Chapter Five
"Any luck yet," asked Dinah Lance, the Black Canary. She came out of her room on the top landing inside the Gotham Clock Tower, the base of operations for the Oracle. She was wearing a white bathrobe and her drying her hair with a towel. Beneath her, Barbara Gordon, the human behind the Oracle, sat staring at a computer monitor, one of many that littered the bottom floor. She looked like she hadn't moved in hours.
"Not yet," Barbara said. "Not for lack or trying. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear this woman didn't exist."
Dinah walked downstairs and stood behind the redhead, reading what was on each monitor. On one was a police report detailing the Arkham Asylum riot. On another, there were four open windows, each connected to a different news feed. On the one Barbara currently sat in front of was an autopsy report on Libby Kanly, complete with pictures. "Eww. You could have warned me."
"You could wait until I'm done," Barbara replied.
"What's the fun in that?"
"Good evening, Miss Dinah," came a well groomed voice with a clipped British accent from behind her. Dinah turned and smiled at the older gentleman in a butler's uniform. He was carrying a silver try with a sandwich and coffee on it. "If I'd known you were up, I'd have brought you something to eat as well."
"Alfred!" Dinah's smile widened. "Where did you come from, handsome?"
"With Master Bruce being away, I thought perhaps I could be of some assistance here."
"I guess it's a good thing I decided not to walk around here naked, thinking it was just us girls."
"Quite right, madam," Alfred said, unruffled. "You might have been embarrassed. Would you care for a snack? Or perhaps a late breakfast?"
"Sure. A couple of eggs and some toast would be great."
"Coming right up." He gave a slight bow and proceeded down the hall to the kitchen. After he was gone, Dinah turned back to Barbara.
"So what do we have?" she asked.
Barbara shook her head.
"Not much. I can't seem to find any record of this Kanly woman until about seventeen years ago, just before she gave birth. She suddenly appears out of nowhere with a house, a steady job and quite a bit of money in the bank. Whoever the hell she was, someone did a great job at covering her tracks. There's something familiar about her, I just can't put my finger on what it is.
"Here's what I have found. She worked at WayneTech in the securities division. I can't find an actual job description, but I don't see her name listed anywhere as a guard, so I'm figuring she must have worked in development somewhere. She makes a great salary, but has no bills to speak of. The house is paid for and all utilities are paid for each month from an outside source. Not only that, but her bank account gets an additional fifty thousand dollars a month from an undisclosed source."
"Did you follow the money?" Dinah asked.
"I tried. It just loops around on itself. Whoever did this tagged some amazing security onto it.
"Now, what else do we have? She has one child, Helena, 16, who, as you know, is currently missing. According to the reports I've intercepted, the police have done all the normal looking: her school, her known friends and regular hangouts. Unfortunately for us, they've covered almost everything Bruce gave us."
"Does that tell us anything?" Dinah pointed to the screen displaying the autopsy.
"Not much. Apparently her neck was broken by a tremendous force. She had some skin scraping under her fingernails and blood under one toenail. They're running a DNA test now to see if it matches any known felons. Maybe once that comes back we'll have an answer or two."
"And the Joker?" Dinah looked at Barbara for a reaction but there was none.
"Slim pickings there, too," Barbara said. "When the riot started at Arkham, the security detail was pulled off his hospital room to help, save for one guard. He was later found dead. He died happy, though." She punched a button and a picture appeared on the screen of a middle-aged man in a policeman's uniform slumped against a white wall, a huge, cheek-splitting grin on his face.
"So what now?" Dinah asked. Barbara used the joystick control to back up and turn her wheelchair, a parting gift from the Joker, who'd severed her spine with a bullet eight years earlier, when she fought alongside Batman as Batgirl. Now, as Oracle, she had to let someone else do the legwork. Recently, that someone had been Black Canary. The partnership had done both women more good than either would admit.
"I'm not sure," Barbara said. "For now, we have to assume that whoever killed this woman is after her daughter as well, but until we get a few more details, I don't know what else to do. Do you need to go to the club tonight?"
"No. I called Gibson and told him not to expect me. "
"Been doing that a lot recently, haven't you."
Dinah shrugged. "It's my club. If I want to be a little flighty, I can. Besides, Gibson's been doing a great job managing it. He remembers everything I tell him, down to the minutest detail. The man's mind is like a trap. I don't know how he does it."
They were interrupted by Alfred returning with a second silver tray. Dinah attacked the eggs.
"So good," she said. 'When are you and I going on a wild weekend in Hawaii, Alfred? I hear the parties get al little wild there. You, me, the surf…"
"I'm afraid it would probably be too wild, Miss Dinah," Alfred said, turning to leave. "I don't believe you'd be able to handle me."
Barbara smiled at Dinah after the older man had disappeared back into the back part of the loft. "You know you'll never get the better of him," she said.
"I know. But it fun to try."
A low beeping and a flashing red light suddenly cut through Barbara's smile.
"The Bat-Signal's been activated," she said. The two women looked out the large windows fronting the gears of the giant clock. A faint image of a giant bat could be seen floating off the clouds in the gathering dusk. "You'd better answer it."
"Me?"
"Batman said the city was ours until he got back. I think this qualifies."
"Yours," Dinah said, arms crossed. "He said the city was yours."
"Would it make you feel better to wear my old suit?"
Dinah stuck out her tongue. "It won't fit. Your legs were always too damn long for me." She threw up her hands and headed up the stairs. "All right. I'm going."
Barbara looked back at the signal sweeping back and forth across the sky.
"Watch out, dad," she said to herself. "The Black Canary coming."