Chapter 19: Fallen
"It's not like you're my boyfriend or anything. You don't have to walk me to my car," Andi mumbled. Bruce didn't answer and Andi shrugged uncomfortably. It had been a lame attempt at a joke anyways.
He led her through the labyrinth of hallways and staircases until they left the motel by the same door Andi had entered. Night had already fallen, but Andi had thought she might stay late and purposely left her car where she could get to it without passing in sight of either the streetlights or the road.
"Where did you park?" she asked absently as they crossed through the small lot.
Bruce pointed to the building in front of them. Squinting, Andi thought she could make out the shape of the Tumbler on top. "I didn't know why you'd disappeared, so I hurried," he explained.
"Oh." The silence between them stretched and stifled like a living thing. Andi scrabbled for another question before it could get too awkward. "How did you find me anyways?"
"I put a tracker on your car," Bruce said. Andi paused mid-step to stare at him and he quickly added, "before you left to stay with the Feds. I considered sending it with you when we first started planning the trap, and I never got around to disabling it once we decided not to go for that. Good thing, apparently."
"I see." Andi started walking again. Her voice was still flat, almost blank, but she kept talking anyways. It was better than thinking at least. "So how did you find me in the hotel?"
She heard the hesitation before Bruce matched her overly casual tone. Just a heartbeat too long before he answered. If Andi hadn't known him so well she would have missed it. "The only guest listed was Ivy Jensen. I told Alfred to get what he could on her while I looked for you. He found out that—"
"Ivy was the name of Pam's sister and Jensen was her mother's maiden name." Andi filled in. Her voice went from flat to just plain dead at the mention of her friend. So much for small talk.
They reached the car in silence and Andi pulled out her keys. "Well, um, thanks for walking me here."
She tried to walk towards her car door, but Bruce was square in the middle of her path and he didn't move. Andi tried again. "I'll… see you at the Manor then?"
"Andi…" Bruce's voice lost all its flippancy, "We need to talk."
She sighed. He must be thinking she was crazy or a coward, avoiding the topic like she was. "Yes we do," she agreed. "But… not here. Pam's close by, along with a whole street full of people, and I'd rather do this where we can't get interrupted."
"The Manor then?"
Andi nodded. "I'll see you there."
He still didn't move out of the way.
Andi folded her arms. "Do you need something?" Perhaps it was supposed to feel different, awkward, to argue with Bruce after all this. Strangely, though, it felt… reassuring. Despite everything trying to tear her apart, Andi was still strong enough to hold her own. That had to mean there was something left of her that hadn't been twisted and destroyed by all the craziness.
"I want to drive you home."
"What?" Of all the things Andi had expected, this wasn't it. "Why?"
"Because twenty minutes ago you were a crying wreck. You shouldn't be driving with the aftereffects of that." Bruce's tone was reasonable, but implacable. Andi tried to calculate her chances of getting past the Batman and decided that they weren't good enough to risk it. Besides, he had a point.
She climbed into the passenger seat without arguing and after a minute Bruce tapped on the window. "Pop the trunk open?"
Andi's forehead crinkled, but she did as she was asked. She heard him shove several heavy things inside, and when he finally joined her in the car he was dressed as Bruce Wayne again rather than the Batman.
"What—"
"The security guards wouldn't really know what to think if they saw the Batman driving through the Palisades would they?"
Andi felt her lips pull back. Was she actually smiling? "I suppose not."
Bruce turned the keys and then jumped as Andi's cheerful Tejano music started blaring again at full volume. She yelped and frantically punched it off.
He was staring at her, eyebrows raised. Andi felt a blush creep up her cheeks. "I… uh, I forgot I had that playing," she muttered.
He waited until he had pulled the car out into Gotham's late night traffic to pounce. "Selena Perez?" His voice was somewhere between teasing and mocking. "Really?"
"You know Selena?"
Bruce's face was perfectly straight. "Alfred listens to her."
Andi stared at him for about three seconds, then burst out laughing. Bruce tried to keep his poker face, but finally had to grin too. "Alright, I'll admit, a Latina girlfriend of mine was mildly obsessed with her."
"You recognized the song within five seconds!"
"Alright, very obsessed then."
They managed to keep banter going through most of the drive, but Andi could feel the tension thrumming in the car, vibrating as much as a second engine. Despite the fact that she was dreading the coming conversation, Andi almost felt relieved as they pulled up to the Palisades. At least she could stop pretending and face up to the issue.
"Lay back. Pretend you're either asleep or drunk." Bruce said suddenly. Andi's jaw dropped.
"Excuse me?"
"The security guard," Bruce said impatiently, "There's only one reason 'Bruce Wayne' would be driving a woman's car home at night."
Andi snorted. "Two actually. And one of them is that the security guard has become convinced I'm blackmailing you on some sort of scandalous information."
"What?"
"Well, there had to be some reason for me to be staying at your house," Andi said, "So I convinced the rent-a-cop that I had dirt on you—drug trade was what I implied—and he decided that I must be blackmailing you and am here keeping an eye on you or something like that."
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Of course you did."
They pulled through without a problem and Bruce parked the car in front of the Manor. They were both silent. Andi opened her mouth once or twice, but she shut it each time. She had been the one to kiss him. If he was going to be angry at her for it, it would be better to get it over with.
Only he didn't speak.
It was like a reverse suffocation. Andi could pull the air in, she just couldn't figure out a way to get it back out. Her breath kept catching on the words and feelings that she didn't want to admit to. It was no good. She had to exhale.
"What happened… I mean… back there… I didn't…"
Bruce turned towards her and Andi snapped her teeth together.
"Did you mean it?" he asked simply.
"I—" Andi paused. If there was ever a time to be rational, it was now. Almost clinically, she stepped back from herself, examined herself as meticulously as if her mind was the scene of a crime. Yes. Yes she had meant it. Had felt something. And there was that same something in his voice, in the way he watched her… intuitively, she knew that if she said 'yes,' he would respond in kind.
But.
But what would happen then? He would protect her. He would put her first. And that meant that she would be protected even if Leena and Pam, or maybe even Gotham itself, would suffer for it. Just like when he dove into the river after her when the Joker was still out there. He'd saved her when, rationally, he should have been focused on keeping track of the Joker. How much would she be willing to lose for him? How much could she ask him to give up? She already knew the answer.
"No," Andi heard herself say, "It was need, Bruce. Need and pain. That was all."
He didn't answer for a minute and Andi kept her face completely straight. She couldn't afford for him to see through her lies. Couldn't even afford to hope that he would.
"I understand. I just—" Bruce shook his head, obviously changed what he was going to say. "Andi, I do understand. Really. You needed me, and maybe I even needed you too a little bit. But what happened… it won't happen again. Not unless you mean it."
To her horror, Andi felt tears start to pool in her eyes. She couldn't break down. Not here, not now. Stupid, stupid hormones. She turned her head to one side so Bruce wouldn't see them.
"Thank you," she muttered, fumbling at the door handle, suddenly claustrophobic. She had to get out of here. She hated getting emotional!
"Andi…" She was already standing up, on the verge of slamming her door shut behind her, but Bruce's voice made her freeze. "If you ever do mean it… I'll be here."
"Thank you." Andi didn't know how she kept her voice so calm. It felt like there was a storm inside of her. "I should… I should go work on forensics."
Down in the caves Andi took several gulping breaths, hands on her knees as if she was about to be sick, until the unshed tears dried. Then, very calmly, she began to pull out forensic files, the tiny pieces of evidence, and let her work consume her the same way it had in that surgery, shutting out every emotion with unshakable rationality.
Something heavy and black shook Andi's shoulder, jerked her from the ferocious attention she was paying to the different dental records of the corpses at the nursing home.
"Bruce?" Andi simultaneously winced and tried to cover it. "What're you—Leena! Did they find her?"
"The hideout. Not the Joker or Leena, though. Gordon says he can give us until dawn to examine the lair before he'll have to call other people in. Are you ready to go?"
"Of course!" Andi jumped up and began pulling different items from the table. Plaster, several cameras with extra batteries and memory cards, gloves, notebooks, evidence bags… Bruce joined her and Andi started to shove the paraphernalia into his arms.
"You'll want things for examining bodies too."
Andi stared at him, panic electrifying her spine. "Not—"
"No, not your friend. Others." Clearly he either didn't know or was unwilling to say who. Not important as long as it wasn't Leena. Andi seized a portable fingerprint scanner and several thermometers, then scurried behind him to the car.
Bruce only paused to pile his share of the equipment on her lap, then started the car and sent them flying through the waterfall. For once Andi didn't care that he was speeding like a devil. Logically she had heard what he had said, that Leena wasn't there, that there was no sign of her. Logically. Her emotions, though, kept insisting that it was a lie. Leena had only been there a short time ago. Surely something about her friend would linger there if they could just reach the place fast enough. There would be some essence, some sign that she was alright.
Stop this. Andi ordered herself when she realized her breathing had already picked up with excitement. You're a scientist. Rational and calm and collected. Get a grip! She started to pack the equipment into a heavy black backpack so that she wouldn't have to take several trips lugging it all in, then shoved it onto the dash and awkwardly tried to stay in her seat while pulling on the coveralls that were required at a crime scene. Despite what those idiots in CSI: Miami did, there was simply no way you could walk around a crime scene dressed in Armani clothes, hair loose, tracking in dirt everywhere, and not contaminate everything in sight. And real forensic scientists couldn't afford Armani anyways.
Bruce pulled up in front of a long row of interconnected Costco-sized warehouses near the waterfront. The street seemed to be deserted except for Gordon, who stood right next to the doors, rubbing his upper arms as if cold and looking very uncomfortable.
His expression changed to one of relief the minute Andi stepped out. He tried to cover it by merely shaking her hand, but Andi could hear it in his voice. "Taylor! How are you? No injuries? Nothing—"
"I'm fine Commissioner." Compared to how Gordon seemed to be doing it was probably almost the truth. He always looked harried, but now his face was almost sagging with exhaustion and worry. Losing so many of his men and then having only tattered and often injured remnants to quell the worst riots Gotham had seen in years had taken quite a toll on him. Andi was going through enough trying to save two people from the Joker; she could only imagine what trying to save the entire city did to him.
Bruce joined them, stepping straight from a shadow that Andi would have sworn was empty. Both she and Gordon jumped. "Let's go."
Gordon nodded. "It's the warehouse behind me. I'm staying outside in case back up comes. Is there anything I can do from here?"
Andi tossed him a camera. "External shots of the building would be useful. Establishing shots, and then midrange ones placing the doors and such. Any signs of cars parked nearby so we can figure out what he used to leave, scuff marks of stuff being dragged in the doors—"
"Got it. I'll call you if I get anything worthwhile."
Bruce turned to head in but Andi grabbed his arm. "This is a little different from an exploded building," she told him. "For one thing, we're probably going to enter through the same exit the Joker used to leave. We can't risk destroying any traces when we walk over his path though, which means we'll have to step carefully. I should probably go in there first, with you following."
Gordon lowered the camera and gave her a flat look, but Andi ignored him and watched Bruce. Even though all she could really see of his face was his mouth and the faint glitter of his eyes, she didn't think he was thrilled with the idea either. "You promised. Leena and Pam get put first. Even if it means I'm in danger."
Very slowly, he stepped out of the way. Gordon divided his glare between the two of them. "You're just going to let her walk in there unarmed?"
"I thought you said the building was empty," Andi pointed out.
Gordon sighed so heavily that his mustache blew out slightly, but he didn't protest as Andi ducked beneath the pulled up door. The thing was massive, presumably built so different trucks and such could come in and out, but the search team had opened it to waist height only. She could only hope the discoverer had been smart enough to wear gloves and would keep their mouth shut.
"Make sure you've put on foot covers," she ordered Bruce. She had given up on trying to make him wear the proper white zip-up coveralls after touring the first two explosion sites—his armor did a decent job of keeping him from contaminating the scene anyways—but he had at least agreed to that much. "And can you pass me a flashlight and UV lamp?" The whole room was pitch dark and Andi had no idea where the light switches were. Even if she did, she would need to examine them both for traces and, with the Joker involved, any sort of sabotage. Even the smallest crime scenes took hours to analyze properly. One this size would normally take nearly an entire day with a full two teams going nonstop. And that was if they were rushing things. She had only Bruce and could only stay for another four hours. They would have to cut corners, much as Andi hated it.
He pressed a sturdy flashlight into her gloved hand and Andi flicked it on, carefully sweeping the ground in front of her for anything she could run into or step on. The whole thing was bare, unstained concrete. She pushed the orange glasses on and checked with both lights for a clear path. "Alright. Follow only in my footsteps. And don't touch anything." It was an effort to keep her voice brisk rather than a whisper. She could feel the wide, dark space stretching out around her like a field of nightmares. The Joker could be here, preparing to jump out at her. Anything could be in there, just waiting for her to walk in on it. I asked to go first, Andi reminded herself and carefully stepped forward.
Bruce followed her inside, his steps barely audible, and Andi beamed the light around. The warehouse was huge and even the strong flashlight barely reached the other end. But the first thing she was looking for—the bodies—were square in the middle of the building. Andi made a quick count. Six people. Six. That would mean there was one person from every attack except for Leena and one other… why had no hostage been taken for that one? Perhaps there was and he or she was still alive somehow. Or perhaps their body was simply somewhere else. No telling, at least not until she had done the analyses.
She took a circuitous route to the group, Bruce close on her heels. Assuming that the Joker had left right after the slaughter, he would most likely have taken the direct route out—a straight line from bodies to the door. Stepping on that trail might disrupt a trace.
"Photos first," Andi decided. "I'll take the pictures and you see if you can identify anyone without actually moving or touching the bodies. Then we'll examine the corpses themselves and, if we have time, move out in a spiral search."
Properly, the photos alone ought to have taken a couple of hours at the least in a room this big, but the equipment was good and Andi moved fast. She was midway through the establishing shots when her flashlight caught on something. Blood. Lots of it splashed around, along with a large puddle congealed into a vaguely human form. Victim was dead if this was all from one person, and they'd been left long enough for most of the blood to finish drying before slight sweep marks indicated that he or she had been dragged away. Andi crouched lower, camera snapping away, and her eyes caught on a single golden hair curling in the middle of where the head had lain.
She heard Bruce drop something behind her as she shrieked, rooted to the spot by horror and sheer panic. Her scream choked off as he grabbed her by the shoulders.
"What—"
"Blond hair—dead person—"
Andi forced herself back to coherency. Bruce would pull her out of here if she went into hysterics. She pulled loose from him and slowly leaned in to study the hair and the blood patterns. Even she was surprised by how calm her voice was. "Someone died here. Blond hair, probably female given the length. I think it might be…" She pulled out a small pair of forceps and carefully removed the hair, staring at it. Suddenly her stiffened muscles sagged in relief. "No," she managed, "No, it's not. Leena's hair is shorter. And going by the blood patterns this woman was taller than—than Leena. It just looked like it could be her for a second." She made herself stand straight again.
"We need to keep working. There's not much time."
"Yes. Yes of course." Andi's voice was still distant, mechanical almost, but she managed to turn away from the corpse to look at Bruce's shadowy figure. "Have you identified anyone yet?"
"Some. A man from Dr. Isley's lab, Alan Holdgrove. And John Martin, the missing old man from the nursing home."
Andi nodded. "Any others?"
"Not yet," Bruce took a deep breath, "But one of them is a child."
Andi's shuddered and felt her stomach clench all over again. Can't get sick at the crime scene, can't get sick here. Whatever the TV shows might depict about tough-as-nails police teams who took eviscerations and serial killings in stride, real life forensic scientists were entirely human. She already knew that she'd have nightmares about this place for months, especially if there was a dead kid.
"If you've identified as many as you can without touching them, pictures of the bodies would be best," Andi made herself take a deep breath. "Just make sure—"
"I don't touch anything. Got it." Bruce took a camera from her bag and started back towards the corpses. Andi's mind somehow restarted at the sight of them. Work to do. If she was ever going to save Leena from the same fate, she had to get back to work.
"Also, measure, sketch, and photograph all the bloodstains," she called after him. "Especially shots that show how they splashed. Then swab them for analysis and identification. With labels of where each came from!"
She found dried blood spatters in the back corner of the room that she had to analyze herself, as well as the place where the dead woman had been. By the time she had done all that and finished the larger shots it had been just over an hour.
"Are you done?" she asked quietly, coming up to Bruce. He nodded slowly.
"Let's see what we can learn."
Andi was no pathologist, but med school had taught her some things about corpses, and forensics had allowed her to pick up on other information. She bent over the first in the group—the scientist, Alan Holdgrove, Bruce whispered to her—and studied him. There was a single stab mark into his chest, whose angle and depth made her think that the blade had slid perfectly into the heart. A quick death. That much she could be grateful for at least. She carefully tried to flex the fingers. No give. Careful exploration of his other joints showed Andi that he was completely stiff.
"Alan Holdgrove. White male, aged forty-three. Rigor mortis suggests that time of death was well over twelve hours ago. Less than twenty-four," Andi whispered into a handheld voice recorder. "Have to get Gordon to give information from a coroner on when mortis starts to relax if we're going to learn more. This place doesn't have air conditioning, and with the heat that must have surrounded him all day, the rate at which his temperature would have dropped varies too much from the standard falling rate for me to ascertain time of death by measuring his current temperature. It's taken anyways, and I should be able to figure it out if I analyze it later at the lab." She turned to examine his fingers again and added, "He's got defensive wounds and the marks of a severe beating across his face and what can be seen of his body that were nevertheless already showing signs of healing. I'd estimate both are from when he got kidnapped or close to that time. No indications of whether they occurred concurrently or not. Slight burns too, probably from the explosion. No other recent injury marks are visible, though, so I am confident in identifying the single puncture wound to the chest as cause of death. Later checking of the autopsy will verify."
Bruce moved in to take shots of the half-closed scrapes on his knuckles and Andi carefully left Holdgrove's body for the next. The child. Andi had to swallow back nausea. Just imagine it's a doll. "Alright, fingerprint scans label this victim as Rudy Green, a thirteen year old African American boy who had been reported missing when the Joker blew up a playground. Like Holdgrove, there's a stab wound that slips through the ribs to his heart and time of death looks to be in the same twelve hour window. No obvious defensive wounds, but… he seems to have had a disjointed right arm or bad sprain. It's been set, but there's heavy bruising and the arm is in a sling formed from what looks like the remains of a lab coat, probably from Holdgrove." She switched off the voice recorder, carefully removed and bagged the coat, snapping pictures as she did, and examined the break itself. It was nearly a quarter of an hour since she had started before she moved to the next. They needed to hurry if they were going to be able to give even a passing search for forensic evidence besides the bodies.
"John Martin, a 72 year old white male missing from the veterans' nursing home is the next. Same probable cause of death—single stab to the chest—as Holdgrove and Green, and looks to be approximately the same time of death. No visible injuries otherwise...
"Victim identified as Oliver Saints according to missing persons list. White male, thirty-two. No bruises or signs of abuse. Same mode of death, same time. He's—according to records, he had severe Trisomy 21. Down's Syndrome." Andi's mouth twisted. Oliver's eyes were still open. Unlike the other bodies, with their blank stares, his somehow still held fear and horror. What sort of sick monster could do this? A child? An old man? A mentally ill person? That bastard will pay. She made herself keep moving.
The next corpse was worse. Andi had to take several deep breaths before she could start on the recording.
"Middle aged man without—without matches on the fingerprint scanner or missing persons. Judging by the dirt on his clothes and body he was homeless, probably taken from the attack on North City Park. Time of death is approximately the same as the others, but the method…" Running out of time. Need to say it. "…Numerous slashes through the gut, across the chest, throat, and face, including a Chelsea grin similar to the Joker's scars. Measurements and further examination by autopsy and forensics will determine if it is the same knife as the one that killed the others, if the height and angles indicate the same attacker, and exactly which wound killed him. At a guess it was one of the throat slashes. Traces of white powder on fingers suggest that he was on drugs, including possibly at the time of death." She quickly swabbed some of the crystals and took a small blood sample, then went on.
The last body in the group. There was still that woman whose body was missing too, but Andi suspected that she had been killed at a different time… there was a large space between her and this group, and from the blood splashing she had been laid out on her back rather than falling down as these others had done. It was as if the circumstances were totally different from whatever drama had gone on here yesterday, leaving yet another mystery to solve. So much that still needed doing. Looking for hair, looking for DNA on anything that might have been touched, blood samples from all the victims not just their homeless man. They hadn't even started to search those other rooms leading off of the warehouse, although as long as there weren't bodies inside, Gordon could probably keep those cordoned off until tomorrow night.
This corpse had fallen facedown and was nearly rock hard stiff. Andi needed Bruce's help to turn him over and then gasped in recognition.
Bailey.
So he had been kidnapped. And… slashes across his whole body and face. His intestines were poking out from one, like bits of blue snake, and there was a huge pool of dried blood underneath him. He had died as painfully as the homeless man. Unthinkingly, Andi reached for Bruce and clenched his hand hard in hers.
"Do you need for me to do this one?"
Andi just nodded. His son's wife was about to have his first grandchild, she remembered. Funny, the things that came to mind in cases like this. A girl. He was going to retire once she was born. The smile cut into his face seemed like a horrible mockery of the grin he hadn't been able to pull off his face the day he announced it no matter how hard he tried.
"Sergeant Paul Bailey, white male aged fifty-seven. Killed with the same methods as the unidentified homeless man—"
"Wait." Andi stared hard at the slashes, analysis somehow breaking past the numbness. "No he wasn't."
"What do you mean?" He clicked off the machine and stared at her.
"Look." Andi moved back to the homeless man and held the flashlight as if it was the knife, moving it gently an inch above his wounds. Her hands were shaking no matter what she did, but she tried to ignore them. "Alright, say this man was standing up when he was killed. It's the most likely scenario with the wound pattern. My hand would have traced like this… here… here… and so on. Right?"
"Of course."
"But… for Bailey… look." Andi returned to his body and tried to trace the cuts the same way she had done with the other man. "The slashes go in at different angles. And they're really awkward for me to make. Using my right hand. If I used my left hand, however—" she switched the hand holding the flashlight, "I could make the cuts. Easily."
"So… there were different culprits?"
"Yes. A righty and a lefty. And…" she glanced back at the other bodies, "I didn't think about it before, but judging by the angle the knife went in, I think it was the lefty who killed the others. The righty only killed the unidentified victim."
They were silent for about thirty seconds. Andi tried to think of another possible attacker, a suspect who wasn't the one her intuition suggested. The idea gathered strength in her, though, like a bolder gaining momentum as it rolled further and further down a hill.
"Which hand does the Joker use?" she finally asked in a small voice.
"The right," Bruce whispered.
"Oh no. No." It was as if water had turned dry, as if the sun gave off darkness suddenly. No. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. She would believe in a quadriplegic doing backflips and cigarettes helping the lungs before she believed this. Her traitor mouth whispered the words, however.
"Leena's left handed."
Silence.
"Oh God. Please no." Her whole body was shaking, the words barely breathed. "No. Please. Oh Leena, what have you done?"