Holmes, Marple & Poe: The Greatest Crime-Solving Team of the Twenty-First Century

Marple stays with Holmes and Poe as a SWAT team enters the Siglik house. She notes Holmes’s odd demeanor and alerts Poe that their partner is intoxicated. When a police dog approaches, Poe worries that it’s a drug-sniffing dog, but he’s relieved that the dog is trained to find cadavers. Marple urges Holmes not to blow this, but Holmes does not react.

Holmes feels time “[float] by” as the SWAT team investigates the house, distracted by “kaleidoscope colors” and moving shadows. When he approaches the house, he feels that “it radiate[s] evil” (232).

Marple urges Holmes to “keep it together” (233). In the house, Poe seeks hidden compartments while Holmes searches bookshelves before suddenly slumping into a chair. He falls to the floor, hitting his head. Grey calls for a medic, but Marple produces Narcan, a drug used to treat opioid overdoses.

A medic asks a now-conscious Holmes questions to confirm that he is no longer disoriented. Holmes refuses to go to the hospital, and the medic informs him that Marple saved his life. The police leave him alone with his partners. Holmes thanks Marple, who angrily says that they will put off their discussion of his drug use.

Poe tells Holmes that he was unconscious for more than four and a half minutes, which he quips is “a new record” (237). The search of the house did not uncover drugs, weapons, or corpses. The Siglik brothers were not present, either. Holmes, however, insists that there is something amiss in the house. Though he longs to search the house, he decides to “stay out of the way” when he notes Marple’s tension (238). When Holmes sees a basket of oranges and realizes that he cannot smell them, however, he urges the SWAT team to push aside the kitchen island, which reveals a secret compartment. Someone is inside, alive.

The SWAT team opens the hatch, and Holmes quickly descends the ladder despite the police protesting. He follows a tunnel to a metal door. The SWAT team follows him; they break down the door to find a room crammed with people, which Holmes likens to “the pit of hell” (241).

Voices inside the pit beg for help. Holmes sees a group of people bound to the metal walls by cuffs on their ankles. The pit is filthy, as are the people inside, whose bodies are covered with sores. Marple calls for Zozi and Eton, though a woman from the pit claims that “if they were ever here, they’re dead” (243).

Poe watches the rescued prisoners emerge from the tunnel to be tended by paramedics. When one woman identifies herself as Davina Kane, Poe recognizes her as the disappeared hotel maid whose files first drew his attention to the house. She confirms that the Sigliks drugged her; after that, she woke in the tunnel, where she was imprisoned and frequently drugged. New people sometimes came to the tunnel. When the Sigliks removed someone from the pit, that person never returned. A SWAT member calls Grey, reporting a second room.

The second room is “clean [and] precise” (247). Large vents clean the air to obscure the smell of acid. Poe calls the room “the skeleton factory” (247). He opines that the Sigliks were “following a pattern […] a protocol somebody else set” (248). They find labeled chemicals and safety equipment. Poe uncovers a bucket full of teeth.

As more police fill the house, Poe insists that Holmes stop using drugs. Holmes absently promises that he will. In the garage, Poe looks at the Sigliks’ elaborate setup for car maintenance. When Holmes notes the smell of aftershave, he summons Poe; they uncover another hidden compartment. As they open it, a gunshot erupts from the space, nearly striking Poe.

The bullet sinks into the Sigliks’ car, causing gasoline to spray out. Poe, holding a gun, enters the tunnel that the compartment leads into, with Holmes behind him. The tunnel takes them under a street to an exit via a storm drain. They spot the Sigliks stealing a car at gunpoint. To give chase, Poe steals a car from an auto-body shop. They follow the Sigliks, with Poe driving recklessly to keep up. The Sigliks crash into a cemetery, and the detectives pursue them.

As Holmes and Poe run after the brothers, the Sigliks shoot back at them, damaging statuary. The detectives follow the brothers into a mausoleum. When they enter, however, they find it empty. Holmes notes one uneven floor stone. Beneath it is another tunnel.

Holmes follows the aftershave scent to a small room that smells of chemicals. He collapses as something strikes him heavily on the head. Nelson Siglik forces Holmes to his feet at gunpoint while Richard points a gun at Poe. Holmes feigns nausea, bending over a chemical toilet. He launches a handful of chemicals at Nelson, which distracts Richard. Poe strikes Richard with a chair and then lunges for Nelson’s gun, shooting Richard in the ear. Holmes uses a compression point on Nelson’s neck to render him unconscious, a move that he confides Marple taught him.

Later, after a long night spent processing the Sigliks, an exhausted Grey rides the Staten Island Ferry. A man named Raymond, who discusses recently leaving “the company” (a slang term for the CIA popular in spy fiction), approaches her. She asks him to investigate Marple, Holmes, and Poe but to do so without them noticing. Raymond asks which of the three she is sexually involved with but then apologies for the inappropriate remark.

A shocked Virginia reads Nelson Siglik’s confession, which he gave in exchange for the promise that he would be assigned to the same prison and cell block as his brother. In the confession, Nelson reports being trained to kill and dismember bodies by his father, who forced his sons to help dispose of their mother’s body. Agent Stans calls for Marple, angry about the Zozi Turner case.

Addilyn is relieved to see Marple. Police crowd the Charles apartment after a second ransom call, this time for money and Addilyn’s jewelry. Addilyn was ordered to deliver the ransom herself. The three private investigators have been called in at Addilyn’s insistence, as she only feels comfortable making the drop-off if Marple accompanies her to Watchung Reservation, a New Jersey park that Marple knows from her bird-watching hobby.

Addilyn is anxious before the drop-off, though Marple stays calm. Agent Stans reminds Addilyn to note the details of anyone she interacts with during the exchange. The heavy bag of jewelry and money also contains a tracker, which the FBI can use to find the kidnappers. Addilyn uses a golf cart to drive to the meeting point while Marple and the FBI wait, hidden in the bushes. Stans and Marple puzzle over the relatively small amount; the Charleses’ wealth means that the kidnappers could have demanded much more than the $5 million they’ve requested.

Addilyn anxiously waits next to the golf cart. She hears a rustling noise in the surrounding bushes. An enormous white dog emerges, and it has a note on its collar instructing her to strap the ransom bag to the dog and then send it back using the command “FIND.” She follows the instructions. As the dog lumbers off, Addilyn faints.

Marple explains the drop-off with the dog to Poe and Holmes, who hid nearby to avoid Agent Stans’s detection. While the FBI searches for the white dog, Marple joins her partners, who plan to track the ransom via an app that Holmes created. Marple listens to an FBI radio frequency, which reports that the agents have found the bag but not its contents. Holmes is satisfied: He predicted that the kidnappers would switch the bag. His tracker is attached to one of Addilyn’s necklaces and is designed to look like a pearl. They use the tracker to follow a motorcycle toward the Jersey Shore.

Poe grows frustrated when they lose the motorcyclist in Asbury Park, a popular seaside town; Holmes’s tracker works poorly in heavily trafficked or crowded areas. The trio separate to search for the rider. Holmes approaches a mural, checking that he still has the pistol he keeps secret from his partners. He’s been packing it since Marple refused to return his primary gun after his overdose. Holmes worries about Zozi and Eton; suddenly, screams of laughter from the beach cause him to flash back to screams from the pit of people under the Sigliks’ house. Holmes panics and approaches a trio of men in a shadowy alley, whom he assumes to be selling drugs.

A nervous teenager approaches Poe as he searches a parking garage for the motorcyclist. When the teen attempts to mug Poe, he pulls out his gun and demands information about the motorcycle. The teen confirms that he saw the bike, which was being driven by a red-haired woman.

Marple follows Poe’s directions to a motel; the motorcycle is parked outside. Holmes isn’t answering their texts. Marple advises caution, as she followed Stans’s instructions and did not bring a weapon to the ransom drop-off. Poe insists that they must act urgently. She agrees, worrying that the kidnappers may kill their hostages now that the ransom has been delivered. Poe breaks down the door as a girl screams for him to not shoot.

Zozi, who has cut and dyed her hair, holds her dog, Toby, back from attacking the detectives. Eton is there too, with a bandage on his ear. Also in the room is Zozi’s classmate—the one who had seemed suspicious to Marple earlier. The classmate is the red-haired cyclist; she was only trying to help Zozi, who hasn’t been kidnapped. Instead, Zozi ran off with her stepfather: They are in love. While Eton “know[s] how it looks,” he claims that the detectives “don’t understand”; Zozi cries that Eton “hasn’t done anything wrong” (286). Marple tells the three that they are “all going to jail” (286).

The Asbury Park police arrest Zozi, her friend, and Eton, while Animal Control secures Toby. The police inform the detectives that they will be transferred to New York City in the morning. Zozi weeps that, as a legal adult, she can choose her romantic partners; Marple counters that faking a kidnapping and then extorting money is illegal. The police leave. Poe prepares to call Grey. Suddenly, a gunshot rings out.

Poe and Marple drop to the floor avoid getting shot. Poe, armed, follows the sound of a moan and finds Holmes, bleeding. Holmes claims that he bought drugs and must have been followed. As Poe calls for an ambulance, he realizes that the gunshot was self-inflicted; he surmises that this was Holmes’s attempt to die by suicide. As Holmes loses consciousness, Poe promises to help his partner; he and Marple love Holmes and will not ignore his mental health crisis.

As Grey leaves the hospital where Addilyn Charles is recovering from her fainting spell, Poe calls to tell her about Holmes’s injury and to report that they found Zozi and Eton, though he hangs up before explaining why the pair were arrested.

Grey meets Marple and Poe at a New Jersey hospital where Holmes is still being treated. The partners tell Grey about Zozi and Eton’s relationship and their plan to flee to Belize. A doctor interrupts: Holmes’s shot did not penetrate his brain, but the “very nasty drugs in his system” might create complications in his recovery (295). Grey grows frustrated when an anxious Poe brushes off her requests for more details about Zozi and Eton and insists that Marple explain instead.

In the hospital cafeteria, as Marple tells Grey about the previous night’s events, Stans bursts in, demanding answers. Zozi demanded only $5 million since this was the amount in her trust fund. The friend, Darla, worships Zozi and so agreed to participate in the scheme. Darla trained the white dog. The bloody shirt happened when Eton cut his ear while trimming his facial hair. Stans is angry that Eton cannot be charged with anything: Zozi is over 18, and he never adopted her, so their relationship is not legally incestuous. Zozi and Darla can be prosecuted for the false kidnapping and ransom extortion, but they will suffer few consequences. Marple plans to sue for investigative costs, though Grey notes that Eton’s wealth means that this will not make a difference to him.

Three days later, Virginia awaits the three detectives’ return home. Holmes’s room has been emptied of weapons, and a hospital bed has been installed. As Holmes gets out of a police car, Virginia is impressed that he looks healthier than she expected given the severity of his recent injury. Marple holds the large white dog, whom Holmes calls “the Hound of the Baskervilles” (301), after the Sherlock Holmes story. After Virginia names the dog Baskerville, Marple declares Virginia Baskerville’s new owner.