Chapter Text
“But wait a minute, aren’t you gonna call in Holmes?” Sally demanded. Lestrade just glanced over his shoulder.
“No. This one’s on you, Donovan.” And he left.
Sally stared down at the file on her desk. Everything about this case screamed Sherlock Holmes; it was a murder, committed behind locked doors. Yet, Lestrade had given it to her. She flipped through the paperwork, silently annoyed that, once again, Anderson had done the scene while nursing a hangover. A small part of her felt bad for him, but most of her cursed the fact that she’d ever helped him. Maybe if he’d woken up in his own vomit a few times instead of tucked neatly into bed while she scrubbed the floor he would’ve gotten himself together. Now he’d gotten some new girl to clean up after him; obviously she was doing it well, seeing as his clothes were always clean even while his red-rimmed eyes made obvious what had gone on the night before.
She shook herself out of her reverie and started taking notes on her notepad, a trick she’d picked up from Lestrade but that she’d tailored to meet her own needs. Instead of using it to keep track of the finer points of Holmes’ rants, she made up a list of what she needed to do before truly investigating- check in at the morgue, go through the evidence herself, visit the scene, that sort of thing. First up was a trip to the morgue.
Molly pulled out the cadaver the detective had asked for. She didn’t often interact with Sergeant Donovan; usually it was Sherlock or the nice DI Lestrade who came down to glance over the corpses. In fact, this was the first time she’d had just the sergeant in the morgue. “So, um, this is him,” she said, tugging the sheet away from the face. Before she could say anything else, the sergeant started asking questions while she bent over the body.
“Cause of death?”
“Blunt force trauma to the ribs, one broke and punctured a lung,” Molly said quickly. The sergeant didn’t beat around the bush, but she didn’t seem as harsh as Sherlock could be sometimes. She seemed- tired.
“Anything of note on the body?” Now the sergeant had a notebook out, with a pencil poised over, sorta like the DI did.
“Nothing, he was completely clean. Not even any blood on him, even though I can see the injuries that should’ve bled.” Molly frowned, it really bothered her that she couldn’t find a thing. There was a reason Sherlock went to her as a matter of preference, and it wasn’t because she was easy to manipulate. She was very good at what she did. She knew what he was trying to use her; she just also knew he was brilliant, and it was worth breaking a few rules to watch that mind work.
Sergeant Donovan nodded a bit, scribbled something down, and straightened up. She started for the door, but paused. “Molly, what are you doing still here? It’s a weekend night,” she asked, glancing back. Molly shrugged.
“Don’t have anything else on,” she answered, covering the body up.
Sally was having an idea. A terrible idea, but an idea nonetheless. Before she could think better of it, she spoke. “You could always come along,” she suggested. “As a consultant. Never know when you might catch something I don’t.”
Truth be told, Sally hated working cases alone. She liked to be lead, to be able to piece things together and bring people some peace, but she hated to do it alone. And maybe working with another woman would be good for her. The boys’ club got more than a bit tiresome, and Molly seemed really interesting.
Molly looked surprised, and she fiddled with her hair for a moment before answering “All right. I’ll just be a moment.” Sally nodded and waited while Molly straightened up the morgue and put away the cadaver. It occurred to her that the phrase “putting away the cadaver” should probably bother her a lot more than it did. This line of work did things to you.