alt.sherlock.holmes

by Gini Koch

Bringing his mouth to my ear he breathed, “Dangerous to wake a sleepwalker.”

  This answered the least of my questions. Maeve? The vandal?

  We waited, watching her drawing a stick figure in the burning house. In short order, Martha ducked through the flap, the Professor in her wake. A belt around his waist kept his housecoat closed.

  “What’s this, then, Haus?” he asked, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand.

  Crash tried to quiet him, but Maeve had heard. She whirled at the sound of his voice.

  “We’ve found your vandal, Professor,” Haus said, his words quiet as he could make them. “Have a look.”

  McGann followed the beam of my flashlight to the steely glow in his ward’s gaze.

  “Maeve? Dammit, girl, explain yourself!” he bellowed.

  Without any hint of what switch had been triggered, Maeve wrenched the knife out of the wooden wheel and hurled herself toward her caretaker, blade raised to kill. Though little more than a slip of a girl, she proved to be nimble and scrappy as any threatened critter.

  She swiped at McGann. He raised his arm to ward off a nicked face, only to get a torn sleeve for his troubles. Maeve jabbed at him again, aiming for his belly. Fun as it might’ve been to watch the Professor dance for his life at the hands of a ninety-pound girl, Crash and I did our best to intercede without getting cut up ourselves. I shoved McGann out of the way and Martha edged him along the wall to more open quarters. Crash took the chance to get into Maeve’s blind spot. He pounced, wrapping his arms around hers and squeezing hard. I slid down to a knee and pinched her wrist at just the right point to make her fingers go loose. I caught the knife by the hilt before it had a chance to clatter to the floor.

  Struggling to get loose, Maeve growled and snarled. You’d have thought Crash had snared a werewolf, the way she carried on.

  “Maeve!” the Professor shouted. “What the bloody hell have you done?”

  Crash’s voice was soothing as a lullaby in comparison to McGann’s bellowing. “Opal. Opal, wake up.”

  “Opal? Have you gone mad, Haus?”

  Her grunts turned into tortured sobs. Tears streamed down her face and caught the beam of my flashlight like icy gems.

  Ignoring the Professor, he repeated himself. “Opal. Come on. It’s time to wake up, Opal.”

  The girl we’d known as Maeve let out an anguished howl of the purest grief. When her voice was little more than a threadbare trickle at the back of her throat, she went limp, completely spent, in Crash’s arms, and the two sank to the ground.

  fifteen

  “OPAL SKINNER,” CRASH announced. “Fourteen years old. Born in Rockford, Illinois.”

  The girl was tucked into the Professor’s warm bed, snoozing away the sleep of the righteous while Haus regaled us with the news. McGann sat on an overturned bucket, head in his hands, eyes rimmed red.

  “Her parents died when she was just a babe in arms. Her sister Camilla raised her.”

  “How did she end up on the street?” I asked.

  “Camilla was murdered by her husband on the night of their wedding. Opal was thought dead as well, though they never found her body in the burned ruin of the house she shared with the couple.”

  McGann’s attention shot up to Crash. “Fire? Murdered? Did she...?”

  Crash retrieved a letter from his pocket. I recognized Agent Trenet’s handwriting on the envelope. “My sources say that the neighbors heard Camilla and her husband arguing. There was a struggle. Someone probably knocked over a lamp in the process, and the whole thing went up. The newlyweds were found in the ashes, both with knife wounds.”

  “Oh... oh, God Almighty, that poor girl,” I said.

  Crash nodded. “You have reached the same conclusion I have, Dandy.”

  “Maeve killed them? Murdered her own sister?” McGann asked, appalled.

  “Not her sister. Hearing the struggle, Opal likely went to her sister’s aid, whereupon she found Camilla dead, or close enough to it. Her brother-in-law... shall we just say he fell on his own blade? Leave it at that, chaps?”

  I shook my head with weary understanding and empathy. “That girl’s been carrying that with her. in such a tiny heart.”

  “So, she ran? And took up with me? Never bothered to tell me this rather important bit of history?”

  “She forgot,” Crash corrected. “She blotted it from her mind, wiped everything including her true name. The roadmen called her ‘Maeve,’ their slang for a young girl. So she took that on as her name. And you found her, as you said, living rough.”

  Denholm McGann dragged his hands through his hair. “But why? Why start up with the carvings and such? Why kill our horse?”

  “Tell me, Professor, while you were on your travels, did you happen upon any weddings?”

  “No, we did... wait, there was that one in Lexington. And come to think on it, we invited ourselves to a fine reception just outside of Evansville the night before the horse was dirked.”

  Crash snapped his fingers. “Trigger events, Denholm. Triggers.”

  I knew all too well what he meant. “Hearing about the weddings. And the sight of our campfire dredged it up in her mind, and when she went to sleep...”

  “Her dreams took over the rest,” Crash concluded. “She was trying to tell someone. Screaming for help, writing messages in her sleep. You said yourself, Denholm, the first time you were vandalized you found her screaming and sobbing. It wasn’t because she was attacked that night, but because she was remembering the attack that made her homeless.”

  McGann pressed his fingers to his lips, and stared at the girl in his bed like she was an alien creature from the depths of the sea.

  “So what do I do now? Eh? What the bloody hell do I do?”

  Crash squatted in front of the Professor. “I have a thought on the matter, if you’d be keen to hear it.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “She needs more than you can give her.”

  I nodded. “She’s gonna need people around her who will listen to her, hold her when she cries and accept that she’s done deeds she’d rather take back.”

  McGann regarded me with a sad smirk. “Know where a lot like that can be found, do you, gaucho?”

  “As a matter of fact.”

  Crash smiled. “She needs to stay here with us, Denholm. I hear she’s been chummy with clan Tynker over the past few days. They love her like one of their own already. Don’t think it would be too farfetched to say they’d give her a bed.”

  As he stared at his ward, McGann’s feelings rose to the surface, stark and raw. He had cared for Maeve in his own way. What was it Crash had said about the Professor being lonely? Bitterness tinged his words. “So you’ll keep her here and send me off? Is that it?”

  “If that’s what you want. Your wind takes you where it will, McGann. If you want to stay here and keep an eye on her, throw in your lot with us again, you can. Assuming you can work for a gaucho like me.”

  The Professor didn’t answer. Just stared up at Crash, weighing his words.

  “With or without you, though,” Haus added, “Opal stays here with us. If you do decide to leave, you don’t do it like a coward in the night. You tell her. Explain it however you like, but the girl’s lost enough folk in her days without you going and adding another to the list.”

  McGann hung his head. “Can I have some time to think about it? The staying or going part, I mean. First thing tomorrow, once I’ve slept off this hangover, we’ll check with the Tynkers about Mae—Opal,” he corrected himself, “taking up with them. As to myself, though... I might like to stay. Then again, I might not. I still don’t like you, Haus.”

  Crash smiled. “Of course you don’t. And I despise you right back, you serpent-tongued shitbag.”

  “Now get the hell out of my home, you’ve darkened my doorstep enough tonight,” McGann said with a smile. “Oh, and when you do set her up with the Tynkers, tell Elijah and them to keep her away from sharp objects.” He held up his sl
ashed sleeve as evidence.

  I grinned. “Keep her away? Hell, they’ll just teach her to juggle ’em.”

  THE SUNRISE WAS a grey line on the horizon when Crash and I left McGann’s vardo. As we shambled around the back end of the wagon, Haus pulled up short. I looked to see what caught his attention, and frankly it stopped my steps, too.

  A pair of headlights blazed across the lot, casting twin beams on 221b. A tall, thin figure stood in the light, waiting at the foot of the stairs.

  “What do you suppose that’s about?” I asked.

  Crash evidently already had ideas, and his mouth hung open wide as a barn door. His eyes were haunted.

  “Why?” he said, the word barely a puff of air in the chilly dawn. “Why are you here?”

  Like a man walking to the gallows, Haus lurched silently toward his ramshackle home. Something quickened his pace until I found myself lagging behind my running roommate once again.

  “Why are you here?” Crash shouted.

  As we closed in, I could see the man waiting for us. Tall as Crash, with the same auburn hair, although unlike my friend’s unruly curls, he kept his close-cropped and smoothed with grease. His moustache was combed and clipped to precision. He wore a suit beneath the winter coat—the cost of which I didn’t even want to ponder. He held one hand behind his back. The other gripped the handle of a black umbrella.

  “Director Haus?” I puffed.

  Crash skidded to a stop, nearly losing his footing in the mud. “Leland. Why are you...?”

  The elder Haus was dour and stern as a nun, and his jaw was rigid. He glared at his wayward sibling with a mixture of contempt and the same haunted anguish I’d seen in Maeve only an hour ago.

  “Leland,” Crash pleaded. “What has happened?”

  “Moira,” Leland croaked. “Sanford, my daughter is dead.”

  Crash’s face wrinkled with confusion, a child’s lack of understanding. “What? No, that’s... I was just writing to her. She was...” He choked on a sob, brought a hand to his mouth as if he might vomit.

  “How?” I asked.

  Leland said nothing. Didn’t take his eyes off of his brother’s as he swung his hidden arm around and dropped something at Crash’s feet. The coffee can hit the ground with a clang, too loud in the pastoral morning.

  It took me a moment too long to recognize the coffee can. Yellow, rusty.

  Just like the others.

  Crash staggered back and I caught him, held him upright. “Steady. Steady now.”

  “No,” he sobbed. “No! Not my niece!”

  Sanford Haus swiped at me, shoved me away and fell to his knees in front of his brother. He took up the coffee can, opened it. I couldn’t see, his body blocked my view. But I heard paper. I heard something rattling about in the old tin cylinder.

  I heard shaking breaths as he wept. One word soon became audible.

  Moriarty.

  all the

  single ladies

  “I’M SORRY,” MRS. Hudson said, sticking her head into my office. “But these detectives insist they need to speak to you, Doctor.” She looked worried. I couldn’t blame her. A visit from the police is rarely a good thing.

  As I slid the file I’d been perusing into the top drawer of my desk, three people entered my office: two men and a woman. One man was at least a half a foot taller than the other, but the shorter man was the one who stepped forward. He had dark hair and eyes, with sharp features that reminded me just a bit of a rodent.

  “Dr. John Watson?”

  “Yes. What’s this about?”

  “I’m Detective Straude. This is Detective Saunders.” He indicated the taller man, who was fair to Straude’s dark, and who also looked as if he’d played football in school. “The lady is Sherlock Holmes. She’s with us.”

  Holmes was between the two men in height; tall for a woman. Slender, but clearly well-muscled, with long, dark hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. She wore a grey turtleneck sweater, grey slacks and grey high-heeled boots, and had a grey wool coat draped over her arm. Apparently, grey was her color.

  Holmes was what, about a hundred years ago, would have been called a handsome woman—not pretty, certainly not beautiful, but not unattractive, either. Like Straude, she had sharper features, but unlike him, she didn’t resemble a rodent in any way. She reminded me more of an eagle, or even a wolf—a solitary, noble predator.

  “Clearly, seeing as she came in with you.” I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my tone, but didn’t feel I’d been too successful.

  Holmes hadn’t been looking at me—she’d been examining the room, looking everywhere with seemingly great interest. I had no idea why—mine was a typically small office, with the standard diplomas and certificates on the walls. I didn’t go in for much clutter, so the bookcases were filled with books helpful to my practice and some few mementos displayed on top. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to see.

  However, my sarcasm caught her attention. She turned to me and I realized why she was so committed to one color—her eyes were a piercing grey, and they radiated intelligence, more than I’d ever seen before, from anyone, man or woman. The resemblance to an eagle was even more pronounced.

  She turned those eyes onto me and her lips quirked. “What a feat of deduction. Forgive Lee. He’s the master of stating the obvious.” She had an English accent, and a husky voice. She could make a fortune as a phone sex operator, but I knew without asking she wasn’t interested in that kind of work.

  “Sherlock, please,” Straude said tiredly. “Not now.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” she said. Then turned away and went back to examining my unexciting office.

  “Can I help you, detectives? And Mrs. Holmes?”

  “Miz,” she said, without turning towards me. “Not married, not divorced, not a sweet young thing, not looking, not interested, in you, your brother, or your sister.”

  “I see.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Possibly you can help us, Dr. Watson,” Straude said quickly. “I understand you’re the school physician at New London College.”

  “Yes.” New London was a small, private women’s college, dedicated to the idea that young women learned better without the distraction of young men. That there were several other colleges and universities nearby, loaded with all those young men, and that much of the staff were male, never seemed to enter into consideration. “I see you’re still set on stating the obvious, since the Dean’s secretary brought you in, after all. To my office. On campus. Where I’ve answered questions from uniformed officers at least four times.” I gave up on trying not to sound sarcastic.

  Holmes was in profile to me and her lips quirked. She began moving through my office, taking special interest in the bookcases, but still giving the rest of my place a closer look as well.

  “Where do you live, Dr. Watson?” Straude went on without any reaction.

  “I’m between residences at the moment. I’m sleeping here, on campus, in the visiting professor’s dorm room attached to the artist’s wing.”

  “Why’s that?” Saunders asked.

  “Private colleges don’t pay as well as rumor has it. And I’m not financially able to start my own practice, let alone afford any place close.” I had no car. And in Southern California, that meant I had to live within walking distance of my job, because the bus system was deplorable at best. New London was in the Brentwood hills, meaning I couldn’t afford to rent someone’s tool shed, let alone a room or apartment.

  “No friends to stay with?” Straude asked.

  “Not any I want to burden, no.”

  “No family?”

  “Not nearby.”

  “Where were you last night between nine p.m. and midnight?”

  “Here, doing paperwork, and then in my room, watching TV.”

  “Campus Queen was on,” Holmes said.

  “Yes, it was. I don’t care for reality TV, though. I watched an old movie, Death Wish.”

  “It’s t
he number one reality show right now. Campus Queen is filming at New London this school year, isn’t it?” Holmes asked.

  “Since you appear to follow the show, why are you asking me? Yes, we have film crews here all the time. They practically live here.” Some of them were living here, camped out to capture nighttime footage. Unlike me, they were allowed to be in the dorms, and didn’t have to troop halfway down the high hill to get to their beds. Unlike them, I actually had some hope of sleeping in peace and quiet.

  “Do you know why we’re here?” Straude asked.

  “I have no idea.” This was a lie. By now, I had a very good idea. Bad news traveled fast, and until I’d taken this job, the police had never visited me before. At least not in America.

  “Fifth rape and murder of one of the New London students in as many months and you don’t know why we’re here?” Saunders’ tone was definitely snide.

  “I do know that another one of our students was brutally murdered. I have no idea why you’re here with me, however, unless it’s to express condolences and assure me, as one of the many who work here, that you’re doing all you can to find the murderer and bring him to justice.”

  “How is Campus Queen working the murders in?” Saunders asked. Straude shot Holmes a why-me? look. She looked like she was trying not to laugh.

  “How would I know? I’m not part of the show, and I don’t expect to get a ‘secret letter announcing my potential royalty’ any time soon.”

  Holmes was definitely trying not to laugh. “I thought you said you didn’t watch the show.”

  “I work here. Some days it’s all the girls talk about. It’s good for the school, though.” Hollywood on campus meant money coming into the school, plus the notoriety of being one of the colleges deemed worthy to have the next Campus Queen crowned. From what Mrs. Hudson had told me, applications for the next school year were up from the past five years, solely due to the show. I might hate Campus Queen, but it was helping my employer continue to employ me.

  “Can anyone confirm your alibi?” Straude asked.