ECCHYMOSIS
CHAPTER NINE

Downtown Island, Old Gotham, Gotham City Police Department

About an hour after the autopsy, Doctor Arkham had left—needing to attend to his hospital, he'd said. Later, Ramirez learned that one of the six missing women was alive and well. She had simply fled a troubled marriage, calling her husband from Oregon four days later. The husband hadn't bothered to cancel the missing persons report.

One woman dead, one alive, leaving five still missing.

Allen persisted throughout the day, releasing APBs and contacting relatives of the missing, hoping that Arkham was wrong: that the murder was a single isolated event. Hoping that none of the others were dead, that all five had simply run away to new lives elsewhere.

Ramirez thought his hopes were wishful thinking.

Allen told her to shove her opinions up her ass.

They were getting along great.

\~/

Approaching late day, Allen was visibly shaken. The search had begun at noon, a team of civilian volunteers and off duty cops searching along the palisades road while a team of divers searched the river. The only reason he'd been allowed the man power of the divers was because Gordon's task force didn't need them—no one was looking underwater for signs of The Joker, whose capture took priority over all else.

The afternoon's search had been hideously successful, with four more bodies recovered from the same half-mile stretch of brush below the palisades road and above the river but none from the water itself. And with four of the five missing women now found, Allen's hopes were crushed to one: a possible runaway who failed to contact home—either that or another body still awaited discovery, perhaps washed further downriver.

Ramirez didn't bother insulting him with an 'I told you so,' but Allen felt like she had all the same.

"Gunt's working on the third autopsy now," Allen informed Ramirez, having just walked back up the stairs, "but he's certain at least the first two were killed by the same butcher knife as Lauren Simmons."

"We don't need Gunt to tell us it's the same guy. The tight grouping of disposed bodies is enough." Ramirez responded. She found it was much easier to think about corpses when she wasn't in the presence of one. "What did he say about M.O.?"

"More than consistent. It's identical." Allen plopped down behind his desk, across the aisle from Ramirez.

She blinked, "Literally identical?"

Allen nodded, clenching and unclenching his jaw. "Bound and suspended in exactly the same way. Roughly the same physical type, naked, drained of blood. Needle puncture in the neck. Evidence of recreational drug use. She was deeply stabbed with underhand thrusts, exactly four times."

Removing her glasses to rub her strained eyes, Ramirez asked "What about the fifth wound?"

Allen nodded grimly, "Same shallow cut to the forehead, straight up and down. The last two have the same mark. Don't need an autopsy to see them. It's clearly his calling card."

Ramirez pressed her lips in a thin line, replacing her glasses on her face. "It's more than that."

"Yeah, profiler," he mocked with a roll of his eyes. "Like what?"

"I don't know," she admitted. It was only the small pinch in her gut that told her the wound was significant. "It's part of his ritual. Something about making that mark is significant to him, probably more significant than the stab wounds or even the blood."

"No shit. You're a real Sherlock Holmes, Ramirez," Allen remarked sarcastically. Leaning back in his chair behind his desk, he muttered offhand, "Educated fortune telling and statistical smoke and mirrors. That's all you do, isn't it?"

Taken aback, she leaned away from him in her own chair, staring across the aisle at him from her temporary desk—actually just a foldable table. Ramirez knew that Allen knew the people working in the MCU were either decorated detectives or experienced criminal profilers. Ramirez couldn't tell if Allen was just trying to piss her off or he really felt that way about criminal psychology. Nonetheless, she felt personally offended at his jabs. There weren't enough words to describe how much she wanted to hit him with a baseball bat.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Allen stated that he wanted to use the men he had at their disposal to stake out the palisades road, plainclothes officers strung along the ridge to maintain constant surveillance on the road below.

"Don't stake out the palisades," Ramirez scoffed rudely, wanting to make him feel stupid.

Allen, whose face normally rested in irritation, seemed genuine in his annoyance with her—borderline hostile. "And why the hell not?"

Defensive, Ramirez retorted, "It's a waste of your man power and resources and it's a waste of everyone's time."

"That bastard's been dumping bodies there for weeks. I'm willing to bet he'll do it again. It's basic law enforcement, Ramirez." He sneered matter-of-fact.

Ramirez ground her teeth in irritation. She wasn't a rookie and—as he looked down his nose at her and perpetuated whatever feud he was trying to start with her—Ramirez felt the desire to prove him wrong about her field. "Well if you'd studied even the smallest bit of criminal psychology, you'd know that an intelligent psychopath like this one will be watching the news, reading online articles, anything that lets him follow the investigation."

"Is there a point here," Allen patronized. She knew he knew exactly what she meant—playing stupid just because he didn't want to be wrong—and that only irked her further.

"The discovery of the first body already hit the news this morning. Even if there's another body to dump, the palisades is the last place it'll happen now and you know it. He's not stupid enough to risk going back into the area, so don't be stupid enough to place all of your men there." she insisted, rudely. For emphasis, Ramirez repeated her earlier statement, "It's a waste of your resources and it's a waste of everyone's time."

He scoffed at her and threw himself further back in his chair, nearly tipping it over—she wished he would. They fell into angry silence; Ramirez felt childish in her outburst but despite that small shame, she wasn't going to apologize.

Ramirez stressed, urging him to understand. "Instead, I recommend you release a statement to the press. Tell them we have Simmons's boyfriend in custody as a prime suspect and have some of your men answering the tip line. If he thinks someone else is getting credit for his work, he might reach out."

"Don't be stupid. The press isn't focused on us. Not while Joker's loose," Allen muttered bitterly, working his jaw and grinding his teeth. "It's the only reason no reporters showed up to the search."

Pursing her lips, she leaned forward in her seat, "Find someone, anyone, who will listen. Try the radio; Jack Ryder maybe. Joker's going to be old news quick. They'll need something else to talk about soon enough."

Allen's jaw flexed hard and they sat in silence. Ramirez really started feeling uncomfortable after he didn't speak for several minutes. Changing topic to avoid any more awkward silences, she adjusted her glasses and took three heavy breaths before speaking. "…Is there anything else from Gunt?"

His simmering anger ebbed slightly, the wrinkles of his face becoming more defined. He answered in a clipped tone. "The bodies are in various stages of decomp. Gunt estimates the oldest one is about a month old: probably the first woman reported missing. He says they were kept alive in captivity something like two to four days."

She nodded. Allen raised an eyebrow in challenge, "You find anything?"

Still wanting to be irritated at him, Ramirez thought about being difficult with her answers just to piss him off. Only the thought of the missing and dead women allowed her to fake civility for the sake of efficiency. "Forensics reported plenty of evidence but it's nothing compared to what's already been collected."

"These aren't his firsts." It was exactly what Allen feared. Ramirez shook her head, directing him to her computer.

After the discovery of the third body around mid-afternoon, Ramirez had decided to check the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. There were no significant matches in the ViCAP database at first. Nothing about the mysterious and disturbing forehead wound. Just when she was about to give up and accept that this was a brand new killer, she found a match while digging through knife related murders. Then another, and another.

The number of cases and locations seemed possible but also completely improbable, Allen said as much, but Ramirez insisted that it was the best lead they had. The two spent the sunset separately searching through the stack of possible matches until Allen got a call from a Virginia area code.

Turns out it was an analyst with the FBI's Investigations and Operations Support.

\~/

"You spoke directly to the FBI?" Came the surprised voice of Arkham from the other end of the line.

"Allen did, yes," Ramirez informed. Said detective was busy trying to get into a meeting with Commissioner Gordon but was finding it damn-near impossible.

"They're calling him 'the Butcher.'" She told the doctor, "They sent us all their casefiles, an overall summary of the previous murders, and a perpetrator profile worked up by their Behavioral Analysis Unit. They sent it all to us just ten minutes ago. We're printing the files now."

There was a long pause before Arkham spoke again, "How many other murders are there?"

Ramirez almost sighed into the phone. "It's big," she said, trying to brace him. "More than Bundy, even more than the Green River Killer."

"Tell me," Arkham said, voice low.

Ramirez lowered her head, not wanting to look at any of the Homicide detectives walking past her. "Looks like sixty-seven in four other cities, which means there's more. At least eight more victims are still missing from those four areas."

A sharp exhale of breath, followed by a breathy curse was his only response. Ramirez frowned, "Doctor? Doctor Arkham, are you alright?"

She could hear him breathing. He finally responded with a, "Christ… The most prolific serial killer in the nation and he moves to Gotham. It's unfortunately a very smart move."

Finding a specific killer in Gotham City was like finding a specific piece of hay in a giant hay stack. The Butcher's move to Gotham was probably the smartest thing he ever did to hide himself.

Ramirez's lips pulled into a thin line before she spoke. "It's practically useless but I figure the Butcher moved to Gotham anywhere from a year to five weeks ago."

"Why that large of a gap?"

She huffed, "The last known murder in the previous city, Miami, occurred a little over a year ago. I doubt he hasn't killed in the meantime but I don't have any evidence to suggest otherwise."

Catching on, the doctor finished, "And the first Gotham victim was reported missing five weeks ago."

"Right." She paused, thinking about exactly how to phrase her words. "Listen, Doctor Arkham. The FBI consultant arrives tomorrow morning from Quantico," Ramirez stated, wondering exactly how many more consultants were going to be working the damn case. "I've got a lot of work to do, so I'll be taking copies of the files home tonight. Would you mind helping me create a working profile? I could use the second perspective."

It was perhaps a bit forward to ask Arkham but she hopped he could help provide a psychological profile or at the very least, help her develop one. Obviously Allen wouldn't be supportive of such endeavors.

"I don't mind at all, Detective. Where should we meet?"

\~/

End Chapter Nine
Special thanks to Doug Moench.