Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets (35 page)

“Sorry, ma’am,” I said. “Good luck.”

“Don’t you see, Watson? That’s it. There’s a connection here, I just can’t see it. Tell me. Why would a serial killer take the time to remove the skin of their victims to just return it? And why for that matter would the murders cease altogether? It’s been months now, and that can mean only that the killer has moved on, or that it wasn’t a serial killer at all. Just someone who needed to get the attention of someone in particular. But who?”

“Well that’s the great mystery, Sherlock. If I knew that, we wouldn’t be here.”

“But that’s just it, Watson. There is no reason. None whatsoever. It was done for us. To distract us from what’s really going on.”

“Which is what?”

“That I don’t know, but I would wager that Dave does.”

D
AVE PUSHED THE
thick-rimmed glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, crossed his left leg over his right knee and took a sip of the bourbon he had poured himself.

“And you think I killed her?” Dave asked.

“It doesn’t look good,” I said.

Holmes, who’d stayed quiet, watching our exchange, leaned forward and said, “Then tell us what it was you were doing.”

“Easy,” said Dave. “She was showing up to work with tracks on her neck. Her face was swollen and it looked like she’d been hit more than once. I guess it had been going on for some time, and I hadn’t noticed. But one day, she was late, stumbling all over herself, and it was clear she was on something. I know the Moon ain’t the Ritz by no means, but if word gets out I hire junkies, no matter how famous they are locally, then the quality of the clientele is gonna plummet fast. And with that, the money follows. Maybe some things are off the books, but my girls are clean.”

“Had she ever demonstrated a tendency for drugs before?” I asked.

“That was just it, Darlene was the last person I thought would get mixed up in that. But I saw it with my own eyes. She always seemed medicated and nervous. Even saw her meet a man in the back alley once. She kept looking over her shoulder all skittish.”

“You saw her? You saw her take the drugs?”

“Well I didn’t watch her put the needle in her arm, if that’s what you’re asking, but she was definitely up to something. I ducked back inside so she wouldn’t know I was watching. I needed her to finish her shift. Hard to get a girl on short notice.”

“So you made her work her shift, then fired her?”

“Listen, I’m an asshole, sure, a tax-evading asshole at that, but I ain’t no killer. She was on something, and got caught up with the wrong people, and that’s why she’s dead.”

“I
NEED TO
see the bodies again,” Holmes said.

“Darlene?” I asked “All of them, but it’s my understanding the girl was cremated.

The other two should still be in the morgue. Call Michaels, tell him to meet us there. And bring the letter.”

“What letter?”

“Detective Michaels mentioned that the jumper—remember her?—had sent a letter to her mother. Have him bring that too.”

“Why? That case has been closed for some time. I am not having him disturb a grieving mother so you can get some sort of sick satisfac—”

“There’s something I just remembered, but I won’t know for certain until I see the bodies and the letter. Now go, call him immediately.”

“T
HIS BETTER BE
good, Watson,” Detective Michaels said as he entered the cold steel mortuary.

“Oh, it is, sir,” I said, and hoped the same.

“Get him out,” Sherlock said as he ran his fingers along the steel drawers.

“This guy again? What does he mean, ‘out’? I am the head detective on this case, and I’ll go where I damn well please.”

“Listen, Michaels, he’s peculiar, but I need him. He understands my methods, and believe it or not, in his own way, he’s an actual genius. So long as he doesn’t have to speak to anyone or deal with anything in normal human society, he’s quite lovely. So please, the sooner we solve this, the sooner you can go back to whatever it is you do.”

“Macrame,” Holmes said.

Michaels looked over at Sherlock, clearly annoyed, but did as he was asked. He was skeptical, of course, but with the case still being open in the public eye, he bit his tongue. He set the letter down on the autopsy table and huffed as he left the room. By now, Sherlock had located both bodies and opened the drawers.

He pulled a large magnifying glass from his pocket and began poking and prodding at the rotted flesh. He was now straddled over the remains of Miss Jenkins, and had anyone entered the room I was unsure if anything I told them would save us from being thrown under the jail.

“Holmes, what are you doing?”

“Look at this, doctor.”

I made my way to the body of Miss Jenkins and examined the area Sherlock had pointed to.

“What about it?”

“What do you see?”

“I see an earlobe; well, part of an earlobe and an earring hole.

What of it,Sherlock?”

“Look again.”

I looked again at the ear, then glanced at the other ear, and to my surprise, I saw it too.

“Her ear is only pierced on one side.”

“That’s because it isn’t an ear piercing at all. It’s a needle mark. A small scar had formed over it, which made it hard to recognize, but I see it now. It’s clearly a needle prick from a repeated injection. There’s one here on the neck as well.”

“How could I have missed that?” I asked. “And how did you know to look for it?”

“The letter. Bring it here. Do you remember what it said? Miss Jenkins wasn’t on drugs; she was being injected with something, alright, but it wasn’t narcotics.”

I can't go on this way anymore. I have hurt too many people when all I wanted was to make our lives better. I’m sorry. Mother, I know I always said it was the coward’s way out, but I had no choice. Sometimes things just become bigger than you ever intended.

“The man, look at him.”

Holmes was now straddled over the drifter who had been found; rather than just a needle prick, there was a raised section on the earlobe. At first glance, it would appear to be just a result of the patchwork and flesh decay, but upon further inspection it was revealed that something was lodged beneath the skin. Something that the medical examiner had missed as well.

“What is that?” I asked.

Sherlock grabbed a metal instrument from a nearby table and poked at the nodule. On cue, the skin cracked and something shiny could be seen reflecting off the metal table. No bigger than a dime, there was a square USB drive embedded into the lobe.

“Incredible,” I said. “You think the jumper is connected somehow?”

“I am sure of it. Grab Michaels and meet me back at Mrs. Peppard’s.”

“The woman with the missing husband? You heard her, it was a private matter, he returned home. I hardly think—”

“See you there,” Holmes said, and with that, he was gone.

W
E FOUND OURSELVES
once again on Mrs. Peppard’s doorstep. She seemed confused, but she let Michaels and me in. I hoped Holmes was right about this. Since he wasn’t there, I would have to stall.

“Was there something you forgot earlier?” Mrs. Peppard asked. “To be honest, I sort of overreacted. Charley had a bad habit of wandering off at times, and without his medicine he gets confused. It was really just a mixup, hardly a police matter.”

“Agreed,” said Michaels, visibly annoyed.

“My assistant is on his way, just be patient, you two.” I sipped the iced tea Mrs. Peppard had brought me and asked a few questions to pass time.

“So your husband was having an affair? And you two own a biotech lab together? That’s not good for business.”

“We do, and I don’t think the other is your business. How did you know that?”

“The internet is full of amazing things. Healing Beauty, it’s a good name.”

“Oh, I know that place,” said Michaels. “My wife had some work done there once. Was unnecessary, if you ask me, but women can be pretty stubborn once they get their minds set to something. Oh, sorry ma’am.”

Then it hit me.

“Did you have another business partner?”

A panicked look came across her face and her eyes went wet.

“We did. Her name was Danielle Mackenroy. She passed away not too long ago. I’m sorry, it’s all still pretty new.”

Before I could inquire further, Holmes’ silhouette appeared in the doorframe.

“Oh, it’s new, alright,” said Sherlock, “and murdering your husband’s mistress can also be quite distressing.”

Mrs. Peppard’s tears vanished and a scowl stretched across her worn face.

“How dare you presume to know anything about me, about my marriage?”

“Oh, I know plenty, madam,” Sherlock said.

Michaels, once again intrigued, stood and positioned himself near the kitchen exit in case Mrs. Peppard decided she was through with our questions.

“You discovered the affair between your husband and the cabaret singer, and not about to be bested by some local dollymop, took matters into your own hands. But how?” Sherlock’s eyebrows rose, and he abruptly resumed his speech by answering his own question. “Ah, that was only part of it, wasn’t it? Among your investigations of the affair, you discovered something more, didn’t you? Something worth far more than that philandering husband of yours. This company was yours, built by your family.” Sherlock pointed to a framed photo behind the fireplace that showed a young girl amongst a tall, double of a man in front of a
HEALING BEAUTY
banner. “Your father, he started this company; and you weren’t about to let someone take that away from you.”

“My father worked his whole life to build that company. When my mother got sick, he vowed to save her, cure her from her disease. He died trying to fulfill that promise. This is more than just some lab, it’s his legacy.”

“So what happened?” Sherlock asked. “You went to confide in your business partner? A sweet unsuspecting Danielle to lend you a sympathetic ear? She confessed something, though, didn’t she? Something that could ruin you and your husband.”

“If we divorced, he would get half of everything that my family has worked for.”

“So why not kill him, then?” I asked. Michaels shot me a disapproving look. “Hypothetically, I mean.”

“I’ll tell you why,” said Sherlock, “because it was too late, the wheels had already been set in motion.”

“We were best friends,” Mrs. Peppard said.

“You went to your friend, hoping for support, and instead she confessed that she had not only known about the affair, but amongst her digging, had discovered information far more valuable for blackmail.”

“I suppose she had started out with the intention of telling me, but the idea of a payout had seemed too good, I guess. Science doesn’t pay what it once did.”

“You realized that she had found this,” Sherlock said, and held up the small shiny object that had been unearthed from the drifter’s lobe just hours before.

The color drained from Mrs. Peppard’s face, and she said, “She was going to sell it. My father’s formula,
my
formula. She had done some useless botox treatments on that Jenkins woman and she, unknowing that we were friends, confessed to having slept with my husband, which is what got this whole thing started. Danielle was doing chemical trials on a homeless man she had met to cure muscular dystrophy, the same thing that had stolen the life of my mother. She had planned to use it, document the proof, and sell the formula to the highest bidder. She knew what that meant to me, what had happened to my mother. I had worked endlessly, and she was going to take everything away from me. I had already lost both my parents to that disease, in one way or another; I was not going to lose my research, too.”

“So what? You confronted her? Told her you knew she had taken the formula?”

“It wasn’t that hard, really. Everything from the work computer was automatically backed up to our home hard drive. I saw the photos, a woman always knows when something’s not right, and I saw that the files had been recently accessed. I put two and two together and confronted her. She must have realized what had happened, because by the time I approached her, she had already hidden the drive. I searched everywhere for it; tore the office apart. I knew it had to be with her last patient, since it was nowhere in the office. I looked over the patient list and tracked down the last man who had come in. Danielle spent her professional career hiding things in plain sight, why would that drive be any different?”

“So why kill Miss Jenkins then if you knew she didn’t have the drive?” I asked.

“I strangled Miss Jenkins because she was sleeping with my husband. I also thought she might know more than she let on, and I was certainly not going to allow some whore to gain one red cent from my family.”

“Why cut her up?” Michaels interjected.

“Why not?” Mrs. Peppard said. “I had already killed that man in the hunt for the drive, dissected him in the hopes of finding it. I’m a scientist, after all, and there’s nothing more scientific than hands-on experimentation. I liked watching the flesh as I peeled it strip by strip from their bodies.”

“That’s sick,” I said.

“And anyway, it was fun watching the police chase their tails for a little while. Really got them going, thinking there was a bona fide serial killer on the loose.”

“And the girl at the ice cream shop?” Michaels asked.

“Wrong place, wrong time.” Sherlock said.

“Exactly. And I’d rather tell you all this now, be sure the facts are straight, than leave it up to some half-witted local media reporter to get even a minutia of the details correct. Healing Beauty will be famous by this time tomorrow. Mark my words.”

“All of this for a drive smaller than my pinky nail,” I said.

“It’s not just the drive. It’s about loyalty. Where is everyone’s loyalty these days? You can find me on the internet, sure, but can you find a way to make a husband honor his marital vows? When I held that gun to the temple of my former best friend, she told me she had implanted it somewhere within that gentleman.” Mrs. Peppard sighed. “I guess he was scheduled for a follow-up treatment, and was likely unaware of what he even had. A homeless man holding on to millions of dollars’ worth of scientific research. Oh, how deliciously ironic. The sick, the downtrodden, they are ignored, disrespected.” Mrs Peppard’s eyes flashed and the hurt of a little girl echoed from within her. “Danielle got what she deserved, trying to extort money from my husband, and in turn, me.”