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holmesticeTitle: When the Applause Dies
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colebaltblue
Author:phoenixfalls
Verse: Elementary, The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Radio)
Characters/Pairings: Joan Watson/Gloria Wilson, Joan Watson/Gina Cortes
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Summary: A burglar called The Ghost specializes in impossible burglaries -- taking items of great value from locked and guarded rooms, without setting off any alarms or leaving any physical trace. Sherlock tried and failed to capture The Ghost once; now Joan is on the case.
Also on AO3: When the Applause Dies
“Does the name ‘the Ghost’ mean anything to you?”
“What’s that, another act?”
“Something of the sort.”
Gloria Wilson was slender, long-limbed; she moved like a dancer around the detritus of other performers as she started changing out of her costume. Joan caught the twinkle in her eye and refused to look away as she pulled off her shirt to reveal a utilitarian sports bra.
“So what about this ghost, why should I know him? What does he do?”
“Much of what you do, with a few interesting variations.”
Gloria unbuttoned and shimmied out of her pants, thumbs catching on the waistband of her underwear and revealing the sharp cut of her hipbones. Joan’s eyes followed the teasing exposure of skin until she was caught by the shadowed cleft at the top of Gloria’s buttock; she felt herself flush and turned away.
She could feel Gloria’s mocking smirk, and filled her voice with steel.
“Where were you last night between midnight and 4am?”
“Pretty much exactly where you are now – you’re sitting on my bed. And before you ask, I was asleep, alone. What business is it of the NYPD?”
Gloria had wrapped a tattered robe around herself and sprawled back on a rickety director’s chair. She was the picture of ease, except for the way her hand gripped the belt of her robe a shade too tightly, turning her brown knuckles white.
“A number of homes have been burglarized—“
“And you think I did it? Just what is it I’m supposed to have stolen?”
“A pair of dueling pistols, an antique bible, several other valuables—“
“Ha! If I had the kind of money I’d get from stealing all that, you seriously think I’d still be in this godforsaken dump? Do you really think I’m that much of a fool?”
Joan examined Gloria’s face closely: the frown line starting to deepen between her eyebrows; the sultry heaviness of her eyelids obscuring canny, cynical brown eyes; the tight corners pinching that lovely generous mouth, clearly made for smiling. She looked far older than her twenty-five years.
Joan thought of the joy she had read in every line of Gloria’s body as she moved through her act earlier, a consummate showman poorly rewarded by a lackluster crowd. She thought also of Maria Salgado, mother of three, currently lying in a hospital bed recovering from a concussion and a broken jaw, after she had the bad luck to surprise the infamous burglar known as “the Ghost” in the act.
“No. No, I don’t think you’re a fool at all.”
* * *
“I hear you’re snooping around my case.”
Joan couldn’t stop herself from jumping. She hadn’t heard the clang of the evidence lock-up gate opening, so Detective Cortes’s acid voice in her ear startled her. She did maintain the presence of mind not to crumple the bagged card in her hand even as she spun to face the other detective. It was, after all, the only piece of physical evidence ever left in the baffling string of burglaries that had terrorized and titillated Manhattan’s elite nearly a decade ago.
“I don’t know anything about your case. I’m working cold cases right now, nothing active.”
Cortes grinned that pitying, contemptuous grin that always made Joan flex her fist, wishing for boxing gloves and ring. The maddeningly faint scent of jasmine she brought with her did nothing to soothe Joan’s racing heart. She thought she kept her face impassive, but Cortes’s grin widened, and she got even further into Joan’s space.
“It’s not a cold case anymore. The Ghost is active again, and I’m going to do what your partner couldn’t, all those years ago – I’m going to catch him.”
There was no way to read that other than a dare.
“Not if I catch them first.”
Cortes laughed. “You are not welcome at the crime scene. Victim’s request – official PD only.”
* * *
There was nothing in the papers about a new burglary.
Cortes pulled everything from evidence, putting the NYPD’s files effectively out of Joan’s reach. Sherlock was consulting with MI6 again, buried in some secure facility; this meant Joan couldn’t ask him to fill in some of his more opaque case notes, but it also meant he couldn’t push his way in as another one of his trunked cases unexpectedly warmed up again. Still, Joan was working at a significant disadvantage.
Her sources tipped her off to another burglary, then a third, but each time the victim refused access to any but official NYPD personnel.
Then, for the first time, the Ghost made a mistake, with nearly fatal consequences. There was a witness, and a felony assault, and the case became urgent enough to be transferred to Major Crimes.
* * *
“How did you become an escape artist?”
Gloria was braiding her hair, long fingers deftly carding and twisting the strands. Her robe had slipped back off one bare shoulder, and Joan couldn’t decide whether she wanted to pull it up protectively or pull it off completely. She did neither, simply watched Gloria from the bed.
“My whole family is circus folk, always has been. You know what keeps circuses going these days, when all audiences want is Cirque du Soleil and David Blaine?”
Joan stayed silent, watching sadly as Gloria’s face tightened back into that mask of cynicism she had let fall for a little bit. Joan pushed herself up to sit on the edge of the mattress in response.
Gloria continued. “Pride. It’s a great calling, historic, noble – or at least, it used to be. Once upon a time, I suppose.”
The moment of truth. Joan kept her body language open, relaxed. Receptive.
“And so you decided to explore an alternative use of your skills.”
Gloria stiffened, but only for a moment. Then she sighed, and picked up a ponytail to tie off her braid. Her shoulders slumped wearily.
“You have no proof.”
“What if I were to tell you I know exactly where you’ve hidden the stolen items?”
Even in the low light Joan could see Gloria’s eye flick to the corner of the dressing table, where Joan had earlier spotted a key that her survey of the grounds assured her could only fit in one lock – on the lion’s cage. A cage Gloria had no legitimate reason to need access to. Without a word, Joan pushed herself up and strode across the room to grab the key, holding it out to Gloria with a raised eyebrow.
Gloria sighed again, but took it.
“All right. Let’s do this the proper way.”
* * *
Detective Cortes was barely-leashed aggression in the interrogation room.
“What do you mean it wasn’t really a crime?”
Gloria lifted one elegant shoulder in a shrug. “I was going to give it all back. Leave the whole stash somewhere to be found later on.”
Cortes just blinked, baffled. “Why would you steal it just to give it back?”
Gloria snorted derisively. “For the glory, of course. I didn’t know there wouldn’t be any glory to be had. Got the press sewn up with a gag order, did you?”
Cortes’s quirk of a smile was all the answer needed.
Then she leaned forward intently, forcing Gloria to meet her eyes. “And that glory was worth nearly taking Maria Salgado’s life?”
Gloria’s eyes widened, her cuffs rattling as she attempted to shoot to her feet. “That was an accident! That maid did tell you that, didn’t she?”
“An accident—“ Cortes scoffed, but Joan broke in firmly.
“Ms. Salgado has no memory of the incident. That’s a fairly common outcome with head injuries.”
Gloria slumped back into the chair, shoulders pulling in tight, fingers twining together nervously.
“No one was supposed to be in the room. But she was there, and when I slipped in I startled her. She screamed and jumped back, and then she tripped over her own vacuum and hit her head on the fireplace grate. I never touched her.”
That matched Joan’s reconstruction of the scene, though she knew Detective Cortes doubted it. Still, Cortes seemed willing to move on.
She took Gloria through each of the recent burglaries in excruciating detail. Joan stayed quiet through most of it, interjecting only when Cortes seemed to be willfully misinterpreting what Gloria or the evidence was saying.
Then Cortes started going through the earlier cases, the ones Sherlock had failed to solve before the Ghost had disappeared the first time. Gloria rattled the details of those burglaries off just as readily, and Cortes began simmering with the excitement of breaking a major case. Joan just waited, listening for any slip, any discrepancy.
There were none. Detective Cortes was satisfied at last, and brusquely exited the interrogation room.
Joan hung back for a moment. When Detective Cortes was out of earshot, she asked her one question.
“Your family. They’ve always performed the same act?”
Gloria’s eyes widened, and she let out a startled, delighted laugh. “Oh, you do know!”
Joan let herself smile back faintly. “You were sixteen when the first burglary took place. Sixteen, and attending high school in California.”
Gloria grinned at her wickedly. She looked young, carefree, for the first time in their brief acquaintance.
“It has been a pleasure, Ms. Watson. Truly. I’m grateful it was you.”
* * *
Gloria Wilson was never seen again. She disappeared without a trace from a locked and guarded interrogation room in the middle of an NYPD police precinct.
* * *
Detective Cortes was in Joan’s space again. Her perfume was gardenia this time, and she bore no trace of a grin.
“You knew.”
Joan waited, but Cortes didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
“I know a great many things.”
Cortes clenched her jaw. Joan suspected she was imagining boxing rings of her own.
“You knew Gloria Wilson would escape, and you didn’t warn anyone.”
“I knew Gloria Wilson was a talented escape artist. I trusted that the interrogation room was escape-proof. Clearly that trust was misplaced.”
“Did you fuck her? Did you let her seduce you, then become her accomplice?”
Joan stared back calmly, not a muscle twitching or tensing to give anything away.
“That would be completely unprofessional.”
Cortes – Gina’s – mouth twisted, and she practically spat out her next words. “You said once you’d race me to the bottom. From my angle, looks like you’re already there.”
Recipient:
colebaltblueAuthor:
phoenixfallsVerse: Elementary, The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Radio)
Characters/Pairings: Joan Watson/Gloria Wilson, Joan Watson/Gina Cortes
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Summary: A burglar called The Ghost specializes in impossible burglaries -- taking items of great value from locked and guarded rooms, without setting off any alarms or leaving any physical trace. Sherlock tried and failed to capture The Ghost once; now Joan is on the case.
Also on AO3: When the Applause Dies
“Does the name ‘the Ghost’ mean anything to you?”
“What’s that, another act?”
“Something of the sort.”
Gloria Wilson was slender, long-limbed; she moved like a dancer around the detritus of other performers as she started changing out of her costume. Joan caught the twinkle in her eye and refused to look away as she pulled off her shirt to reveal a utilitarian sports bra.
“So what about this ghost, why should I know him? What does he do?”
“Much of what you do, with a few interesting variations.”
Gloria unbuttoned and shimmied out of her pants, thumbs catching on the waistband of her underwear and revealing the sharp cut of her hipbones. Joan’s eyes followed the teasing exposure of skin until she was caught by the shadowed cleft at the top of Gloria’s buttock; she felt herself flush and turned away.
She could feel Gloria’s mocking smirk, and filled her voice with steel.
“Where were you last night between midnight and 4am?”
“Pretty much exactly where you are now – you’re sitting on my bed. And before you ask, I was asleep, alone. What business is it of the NYPD?”
Gloria had wrapped a tattered robe around herself and sprawled back on a rickety director’s chair. She was the picture of ease, except for the way her hand gripped the belt of her robe a shade too tightly, turning her brown knuckles white.
“A number of homes have been burglarized—“
“And you think I did it? Just what is it I’m supposed to have stolen?”
“A pair of dueling pistols, an antique bible, several other valuables—“
“Ha! If I had the kind of money I’d get from stealing all that, you seriously think I’d still be in this godforsaken dump? Do you really think I’m that much of a fool?”
Joan examined Gloria’s face closely: the frown line starting to deepen between her eyebrows; the sultry heaviness of her eyelids obscuring canny, cynical brown eyes; the tight corners pinching that lovely generous mouth, clearly made for smiling. She looked far older than her twenty-five years.
Joan thought of the joy she had read in every line of Gloria’s body as she moved through her act earlier, a consummate showman poorly rewarded by a lackluster crowd. She thought also of Maria Salgado, mother of three, currently lying in a hospital bed recovering from a concussion and a broken jaw, after she had the bad luck to surprise the infamous burglar known as “the Ghost” in the act.
“No. No, I don’t think you’re a fool at all.”
“I hear you’re snooping around my case.”
Joan couldn’t stop herself from jumping. She hadn’t heard the clang of the evidence lock-up gate opening, so Detective Cortes’s acid voice in her ear startled her. She did maintain the presence of mind not to crumple the bagged card in her hand even as she spun to face the other detective. It was, after all, the only piece of physical evidence ever left in the baffling string of burglaries that had terrorized and titillated Manhattan’s elite nearly a decade ago.
“I don’t know anything about your case. I’m working cold cases right now, nothing active.”
Cortes grinned that pitying, contemptuous grin that always made Joan flex her fist, wishing for boxing gloves and ring. The maddeningly faint scent of jasmine she brought with her did nothing to soothe Joan’s racing heart. She thought she kept her face impassive, but Cortes’s grin widened, and she got even further into Joan’s space.
“It’s not a cold case anymore. The Ghost is active again, and I’m going to do what your partner couldn’t, all those years ago – I’m going to catch him.”
There was no way to read that other than a dare.
“Not if I catch them first.”
Cortes laughed. “You are not welcome at the crime scene. Victim’s request – official PD only.”
There was nothing in the papers about a new burglary.
Cortes pulled everything from evidence, putting the NYPD’s files effectively out of Joan’s reach. Sherlock was consulting with MI6 again, buried in some secure facility; this meant Joan couldn’t ask him to fill in some of his more opaque case notes, but it also meant he couldn’t push his way in as another one of his trunked cases unexpectedly warmed up again. Still, Joan was working at a significant disadvantage.
Her sources tipped her off to another burglary, then a third, but each time the victim refused access to any but official NYPD personnel.
Then, for the first time, the Ghost made a mistake, with nearly fatal consequences. There was a witness, and a felony assault, and the case became urgent enough to be transferred to Major Crimes.
“How did you become an escape artist?”
Gloria was braiding her hair, long fingers deftly carding and twisting the strands. Her robe had slipped back off one bare shoulder, and Joan couldn’t decide whether she wanted to pull it up protectively or pull it off completely. She did neither, simply watched Gloria from the bed.
“My whole family is circus folk, always has been. You know what keeps circuses going these days, when all audiences want is Cirque du Soleil and David Blaine?”
Joan stayed silent, watching sadly as Gloria’s face tightened back into that mask of cynicism she had let fall for a little bit. Joan pushed herself up to sit on the edge of the mattress in response.
Gloria continued. “Pride. It’s a great calling, historic, noble – or at least, it used to be. Once upon a time, I suppose.”
The moment of truth. Joan kept her body language open, relaxed. Receptive.
“And so you decided to explore an alternative use of your skills.”
Gloria stiffened, but only for a moment. Then she sighed, and picked up a ponytail to tie off her braid. Her shoulders slumped wearily.
“You have no proof.”
“What if I were to tell you I know exactly where you’ve hidden the stolen items?”
Even in the low light Joan could see Gloria’s eye flick to the corner of the dressing table, where Joan had earlier spotted a key that her survey of the grounds assured her could only fit in one lock – on the lion’s cage. A cage Gloria had no legitimate reason to need access to. Without a word, Joan pushed herself up and strode across the room to grab the key, holding it out to Gloria with a raised eyebrow.
Gloria sighed again, but took it.
“All right. Let’s do this the proper way.”
Detective Cortes was barely-leashed aggression in the interrogation room.
“What do you mean it wasn’t really a crime?”
Gloria lifted one elegant shoulder in a shrug. “I was going to give it all back. Leave the whole stash somewhere to be found later on.”
Cortes just blinked, baffled. “Why would you steal it just to give it back?”
Gloria snorted derisively. “For the glory, of course. I didn’t know there wouldn’t be any glory to be had. Got the press sewn up with a gag order, did you?”
Cortes’s quirk of a smile was all the answer needed.
Then she leaned forward intently, forcing Gloria to meet her eyes. “And that glory was worth nearly taking Maria Salgado’s life?”
Gloria’s eyes widened, her cuffs rattling as she attempted to shoot to her feet. “That was an accident! That maid did tell you that, didn’t she?”
“An accident—“ Cortes scoffed, but Joan broke in firmly.
“Ms. Salgado has no memory of the incident. That’s a fairly common outcome with head injuries.”
Gloria slumped back into the chair, shoulders pulling in tight, fingers twining together nervously.
“No one was supposed to be in the room. But she was there, and when I slipped in I startled her. She screamed and jumped back, and then she tripped over her own vacuum and hit her head on the fireplace grate. I never touched her.”
That matched Joan’s reconstruction of the scene, though she knew Detective Cortes doubted it. Still, Cortes seemed willing to move on.
She took Gloria through each of the recent burglaries in excruciating detail. Joan stayed quiet through most of it, interjecting only when Cortes seemed to be willfully misinterpreting what Gloria or the evidence was saying.
Then Cortes started going through the earlier cases, the ones Sherlock had failed to solve before the Ghost had disappeared the first time. Gloria rattled the details of those burglaries off just as readily, and Cortes began simmering with the excitement of breaking a major case. Joan just waited, listening for any slip, any discrepancy.
There were none. Detective Cortes was satisfied at last, and brusquely exited the interrogation room.
Joan hung back for a moment. When Detective Cortes was out of earshot, she asked her one question.
“Your family. They’ve always performed the same act?”
Gloria’s eyes widened, and she let out a startled, delighted laugh. “Oh, you do know!”
Joan let herself smile back faintly. “You were sixteen when the first burglary took place. Sixteen, and attending high school in California.”
Gloria grinned at her wickedly. She looked young, carefree, for the first time in their brief acquaintance.
“It has been a pleasure, Ms. Watson. Truly. I’m grateful it was you.”
Gloria Wilson was never seen again. She disappeared without a trace from a locked and guarded interrogation room in the middle of an NYPD police precinct.
Detective Cortes was in Joan’s space again. Her perfume was gardenia this time, and she bore no trace of a grin.
“You knew.”
Joan waited, but Cortes didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
“I know a great many things.”
Cortes clenched her jaw. Joan suspected she was imagining boxing rings of her own.
“You knew Gloria Wilson would escape, and you didn’t warn anyone.”
“I knew Gloria Wilson was a talented escape artist. I trusted that the interrogation room was escape-proof. Clearly that trust was misplaced.”
“Did you fuck her? Did you let her seduce you, then become her accomplice?”
Joan stared back calmly, not a muscle twitching or tensing to give anything away.
“That would be completely unprofessional.”
Cortes – Gina’s – mouth twisted, and she practically spat out her next words. “You said once you’d race me to the bottom. From my angle, looks like you’re already there.”
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Date: 2016-12-12 05:48 am (UTC)