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

Poe and Grey marvel over their delicious dinner as they drive back to Brooklyn. Grey inspects Poe’s bedroom, feeling that “everything fit[s] […] except her”—she sees herself as dissimilar to the other “slender, young, sophisticated” women she’s seen with Poe (177). They kiss, and, despite faint insecurity, Grey decides to have sex with Poe. She wakes in the middle of the night to find Poe having a nightmare and crying for someone to not leave him.

Marple and Virginia see Grey the next morning. Grey is initially uncomfortable at revealing her sexual relationship with Poe but joins the women for coffee. Marple asks about the kidnapping, and Grey reports no leads. Grey notes Marple’s file on Hart Island, but Marple brushes off her questions. Grey asks Marple not to tell anyone in the police department about her sexual encounter with Poe. Marple agrees, though she “plan[s] to collect” on the favor (182).

Marple takes a ferry to Hart Island, relieved when the body awaiting burial isn’t Zozi Turner. The gravedigger there notes a man dressed like a cowboy. When Marple spots him, the cowboy turns and runs.

Marple surveys rather than chases the cowboy, determined not to scare him off. When she loses him on the ferry, she realizes that he must have jumped overboard. Using binoculars, she watches him swim to land and get into a white truck with a Texas lone star decal.

Virginia learns that over a million white pickup trucks are registered in Texas. Marple, frustrated, rejects Poe’s offer to report the cowboy to Grey. Marple does not report her previous suspicions that the Hart Island body is related to the Charles case.

Poe, using details from a hacked NYPD database, maps information about missing persons potentially related to the subway case. He charts unsolved missing persons cases since 1950, focusing on people aged 20-30, matching the ages of the discovered bodies. He finds many cases with “one thing in common […] nobody to keep their cases alive” (192). Flashing lights outside announce the arrival of Commissioner Boolin.

Boolin lists all the ways that the three detectives have broken the law in their investigations, including Poe’s unauthorized use of hacked police files. Boolin offers them an ultimatum: Allow Grey’s team to use them as consultants and their office as a base of operations until the subway case is concluded or be arrested for “theft of proprietary government files” (195).

Poe quickly grows frustrated with the police’s takeover of the office. While he and Holmes rant about suing the NYPD, Marple opines that the only way to “get rid of them” is to “solve the case” (197). A text alert leads them to turn on the news; art forger Blythe has organized a gallery show of famous works designed to tempt Franke. The possibility of catching the art thief cheers the detectives.

Franke prepares to steal a Picasso from the art gallery in Williamsburg, unaware that it is a trap. His plan involves an expensive, high-resolution screen that will imitate the real painting so that he can steal it unnoticed. He looks forward to the theft, considering the danger worth the “[m]oney. Cred [and] payback” (199).

Poe, heavily intoxicated, leaves a bar after being cut off by the bartender. As he walks through Brooklyn, he thinks of his current and recent cases and wonders if he “made a mistake” in starting a sexual relationship with Grey, worrying that he isn’t “ready” (201). He finds himself at a familiar house, which he recognizes from a missing persons report from the year prior. He wonders about the cost of powering such a poorly insulated, large house, though he notes something odd about the house that he cannot properly identify. He texts Grey, asking if she is awake, which he hopes she won’t take “the wrong way” (203).

The next morning, the three detectives meet for breakfast at a diner to avoid the police in their offices. The strange house that Poe saw is owned by brothers Richard and Nelson Siglik. He reports that while the brothers have no criminal history, their mother disappeared 30 years prior. Her case remains unsolved. The Sigliks are independently wealthy after selling their family’s funeral home. The large machines that Poe saw are air purifiers, which are “legal and up to code” (206). Even so, Poe’s suspicion prompts Marple to consider how they can legally get inside the house.

Poe visits a farm in southern New Jersey, where a woman named Jacklyn teases him for wearing a suit, despite the rain and the rural setting. He is thrilled to learn that Jacklyn has located a Dodge Shelby Charger made in the right year.

As Poe and Jacklyn clear the barn so that Poe can drive the Dodge Charger out, she advises him to stop tormenting himself over Annie’s death. Jacklyn also misses Annie; she hopes that securing the car, built the year Annie was born, will help Poe remember her. As he drives away, Poe imagines how much Annie would have loved the vehicle.

Luka Franke returns to his apartment, satisfied with a successful theft. As he hangs the painting, he notices the faint scent of tea, which was used to artificially age the painting’s frame. Police storm his apartment as he realizes that he has stolen a high-quality forgery.

Virginia is alone in the office when she hears a sound and smells molasses. She tries to convince herself that it’s nothing, but the smell of bread baking gets stronger.

The three detectives and Grey watch through a one-way mirror as Franke awaits interrogation. Grey asks the trio about the forgery origin but lets it go when Holmes and Poe demur. Marple delights at Franke’s obvious discomfort in the bleak interrogation room.

Franke stands abruptly, demanding to speak to his lawyer. Roger Gow, a specialist in antiquities from the district attorney’s office, enters, unimpressed by the presence of private investigators. Gow, Grey, an Art Crimes detective named Catherine East, and the three private investigators enter Franke’s interrogation room. Franke is furious to recognize Marple. Gow offers Franke a deal: If Franke returns the Van Gogh and gives information that leads to the capture of the thieves who took the Shakespeare folio and the Bible, Franke can avoid prison. Grey and East are angry; they demand to know who authorized this deal, but Gow reports that both the district attorney and Grey’s boss approved the offer. Marple fumes that Franke will be released.

Marple drives to Westchester, New York, to meet with a judge whose daughter she once saved from a kidnapper. The judge happily offers to do Marple any favor she needs—in this case, a search warrant for the Siglik house.