Orientating the Board: Advance

Sergeant Kate Riordian started. She whirled around, scanning the room, making note of the shadows and the exits.

"Sergeant?" Came a voice from the shadows. Kate instantly relaxed.

"You know… You never really told me what to call you."

"Does it matter? Look, Sergeant, I came because I needed a bit of clarification." The darkness gave up the figure as he melted out of the shadows.

"That being?"

"This," He pulled out the digitised copy of the death certificate of Carmine Falcone. "I couldn't help but notice that the signatures almost seemed too similar. Too… perfect, so to speak."

Kate raised a brow and stood, "Gimme a bit, I'll go grab the hardcopies."

The GCPD headquarters was never really quiet, full of shift staff at various points. You could never truly tell, however, who was straight or shady. Logically, she knew there were other pockets of cops who weren't on the take outside her family and the small circle she'd made with Babara and Renee, but knowing and having that faith to reach out beyond your little circle? That wasn't a risk she was willing to play.

The archives, unlike the rest of the headquarters, weren't quite as bustling. The head archivist ruled her little domain with the ferocity of a librarian too used to maintaining perfect silence. As a rule of thumb - no one wanted to try to wrest the old musty files out of her hands. It was said, the only people she tolerated were the ones that delivered new data for her 'collection'.

There were reasons why the greenhorns were the ones most sent to grab any reference material. She provided dubious mercy to the 'rookies' of her realm. At least 3 visits worth of it.

Kate took a deep breath and entered the archives.

"Officer Faron?" The dark eyes of the African-American woman flickered up to her.

"Sergeant Riordan. You messed up the filing system for the month of June 2001." She leaned back in her chair, glaring over her cat-eyed frames. "I'm surprised you didn't send me a greenie to grab whatever information you needed."

"I'm… sorry about the drawer?"

"Took me a good right unnecessary amount of time to put that thing back in order." She said as her eyes narrowed.

"I really am sorry." Kate hung her head.

"So why has the 'Cupcake with a Gun' come to me?"

"It's about the Falcone family-related murders. I just got a tip that some things might not be as it seems."

Officer Faron stood and with barely a pad of her kitten heels she swept to the drawer in question and pulled out the file.

"Better. And you'd best keep it in the order it came in."

Kate gulped, "Yes ma'am." and scurried back to her office where, hopefully, the new resident vigilante hadn't taken off.

He hadn't.

-.-.-.-

Under his mask, Dick watched as Sergeant Riordian re-entered her room, she glanced about, "You still there?"

"Yes."

She meticulously paged through the file for the death certificates, turning over the pages of paper, until she swore. "Looks like you're right - it was too perfect."

"I was wondering if we were dealing with a scanned signature printed onto the paper - I know digital signatures are rising in popularity, but I couldn't be sure."

"The City Council surrendered the official death certificates to us until the case gets closed." She turned over the paper, running a hand over the smoothness of where a pen should have pressed down, "No embedding."

-.-.-.-

"Hey."

Diana looked up from her documents to grin at Agent Trevor. "Steve! I'm sorry about the mess, I wasn't expecting anyone - I was just finishing up some proposals before the UN meets next quarter."

The blond-haired man returned her smile before he winced, "Sorry, I've got to be the tattle-tale."

"Donna?"

"She eavesdropped on a meeting between Lady Lemaris, Agent Kane of the FBI and I. The trident calling card."

Diana groaned, "So you're telling me to keep an eye out because my baby sister might just run off to a city that's still mired in crime."

"Dragging King Arthur's adopted son along for the ride, I suspect."

The Amazonian Princess huffed out a breath and dialed a number, the minute she heard the connection, she spoke, "Kal-El?"

"Your Highness?"

"Could you please put me on the line with Ms Lane?"

Steve Trevor shook his head in delight, "I can't believe that you use Superman as Ms Lane's secretary!"

"Well, I never got her number. And Kal-El said something about never letting the two of us meet because we'd inevitably accidentally take over the world or something like that." She held up a finger as she heard Lois come on the line.

Steve just chuckled and made himself comfortable on the sofa, pulling out his PDA to sort through briefings while Diana made conversation.

"Lois? Please tell me you have contacts in Gotham."

-.-.-.-

"And then, I had to give Harvey a heads up! Bruce, I thought maybe an Atlantean would try and nose around - that makes sense but no. Apparently we have a nosy all of sixteen year old Amazonian princess instead!"

"And you're telling me this because?"

"I need to vent somewhere and Clark's just been laughing at me."

"I'm still trying to get over the fact that Wonder Woman likes you enough to turn Superman into your secretary."

"It's not going to happen again, I gave her my number."

Bruce dropped his face into a palm, "You and Wonder Woman exchanged personal phone numbers. You basically have Superman on speed dial with all your exclusive interviews. What is even your life?"

"Should've joined me in journalism, cuz."

Bruce watched as Dick entered the room and raised an eyebrow at him and smiled. "You know? I think I'm good - medicine is right where I should be. I gotta go. Dick and I have our weekly Smash Bros tournament to get to." He hung up.

"Really?" Dick asked.

"Well, we do tend to do that Smash Bros battle once a week at least."

"Not the question."

"I really doubted you wanted to talk to me about what happened with Sergeant Riordian while Lois was still about. Besides - you're the one that decided to keep the circle of people in the know to family only."

Dick rolled his eyes as they made their way to the game room, "True."

"Now, tell me what you've got."

"So there's a distinct possibility that no one ever saw Carmine Falcone's cadaver. The death certificate? Forged."

"But didn't the Falcone's have an open casket funeral?" Bruce mused, "If you're trying to say that Carmine was murdered too, then the body wouldn't have looked as pristine as it did. The tabloids ran the funeral pictures and everything."

Dick winced, "That's why I was thinking… Could you 'borrow' one of those portable X-Ray machines or something? I've got another hunch."

AN: Thanks once again for reading! If you'd like to contact us via tumblr, my handle is eastoniablogs! Reviews appreciated!