The Case of the Displaced Detective

by Stephanie Osborn

  Skye froze, horrified. Oh, no. Of all people. Not Holmes.

  Holmes, said her heart.

  “Oh, dear God,” she prayed fervently into the steam, her voice barely a whisper. “What do I do now?”

  * * *

  Skye’s mind was barely on her wardrobe that morning. All she could hope was that she would arrive at work halfway-decently coordinated and not looking utterly ridiculous. Instead, she concentrated on fighting her way through a maze of pain. Holmes had distanced himself; he was likely leaving. And if she truly did love him, she had to let him go, to make his own way. Which, she decided, meant she had to push him away as hard as he was pushing her. She bit her lip against the sob of anguish wanting to escape, and reached for her cell phone.

  “General? It’s Dr. Chadwick. Listen, do you have a few minutes this morning…?”

  * * *

  When the silent pair arrived at Schriever, Skye brusquely told Holmes, “Come with me.”

  “Where?” Holmes’ eyebrow rose.

  “We have an appointment with General Morris.”

  In a few minutes, they stood in Morris’ office, and the military officer affably motioned them to the chairs across his desk.

  “Well, good morning, you two. What can I do for you?”

  “Actually,” Holmes murmured, before Skye could say anything, “I was wondering if I might make a request.”

  “Of course,” Morris smiled genially. “What do you need, Mr. Holmes?”

  “I understand Project: Tesseract is currently on hiatus,” Holmes noted, settling back in his chair, “but once it is operational again, I was hoping to go back to my…continuum…and fetch Watson. I should like to have my old friend at my side. At the risk of being accused maudlin, I find I miss him.”

  Holmes, eyes closed in hopeful contemplation of a meeting between Watson and Skye, didn’t see the effect this had on her: Skye blanched, looking as if she’d been slapped, and swallowed hard. Morris noticed; but said nothing.

  “Well, that’s an interesting request, Mr. Holmes. I don’t know if I can give permission right off the bat. We’ll have to see if it would have a detrimental effect on the timeline before I can say yea or nay.” Morris’ response was smooth, but sympathetic.

  “I understand, General. I simply thought to make my wish known. If it can be accommodated, well. If not, I fully comprehend.” Holmes nodded.

  “Good. Skye? Anything I can do for you?”

  “Yes, General,” Skye launched into her purpose without preamble, “it’s time Mr. Holmes had another liaison assigned to him.”

  Holmes blinked in surprise, both at the statement and at Skye’s formal mode of address. He wasn’t the only one. Morris, too, blinked, staring at the scientist in disbelief.

  * * *

  “But…why, Doctor? I thought the two of you were doing well together. Mr. Holmes is beginning to blend right in with the locals, as it were, and the progress he’s making on the investigation is—”

  “I think he’s rather outgrown me, General. He is, as you say, fitting in well, and his abilities are fully engaged, now he’s familiar with our world. I seem to have become more of an…annoyance, a hindrance rather than a help. I thought it would be good if you could find someone who was more…compatible with Mr. Holmes, someone with whom he would better enjoy the interaction.”

  She shot him a quick glance, and despite himself, Holmes felt something in his gut knot at the flash of pain in the blue eyes.

  * * *

  Morris saw it also, and turned to look at Holmes for a long moment. Holmes returned the scrutiny with an urbane lack of expression. A flicker in the detective’s eyes communicated itself to the shrewd general, however, and he nodded almost imperceptibly at the detective before turning to the investigator’s companion.

  “Would this include a new living arrangement, as well?”

  “If at all convenient, yes.”

  * * *

  Holmes swallowed, stunned. Dear God, he thought, shocked and confused, she is throwing me out on my ear. Did last night’s dream cause…this?!

  “Let me give it some thought, Skye,” Morris murmured with informal gentleness. “I’ll see what I can do to work things out for you.”

  “Thank you, General,” she said, seeming to retreat into herself.

  “You go ahead and do what you need to do,” Morris added. “I’ll sit here and talk to Mr. Holmes, find out what sort of liaison he wants, and I’ll let you know what we decide.”

  Skye nodded, then stood and left without looking at either man.

  * * *

  The office was silent after her departure. Morris finally asked quietly, “Do you want another liaison?”

  “Not especially,” Holmes admitted, pained. “Skye has proven more than adequate to the task, and I consider her a valuable, trusted ally.” He paused for a moment, gathering his composure, before confessing, “And a friend. This is…unexpected.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Several things, small things for the most part, but I fail to understand why she has suddenly reacted like this. She has always seemed very level headed and logical, and she is positively formidable in a crisis. I would have thought nothing had happened sufficient to have precipitated this.” Holmes sighed.

  “She didn’t have a nightmare last night, did she?” Morris guessed astutely, giving him a sharp glance. Holmes’ eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “She did.”

  “Did she tell you about it? What did she say? How did she react? How did YOU react? You didn’t scoff at it, did you?”

  Holmes rocked back, astounded at the barrage of questioning. He was used to being on the delivery, not the receiving end, of such inquiry.

  “She did not elaborate. But she was patently terrified. At her request, I stayed with her until she went to sleep once more. As a concerned gentleman, I could do no less. But as that is…contrary to my…my custom, I informed her this morning in no uncertain terms it would not happen again. I cannot afford to have such things interfering with my investigations.”

  “What else happened?” Morris put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply.

  “I hardly think it necessary…” Holmes pulled an annoyed face.

  “Dammit, man,” Morris barked, “you may be a hot-shit detective, but even you can’t read minds without something to go on. If she didn’t tell you about the dream, did she at least tell you about her family?”

  “I know she is an only child, her parents died not too long ago, perhaps a year or so; and she moved here immediately afterward. All ties with her childhood home were subsequently cut.”

  “And you know this because she told you?”

  “No. I deduced it.”

  “So what other kind of disagreement or misunderstanding have the two of you had recently?”

  “Friday last, while we were searching the lieutenants’ quarters for a hidden report on their espionage work, she made several comments which were indicative of having missed some important observations. I critiqued her methods, having expected more of a police investigator. But she later explained she had not the degree of training I anticipated.”

  Holmes sighed his vexation at the continued questioning, wondering where Morris was going with it. He deliberately neglected to tell the general of their argument regarding Conan Doyle’s later stories; he hoped that matter had been resolved in Skye’s mind, but he suspected it might be a factor after all. General Morris groaned, propping his elbows on his desk and burying his face in his hands.

  “Dammitall to hell and back. It would be the police work.”

  Holmes sat stonily, waiting for the general to explain himself. Finally the officer raised his head.

  “I’m sorry, Holmes. Skye is well liked around here, and I suppose people have been trying to protect her, but Caitlin or Hank or I should have told you. It just never occurred to me that Skye wouldn’t tell you herself. You two seemed such good friends. I guess it was too painful for her t
o talk about.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Holmes, your deductions were correct—as far as they went. I’d almost forgotten the details myself, until the hullabaloo when you showed up. Then I went back and reviewed her records, and I’ve taken a special interest in her ever since. Frankly, I’ve been concerned something like this might happen, especially after…well.” He broke off.

  “Oh? This sounds…intriguing,” Holmes noted, puzzled, fascinated, and apprehensive all at once. “It sounds as if there is a little mystery revolving around my liaison. Please, state the case.”

  “All right. Skye moved here about a year ago. Before that, she lived and worked in Houston, Texas, for one of the high-tech firms in the area. She commuted here on a frequent basis.”

  “So her parents did die approximately one year ago.”

  “Yes. And I think it’s coming up on the anniversary in the next month or so, too, which doesn’t help our situation any. But what she didn’t tell you, what disrupted her work here for awhile, and what she has nightmares about to this day, is that her parents died in a truly horrific traffic accident—one Skye herself worked, as a police officer.”

  “What kind of accident?” Holmes’ breath hitched, dismayed.

  “Do you know what a tractor-trailer, a semi rig, is?”

  “The very large lorries? Yes.”

  “Well, to make a long story short, it lost its brakes or some such, and ran over her parents’ car. They were…mangled. Badly.”

  Holmes froze in horror. Finally he murmured, “Good Lord.”

  “Yes. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Skye was the first responder on the scene. She was the one who found them, Holmes. Her own parents.” Morris took a long, deep breath and let it out in a longer sigh. “I’m told she held it together admirably, and none of the other emergency personnel even knew until they began to discuss notifying next of kin.”

  “And that is when she told them.”

  “Yes.”

  “She intended to tell me about the dream this morning. Before I halted the conversation.” Holmes closed his eyes, leaning back in a defeated posture, slumping crestfallen in the chair.

  * * *

  “I figured she trusted you enough to tell you, at some point. She let you right in, you know. That’s unusual, because she’s kind of reserved and old fashioned, too. I have to admit I was surprised when she offered to let you stay with her.” Morris paused, then added calculatedly, “Considering all this, now I understand why she looked like you’d slapped her a few minutes ago, when you asked about Watson.”

  * * *

  Holmes’ breath caught in chagrin as he abruptly recognized how it must have seemed to her, given her state of mind.

  Firstly I accuse her of deceit in bringing me here. Secondly, I criticise her already-shaky confidence in her police skill; then I push her away when she is at long last ready to confide a painful part of her life, a part whose horror recent events have only served to revisit. And finally I request the presence of an old friend, which she must surely have viewed as a preferred replacement to her own company. All within days. Well done, Sherlock, he castigated himself bitterly. I am certain you could have found other ways to hurt her, though I am hard pressed to think of how. What good, all your vaunted observation and deduction, if you cannot bother to direct it into protecting someone close to you? Even from yourself.

  “It explains much,” Holmes admitted aloud. “Including why Moriarty’s and Swann’s violent deaths disturbed her so, how she kept so calm during the tesseract incident, and why she commented to me that she’d seen worse in traffic accidents.” He sighed his deep regret. “My recent words and actions must have felt like ripping open an old wound.”

  “Yeah,” Morris said disconsolately.

  “Perhaps I—” Holmes began, but he never finished the sentence.

  A furious Caitlin Hughes, fresh from her vacation only that morning, exploded through the door behind him, stalking up to the general’s desk.

  “What the HELL is going on?!” she demanded, barely noticing Holmes sitting in the visitor’s chair. “Would somebody like to explain this?!”

  Hughes flung down a sheet of paper under Morris’ nose. Holmes sat forward as Morris picked it up and began reading. The officer’s eyes widened in shock and dismay.

  “What is it, General?” Holmes inquired.

  Morris looked up sadly, meeting Holmes’ eyes.

  “It’s Skye’s letter of resignation. She wants to quit her own project.”

  * * *

  “Where is she now?” Morris wondered.

  “Downstairs in the Chamber, saying goodbye,” Caitlin said, voice shaking with emotion. “All the techies are down there, overhauling the tesseract and replacing the damaged console equipment.”

  “What’s her state of mind, do you think?” the general pondered.

  “Hard to say. She was pretty tight-lipped when she dropped that off with me.” Caitlin bobbed her head at the letter.

  “Pull up the security video from the Chamber, General,” Holmes suggested. “We can, perhaps, get a better feel for her mindset if she does not know we are observing.”

  “Good idea,” the officer muttered, turning to his secure computer and bringing up the feed as Caitlin locked the door.

  The three huddled over the monitor, studying the blonde woman moving through the cavernous area, shaking hands and hugging. She was pale, and her shoulders slumped. She smiled frequently, but the expression was awkward and never quite reached her eyes. Holmes pulled a deep breath.

  “Depression?” he addressed Caitlin.

  “Yeah,” she agreed immediately. “Pretty bad, too. She probably feels lately like she’s lost almost everything—her family, her life’s work. At least she’s still got you to keep her mind occupied.”

  “Cait,” Morris said in a strained voice, “she came in here with Mr. Holmes and requested he be assigned another liaison, before she came to you and resigned.”

  Caitlin’s eyes widened in horror, and she looked from Holmes to Morris.

  “Oh shit.” She spun on her heel, deeply distressed. “Oh shit, damn, hell. This is NOT good.” Caitlin turned back to them. “She did this right after her parents died, and I had my hands full to stop it. She’s distancing herself. Then she’ll withdraw, and quit bothering about ‘unimportant’ matters like eating and stuff.” She glanced at the men with a worried frown. “I was afraid of this. Swann’s death, and all the controversy over the tesseract, has thrown her backwards in her grieving process.”

  “What makes you think so, Doctor?” Morris wondered.

  “The first word out of her mouth after Chad got…after he died…was, ‘Mom!’” Caitlin informed them grimly. Holmes and Morris both winced. “I don’t think she even knew she said it,” Caitlin added, subdued.

  “This will not do. We cannot let her distance herself. I would highly recommend you both reject her resignation. And, after all she has done to aid me, I believe it may just be time I gave something back,” Holmes added with rueful understatement. “Although, given what you have told me, General, she might take offense instead. But…do you think she would like to be taught some of the finer points of observation and deduction?”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” Caitlin agreed instantly. “Truth to tell, I think that was one thing she was hoping to get out of observing you through the tesseract.”

  “Good,” Morris said briskly, reaching for the phone. “It’s settled.”

  * * *

  Skye sat unhappily in General Morris’ office, surrounded by exactly the people she did not want to see, being informed she was not allowed to quit her duties. Moreover, and worse, she was not allowed to push Holmes away, and she was terrified he had deduced how she felt.

  “I don’t want pity,” she protested, shooting the detective a desperate, sidelong glance that he was—for once in his life—at a loss to interpret, “and I don’t want help. I’m fine. I’m just not needed here anymore.”


  “Yes, you are,” Caitlin protested. “You’re the Chief Scientist, dammit! Yeah, I’m the project manager, and yeah, I’m a scientist, but my degree is in chemistry, not hyperspatial dynamics! There’s still a ton of analysis to do! Even if we end up shutting the program down, we still need you here to make sure we do it right!”

  * * *

  “And I find I am, at my age, rather set in my ways,” Holmes added, attempting to smooth over matters. “I have gotten used to having you beside me, Skye. I would seek you out, just as surely as I requested Watson earlier, if you were not here.”

  The skillfully crafted comment hit home, and Skye’s attitude visibly softened even as she grumbled, “Thirty-nine isn’t old, Holmes.”

  “No,” Holmes agreed, allowing the corners of his mouth to twitch in amused agreement, “but it is still old enough to have formed certain habits, as I am certain you will agree, as we are nearly of an age. Actually, I had it in mind, should we coax Watson here with us, to introduce the two of you. I thought my two closest friends would get along capitally. I cannot think how well my investigations should progress, were I to have both of you working with me.”

  “Oh,” Caitlin said, before Skye could respond. “You wanted to bring Dr. Watson here?”

  “Yes, if it proved convenient. His wife, too, I suppose, as he is unlikely to come along without her,” Holmes chuckled.

  * * *

  The plump little project manager saddened.

  “We can’t. It would disrupt the timeline too much. You see, not only does he stay active right up until he…until the end, chronicling your adventures and successfully managing a bunch of his own, thanks to your tutoring…” Caitlin paused, seeing Holmes’ face fall as he struggled to hide his disappointment.

  * * *

  Instinctively Skye laid a light, comforting hand on his arm, temporarily forgetting her intention to maintain her distance in the light of Holmes’ pain.

  Finally Caitlin added the more important accomplishment in a gentle tone, “He also, in that continuum, makes a little Watson.”