Judy woke up with a headache. Again. The place was crawling with cops. Again. She sat up and looked at the cage with the children to see all of them had been bandaged up. A couple had sheets given to them. Nick was already awake and with the children. She stood up and went over to the cops who had been assigned the Russoti case. "Did he hurt any of the kids?" she asked.
"no, actually, they were bandaged when we got in. We figured you two did it"
Judy then went over to the cage. "Nick, did you bandage the children while I was out?"
Before Nick could answer, one of the children said "No, the nice man who freed us did!"
"What?"
"the man who freed us." another one said, "he killed the people who kidnapped us, bandaged our wounds, and even gave me this" she said holding up a stuffed otter.
This confused Judy. How could someone who has zero qualms about killing several dozen people be so kind to these children she thought. She looked over to Nick. "are you okay?" she asked.
"ya, but your the only on I've told my full name to, but he said it as if it was nothing"
She chuckled a little, "well you know, Nick all of that stuff is-"
Her thoughts froze as a sudden wave of realization swept over her. Nick could see something was off about her. "what is it, carrots?" he inquired.
"-public record" she managed to mutter.
"what?"
"Nick, I know who our man is!"
"what?!"
"go to the station and run the name Francis Castiglione through the computer!"
"where are you going?"
"to apprehend the suspect"
Judy ran 3 miles without rest, a rabbit on a mission. She finally stopped when she reached The Grand Pangolin, nearly wheezing. Once she caught her breath, she stormed into the building and began beating on Francis' door. "Francis Castiglione, this is the police, open up." she said.
No response. If you don't open up, the door will be broken down!"
There was still no response. Just as she was about to kick the the door in, the armadillo who runs the building said "he left this morning"
"do you know where he went?"
"no, but he left this for you" she said as she held up an envelope with her name written on it.
Judy opened the envelope, not sure what to expect. There was a letter inside that said:
By the time your reading this, you probably know what I do at night. Who I really am. Hell, you've probably got Nick on the computer searching for the name I told you. If so, you're wasting your time. There's a picture of me in the envelope for you to scan into the system. Also, you should talk to the weasel I spared my first attack. His name is Mickey Duka. He lives on 312 Madison street, Rainforest District. Also, I hope that in time, you will understand why I'm doing this.
She finished reading the letter and pulled the picture out, pocketing it. She then took a cab to the station and saw Nick with Clawhauser at the front desk. Clawhauser began to speak and said "so Judy, we-"
"the name didn't work. He wasn't there, but he left a note saying that it was fake. He also left a photo of him to scan"
She walked over to the computer and handed Clawhauser the photo. He put in in the printer to scan it in. the printer whirred and buzzed as the photo was scanned. The photo showed up on the screen and a facial recognition commenced. The screen flashed several faces before his file opened. "Frank D. Castle?" Judy said curiously.
"it says here his family was killed when he was ten years old in central park. He was found and arrested when he was twelve for stealing food, it's suspected he was living in a dumpster somewhere. After getting out of Juvenal detention at the age of thirteen, he went back to school, excelling even. He graduated college at the age of twenty with a doctoral degree in psychology, but joined the marines instead. He fought in the Nighthowler Wars before going A-wall in enemy territory, killing all the enemies as well as two ally soldiers and hypothetically falling off the face of the earth" Nick said as he read.
"And he's showing up now"
"exactly!"
"Well," said Judy, "i have a lead on his location. In his note he said to go to a Mickey Duka's house for more info"
"it could be a trap" Nick advised.
"I don't think so. He could have killed us twice now, but didn't" she said as she left. She drove he car to Duka's house, and prepared for the worst. She pulled in the driveway to see the door standing wide open and Duka on the ground. She leaped out of the car and was hit by the odor of rotting flesh. Ignoring this, she ran to Duka's side and saw him gripping his chest, despite no fresh wounds being on it then she looked to the wall facing him and saw what had scared him. A hunk of his flesh was hung on his wall in the shape of the skull she had seen on Frank's chest the previous night . "h-h-h-he knows where I live, he'll kill me!"
"Who?" Judy asked, despite knowing the answer.
"The Punisher."