A/N: I don't own any of the "Elementary" characters and I am not making any money from writing this.

Please forgive any minor spelling or grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.

I just had to publish this on the Valentine's Day! I will do my best to complete this soon. This story takes place in the current season.

Both Sherlock and Joan stared at the ceiling in desperation. The paint was cracked on all places and there were even some holes. The floor underneath was covered with brick dust. It was a cold February afternoon, and some prospectives looked highly pessimistic as of recently.

"I told you that you shouldn't be doing such experiments in here!", Joan accused him. "Now the living room ceiling is almost completely ruined! And don't even get me stated on the window in your room."

"We have already found a man that will fix it completely within two weeks", Sherlock pointed out.

"Yeah, only the water forecast announced a heavy rain starting from Tuesday!", Joan yelled.

"Have I disrupted your Valentine's Day plans?", Sherlock asked teasingly, making Joan roll her eyes. "I ask, knowing that you don't have any."

"Shut up", Joan mumbled.

"Come on, Joan. Don't tell me that you enjoyed that soapy holiday? Pure commercialism poorly disguised?"

Joan smirked. "By the way, what about... Fiona?"

"That... didn't end well."

Sherlock was about to say something, when his ringtone went off. He picked up his phone and answered the call.

"Hallo? Aha. We'll be right here." He ended the call and turned to face Joan. "We have more important things to put our mind to. An apparent murder/suicide downtown. With an emphasis on "apparent"."

#

The sight was pretty depressing. Young brunette, in the satin night gown, was laying dead on the bedroom floor, near the bed, two gunshot wounds to her chest. Her husband, Daniel Jones, a man of average height and weight, with short blobde hair and blue eyes, was laying dead in the armchair near the bed, the gun in his right hand and a gunshot wound to his right temple.

"Daniel and Jenny Jones, both twenty seven", Marcus read. "They had only been living in this house for a week."

"It looks like the murder-suicide", Thomas explained. "The guy shot his wife two times, then turned the gun on himself. The gun is registered in his name."

"And yet, we are here", Sherlock exclaimed.

"Daniel's brother is a police officer in New Jersey, so I won't leave any stone unturned", Thomas explained, as Sherlock began searching the bedroom closet. Joan started going through the drawers on the bedside table.

"It doesn't look promising though. His gun. Gunshot residue on his hand. Blood splatters on his T-shirt. All the doors and windows locked from the inside."

"Both men's and women's clothing, of different sizes, in their closet", he noticed. "Only basic hygiene supplies in other bathrooms, I noticed." He observed the bed closely. "Bed sheets and pillows appear to be equally wrinkled, over the whole surface." He looked at the walls. "Many happy photographs of them together, dating from the time before they were married to a mere month ago." "Nothing dysfunctional in sight."

"The appearances can be deceitful", Thomas pointed out.

"Daniel Jones' credit card receipt", Joan noted, reading the receipt that she had foubd in the bedside drawer. "He purchased two bags of "Fruit Loops" two days ago."

They started observing the bodies again. Sherlock paid a special attention to Daniel's T-shirt, then the rest of his clothing.

"All of the clothes is actually pretty tidy", he noticed. "Except for his T-shirt. It is wrinkled, a bit loose."

"Maybe he was just distressed", Marcus suggested.

"Or somebody else wore that T-shirt while murdering ms., and then redressed mr. before murdering him", Sherlock pointed out. "Also, note the scuff marks on the floor, leading from the hallway into the bedroom over to the armchair."

Joan straightened herself up, after she had observed a preculiar looking stain on the wall near the bedroom door. Thomas walked over to her, observing the stain himself.

"Judging by the discoloration and the scent over here, somebody recently applied bleach to this area of the wall only", she explained. "No similar traces anywhere else in the house. They don't even have the bleach in the house."

Sherlock looked at Joan proudly. "And so, the picture becomes clear."

Joan nodded her head. "Somebody could have punched him in the right temple, knocking him unconsciousness. He, or she, could have put on his T-shirt, from his closet, taken his gun, and murder his wife, while maybe controlling her with his own gun at the time. Once the bleeding had stop, they only needed to take his top off, put his previously mentioned T-shirt, by then stained with blood and gunshot residue, on him, drag him close to his wife's body, sit him in the chair facing the corpse, put the gun in his right hand, put the finger at the trigger, press the gun against his right temple... and bang. Daniel is dead, all the evidence point to murder-suicide theory, and the injury on his right temple had been concealed by the gunshot."

Marcus chimmed in. "And the killer then cleaned up the blood from the wall, took the cleaning supplies and the first T-shirt with him, and left..." He looked around. "After locking all the doors and windows from the inside. Makes sense."

"It does, actually", Sherlock pointed out, moving to the hallway window, near the bedroom door. "Scratch marks over the underside of the window frame and the lock, from the inner side. Still fresh, there is no rust and there are still traces of paint dust around." He took a deep breath. "An old trick. You slip the wire under the window frame, used it to unlock it, open the window and go inside. You later go out through the window, close it, sip the wire underneath the window frame again, this time using it to lock the said window. From the inside."

He pulled out his phone and started typing quickly, his face lighting up once he found the information he had been looking for.

"In 2012, the Miller family lived here", he exclaimed, showing the info on his IPhone to the others. The photograph of smiling African American family was featured there, near the grizzly news reports. "Father, Shermain, mother, Tracy, and a seven year old son, Jake. On June 25th 2012, they were all found dead in their home. This home. Father and son had been stabbed to death, mother had died due to a sleeping pills overdose. The authorities concluded that Tracy had murdered her husband and son, then committed suicide." He pocketed his phone. "I was at Hemdale at the time, so the case escaped my attention. They deprived me of newspapers, TV, Internet access... barbaric. The case was soon solved and, after a few weeks, it faded into an oblivion. Miller family had only been living in this house before two weeks before meeting their tragic demise. I do remember reading some follow up news briefly, which is why I recall that crime."

"Until now", Marcus said.

"You think that there is a serial killer at large, targeting married couples who live in this house?", Joan asked. "Making those deaths look like murder/suicides?"

"That is a definite possibility", Sherlock agreed. "It may be a coincidence, but it is a highly unlikely one."

His face lightened up, an idea appearing into his mind. He took a step closer to Joan, and he grinned. "He is very careful. Elusive. And, by all accounts, he murders those couples shortly after they move in this house. He gave the Miller family two weeks. A week to the Jones family." He raised his eyebrows at Joan. "And, as you very well know, Joan, within days we will need a new place to live, for the next couple of weeks."

Joan glared at him. "What are you getting at?"

~OPENING ROLES AND CREDITS~