped. Except we think he may not have had enough time to finish cleaning up." Lestrade told him.


"No," Sherlock confirmed, grinning widely, "He's made a very big mistake."

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera walked after Anderson as he made his way to the body. She gazed at the body for a moment before her instincts kicked in. Her eyes picked out anything and everything that could be used as evidence. "Hello there." She whispered quietly as she spotted something.


In the corner of the room, a fine layer of dust had settled, but something was off about it. She walked over and knelt just in front of the corner. A small piece of paper laid under the recently disturbed dust stuck between a crack in the floorboards, though the paper itself was fairly new. It was about the size of the slip of paper that would come out of a fortune cookie. Upon closer inspection, she saw that there were words on it.

 

[Circledude5]

Sherlock was absorbed by the body. He spotted the tell-tale signs of vomit hastily cleaned. The bullet hole glared at him, but Sherlock suspected he was wrong - and had been - for the past four murders. No, he suspected they'd all been poisoned and he had foolishly fallen for the killers trick. However, to give credit to the person who was doing this, they were doing an excellent job of covering their tracks. He stared blankly at a spot on the floor for a few seconds and his mind rapidly went through his deductions.


"John," Sherlock beckoned, "I need a medical opinion."


John had appeared in the doorway, and he now crouched down next to Sherlock over the body.


"Well, I want to say cause of death was the bullet wound," John began.


"But?" Pressed Sherlock.


"But there are clear signs of vomiting before death, which implies a poisoning." John concluded.


"Yes," Sherlock said. "And we thought it was the bullet before so we didn't have Molly do an autopsy. We just had her put them in the morgue. Why didn't we have her do an autopsy? Arg!"

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera, still crouching just in front of the piece of paper, took out a small pair of tweezers to get the slip of paper out of the crack. The small pair of metal tweezers gripped the rectangular piece of paper as she slowly lifted it out and looked at the wording.


Up for a game of hide and seek?


-M





"How incredibly discrete." Ciera muttered sarcastically.

 

[Circledude5]

Ciera was in the corner, but Sherlock continued to disregard her.


Face covered with mucus, clear signs of over-active year-ducts. He'd have to have Molly do a full autopsy and a tox screen, but he thought he knew what it was.


"What have you got for me, Sherlock?" Lestrade said, his arms crossed.


"Well, nothing completely definitive," Sherlock told him, pulling his gloves off with a snap. "I'll have Molly do an autopsy to be sure, but I suspect we've been wrong this entire time. The CSEs would have missed it and held off the autopsies because of the gaping red wounds in all their chests, but all the victims have been poisoned."


"Poisoned?" Lestrade looked bewildered. "With what?"


"VX, I suspect," Sherlock watched as John continued to examine the body. "Which tells us a great deal about our killer."

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera stood and dropped the small piece of paper into an evidence bag. She turned on her heel and walked back to where Anderson was still lingering.


"We need to process this and dust it for prints as well as any skin cells." She said as she handed it to him.


"Got it." Anderson said as he took the bag without looking at the contents.


"So who's M?" Ciera asked as she turned to look at Lestraud.

 

[Circledude5]

As soon as Sherlock heard what Ciera had said, he grabbed Anderson and snatched the evidence bag from him.


"Oi! Holmes, this isn't your crime scene!" Anderson exclaimed angrily.


"Oh, shut up, Anderson," Sherlock retorted. He held the small piece of paper in the bag up to his eyes.


Up for a game of hide and seek?


- M


Oh, I see. Sherlock realised what this must be. Yet another puzzle from the famed criminal. After the so-called "pool encounter", he'd thought that perhaps Moriarty would have dropped interest, or at least relented a bit. Evidently not.

 

[Shadow Cat]

"You know who it is?" Ciera asked as she stepped away from Anderson and toward John and Sherlock.


The question was pointless, he obviously knew who had left the piece of paper. So then whoever it was also knew Sherlock and was teasing him. Tempting him with another mystery. Sherlock's face had lit up with an emotion somewhere between excitement and annoyance.


It was going to be an interesting day.

 

[Circledude5]

Ciera didn't need to know about Moriarty. Hell, Lestrade barely knew about Moriarty. So there was no way he'd be letting her in on the full details about that dangerous man.


"In a manner of speaking," Sherlock supplied, rather vaguely. "I've only encountered him once, and it was indirectly."

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera raised an eyebrow. He was obviously hiding something. She could tell by the way he spoke and the way John had glanced at Sherlock when she asked who M was.


They were undoubtedly going to try to hide this from her. And she was undoubtedly not going to let them. It was about time something interesting started happening.

 

[Circledude5]

"Ciera's right. This needs to be taken in for fingerprints and skin cell testing." Sherlock shoved the evidence bag back into Anderson's hands. "I need to do one more thing." He took a packet of swabs from an inside pocket and went back to the corpse. Anderson sighed exasperatedly, but Lestrade have him a warning look. After he'd swabbed the nostrils twice, the mouth three times, and placed each one in a vial, he stood up and stuck his head out the door.


"Someone get in here to get the body to the morgue!" He shouted.


"Not yet!" Anderson cried, "I still need to take photographs!"


Sherlock glared at him. "Sorry, Sherlock." Lestrade said, "It's protocol."


"Oh, whatever." Sherlock humphed into his coat and stood to the side while Anderson prepared his camera.

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera watched as Anderson slowly fumbled with the camera. "Blimey you're slow. Let me do it." Ciera said as she walked over and took the camera.


She swiftly moved around the room and snapped photos of the crime scene and the body from every angle. The process took no more than a minute for her.


As soon as she was finished she tossed the camera back to Anderson and then looked to Sherlock and Lestraud. "There. Now you can get the body to the morgue." Ciera said as she watched Anderson put the camera away.

 

[Circledude5]

[i believe it's spelt 'Lestrade' ]


Sherlock smirked at how Ciera had treated her new boss, the motioned for John to follow him out the door, just as two crime scene examiners went in to chalk and take the body.


They were half way back to the entrance when Sherlock abruptly turned around and walked back to the room where Anderson was whining to Lestrade about the consulting detective's presence.


"Ciera. I'm off to the lab at Bart's. Care to come?"

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera was listening to Anderson whine about Sherlock when she heard his voice. She raised an eyebrow at the invitation. It certainly was unexpected.


Remembering the reason she was here, she glanced over at Anderson, who rolled his eyes. "Be in at 8:00 in the morning. You can help process the evidence."


Looking back at Sherlock, she followed after him with a shrug. "Might as well."

 

[Circledude5]

As soon as Sherlock had managed to hail a taxi and they had all squeezed into the back seat, he started cracking up. John looked up at him, obviously off-put by this sudden behaviour.


"What?" John said questioningly, "What's so funny?"


"Did you see the look on Anderson's face when Ciera took the camera from him?" Sherlock said between gasps, "Priceless."

 

[Shadow Cat]

"Patience is definitely not one of my virtues." Ciera said as she looked over at him. She hadn't taken him as the easily amused type, but then he was full of surprises.


She smiled in amusement at his now childlike demeanor. She kept wondering why he had chosen to invite her along after how he had acted toward her that morning.

 

[Circledude5]

Ciera, in Sherlock's opinion, had proven to be a wild card as people liked to say. She had started working for Anderson no more than an hour and a half ago, and yet bossed him around like she'd been in charge of him for years. Better still, the idiot listened to her. Seems like Anderson's not keen on letting her go, or he'd've fired her already, he thought.


As soon as the cab pulled up at the kurb outside St. Bart's, Sherlock bolted out without a backwards glance and went to go find Molly.

 

[Shadow Cat]

Ciera hopped out of the cab and followed Sherlock, glancing backward as John paid the driver and followed them. "Try and keep up." Ciera grinned.


They made it inside, and Sherlock evidently found who he was looking for because he changed direction suddenly as he passed a hallway. "Molly!" He yelled out.

 

[Circledude5]

Exactly who he was looking for! Sherlock ran down the corridor to meet her, grabbed her by the elbow, and began yanking her towards her lab.


"Molly, I need you to come with me." He said urgently.


"But I was just about to go to the canteen -" she protested.


"Doesn't matter. This is more important." Sherlock began basically dragging the small pathologist up the stairs. "John! Hurry up, will you?" He shouted over his shoulder.

 

[Shadow Cat]

"Oi. Does he always do this much running?" Ciera asked John as he caught up and she fell into step behind him. She was jogging to keep up with him, as he wasn't going as fast as Sherlock.


"Only on days that end in y." Came the reply as they dashed into the lab after Sherlock.