1. Next plot arc in the series. Oh boy!
2. Er... mild gore warning.
3. Mostly fact-finding and exposition type stuff... about what you'd expect.
-----
June 24th, 6:45 P.M.
Gotham Central – Major Crimes Unit
Squad Commander’s Office
For twelve hours out of every twenty-four hour period, the “Squad Commander’s Office” belonged to Captain Maggie Sawyer. For the other twelve, it was Lieutenant Simon Probson, head of the MCU Night Shift, who sat behind that desk.
Currently, it was “The Probe” planted in that seat. “I don’t mind telling you, Kell,” he said. “If I had my way, you’d be on personal time for a few weeks… but you’ve got the Commissioner backing you on this, so you’ve got the case.”
“Good. Who am I partnering with?”
“Figured I’d have you and Anomen Delryn working together this time out; he’s had a lot of experience liaisoning with the Feds, which should come in handy. And since Crowe’s out sick, I can put Patton and Anchev together on the Firebug case.”
“Firebug? I thought that one got tossed on the back burner weeks ago. No leads…”
“It did. Then today’s paper came out…” The Lieutenant had a folded up newspaper sitting on the corner of his desk. He pushed it across to Enara.
The morning edition of the Gotham Gazette had the words “FIREBUG IS BACK” printed in big, bold letters across its front page. Along with the text of the article itself were several blurry photos taken from rooftops all across the city. The shadowy figure that was the focus of those pictures was dressed in some kind of silvery-colored costume, complete with what looked to be wings attached to his back, but that was about all one could make out from the extremely poor-quality photographs.
Enara shook her head. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”
“In this town? Better believe it.” The Probe nodded toward her hands. “Healing ok?”
“A little sore, but yeah.”
“I really do wish you’d take some time off, Detective… losing a partner, it-“
“I know… I just need to do this one case, and then I will, Lieutenant. I mean it.”
-----
MCU Squadroom
Delryn, Patton, and Anchev were all waiting by the water cooler when Enara stepped out through the door of Probson’s office and shut it behind her. The three detectives looked up at her as she approached, not saying a word until Enara nodded at Anomen. “So, you got the word?”
“Just before you did.” He drained the paper cup he was holding, flipped it into the trash bin next to the far wall, and then reached for his suit jacket, which was draped over the back of a nearby chair. “Ready to go?”
“Think so,” she said, fishing around in her pocket for her car keys. “The Lieutenant said the Feebs are holding a copy of the file for us at the scene.”
He smirked. “Try not to actually call them that when we get there, all right?”
-----
Interstate 95
Mile 46 Overpass
The crime scene photo of the area where the body had been found was blurry – probably a combination of bad film and bad lighting. In the center of the frame, lying on her left side, curled up into a little ball, was Bonnie Lewis. Her hands and ankles had been bound with strips of fabric ripped from the lower cuffs of her torn blue jeans. Her powder-blue T-shirt was covered in blood and grime; some of that blood had smeared across her wrists and face. More blood matted her light-blonde hair to her head.
“I should’ve come straight out here last night when they found her,” Enara said, flipping through the set of crime scene photos she held in her hands. “Damn Feds… I can’t tell jack from these pictures.”
“We can go back to Central and watch the crime scene video,” Anomen suggested.
“Later.”
He looked over her shoulders at the pictures the FBI agents had taken of the crime scene. The actual body had long since been taken away, and the entire area cordoned off with yellow police tape. “You and Marael were working this as a kidnapping, right?”
Enara nodded. “Yeah, word came in last Friday night. Bonnie Lewis, age fourteen, disappeared on the way home from a babysitting gig the night before. Halfway through the next day, her Dad gets faxed a ransom note… kidnappers want half a million dollars if he wants to see his daughter again…”
“What happened after that?”
“After that? Nothing.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing?’”
Enara scratched the back of her neck. “I mean, ‘nothing.’ They never made contact again.” She knelt down in the dirt near where the girl’s corpse had been, as if looking for something the CSI unit had missed. “Who found the body?” she asked Anomen.
He flipped through the file. “Says here that she was found by two teenagers. They were apparently using the sewer system as a shortcut to the wharf.” He reached out and pointed to something on one of the photos Enara was holding. “Probably came out of that drainage pipe right there… saw the body right in front of them.” He frowned, a frown that quickly turned into an angry scowl as he turned over the possibilities in his head. “What do you think? The kidnappers kill her by accident and leave the body behind? Seems like something people willing to abduct a child would do…”
“Maybe… but even if they killed her, you’d think they’d still try and make a play for the ransom money, anyway.”
“Hmmm. I see your point. Were you and Khalid able to gather any information on the fax transmission itself?”
“No. It was sent from an online fax server. We had the Computer Lab work their mojo, but they were never able to trace it beyond the fake E-mail address used to set up the account.” She grimaced. “Gotta love the Information SuperHighway.”
“So… what now? Did you learn anything here?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I guess I just wanted to get a look at the scene… see if it meant anything. Seems like it’s just an out of the way spot, like a million others in the city…”
“So you don’t believe there’s any significance as to the area they left the body in?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “That’s speculation, though, and it’s not really helping us at the moment. Let’s go see the M.E. Get some facts…”
-----
Kane County Morgue
“… And finally, here’s what did it… you can see it pretty clearly. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”
Enara tried hard not to wince as the Medical Examiner pulled back the white sheet covering Bonnie Lewis and began to relay all the information he’d managed to gather regarding her murder. Next to her, Detective Delryn’s expression had gone dour. “Any ideas what she was hit with?” he asked.
“Something metallic, hard… not sure what, but we pulled a couple of microscopic fragments out of her scalp and sent them for analysis. Whatever it was, the edge was rounded.”
Anomen stroked his lightly bearded chin – a gesture that was always associated with him thinking. “Is there any chance she fell?” he inquired. “Perhaps hit her head on an engine block or something similar?”
Bill Rourke shook his head. “No, the angle is wrong… unless she was doing a back flip at the time. This was definitely a deliberate attack. My best guess is that you’re looking for someone strong, somewhere between five and six feet tall…”
“Between five and six feet? That’s a pretty sizable chunk of Gotham’s populace, Bill. Can you narrow it down a little more?” Enara asked, trying to pry more information out of this source.
“Sorry, but that’s the best I can do because of the angle of the blow and the extensive damage to the area.”
Enara stifled a curse. The key to any investigation was information, and she had precious little of it. While she certainly would have liked more, she couldn’t blame Bill Rourke for not being able to come up with it. The man was doing his best with a difficult situation, and she couldn’t fault him for that. “Okay. You got a time of death, at least?”
He nodded and began typing on the computer keyboard in its drawer underneath his desk. “Actually, yes, that I do have. I just got the report from Entomology,” he said, bringing up the file details on his screen. “Based on the growth cycle of the fly larvae found on the body, we’re looking at somewhere between 10:00 P.M. on Thursday, and noon, last Friday, the 16th… unless the body was kept in airtight storage first, then it’s anybody’s guess.”
She looked at him, her expression registering mild to moderate confusion. “You had to use bugs to fix a time? Is… is that accurate?”
“Very,” He held up a small specimen jar full of live, wriggling insects. “These little flesh-eaters are almost as good as a time-stamp, Enara.”
The three occupants of the room sat in silence for about a minute after that. Rourke had gone back to work, looking through the microscope at a handful of slides he had stashed in a tray over on the side of his desk. Anomen was busy flipping through the printed copies of the M.E.’s findings, while Enara simply stared blankly at the opposite wall. She was the first to break the silence. “So… you, uh… talk to Jaheira today?”
“Yes. She’s taking a week off.”
“A week’s not exactly a lot of time.”
“You want to try telling her not to come back to work?”
“Heh,” she replied, though it was almost more of a declarative statement than an actual laugh. “I think I’ll pass.”
Delryn looked up from the papers clumped together in his hand. He flipped back and forth between the first five or so pages, as if cross-checking something. “Enara?”
“What is it, Anomen?”
“You said the father got the ransom note that Friday afternoon, correct?”
“Right. What about it?”
“We may have a small problem there, then…”
-----
Squad Commander’s Office
Lieutenant Probson had spent the last five minutes reviewing the documents Kell and Delryn had laid out in front of him, and he still hadn’t caught on to what they were getting at. He frowned, raised his coffee cup to his lips, and took a long pull, all the while mentally cursing his growing caffeine dependency. “I’m not following. What does all of that mean?”
Anomen took the lead in answering. “It seems likely that she was already dead before her father received the ransom fax transmission.”
The Lieutenant took another sip. He nodded his head in understanding. “Which suggests that the fax was just a diversion… a red herring to throw us off in the wrong direction.”
“Yes, sir. Especially since they never attempted to follow up the initial fax with the details for the money transfer.”
“All right,” Probson said. “I buy that. But if we’re not dealing with a kidnapping here, what are we dealing with? A crime of passion, maybe? Something along those lines?”
Enara shrugged. “We’re still not sure, Lieutenant. Bill Rourke down at the morgue ran the autopsy… said he didn’t detect any signs of rape, thank God. Right now, it just looks like someone killed her and dumped the body. Unfortunately, that still leaves us pretty much at Square One… and without any solid leads.”
“Any chance that the father sent this ransom note himself?”
“I guess it’s possible, but my gut feeling says ‘no’… still I’m thinking we should have another meeting with Bonnie’s parents tomorrow. If this was a murder from the start, we need to look at her personal life harder.”
“All right, Detectives, keep me posted…”
