The first thing Renee did when she reached the scene was look under the covers of the bed, fully prepared to find even more blood than there was already on the poor little girl’s blanket. What she found instead was somehow more chilling, although Renee couldn’t quite put a finger on why. With a tentative, gloved hand, she reached out to pick up the diamond ring that lay on the pink pillow.
“And what are you doing here?” she asked it quietly, turning the metal in her fingers to see the stone shine.
Renee took another good look around the room. The little girl on the floor couldn’t have been much older than four or five, and her room reflected it. The walls were painted a light, cotton-candy pink, as were her door and dresser, and most of the stuffed animals that lined the shelves and floor.
Renee swallowed hard, trying to force the feelings of sickness and anger to the back of her mind.
She went over to inspect the window. Broken and entered—just like the Dublin boy. Same method of killing, too, as far as she could tell. She didn’t dare to turn the girl over on the ground to check; as much as possible, she wanted to leave the scene intact for the detectives who would follow her.
“How’s it look?” asked the voice of Barbara Gordon in Renee’s earpiece.
“Same guy,” she responded, almost in a whisper—the tiny microphone in the neck of her cowl picked up any sound she made. “But the bird wasn’t his gimmick.”
“Oh? What was?”
“I can’t tell. There’s no pattern.”
“There’s always a pattern. What did he leave?”
“It’s a ring. Diamond.” With a moment’s hesitation, Renee took a batarang out of her belt and put it to the ring. “Not gold, I’m not sure what it is.”
“What color?”
“I dunno, goldish? Little darker, maybe. Babs, everything else is the same. The break-in, cutting the throat.”
“Then it’s probably the same guy.” Barbara’s cool, reassuring voice in her ear calmed Renee. “See if you can’t get a hair sample or something, and then get back. Come to my place, I’m looking up the victim now.”
“Got it.”
Renee glanced around the room, but kept the ring gripped tightly in her hand. Her teeth nibbled at the inside of her lip, leaving a metallic taste in her mouth. “I’ve got to leave it here.”
“What was that?”
Renee shook her head slightly, focusing again. “I’m leaving the ring for the PD. I can’t just remove the evidence.”
“Oh fine, be that way.” Renee could almost hear Babs’ arms folding over the earpiece. “Take some pictures, put it back, and get over here.”
Renee had always been quick to follow instructions she agreed with. In the space of five minutes, the bedroom was back the way that she had found it, minus two fine, fair hairs, and the digital camera in one of her pockets was filled with all the different shots of the room she could take.
She glanced over her shoulder at the little girl on the floor before she left. It never helped anything to care too much about a case, but Renee had always had trouble with that part of the job.
She forced herself to look away, and stole back out the window into the night.
0-0-0-0-0
The pale-haired man sat alone in his home. Her blood was still on his hands. He sat still in the armchair, letting the mess seep into the fabric.
He hadn’t expected this. The first one had been so simple, and now the second hadn’t. But then, that first one had been a boy…and he had looked too much like his father for there to be any remorse. This one had looked so innocent, lying there, so much like his own little girl. He had almost not done it. But the ring had been in his pocket, and he had known that he had to.
The little girl came up to him, silent in the dark room. She was beaming. “Thank you, daddy.”
The man sighed. “You’re welcome, Jessica. Now please, let daddy rest. I need to think.”
“About what?”
“Never you mind, love. Just go back to sleep.”
“Sing me the song?”
“Not tonight, pumpkin, please.”
The girl only skipped to the other side of the chair, singing to herself. “And if that diamond ring turns brass, papa’s gonna buy me a looking glass.” She stopped and giggled. “The looking glass is next, isn’t he?”
“Jessica,” he started, trying to use gentle words, “I don’t know if I’m going to keep going.”
“What?”
“I think you’ve had enough, darling. You don’t really need the other two, do you?”
“But I do!” The girl’s sudden shout was deafening after the silence. “I do need them! And you promised, daddy, you promised!”
“Now Jessica, let’s not get upset—“
“I NEED them!” Tears began to run down the girl’s cheeks as her cries grew louder and more forceful.
“Oh darling, sweetheart, don’t cry.” The man sat up in his chair, wishing now that he had cleaned himself off. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I’m sorry. I’ll get you the other two.”
Her tears dried up almost instantly. “Thank you, daddy! I love you!”
“I love you too, angel.”
The little girl skipped away, leaving him alone again with his thoughts.
0-0-0-0-0
Batgirl tapped at the glass door of Barbara’s terrace balcony. Almost immediately, the door opened, and Babs wheeled out of the way to let Renee in. “I thought you were at least going to change first.”
“You’re the one who was in a hurry.” Renee handed over her samples and camera, and followed Barbara to her living room.
“Anyone could have seen you come in.”
“Better here than my place,” countered Renee, slipping the cowl off of her head and shaking out her hair. “At least it makes sense for Batgirl to visit you.”
“Yeah, okay. True.” Barbara hooked the camera up to her computer, and within seconds the crime scene was flashing across the screen. “I already got the background. Julia Heighdy, few months short of four. Parents divorced, lived with the mother.”
“Any criminal history?”
“Mom checks out clean. But guess what I found on dad?”
“Tell me.”
Barbara spun her chair around to look straight at Renee. “Five robberies. Vandalism. And a really suspicious case where a little girl died.”
Renee nodded. “Same as the other one.”
“Same gang. I told you there’s always a pattern.” Barbara turned back to the computer, selecting a picture of the diamond ring and blowing it up to fill the whole screen. “I’m going to work on the mark. I want you to check out the other two miscreants. Maybe they’ve got some leads. I wrote their addresses for you,” she added, handing Renee a slip of paper. “And let me tell you, we’re damn lucky they’re both still in Gotham.”
“Aww, no prison-cell interrogations?” Renee asked, with a look of mostly fake disappointment.
“I think you like that idea a little too much,” teased Barbara.
“Batman gets to do it,” pouted Renee, but with a smile.
Barbara chuckled and pressed more keys. Jim Gordon’s photo of the mockingbird popped onto the screen, and she jiggled the mouse to move it where she wanted it to be. “Well you don’t. Now get moving. Quicker we get a lead, quicker we get a suspect, quicker we close the case.”
“You won’t even invite me in for coffee first?”
Barbara twisted around in her chair, bringing her glasses down to accentuate the raised eyebrow on her face.
Renee laughed and picked up her cowl from the chair where she’d left it. “Just wondering. Would have been nice.”
Without any other words, Renee pulled on her mask and shot back out the glass door, leaving Barbara at the computer to shiver in the night breeze.
0-0-0-0-0
He hurried down the dark streets, shaking and walking fast as the cold wind began to freeze the water in his hair. He could distinctly hear his heartbeat in the silence.
He had to get there quickly. The police were working more quickly than he had expected them to—news of “The Mockingbird” had been spread almost immediately after the first murder. He shook his head. The least the papers could have done was waited until they understood.
But they might be on to him by now. He started to run.
It wasn’t so strange, really, that all of them were still living in Gotham City. This was the only place for their kind of scum.
If the police were getting close, he would have to work much faster than before. He had promised Jessica. He would get them all for her. It didn’t matter if he were found out after.
The dark, silent streets narrowed as he got closer to the center of the city. The more spacious homes on the outskirts were behind him, having given way a while ago to taller and thinner buildings.
This one might be harder, he thought to himself. He was on the second floor. But there was nothing else for it. He walked around the building, finding a dingy and unlocked door in the back.
Checking once more for his knife, he walked in, ready to make the third one pay.
0-0-0-0-0
Renee swung her way onto a fire escape, breathing more easily with her feet on something solid. She pulled out the paper that Barbara had given her, checking the address even though she knew it was right.
“Dammit Renee, get it together,” she whispered to himself, clenching a fist around the paper.
The second-floor apartment was the closer address to Barbara’s apartment, so it was the first stop on Renee’s list. The other address was clear across the city. Renee prayed she’d be able to get there before sunrise.
She peered in through the window. It was an adult’s room, sparsely furnished. A simple lock on the window—no challenge for Batgirl. The form of a sleeping man rolled over on the bed.
Renee allowed herself a grin, and pulled a lockpick out of her belt.
Seconds later, the sleeping man awoke with a start as Batgirl swung through the window, landing heavily on his chest.
Still in a sleepy stupor, the man blinked several times and murmured, “Well hey sweetcheeks, y’in a hurry?”
Batgirl’s feet were on the floor and her hand was at his throat in a second, and he found himself quickly wide awake.
“We can do this two ways,” she started, leaning over the bed. “One, I can keep you here until you stop breathing. Or two, you promise to be a good boy and we have a civilized little talk.”
“Whadda ya want from me?”
“Information. Doesn’t look like you’ve got much else.” Renee lifted her hand away and the man sat up, gently rubbing his throat. “Are we going to do this the easy way?”
He nodded.
“Then let’s get to it.” She spared a glance at the crumpled note still in her hand. “You are John Freeman?” Another hurried nod. “Good. Because it would really suck if you weren’t.” Renee made her way to the edge of the bed and sat down, looking straight at Freeman all the while. “You have a lot of friends, John? I can call you John?”
“Uh, yeah. I, I mean I guess, enough?”
“You talk to your buddies a lot? Sure you do, but which ones? I wonder, John, if you kept up with your old pals from high school.”
“Look, what’s this all—“
“It doesn’t sound like you did,” continued Batgirl. “Because if you had, you’d already know what I’m here for.” She paused and watched his face. “Read the papers, Mr. Freeman?”
The man’s eyes widened and he sat up straighter in the bed. “This is about that murder, isn’t it?”
“Plural, actually.” Batgirl crossed one leg over the other, looking as unconcerned as she could manage. “First little Paul Dublin, son of Alexander. You were friends with good old Alex, weren’t you?”
“Look, me and him split ways a long time ago—“
“But you were. Just a few hours ago, Julia Heighdy met a pretty nasty end.”
The man gasped. “Not Jason’s little girl?”
“Oh, so you didn’t lose track of that one,” said Batgirl. “Guess the gang never quite broke up.”
There was a beat of silence. “Look,” started Freeman, “I don’t know what you know or how you know it. But I’m not dumb enough to tangle with a Bat. What do you want?”
“I wanna know if there’s anyone with a grudge against your little gang. And I want to know quick, because if there is, you’re on the list,” she answered quietly.
John cleared his throat and rubbed his forehead as he thought. “God, it was so long ago. I was seventeen, do you know how stupid guys are at seventeen?”
“Stupid enough to get a criminal record.”
“I know what we did was dumb, I know, but—“
A piercing scream cut through the early morning quiet.
“Oh my god, Ryan!” Freeman threw the blanket off of himself and nearly slipped on the floor as he ran to his son’s room, Batgirl close behind him.
0-0-0-0-0
“I said not a word!” He shouted, then bit down on his lip. But it was too late—if the boy’s screaming hadn’t alerted anyone, his own yell must have. It was too risky now to wait, to savor, to do it right. He’d have to be out of there, and quickly.
The knife slipped smoothly out of its sheath, but he couldn’t bring it up in time.
The door burst open and a wide shaft of light fell onto the little boy’s bed, nearly blinding his attacker. John Freeman ran straight at the man; Batgirl took half a moment to note the wide-open front door with a broken lock before reaching out to grab the back of Freeman’s shirt.
“Stay back,” she warned, pulling him toward the door as she tossed something out of her belt and into the room. “And close your eyes,” she added in a whisper, turning her own away.
A quiet
pop and a blinding flash of light. The knife fell from the man’s hand and clattered to the floor as he instinctively covered his eyes. A short, angry growl escaped his throat as the spots swam in front of his closed lids.
Batgirl wasted no more time. Tossing Freeman roughly to the side, she leapt into the room, landing behind the pale-haired man. Before he could dive for his knife, she struck a hard kick square in the middle of his back that sent him flying across the floor and away from the weapon. Mere seconds later, the small blade was safe in the bright pocket of her utility belt.
The man’s mind raced. It was over. All of it over. He could almost hear Jessica’s voice crying, “You promised!”
“I know, I’m sorry…” he said, too quietly to be heard. But the fight hadn’t left him yet.
Batgirl stepped cautiously around the man on the floor, but she wasn’t ready when his hand shot out to grab her ankle. He pulled himself upright on her leg, sending Batgirl to her knees as he did. The room had gone dark again, the blindness from the flash grenade ebbing away. He looked from his hand to the floor, eyes darting all around the room as he searched for the lost knife.
Renee didn’t give him the time to look. A swift, low, circular kick tripped the man back to the floor, and she stood again, fists held ready.
“No!” he cried, stumbling to his feet, looking past Batgirl to Freeman’s face. “You’re gonna pay!”
“What are you going on about?” Batgirl muttered under her breath, not expecting an answer. She got just about what she did expect—the man lunged for Freeman, despite the bed and the terrified little boy in his way. Renee grabbed him and wrenched his arms behind his back to keep him still
The man still heard her screaming. “You promised, daddy! You promised you’d get them for me!”
“What the hell!?” Freeman leapt to the side, crashing into the small mirror on his son’s wall. It toppled off of its hook and shattered as it hit the floor.
“The looking glass!” screamed the little girl in the man’s head. “It’s there, it’s broke, you’ve got to get him!”
“You’re going to pay!” He shouted, shaking, starting to sweat. He barely took notice of Batgirl’s tough arms as they held him back from his target.
Renee found a chance to look at the man’s face, locking her eyes on pale blue ones that focused on nothing. The man looked at Freeman, talked to him, but something else occupied his vision.
He heard her screaming, and winced. Her face flickered across his mind—her face at five, grinning up toothlessly at him; her bright eyes at eight; her long lovely hair at ten.
Freeman gritted his teeth and picked a shard of glass out of his hand as he stood, glancing from Batgirl, to the intruder, to his terrified toddler son.
“What did you do to him?” Batgirl yelled across the room, her fists clenching as she struggled to hold back the shaking and struggling man in front of her.
“I don’t know!”
“Of course you know!” Renee snapped, wrenching back the man’s arm hard enough to make him cry out from the pain. “I want answers, Freeman!”
The man was mumbling to himself. “Sorry…I know, I’m sorry…”
“What did you do!?”
“I don’t remember!” Freeman’s face had gone white, and his eyes darted back to his son. The little boy was as still as a statue, staring at the broken mirror on the floor.
“You WHAT?!”
Freeman turned his face back to an angry Batgirl, and spoke over the panic that had risen in his chest. “I don’t remember him! Look I told you, I know we did some bad stuff but—“
Finally, the world around him reclaimed the pale-haired man’s attention. “BAD!” He shouted, struggling to escape Batgirl’s grip. “Bad you say!? You bastards!”
Her face in his mind. Bright eyes at eight. Long hair at ten. Her dancing in her little tutu.
“You bastards!” He yelled again, tears starting to run down his cheek at the sights in front of his eyes.
Her dancing at ten. Her scream in the night.
Her face in the morgue.
“You bastards killed my daughter!”
Her face in the morgue. Her hair laid out in the coffin. His Jessica.
Freeman’s eyes widened, the horrible memory coming back. Renee lost the scowl on her face, finding herself for a moment pitying the man in her arms.
Then the moment passed. A quick nerve pinch and the man collapsed. Batgirl let him fall gently to the floor.
In the sudden hush, the three pounding heartbeats in the room were audible. Batgirl eased the tension from her arms, turning back to Freeman.
“I think it’s time for you to talk.”
0-0-0-0-0
As the sun rose over Gotham City, Renee let her head fall back into Barbara’s couch. A mug of strong, scalding tea sat next to her hand, but she barely had the energy to lift it. All she wanted this morning was to lie there, silent and still.
Silence, though, wasn’t an option just yet.
“Classic revenge, then.”
Renee rolled her head over on the sofa to look at the redhead next to her. She had spent what had been left of the dawn hours recounting the story to Barbara as it had been told to her.
Years ago, there had been a very suspicious case involving a gang of four young men and the death of Jessica Callaway. The four men had never been convicted of the murder; no evidence could prove that they were part of the crime. But it had been the gang’s last transgression. They had drifted apart, as young friends often do, and as far as they were concerned, the past had gone into the past.
But loose ends were always hard to see. When the boys had last seen Jessica’s father, he had been too consumed by his grief to pose any threat. They never dreamed he would return to their lives in the way that he did, once the boys had become men, and each had a child of his own for Rob Callaway to take from them.
Renee sighed and kept talking. “When he finally came to he was completely delusional. Jim was already there with the boys, they had him ‘cuffed and Freeman was telling the story to the cops this time. Callaway didn’t even look at anyone. He just kept talking to the girl. Like she was right there.”
“God.” Barbara took a sip of her own tea, although she found herself in much better shape than Renee was in. “Felt guilty?”
“Not even.” Renee shut her eyes, trying not to see the man again. “He thought she was telling him to kill them. Acted like the whole thing was the girl’s idea.”
Barbara whistled low, and pushed herself up straighter on the cushions. “Well I, for one, am glad that’s over. Drink, Renee, you look dead on your feet.” She watched like a hawk as her friend gulped down the tea. “Listen, get yourself home and sleep. You did good, Batgirl.” She laid a gentle hand on Renee’s shoulder, and both girls managed to smile.
Renee stood slowly, reluctant to leave the comfort of the sofa. “Thanks…that means a lot, coming from you.”
“Don’t mention it. Want me to call you a cab?”
Renee shook her head. “I could use the walk.”
“Fine, brag about it.” But Barbara chuckled. “I’ll call you later. And I’ll tell you now, I’m sure Dad wants to thank you for your help with the mark.”
On Barbara’s computer a few feet away sat three pictures—the mockingbird that wouldn’t sing, the diamond ring turned brass, the broken looking-glass.
“There’s always a pattern…” muttered Renee.
“I’ll see you later.”
“Right. See ya, Babs.”
Renee’s breathing was slow and measured as she stepped into the chilled morning air. It wasn’t a short walk back to her apartment, but she needed the time to calm her nerves. The sun poked over the tall buildings, sending a bright shaft of light straight to Renee’s face. She savored the warmth and the light, after a night like hers.
She walked with confidence down the streets. Today, Gotham City was a little bit safer.
0-0-0-0-0
EpilogueIt was late again, and Poison Ivy wished that the air would get warm. She’d had quite enough of the winter, thank you very much, and she always looked forward to spring.
It was just barely nice enough for Ivy to be out on one of her walks. It was good to be back in the fresh air, under the stars, after so much time cooped up in her little greenhouse.
A voice hummed somewhere close by, and Ivy turned her head to look for it.
“Do do do-de-doodle-do do do-do….”
She should have known before she even looked who she would see. Who else would be humming a circus melody, wandering the streets so late?
Harley Quinzel turned the corner skipping, and almost ran into her former partner-in-crime. “Oh! Heya Ivy!”
She was back in her costume, with the addition of a jester’s cap on her blond head. Her arms were stuffed full of ominous-looking bags, a couple of spikes sticking out of the paper at odd angles.
Ivy blinked slowly. “You’re out.”
“Yeah! Just gettin’ a few things ready.” She lifted the shopping bags. Something inside one of them seemed to shake angrily.
“Dare I ask?”
“Ooh, It’s gonna be just great!” Harley did a little hop-skip on the spot, her face alight with a grin. “Hey listen, thanks for helping me out! I never woulda got anywhere without you.”
“Well, don’t mention it,” shrugged Ivy, keeping a wary eye on the bag.
“Naw, I will!” Harley insisted. “Ooh, just wait! It was practically your idea! Yer gonna love it!”
“I’m sure…” But Ivy sent a quizzical look after the skipping Harley.
“You’ll love it!” she called back, heading off down the street. “Just wait! April Showers bring Joker Flowers!” Giggling, she turned and ran off.
Ivy stood on that street for a very long moment before deciding to cut her walk short and head home. She felt a cold weight descending in her stomach.
Something was going very well for the Joker. And whatever went well for him was not likely to be good for anyone else.
