Young Writers Society

"How's she doing?" Lestrade asked as he walked behind the one-way mirror.

"Good," Eli said, her eyes glued to the glass. "She and Renee seem to get along great. You're looking for a guy named Kris Clarkson. Apparently he used to be a janitor at the school and a great friend of Renee's until he ran into him ransacking Sipps' office." Eli smiled vaguely, "I've never seen one of her investigations go so fast. He must have a thing for her. I wonder if he knows about her personality."

"You know, surprisingly, they always do." he smiled, the way a father would look at their child when they won an award. Sheri was just getting into a conversation about pipes with the perp. Her eyes lighting up as she talked. Renee, seemed mello as he stared at her.

"You mean you've seen other people join 'Team Sheri'?" Eli's eyes widened as she took in the news. Sheri? Attractive to anyone but herself? Hardly.

"Of course, they're all over the station. You just have to look harder at people when she talks to them."

"Why...?" Eli started, but the question wouldn't come out.

"I don't know either. I suppose it's the same reason you hang out with her. She excites you. When you stand next to Sheri you feel like you're in an action movie." Eli didn't want to agree. She knew he was probably right, but the way he said it made her feel like she was selfish for being her friend. "Of course..." he continued, "Sheri would never see any of this. She sees it like you do, where no one could possibly like her."

"That's not true." she said unconvincingly.

"You don't think she believes she has no one." Eli thought back to what Sheri had said last night, about Eli not being her friend.

"No. She must know." Eli said, as convinced of it as she had ever been of anything.

***

"File." Sheri asked as she left Renee with a female guard who was releasing him from his handcuffs. Lestrade handed her a small manila folder that was still warm from the papers that were just printed off.

Sheri opened it up and scanned the pages with a time slot of four seconds apiece. Her eyes twitched so fast it jerked her head slightly with every line. "Mm-Kay." She said as she closed the folder with such a force that it caused a small breeze. "MoLander's it is."

She ran so fast out the door that when Eli finally caught up with her she was pulling out of the parking lot as Eli was opening the door. She barely escaped getting her feet ran over.

"Watch it!" Sheri yelled at her, "You almost dented my door."

"Yeah," Eli said sarcastically as she pulled her seatbelt on, "Cause that's the worst thing that could have happened."

"Obviously not," Sheri said driving with her peripheral vision, "But it's the worst thing that effects me."

Eli scowled at her, but Sheri was now looking at her cell phone.

Despite Eli's immediate terror, she was calmed by the fact that they were actually driving slower than Sheri usually did.

"So why specifically are we going to MoLander's?" Eli asked fighting back everything else she wanted to say right now.

"Harry Kemon." Sheri said, showing Eli her phone and finally looking up at the road. Eli squinted as she tried to read the writing on the tiny phone that was next to the rather large picture of Harry. He had a pronounced chin and cheek structure. His eyes were a light, almost amber, brown, but still kind looking for a businessman. He wore a gray suit with a red tie over his stiff, large body. Not a single dirty-blonde hair was out of place in his gelled back style.

"The Director of Inter-Company Communication? What about him?"

"Two days ago when I was still in the hospital, I searched the company staff looking for anything after place. 'Director of Inter-Company Communication' my butt."

"What does that even mean?" Eli wondered staring at the phone.

"If I'm thinking about it in the way that MoLander wants me to, then Harry's the person in charge of mergers and negotiating..."

"But instead you think he's the one in charge of murders and espionage?"

"Naturally." Sheri clicked the back button with her thumb, and the screen became a graph. "But for the proof that you and the police require, I looked up the break history of all the staff. What do you think?"

Eli scrolled through the list. "And?"

"He's been off nearly everyday since he's been hired. Coincidences rarely happen in a murder case, Watson." Sheri pointed her phone back to her and typed with her one thumb.

"Okay, but what does he have to do with Kris Clarkson?"

"Look at the file, it's not brain surgery."

"I could have been a surgeon if I wanted to..." Eli mumbled as she flipped through the file, stopping at the picture of Kris. He had a beard and his hair was loose, but he still had the same remarkable facial structure.

"Even you could make the same deduction." Sheri said snarkily.

"Yep, he's really hot." Eli said smiling broadly. Even Sheri couldn't help smiling at her companion as she held it up to her ear.

"Hello?" Sheri said with a sort of a Valley Girl voice, "Oh, Hi, I'm Sammie. I'm going to have to move up my appointment." there was a pause, "Harry Kemon...We agreed on 11:30, but I have a thing then. Could I see him at 10:30?...Doesn't he remember me? He said he'd remember to keep it open...Mm-Kay, I'll be right over." Sheri put her phone down and pressed the accelerator a little harder.

"Do I even want to know?" Eli asked, digging her nails into her jeans.

"Men take more interest when I sound like a-"

"I don't want to know!" Eli said, jabbing her fingers in her ear.

***

MoLander's headquarters was a large a glass based building with au von gaurd edges and pristine landscaping. The front entryway was so clean and white that it shined. The waiting chairs were 3/4 filled off to the left and right of a gaudy center aisle. At the way back of that aisle was a secretary's desk with a bored looking twenty-year old sitting behind it. The woman behind it was about five foot two, but petite and stylish. She wore her brown hair to one side and over her white blouse.

Sheri walked straight to the desk, but stopped Eli and her a few feet away from the desk, by grabbing her shoulder firmly. "You need to pretend to be Sammie." She hissed to her.

"What?" Eli asked.

"It's easier to believe." Sheri insisted.

"Are you saying I look like a-"

"No, I'm saying that I DON'T." Eli had to agree that goth punk wasn't exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a...

Eli didn't even want to finish that thought because it justified Sheri's plan. Still, they didn't have the time or the place to argue over that matter. So she just sighed and walked up with Sheri to the desk.

"Hey." Eli said in her best ditzy girl voice, "I, um, have an appointment with, uh, Harry Kemon." The secretary looked up from her magazine.

"Go ahead." she said in a voice that said "I have a stuffed up nose, so go away."

Eli shrugged and followed Sheri down the right corridor and up the stair case to the third floor.

"You are a really awful actor." she pointed out blandly.

"I can't believe you made me do that."

"You act like you've never done that before-"

"For you information," Eli almost yelled, "I haven't!"

"Boring life you got there, Watson." And Sheri walked ahead, straight through the white door labeled "Harry Kemon, Director of Inter-Company Communications"

It was a dark room, with a deep red carpet over the pale oak floor. The walls were a deep chocolate brown and the desk in on the left side and in front of the bookshelf was slick ebony, behind that Harry Kemon was wedged into his chair. It had obviously been decorated in darker colors than it originally had been, a way to make it look like he was there more often. Sheri however could see certain things that didn't fit in a used office.

The leather chair looked like it had been sat in once, due to the lack of creases beyond the original style.

The paint on the edges splattered on some parts of the floor and doorframe, not the careful work you'd expect on a businessman's office.

There were no pictures on the desk, not even the man's of family and friends. There wasn't even a trinket brought back from working abroad.

Despite the clear expense of the disguise and office decor, it was clear that Harry had not spent a minute in his office doing actual work.

Nails worn at the tips, but glossed and cleaned. Means he was working with his hands for a long time, but needs to keep the appearance of a high-end life-style.

Uncomfortable fit behind desk. Hasn't sat there for a long time.

Of course there was also the unmistakable stench of cigarette smoke in the air. Sheri could see an ashtray set next to a lamp on the desk with a cigarette butt sticking out of it. Sheri could see with out a shadow of a doubt that it was Dunhill.

"Who are you?" he asked with a slightly Russian sounding accent.

"Sheridan Holmes." Sheri said holding up a Buffalo police badge, "Consulting Detective for the Buffalo police department." she looked awkwardly back at Eli, "And this is Watson, my apprentice monkey." Eli fumed as Sheri looked back and continued, "I'm going to have to ask you to come with me for some questions about Dr. Lane Sipps."

"Uh-tuh...But I...." there was fear in Harry's eyes as he tried to articulate an excuse, but even Eli could see that he couldn't see a way out of this. He stood up fast, revealing his tall, muscular stature. And then he ran right out of the third story window.