S3E3 - The Uncanny Valley - Part Seven: Mnemonic
Episode number: s03s03 of Series 3: Unfinished Business
Title: The Uncanny Valley
Subtitle: Mnemonic
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word count: 2,178
Rating: R
Warnings: language, violence, graphic descriptions
Lestrade slouched over his desk as he tried to finish another bout of paperwork, but his mind kept drifting. He hadn't heard a word from John or Molly since they met with Donovan. No pestering phone calls. No response to his texts. Nothing.
"Lestrade!" Donovan said as she burst through the door. She handed off a ruffled file. "The lab just sent me this. They ran a DNA test on the blood samples from the body bag of the decapitated man, originally identified as Gregory Wendell."
Lestrade's mobile beeped. He ignored it.
"How did this happen? He had several forms of id, and we had next of kin identify the body, didn't we?" Lestrade asked.
"Yeah. Wendell's wife, Riley Wendell, confirmed it. Said he stormed out of the house a week before and she hadn't heard from him since. Funny thing, we can't get in touch with her. Officers checked her residence. She's been gone for days. Seems like she left everything but a few choice possessions. We're impounding her car now."
"Who the hell is Cypress Howard Hare?" Lestrade asked, reading from the file. "That's got to be an alias."
"No, it's not. He's registered as a Private Investigator, but a lot of his work was apparently in things like art recovery."
His mobile beeped again.
"You mean like stealing valuable items back?"
"Apparently," Donovan replied.
"Hold on. He was identified as Gregory Wendell. They look similar enough, but he's definitely taller. Anyone who knew Wendell would know better."
"Take a closer look at Wendell's rap sheet," Donovan said. "Smuggling and grand theft."
Lestrade's mobile beeped yet again.
"Is this right? Last arrest of Gregory Wendell was over three years ago," Lestrade said, consulting another file. "Around the time he got married."
"If Wendell went clean, then he's back in it now. Because the DNA we got off of Molly Hooper's clothing, the blood? That was Wendell's definitely. If nothing else, he was at St. Bart's and attacked someone."
"So, someone impersonated Wendell. The first attempt to kill him failed. Somehow, the killer got onto that when he was being moved to the morgue, and decapitated him."
Again, beeping emanated from his phone.
"Come on, that doesn't make any sense. Let's say someone tried to kill him. The first time it was, what, poison? Whatever it was, it was clever. Meant to look like natural causes. Killers don't go from that to cutting off someone's head with razor wire."
Lestrade nodded. "If the killer was desperate, he might do."
"Either way, Gregory Wendell's local residence was all cleared out, but Cypress Hare's offices and address are both out in Derbyshire. Figured we could take a car out there. Can you be ready in an hour?"
"Yeah," Lestrade said.
Donovan turned to leave.
"Hang on," he said. "You won't believe this."
"What? John Watson's texting you information about cases now, right?" she said jokingly.
He handed her his phone. There were several text messages:
The first read, "Gregory Wendell, Cielo Wallen, and other missing bodies working together."
The second read, "C.O.D. and admin files will confirm."
The third read, "Need info on missing persons. See e-mail."
Donovan looked up at Lestrade, confused. She handed him back his phone. "You know, sometimes I wonder if Sherlock Holmes is really dead," she said simply. "You still on for Cypress Hare's office?"
"Yeah, give me an hour."
Donovan nodded and left immediately.
She had said the words Lestrade had been thinking for weeks and weeks, but she didn't really mean them. He had to remind himself of that, because if someone else suspected Sherlock Holmes was alive, then...
No, he wasn't going to entertain the idea. Whatever John Watson was up to, he clearly found something to justify messaging about it.
It certainly couldn't hurt to check.
Lestrade pulled up the digital case files on the recent missing bodies, dubbed by the Yard as the "Body Snatcher Case." In total, ten bodies had gone missing in the past three weeks. He made a mental note that the number should be raised to eleven, if Gregory Wendell was somehow connected to all this.
Caitlin Hanlon, died three weeks ago, C.O.D. heart failure. The body disappeared that same night.
Anthony Barbour, Gabriel Alcala, Ashley Waldrop, and Shane Ching all died between two and three weeks previous with the C.O.D. cardiac arrest. Fabian Javier, Max Thorson, Erin DeAngelis, and Cielo Wallen all died within the past ten days, and each had a heart-related cause of death. The only outlier was Xavier Light, who died from a severe asthma attack leading to asphyxiation.
It was easy to see how such a connection was missed. In some cases, the individual had a history of heart problems or lung-related issues incorporated into the cause of death. The autopsies ordered were meant to confirm the cause of death and rule out things like clots or poison or other things described with medical jargon that Lestrade couldn't wrap his head around. None of the deaths were suspected homicides.
The Body Snatcher Case had attracted a lot of attention, but the investigation hadn't turned up any real leads. The running theory was that people wanted cadavers, and there were more colorful theories from cannibalism to Frankenstein's monster, but no one had considered faked deaths of any variety.
His train of thought was interrupted by another text: "Put APB. Some still in London."
Another text followed immediately: "Bernard Thomas (St. Bart's employee) possibly involved."
The another: "Check zipper in decapitated man's body bag. Look for metal shavings."
Lestrade read over all the texts again. He quickly glanced through the files, but Bernard Thomas was only listed in the files for Gregory Wendell (technically, Cypress Hare) and Cielo Wallen.
Lestrade checked the time. His hour was almost up; he'd have to put a Sergeant on the Body Snatcher case before he left.
At least he had the car ride to clear his head.
"It doesn't make any sense!" Sherlock shouted.
John Watson had grown used to being woken by the dulcet tones of a frustrated Sherlock Holmes, but Molly Hooper evidently resented being woken from her sleep.
"Can't you be pensive in a quieter voice?" she mumbled.
"It's half past seven," Sherlock continued. "John? John!"
John felt stiff, having slept awkwardly on the couch, but he poked his head up just the same.
"What?" he asked.
John sat up and adjusted his clothing, allowing himself some time to wake up as Sherlock continued talking, pacing irritably as he did so.
"The missing persons, the missing bodies. They don't make sense. The pattern is clear. Kidnapping individuals who can create false documents or provide necessary contacts and information for new identities in other countries. The dead bodies that turned up were either noncompliant individuals or used as warnings or both. Between the threat of being starved to death or having their own hand in the illegal activity revealed, silence. Nothing. Not one guilty conscience went to the police. Not one vengeful vigilant. Not even a deathbed confession. For ten years. In all accounts, an impressive feat."
"Maybe they're selecting people that have criminal pasts. Or something else entirely to hide," John suggested. "Something more than the crimes they committed under duress."
Sherlock shook his head. "I've been through missing person's reports and even the personals. Hundreds of missing people that could be targeted by this group, but I hardly doubt all of them were. With no kidnapping reports or criminal charges filed, there's no - "
"Hang on, what reports?" John asked.
Sherlock waved his hand over to a mountain of boxes unpacked across the room. "Mycroft managed to get them," he added.
"Ah, right. Should we even be looking into missing persons? If you're right, and they're being kidnapped and coerced into keeping it quiet, wouldn't we be looking for people that disappeared for a few weeks and then turned up again?" John suggested.
"Something that wouldn't fit in their normal patterns," Sherlock said, continuing on John's thought. "A week-long drinking binge. A spontaneous vacation."
"Mmmm," John agreed. "Though I doubt all of them would be that colorful."
Sherlock continued to pace.
"Look, I'm going to get dressed. Then we can talk properly."
"What's changed?" Sherlock asked, as if John had said nothing.
"What do you mean, 'changed'?"
"Don't you understand, John? The reason all of this is happening now is because of the missing bodies throughout London. For ten years, they managed to shift people into new identities without attracting much attention. If they had, then they've done a job of cleaning it up. But now they've had nearly a dozen bodies missing, all within a few weeks. And I was able to pick up their trail of kidnapping because of it. So what changed? Why now?"
"Maybe, when this, uh, Sebastian Moran character was being held prisoner, something forced the issue."
"Forced the issue?" Sherlock repeated. "If all you're going to say is nonsense, then say nothing."
John ignored Sherlock's response. "What I'm saying is that something threatened to expose everything, or everyone, or something, you understand?"
"Which would mean they had already planned," Sherlock said. "None of which explains the decapitated man or the attack on Molly."
It had been a stiff ride up to Derbyshire. Donovan couldn't believe Lestrade was acting on John Watson's texts.
"Haven't you gotten into enough trouble, after everything with Freak?"
"His name was Sherlock," Lestrade reminded her. "And in case you've forgotten, his name was cleared."
"Yeah, but unless you've added John Watson as an official consultant, you can't be using him!" she replied. "Tolbert will have a fit. You understand? A fit."
"He's not consulting. Molly felt safer with him is all," Lestrade replied. "Look. You were with him. He's not investigating anything on his own, right? But he had an idea and texted me about it. Nothing official about it. So drop it, all right?"
The last two hours of the drive were spent in stony silence, and their investigation in Derbyshire did nothing to alleviate the tension.
The office of Cypress Hare had been closed for months, according to the local police. One officer said that Cypress mentioned going undercover, but he hadn't said any more.
"Right, we need his records, then," Lestrade told the officer helping them, Randolph Ragland. "If he was under cover, then someone must've hired him to do it."
Ragland agreed reluctantly, but it didn't take him long to produce phone records.
"We started lookin' into it as soon as we got the call," Ragweed said. "'Fraid there wasn't much there."
"Have you spoken to this man?" Donovan asked. "Samson Leavitt. Seems to have had a lot of contact with him before he left Derbyshire."
"Ah, no, we didn't," Ragland replied. "Well, we called, but there's nothing to suggest he hired Cypress, now is there?"
"Did you check bank records?" Donovan asked. "Whoever hired Cypress would be paying him somehow, wouldn't they?"
"'Course we did. Nothing special. We're looking into the possibility of him having other accounts. Nothing so far."
"Donovan here is right," Lestrade said. "We should talk to this Samson Leavitt."
Ragland shrugged. "Might be hard. He's a busy man."
Donovan and Lestrade exchanged loaded glances as Ragland walked away. Either the investigation into Cypress Hare's death wasn't being pressed, or Samson Leavitt was a high profile individual.
Either way, they were in for a rough day.
Molly slipped into the bathroom. John took the opportunity of her vacated bedroom to shut the door in Sherlock's face so that he could change in peace.
Sherlock, of course, continued to talk as if Molly and John were rapt with attention: "That means they had planned to move dozens of people. Change their identities. Send them out of the country. A massive operation, but what for? No apparent connection between missing bodies. Not all of them are known criminals... How would that even happen? Ha, John! JOHN!"
John stepped back into the room, dressed in black trousers and an undershirt. "You still talking, Sherlock?" he asked as he did up his belt.
"The decapitated man," Sherlock said, as if it were a reply. "He was an imposter, we already know that. But why? You said Donovan was going to contact you with the name when they identified him."
"You abandoned my phone back in London, remember?" John replied. With that, he ducked back into the room for his button-up shirt.
He should have registered Sherlock's sudden silence as odd, but it only took him a moment to fix his shirt and even Sherlock had to shut his gob at some point.
"Look, I can call my voicemail - " John began as he returned to the primary room.
Sherlock was on his knees, weakly struggling, with another man's arm wrapped across his neck in a chokehold. The assailant was fairly short, around 1.7 meters tall.
"Stay there," the man huffed. He produced a small revolver. "Now, I could snap this man's neck and shoot you. Or we could go 'nother way. How does that sound?"
<<< Previous Part:
Part Six: Sieve and Cypher
Next Part: >>>
Part Eight: Transmigration
Primary Post: The Uncanny Valley - Series 3, Episode 3
Primary Post: Unfinished Business, or Series 3 (s03ff)
Title: The Uncanny Valley
Subtitle: Mnemonic
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word count: 2,178
Rating: R
Warnings: language, violence, graphic descriptions
Lestrade slouched over his desk as he tried to finish another bout of paperwork, but his mind kept drifting. He hadn't heard a word from John or Molly since they met with Donovan. No pestering phone calls. No response to his texts. Nothing.
"Lestrade!" Donovan said as she burst through the door. She handed off a ruffled file. "The lab just sent me this. They ran a DNA test on the blood samples from the body bag of the decapitated man, originally identified as Gregory Wendell."
Lestrade's mobile beeped. He ignored it.
"How did this happen? He had several forms of id, and we had next of kin identify the body, didn't we?" Lestrade asked.
"Yeah. Wendell's wife, Riley Wendell, confirmed it. Said he stormed out of the house a week before and she hadn't heard from him since. Funny thing, we can't get in touch with her. Officers checked her residence. She's been gone for days. Seems like she left everything but a few choice possessions. We're impounding her car now."
"Who the hell is Cypress Howard Hare?" Lestrade asked, reading from the file. "That's got to be an alias."
"No, it's not. He's registered as a Private Investigator, but a lot of his work was apparently in things like art recovery."
His mobile beeped again.
"You mean like stealing valuable items back?"
"Apparently," Donovan replied.
"Hold on. He was identified as Gregory Wendell. They look similar enough, but he's definitely taller. Anyone who knew Wendell would know better."
"Take a closer look at Wendell's rap sheet," Donovan said. "Smuggling and grand theft."
Lestrade's mobile beeped yet again.
"Is this right? Last arrest of Gregory Wendell was over three years ago," Lestrade said, consulting another file. "Around the time he got married."
"If Wendell went clean, then he's back in it now. Because the DNA we got off of Molly Hooper's clothing, the blood? That was Wendell's definitely. If nothing else, he was at St. Bart's and attacked someone."
"So, someone impersonated Wendell. The first attempt to kill him failed. Somehow, the killer got onto that when he was being moved to the morgue, and decapitated him."
Again, beeping emanated from his phone.
"Come on, that doesn't make any sense. Let's say someone tried to kill him. The first time it was, what, poison? Whatever it was, it was clever. Meant to look like natural causes. Killers don't go from that to cutting off someone's head with razor wire."
Lestrade nodded. "If the killer was desperate, he might do."
"Either way, Gregory Wendell's local residence was all cleared out, but Cypress Hare's offices and address are both out in Derbyshire. Figured we could take a car out there. Can you be ready in an hour?"
"Yeah," Lestrade said.
Donovan turned to leave.
"Hang on," he said. "You won't believe this."
"What? John Watson's texting you information about cases now, right?" she said jokingly.
He handed her his phone. There were several text messages:
The first read, "Gregory Wendell, Cielo Wallen, and other missing bodies working together."
The second read, "C.O.D. and admin files will confirm."
The third read, "Need info on missing persons. See e-mail."
Donovan looked up at Lestrade, confused. She handed him back his phone. "You know, sometimes I wonder if Sherlock Holmes is really dead," she said simply. "You still on for Cypress Hare's office?"
"Yeah, give me an hour."
Donovan nodded and left immediately.
She had said the words Lestrade had been thinking for weeks and weeks, but she didn't really mean them. He had to remind himself of that, because if someone else suspected Sherlock Holmes was alive, then...
No, he wasn't going to entertain the idea. Whatever John Watson was up to, he clearly found something to justify messaging about it.
It certainly couldn't hurt to check.
Lestrade pulled up the digital case files on the recent missing bodies, dubbed by the Yard as the "Body Snatcher Case." In total, ten bodies had gone missing in the past three weeks. He made a mental note that the number should be raised to eleven, if Gregory Wendell was somehow connected to all this.
Caitlin Hanlon, died three weeks ago, C.O.D. heart failure. The body disappeared that same night.
Anthony Barbour, Gabriel Alcala, Ashley Waldrop, and Shane Ching all died between two and three weeks previous with the C.O.D. cardiac arrest. Fabian Javier, Max Thorson, Erin DeAngelis, and Cielo Wallen all died within the past ten days, and each had a heart-related cause of death. The only outlier was Xavier Light, who died from a severe asthma attack leading to asphyxiation.
It was easy to see how such a connection was missed. In some cases, the individual had a history of heart problems or lung-related issues incorporated into the cause of death. The autopsies ordered were meant to confirm the cause of death and rule out things like clots or poison or other things described with medical jargon that Lestrade couldn't wrap his head around. None of the deaths were suspected homicides.
The Body Snatcher Case had attracted a lot of attention, but the investigation hadn't turned up any real leads. The running theory was that people wanted cadavers, and there were more colorful theories from cannibalism to Frankenstein's monster, but no one had considered faked deaths of any variety.
His train of thought was interrupted by another text: "Put APB. Some still in London."
Another text followed immediately: "Bernard Thomas (St. Bart's employee) possibly involved."
The another: "Check zipper in decapitated man's body bag. Look for metal shavings."
Lestrade read over all the texts again. He quickly glanced through the files, but Bernard Thomas was only listed in the files for Gregory Wendell (technically, Cypress Hare) and Cielo Wallen.
Lestrade checked the time. His hour was almost up; he'd have to put a Sergeant on the Body Snatcher case before he left.
At least he had the car ride to clear his head.
"It doesn't make any sense!" Sherlock shouted.
John Watson had grown used to being woken by the dulcet tones of a frustrated Sherlock Holmes, but Molly Hooper evidently resented being woken from her sleep.
"Can't you be pensive in a quieter voice?" she mumbled.
"It's half past seven," Sherlock continued. "John? John!"
John felt stiff, having slept awkwardly on the couch, but he poked his head up just the same.
"What?" he asked.
John sat up and adjusted his clothing, allowing himself some time to wake up as Sherlock continued talking, pacing irritably as he did so.
"The missing persons, the missing bodies. They don't make sense. The pattern is clear. Kidnapping individuals who can create false documents or provide necessary contacts and information for new identities in other countries. The dead bodies that turned up were either noncompliant individuals or used as warnings or both. Between the threat of being starved to death or having their own hand in the illegal activity revealed, silence. Nothing. Not one guilty conscience went to the police. Not one vengeful vigilant. Not even a deathbed confession. For ten years. In all accounts, an impressive feat."
"Maybe they're selecting people that have criminal pasts. Or something else entirely to hide," John suggested. "Something more than the crimes they committed under duress."
Sherlock shook his head. "I've been through missing person's reports and even the personals. Hundreds of missing people that could be targeted by this group, but I hardly doubt all of them were. With no kidnapping reports or criminal charges filed, there's no - "
"Hang on, what reports?" John asked.
Sherlock waved his hand over to a mountain of boxes unpacked across the room. "Mycroft managed to get them," he added.
"Ah, right. Should we even be looking into missing persons? If you're right, and they're being kidnapped and coerced into keeping it quiet, wouldn't we be looking for people that disappeared for a few weeks and then turned up again?" John suggested.
"Something that wouldn't fit in their normal patterns," Sherlock said, continuing on John's thought. "A week-long drinking binge. A spontaneous vacation."
"Mmmm," John agreed. "Though I doubt all of them would be that colorful."
Sherlock continued to pace.
"Look, I'm going to get dressed. Then we can talk properly."
"What's changed?" Sherlock asked, as if John had said nothing.
"What do you mean, 'changed'?"
"Don't you understand, John? The reason all of this is happening now is because of the missing bodies throughout London. For ten years, they managed to shift people into new identities without attracting much attention. If they had, then they've done a job of cleaning it up. But now they've had nearly a dozen bodies missing, all within a few weeks. And I was able to pick up their trail of kidnapping because of it. So what changed? Why now?"
"Maybe, when this, uh, Sebastian Moran character was being held prisoner, something forced the issue."
"Forced the issue?" Sherlock repeated. "If all you're going to say is nonsense, then say nothing."
John ignored Sherlock's response. "What I'm saying is that something threatened to expose everything, or everyone, or something, you understand?"
"Which would mean they had already planned," Sherlock said. "None of which explains the decapitated man or the attack on Molly."
It had been a stiff ride up to Derbyshire. Donovan couldn't believe Lestrade was acting on John Watson's texts.
"Haven't you gotten into enough trouble, after everything with Freak?"
"His name was Sherlock," Lestrade reminded her. "And in case you've forgotten, his name was cleared."
"Yeah, but unless you've added John Watson as an official consultant, you can't be using him!" she replied. "Tolbert will have a fit. You understand? A fit."
"He's not consulting. Molly felt safer with him is all," Lestrade replied. "Look. You were with him. He's not investigating anything on his own, right? But he had an idea and texted me about it. Nothing official about it. So drop it, all right?"
The last two hours of the drive were spent in stony silence, and their investigation in Derbyshire did nothing to alleviate the tension.
The office of Cypress Hare had been closed for months, according to the local police. One officer said that Cypress mentioned going undercover, but he hadn't said any more.
"Right, we need his records, then," Lestrade told the officer helping them, Randolph Ragland. "If he was under cover, then someone must've hired him to do it."
Ragland agreed reluctantly, but it didn't take him long to produce phone records.
"We started lookin' into it as soon as we got the call," Ragweed said. "'Fraid there wasn't much there."
"Have you spoken to this man?" Donovan asked. "Samson Leavitt. Seems to have had a lot of contact with him before he left Derbyshire."
"Ah, no, we didn't," Ragland replied. "Well, we called, but there's nothing to suggest he hired Cypress, now is there?"
"Did you check bank records?" Donovan asked. "Whoever hired Cypress would be paying him somehow, wouldn't they?"
"'Course we did. Nothing special. We're looking into the possibility of him having other accounts. Nothing so far."
"Donovan here is right," Lestrade said. "We should talk to this Samson Leavitt."
Ragland shrugged. "Might be hard. He's a busy man."
Donovan and Lestrade exchanged loaded glances as Ragland walked away. Either the investigation into Cypress Hare's death wasn't being pressed, or Samson Leavitt was a high profile individual.
Either way, they were in for a rough day.
Molly slipped into the bathroom. John took the opportunity of her vacated bedroom to shut the door in Sherlock's face so that he could change in peace.
Sherlock, of course, continued to talk as if Molly and John were rapt with attention: "That means they had planned to move dozens of people. Change their identities. Send them out of the country. A massive operation, but what for? No apparent connection between missing bodies. Not all of them are known criminals... How would that even happen? Ha, John! JOHN!"
John stepped back into the room, dressed in black trousers and an undershirt. "You still talking, Sherlock?" he asked as he did up his belt.
"The decapitated man," Sherlock said, as if it were a reply. "He was an imposter, we already know that. But why? You said Donovan was going to contact you with the name when they identified him."
"You abandoned my phone back in London, remember?" John replied. With that, he ducked back into the room for his button-up shirt.
He should have registered Sherlock's sudden silence as odd, but it only took him a moment to fix his shirt and even Sherlock had to shut his gob at some point.
"Look, I can call my voicemail - " John began as he returned to the primary room.
Sherlock was on his knees, weakly struggling, with another man's arm wrapped across his neck in a chokehold. The assailant was fairly short, around 1.7 meters tall.
"Stay there," the man huffed. He produced a small revolver. "Now, I could snap this man's neck and shoot you. Or we could go 'nother way. How does that sound?"
<<< Previous Part:
Part Six: Sieve and Cypher
Next Part: >>>
Part Eight: Transmigration
Primary Post: The Uncanny Valley - Series 3, Episode 3
Primary Post: Unfinished Business, or Series 3 (s03ff)