Sheridan Holmes: A Study in Red PART 4

Sheri sat like that thinking until the next morning. Eli wondered if she ever slept, or if she just sat in her chair meditating for hours on end. It wasn't until Eli was drinking her coffee the next morning that she suddenly opened up her eyes and yelled, "Yes!" Eli was so surprised that she spilled her coffee all over her white shirt.

"What?" Eli asked irritably dabbing coffee off her clothes.

Sheri didn't respond, she was already texting with unnatural speed on her iPhone. So Eli decided to just change her shirt. When she came back out Sheri was meditating again.

Eli sighed, there was no point in hanging around in her apartment while Sheri was like that. Eli decided to take a walk in the meantime. It started as just a walk in fresh air, but as she walked on to some more questionable streets curiosity got the better of her. She suddenly decided to take a detour back home, a very large detour all the way across the city to Chef's restaurant.

Chef's was a shady looking Italian restaurant that was one of the city's finest dining establishments. With sauces sold in many local supermarkets and visitors from many famous people which have their pictures framed on the wall. She knew it'd be a very odd coincidence to have the same waiter as Susie, but maybe having some lunch there would give her some information that they hadn't seen.

Also she really wanted some lunch.

Just as she was sitting down at her table, her phone rang.

It was a text from Sheri that read: Look out the window. What do you see?

What? She texted back.

You are at Chef's, right? If you have no cab fare what are your options? Sheri texted back unusually fast.

Eli tried to look out the window, but there were too many people in the way. So she decided to ignore Sheri until she finished lunch.

***

The second she stepped out of Chef's, her phone rang again.

What do you see?

Eli looked around, but all she could see was some street signs and a parking lot.

Nothing. She texted.

You aren't blind. What do you see?

Street signs and a parking lot. She waited a second for an answer.

Come on, Watson. Use your eyes. What's there? Before Eli could text back another text hit her mailbox, Or better yet send me a picture.

Eli took the picture and headed back.

***

Sheri was in her own apartment when she came back. Eli could tell because Linda was yelling at her.

"Linda you know exactly why I have these." Eli could hear Sheri through the door.

"I don't care! Not on my table, Sheridan!"

"It will be gone tomorrow, I promise."

"No it won't! I know, you know, the whole dang building knows it will still be there next week!"

"Please Linda, it is the only way to track down this-"

"I don't care, I want all this out of here by the time I come back with the groceries."

The door, that Eli had her ear pressed up against opened suddenly, whacking her in the head.

"Oh, sorry dear." Linda said as Eli rubbed her head, "Maybe you can talk some sense into her." Eli looked around the door and saw what the two had been fighting over. It was a set of three open body-bags resting on the dining room table. One of them was Susie Tenn.

"Ah..." Eli said, "I'll see what I can do."

"Good luck." Linda said rushing out the door. Eli sighed as she walked in. Sheri was inspecting the cadavers with a magnify glass, her hands in a pair of latex gloves that gave her the appearance of a well trained surgeon inspecting her patient. Something Eli would have killed to look like herself.

"Watson." she muttered, "I have a job for you."

"Linda wants these out of here." Sheri waved it away.

"Linda also wants a sports car, but that's not happening as long as my bank account is frozen."

"Your broke?"

"What do you think of the bodies?"

"If you're broke how are you paying me?"

"They'll be unfrozen in a year, then I will be able to get you any money you need. Now please focus on the murder." Eli wanted to explain that she didn't want to be taken into questioning for possession of counterfeit bills, but she knew it would be a futile effort on her part. Instead she looked at the bodies. One was an old man, with white hair and a suit like he was going to church. "Arthur Williams," she explained, "Age 79. He was supposed to be coming home from the wedding party of one of his nieces. Found in an alley behind a supermarket, he wasn't found until garbage day when the dumpster was emptied.

Eli looked at the other body, it was a black woman in roughly her forties. She was wearing a nice floral dress and if she hadn't been dead she would have been a very beautiful woman. "Victoria Patterson, age 45. She was picking up sugar for her two sons and her husband. They were making cookies. In an abandoned house, some realtor found her."

There was a long pause, where Sheri waited for Eli to say something.

"What do you see?" she finally said.

"They all died the same." Sheri shook her head,

"No, no, no. They all took the same poison, they all took it without a struggle, they all had people they cared about, they all were traveling, they were all killed by the same murderer, and they were all in places no one would see them." She looked to Eli who was trying to figure out how that was different.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Eli nodded. "Look," Sheri pulled out a map of the city and unfolded over the bodies. "The bodies were found, here, here, and here." she circled the three spots on the map. "They were all last seen, here, here, and here." she circled the next three spots. "What does that tell us?"

"The killer always traveled in one direction." Eli tried.

"Good, now if he always went in one direction what does that tell us about him?"

"All the abandoned spots are in one spot of the city?" Sheri looked like she was about to tell Eli that she was stupid, when her phone rang. Sheri looked down at her iPhone and checked the text.

"We found Rachel." Sheri looked disappointed.

"And...?"

"Rachel was her sister."

"Great, let's go talk to her!"

"Was her sister. She died from cancer when the two were little." Sheri thought for a minute. "Why her sister? What clue does that give us?"

"Maybe she used the name for something else, like a password?" Sheri shook her head.

"No, her iPhone password was Susie Fisher. Maybe she didn't write it."

"What?"

"Think about it, all this time the police have been trying to find Rachel they've been ignoring the real facts." Sheri pointed to the map, "Maybe he found out about Rachel and used the name to throw us off the trail."

"So, he cut her arm and wrote Rachel after she died?"

"Yes, because the real message isn't Rachel, it's somewhere else. I should have known. She would have written it on her arm..." she paused for a second, as if she were sleeping standing up. "Of course this doesn't change much. The killer is still the same."

"And who's that?" Sheri didn't answer she just began zipping up the body bags, "Sheri who is it?"

"It's obvious isn't it?" and with that Sheri walked out the door of her apartment and into the street.

***

Eli decided that in Sheri's absence she should try to figure out who the killer was. The final piece didn't come in to play until Linda rushed through the doors carrying several grocery bags at 5:45. She set them down on the kitchen's banged up counter with a confused look on her face.

"I just saw Sheri getting on the bus. Is there something wrong with her car?" It was then that Eli finally realized who the killer was. If he always went in the same direction he must have been following a route, and if the victims never took a taxi then they must have taken the public transportation.

"Oh my god!" she looked back at the map Sheri had used, it was a map of the bus routes in Buffalo. It had been right in her face the whole time. The street sign at the restaurant had been a metal bus stop sign. Eli would have wondered how she didn't figure all this out, but right now she figured there was more to worry about. "Linda, do you have Lestrade's number?"

"What for? To get rid of these-"

"No, Sheri figured out who the murderer is." Eli looked frantically through a jumble of papers on the fridge, trying to see if Sheri had posted it anywhere.

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"And she's going after her alone.

***

It took longer than expected to find Lestrade's number. It was amongst the piles of wanted posters and hand drawn diagrams on Sheri's fridge. Then it took forever to find a phone in the apartment. The house phone was taped under the living room lounge chair for some unknown reason and Eli's phone was out of battery. But they got a hold of Lestrade none the less.

"Sheridan, do you have any news?" he said seeing the caller ID on the phone.

"It's Eli, Sheri figured out the murderer." Eli was looking through the police report, trying to figure out when the murderer would strike.

"Great, who is it?"

"It was the bus driver, but Sheri's gone off on her own to find the killer."

"What!?"

"We would have called you earlier, but we didn't find the phone until six. That gives us..." she double checked the times the victims disappeared, "Three hours until she finds the killer."

"We'll try our best Eli." Lestrade hung up the phone.

"That's not enough time." Linda said.

"What do you mean?" Eli put the phone on the counter.

"If she's trying to hide from the killer, she'll be hiding from the police. If I know one thing, it's that if Sheri doesn't want you to find her you won't."

"We know where to look though, how hard could it be?"