Chapter Nine:…Pants No Longer on Fire

I sat in the interrogation room quietly for nearly an hour before officer Reagan came back. She looked slightly less annoyed than before, but her miffed glare remained. "Well" she said, sitting down, "you were right about the answer to the riddle."

"So, what did he say?"

"He confirmed Mr. Peabody's story." Reagan sat forward, looking me directly in the eyes "so I don't think he'll mind if you tell me the truth now."

"Okay, it's true!" I blurted out, "I did tailor the Riddler's suit, but I swear I didn't know who I was making it for at the time!"

Reagan nodded, "go on."

I gulped, there was no going back now.

"When I was leaving for my lunch break a few days ago, Mr. Peabody got a telephone call. He asked me if I could sew a suit from scratch and told me that a friend of his wanted a suit in unusual colors. I said I would try, so he gave me his friend's measurements, sent me out to buy some fabric and after lunch I got to work. Three days later he came to pick it up, I didn't know who I was making the suit for until then!" I could feel my eyes welling up with frustrated tears "he accepted the suit and, before he paid for it, asked me a riddle; the answer was 'a coffin.' He told me that if I told anyone what had happened, that's where he'd put me!" I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, "so, I didn't tell anyone, but Mr. Peabody did. He invited me to go to this party with him, to meet with his associates and it turned out he had told them. I suddenly felt ill, so I left in a cab. It turned out he had hijacked the cab and…well, you know what happened next."

"Would you please explain again? For the recording?"

I spent the next thirty minutes retelling the whole debacle to Officer Reagan, who stared at me with a vague, disinterested expression. "Thank you Miss Valens" she said when I had finally finished, "that was very informative." She had obviously heard the whole story before. "Thank you for your assistance, Miss Valens, if we need any more information we'll call you." I hurriedly got up and rushed towards the door, she stopped me, "don't leave town, got it?" I nodded quickly and rushed out the door.

As soon as I was outside I rushed to one of the payphones outside the police station. I loaded some coins into the mechanism and called the Ridgewood.

"Ridgewood hotel, my name is Victoria, how may I help you?"

"Vikki? It's Sarah. When's your shift over? We need to talk."

"…And that's how it happened!"

We sat on the curb near the Ridgewood, I had fessed up and told Vikki everything that had happened, it was a relief to finally tell her, but I still felt terrible.

Vikki sat in silence for a moment, a vague expression of disappointment and worry on her face.

"Vikki, I'm so sorry I couldn't tell you…" I began, but she cut me off.

"No, no!" She said, "Don't say it, please." She looked at me with a hard look in her eyes, "it's Gotham; I understand why you didn't tell me." From the way she spat out the last few words, I could tell she was still angry though.

I rocked on my heels, staring down at the street, I finally muttered. "Okay."

This seemed to frustrate Vikki even more, "why didn't you call the police!?" She finally demanded,

"Police in Gotham!?" I exclaimed, "They're a complete joke! We would have been as good as dead!"

"Then you should have told me!" She shouted,

"You're just looking for a fight now-"

"We would have left town, we'd be miles away from here, safe!"

"Oh right, where would we go!? East Gotham?! We don't own a car!"

"CUMMINGS!" A voice shouted, the back door burst open and bony, baggy eyed woman stared out, "lunch break ended five minutes ago! Get your skinny ass in here!"

Under normal circumstances I would have burst out laughing, but not now.

Vikki looked at me uncertainly, "we'll talk about this later."

"Okay" I said before she followed the grumpy woman into the Ridgewood, slamming the door behind her.

When I reached the apartment I knew I had a long afternoon ahead of me. I had made a long mental checklist of things to do once I got home, it went like this;

Check every nook and cranny of the apartment for any type of bug, microphone, or anything else that looked suspicious

Think of a way to make amends with Vikki

Call Mr. Peabody and quit my job, assuming that was at all necessary,

Buy a new padlock for the door

Check the help wanted ads

I quickly began step one. I scaled the walls of my apartment, searching every loose piece of wall paper for anything out of the ordinary, I then checked under the couch cushions and under the mattresses; nothing. Finally I checked the electronics, I took a screwdriver and was about to unscrew the nails in the telephone when I realized that I didn't know how to put it back together afterwards. I groaned and put the phone back down, deciding I'd hire an electrician later.

I paced around for nearly twenty minutes thinking about how I could make it up to Vikki, but I knew it was useless. Vikki wasn't the type of person who you could give a bouquet of flowers to and all would be forgiven; the only way to make it up to her was to show that you had changed or at least learned your lesson. This was possible but it would take time.

After coming to that less-than-satisfactory conclusion I picked up the phone and dialed Mr. Peabody's home. It rang three times before a shrill female voice shouted "WHAT!?"

I nearly jumped when I heard Dahlia scream like that, "Dahlia?"

"Yes?!" She snapped,

"…It's Sarah Valens…"

"Sarah, honey!" She cried, bawling into the phone "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine, are you okay?"

"No!" She sobbed,

"What happened?"

"You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"It's Roscoe!" She said, biting back her tears "I woke up this morning and…he's gone!"

"Gone?"

"Gone!" She sobbed before letting out a loud wail. "He didn't even pack a bag, I checked! All of his things are still here! Except for his car, that's gone."

"No note?"

"No!"

Skipped town in a hurry, I thought. "Have you filed a missing person's report?

"Why bother? If he wanted to skip town he doesn't want to be found! He's left me Sarah, what am I going to do!?"

I couldn't think of any good way to console her, I had never been good with that kind of thing. Maybe he was running from one of the rogues he's upset. Needless to say this would not make her feel any better. "Okay, Dahlia, listen to me…" her wailing gradually reduced to a quiet sniffle.

"If Mr. Peabody was dumb enough to leave a smart, fun-loving, beautiful woman like you, then he's not good enough for you," I said this very carefully, trying not to make things worse, "I'm not going to lie to you, this is going to sting for a few days, but…then one day you'll wake up and realize you're better off without…" Dahlia hadn't started wailing again, so I wasn't completely screwing it up, "I know its cold comfort, but there it is…"

Dahlia sniffled for a moment and finally said, "Thanks Sarah…"

"Anytime."

"Hey, do you want to come over for dinner tonight? This big house gets so lonely with no one else in it."

I really didn't want to spend any more time with Dahlia than I needed to, but I did feel really sorry for her… "Maybe not tonight, I'm really busy…"

"Tomorrow?"

"How about uh…Thursday!" The doorbell rang, "just a second!" I shouted at the door.

"I have to go, how about we go out to lunch at Giuseppe's on Thursday?" The doorbell rang again, twice.

"Eeew, that place? Their food is so greasy…"

The doorbell rang, four times in rapid succession.

"Sarah!" A voice cried out through the lock, "open this door, I can hear you in there!"

Vikki, "Hang on a second Vikki, I'm on the phone!"

"Now Sarah, it can't wait!"

"…the Rivera at 2:00 tomorrow?"

"Yeah sure, bye!" I quickly shouted before hanging up.

I raced to the door and opened it, "Sarah!" Vikki shouted, bursting into the room with a small stack of papers in her hands.

"Vikki, what happened to your house key?" I asked incredulously.

"I lost it" she said, slamming the stack of what appeared to envelopes onto the kitchen counter.

"Again?" I exclaimed walking over to her.

"Yes, but that's not important." She rifled through the letters, and handed me one. "This is."

I took it from her cautiously, "you came home in a fit just to deliver the mail?"

"No!" She groaned, "Look it over!"

The front side had my name and apartment number on it; perfectly normal aside from the fact that there was no return address. "Hand delivered…" I muttered, I turned the envelope over in my hands and raised an eyebrow. There was a wax seal on it, but it had been broken. I looked at Vikki with disgust, "you opened my letter?"

"Trust me, you won't be too upset once you read it."

I gave a slight grunt and removed the page from the envelope. The message was written in magazine clippings.

"What the hell…?" I muttered, reading it over.

Dear Miss Valens

Congratulations on your latest business deal my dear, I am impressed with your work. I have a job offer for you, and, for your own good, I suggest you accept it. I am a fairly new rogue in this fine city and I require a disguise for my work. After hearing about your success with Eddie of course I was drawn to you. Getting your address was easy enough, I just had to nicely ask your old employer. I am willing to pay a handsome sum for your work, provided your work pleases me. If it doesn't however, don't say you weren't warned. Enclosed are my measurements and a description of what I request. I expect my order in two weeks. I look forward to meeting you.

Sincerely,

The Court Jester

Court Jester? I thought, just a rip off of the Joker…

I looked at his measurements and description. What he essentially wanted me to make was a pair of yellow pantaloons, a yellow shirt, a ruff, a jester's hat and a pair of pointy-toed shoes.

Vikki raced to the closet and threw a blue duffel bag in front of me. "We're getting out of here!" She stuffed a raincoat into the bag. "Maybe you are, I can't leave town, remember!?"

"We're not leaving town!" Vikki groaned, "We're going to a hotel! That way, people can't find us as easily."

"We should call the police…"

"Police?! Are you kidding? You yourself said they were a joke!"

"They are, but so is this guy!" I shouted, waving the letter in front of her, "listen, we'll go to the hotel, then we'll call the police, deal?"

"Yeah, sure, okay!" Grunted Vikki, "Now come on, let's go!"