The GCPD was on the scene nearly two hours later. Every part of the house was blocked off, and a small group of police had to shout to keep the morbidly curious crowd away from the scene.
Batgirl had been inside the child’s room long before the officers arrived. She crouched now in the shadows outside the window, watching the investigation while she still had the cover of darkness.
That morning, Renee had needed to grit her teeth and physically restrain herself from leaping back into the investigation the way she’d been taught to. Every ounce of her had been screaming the lessons she’d learned in police training—Don’t touch anything, photograph everything, find the trail, catch the bastard as quick as you can.
She had already broken most of the rules. She didn’t know what it was, exactly, but she and the rest of the Bats had some kind of sense for where trouble was going to show up. Thanks to that, Renee had been the first officer on the crime scene. She had taken no pictures. She had actually walked on the scene, stepping over the still body of a little boy. It had taken all she had to fight the impulse to call for back-up and document every near-invisible bloodstain and bit of fabric.
She’d lost the impulse to throw up or scream within her first month as a Gotham City Police Officer.
On the outside, this one looked like a typical Gotham crime. Sad, shocking, media fodder yes, but fairly standard. But in Gotham City, no crime is ever typical. It hadn’t taken long for Renee to learn that on the force, and the knowledge was even more vital now.
Two officers that Renee didn’t recognize walked carefully into the room, taking great pains not to disturb any part of the scene
.
“Good God...” one breathed, clenching his fist and turning away.
“Get used to it, rookie.” Renee nodded to herself as she recognized the voice. He was well-respected veteran with the police, who she knew by reputation if not by sight. “You can’t handle it, you’re not gonna last long in Gotham.”
“I can handle it, sir. It’s just...okay. I’m good now.” Renee almost chuckled at the greenish tint in the rookie’s skin. “What do we know so far?”
The older cop chewed furiously on a piece of gum, as a substitute for his usual cigarette. “Well, the dad calls us at 7 am, says he got up and went to wake the kid when he found this. Claims he didn’t hear so much as a peep from Junior all night.”
“He heard nothing? From all this?”
“That’s the story, anyway. Naturally, they’re questioning him down at the station. But you know the drill, it’s our job to figure out exactly what happened here, as quick as we can.”
“Right.” The rookie nodded. Renee watched closely while the two officers searched the room, taking samples and talking quietly to each other. They came up with nothing that Renee hadn’t—until the younger one finally pulled back the covers on the bed.
“Sir!” The older officer hurried to the bedside at the shout, and ran a hand through his peppered hair.
“I wish I could say this was brand new,” he sighed.
“It’s not?”
“Well, the bird maybe. But not the mark.” Renee’s stomach flipped. She listened hard for the next words as the cop called into his walkie-talkie. “Commish? We’ve got more here than we thought.”
0-0-0-0-0
“Who the hell does that? He just left this bloody, dead bird on the bed—his
bed, Babs!”
“Renee, what is with you? You just told me the other day how you worked on that first Joker case, and that was ten times worse.”
“I know. I know. But I was an officer then...God, I don’t know. But I mean, how long were you in this job before you got one of the psychos?”
“Week and a half,” replied Barbara Gordon evenly. The two girls were stretched out on the couch in Barbara’s apartment. Renee had changed into street clothes since her investigation that morning, but there were still traces around her eyes of the dark make-up she used under her mask. Barbara sat with a blanket across her legs, wheelchair waiting nearby.
“Fine, brag about it. But I just get the feeling this whole thing is too much for the PD.”
“That’s what we’re here for. Backtrack a little, though. What kind of bird?”
“Like I know? It was blue. Little. I’m no bird-watcher, I don’t know what it was.”
“Hm.” Barbara put a hand to her chin, bright orange hair falling around her face. “I’d say Penguin maybe, but he’s not dumb enough to try something like this while he’s running for office. Not that he ever stooped that low anyway.. Good call though, on the mark. It’s definitely a sign that this is bigger than your standard petty criminal.”
Renee took a deep breath to calm herself. “So what’s the next step?”
“Same as it was when you were with the fuzz.”
“The fuzz?” Even in her state, Renee cracked a smile.
Barbara only shrugged. “Too many movies, what can I say. But seriously. First step if you don’t have any leads—which we don’t—is look at the victim. I doubt the kid has too many real enemies, but the father might.”
“What about the father?”
“What about the father?”
“He’s the prime suspect as far as the PD is concerned. Do you think he did it?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re not this difficult when Batman asks you a question.”
Barbara grinned. “Okay, fine. But really, do you think it was the father?”
Renee thought for a minute. “No,” she decided finally. “I got a look at him when they were taking him out to the car. It’d be too hard to fake being that upset. And the bird wouldn’t make any sense.”
“I agree.” Barbara stretched her arms over her head and sighed. “Like I said, then. Look at the victim. You should see if Dad will let you look at the case file. You never know, it might work.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Renee glanced at her watch and stood, grabbing her jacket from the back of the couch. “Might as well go now, while they still let visitors in.”
“See ya, then. You understand if I don’t walk you out.” With a sad sort of smile, Barbara indicated the blanket over her legs.
Renee nodded, and let herself out the door.
0-0-0-0-0
“But why not?”
“Renee, you know that I can’t let you do that. It’s against policy.”
“But Ji—but Commissioner, please, can’t I just take one look?”
Renee grabbed on to James Gordon’s shirt sleeve as she chased him through the halls of police headquarters. Her dark hair was disheveled and escaping from the elastic holding it back, and she looked up pleadingly at her old boss, hoping it would give her the extra edge. “Please, Jim? I just want to look at one thing. It’ll take two minutes.”
“I’m sorry, Renee! I can’t let you.” Jim took a deep breath and sighed, turning around to face Renee. “And I don’t have time for you to be hanging around here waiting.” The two of them were closer friends than perhaps they should have been—even after Renee had left the police force, she and Jim had seen a lot of each other through Barbara. The commissioner had always admired the girl’s tenacity, and the sheer courage that she’d always displayed in a dangerous crime scene. But even so...
“Jim, please, I just need one look, I think I can help you with the Dublin case!”
“You aren’t an officer anymore, Montoya!” Renee stopped her pleas instantly. She wasn’t about to make Jim Gordon any angrier once he got serious. “It isn’t your problem. Now go home.”
Dejected, with her hands in her pockets and a frustrated frown on her face, Renee turned and walked away.
“Renee!”
She looked back as soon as she heard Jim calling her name.
He rifled through his pocket as he made his way back along the hallway, knocking into a junior officer in his way. When he reached Renee, he passed a small bit of paper into her hand and didn’t look at her as he spoke. “If you can figure this out...well, we could use the help.”
Renee let herself smile and nod, and slipped the photograph into her jacket pocket.
It was a photo of a small, blue bird with its throat slit, lying on top of a little boy’s sheets.
0-0-0-0-0
Hours later, Renee’s head dropped down onto her chest under the cold blue glow of a computer screen in a dark room. She didn’t pick it back up until her dozing was interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone.
She snapped her head up to attention and grabbed the phone. “Yes, hello?”
“Mockingbird.”
“Huh? Hold on, Babs.” Renee put the receiver down on her desk and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She lifted up her head again to look at the computer; a youth with a dangerous look in his eyes snarled back at her. “What was that?”
“A mockingbird, in the picture. Which I’ll be giving back to you in the morning, by the way,” Barbara added, “No reason for Dad to know I’m on his case.”
“So what’s a mockingbird mean?”
“I don’t know yet. What’d you find out?”
Renee clicked the mouse and recited back what she had read that night. “Victim Paul Dublin, typical 5-year-old. Due to start kindergarten in September. Whoever the guy was, it wasn’t the kid he wanted to hurt,” she added cryptically. It happened all too often in this world; an innocent victim used as a tool to hurt someone else.
“So what about the father?”
“Alexander Dublin, 31. Shady record—he’s never been found guilty of anything, but this file is littered with arrests and charges. Five robberies, vandalism, one really suspicious case where a little girl died. All with the same small gang of friends, it looks like. But no convictions.”
“Right, like that means anything. What’s happened to him since?”
“Looks like he settled down about five years ago. Got a house, had the kid.”
“Where’s the mother?”
“Left a while ago. The police aren't even looking at her. Last heard, she was in Spain living la vida loca.”
“So keep looking at the father,” said Babs. “You didn’t have any trouble getting into my network, right?”
“None at all. Thanks for it.”
“Bet you wish you had it back with the boys in blue, huh?”
Renee smiled to herself. It was true; Barbara’s computer skills would have been an amazing asset when she was a cop. It was pretty darn useful these days as well, and a huge step up from Renee’s standard computer network. “You bet. I’ll keep on looking for enemies. With this kind of a record he’s bound to have some. In the meantime, if you can figure out what a dead mockingbird means—“
“—you’ll be the first to know,” finished Barbara. “Look, get some sleep, Renee. I’ll take over for now.”
“Don’t bother, I’m on a coffee high, I’ll be up for hours still.”
Well, I will be soon, thought Renee, although she wished secretly for her soft, warm bed.
“Then take that coffee high and get on the streets,” Barbara insisted. “Until we figure this all out, we can’t afford to let you take the night off.”
“Alright, fine. I’ll go out, you do my homework.”
“I’ll call you if anything comes up.” A click and a dial tone; Barbara had hung up.
Renee turned off her computer, and the room went even darker. With only the faint orange glow of a streetlight outside to see by, Renee began to get ready.
Her costume looked simple, but it wasn’t. Once it was on, it was nearly impossible to tell where one Kevlar-reinforced piece ended and the next began, and she seemed to be little more than a black female-shaped shadow with a proud gold bat-symbol splashed across her chest. Her arms and legs were covered skin-tight in black, her eyes and hair hidden behind the dark mask. It had all become routine by now: dark make-up around her eyes to cover what the mask didn’t, flexible fabrics that could cover her without restricting her movement, a flowing black cape around her shoulders to wrap her in a protective shadow. Renee cinched the golden belt around her waist and pulled the cowl over her head, and Batgirl was ready for the night.
In the past few months, Renee had become enamored of her back window—all it faced was a brick wall in the back of another building. She’d hated it at first, since there was nothing to see outside. But she loved it now, since there was no one to see inside.
No one noticed a dark shape slinking out of the window and soaring across the buildings of Gotham City.
0-0-0-0-0
It was late again, and dark. He slunk around the large houses at the city’s outskirts. The light of the half-moon shimmered in his fair, tousled hair. He allowed himself to laugh as he walked. Other men might not have found their destinations so quickly and with so little guidance. He was not like other men anymore.
A song was playing in the back of his mind. A pretty little girl of about eight was singing.
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word, Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”
The singing came closer and closer until she was skipping alongside him down the street.
“The next one’s just down this way, dearest,” he said to her, as the little girl continued to sing.
“And if that mockingbird won’t sing, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” She looked back up at him with a gap-toothed grin. “Thank you, daddy,” she said.
He felt a warm, sustaining feeling growing in his heart, and he hummed along with his daughter. “And if that diamond ring turns brass—“
“Papa’s gonna buy you a looking-glass.” She continued to grin as they drew closer. “I love you, Daddy.”
He wished that he could hug her. “I love you too, Jessica.”
She kept on singing as he approached the house of his next victim.
Close by, a little girl slept soundly in her bed, safe without the knowledge of what was to come.
0-0-0-0-0
As she leapt from building to nearby building, the speaker in Renee’s cowl crackled to life with Barbara’s voice. “Renee!”
“What is it?”
“911 call from just out by the river. Try to get there before the cops!”
“On it.”
Without another word, Batgirl changed direction, praying that this time she would be able to do something.
