The death was so dangerous the hazmat team had to be called in. An accountant had collapsed at an inspection, and an entire shipment of Hello Kitty undergarment sets destined for Kids R Us stores had to be destroyed.

 “What causes death by bleeding and poisonous projectile vomiting while the victim is conscious and aware?”  the detective wondered aloud.  “A new tropical virus mutation?” 

The trainee at the next desk twirled his moustaches, stroked his meerschaum pipe, and tugged at the earflap of his deerstalker. 

“This is not new and not a virus, Tuts. A British Museum dig in Rome found vials with some old residue, and when they scraped some of it off and exposed mice to it, the poor mice died just like this guy, only smaller. I can’t imagine how it got here, but the symptoms fit perfectly.” 

Tuts (whose real name was Sue but who had long since given up trying to get called that) snorted. The young trainee would know all his exotic poisons, what with his Sherlock fetish. “Please take off your hat. What do we know of this man?”

“Rocky Warrentum. Not much. He was 47 years old, lived in Staten Island, brief early marriage, divorced, two kids he’s not involved with except for child support. Occasionally dated but nothing serious—told lady friends he wasn’t into settling down; don’t think any of them wanted to anyway. Not much reason for anyone to notice him, much less kill him. Can’t imagine how he came to this end.”  He shuddered thinking about it. The corpse was so toxic it couldn’t even be kept in a regular morgue, but had been treated like an Ebola victim. “Here’s the tape from the ferry terminal feed.”  

Tuts fed the videotape into the viewer; together they watched the morning rush hour crowd arriving in Manhattan from Staten Island flow through the terminal, not unlike salmon dancing upstream to spawn.  

Rocky, in his predeceased state, exited the ferry boat towards the back of the large group and headed towards the escalator, hustling through the crowd. At the bottom he paused, turned back, then turned forward again and rushed even faster out the front doors. 

“Hey, slow that down,” Tuts requested.  “Let’s look at that again.”  At the slower speed, it was clear the formerly alive Rocky had knocked into a woman as he ran down the escalator. “Maybe there’s something there.”

“Well, look, she’s smiling at him.”

Tuts zoomed in. “No, she just has one of those mouths with turned-up corners, makes her look like she’s smiling all the time. Like a dolphin.”  

“Well, she didn’t kill him—let’s get back to the rest of the tapes.” 

The chief detective stuck his head in the door.

“Sherlock, let’s go to this guy’s office, find out more, see how well Tuts has taught you.”

Tuts spoke up,  “I’d like to come along.”  

“No thanks, Tuts. Not today. We’ll give Sherlock here some practice interviewing. Better just look over those tapes; that should keep you busy,” he said, without actually patting her on the head. 

Sherlock stood up so fast he knocked over his chair.  “Let’s go!”  

Tuts turned to the video and rewound it. She searched for the knockee in the crowd heading out of the ferry doors. There she was, picking her way cautiously through, and falling steadily behind, the jostling mob. The woman’s turned-down head exposed her gray roots. Her demeanor screamed, in a mumbled manner, low-level white-collar cog, not a thought leader.  

“Thought leader” was one of the chief’s new phrases since he’d gone through a management training course the department forced all the top cops to attend. It happened to be provided by the commissioner’s nephew’s human resources outsourcing firm. Tuts thought anyone who thought there were thought leaders didn’t think much. 

The police still typed reports on IBM selectrics but had the latest in technologies from companies whose CEOs golfed with the mayor, some of which even worked. With facial recognition software, Tuts discovered the woman was Elise Hanson, a proofreader. Tuts ran her and currently dead Rocky’s identities through the big data program. There were no commonalities, nothing connecting them except the crash on the escalator. 

Returning to the tape, this time Tuts followed Elise through the ferry terminal. She reached the top of the escalator and, like a penguin on an ice floe, hesitated until she was carried onto it with the crowd. A few seconds later, not-yet-a-corpse Rocky appeared, and without slowing galumphed down the stairs and smacked into Elise, glancing back as she grabbed the handrail. When he reached the bottom, he paused and waited until she rode down to him. He spoke to her.  And, Tuts noticed, he was staring at her breasts. 

Using skills honed by watching Bad Lip Reading YouTube videos, Tuts tried to decipher him.  Was he apologizing? No. “Don’t be scared!”  he said.

Tuts didn’t think Elise looked scared. Tuts thought she looked angry. Very angry. She kept watching as Rocky continued, “Hey, don’t get aggravated, it’s only Monday!”

Unless Rocky were a member of some obscure religious group that believed being knocked into on Mondays was a divine gift, the imperative did not make a lot of sense to Tuts. (She once had an interaction on eBay in which what she had assumed was a nice grandmotherly type suggested that Tuts needed more satisfaction in her life. Tuts did not see the connection between getting satisfaction and being happy to receive a different book than the one she ordered, but perhaps if she’d had more satisfaction it would have made sense.)

Wait. Some motion between the two before Rocky darted off caught her eye, but the camera’s view was blocked.

Tuts fast-forwarded through a few more tapes to see what else she could of Elise. On a tape from two days later, Elise was holding her head higher. Tuts could see her roots had been touched up.  

Tuts followed Elise’s eyes to a newsstand where the Post’s front page blared: “Accountant regurgitates statistics!!”  This time, there was no question: Elise was smiling. 

Absorbed in the video, Tuts was startled when her chattering colleagues returned. “Learn anything?” she asked. 

“A lot! There’s all sort of possibilities. His firm did work in the Mideast and there are questions about the legality of it all. We’ve got to look more into it, but I’m pretty sure we’re on to something. Me and Chief have some more interviews later. How’re the tapes coming? Find anything?” 

“What do you think about the woman he ran into?”

“’Nothing?” Sherlock chortled.   

“Yes, I’m sure you’re right.” Tuts’ index finger reached for the erase button, hovered over it a moment, then pressed. The machine whirred. She sat back and allowed herself a small, private, grin.

 “Ok, so tell me more about this guy’s business.”