It was 11pm, and most of Gotham had headed home for the night, driven by the comfort of warm foods, warm beds and warm arms of loving family. Jim Gordon, unfortunately, hadn't been so lucky...
His work wasn't even half done yet...
Striding through to the vault of the bank, Jim frowned as he opened the manila file he held in his hand, perusing the contents; 2 polaroid photographs, the paperwork for the 120 million that had been filed out of the three accounts, and more photographs; this time of the faces that had appeared on the security camera footage at the time of the assault.
Nodding to the young officer to stand down as he approached the vault door, Jim inclined his head slightly as he slid in through the still ajar vault door, his dark coat flapping slightly due to the sudden movement.
Phirelli and Bruce's P.I were inside the vault, like they had been all day, checking every single square inch of the place in case of evidence of what had happened. Nothing had been turned up besides the playing card and the statuette, and Gordon frowned. 25 years in the police force and he hadn't ever seen a criminal be this thorough...it worried him.
"Making progress?" Gordon asked idly as he entered the vault, seeing both members of the team sweeping separate ultra violet scanners over the floor.
"Sort of" Simon responded, placing the blue light down and walking over to a marked point of concrete. "Theres a large burn mark here...almost as if they set off some form of napalm in the centre...which is what it sort of turned out to be..." she held a test tube of calcified scratching in front of her
"What is that?" Gordon asked naively. He'd been a detective, not a scene investigator.
"What they used..." Simon replied, twirling the test tube over between his long finers with a rakish smile "it's a 20/20/40/20 combination of ammonia nitrate, ethanol, kerosene and acetone, very flammable stuff that can all be gained fairly easily. Looks like our villain has a bit of a pyro streak in him..."
"Why are you down here anyway?" The other investigator, the one Bruce Wayne had called in specifically for the job piped up from the corner
"I wanted to stop by for a chat" Gordon said, shrugging
"Thanks, but we've got things handled around here" she replied "and I thought you wanted things done as quickly as possible...?"
"I brought the evidence..." Gordon said as he set the folder down on an unoccupied table, his eyes peering over his glasses almost as if he hadn't heard the question.
"Thanks" Huntress responded sardonically as she turned her back to the wall, viewing Gordon with a sarcastic look "But I brought them in, remember?"
"I wasn't talking to you" Gordon smiled and nodded behind the Huntress, a faint smile apparent on his lips...
Huntress turned, a rebuttal apparent on her lips when she jumped, shocked as her eyes met something other than the wall...tracing upwards past the heavily segmented Kevlar plates and up to the heavy black cowl. It was only then that the slack jawed Huntress realised that Gordon had been intending for a chat with the Batman.
Batman shouldered his way past Huntress with a gentle push as he crossed over the floor, his signature cloak no longer trailing behind him in an effort to preserve the scene.
"Detectives, if you will..." Gordon said calmly. The tone of his voice, however, brooked no argument; Huntress and Phirelli exited the word with not a sound. Batman scowled as Gordon checked the door to ensure they were out of earshot entirely, his gaze switching back to pick up the folder when he was assured they were. "I presume you got my message" extracting photos and looking at them in the light briefly before putting them away just as quickly, his back turned to the Batman. "Dent was right...You are a hard man to reach..."
"How did you know how to contact me?" Batman asked implacably in his gruff tone, Gordon turned and looked over his shoulder, finally turning completely to see the other man eye to eye before he shrugged, looking away slightly as if in thought as he talked
"I figured you'd be in contact with at least someone from the Citizens for Batman group..." Gordon shrugged again and smiled inwardly "Turns out I must be right..."
"and the case?" Batman asked, inclining his head at the folder, Gordon withdrew the photos and handed them over. After all, what did he need them for anyway?
"We have two on this. One's our Joker character, except from the second photo, he may have picked up a groupie or something. Armed Robbery..." Jim began reading "killed 5 people, including 2 off duty cops which were almost definitely working with him..." Batman merely looked at the photos, keeping an impassive tone the entire time "number two, however, is something completely different...its an Isis statuette..."
"Bast" Batman corrected, his gaze flicking over the photograph of the obsidian cat
"Well a Bast statuette then...appears our criminal has a fetish for cats. Know anything about a Catwoman of late?" Jim asked sardonically as he flicked through to another paper in the folder...his gaze occupied by the numbers...
"Oh and did you want to know what accounts were stolen from?" Jim asked, his gaze still idling over the bank statement "20 million from the Gotham Police Force, 50 Million from the Harvey Dent Fund for Law Scholarships and..." Jim looked up...
The Batman was gone...
"...50 million from Bruce Waynes corporate account..." Jim finished his sentence uneasily before he swallowed, talking to the darkness in Batman's absence as he looked up the ceiling nervously. "...and just for the record fact I hate it when you do that..."
