"I just got the lab report on the Jones case," Dominic Stone announces as he walks into the office he shares with Chief Inspector Eric Finch.
"Good," the older man sighs while Dominic drops the report in front of him. "Maybe now we'll get some answers."
"I doubt it," Dominic cautions as he plops down into his desk chair. "The blood under Jones's body was his, but the trail of blood that leads up to his body and that's on the sofa isn't. Since Jones was military his wife's blood is on record along with her finger prints. That being said, the blood found on the floor and sofa is not his wife's."
"Then the blood must be the murderer's," Finch concludes.
"You'd think so," Dominic cautions. "Now here's where it gets weird, hair samples we got out of the wife's brush matches the DNA in the blood. Fingerprints lifted from the house consist of Jones, the twins and an unknown party."
"The murderer's?" Finch asks hopefully.
"I don't think so," Dominic answers. "The boys said that the man who kidnapped their mother was big, about six feet tall and he was wearing gloves. The prints that were lifted are either those of a woman or a child that stands about five and a half feet tall. Plus, these prints were found all over the house in every room including the attic. I ran the unknown prints through the computer and it come up empty. Who ever left those prints, was never fingerprinted."
"But everyone has to be fingerprinted once they turn a year old," Finch mutters, his mind trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.
"I know," Dominic replies. "So either this person fell through the cracks somehow or…"
"Or they're not from England," Finch finishes leaning back in his chair as Dominic nods his agreement.
Both men sit there trying to figure out what this new evidence means. After a few minutes, Finch sighs in disgust and turns back to the papers he was going through before Dominic had come in. The papers came from Jones' safe and have the usual items in it: last will and testament, passports, other sensitive material and the strangest piece of paper of all.
"This is interesting," Finch muses.
"What is?" Dominic asks, looking up from his work.
"He owns a horse," Finch answers, staring at the piece of paper in his hand. "A nine year old brood mare named Audrey Meadows."
"The military life must be paying him well," Dominic states. "Horses are bloody well expensive animals to keep. Not to mention all of the restrictions on them. More bother than their worth, if you ask me."
"Something's not right," Finch mumbles.
"What's not right?" Dominic inquires.
"I'm not sure," Finch replies as he suddenly stands up and grabs his coat. "I want to go look at the house again. Come on."
After enduring about a half hour of Dominic's driving, they arrive at the scene of the crime. They identify themselves to the officer stationed there and go inside. Finch goes into the house and immediately heads for the room Jones was murdered in.
Instead of looking at the blood on the floor and sofa or the slit in the wall where it's possible a knife was stabbed into it or the ding in the chrome trim around the fireplace where it's likely the bullet ricocheted off of or even the bloody 'V' on the carpet made by the murder weapon being laid there, he looks at the shelves of knick-knacks and pictures on one side of the room. Dominic looks around and sees the burnt out candles, an ice bucket filled with water with an unopened bottle of champagne in it and a pair of champagne flutes. He wanders into the master bedroom and finds more burnt out candles in there as well as the master bathroom.
"Curious isn't it?" Finch asks quietly nearly scaring Dominic right out of his socks.
"What? The candles?" Dominic counter questions.
"Yeah, the wife and kids are going to her sister's for the weekend," Finch points out. "Yet he's here lighting candles and chilling champagne."
"A mistress," Dominic puts in, his eyes lighting up. "Maybe it's her blood on the sofa and the hair brush was hers, not the wife's."
"Could be," Finch mutters. "But something's still not right."
"Which would be?" Dominic prompts.
"Well, for one thing, where is she?" Finch questions. "She was shot and bleeding, yet her blood is only found in the family room, no where else and we would have been informed if someone had gone to the hospital with a gunshot wound. We haven't found the bullet so it must be in her. Where did she go?"
"Yeah, that is strange," Dominic replies, sighing with a bit of frustration.
"Then there's the matter of the horse," Finch continues.
"What about it?" Dominic asks.
"Do you see anything around here that says that there's a horse lover in the house?" Finch inquires and Dominic looks around the bedroom. "There are no pictures, no horse statues, nothing. My sister loved horses when she was a kid and there were horses everywhere in her room. Yet here, there's nothing."
"Maybe it was an investment or a gift," Dominic suggests.
"Then who did he give it to?" Finch questions. "And if he's using the animal to breed, where is it? When we get back, I want you to find that horse."
"Yes, sir," Dominic answers as they head for the door a feeling of dread coming over him.
Somewhere deep below the streets of London a man wearing all black and a Guy Fawks mask sits and watches a monitor. Out of the dozens of monitors, only this one has the sound turned up. V watches the two detectives as they go through the Jones' house and discuss their plans as they look for any clues. Eventually they leave and after he's sure they're gone, he gets up, glad that he put the motion sensor on the camera to let him know when someone is in the house.
As he returns to the main area of his home, he mulls over what little he's learned. A horse is a very interesting thing for a military man to own, especially since he barely ever had time for his family. Very interesting indeed.
On the way back to his room he looks in on his 'guest.' It took him the better part of a day to mostly clean out this storage room and turn it into a bedroom. The furniture doesn't exactly match, but it serves its function. A full sized bed takes up a portion of the floor, though the books still in here are by far taking up most of the floor space. A dressing mirror and chest are next to the bed while a floor lamp and an overhead light fixture give the room its light.
He looks at the figure in the bed and she's curled up in a ball with her back to the door. By the slow steady breathing he can tell she's asleep again. He's surprised by how much she sleeps, but he supposes her body must need it in order to heal. Stepping around the end of the bed to look at her face he can see that she's cried herself to sleep again.
He's not sure why this is. He's saved her from the Fingerman and a husband that beat her within an inch of her life almost every day. She should be grateful for being rescued, not being so melodramatic. With a frustrated puff of air, he wishes she'd just tell him what's wrong, but he can't seem to get more than two or three words in a row out of her.
But staring at her will not answer his questions and there is work to be done. He flicks off the lights on the way out and leaves the door ajar to allow some light in as he exits. Maybe tomorrow he'll finally get a name out of her.
A couple days later, Finch comes into the office to find that Dominic got in before him, a bit of a surprise, but not completely unheard of. As Finch shrugs out of his jacket, Dominic hangs up the phone he had been talking on and turns to his superior.
"Well, I've checked with every stable within a twenty mile radius of London," Dominic starts without even so much as a 'hello.' "Not a one of them has a brood mare stabled there named Audrey Meadows."
"Hmm, maybe he did give the horse away," Finch ponders as he sits down in his seat. "But why hold onto the ownership papers?"
"Maybe the horse died?" Dominic suggests.
"Maybe," Finch muses. "But something tells me there's more to this horse than meets the eye."
"Like what?" Dominic asks.
"I'm not sure," Finch answers. "It's just a feeling."
Dominic says nothing, but he knows that sometimes the old man's feelings are better than any evidence that can be dug up by normal means.
"Has the Finger gotten back to us on whether or not the house was monitored?" Finch asks, startling Dominic out of his reverie.
"No, but I doubt they'd tell us if they did," Dominic answers.
"That's true," Finch sighs and they sit in silence for several long moments. "Do you think the boys told us everything?"
"I'm not sure, but they did seem a bit jumpy," Dominic replies as he picks up the phone. "Of course that could be that they'd just seen their mother kidnapped and were the ones that found their father's body."
"I think I'd like to talk to them again," Finch states as he leans back in his chair. "I want you to go through the registry of horse breeders and see if you can find where that horse came from."
"Why the concern for the horse?" Dominic asks, already sick of the animal.
"I don't know, I just feel like it's important," Finch answers. "Get started on that. I'm going to call the aunt and arrange an interview with those boys again."
The following afternoon finds Finch standing in the Jones's family room. He stands there staring at the blood stains on the floor and sofa hoping for some inspiration. Dominic walks in and waits for the older man to acknowledge him.
"Find anything?" Finch asks wearily, not bothering to turn around.
"Nothing," Dominic answers. "I've checked every record of every horse born in the past ten years in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. There are no records of a filly by the name of Audrey Meadows. I did a search on the name too and all I came up with is an American actress that died in 1996."
"Another dead end," Finch sighs. "I just came from talking to the kids."
"Any luck there?" Dominic asks.
"A bit," Finch replies as he finally turns around. "Did you get a list of people who might want to see Jones dead?"
"Yeah, but I don't think we can interview them all," Dominic responds.
"Why not?" Finch questions.
"Let's just say if we brought them all in for questioning, they'd have to form a double line around the block," Dominic replies. "Jones wasn't exactly Mr. Popular."
"Not even with his own family," Finch mutters. "According to the boys, Jones beat their mother on a regular basis. They said she tried to hide it from them, but they knew. He beat his wife, cheated on her and now I've got to try and find his murderer and bring him to justice. Seems like I should be giving the guy a medal, not a pair of handcuffs."
"So what do we do now?" Dominic inquires.
"Well, lets look at what we know," Finch answers after a few seconds. "First, he beats his wife and then sends her and the kids off to her sister's for the weekend. Once they're gone, he starts getting things ready for his mistress. Part way to her sister's house, Georgia finds she's left her handbag at home, something that seems to happen on a regular basis according to the kids. Now at some point a man gets into the house, possibly the husband of the mistress. There's no sign of forced entry so either the guy is a professional thief or he was let in. Georgia returns and she comes back into the house and finds Jones, the husband and the mistress in the family room. There's a struggle between Jones and the husband, Jones fires his gun, but it's deflected by the fire poker the husband has causing the shot to go wild and the mistress gets hit by the bullet. Then the husband stabs Jones and kidnaps Georgia, nearly running the boys down as he escapes."
"But what happened to the mistress?" Dominic asks. "And why kidnap Georgia?"
"Damn good questions," Finch replies. "According to the boys, they heard the gunshot, got out of the car and ran for the front door. They found it locked so they tried to get their mother to answer it by banging on it for a minute. When that failed, they went around back where they meet up with a man all in black carrying their mother wrapped up in some black blanket. It's dark out so they don't get a clear look at his face, though they're pretty sure he was wearing some type of mask."
"Maybe the mistress escaped out the front while everyone else was in the back," Dominic suggests.
"Then she would have had to lock the door behind her," Finch states. "After giving chase to the kidnapper, they lose him, come back to the house and find their father. A minute later the police show up because one of the neighbors called saying she heard gunshots. When the boys opened the front door, it was still locked."
"Window?" Dominic guesses.
"They were all shut as tight as a drum," Finch sighs. "I'm stumped."
"What about the horse?" Dominic asks.
"I'm not sure," Finch mutters. "But I have a feeling that somehow, someway, they're all connected."
Dominic holds his peace as Finch gives the room one last look, then with a nod of the head, he leaves the house. Dominic trails along behind him wondering what could possibly be going through his bosses mind. The door is shut and the house is left in silence once more.
V watches the monitor for a minute more to be sure that the detectives have truly gone. Something about this Inspector Finch has grabbed the vigilante's attention. He's not sure how just yet, but Finch may be useful in the coming year and a half.
With a graceful ease that would make a cat look like a klutz, V rises from his chair and heads for his new guest bedroom, his cloak gently billowing behind him. For a change, she's awake, though she's lying on her side with her back to the door, she's propped up on one elbow as she reads a book. She turns enough to look at him from the corner of her eye before she bows her head down and casts her gaze to the foot of the bed.
"How are you feeling?" V asks.
"Fine, thank you," she replies in a voice that's barely above a whisper.
"Are you hungry?" he questions stepping further into the room.
"No," she whispers this time as she can feel her heart race.
"I must beg your pardon," he states. "I'm afraid that with your injury and illness that I have been totally remiss in introducing myself."
"That's ok," she mumbles.
"Voilà!" he nearly yells causing her to jump as he matches body moves to his words. "In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition." He pauses for effect as the lady's jaw hangs open. "The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."
Upon the completion of his soliloquy, he takes a deep bow. She stares at him with wide eyes for at least thirty seconds before her brain can work her mouth and she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
"You've been practicin' that for a long time, haven't you?"
She suddenly realizes what she's done and blushes furiously as she quickly looks down at the floor. He chuckles at her remark, glad to have finally gotten more than only a few words out of her. He steps up the bed and then with a flip of his cloak, he perches on the edge of the mattress.
"Now, who, may I ask, do I have the pleasure of speaking too?" he inquires with a tilt of his head.
"Georgia," she automatically answers and starts trembling again.
"Is it now?" he says, making it more statement than question as he tilts his head further.
"Yes," she hisses, blinking furiously to try and stop the tears.
"Very well then," he states, quickly realizing that pressing the issue will only upset her more. "Is there anything you need?"
"No," she breathes as she shakes her head.
"If you need anything, I will be in the kitchen," he states as he stands up. "Don't hesitate to seek me out if you change your mind."
With a swish of his cloak, he's out the door. Once she's sure he's gone, she lets the tears come and soaks her pillow once more. Despite her efforts, the sound easily carries down the hall to his ears. Perplexed, he listens for a moment before he lets out a frustrated puff of air and continues his journey.
Author's note: Feed the muse, leave a review.