Part 2 What the Killer's Commands Meant.
-So we go over the puzzle again.
Ben and Matt gathered inside Matt's brownstone.
-Piece by piece.
Various photographs and sheets were scattered on the floor. Matt was unmasked yet wore sunglasses and a bathrobe around his costume.
"Why do you bother wearing the glasses, especially when it's just us?"
Matt felt the page. "I feel better wearing glasses when I read. Force of habit."
"We must have interviewed a million people by now and haven't come up with lead one." Ben scowled.
Matt held up the list. "Well so far we've only pursued those with religious affiliations."
"These attacks do seem religiously motivated."
"Hmm… funny you should think that. I actually saw it more as legally motivated." Matt approached the bookshelf.
Matt picked up a heft book and held it in his hands. "The Ten Commandments are in fact one of the oldest sets of written laws. Moreover they are amazingly simple covering all the basic needs for a nomadic herding society."
"Laws." Ben nodded.
"Not laws of man, Laws of god. There's a difference, but in ancient Hebrew society they fulfilled both roles."
"Damn hypocrite you ask me. Thou shalt not kill, so therefore I kill."
"I dunno." Matt paced behind Ben. "I mean, I would have busted up a gambling parlor. I have on many an occasion. Heck just last week I was involved in a fight with some bikers at a strip club."
Matt bowed his head. "I can't begin to tell you the number of people I punched out."
"Hmm…" Ben held up a picture of multiple bullets fired in a cross shaped pattern on one of the walls.
"Matt, take a look at this."
Matt rubbed his fingers along the page. "Lets check it out."
Ben and Matt drove in Ben's car.
-So I'm back in the car with Mr. tobacco smoke hurts my sinuses.
-I wonder why I put up with it.
-Then I remember I might get the inside scoop on the hottest crime story of the year.
-For all the times I wonder why I do the dangerous things I do. I always have the same answer. The scoop.
They parked the car outside the abortion clinic.
-It's so close now I can smell it.
-They stood outside the abortion clinic. Yellow police tape still surrounded the building.
-Matt can smell it too.
"The blood from last week is still in the air." Matt sniffed as he brushed aside the yellow tape.
Matt and Ben stood inside the clinic; everything was cleaned up from when the shooting had taken place,
Matt went up to the wall where the gunfire had pierced.
"Oh man can you believe they already repaired it." Ben announced
"Sloppy job. The plasterer isn't nearly smooth enough." Matt ran his hands along the wall
"You're telling me it's a sloppy job." Ben picked up a piece of drywall with jagged edges from the floor. "He left bits of plaster all over the place."
"Hmm …" said Matt as Ben handed him the piece.
"I think this is part of the old drywall." Matt felt the drywall with his palm. "One part of this is eroded away as by ultra violet light. The other side is thicker. "
"Part of this was covered over by something that protected it from the sunlight."
"A crucifix."
Matt felt at the drywall. "Yeah, yeah I guess it could be a crucifix."
Ben stared at the picture on the desk of a young woman sitting behind her desk. Behind her on the wall where the shots had been fired was a crucifix.
"Hmm…" said Matt shaking the piece of drywall in the air. "This doesn't fit."
"So what are we supposed to do if it doesn't fit counselor?"
"You should know as well as anybody that the last lesson that my old man a' taught me was that you don't a' quit."
"I thought you only traded witty repartee with villains?"
"Shooting up a crucifix doesn't sound like your run of the mill David Koresh type fanatic."
"No, it sounds more like someone with a grudge."
"Against who?"
"Against god? Against life? Against religion? It means that whoever is doing this may not be actively involved in any current radical religious movements."
"You mean we've been looking in the wrong bunch? I don't think so. These crimes, like you said, seem religiously motivated."
"Yes, I'm sure they are. We just have to trace back our steps."
Ben Ulrich ran the doorbell.
A familiar face answered the door. "Mrs. Newman." Ben announced.
"Look I don't know who you are but I didn't kill anybody."
"I know that Mrs. Newman. I'm positive of your innocence."
The woman replied earnestly. "Because I have an alibi and everything. Several in fact."
"That's ok."
"You can speak to my husband right now. He'll vouch for me right away."
"Ok, ok. I believe you all right. First off the moment people start shouting out proofs of their innocence then they genuinely tend to be innocent."
"Second, I'm a newspaper reporter. And you have an honest face."
The woman looked at him expressionlessly.
"Do you mind if I talk to you for a little while."
"What paper do you work for?"
"The Daily Bugle."
"Well come right on in." She grabbed Ben's hand and pulled him in the house.
She motioned to a nearby chair. "Take a seat. I can't tell you how much I love that paper."
Ben sat in the chair. Mrs. Newman sat across from him. Behind her hanging upsidedown in the window he could make out the red-silhouetted shape of Daredevil.
"Seems like no other paper got the guts to tell it like it is about that red suited menace."
"Daredevil?"
Daredevil frowned at Ben outside the window.
"No dummy that threat to all mankind Spiderman."
"Oh yes of course. What I really wanted to ask you was about your protesting at the clinic."
"The abortion clinic that all those people were murdered at?"
"You used to protest outside the clinic?"
"Every Thursday. Sometimes I missed a week here and there but I showed up to show my support. Then all this happened."
The woman frowned, perturbed. "Hard to believe. I tell you it's a darn senseless killing. You can't stop killing with killing. The whole thing is paradoxical."
"Go argue with crazies."
"Tell me about it. I'm religious and I go to church every week. And I did my part."
"But some of the people at the protest, every day from sunup to sundown they stood in front of that building. Almost like beggars on the street marching back and forth in front of the building. I admire their faith but some of them are pretty strange."
"There was one young man who seemed quite intelligent he stood outside that clinic for near two years strait."
"Is he still around?"
"No I haven't seen him in over a year, not at the clinics, not in church. I do remember his name. Thomas."
"Thomas?" Ben smiled eagerly.
"Yeah, he used to joke about his name. He said there was a Heretical Gospel named after him."
Ben raised an eyebrow. "Oh he did, did he?"
He leaned forward and smiled crookedly. "Tell me more…"
-I had a lead now I could smell it.
Daredevil smiled in the window.
-Again, we both could.
A few hours later.
Daredevil hopped in the Bugle office window. "I got em."
Ben turned to him anxiously.
Daredevil dropped a file folder on Ben's desk. "Everything's right there. All the info on one Thomas."
Daredevil sat on the widow ledge. "Besides protesting at two abortion clinics in the area. Thomas found time for Religious studies at Empire State University. One of their more promising students it appears. Strait A's, His professors had nothing but good things to say about him in their reports. That is until he disappeared over a year ago."
Daredevil climbed inside and pulled a photograph out of the folder. "Nobody's heard from him since. Not even his folks."
He handed the picture to Ben. "So what do you think?"
Ben examined the picture of Thomas. "He's our best bet so far."
"What makes you think it's him so much?"
Ben held up another photograph. "That quote inscribed on the wall at the first killing. Last gospel. Last verse. Well I keep getting to thinking that he's referring not to the gospel of John but to the Gnostic gospel of Thomas. I think if he meant John he simply would have written John. He wrote the commandment out plain enough."
"But why wouldn't he say Thomas if he meant Thomas. I don't see your logic."
"How many people know about that book? It's something only biblical scholars would know about for the most part. If he lets on about Thomas it lowers the amount available suspects to a small minority of people."
"Of which Thomas is one himself and he doesn't want to implicate himself."
"Now you're catching on."
Ben listened to a small television left perpetually on in the corner of the newsroom. It was turned to a 24-hour news channel. On the screen a reporter talked under the banner. "Commandment Killer strikes again." While police and firemen worked around her. Ben approached the TV. "Hold on a second this looks important."
Ben turned up the volume. The screen banner changed to NNC News Heli-cam. A helicopter showed an overhead shot of an armored prison bus. Several of the windows were shattered with spider web patterns and the windows had a distinct reddish tinge to them.
On the side of the bus was scrawled in red- Thou Shalt Not Steal.
"Prisoners being transferred met an untimely doom this afternoon when the Commandment killer struck yet again…"
Ben stared trough a pair of binoculars at the sign. The McClynich Abortion Clinic.
They sat in Ben's parked car outside the buildings parking lot. Ben held the binoculars up to his eyes.
-Matt's pretty sure that this is the target. I've learned to trust his instincts.
-About some things anyway.
Ben looked at the donut in his hand disgusted. "I can't believe you got all jelly donuts. I hate jelly donuts. I'm a newsman, give me something coated in fat and sugar."
"To go with your congested lungs? Foggy likes the jelly donuts, I just figured you know."
Ben held the binoculars up to his face again. "Never mind I think I see some action."
A man pulled into the parking lot and pulled his car right up to the door.
"Matt did you see…" Ben turned to Matt but he was no longer there.
The gunman opened the door to the clinic.
-We're all in this for our own reasons.
-For the mad the reasons beyond reason.
The masked gunman stepped inside the reception area. A couple of women turned to look up at him.
-For Matt, the reasons are really simple.
Suddenly from under his trench coat the killer pulled out two AK 47 automatic weapons. The woman looked on terrified. Several of them opened their mouths wide to scream loudly.
-It's simply a matter…
The gunman wielded the machine guns at the women.
-…Of protecting the innocent…
The gunman was suddenly knocked in the masked face by a red-gloved fist. The gunman's mask flew from his face to revel the face they had seen in the photographs of Thomas.
-…Punishing the wicked.
The nurses ran, heading out the doorway marked exit.
-Once everybody's safely out of firing range.
The woman ran outside. Panicked, they looked to Ben who waited nearby.
"Mr., Mr. There's some nut with a gun…"
Ben motioned to them. "I know, I know. Come on. Get away from there."
"Where are you?" The gunman swirled around.
The killer looked around the empty room pointing his guns at the empty air. "You think you can beat me."
He fired his guns. The bullets tore the empty room to shreds.
-The real fun begins.
The killer gazed around the empty room. He pointed his gun at the doors. "I've got the exits covered. Where the hell is he?"
Just then the wall smashed in.
The man stumbled backwards as two headlights blazed from the top of a giant snowplow, that drove threw the wall.
The killer fired his guns but the bullets simply spaked off the plow from the giant snow truck.
-He may not be bullet proof.
The headlights blazed in the face of the killer. He fired at the plow blindly as bits of the ceiling fell because of the demolished wall.
-Or even able to drive.
-Well legally anyway.
Seated behind the driver's chair with a smile on his face was Daredevil.
-But that doesn't stop the man without fear.
The gunman fell back holding his hand over his face to shield him from the glare.
He dropped one of the riffles from his hand but held on to the other one tightly.
Daredevil snarled down at him unseen.
The man fired blindly. Bullets spit from the gun. Daredevil leapt out of the way. The bullets pounded a holed pattern into the drywall.
As more bullets spat from the muzzle of the gun, one of the bullets hit a regulated compressed gas tank.
The tanks valve started into the red danger area.
-Things start to get messy.
Suddenly a red boot connected with the hand firing the gun.
-So he decides to finish it.
The gunman curled in the corner of the room holding his hands up to shield his face from the blinding headlights.
The gas tank valve needle was in the maximum red zone.
"Where the hell are you! Show your face damn it!" The gunman screamed.
"Why?" A shadowed voice asked. "Why did you do it?"
"Why? Ha, ha. Why not? Ya gotta die sometime right. It's not like life means anything. Right."
The tank exploded. Fire engulfed a corner of the room.
A shadowed voice shouted. "Look fire, man! You'll burn alive."
The gunman laughed madly among the rising flames. "Ha! You see! Providence is even in my favor. Evil burns like it should."
"Evil? You killed innocent people. You're breaking the law."
"Innocent? Don't you see? The commandments are a joke. All of life is. If we all die anyway why shouldn't we kill?"
"Thomas, laws matter."
"None of it makes any sense. If god doesn't exist why should any of his laws matter? God kills everybody. Forever." Smoke and flames enveloped the building.
"Thomas…"
"It's all for nothing. No heaven no hell." The flames grew around Thomas.
"No god and no devil. They don't exist." Sweat poured from his face from the heat of the surrounding flames.
The fully red suited Daredevil stepped into view through the rising flames.
Thomas looked scared and bit down hard on his lip. "No, no! Back devil! Oh lord, I'm sorry I was wrong. I was wrong!"
Surrounded by fire, the angry devilish figure approached the killer as he huddled in the corner terrified. "Noooo."
Daredevil stood before Thomas prepared to take him down.
Thomas stared up at Daredevil with a contorted face.
Thomas slumped and fell forward unconscious, surrounded by the flames surrounding the building. Daredevil reached out to catch Thomas.
Daredevil grabbed the slumped gunman's jaw in his hands and tried to pry them apart.
Daredevil frowned as he sniffed the unconscious man's open breath.
-As soon as he opened his jaw he smelled it. Cyanide.
Daredevil held the slumped man by the collar as he turned away from him.
-He knows right away that he needn't bother trying to revive him. That he's already dead.
-He doesn't like that. You can tell. He's had enough death. I guess we all have.
Matt looked sullen riding in the car with Ben.
Ben grabbed the steering wheel tightly with an angry frown on his face.
-Bad as Matt feels right now. I feel a lot worse.
Matt said flatly. "Well you got your story."
"My story?" Ben yelled at him angrily. "My story? Did you see how many press wagons followed the police cars to that clinic?"
Ben pulled out a cigarette. "But not me, no I'm headed away from the story cause I'm working with a goodie two shoes superhero with a secret identity to protect."
Ben popped the cigarette in his mouth. "Moreover he can't drive himself away from the scene of the crime because he's blind."
"Of all the gin joints…" Ben lit the cigarette.
"Excuse me?" Matt looked flatly over at him.
"Never mind." Ben took a huge puff off the cigarette. "Mind if I smoke."
He blew the smoke in Daredevil's face. "It doesn't bother you does it."
He grimaced as he clutched the steering wheel. "Driving away from the scoop. I can't believe it."
Matt waved the smoke away from his face. "It's journalistic integrity Ben."
"Being one of the good guys is not journalistic integrity. It's being a schmuck."
Ben looked at the press car labeled NNC news speed by on the opposite side of the road.
-There go the vultures after the dead bodies.
Ben stared in the rear view mirror and watched the press van pass.
-And truth to tell, sometimes it feels better to be a hero then to be a vulture.
"And Men do not See It." by Magnus Parvus