The Case of the Displaced Detective

by Stephanie Osborn

  Chapter 10—Visions and Revelations

  IT WAS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND, SO they had monday off, as the base was closed to all non-essential personnel. Skye remained withdrawn, her normal aplomb lacking; whenever Holmes tried to draw her out, she smiled wryly and made a self-deprecating remark. Their normal camaraderie seemed irretrievably lost.

  Holmes understood his discovery of her secret was humiliating to her, and something inside him wanted to ease that humiliation, but he didn’t know how. He drew a deep breath, and lost himself in thought.

  Watson was never stupid, but he fully accepted he had not my skill in observation and deduction. And while he was willing to learn, and most interested in it, he never aspired to my level, and the matter never troubled him. Indeed, it was the source of much good-humoured ribbing betwixt us.

  Skye, on the other hand, has not the skill, but evidently does aspire to it. Or did. And she certainly has the intellect to accomplish it. But now she is crushed, because she has put me upon some damned pedestal, and in my ignorance of her situation, I found her wanting.

  It is, I suppose, incumbent upon me to do something to redress the matter; if I could ascertain what that something might be, I should do it readily.

  Abruptly it occurred to him that he was consistently comparing Skye to the wrong member of his former partnership. He kept trying to compare her to Watson, when in this particular instance at least, he should be drawing analogies to himself. So he tried to place himself in her position.

  A memory floated back to him of a university professor under whom Holmes had once studied. He recalled how Dr. Bell had taught Holmes the importance of small details—the proper sequence of observing a person’s body in order to deduce his profession, say—and how proud the budding detective had been whenever Bell complimented him. Holmes had never failed to meet or exceed Dr. Bell’s expectations. But now he considered how it might have felt had he been found wanting before Bell and received admonishment instead. Suddenly Holmes understood the bitter chagrin Skye felt. But it didn’t push him any farther along in addressing the issue.

  * * *

  Monday, which was Memorial Day, Skye took him down to Colorado Springs in order to show him the parade. They stayed in town, eating supper at a little family diner, then watching the fireworks that evening before heading back home. Skye said little except to explain the history.

  Monday night they both retired, their fellowship still strained.

  Holmes stood at the window in his darkened room, smoking his pipe for at least an hour, lost in pained thought, before yielding for the night.

  * * *

  The little black Infiniti zipped down Ute Pass, through the Springs, and out onto the prairie. Skye sailed along, enjoying the brightness of the sunny day, the deepness of the blue sky, happy and content. Her world was pristine and perfect. A wonderful man awaited her at home, and she had only to go by the base to pick up the latest evidence and take it back to him.

  So she wasn’t expecting to see the accident.

  It was ghastly. A fully loaded tractor-trailer rig had been traveling too fast around the curve—why was there a curve here, on a straight highway across the prairie? Oh, that’s right, it had to wrap around the perimeter fence—and had swung wide. The oncoming car had met it head on and been almost obliterated.

  Skye pulled her sport coupe to the side of the road, activating its blue light bar, not in the least surprised to discover it even had one. She extracted her cell phone and called the accident to the dispatcher, requesting backup, at least one ambulance, and fire support. Then she jumped out of her car and hurried to the cab of the tractor.

  The truck driver was unhurt, although so emotionally distressed he was throwing up on the road shoulder. He kept pointing at the car, and Skye went to see if the driver of that vehicle had survived.

  In fact, neither the driver, nor his two passengers, had survived. Their bodies were crushed and broken, limbs rent from torsos, bone exposed, blood splattered throughout the passenger compartment. The driver had been decapitated. Skye stared at the driver’s face, struggling to maintain a professional attitude in the presence of such carnage. That was when it hit her.

  She knew that face. Intimately.

  Skye’s eyes widened in horror, and she turned to the front-seat passenger, gazing into the glazed, unseeing eyes, seeing the monstrous bib covering the woman’s chest.

  Skye knew her, too.

  With increasing terror, the reserve police officer stared through the windshield into the back seat, toward the third accident victim.

  ‘No,’ she thought in agony. ‘How did he get here? He’s supposed to be…No! Not here!’

  “HOLMES!” she cried, gazing in heartbroken torment at the vacant, lifeless steel-grey eyes gazing upon her from the back seat of the ruined vehicle. “NOOOO!”

  Skye screamed in inconsolable grief and horror.

  * * *

  The nightmare broke, and Skye found herself sitting upright in bed, panting hard. Long, strong hands gripped her shoulders, and familiar, piercing grey eyes gazed at her in the dim moonlight through the window. Living eyes, she thought in confusion. Shining bright, sharp silver eyes. Seeing everything. Thank God. Vaguely she realized her housemate, clad only in pyjama pants and dressing gown, was seated on the bedside.

  The man she had just dreamed horribly dead now sat there before her, very much alive. She struggled to wrap her mind around the radical shift in thought.

  “Skye?” Holmes’ voice was soft, querying. “Are you quite all right, my dear?”

  “Uh, uh, yeah,” she muttered, dragging the backs of her hands over her eyes as she fought her respiration down into a normal rhythm. “Nightmare. Sorry. Did I scream?”

  * * *

  “Yes. Quite loudly. There is nothing to apologise for, Skye. Such things happen to all of us. I, myself, have been known to have the odd…bad dream.” Holmes hesitated, reaching out, wanting to break through the barrier between them. “Do you wish to…talk about it?”

  * * *

  “No,” Skye whispered, badly shaken, and not willing to revisit the graphic imagery. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Very well.” Obviously disappointed, Holmes released her shoulders and made as if to rise.

  “Um, wait, Holmes,” she added uncertainly, and he stopped. “I’m not…ready…to be alone, just yet.”

  * * *

  Ah. Now she is reaching out. Perhaps we can reconnect, after all. He scrutinized her pale face by moonlight, seeing the lingering signs of horror etched in her features. Then again, perhaps she is truly in need of a friend.

  “That bad?” he murmured.

  She nodded, swallowing.

  “Very well. What would you like me to do?”

  “Sit here and let me pretend to be a six-year-old for a couple minutes?” As she spoke, she assembled most of the pillows into a stack and plopped them against the headboard beside her, patting the blankets in front of them.

  Holmes’ eyes narrowed, uncomfortable with the suggestion, and he studied her for long moments. That was when he saw her trembling, almost unnoticeable in the dim room. Reaction, he decided, concerned. And severe, at that. It frightened her very badly, this dream. Without further delay, he turned and sat where indicated, stretching his long legs across the top of the blankets. He adjusted the burgundy silk dressing gown, then opened one arm to her.

  Skye leaned into his side, and he wrapped his arm firmly about her. He could feel her heartbeat pounding against his arm and side, and realized her respiration was still very ragged.

  “Good Lord, Skye,” he murmured, stunned, as he nudged her head down against his shoulder, “what in heaven’s name did you dream about? You’re like a frightened hare.”

  She gasped, and he gazed down at the blonde head in consternation.

  “Not…not now,” she protested in a small voice. “It’s too close. Maybe…in the morning?”

  “It was not the tesseract accident, was it?”
>
  “No—no, it wasn’t that. Please, Holmes.”

  “All right,” he conceded, soothing. “Relax and try to go to sleep. Or shall I sing you a lullaby?” he offered, attempting to lighten her mood. “After all, you said you were pretending to be six.” It coaxed a snicker out of her, and he grinned. “I should forewarn you, despite what he wrote, Watson never seemed to think very highly of my singing voice.” Another snicker tapered into a sigh from his shoulder.

  “That’s okay. The important thing is what you’re doing right now. Thank you.”

  Holmes waved aside the gratitude.

  “Sleep, Skye,” he ordered gently, grateful for the resumed companionship.

  He felt the nod against his shoulder, and she quieted. Briefly he wished for his pipe, but in his haste to respond to her cry, he had barely gotten his dressing gown wrapped around his half-nude body. Looking past his pyjama-clad legs, he noted his slippers shoved on his feet, and raised one amused eyebrow: He didn’t remember donning them.

  A tired Holmes drew a deep breath and relaxed, settling into the pile of pillows. Skye’s head slid down his body at the motion, coming to rest upon his chest, over his heart. A small sound, somewhere between a grunt and a sleepy groan, emerged from her lips, and one hand came up, positioning itself on his upper abdomen, bracing herself from sliding further. He stifled a chuckle and considered repositioning her, but she seemed asleep and he didn’t want to risk waking her. Besides, he was quite comfortable.

  Anna slunk into the room and hopped onto the bed. She meandered to the head of the bed, where she sniffed her mistress’ sleeping nose, then turned her attention to Holmes. She head-butted his free hand, coaxing a pat and an ear scratch from him, before moving back to the foot of the bed and curling against his leg. The vibration of her purr transmitted itself to his calf, and he smiled, contentment settling over him like a warm blanket.

  Drowsy grey eyes fluttered closed, and Holmes entered a reverie. An image of Watson crossed his mind’s eye, and he considered what the physician would make of Holmes’ current world environment.

  He would be fascinated, and probably not a little overwhelmed. I wonder what he and Skye would think of each other. Maybe…he pondered, daydreaming, maybe when they reactivate the tesseract, he can be brought here, and I can find out. I do miss my Boswell.

  Holmes opened lethargic eyes and gazed down at the golden head on his chest. Watson and Skye were very different people in many ways, but alike in others, and he suspected they’d get along famously. He was grateful to Skye; she had, after all, saved his life. Not to mention how she was responsible for introducing him to this new life, seeming to take that task to heart. She’d already proven a fiercely loyal companion, brilliant and capable, and he found he’d come to view her as one of the few true friends he’d had in his entire life.

  By now Holmes, who had stayed up very late smoking and thinking, was more than half-asleep himself; and another deep breath, more a sigh, settled him even more profoundly into the pillows and his warm, soft companion sound asleep on his chest. Vaguely his groggy brain mulled over the fact that Skye was more pleasing to look upon than his other close companion, Watson; and this was due undoubtedly to the difference in gender. Holmes may have renounced romance in favor of reason, but he was not blind, and was, moreover, a healthy heterosexual male; so this observation was hardly surprising, he concluded: Skye was a beautiful, intelligent, vital woman.

  With sleepy amusement, he decided he would reassign his sole female epithet—Skye would now become “The Woman,” and the term would be a compliment. It seemed appropriate. Perhaps, he considered dreamily, this friendship of theirs would even deepen, and the epithet take on new meaning.

  * * *

  His ruminations tapered off, and Holmes would have fallen into slumber in the next few moments, had not that last thought floated into the topmost levels of his brain. Grey eyes snapped open, wide awake.

  What the blazes am I doing? Holmes wondered, shocked, staring down at Skye’s head on his chest. I have let this go too far. This will never do. Such emotion is the enemy of reason and proper deduction.

  Although his inclination in that moment of horrified revelation was simply to push her off his chest, Holmes could not bring himself to do it. So he studied her position with an eye toward easing out from under the sleeping woman without waking her. A minute or two of consideration, and he did, settling her gently into the pillows and blankets before betaking himself to his own bedroom across the hall.

  But he did not sleep. The room seemed cold and empty, and Holmes spent the rest of the night deep in thought, door closed and window open, smoking pipe after pipe of tobacco.

  Across the hall, The Woman slept, deeply and peacefully, the rest of the night.

  * * *

  The next morning, which was Tuesday, feeling much better and very sheepish, Skye rose and put her robe over her nightshirt, moving to the kitchen to make breakfast. She ran water through the coffeemaker to heat it quickly, then poured it into the waiting teapot. Holmes preferred tea for breakfast most days, and she’d come to like it as well.

  Skye turned to the stove and put a frying pan on one burner. Soon bacon was sizzling in the pan, and she was beating several eggs in a bowl, in preparation for scrambled eggs. Behind her, she heard the sound of tea being poured into a cup, and she smiled.

  “Good morning, Holmes. How do scrambled eggs and bacon sound for breakfast?”

  “It will be fine. Here.”

  A mug appeared at her elbow, liberally laden with cream the way she liked it. Picking it up one-handed while scooping out strips of cooked bacon with the other, Skye took a sip.

  “Mmm, perfect. Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  Skye dumped the eggs into the skillet, then took another sip of tea.

  “Listen,” she added, stirring the eggs in the pan, “I wanted to thank you for last night, too. You were right; that dream scared me really bad. But now that it’s daylight,” she let out an embarrassed laugh, “I’ll tell you about it, if you still want to hear.”

  “Skye, there will be no discussion of last night. Nor will there be a repeat performance.”

  “I…what?” Skye turned, startled, to see Holmes leaning against the doorframe, sipping his tea.

  Holmes was already fully dressed, in modern garments that as closely as possible approximated his old Victorian dress: grey wool trousers and a matching blazer over a long-sleeved dress shirt, vest, and ascot-tied scarf. It was quite a dashing look for a modern male, and Skye tried hard not to ogle. But she wondered what had become of the fashion-experimental Holmes, who had opted for khakis and short-sleeved polo shirt only the day before. He had also set the table for two while she’d been busy cooking. But it was the grave expression on his face that drew her attention.

  “I mean there will be no more late night perambulations, nor playing at being six years old,” he explained very quietly, moving to the table and sitting. “I have a case, and I will not allow anything or anyone to interfere. Not even you.”

  “It wasn’t like I planned to have a nightmare, Holmes. What are you saying? You’re not accusing me—” Skye stared at him.

  “I am not accusing you of anything. I am merely stating what will be. If you should have another…nightmare, do not seek comfort from me.”

  “I wasn’t the one who came running into your room,” she muttered under her breath, angry and hurt.

  “The matter is closed.”

  Skye turned back to the stove and finished the eggs. She dished them into a bowl, sat it and the plate of bacon on the table in front of him. Then she turned toward the door.

  “Skye?” Holmes queried, puzzled, and she paused in the opening. “Do you not intend to eat breakfast?”

  “I seem to have lost my appetite,” she replied in a brittle voice. “I’m going to get ready for work. Eat what you want and throw the rest out.”

  * * *

  Skye closeted herself in he
r room to prepare for the day, away from her housemate. She was badly upset by their brief exchange, and Holmes’ obvious emotional distancing, which was far greater than the humiliated retreat Skye had effected in recent days. She tossed aside her robe and pyjama shirt, stripped off her panties; turned on the hot water in the shower.

  I don’t understand. What did I do? I was scared witless last night; he could see that, and all I wanted was a hug until I could calm down enough to go back to sleep. He’s hugged me before, when we were on the stakeout. It wasn’t like I beat him over the head last night to get it, either. Surely that wasn’t enough to shock Victorian sensibilities, under the circumstances? Was it? If it was, why did he bother in the first place?

  The water was steaming, and she slipped into the shower, letting the hot water sluice down over her body. It was comforting, somehow: like a warm embrace. Not unlike the one Holmes had given her in her fear, she mused, reaching for the shampoo.

  I didn’t mean for it to come about this way, but I suppose he does need to know about what happened. Or at least, I thought so. The dream was a good mental nudge, I guess, if “good” is a term you can apply to something so awful. I’m ready to tell him—or I was, ten minutes ago, before his little pontification. I just wish I understood why he was in it, this time. That was one helluva shock, seeing him there.

  She shook her head, puzzled, and lather flipped from the ends of her hair onto the shower wall, sliding down. Skye watched it blankly.

  And why has he suddenly taken that giant step back? Is he…? A thought occurred as she rinsed away the soapsuds. Maybe he’s getting ready to move out, and after losing Watson, he’s trying to distance himself psychologically. I guess, between his discovering I’m not even at Watson’s level as an investigator, and my falling apart last night, I’ve pretty much flunked his “suitable companion” test. I’m probably getting dumped.

  Skye’s breath caught painfully at the revelation. I bet that’s it. It would explain the dream, especially if I’ve been subconsciously picking up the signs, over the weekend, that he’s leaving. It means I’m about to lose somebody else I lov—