Patchwork

Far under his newly rebuilt mansion, Bruce Wayne labored. He ran search after search in his high-powered computer. He read files upon files, examined the tape Gordon had given him again and again. He had been at his task for a day and two nights. According to the schedule written in large letters on a board, it was 6 in the morning on day three of Sarah Parker’s captivity. Her last day.

The information he had just didn’t make any sense. He knew the Joker’s ways, knew that there was a clue to Sarah’s whereabouts somewhere in the information piled in front of him, but he just couldn’t see it.

Andrew Arkadeyevich. The name came up again and again. He was on the list of the Joker’s known associates, from a brief stint where the doctor’s had thought him cured. He was caught killing a hooker in the Narrows, not on orders, and was hauled back to the Arkham Asylum after only three weeks. He was also on the list of people who knew about the mayor’s relationship with Sarah, as a former handyman for the mayor’s family. Bruce wondered if Gordon had seen the connection.

And the fingerprint on the scene. Just one thumbprint, right in the center of the card. Clearly, this was the clue the Joker wanted them to follow. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see where to follow.

Andrew Arkadeyevich. Died only a month ago, killed by a paranoid schizophrenic on a rampage through the asylum. No personal belongings left behind. No known contacts in or out of the asylum. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Bruce rubbed his eyes tiredly, looking at the pages laid out in front of him without really seeing them. There had to be something. Doggedly, he ran the search through his computer once again.


--


In the heart of the city, Gordon sat at his desk, fidgeting. He was waiting for a phone call, and had been waiting for well over an hour. He was starting to get desperate.

The day before had been spent chasing down every person on the mayor’s list. Officers reported back to him that all of the people were alive and well, except three. One was dead of a heart attack well over a year ago, one in a coma for the past seven months, and the other...

The other was a point of interest. His name had come up on both the mayor’s list and in the record of the Joker’s known associates. Gordon hadn’t quite figured out how such a thing could have happened, but he had sent a man to Arkham Asylum to see what he could find out. He was supposed to call dispatch and be put through to Gordon’s desk phone as he was done.

The phone rang. Gordon lunged for it, picking it up before the ring had even finished.

“Carleson?” he asked.

“Yes, Commissioner,” the detective replied. “I got the information you wanted.”

“Good. Let’s hear it.”

“Arkadeyevich, Andrew,” he said, clearly reading off a piece of paper. “Demonstrates high levels of paranoia, known to conspire with others of similar diagnosis to commit crimes of a violent nature. Looks like he was admitted ten months ago, released three months ago, re-admitted three weeks later. Died last week when attacked by another patient, a paranoid schizophrenic who got loose from his keepers.”

“Anything unusual about him? Personal belongings, markings in his cell, strange autopsy reports, anything?”

“Nada, Commissioner. Everything on the up and square.”

Gordon rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Carleson, I need you to stay there and go over everything again.”

“Alright, Commissioner, but-”

“Listen, somehow, this man is the key to finding the mayor’s niece. We need to know what the connection is. It’s already eleven. We only have a few more guaranteed hours.”

“Gotcha, Commissioner,” the officer’s voice had gained an edge of determination. “I’ll stay until I find something.”


--


“Tea, sir?”

Bruce kept reading, waving Alfred over with one hand. Without even looking away from the large computer screen hanging on the wall, he grabbed a cup of hot tea and sipped it. Earl grey. Wonderful.

“Any luck yet, sir?”

“No, Alfred,” Bruce replied, his eyes troubled as he stared at the information on the screen. “Nothing unusual about his death, or his actions after meeting up with the Joker.” He sighed. “I don’t know what I’m missing.”

Alfred took the empty cup out of his employer’s hand and poured a refill from the pot. Setting the cup down next to Mr. Wayne’s right hand, he added a slice of lemon.

“Perhaps, sir, it’s not his most recent history you should be looking at.”

Bruce’s eyes turned from the screen for the first time, meeting his butler’s with a questioning look. Alfred’s advice was always good, but he wasn’t sure what the man meant.

“Perhaps the hint is in what the man was before he met up with the Joker, rather than after.”

His eyes widened ever so slightly, then he turned back to the computer screen and began typing madly. Alfred’s sigh was almost imperceptibly quiet as he shifted a pile of papers aside to make room for the tea tray on the table. Sometimes Mr. Wayne really did miss the most obvious things.


--


Gordon was reading through his information on Arkadeyevich for the tenth time when his phone rang. Checking the clock, he was horrified to realize it was already four p.m. Desperately, he seized the receiver, praying it was the detective at Arkham.

“Carleson?”

“Look into Arkadeyevich’s employment history,” a voice growled on the other end of the line.

“Bat-” Gordon started incredulously.

Batman’s voice cut him off. “Long before he started a career as a criminal, he worked for a series of warehouses. He probably had keys to every one of them. Look in the warehouses and you’ll find the Joker.”

Gordon typed quickly, pulling up one of the few files he hadn’t yet looked at. Scanning down the list of Arkadeyevich’s jobs, he saw six warehouses.

“We can’t possibly check them all in time.”

The Joker hadn’t given them a definite hour when their time was up, but Gordon had a strong suspicion it would be sundown. He had checked the weather that morning; dark was at six forty-three this evening. If he’d had a thousand cops at his disposal, he still couldn’t have made that deadline. If he were lucky, they would be geared and ready to go in half an hour. Factor in drive time to each of the different locations, and suppose it was the very last one they checked...

“I’ll start at the most recent,” Batman growled.

A click sounded in the receiver, but Gordon wasn’t there. He had already raced to tell the SWAT teams to suit up. If Batman were going to start at the newest, they would start at the oldest. With any luck, they’d find Sarah Parker before the Joker decided her time was up.