AN: It seems I pulled a muscle in my back when I went tubing this weekend, so I've been forced to "take it easy" which is Kaila-speak for: "you can chill at the computer as long as you're propped up with a couple pillows."
Clink. Victor grumbled unhappily and stared at the keys in defiance. Juggling a hot coffee and three stacks of reports, the thirty year-old dropped to the cement steps of the precinct to retrieve the slippery objects. Down the street, Gotham National Bank's sign read that it was two degrees below freezing and as the red numbers burned into his retinas, Victor once again threatened to kick Marty's ass for making him come in so early, on a Monday morning no less.
The only people awake at four in the morning were taxi drivers and the blindly drunks hitching a ride home in said taxis. Finally, he unlocked the door and felt around in the dark for the light switch, groping anything that came between his hands and the switch. Pausing momentarily to try and adjust his vision to the sheer darkness, an unfamiliar smell wafted into his nostrils and he gagged at the burnt scent.
"I told the captain the heating was acting up but no, no one believes the tech-" Clink. Clunksplish. Fwap. Each of the items in his possession landed on the floor. The last of the old fluorescent bulbs kicked in and shone hauntingly over the foreign object that had caught Victor's attention. "Holy mother of God." The frightened man breathed out, not being able to do much more than stare.
In the middle of the precinct's lobby sat a charred corpse, its hands and feet bound with what Victor assumed to be zip-ties. The plastic was still bubbling into the burnt flesh of the victim. He edged forward, closer to the form, and made out a pristinely clean red bow tied around the torso. To complete the macabre picture, a smoldering arrow protruded from the head and on the floor beside the body was a copy of Robin Hood, wrapped in a similar red bow.
A long whistle sounded from behind Victor and he spun, facing the coroner.
"Mel? What are you doing here?" A manila envelope was shoved in his face before she began inspecting the body as closely as she could without destroying any evidence.
"Copy of the latest lab tests Rich wanted. Who is this?"
"You're worried about who? I'm trying to figure out how he got in here!" He watched as Melinda examined the body intently.
"Hmm… male, late twenties to early thirties," The coroner snapped on a pair of gloves and began searching through the pockets, "Call Dick and tell him what we've got. I'm going to call CSU and have them sweep the place, although this crime scene is severely contaminated with everyone's fingerprints." Victor nodded and faced away from the scene.
Several miles away, Dick woke to his phone and groaned, untangling his arms from around Kory's waist and stumbling to the noise.
"Whoever this is…" He fought back a yawn to continue the threat, "I'm going to chop off your-"
"Dick, we… we've kinda got a situation."
"What kind of situation?"
"A Christmas present-"
"You called me at four in the morning to discuss a Christmas present for your girlfriend?" The detective sat down on his coffee table, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Down the main hallway, a soft moan was heard and before he could usher Kory back to bed, Victor continued.
"There's a burned body at the precinct, complete with a red bow. That's not the worst part, though. It's a present from the Felon."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. The corpse came with its own fairytale- Robin Hood." Someone mumbled in the background and the tech manager added, "Yeah, and an arrow through the skull."
"Jesus Christ, Vic! Do you know who it is?" Melinda resumed her search of the body and came up with a wallet and set of keys.
"Driver's license says Weston Redd," Victor relayed the information, "Do we know this guy?"
"Yeah," Dick sighed and kept his eyes on Kory as she strolled down the hallway in his robe, "We know him."
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By the time he threw on his clothes and arrived at work, the crime scene unit had already collected what they needed.
"You said you know him?"
"This is Kory's ex-boyfriend. She was going to put a restraining order on him, but…."
"Looks like she won't need to anymore." Brandon concluded the conversation and backed off at the glare he received from the detective.
"Well, as far as I can tell right now, he was dragged in here sometime between two and four this morning. The killer had him at another location- where he was set on fire ante mortem and then the arrow was shoved into his cranium," Melinda motioned to the blackened arrow, "Near the parietal lobe post mortem. I put time of death around one-thirty."
"This isn't right, Mel," Dick picked up the Robin Hood storybook , sealed inside an evidence bag, "The Felon was supposed to only kill women. Why would he change his M.O. this late in the game?"
"You told us Saturday that you think the next victim will be Kory, so it's got to be the connection there. And if the killer is keeping tabs on her, then he must have run into Redd along the way."
"Run a search for him through the database and figure out where he lives." Victor rushed to the nearest computer and read off the address. "Soames, you're with me." The eager liaison followed the detective out of the precinct and onto the bustling streets of Gotham City.
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"Did you get word about the book?"
"The one at the crime scene? Yeah, Dick, I was there." Brandon snorted off-handedly, filtering through a stack of notes on Redd's kitchen table. Giving up on any vital information remaining in the kitchen, he moved on to a spare room.
"No. I'm talking about the fairytale one. It has the same lineup of the murders. Kory and I were scouring the Internet last night to make sure."
"Kory? Man, you know we're not supposed to talk about open cases." Dick swallowed back the irritation he felt towards the young agent.
"The next victim is Ariel. The last victim was Kory's friend. I'm hoping that our guess is wrong, but if it is, I want to catch this maniac before he strikes again." Brandon didn't respond and Dick reveled in the silence- that was why he always went back to the crime scene when it was quiet. Thinking and forming hypotheses was easier when there weren't tons of investigators bustling around him. "Why Robin Hood?" Brandon entered the living room to meet his partner.
"There's nothing in the kitchen or second bedroom."
"Why did the Felon pick Robin Hood?"
"…Cause it's a little more masculine than Snow White?"
"No, no. The Felon doesn't pick out stories at random. If he picked Robin Hood for Redd, there must be some similarity between the two."
"Let's see… Robin stole from the rich and gave to the poor. He-"
"He was a hero," Dick felt the neurons in his brain firing up, "If the killer knew that Redd was trying to be a hero, then Redd must have known about the killer and was going to tell Kory. But why didn't he contact Kory?"
"You said that she wanted a restraining order on him, so I doubt he had her phone number."
"You're right. So… what next?"
"Twitter?" Dick snapped his fingers and rushed over to the open laptop on the sofa. Bringing the device out of sleep mode, he was pleased to find that Redd wasn't extremely paranoid and hadn't thought of securing his computer with a password. In a minute, the detective was on the victim's e-mail account, surfing to find a clue of some kind. He clicked on the outbox and was pleased to see Kory's e-mail as one of the recipients.
Kory,
I know that you don't trust me, but as I've been watching over you, so has another. After the party, I noticed a dark-colored sedan following you. I tailed it and I think whoever it was caught onto my actions because they sped away before I could catch a license plate. I will continue to look out for you, cutie, even if you're being led astray by that cop. I will not fail you this time.
-Wes
"Who freaking talks like that?" Dick turned in his seat to eye his companion.
"Who talks like they're still in grade school?" To prove Dick's statement, Brandon stuck out his tongue.
"Anyway, this shows that the Felon at least acknowledged Redd.
"And it clarifies another: the Felon is definitely after Kory."
"What are you going to do about it?" The detective sighed dejectedly.
"She'll be staying at my apartment for now until we catch this guy." Brandon simply nodded, showing he understood, and watched silently as the usually collected Dick Grayson stalked out of the house, barking orders to bring the laptop.
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"So he killed Wes?" Kory nodded sadly and continued rummaging through her drawers.
"When?"
"Yesterday. Victor found him in the precinct."
"How?"
"Richard said the killer picked the lock. It is a very old building and the last structural update was over fifteen years ago."
"No, Kory- how did he… die?" Rachel's hesitation wasn't missed by Kory and it struck her that the "demon" as they called her often was shocked by the events, as well.
"The coroner said he was burned alive." She clenched her shaking hands into fists, hoping to rid them of the annoying movement.
"Oh, Kory, I- I'm sorry."
"Do not tell me, tell Weston's family. How will they cope knowing that I was the reason for his death?"
"Honestly, it wasn't like he was Nelson Mandela. Maybe it's best that he was-"
"Burned alive!" Kory exclaimed and tossed the suitcase against the open door, cracking it in the process, "Rachel, he may have been a terrible soul, but no one deserves to die the way he did. I brought his torture upon him!" The distraught redhead collapsed onto her bedroom floor, grabbing the comforter for support. Rachel tiptoed close and placed her arms around Kory's shoulders.
"I didn't mean it like that."
"I know." Kory hiccupped and leaned against her friend. "I am sorry I threw the suitcase."
"Come on," Rachel smiled softly, "Let's finish packing so we can get you to work- which I'm surprised Dick is letting you do."
"I managed to convince him last night." Kory waggled her eyebrows seductively before bursting out into laughter.
"Too much information. Let's get you out of here before you try to convince me." Moving to the front door, t he blinking red light of the answering machine caught Kory's attention. Curious, she pressed the button and it played the only remaining message. "What is that?" Both women surrounded the machine, straining as the little tune continued. It ended suddenly and the machine's automated voice kicked in. Before Rachel could begin to reason it was a wrong number- a creep one, at that, Kory yanked her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed.
"Richard? I received a strange message on my answering machine. I- I do not know how to describe it besides… some type of music." Nodding, she placed the phone near the machine and played the message once more. "Is it- yes, I see. Call into work? Why- does this mean it will happen soon? So the others received this too? All right, Richard, please calm down. I will call in and Rachel will drive me back to your apartment." Hearing this, the raven-haired woman rose and grabbed the suitcase Kory had packed. "Yes, I will grab the machine and take it with me. All right, goodbye."
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"The call came from a payphone in Dale City, Virginia."
"What about the others?"
"The first three came from Gotham, Bludhaven, and Metropolis, but both Cahaya's and Kory's came from Dale City. All were received a day before the murder."
"Which means he's going to go for Kory today," Dick gripped the marker in his hand so tightly, the plastic cracked along the edges, "So he started out here in Gotham but panicked, so he went down and called from a different location." Dick wrote all of this information down on the white board; the only sounds audible were the squeaks of the Expo marker. In a bright red, he circled the last two calls and scribbled a massive question mark beside it. "But why Dale City? Why drive all the way down there?" Victor moved forward and examined the board along with Dick.
"Maybe that's where he lives. Maybe he worked in reverse- he started calling where the murders occurred. The fourth time, though, he was on a tight schedule, so he was forced to call from his original location."
"So if Dale City is where he lives, the guy must not have a job if he has to make all these trips back and forth or…" The marker in Dick's hand dangled precariously above the floor, "…has one that forces him to."
"You're not saying that-"
"It makes sense, though, Vic. The smartest criminals are normally government officials. He would know how to keep the place clean. He has access to the entire system, where he could pull names and addresses, phone numbers just like rabbits out of a hat. It has to be him… where's Soames?" Victor pointed to the schedule hanging on the far wall.
"Off duty today."
"Shit." Dick grabbed the keys off his desk and headed for the stairs, "Call up the squad and tell them to head for my apartment. And tell 'em to step on it!"
AN: It's shorter than the previous chapters, but trust me: if I had cut off where I wanted to, you would have sent me cyber grenades.
The next chapter is written and only has to be edited and typed out.
Chapter Nine: "Running Up that Hill" by Placebo