The podium was empty, a lone, thin microphone standing on it. Behind it were the doors of Wayne Enterprises, the reflection of the sun off of the glass making it difficult to see through.
"We're moments away from a press statement from Wayne Enterprises," Jerri Prudence declared. "It is expected they will address the allegation against their owner, Bruce Wayne, and we at WGKX are here with twenty four hour coverage of this story.
"And as we wait, I would like to send us out to our own, Summer Gleeson, getting the feel for the streets as the city is rocked with this scandal. Summer?"
The image shifted to Summer Gleeson, standing with a microphone in front of her face, a middle-aged man in a jacket standing next to her, his hands shoved into his jacket's pockets. "I hear you, Jerri!" the reporter greeted. "The Wayne Scandal is the talk of the town and we at WGKX wanted to hear what the people had to say about it."
She then held her microphone in front of the man next to her. "The mike is yours, Good Sir."
The man looked uncomfortable, rocking back and forth on his heels as his eyes darted to look at the camera and then away and then back to the camera. "All I wanted to say is that guys like Wayne, these rich guys, they have all this money, see? And they think they can get away with anything. So we need to see this guy behind bars, to let everyone know that the system works."
"So you think Bruce Wayne is guilty?" Summer asked.
"Damn right. He's gonna try and buy the judge and the jury and probably the Mayor's office if he hasn't already. I mean, they found that girl in his office and he's the only one with the key, right? So he had to do it!"
Summer drew her microphone back. "And there were a lot more people that expressed the same view, Susna."
The image changed, showing a man in a suit. "Of course, I heard about Bruce Wayne," he said. "It shouldn't be too surprising. The guy works a high-stressed job and he hasn't been seen on the party scene in ages. You have to blow steam off in some way, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that he cracked."
The image changed again, this time showing an Hispanic woman, dark hair falling in front of her face as a little boy tugged at her arm. "It's completely horrible what he did to that woman. He needs to pay for what he did to her."
It changed again, a pair of college-aged girls bundled up. "This is a sign of the patriarchy asserting itself upon woman-kind," one of them, a brunette declared. "Just wait, we're going to be hearing that the victim was sexually assaulted soon, all because a rich white man couldn't take the word no. When are we, as a society, going to value women equally as we value men?"
"That's right!" the other girl, a blonde, agreed.
The image became a little old lady, her dark, wrinkled skin showing their years. "I don't believe a word they're saying. The police rely on Batman to do their job and until he shows up with evidence against Bruce Wayne, I won't believe a thing they say. Mr. Wayne has always been good to me and my own." She pointed down the street. "That church got a new steeple 'cause of him. He's a good man that comes from good stock, so you people need to stop dragging his name through the mud."
Again, it changed, showing a group of young men. "Naw, man, I know Bruce Wayne ain't kill no one," a boy wearing his hat backwards said. "He ain't like that, know what I'm sayin'? He's one of the good ones!"
Jerri Prudence appeared on screen, splitting it with Summer. "That was quite a variety of takes there, Summer," she commented. "I can't say I agree with them all, but they were definitely…something."
Summer was all alone on the screen, the man she was interviewing no longer visible. "The people of Gotham are certainly split," she agreed.
"Considering what we know, which is quite substantial, it doesn't look good for Bruce Wayne," Jerri said. "We'll have to wait for the fine people at the GCPD to conclude their case—and we have movement at Wayne Enterprises. It looks like they're about to make their statement."
The podium returned, one of the doors to Wayne Enterprises opened, a number of people walking out. Lucius Fox led the procession, walking right up to stand behind the podium. The other people with him stood a short distance behind, looking straight ahead.
"Thank you everyone for coming," Lucius Fox greeted. "It is with a sad and heavy heart that I have to address the allegations made against the owner and C.E.O. of Wayne Enterprises. We wish to wait for all of the facts to come to light and show us what happened that night when Vesper Fairchild was killed.
"I would also like to remind everyone that it is innocent until proven guilty. Bruce Wayne is not guilty of this heinous act until a jury convicts him of it. Until that moment, should it or should it not happen, we at Wayne Enterprises stand behind Mr. Wayne. I know that is of little comfort to the family of Ms. Fairchild and they deserve to know what happened to her, but we need to be patient and willing to hear all of the facts, not just the ones we want to hear. If true justice is to be served, that is all any of us can do."
"And now I will be taking questions."
The DA's office was usually pretty busy. It was never hectic, or chaotic, except when the latest Arkham escapee caused city-wide damage and the people were demanding for heads to roll.
For Kate Spencer, today was busy for an entirely different reason.
Because of the press coverage, the name Bruce Wayne was on everybody's lips. And because of their access to the GCPD, they knew more details than the general public did.
So here was the scoop, as per the GCPD. Wayne invited a reporter, Vesper Fairchild, to his office late at night. In fact, it was so late it was damn near early. Wayne and Fairchild got into some sort of argument that resulted in Wayne beating the hell out of Fairchild, and then he shot her dead. He then hid the murder weapon in his freaking toilet, washed up in the shower, and then went home, only to come back and act as if he were stumbling upon Fairchild's body.
Already, Kate could pick out where the defense was going to punch holes in this narrative. What sort of argument did Wayne and Fairchild have that resulted in the carnage that was left over in the office? A background check into Wayne showed that while he was a notorious womanizer, he did not have a history of violence. Now, that didn't mean he hadn't been in any violent confrontations, he just had the ability to silence people—money had a way of making that happen. The fact that the gun was registered to his father at least tied him to that, along with his prints being on it.
Though it was a little odd that the gun was found in a plastic bag…
That was a detail that tripped Kate up. Why would Wayne bother placing a gun in a bag? It made more sense for him to drop it in the tank water, if he had to absolutely stash it there, which was another odd thing to consider. He should have just taken it home with him instead. Also, his fingerprints were on it. Wouldn't he have tried to wipe them off?
And if Kate was thinking of that, whomever Wayne got as his lawyer would certainly bring that up.
There were all sorts of inconsistencies like that. Everything looked as if the crime had been one of passion, getting caught up in the heat of the moment. But then there was some forethought as to having a gun and then stashing it in the toilet.
Maybe he was planning on retrieving it when the heat died down? He just didn't plan on the police finding the gun where they did. Still, if that was the plan, he should have taken the gun home with him rather than leaving it behind. It was a dumb move.
Now, that was where Wayne's reputation as being lucky rather than competent came to play. Clearly he wasn't thinking and wanted to cover his butt. If he removed evidence of him being involved in the murder, he could get away with it. So he took a shower, probably put on a change of clothes, and then pretended that he was shocked to find Farchild in his office. That was entirely possible. And because of that, he forgot the gun.
But then there were the security cameras. They recorded presumably Wayne and Fairchild entering Wayne Tower and then they turned off. Admittingly, they first went off around Wayne's office before the rest of the building went down. That spoke to someone planning a murder and bungling it, again something that could be explained by Wayne's incompetence.
As you can see, there were some contradictions there. Either Wayne planned it and screwed the whole thing up, or he acted rashly and some things fell his way, like the security camera blackout. They were going to have to pick a story and make it rock solid.
"Attention, everyone." Kate looked up from some documents she was reviewing, seeing District Attorney Janet Van Dorn standing outside of her office. She had a severe look on her face, but then that was how she usually looked when she was being serious. "As you've probably heard, Bruce Wayne has been arrested and charged with murder.
"As you can imagine, this is a very delicate case. We have one of the most prominent members of Gotham socialites in jail. This man has connections; he has money; and you can bet he's going to fight this with every resource he has. We're going to be under the gun going forward. I intend on overseeing this case personally."
Yeah, Kate had a feeling that was how this was going to go. So far the GCPD was putting together a solid case and it was up to them to make all of their work be worth it. Van Dorn would make certain they would get a conviction. She was the top dog after all.
"Weiss!" Van Dorn suddenly boomed. Kate found herself looking to her colleague, a woman with short brown hair and a no-nonsense look on her face. "I want you at the bail hearing. I don't want Wayne leaving the city. With his money and clout, he could take off for parts unknown and we'll never see him again."
"On it," Diana Weiss replied. Diana was a good choice, Kate mused. She was a bulldog in court, and not so easily rattled either. Of course, this was also Van Dorn covering her ass if Diana didn't get bail denied. No doubt if Wayne got out, he was heading for places unknown and would never be seen in Gotham again. Van Dorn could then place the blame on Weiss for that.
"Now, it goes without saying a lot of our time and resources will be going towards the Wayne case," Van Dorn continued. "But that doesn't mean we drop everything else. Keep up on the other cases and report to me as you make progress."
Van Dorn then went back into her office, though she kept the door open. Kate just leaned back in her seat. Yeah, she had a feeling there was going to be a big focus on Wayne in the coming weeks. This just confirmed it.
No doubt she'd be drawn into the case at some point. Until then, she had other work to do, namely a crime that was flying under the radar thanks to this Wayne/Fairchild case.
This morning, Kate had overheard a story about a kidnapping. Now, while these were more frequent than she cared to admit, this one involved a man called Jeff Daniels. What attracted her attention to Mr. Daniels was the fact that he was on the parole board.
He was the latest in a line of kidnappings of people in positions of power, but didn't have the same pull as someone like the Mayor. However, someone in the Mayor's office had gone missing, an Erick Pense. His job was to keep communications open between City Hall and Blackgate.
Before him, a defense attorney had vanished into thin air. Before that, a client of that attorney with connections to the drug trade disappeared. Now that one Kate had been putting a case together when she got a tip from the GCPD that his mother was reporting him missing.
Either he had been vanished by someone in the drug trade, or he was spinning a creative story using his own family.
Regardless, this was something she felt the Birds of Prey needed to look into. If there was something malicious going on, someone needed to take care of it. After all, vigilantism needed to be handled by the professionals.
With a heavy thud, a thick folder slapped down onto Allen's desk. Staring at it, he then looked up to see Montoya staring down at him, a smirk on her face. "Christmas came early for you, Cris," she greeted him.
"What's this?" he asked, pointing at it with the pen he held in his hand.
"Those are the phone records for Ms. Vesper Fairchild," she answered him. "Complete with text messages."
The pen was dropped as Allen snatched up the record. Flipping open the folder, he saw the logo of Fairchild's phone company, followed by a list with a few columns. One column was for the date, another for if it was a text or call, another for the number that was contacting or being contacted, a name for each number, and another for the time of day."
Naturally it was organized by the most recent contact and the last one was to Bruce Wayne. According to this, it was only a couple hours before Wayne and Fairchild arrived at Wayne Enterprises.
Bingo.
Allen looked down the list, pausing when he saw the text for the time Wayne claimed he last contacted Fairchild. There were a couple other calls and texts between the two Wayne contacts. Flipping the page over, he saw more contacts. It was the same for the next few pages.
"So we have times," Allen announced, "which clears up our timeline a little more."
"Would be better if we saw the texts, right?" Montoya added.
"Undoubtedly," he agreed. Everyone had their own way of texting and whether they kept those texts. Some people didn't bother deleting them, or they deleted some, or they always cleared their history at the end of the day. It was deleting that was the issue here.
They did have Vesper's texts thanks to her phone. However, Wayne's phone showed that some weren't adding up. He claimed the last contact he had with Vesper was the rescheduling of their meeting at some fancy party, one she never showed up for. Allen had already put in a request for Wayne's phone records as well, but those had come awhile after the Fairchild request.
"Check a few more pages," Montoya urged him.
Allen gave the detective a look, seeing a teasing one on her face. Doing as she wanted, he flipped a few more pages and came to a stop.
"Well, what do we have here," he murmured. There were typed out conversations of the text chain between Fairchild and Wayne, making it look a lot like a court transcript. He was definitely going to want this compared to Fairchild's phone to make certain all of them were accounted for.
Unfortunately, the first texts were the beginning of the message chain between the two. That was alright as the ones he wanted would be at the end. So Allen began flipping through the pages until he reached the end of the text exchange. He found the one Wayne claimed was their last communication and went from there.
"'You ditched me tonight'," he read out loud. "'Sorry, something came up.' "Can you mean tonight?' 'Sure. Where?' 'I'll pick you up.' 'Can't wait.'"
"Seems pretty generic," Montoya observed.
"Each was made around 11:30," Allen mused. "Well after Wayne was last seen at that party of his. So we can make the argument that he wasn't happy about being snubbed."
"What else is there?"
Allen gave Montoya a look. "Like you haven't read this already." He then looked back at the record. "'I'm out front.' 'On my way down.' That's it."
"When were those messages made?"
"A little after midnight."
"And then they were seen entering Wayne's office around three in the morning," Montoya pointed out. "That leaves three hours unaccounted for."
"That time of night, they wouldn't have taken three hours to get from Fairchild's place to Wayne Tower. So what are we looking at? Ten? Fifteen minutes? Still leaves at least two and a half hours assuming they cruised around for a parking spot, not that they'd have a problem since the streets would be empty."
"Maybe they didn't leave immediately," Montoya suggested. "They could have gone up to Fairchild's apartment for those hours."
Allen began flipping through the pages left in the folder, grimacing when he reached the end. "Looks like we need to put in another request," he groused. "We need to see what GPS towers pinged off of either Fairchild or Wayne's phone. If they went for a nighttime drive, we'll know where they went in that three-hour period. If they stayed, then we need to do another search of Fairchild's apartment for evidence that Wayne was there."
"Or we can do both at the same time." Montoya picked up her phone. "I'll give the phone company a call if you want to send the uniforms to Fairchild's."
"Deal." Allen was picking up his own phone to get ahold of dispatch. They could re-route a couple squad cars over to Fairchild's apartment. While this wasn't the glamorous side of detective work, it was the details that helped build a case. All it took was one little weakness and it could come falling apart. Right now, there was a weakness in their timeline between midnight and three and Allen wanted to know what Wayne and Fairchild were doing in those three hours. He wanted to know if they had been drinking coffee, if they had a long, intimate talk, or if they just flat out had sex. It didn't matter so long as they could account for those three hours.
The devil was in the details after all.
The door was covered in police tape, a supposed deterrent to keep people out. For most people, they would give it a wide berth, but Batgirl was not most people.
Admittingly, she'd prefer entering the crime scene from a less obvious entrance, but all the windows were locked and reinforced—someone wanted to keep this room secured and she knew exactly who. Ventilation shafts were out of the question too. They narrowed and became too small for anyone to climb through. That left the door.
"Stay by the door," Batgirl ordered, not bothering to look over her shoulder at Bluebird and Spoiler. She didn't explain her order; she felt she didn't have to. She didn't hear a response from the girls, not even a protest from Bluebird. It was something she should have noticed, but her attention was elsewhere.
It seemed to have taken forever for nightfall to come. Once it did, she had gathered her team to come do a thorough investigation. There was something in this office that had been missed, or misinterpreted. Something, anything that could be used to prove the charges against her father wrong, she would find it.
Opening the door, she stepped through a gap in the tape and entered her father's office. It still looked ransacked, with furniture tipped over and pieces of paper scattered everywhere. Carefully, she began going through the motions, following her father's teachings. She first began with a survey of the room, making certain the cameras in her mask's lenses captured—
Movement!
A glint of light!
Dodge!
It came from her right. The tip of a sword was jabbed right for her head. Catching sight of it coming from the corner of her eye, she jerked forward, spinning her body to better face this surprise attack. Having dodged the thrust, she then saw the sword swing towards her, her attacker undeterred by her dodge.
Leaning backwards, Batgirl nearly had her upper body parallel to the floor, even as her feet stayed grounded. The sword flew over her face, missing her by a couple of inches. Flinging herself back up, her attacker continued their offensive, using the momentum they created to their advantage as they spun around, dropping to their knees as they swung the sword again, this time going low.
In response, Batgirl leaped backwards, leaning back as she flung her feet up over her head, going into a flip. She needed to put some distance between her and her attacker, the darkness of the room only aiding them.
However, she realized she made a mistake. As her feet reached their apex, her body completely upside down, Batgirl found herself floating over the chalk outline where the body had been found. Gravity was setting in and she was beginning to drop to it.
She didn't want to. Compromising a crime scene went against everything she had been taught about investigating; however, if she cracked her head open on the floor, her blood could mix with the dried blood stain on the floor. It went without saying that was a bad thing.
So she had to do what she had to do and minimize the damage to the scene she could cause. Shooting a hand down, she slapped it down on the floor, right in the middle of the chalk outline, and then used it to spring back into the air, allowing her to complete her flip as she touched back down the floor.
As her cape fell down over her shoulders, she saw her attacker holding their position. Ambient light from the windows provided some lighting, but the attacker was standing just outside of it, the darkness providing enough cover to hide their features.
But it didn't hide everything. For instance, the person was short, small, one could even say they were the size of a child. Their outfit consisted of some dark color that perfectly blended in with the dark room, but it was ruined by the white that colored their arms and shoulders.
Wait, white and dark…blue?
"Usurper!"
Goddamn it.
"Jerkface," she countered.
The form of Damian al Ghul—not Wayne—emerged into the light, showing his scowling face. "Is that really the best you've got?" he sneered.
"Would you prefer little shit instead? I'm willing to change."
The rage that erupted on the little boy's face was totally worth it. The clicking of a gun's hammer being cocked back, on the other hand…
"Children," Talia al Ghul said warningly. Batgirl tilted her head to one side and found the woman in her bodysuit, holding a gun that was pointed right at the back of her head. She should have known the boy's mother would be here as well. "This is not the place for this."
"Yeah, I agree!"
Batgirl's eyes darted towards the door and…sigh…Bluebird and Spoiler stood there, the former taking aim with her taser rifle at Damian. Though she wanted those two to stand guard, they effectively turned this into a standoff. Clearly it would increase the tension, but at the moment, Batgirl wasn't entirely unopposed to this.
Talia's face hardened. "Lower your weapon," she growled, her visible eye narrowing.
Bluebird just looked coolly back at the older woman. "Just as soon as you lower your gun. I have no problem frying your little cub here just as I know you have no problem putting a bullet in my friend's head."
"Guys?" Spoiler piped up with urgency in her voice. "I didn't think I'd have to point this out, but we're on an active crime scene. Anything we do to damage it is not a good thing."
There was silence before Talia said begrudgingly, "You are right. I will lower my side arm as long as you lower your weapon."
"On the count of three," Bluebird agreed. "One…two…three."
Both women lowered their weapons, though Batgirl didn't drop her guard. She didn't trust the al Ghuls, not after the stunts they had pulled. She did turn her body, taking a step backwards so that she could see both mother and child at the same time. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"We're looking into this so-called crime," Damian spat out, still holding his sword threateningly. "You have no right to be here."
"Pipe down, Short Stack," Bluebird interjected. "That's what we came to do too."
That wasn't a bad name, Batgirl had to admit. She wished she had come with it instead of Jerkface. Maybe she could borrow it?
"Naturally," Talia acknowledged, holding her gun at her side. "I should have known you would have shown up."
"So should I," Batgirl replied. That was meant to be earnest instead of the defensive way it came out. Say what you want about Talia and Damian, but they did care about her father, or at least had their version of caring. Slowly, she began to relax her stance, straightening out her posture. Though it was a relaxing of her guard, she made certain her cape covered her body so that she could pull out a batarang and have it ready at a moment's notice. "I do not want to fight you, not here."
"I'll fight you anywhere," Damian sneered.
"But not here," Talia reprimanded. She was shooting a reproving look at the little boy, one that made him back down, pouting somewhat. "I believe we both have the same goal, yes?"
She nodded. "We do."
"Then let us suspend our hostilities. It would be more advantageous if we shared what we have learned."
Batgirl half-expected Damian to protest, saying something along the lines of a whiny, "Motheeeeeeer," or something like that. Instead, he remained quiet, though his eyes did narrow, the only hint of his disapproval.
"We only just got here," Spoiler pointed out. "So we haven't been able to conduct any sort of investigation. Would it be safe to say you two got here first…and did do some?"
"Of course, we were here first," Damian said snidely, looking directly at the lavender-clad girl.
"That is reasonable," Talia acknowledged. Finally, she holstered her sidearm. "We hadn't been at it for long, mind you. So far, everything matches with how the police are framing this murder."
Batgirl glanced around the room. "Do you think the assault happened all around the room?"
"Do you not see this mess?" Damian interjected.
"If it was a fight between the five of us, I can see the room being as trashed as it is," she countered. "But we're talking about a woman without any known fighting skills against an unknown assailant. Unless they were literally throwing the woman around, they could have punched her, and she would have fallen to the floor."
"Interesting point," Talia acknowledged. She gazed around the room. "We know for certain the assailant broke down the bathroom door and hit this Vesper Fairchild against the mirror. I can see them dragging her out of the bathroom and throwing her across the desk, but the rest of the room? That seems overdone."
"You make it sound like Bruce Wayne didn't do this," Bluebird remarked. "How certain are you that he didn't?"
For once, Batgirl found herself looking to the al Ghuls, the two of them sharing the same look as she was. "Believe me, Bruce Wayne would not strike another person without good reason," Talia eventually answered.
"Define good reason," Spoiler said.
Talia leaned forward. Though there was a sizeable distance between her and the other two girls, the dark look on her face made up for it. "I know Bruce Wayne better than you. When I say good reason, I mean it."
It was a tactic right out of Batman's book and Talia used it effectively. Batgirl had seen the man lean forward just like that, admittedly closer to the person, and "lay down the law," as the saying went. She had to remember that neither Bluebird or Spoiler knew what she and the al Ghuls knew, so they were working at a disadvantage.
So she turned away and began doing a search of the room. There had been a lot of police here, so nothing would be how it had been found. Still, she had to look, see if there was anything that had been missed.
Surprisingly, the others remained silent as she did her search. She did as she had been taught, making certain she got a recording of the entire room before she began physically searching. She moved the furniture to get a complete view of them. She checked the scattered papers, making sure she knew what was on them, or what was beneath them. She even checked the chalk outline, mindful to examine it for any disturbance she caused when she flipped over it.
"What do you make of this?" Talia asked after awhile.
"Nothing that the police haven't already reported," she replied begrudgingly. "They did a thorough job."
"For once, yes," the dark-haired woman agreed.
Batgirl looked to the bathroom. Even from where she stood, she could see the damaged door frame. "They found the gun in the bathroom, right?"
"That's right," Bluebird responded. "It was a gun belonging to Thomas Wayne."
Batgirl nodded. She couldn't see her father ever willingly owning a gun, purchasing one or otherwise. So an heirloom passed down from his parents made sense. However, she didn't recall any of the guns that were kept at Wayne Manor being taken to the penthouse they were living in…
She wasn't going to get much more out of this office, but she had a feeling she would learn more back home.
"I need to go to Wayne Manor," she announced.
"And why do you feel the need to go there?" Talia asked.
"The gun used would have been kept there. It turned up here. So whoever killed Fairchild would have gotten it from there."
"Like Bruce Wayne," Bluebird added.
The dark-clad girl gave her a look. "Wayne Manor was damaged recently. There are currently construction crews trying to rebuild it."
"And anyone of them, or someone disguised as them could have taken the gun," Talia finished for her. "Good thinking. I'm assuming you want to follow the lead personally?"
"I'll be going there now," she told her. She considered her next words carefully. "Is it safe for me to say you want to do everything you can to help him?"
"Of course."
"I know we…don't get along well…but I am willing…to be helpful to you if you are to me." God, those words felt like something dying on her tongue. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.
"I am willing to let bygones be bygones," Talia replied evenly. "If there is one thing we both share, it is that we care for this man. Neither I or Damian will hinder you so long as you do not hinder us."
Batgirl didn't want to think what the al Ghuls would do with their own investigation. It couldn't be anything good, in her opinion. "You know his rules, yes?"
The corner of Talia's mouth twitched up. "I do and we will obey them."
That would have to do for now. "Then I will try to keep you informed of what I find out." She then turned to leave the office, heading towards Bluebird and Spoiler.
Incidentally, they brought her by Damian. "Usurper," he bade her farewell.
"Jerkface," she immediately responded back.
Damn it, she completely missed the chance to call him Short Stack.
