“Really? We’re to be gawkers at a crime scene? This is what you thought I couldn’t miss?”
“We’ll not be mere gawkers.” He kept walking, so I was forced to jog to catch him. “We will observe.”
“Semantics,” I insisted, following him into the trees that grew thicker as we progressed.
“No.” He turned on me, pointing back to where a growing crowd gathered at the perimeter. “Those people come to see a spectacle. I come for a purely intellectual pursuit.”
I glanced around us. “My father is police.”
“Police?” He briefly studied my face, as if checking to make sure I had the mark. “Everything about you is a surprise.”
“That’s what it means to be a stranger.”
He tilted his head so that I couldn’t see his eyes in the sporadic lights that filtered through the trees from the crime scene to where we stood. “Perhaps. But then I’ve met so few strangers in my life.”
I let that go for expediency, and because I was sure the more he spoke, the more home would seem preferable to his exasperating eccentricities. “Whatever. I can’t be seen here.”
“Then you will not be seen.” He leaned forward to meet my eyes in a challenge and turned to resume his trek.
I had no excuse for catching up with him and every excuse to walk the other way. The futures that played through my mind all seemed to end with my father’s livid ranting and my apologies, but I followed Sherlock’s circuitous route, deeper into the shadows toward the far end of the crime scene. I hated myself for following, but I did it. Still, the third time his route took us through a bush that smacked at my shins, I gave in to my impulse to growl at him.
“For someone who doesn’t want to be seen, you make an awful lot of noise.”
I glared at the back of his head but said nothing more. For a minute or so. I had just decided to complain about how far we’d wandered from the actual scene when Sherlock crouched down next to a tree and peered around it. I walked up behind him with my hands on my hips.
“What now?”
“Now,” he whispered, “I will wait for the constable, who is not twenty feet away from us, to light his next cigarette, and we will sneak across while his eyes are still affected by the brightness of the flame.”
I refused to crouch down, but I did step closer to him to make sure I was well hidden. Sherlock stood too and, without a word, grabbed the sleeve of my coat to pull me along behind him. We wove through the trees, then around the back of the crime-tape circle, but that apparently wasn’t close enough for Sherlock. Before I could stop him, he had slipped under the tape. Once more, I followed him, this time into a life of crime, as I was pretty sure it was against the law to breach a crime scene. I knew we had come to the spot Sherlock had in mind when he stopped short and sank into the shadows between two trees.
I glanced at the scene, which was no more than a bunch of men in suits and uniforms, with booties over their shoes, wandering around and taking photos. One of the men popped up from behind an open umbrella holding a poofy black fingerprint brush and frowning. He tossed the brush into his kit and picked up the umbrella, which was glossy wet, despite the lack of rain, and had a gash in the top. He closed the umbrella and started wrestling it into a giant plastic sack, revealing a man’s body behind him, slumped into a pool of blood that stained the ground beneath a tree.
It occurred to me that I should probably be shocked or repulsed at the sight—or, at least, should compose my face to appear so—but when I looked over at Sherlock, he didn’t seem to be much bothered either. In fact, yet another version of the boy came out while he studied the scene of the crime. He appeared much older, his eyes keen and focused, shifting up and down and side to side. It was as if he were painting the view with his gaze, carefully, so as not to miss a spot. I thought perhaps I even saw a bit of color in his cheeks as he worked.
“Do you see it?” he asked me in a soft whisper.
I tried to see whatever “it” was, but all I saw was the body, and the only odd bit of the body was how the man was slumped over on his side. There was something about that . . . awkward, like he hadn’t tried to brace the fall.
I knew nothing about solving crimes. I’d only ever associated that kind of work with my father, and we had never really gotten on, even before he became . . . this. But perhaps there wasn’t any real trick to it after all. I supposed solving one thing was nearly like solving another. And if there was one thing I was good at, it was solving for X.
I decided to think of the crime as the steps in an equation, to sort how he could have fallen into that position. Equations were easy. Put a pin into each of the things you know and then write rules between the pins, like strings, connecting one pin to the next until you can solve for the missing parts. But in this instance, I couldn’t seem to move along the string of the first unknown. After all, if what my father had said was right and the man did die the evening before, the bigger question was why in the world he would’ve wandered into the darkest part of the park at night. There was nothing to see where we stood. And while there was no bench where he fell, there was one just a few trees away, where a lamp would have offered some light.
I counted off the steps, starting with the man running from something. He could have seen his attacker coming and hoped to find a place to hide in the dark. But that didn’t fit either, because of the way the body was positioned. It was as though he’d been leaning casually against the tree, and just slumped down and then teetered over. If he’d been running away, he’d have been tackled, sprawled out on the ground, not slumped. I started again with him running and hiding, somehow getting backed up against the tree. But even trapped, he would have tried to block the attacker with his hands. I tried to find his hands, to see if there were cuts or some other sign of his fighting back. I even traced the angles of his arm to a bright, golden watch, but that hand was tucked away. So was his other hand. His hands were still in his pockets.
I had no idea that was even possible, for a man to die with his hands in his pockets. It meant he couldn’t have known he was being killed until the wound was already in his chest.
When I started my equation again, I had a few important pins. The dead man trusted his killer to get close and personal. The man had obviously come there on purpose. He wasn’t afraid when he walked into the woods—into the dark to meet his fate. He leaned back against the tree, his hands in his pockets to show just how casual he felt. In contrast, his eyes were wide in death, surprised as the killer used his weapon.
“He knew the killer,” I whispered to Sherlock.
“The hands,” he said. It started to drizzle, and two uniformed officers carefully draped a bright-yellow tarp over the body. We’d come just in time to take our notes.
Some muttering in the crowd of police stole my attention, and the sea of suited men suddenly parted as a large, sandy-colored man with a walrus-esque figure and demeanor stomped through the scene. All the men paid him deference, with “sir” and “guv” accompanying every nod and step aside. The Walrus Man ignored them all, making a beeline for a man clutching a clipboard. “Coroner come and gone?” asked the walrus.
“Not without that.” Clipboard man actually had to point out the bright-yellow tarp. My mind reeled at the lack of observance necessary to completely miss the central focus of the entire scene. That this man was apparently the senior officer forced an exasperated sound from me before I could stifle it. Sherlock tensed but didn’t look at me.
“Taking his time, I see,” said the walrus. “So, what’ve we got?”
Clipboard held an evidence bag up to the lights. “Wallet, opened and empty next to the deceased. Stab wounds. Lots of blood. It’s even on his umbrella and the tree.”
He was right. There was a darker patch on the tree that started just below a white gouge mark that looked wet, as wet as the umbrella, which seemed much more significant in that l
ight.
“So, robbery gone wrong?” asked Walrus.
“Had to be something like that.”
Sherlock made a sound deep in his throat that was much louder than the one I had made, and when our eyes met, I widened mine, hoping he’d take it as an invitation to shut up. Still, it was obvious even to me that this was no robbery. I mean, the watch alone—
“Maybe he was out for a run,” Walrus offered.
“In wool trousers,” Sherlock whispered, derisively.
“An evening constitutional,” the other officer said. “That’s good. I’ll jot that in the report.”
“All sorted, then. Good, good.”
The men started down the hill toward the crowd as we backtracked toward the tape. The very moment we were out of earshot, Sherlock practically exploded with outrage.
“The incompetence! The base incompetence and absolute reckless idiocy!”
His eyes were full of fire again, and I couldn’t help but notice how intriguing he looked with his eyes wider and his cheeks aflame. Passion. It had to be his passion. Everyone is infinitely more attractive when they’re full of the stuff.
“Disheartening,” I added to his list of adjectives as we extricated ourselves from the crime scene. “To think our safety in this park is in the hands of two—”
“Actual jackasses!” Sherlock cried. “They could place actual donkeys in uniforms and get better deduction.”
“Technically, those two weren’t in uniform, of course.”
I smiled when Sherlock continued on as though I hadn’t spoken a word. He was clearly not to be distracted from his ranting. I can’t say I minded. We were taking a much more direct route back to the park’s inner circle path.
“The noises of beasts, Mori! I would listen to pack animals heaving out calls deep into the night before I’d lower myself to listen to even one more syllable.”
I took his hand in mine and tried my best to repress a laugh when that simple action quieted him almost instantly. I’d done it without thinking, really, like I would to my brothers when they were younger and would be on about something. Sherlock stared down at our joined hands, then up at my face.
“Are you done?” I asked.
Sherlock sighed. “Probably.” A wry grin lifted his cheeks. He squeezed my hand gently, and then fidgeted a bit as we walked. Once we reached the path, he swung our hands a little, like he wasn’t able to hold still. “Or perhaps not.” He released my hand and turned toward me. “We should take the case.”
“‘Take the case’?” I wanted to laugh openly at him then. “Do you think at all before you speak?”
“We could do it. We are clever. The swans on the lake are more clever than those detectives. Perhaps even the trees.”
“Yes, yes. They were morons. But it’s not as though we are a part of the investigation. How do you propose we learn anything at all about the crime or who did it or why?”
“Observation. Deduction. Sheer mind power.”
“And when we’ve nothing left to observe?”
“You said your dad is police.”
“He doesn’t even want me in the park right now. He would definitely not be okay with my investigating a murder.”
“So, you think it’s more than just a mugging gone wrong?”
I pursed my lips.
“As do I,” he added hastily. “And with your cleverness and my reasoning, we could come up with an answer well before the police.”
“For what purpose?”
Sherlock offered me a half smile before he said, “Because we can.”
It was a very infectious smile. “You think I am merely clever?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know you that well. Not yet.”
I shook my head. “‘Because we can’ isn’t good enough.”
Sherlock stepped closer. “How about we make this a bit of a game?”
I tried to roll my eyes and act like I wasn’t completely intrigued, but I was a piss-poor actor on a good day, despite my years in drama. “Go on.”
“First one to solve the crime, wins.”
“Wins what?”
“Wins the game.”
“And what will be the rules?”
“No rules,” he said.
“All games have rules.”
“Fine. The only rule is total transparency. We must both know what the other knows.” I started to respond to that, but as usual, Sherlock interrupted. “But not tonight. I need some time to think.” He lit a cigarette and stared past me. I got the feeling he was already walking away from me in his mind. “Tomorrow after your play practice. My lab.”
He started to walk, and it was all I could do to keep a growl out of my voice when I answered his summons. “No.”
Sherlock turned, surprised. “No?”
I shook my head. “No, I haven’t decided whether I want to play or not. And besides, if I do decide to be part of this insanity, no one can know I’m part of this. I’m serious. If my dad finds out, I’m screwed.” I looked around and saw the lake off in the distance. “If I decide to play, we’ll meet here. At the dock. We’ll take a boat out and that way no one can overhear, and it won’t smell of burning dust and spilled fake blood.”
Sherlock’s lips tightened and then stretched in a grin. “How do you know it’s fake?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He was already striding off when I thought of one.
Chapter 5
I was halfway through the next morning before I came out of my Sherlock fog and decided that I was definitely NOT going to play his little game. Unfortunately, Sherlock most likely wouldn’t be anywhere I could find him until after school. Not that it mattered. I was resolved. Mostly.
My family ate breakfast in silence, the five of us, Dad crunching his bran while the rest of us slurped oatmeal. None of us made eye contact or even shifted in our seats until Dad was off to work, without a word about his day or ours. I grabbed Sean’s chin and tilted his face up toward the light.
“Is it covered?” he asked.
I’d practically plastered his face with concealer to cover the bruise from the night before. It was hard to blend it all in with his baby skin, though. “As best I could.”
“Enough to fool the Benz?” Michael asked.
Sean’s teacher was Miss Benson. She’d been at the grammar school long enough to have taught each of us in her class. Nothing fooled the Benz.
“If she asks, you say . . .” I let go of Sean’s chin and took my dishes to the sink, where Freddie was washing up.
“My brothers and I were arsing—”
“Mucking,” I corrected.
“Yeah. Mucking about.”
Freddie laughed. “Say ‘arsing’ to the Benz. I dare ya.”
Sean chucked the crust of his toast at Freddie, which would have devolved into a free-for-all dishwater/food fight had I not fired off a glare for each of them. “Quit it and make your lunches or you’ll starve and deserve it.”
I threw a final glare over my shoulder before I left for school, just for good measure, but I was pretty sure the squeal I heard when I was halfway down the street came from my house.
Much of my school day was spent rehearsing what I would say to Sherlock when he asked me to be a part of his “investigation.” But nothing I came up with adequately made the point that I wasn’t afraid to play the game, I was merely uninterested. That I had even entertained the idea for a second showed just how that ridiculous Holmes boy had managed to mess with my mind in ways he shouldn’t have been able. Sherlock was trouble. Unexpected. And by the time I got to drama, I’d decided that I didn’t have to come up with any kind of explanation. I hardly knew the boy.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him suddenly appear backstage halfway through my class, but there he was, waiting in the wings, waving at me as I fumbled throug
h my lines. When I didn’t immediately heed his unspoken call, he started pacing the boards, glancing up impatiently at me every thirty seconds or so. At one point, I thought he might actually come out onto the stage to fetch me. Luckily, my scene ended before he could.
He opened his mouth to speak as I approached, and I held up my hand to stop him. Surprisingly, it worked. “What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“I need to tell you something. It couldn’t wait.”
“It can wait.” I grabbed his arm and tugged toward the back exit. “It will wait.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sherlock straightened the sleeve of his uniform when I let go. “If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t be here. But we must talk to her. Right away. It’s vital.”
“Talk to whom?”
Sherlock gestured at my dress. “Her. The one you’re replacing.”
I copied his gesture, exasperated. “She is obviously not here, or I wouldn’t be replacing her today.”
His countenance fell. “Her name is Patel, yes?”
“Sure. Lily Patel. Why? What is so vital about talking to Lily?”
“Her dad,” Sherlock said. “The body in the park was her dad.”
x x x
I somehow managed to shoo Sherlock out of the theater with promises to keep our meet-up at the boat dock. At that point, I was so desperate to rid myself of him that I would’ve agreed to meet him in the Queen’s bedchambers had he asked. But his revelation changed things a bit for me. The crime was more immediate. Closer. The pieces were in reach, not far flung and remote. Instead of continuing to obsess over a way out of the game, I was suddenly focused completely on Lily Patel and how I could manage to question her without seeming to. Of course, I wished to do it in a way that wouldn’t also escalate her grief, but that wasn’t top priority.
A mostly simple plan unfolded in my mind, starting with finding out where she lived. I was still backstage, surrounded by side-stage draping, stagehands, and costumed classmates. I grabbed the arm of the next person who rushed past me and tried to remember if I’d ever heard Lily’s boyfriend’s name. I was pretty sure I’d never written it down, or I’d remember for sure. I knew he was in this course. It was John something or other—
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