Detective Case Files

Detective Case Files is a miscellaneous quest in Fallout 4.

Quick walkthrough

 * 1) Head to Nick Valentine's Detective Agency.
 * 2) Talk to Ellie Perkins.
 * 3) Accept her request in solving some cases.
 * 4) One will acquire the Earl Sterling Case File and the Marty Bullfinch’s Holotape. Picking up the former will start the side quest The Disappearing Act, while listening to the latter will start The Gilded Grasshopper.

The Disappearing Act
You begin the quest by reading the case file on the table. You can optionally ask about Earl Sterling but it's not necessary. When you ask Vadim Bobrov about Earl Sterling, he will give you the keys to his house, letting you look around. You can find a surgery receipt on the floor, next to the sofa - alternatively, Yefim can be persuaded to tell the Sole Survivor that Sterling told him about getting the surgery. This will lead you to the Mega surgery center in Diamond City. Interrogating Dr. Sun, you can ask about the bloodstains on the floor leading to the cellar. If the interrogation is successful he will give you the keys to the cellar. Entering the cellar you can see Dr. Crocker speaking with the corpse of Earl Sterling, talking about how he shouldn't bleed during the surgery. Noticing you, Dr. Crocker tells you that the surgery went bad and that he is high on Jet. You can either choose to kill him, arrest him, or let him go, but he will kill himself no matter what, injecting his body with a lethal dose of Psycho. A few seconds after that, Dr. Sun enters the cellar to discover what really happened. You explain to him that the operation went badly and Dr. Crocker wanted to hide the body in the cellar.

The Gilded Grasshopper
You begin the quest by listening to a holotape lying on one of the desks, informing you of the possibility of a note located in a gold grasshopper statue. You are then directed to Faneuil Hall, where the statue is located. After acquiring the statue, which is a unique Junk Item, and reading the note that accompanies you are then directed to North End graveyard where you are then required to dig open the grave of Shem Drowne. After you open Shem Drowne's you will complete the quest and be awarded with some XP and the Shem Drowne sword, a unique revolutionary sword with additional radiation damage.