Archive of Our Own

“Timbers, why is the wheel so…”

Jason couldn’t even form his thought, so he decided to just off-handedly gesture to the lopsided carnival wheel Tim was currently pulling out of a corner of the Batcave.

“Shut up. Now who’s excited for Cold Case Roulette!”

Tim pulled the wheel, spinning it so quickly that the colors started to mesh. Steph was cheering for the wheel as it cycled through the colors.

“Wait, what are we doing?”

Duke looked at Tim suspiciously as the wheel continued to spin.

“Oh, right, you haven’t been here for roulette yet. Basically, if everyone is miraculously and simultaneously free for a couple of days, we pick a random cold case from the GCPD archives to investigate.”

Duke just nodded, accepting that whatever was happening was no more odd than everything else he had seen since he started hanging around the Bats. Eventually, the wheel stopped on a bright blue slice with a shaky marker.

“Drake, when will you ever learn proper penmanship? I know I should learn not to expect much from you, but this is just disastrous.”

“Damian, stop teasing your brother. Also, it's a school night. Once we are given the name of the case, please go to bed so you are rested for school in the morning.”

Damian stared at his Father with a look of stern hatred that only he could pull off without getting yelled at. Damian just huffed and looked back at the wheel.

Tim decides to ignore Damian as he leans in to decipher his own hieroglyphic handwriting. He turned back to the group with an uncharacteristically large smile.

“Yes, I’ve been wanting to do this one for a while!”

Tim began to match over to the Batcomputer, digging through the files to find the photographs he wanted. Eventually, Tim pulled up a file labeled “Unsolved Vol. 2 #8”.

“What kind of name is that?”

Steph was leaning over Tim, practically breathing down his neck as she analyzed the odd name of the unsolved file.

Tim pushed her back playfully before speaking, without turning his face away from the computer.

“I separate the unsolved cases into different volumes based on severity, and then I rank them by how difficult they will be to solve. This case is in volume two because it is gruesome, isolated, and virtually impossible. The murders look to have been committed with extreme rage, but a further look into the killings shows that the murderer was completely organized in their methods. This means the killer is of above-average intelligence. Also, the writing on the wall suggests group activity, so while our killer could still be working on their own, it is more plausible that they are a part of some faction that told them to commit these murders. This case has also secured itself in the second volume because of its severity and lack of evidence. While only three of these killings happened in Gotham, scanning through Interpol files attributes nearly eighty-four killings similar to this one that happened in the span of only eight months.”

The photos showed crime scenes around Gotham. Each scene had the same three things: A seemingly locked room with no windows or doors, the word loyalty written in various languages, and a person in the middle impaled with a sword that looked much too small to belong to any well-trained assassin.

The Bats were aghast. Eighty-four gruesome killings with no evidence over only eight months. This meant whoever this was killed three or more people every day, all over the world, over only two hundred and seventy-three days.

“Officials called him “Houdini” because he always killed people in a locked room with no way in or out. This case is around ten years old, so we are looking for a person with tons of experience and a background in mixed martial arts as well as infiltration.”

Tim cycled through photos on the Batcomputer. For an unsolved case, there were thousands of photos from departments all over the world.

“The first kill was in Villanovaforru, Italy on June the first, then the murderer hit Capri, then Naples, and finally Milan before the killings moved internationally. Whoever this is operated for exactly eight months from June 1st until their last reported killing on the first of March in Qaracuxur, Azerbaijan.”

Everyone stared at the gruesome photos flashing across the screen. Eighty-four victims from various countries all cycled through. There was, unfortunately, no clear victimology. All the bodies ranged in age, gender, and ethnic background. Some were married, some had kids, and others lived alone. Some were known members of the community, others were recluses.

“They visited thirty-eight different countries, six continents, and seventy-two cities, killing in both small and large towns, but the M.O stayed the same throughout all the murders: Rooms with no doors or windows, a person impaled on a small sword in the middle of this room, and the word loyalty written in thirteen distinct languages: English, Arabic, Italian, Russian, Spanish, German, Urdu, Hindi, Mandarin, French, Bengali, Portuguese, and some type of coded language that no official could find a match for.”

Bruce scanned the photos for a few moments before turning back to look at Damian. Speaking up and drawing Tim’s attention to the two of them while the rest of the Bats continued to look at the photos.

“Alright, Damian, it's time for bed. We’ll brief you on the rest in the morning.”

Damian’s eyes were cast at the ground, and instead of speaking up like he usually would to add some sort of bratty comment about how, at fifteen, Damian should be allowed to stay up past midnight, Damian just turned on his heels and headed up the stairs slightly faster than he normally would.

Bruce didn’t seem to bother deciphering the odd nature of the interaction, but Tim was reasonably suspicious of Damian’s behavior. Never had Tim ever seen Damian accept an order to leave the Cave so quickly and without pushback.

Tim could also swear that as Damain turned for the stares, his hands were shaking slightly where they lay at his sides, and his breathing had picked up slightly from its normal pace. Tim decided to file the whole interaction away for a later date as he turned back to the photos.

The Bats silently scanned the photos for around two and a half minutes before Steph spoke up.

“Tim, your math is off.”

Tim whipped around in his seat, staring daggers at Steph. The rest of the Bats faced Steph as well, and she counted on her fingers, double-checking her math.

“If this person killed from June until March, they would have been killing over the span of nine months, not eight.”

Tim was taken completely off-guard by this comment as he ran the numbers in his head as well. Steph was right. From June to March is nine months so why did all the reports only say eight. Tim immediately began comparing timestamps before Jason spoke up.

“Stop, right there.”

Jason pointed to the photo depicting the killings that happened on December thirty-first. This photo also happened to be from the fourth killing on that day. Jason pushed Tim to the side and scrolled through the photos.

“Look, we have photos from the thirty-first of December, but the next killing isn’t until February second. This means whoever this was took the entire month of January off.”

Tim was perplexed and slightly jealous that he had not caught this earlier. Why would a prolific serial killer who was murdering upwards of three times a day take an extensive break in a seemingly random month? Tim scoured the internet on his phone while the rest of the Bats continued to look through the computer files.

Despite his best efforts, Tim could not find anything special about the month of January that would apply to this killer.

“Well, that’s weird.”

Dick muttered to himself while looking at the photos of the rooms the victims were found in.

“Please enlighten us, Dickiebird.”

Dick quickly shot Jason a loving glare before stepping forward to point at the photos on the lower right part of the monitor.

“Look at every room in just a random cement box, which is obviously off in itself, right? I mean, how many windowless doorless cement bricks are there all over the world? Also, how would any authority know to look in the rooms to find the bodies? If there were no doors or windows, they wouldn’t be able to even get into the room, much less know there was a murder.”

Tim scratched another tick into his mental scoreboard. Stupid siblings: three. Tim: zero. Tim was gonna need to start pointing out some major revelations lest he be passed up by the rest of his dysfunctional family.

“I have no clue, but the only way to figure it out is to find out how the police stumbled upon the murders. I will be assigning each of y’all ten of the cases, and I'll take the change. Barbara you take the murders in Nepal, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Uzebeckistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, India, and Syria, Bruce you do Argentina, Ecuador, Columbia, and Peru, Duke your on Italy, Greece, and the Czech Republic, Jason you do the cases in Canada and the two in Ireland, Dick you get Chad, Mali, Kenya, South Africa, and the Central African Republic, Steph your doing Russia and China, Alfred will do Japan, the Philippines, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Thailand, Damian will do England, Ukraine, Turkey, Belarus, and Slovenia, and I will take the murders in United States, Mexico, Haiti, and Jamaica. Overall, we’ll be covering thirty-eight countries and six continents, so this is going to be an extensive search.”

All the Bats took a mental note of their areas of search and continued to look through the pictures. Just then, Alfred made his way down the stairs and pulled Bruce aside for a second. Everyone was occupied with the case, so Tim decided to listen in on Bruce and Alfred's conversation, if only to satisfy his curiosity.

“Master Bruce, Master Damian made his way to bed rather quickly tonight. He rushed past me while starkly declining my offer of lavender tea to assist with his sleep. He then closed the door to his room while warning me that he would wish to be left alone. He immediately turned off the lights, and I haven’t heard anything from his room since then.”

Tim added these facts to his current tab on Damian’s unusual behavior.

“He didn’t shower?”

Bruce asked Alfred with a sense of urgency, and Alfred just shook his head slightly and sighed. Tim was shocked. Damian always showered before bed and in the morning. He was a stickler for keeping his “living quarters clean of the grime of the day”. It was an odd habit that Tim knew happened every night and morning due to his close proximity to Damian’s room.

Something was definitely off with Damian, but Tim was well aware that he wasn't exactly the Demon’s favorite brother, so he decided that he would let Alfred and Bruce sort this one out for themselves while he worked on this case.

Alfred and Bruce continued to talk, but their conversation strayed away from Damian, and was no longer interesting to Tim, so he looked back at his files. The Bats continued to stare at these files for the next twenty-three minutes before Tim finally realized something.

He had been glaring at these reports, but he still couldn't find an answer to Dick’s question. How did the cops know to look into these cement prisons? For some reason, none of the reports any of them had looked at yet had any mention of why the police were called to these specific locations.

“Guys, check this out.”

By this point, each member of the Bats had already taken to their specific countries and were sorting through police reports. Tim had been staring at a report from St. Louis when he finally found something useful.

“Look right here. The witness who called the cops said that she called about an odd smell emanating from the construction site.”

Tim flipped through the police report twice more before coming to an odd conclusion. Not a single one of his reports contained the original 911 calls that would have called the police to these locations.

“Look at your files. Do any of you guys have calls to the authorities on file? The U.S uses 911, but I need you guys to check for any emergency numbers.”

It took exactly three minutes and forty-seven seconds for the rest of the Bats to come to the same conclusion Tim had only moments before. No one had called the cops, so how did emergency services know of these locations?

“Okay, so the only report that has the actual complaint on file is this one from St. Louis… let me see.”

Tim flipped through the report so he could get to the official witness statements. There was only one witness on record: Josephine Mendoza.

“Okay, here it is.”

Tim pointed to a section of the report and began to read aloud.

“Local HOA president Josephine Mendoza phoned emergency services at 0322 hours. Mendoza states on record that she was awoken to the sound of her windchimes. Mendoza claims that she got out of bed to get herself a glass of water when she got the feeling she was being watched. Mendoza made her way to her front door and peered through the window before opening the door and stepping out into the night. Mendoza then laid eyes on the construction site three houses adjacent to her. Mendoza states that she felt drawn to the site, and so she began walking in that direction. Mendoza then stood behind the fence at the sight and noticed the crime scene. Mendoza observed an odd cement cube near the center of the construction site. Mendoza states that she had not seen this cube the previous night. Mendoza describes the cube as around ten by ten by ten feet, completely made of concrete with no windows or doors. Mendoza found this odd, so it was at this time that she broke into the construction site and made her way towards the cube. That is when Mendoza states that she smelled the unmistakable smell of something rotting. Mendoza quickly left the site and phoned the police from her home phone.”

Tim was completely perplexed. Not only was this the only report in eighty-four cases that had a witness and explanation for why the police were called, but the witness claimed to smell something decomposing within the concrete box.

“Well, this lady is either psychic or we’re missing something.”

Tim just gave Jason a deadpanned stare. Could he be more aggravating? Jason was currently interrupting Tim's thinking process with his positively grating voice.

“Why is that, Jason?”

Dick, ever the optimist, was the one to extend an olive branch to Jason, an encouragement for him to explain to the rest of them the reasoning behind his odd comment.

“Well, I'm no contractor, but what I can tell you is that there is no way that woman would be able to smell a rotting body through the concrete box. My reports say that the box is always the exact same ten by ten by ten and two feet thick. I might not have been the best at school, but I can tell you that two feet of solid concrete would definitely stop the smell of rot from permeating the box.”

Stupid siblings: four. Tim: still zero.

“Great, let's just add another mystery to the pile. Not only do we have someone who, over the span of eight months, managed to kill eighty-four people on six different continents, but they were also able to kill each person in the exact same way inside of a cement box that was not there the night before, with no entrances or exits. Also, this psycho writes loyalty in a shit-ton of languages, including a coded language that we cannot crack on the walls with the blood of his victims. Then we find out that whoever this is just casually takes off the entire month of January before starting to be killed again on the second day in February. Only one of our eighty-four reports has a reason the police were called to the location, and this Mendoza lady was somehow able to smell a rotting body through two feet of pure concrete. Also, whoever he is uses a sword so incredibly short that I have absolutely no clue how a grown person would be able to kill someone with it. They have never left a shred of evidence, no blood, no hair, no fabric, nothing in any of their kills. Also, they killed for these eight months all over the world, and then suddenly they stopped for a little over a decade-”

Bruce placed his hand on Tim’s shoulder in an attempt to get him to stop rambling.

“I know, chum, okay, this is confusing, but everyone leaves evidence; there is no perfect crime. We’ll catch this person.”

Tim took three deep breaths, something he had learned from Canary, before he turned back to his siblings and put on a determined look. Tim was in it now.

“Okay, first thing we do with any case: ask questions. Everyone, write down your questions regarding this case of the board, and then we can try to move through them to see what connects.”

Immediately, Tim’s brothers and sister uncapped separate markers and began to write down their questions. Each Bat was assigned a specific color, so they could understand where they might have overlap. Steph was purple, she would not accept anything else, Cass usually had black but she was following her own killer in the Maldives, Bruce got brown because he got to pick last, Alfred was gray because he got first pick and gray was his favorite, Duke took yellow because no one else wanted it and Duke was not about to fight over colors, Jason has snatched pink before anyone else got the chance, Dick scored blue after a heated debate with Tim, which left Tim with red, and Damian with green. Barbara didn’t do whiteboards; she preferred to do everything online, so after typing their questions into her own document, Barbara would add her own questions in rainbow. Tim asked her why she did that once, and Barbara responded simply with "Because I could,” and that was the end of that conversation.

Tim’s board was immediately filled with splashes of color as the Bats paced through questions. Eventually, after deliberation and removing similar questions, the board had a neat line of twenty questions that the Bats needed to answer to solve this case.

The Bats had twenty questions to sort through, and nothing seemed to add up. This Houdini person was smart, experienced, and detached.

“Alright, everyone, it's time for bed. We all need to be prepared to look at this in the morning, so either go back to your apartments, or you guys are always welcome to stay here.”

Bruce began to usher everyone away from the computer, but before Tim left, he made sure to memorize each of their questions. And he made sure to add one more question to his own mental list.