(no subject)
It's close to three in the morning when I hit the train yards. The brownstone Babs and I moved to is right by the Red Line North, a busy freight line serving the commercial docks area; which makes it easy for me to hitch a ride on a cargo wagon's roof to the terminal.
I've brought Tim here on a couple of occasions for what we've affectionately termed, "Train-Fu" sessions. As I'm checking the place out, waiting for an outbound train, the possibility we may well never be able to do that again hits me, and hard.
I miss the little twerp like crazy.
I don't have a lot of time for nostalgia - as I glance across the tracks from my position, I can see someone loading unauthorized goods onto the latest arrival. I can tell it's unauthorized, because freight companies don't send their employees crawling under the carriages with a welding torch and a loaded duffle bag.
It's a good hundred yards. Ten seconds, tops. I'm already moving.
Something catches my eye as I'm hopping railroad cars; a flash of orange, down on the ground, a short way from the tracks. It's too dark for anyone else to see at this time of night, but with my mask's lenses, all too clear. The color itself isn't unusual around the train yards, but it's the shape and what it's wrapped around that makes me forget all about the drug smuggler seventy-five yards away. Something I've seen far too many times to count.
A dead body.
As I go to ground and get closer, the identity of the corpse becomes startlingly clear.
"Catalina..."
Catalina Flores. Otherwise known as Tarantula II. She's... she was... new on the vigilante scene, and I really didn't like her version of justice - justice served with a cap in every perp's head. I'd tried to work with her, but she was less interested in being a student and more interested in trying to get inside my Kevlar.
She'd been working for Blockie - even attacked me and Babs at a restaurant in Gotham not too long ago - Babs was the target, but I got in the way. Frankly, finding her like this isn't the biggest surprise I've ever had. With her methods and lack of experience, it was simply a matter of time.
The analytical side of me kicks in as I crouch down to inspect the scene. I'm fairly sure someone's killed her, and I need to find out who, and why. Blockie's high on the hit list right now. I frown at the lifeless body for a few minutes, noting the absence of blood, except for some hemorraging around the nose. Rigor's set in, meaning she's been dead for at least several hours but less than two days. No obvious gunshot wound. I start scouring the ground around the body; there's no blood pattern, no drag pattern in the rough gravel near the tracks to indicate she'd been moved here. No footprints, either - hers or the attackers. No signs of a scuffle.
Rigor means I can't determine broken bones, but the angle her head is at, glassy eyes staring straight ahead, tells me her neck's been broken at the least. I glance up at the freight trains. If someone didn't kill her here, then the only remaining possibility is that someone killed her up on the roof of the terminal (no... angle's wrong. She'd have landed further away from the building) or on top of one of the trains... (that's more likely), before being thrown. Not Blockie personally, then. But that doesn't rule out one of his lackeys.
What I -really- need is a coroner's report to help me back up that theory, perhaps give me an idea as to who did it.
Guess it's time to make an anonymous call or two.
Then... I have to wait.
Something tells me Babs isn't going to lose any sleep over this latest development.
Such a damn waste.
I've brought Tim here on a couple of occasions for what we've affectionately termed, "Train-Fu" sessions. As I'm checking the place out, waiting for an outbound train, the possibility we may well never be able to do that again hits me, and hard.
I miss the little twerp like crazy.
I don't have a lot of time for nostalgia - as I glance across the tracks from my position, I can see someone loading unauthorized goods onto the latest arrival. I can tell it's unauthorized, because freight companies don't send their employees crawling under the carriages with a welding torch and a loaded duffle bag.
It's a good hundred yards. Ten seconds, tops. I'm already moving.
Something catches my eye as I'm hopping railroad cars; a flash of orange, down on the ground, a short way from the tracks. It's too dark for anyone else to see at this time of night, but with my mask's lenses, all too clear. The color itself isn't unusual around the train yards, but it's the shape and what it's wrapped around that makes me forget all about the drug smuggler seventy-five yards away. Something I've seen far too many times to count.
A dead body.
As I go to ground and get closer, the identity of the corpse becomes startlingly clear.
"Catalina..."
Catalina Flores. Otherwise known as Tarantula II. She's... she was... new on the vigilante scene, and I really didn't like her version of justice - justice served with a cap in every perp's head. I'd tried to work with her, but she was less interested in being a student and more interested in trying to get inside my Kevlar.
She'd been working for Blockie - even attacked me and Babs at a restaurant in Gotham not too long ago - Babs was the target, but I got in the way. Frankly, finding her like this isn't the biggest surprise I've ever had. With her methods and lack of experience, it was simply a matter of time.
The analytical side of me kicks in as I crouch down to inspect the scene. I'm fairly sure someone's killed her, and I need to find out who, and why. Blockie's high on the hit list right now. I frown at the lifeless body for a few minutes, noting the absence of blood, except for some hemorraging around the nose. Rigor's set in, meaning she's been dead for at least several hours but less than two days. No obvious gunshot wound. I start scouring the ground around the body; there's no blood pattern, no drag pattern in the rough gravel near the tracks to indicate she'd been moved here. No footprints, either - hers or the attackers. No signs of a scuffle.
Rigor means I can't determine broken bones, but the angle her head is at, glassy eyes staring straight ahead, tells me her neck's been broken at the least. I glance up at the freight trains. If someone didn't kill her here, then the only remaining possibility is that someone killed her up on the roof of the terminal (no... angle's wrong. She'd have landed further away from the building) or on top of one of the trains... (that's more likely), before being thrown. Not Blockie personally, then. But that doesn't rule out one of his lackeys.
What I -really- need is a coroner's report to help me back up that theory, perhaps give me an idea as to who did it.
Guess it's time to make an anonymous call or two.
Then... I have to wait.
Something tells me Babs isn't going to lose any sleep over this latest development.
Such a damn waste.