Devils in the Details

Chapter Six // Mnemonic Devices

AT A CRIME SCENE

Attempting to solve the case of the stuffed humans was turning out to be significantly more difficult than any of the three men who were involved would have imagined it to be at the beginning. Whoever was committing the crimes knew what they were doing, as they didn't leave much of any trace behind them.

Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Will Graham were on the job to find these few traces and somehow manage to link them together. They were supposed to be some of the best in the entire business. When it was clear they were struggling together, it seemed to be hopeless to many others.

But none of them were about to give up - there was a serial killer on the loose, someone who had already killed two people and maimed them in the exact same way. At least, that's how it seemed.

There had to be more to it than that, which was precisely why the three were out investigating the scene where the newest body had just been located. The entire place had been crawling with various police and forensics units, but as soon as Sherlock and his entourage entered the scene they all began to scatter. The man worked alone...plus Will and John, of course.

Now it was just the three of them in the room, standing around a dead body. There were bits of fluff sticking out out of various orifices, proving that it was indeed stuffed. He could hardly believe that there were actually two of these out there in the world - Sherlock had led him to believe that in reality there were hoardes and hoardes of these bodies. No wonder why there were so few people supposedly working on the project.

But this only inspired Will to work harder at trying to get this to work out. No, he couldn't just let more people die because some people didn't know what they were doing. Like Sherlock, he was known for having a capability for solving strange crimes. It was only a matter of putting that to work in order to get things accomplished. He needed to make sure that he could do such a thing and help out with the entire ordeal.

That meant using his own unique talents - just because Will was best known for his empathy didn't mean that he wasn't capable at other parts of solving a crime. There were more things that he could do than people ever seemed to give him credit for, and he planned to change that. Part of this was convincing Sherlock himself that he was worthwhile. Sometimes he wasn't quite sure what the consulting detective truly thought of him.

But regardless of this, John was always nearby to help reassure Will in everything. He was somewhat more easily impressed - even though that made John sound silly in a way, and that was not how he saw him - and was more likely to compliment or side with Will.

Then again, two against one when it came to Sherlock wasn't always such a great thing. Typically the consulting detective would find away around the fact that he was outnumbered - usually this ended up with him complaining about something.

This was precisely what Will wished to avoid at this crime scene. He had been through it time and time again when it came to other scenarios regarding Sherlock Holmes. He wasn't going to go through it again. Instead, he was going to make himself properly useful.

Will stood there with his eyes closed, going over the details in his head. He could see himself standing there in the crime scene from before. All the important things were there to be scrutinised, which made it somewhat easier to work things out. There was no one to bother him and tell him he was doing something wrong, and no one to distract him.

He did his best to recall the crime scene from the original stuffed human. What were those tiny details of massive importance, again? There was a lack of blood, pointing that it had been drained elsewhere. Certainly that had to be an important detail. Why had the killer chosen that particular house to drop off their dead body, anyways?