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“The store will be closing in 30 minutes. Will all shoppers please select their items and make their way to the checkout.”
The pre recorded message played over the dust covered speakers. The lights flickered as a mother argues with her daughter that she can only get one pack of Pokemon cards, and a dad knocks over a display of bouncy balls with a lightsaber. Sherlock had his basket set on the floor while he scrolled through images of a skate park on his phone. The crime scene had a few more rails and half pipes than the pre made box set, but the add on rails were too large to fit properly against the box run. The off brand Bratz club house was a perfect fit for the scale of the pre made park. He bit his lower lip and focused his brow at the box of pipe cleaners that could substitute the missing rails but that still left out of scale drop ins that will fit.
“The fuzzy wires won't allow the pegs or the trucks to have a smooth ride.”
Sherlock turned around to a small girl with short dreadlocks. She was covered in bandages, and had a small key around her neck. She looked up at Sherlock and pointed to the dollhouse. “You're trying to make a skate park next to a house right?” Her S’s and T’s suffered due to two missing front teeth.
Sherlock blinked at her and focused his attention back to the pre-made box set. She was right to get the board to gain momentum he would need something smoother than the pipe cleaners. He went to grab the over-sized rails when a loud fake cough shot from the small girl “*ehem* wrong* cough*” A tick of anger was building in Sherlock as his shoulders raised with tension. “Psst hey, psst hey stupid head!” Her voice growing exponentially more annoying. He took a deep breath in before a folded band aid smacked him upside the head. His eyebrow twitched.
“Are you some kind of expert at creating to scale recreations!? No? I thought not, but you do seem to be an expert at being annoying, go find your mum shes probably looking for you.” He flared his nostril and lifted his brow at her.
“Yea well what are you doing in a toy store without a kid? You creepy old perv!”
“You don’t need a kid to shop for toys! Some things are collectors items and people are allowed to purchase gifts for other people!”
“Right cause someone like you would know other people?! You is wearing a dirty suit twitching and rocking, checkin’ your phone like it's lit.”
Sherlock took a slow deep breath. The argument had sent him back to boarding school years but he is an adult now and shan't fight with a child. He turned around and ignored her.
“My mom's not looking for me she's dead and you're just a jerk like my big brother Mike! I’m just trying to help. Look.” She grabbed the add on rails from his hand and pointed at the placements of the standing poles. “You can’t just get these and cut them down to size these poles will mess it up. What you want is to ditch the doll house get yourself a build a bear box and use the add ons “everything will be to Ssscale” “ She mimicked his accent and threw the box down on the floor before stomping off.
“Wait!” Sherlock shouted after her. She turned around and crossed her arms. She struck a chord with him, he understood being the youngest with dead mom and jerk of an older brother. “Okay maybe you do know a little something about this.If you can promise to not be an impudent child I will accept your help, and my name is Sherlock.”
She walked back and stook her hand out,”I’m Riley but my friends call me Lee” He accepted her hand shake and put the rails back on the self. “So what are you trying to put together do you have a layout, like a drawing of this or a picture?” He pulled out his phone out to show her the photos but quickly pulled back remembering there are several dead bodies in them.
“ I can see from your band aid placements and shoes that you dabble in the extreme sports, I'm going to go with BMX and skateboarding?” Her eyes went wide as she nodded. “Do you know of the skate companies Globe, Emerica, and flip? Well they paired up with bmx companies we the people and peddle power to put on a competition. They made a park in the woods that was set up kinda like this,” he had opened the boxes and was setting up the park without attention to scale. “ and there was a house over on the north side where we believed a criminal had sabotaged some equipment to make them explode killing three athletes and then they proceeded to shoot two more people down before a member of security shot the man in the window. But when we got there there was no equipment that could have been used to set off the explosions.”
Lee was watching closely taking it all in when she jumped up shouting “There was a second gunman!” Sherlock was taken back at the outburst and let out a genuine laugh at her enthusiasm to the case. “ Hold up let me get a few things!” She ran off around the corner as Sherlock opened a few cases of finger boards and bikes.
Lee rounded the corner with a basket full of action figures, the display dollhouse that she unscrewed from the rack, and some rolls of tape. “Okay Lock if we gonna do this we gonna do this right so first scrap that house and take this crib.” She handed him the display house.
“It's Sherlock, my name is Sherlock.” He accepted the house and placed it against the shelf on the north-side.
“Sorry, I’mma call you Lock cause my teeth just ain’t gonna let that happen.” He went to open the pre made piece when she placed a hand on his arm. “Naw Lock this is smaller, see how they try to rip you off, so you gotta open the individuals.”
They spend the next couple of minutes setting up the scene as Lee tells a patient Sherlock what each piece is called and how it’s used. He opens up a Hawkeye, Iron fist and Ironman and places them in the position of the riders before the explosion. A Spiderman and John Cena were placed on the floor matching the bodies in the image.
“The store will be closing in 20 minutes. Will all shoppers please select their items and make their way to the checkout.”
Sherlock pulled out a marker and placed dots on Cena and Spiderman. Taking pieces of tape he followed the marks to the house. “In order for the person in the house to have made both shots one of the shots would have to have come from the front room. And the other from the roof. But there was no one ever on the roof.” Sherlock's phone rang as he held up a finger to Lee.
“Watson…...yes…...did he admit to being a partner…….are you still at the scene…….can you yes you think you could check it for me ….many thanks”
Lee looked up at Sherlock holding the other three characters “If only we hadda way to make this explode.” Sherlock smirked he looked around before taking off around the corner. He returned a short while after with a few small batteries with wires going every which way.
“The store will be closing in 10 minutes. Will all shoppers please select their items and make their way to the checkout.”
“What's that?” Lee was holding out her hand to take one but Sherlock refused to hand one to her. He attached them to the bikes and board that exploded and grabbed her hand to bring her back.
“I have demised a few small explosives out of these batteries here, the explosives were detonated via cellular signal which means that the house would have been too far away. My partner Watson just had one of the judges confess to rigging the equipment. But we still don’t know where the second shooter is. But for visual effect let's make the explosion anyway.” He pressed a button on his phone sending the marvel characters flying off their equipment. Lee’s eyes went big.
“Damn Lock! Wait...hold up. There was no other guy.” She pointed to Spidermans figure.
“What do you mean the man was shot, there is a hole in him. Ergo he was shot.” Sherlock kneeled down to look closer to what Lee was pointing to.
“Inside of the wheels for a skate board and where the spokes meet on a bike there are these little ball bearings,” She pulled out a tube of BB’s and placed one in his palm,” The explosion could’ve torn through him lookin’ like a gunshot.” She mimicked a gun noise and tossed a BB from the board to Spidermans chin.
“So the wound was from the chin to the brain not the brain to the chin….no I don’t think that right there wouldn't be enough force to penetrate the human skull.” He was now holding the Spiderman figure.
“The store will be closing in 5 minutes. Will all shoppers please select their items and make their way to the checkout.”
“But he was falling down anyway towards the explosion.”
“How can you tell that?”
“Well I saw the pictures earlier, when you were first looking here. he was doing a nollie into pop-shove-it , that means he was standing with his weak foot and he placed it to far up he would have been trippin’ forward.” She took the figure and recreated the scene.
“Well done Lee!” He gave her a high five as he stood up and called Watson.
A shop worker rounded the corner where Lee was holding the exploded bikes and began to yell at her. Sherlock held the phone to his chest and calmed the worker down ensuring him that he will be paying for all of this. He finished up his call with Watson before returning to Lee.
“So are you going to keep all of these or can I have one?” She was holding on to the hawkeye figure.
“Infact you can have the whole thing if you can fit it onto your bike with you!” He chuckled as he payed for the figures.
He helped her tie the bags to her handlebars as she slided over giving Sherlock a hug. His body went stiff as he patted her on the back and pried her from his waist. “Thanks Lock I had a lot of fun today! My brother should be home soon to open the door so I’ll see you latter!” She began to pedal off as Joan showed up in a taxi.
“Hey, are you doing ok you look a little dumbfounded.”
“An eight year old just solved the case, and I need to brush up on my extreme sports knowledge.” He turned and got into the taxi with Watson to meet Gregson at the precinct.