if_inconvenient | (no subject)

There is an extensive searchable obituary database in the online newspaper site. It has to be extensive, what with the sheer number to keep up with. Alec's is easily found.

Sunnydale Student Dies in Wild Dog Attack
Alec Carrow, 17, died last night in what appears to be the latest in a series of wild animal attacks. Alec, a junior at Sunnydale High, was walking home through a densely wooded area in Whitaker Park when he and his companions were set upon. Another minor was injured in the attack, and was treated and released later that night. Animal control insists they are on top of the problem, but that budget cuts have made matters more difficult...

Wild dogs. Oh, certainly.

Is there any information available on the other injured party?

Mr. and Mrs. Black are guarded about public information regarding their family. Trixi won't be found in newspaper archives or hospital records in relation to this tragic incident.

Police reports would list who was there that night along with witness statements, but reports like that are so easily misplaced.

What is easily misplaced, in Sherlock's experience, is rarely so easily found again. He looks, nevertheless.

Considering the circumstances, if he cannot find the report over the internet (and let it be said right now that no security measure is a barrier to him, thank you Jarvis), he may just have to go looking for it later.

If that file is found - and who knows with triplicate copies and filing errors (or efficiencies) what may be truly lost - then it would contain the following information.

Witnesses:
Evan Rosier, 16
Bellatrix Black, 17
Tom Riddle, 16
Alyce Carrow, 17

Witness statements:
"There were seven of them. Maybe eight. They looked like wolves, but I couldn't see well. It all happened so fast." Evan Rosier

"My brother... he... he was behind us and- and" (Miss Carrow was in hysterics and could not give more of a statement at that time.)

"We shouldn't have taken that shortcut. It's my fault for leading them into it." Tom Riddle

"One cut me off from the rest of my friends. Alec had already been... It was quick. Tom and Evan managed to get it off me. They got Alyce and me out - she was hysterical - and someone passing by called the ambulance." Bellatrix Black

Conclusion:
Pending coroner's report, wild animal attack (probably wild dogs). No suspicion of foul play.

Bellatrix Black. Present in the police report; injured, by implication; absent everywhere else.

He turns his attention to what else he might find out about her from any public record in the past few years. First, though, he asks Jarvis to start a file on Alec Carrow containing all the data he has found so far.

"Security level, Master Holmes?"

"Not even Tony."

There is a pause.

"Very good, sir."

(It doesn't mean that Tony can't see it; it just means that if Tony asks, Jarvis will ask him not to. There are no secrets between the Stark boys. They have equal clearance everywhere in the system. Locking each other out is the digital equivalent of hanging a sock on the door.)

It's more suspicious to not leave a trail than to leave mundane markers. Trixi has a public record: birth certificate, school records, the occasional mentions of academic accomplishments. There is nothing remarkable. Nothing unusual. Nothing that would bring untoward attention.

Alyce Carrow, on the other hand, has no wary parents guarding her like the Blacks guard Trixi. If examined, though, she has nothing remarkable in her public record, aside from the death of her twin brother.

Witch or no witch, she just hasn't made the news, the title of Girl Scout cookie sale champion in second grade notwithstanding.

She's walking through the cemetery now after her dismissal by Tom. She comes here whenever she's bothered. Alec's ashes are locked away behind a wall of marble, but her presence near him helps. She misses him so much.

Alyce considers Tom and Trixi part of her family. She might be treated like the red-headed stepchild sometimes, but she has more power than Trixi. All of them know that. She makes a difference in their coven's balance, in what they can do. She doesn't mind taking orders. It's usually not a big deal.

She loves Tom. She can't explain why. He's not very nice. He's ruthless. But he's smart, and he has brilliant ideas. He's like a big brother, even if he's technically a little younger, and he watches out for them. He always has, so long as you don't cross him.

Alec loved him, too, and that was always good enough for her.

She and Trixi are friends. Not close, giggly BFFs or anything, but they get along well. Alyce isn't a masochist; she would spend time with people she hated.

But...

Ever since Luke turned into a vampire and went on that vengeful rampage, things haven't been the same.

(If she's honest with herself, and she is, sometimes, she'd recognize that things haven't been the same since the ritual went wrong and those demons killed her brother.)

She's sitting on a gravestone in the shade across from the columbarium. She's been watching the clouds float by, trying to calm down and get centered. After a while, she reaches for her phone. This is probably not the smartest thing to do. Tom will be furious. Sherlock might not be as he seems to her.

What the hell. She gets to be rebellious, too.

She dials his number and brings the phone to her ear. She bites her lip as it rings.

A polite, English, adult voice answers on the first ring.

"You've reached the Stark residence. How may I direct your call?"

("Alyce Carrow is calling," Jarvis tells Sherlock as he answers. "Shall I connect you?"

"If she asks for me." He considers locking this conversation against Tony, too, and then decides against it. Tony might listen, but he won't interrupt. That's good enough for Sherlock right now. "When she asks for me." She's hardly going to ask for Tony.)

"Oh, um."

She didn't expect anyone else to answer. Urgh, she hates talking on the phone. Checking the number on the paper to make sure she entered it in right, she continues.

"Is, um, Sherlock there?"

Shit. What if he gave her a wrong number on purpose? Maybe she should disconnect.

"Yes he is. One moment, miss."

Half a second of silence, then Sherlock's voice, bright and cheerful. "Miss Carrow! It is good to hear from you."

"Hi," she says, twirling her hair around a finger.

This is why she prefers texting; it gives her time to think.

"Um. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"No, you did not," he reassures her.

"How have you been?"

"Okay," she says. "I have unexpected free time today."

Birds in the tree above her flutter from branch to branch. Aside from the breeze rippling leaves, that is the only sound.

"Do you like coffee?"

Way to blurt out random questions. She covers her eyes with her hand and is thankful she has no video phone technology.

"I certainly do. Shall we celebrate the former with the latter?"

(Listening from his workshop, Tony wonders when the hell Sherry got this smooth. And who the girl is. And why he doesn't know her already. Maybe he does.)

Alyce laughs.

Sherlock is really good with setting her at ease. Maybe too good?

"Yes, please. Want to meet me at the Espresso Pump?"

"I would," his grin is very audible, "be delighted. What time?"

"I'm about ten minutes away, so anytime that works for you is fine. Maybe thirty minutes?"

"Yes, that would be quite suitable."

For one thing, it will give him a sterling excuse to be out the door before Tony can ask him how the Hell he managed to get a girl to ask him out for coffee.

Maybe it's because he's polite and cute and good with setting people at ease! Well, people like Alyce, anyway.

"Okay," she says, grinning pretty ridiculously.

It's just coffee.

"I'll see you there then."

"Indeed. Until then, Miss Carrow."

Grinning pretty ridiculously himself, he hangs up and directs Jarvis to save the latest researches on Bellatrix Black.

"Sherry," says the intercom, "how the Hell did you manage to get a girl to ask your out for coffee?"

"Tony," he answers cheerfully on his way out of the workshop, "I have to make a forty-five-minute walk in half an hour. Do shut up."

"I'll drive you," Tony offers.

"You most certainly will not."

Alyce takes her time strolling over to the coffee shop. She even stops to pluck a rose from a bush by one of the older graves near the front of the cemetery. She tears off the thorns and tucks it behind her ear.

She's wearing a "fairy dress" today. She has lots of.dresses along these lines. Handkerchief halter top, long flowing skirt - this one is in a soft purple. She has silver rings on her fingers, and a pentagram pendant on a chain around her neck.

She picks a table in the corner once she arrives. She always picks a table in a corner.

Sherlock arrives almost exactly on time. Thirty-two minutes is not bad, considering.

"Good afternoon," he says when he locates and approaches her table. "You look lovely."

He himself is wearing pale grey jeans and a white button-down shirt, the latter somewhat rumpled. But Sherlock always looks a little bit rumpled, so it's hard to tell he jogged part of the way here.

"Thanks," she smiles, and she barely manages to keep from ducking her head.

"So do you." This last is said in such a way that it could be playful (yet sincere) or serious. She is walking the cautious "just out for coffee" tightrope.

"Do you live far from here or close by?"

"A few miles," he admits, taking a seat. He doesn't appear to be walking any social tightropes, but then, he's Sherlock Holmes. It can be hard to read him sometimes.

Yeeeeah.

"Um, so, I think something cold and caffeinated is what I need. You want me to get you something?"

He got her drink at The Bronze, so it's only fair.