Author's notes: This way of writing is very different from what I have previously written in my previous stories. It is more complicated and writing this way takes time, mostly in the narrating and trying to keep up with what is actually going on in Gotham with the pace it's going with the status quo of the characters changing so much in the last few episodes make integrating this story into the same continuity as the show difficult.
But now I managed to post this chapter here and I hope it manages get into the same feel with the Protagonist meeting one of the characters of Gotham in it.
Meeting at Crime Alley
This morning I didn't wake up in my own bed. Thought I have been on the road for some time, it wasn't the field bag I found myself in, but inside a hut of a woman. Woman, who had tied up and tensed wounds I had no recollection of getting, but strange flashes of fighting a demon from Hell. The woman, Annie she said her name to be, told me I had saved her from this demon and used herbs in her garden to heal me.
I attempted to get up and grab her, but she pushed me gently back down. She didn't try anything hostile on me, she just told me to rest. ''Sleep now and I will love you to the end of time.''
I am a witch hunter and what this woman says has done to me, tells me she is a witch. Is it her dark magic that I don't wish to prosecute her for witchcraft or did this act of kindness open my eyes to the truth that Annie is not… Annie, God, I'm calling her Annie now.
She let me walk away once I had healed. She did not say goodbye, she just smiled at me with kind eyes with a ferret sitting on her shoulders. As I arrived to Gotham, I realized it was due to the short distance from her hut. She knew I would eventually return to her.
''What are you reading?'' Marcia says bringing me back to the reality that is her car.
''A book close to my heart, you could say,'' I respond showing her the book that saved my life and the hole in it. ''I'm still trying to figure out its plot holes.''
''Don't let it distract you from your work,'' Marcia says turning to look back on the road.
Good for you, Mordecai, I think looking at my book.
At least your arrival to this city was met with hospitality, I was just given a monkey suit and told to follow someone's orders. Or what do I know about your life, Mordecai? Maybe you just were told to return to Annie and were forced take her in as a witch. And maybe see that she was hanged or burned.
Love story between a witch and a witch hunter. Now I know this book has to be a fake. No one sane enough would have written this thing in the 1600s, even as a fiction. So why do I still carry this book with me? It saved my life, yes, but before my accident I was still holding onto it and refused to let it drop off my hands. Even when I was shot, why?
Marcia's parents gave nothing but misinformation to go on. At least, that's what I'm assuming. All they had were suspicions and rumors. I don't need to have my memory back to realize that rumors are powerful and dangerous. They can ruin people's lives, or as the rumored party is now dead, their reputations.
I stop walking as a weird idea enters my head. Betsy Kane was for an old woman very persistent in what she was telling me. She wanted to be right. Could it be that she wanted to destroy the reputation of the man she wanted to believe had her daughter killed?
What the hell have I been drafted into? I shake my head as it is too late to resign from this case and as an amnestic where the hell am I supposed to go and what people do I even have in my life? No one came to visit me in the hospital, what does that tell me about the kind of person I have been?
''I need to go get something near here,'' Marcia says stopping the car by the side of the road back in the city. ''It shouldn't take long so you can take some time to study the crime scene.''
I can't come up with a declining response so I get out of the car and look around.
''I'll be right back,'' Marcia says before driving off as I walk the street to the alley where it all happened.
''Park Row,'' I say as I look around walking, ''so this is where it all happened.''
This is the alley where I got shot before I tried to get a cross the street. And then a car hit me. It all happened right here and across the street, Marcia's sister was shot with her husband and only their son lived. What kind of a person does something like that? According to Betsy Kane, Martha was marked by her husband to be killed because she was wearing pearls.
''Van Derm heirlooms are worthless,'' I say out loud remembering what Betsy Kane told me, ''a thief would know, a hired assassin wouldn't care.''
Van Derm? Is that worth investigating? I really don't want to play a part in destroying someone's memory so if I work this line, could I be able to prove Betsy Kane's suspicions false?
Let's take a proper look at this crime scene. The Waynes were coming from over there, the Monarch Theater and they were skipping through this alley way to get to… where exactly? They were rich, so a bus stop wouldn't have been an option. Did they have a car waiting there? Then again, they were rich so didn't they have any kind of protection detail? The sure could have afforded one or several.
Am I starting to believe Betsy Kane's suspicions now?
''What the hell am I supposed to look for here?''
''What are you even trying to look for?''
I turn around faster then I realize, but manage to control it as if it was a reflex. It scares the little girl who spoke to me, something I'm sure doesn't happen to her very often.
''What are you doing up there?'' I ask looking up to her on the fire escape above me.
''I like being up here, or up in other places where I can look down to other people,'' the girl replies amused.
''Like a cat stalking mice,'' I respond noticing how cat-like she looks like with her appearance. ''Or a thief looking out for marks.''
''Nope, I just like being up here and watching people,'' the girl tells me, obviously trying to prove what I said wrong.
''Do you stay up there all the time or do you go other places to spy other people?'' I ask realizing this girl could be useful. ''Like, were you here or in some other place when the Waynes were shot?''
The girl's eyes wide out in obvious shock as I ask her that. She is scared to answer meaning she was here and I can tell she is already trying to look for a way to escape. I better play this right before she does that and I never learn what she knows.
''I was there on the other side of the road bleeding out, probably gunned down by the same shooter and even then got hit by a car,'' I say keeping my eye on the girl, making sure I see if she tries to escape. ''Just got out of the hospital today.''
She quickly looks to where I'm pointing at and then shakes her head.
''I must have missed you,'' she says and then realizes she did. ''I mean-''
''Did you see the shooter?''
''No!'' She says quickly.
''Yes you did,'' I say, and now she escapes, turning to run up the fire escape.
I don't even say anything, but boost a jump and grab the fire escape, pulling myself up to follow her. She is fast, but she is also sloppy. She has not have had anyone follow her up to the rooftops. She stops to look behind herself as she reaches the top of the fire escape and that is where I manage to grab her.
''Tell me- tell me what you saw- and I'll let you go,'' I tell the girl as she tries to fight me off. ''I'm not- I'm not lying to you. I just- I just want to find the people who put me in the hospital.''
''I wasn't there! I lied to police!''
''What?'' I ask surprised, but still keep my grip on her arm. ''Who said anything about police?''
''I lied to the police about being here to get-''
''You might have lied to police, but that was about not being here,'' I tell the girl pulling my book out of my suit's pocket. ''Look, I was shot and if it wasn't for this book, I wouldn't be alive. What happened to me happened at the same time as the Wayne shooting. And when I just mentioned it to you, you flinched, meaning you were here and saw something you weren't meant to. What was it?''
The girl doesn't speak at first, but at least she doesn't fight back anymore.
''Fine, I was there and I saw everything,'' she finally talks, ''but whoever shot you couldn't have been the same guy. He came from the opposite direction from where you should have been.''
''They were shot not long after me,'' I say, not knowing if it's the truth, but seeing it as a possibility. ''If it was the same guy, he had enough time to circle around to confront them. I remember hearing the shots when I was limping to get help. So how much did you see? His face, any distinctive markings or-''
''I gave the cops a description, but I don't know if they still have it after I said I didn't see anything,'' the girl tells me with attitude and tries to rip her arm free. ''That's all I told to the cops, now let me go as you promised!''
''All you told to the cops?'' I repeat after her. ''Did you leave something out?''
She gives me an angry look and for a moment I think I have seen it before. I let her go, but before she turns away I say: ''It is a simple 'yes or no'-question.''
She turns around to face me, but keeps walking backwards towards to edge of the building.
''I saw a grey haired man standing next to the boy where his parents were laying on the concrete. He said something before disappearing to thin air.''
Then she jumps off the edge and is gone by the time I get there. A grey haired man, wonder how many there are of those in this city. It must have been a spit at my face. She was there when it happened, I don't doubt it. But seeing a grey haired man was probably nothing real. Where could have that grey haired man come from and then just go away?
I turn back to the fire escape and make my way back to the street level. There is nothing new I can find here that I couldn't deduce or that girl wouldn't have told me. The shooter came from there, confronting the Waynes who were coming from the direction I was at, shot them, but left their son alive and ran away.
''Hah, and then there was a guest appearance by a grey haired man who no one but that catgirl saw,'' I say aloud before turning to walk out of the alley and back to the street to wait Marcia.
She is there waiting for me in her car right where she left me.
''Did you get your insight?'' Marcia asks me as I get into her car.
''Yes,'' I say locking the seatbelt, ''whatever little it is. Where are you taking me next?''
''Police station,'' Marcia says pushing gas. ''I used my connections to get you access to the morgue records and five minutes with the ME.''
Author's notes: Next, the Protagonist is headed to GCPD, where that current ME is, as Gotham has currently shown, Leslie Thompkins. But it being GCPD, I'm already brainstorming on the Protagonist's interactions with Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock.
But what do you think? Did Selina, yes that was her who the Protagonist met at Crime Alley, lie to him? There was no grey haired man in the Gotham's pilot episode, but for this story to work, could there have been a grey haired man there?
