The Kneecapper
Detectives gathered around a poker table to investigate a murder. A man sat in his chair, bludgeoned to death from behind. In front of him, a stack of chips, all the chips at the table. The other four people wear gone.
“Odd that the other gamblers killed him and left the chips,” said Gordon.
“I don't think the other gamblers did kill him,” said Batman, walking past Gordon from the shadows. Gordon had long since stopped being surprised by his mysterious entrances, “And the leftover chips indicate that the other gamblers didn't want to win whatever they were playing for.”
Batman knelt down and removed tweezers from his belt then removed a hair from between the floorboards. It had little white pieces stuck to it.
“Bone and hair from the victim?” asked Gordon.
“Maybe. I'll take a look back at the lab,” said Batman as he pocketed the evidence. Gordon had also long since stopped protesting his removal of evidence.
Under a microscope it became clear that while the fiber was indeed hair, the specks were teeth not bone. They were very small chips of teeth with very small holes drilled in them for the hair.
“Voodoo, sir?” inquired Alfred.
“Looks that way. To force evil spirits to attack a victim you need a piece of them. The more you have, the more powerful the spirit. Or so they say. The sample isn't from the victim, but shares partial DNA with him. It's pieces of immediate family. Probably a brother,” Batman said, leaving the sample on the slide under the microscope. He tapped his earpiece in his cowl, “Oracle?”
“Online,” replied Barbara Gordon.
“Send the files of known murderers with connections to voodoo to the Batmobile. There was a murder tonight in the backroom of Dumas Pub. I'm going to the police station to talk to Gordon about the victim's family.”
“Dumas Pub? Harley Quinn just turned herself in for stealing the money at a poker game there.”
Batman jumped into the Batmobile, “Turned herself in?”
“Yeah, I'm watching the feed from Arkham. She looks terrified. My dad's there, too.”
“I'll head to Arkham. Keep me posted,” Batman said as he hung up on Oracle.
At Arkham Asylum, Harley Quinn beat her fists against the plexiglass. The side of her face was pressed against it, smearing makeup as she yelled down the hall to guards, “You gotta protect my puddin'! Call the police! Call the national guard! Call the...”
Lightning flashed and thunder cracked and in front of the plexiglass stood the Dark Knight.
“Batman,” finished Harley Quinn with a whimper as she backed up. She then took a step forward and addressed him with urgency, “You gotta go check on Mistah J, Bats! The Kneecapper's gonna get him cause of me.”
“Tell me about the Kneecapper,” said Batman. He knew from studying psychology how to ask questions to manic individuals to get the most information.
“Kneecapper goes after whoever makes you who you are. He takes them away from you. He kills them to cripple you. You mess with his scroll and that's all it takes. Then he tracks down your special somebody and whacks them to pieces!”
Batman stood for a second to see if she was finished, “What makes you think he's real?”
“Look, I admit it! I robbed the Dumas Pub,” she trailed off talking to herself, “I thought it was a funny name. DUMas, duMAS, get it? It's misspelled, but I still think it's funny.”
“And you found the scroll,” Batman said to bring her back to the story.
“Well yeah. I went for the cash, but mixed in with the cash was some watches, some jewelry, some IOUs, some deeds, and another piece of paper that I figured was just another deed or something, but it was the scroll! I didn't even think it existed! But I touched it and now my puddin's gonna die for it!”
She banged her fists against the plexiglass to emphasize the final statement. Batman stood still and emotionless and then turned to leave, his cape sweeping around him.
“You gotta protect him! You gotta protect Mistah J, Batman!” she screamed as he walked down the hall.
Gordon thanked the Arkham guards for the company. It was his way of asking them to leave so he could take the evidence back to the precinct.
Gordon smirked, “You won't surprise me this time. We heard Harley yelling at you from the other side of the building.”
Gordon turned to his right and lost his smirk. No one there. As he turned back, he was startled to see Batman looking over the table of evidence.
Batman started in, “If you heard her, you heard about some scroll or piece of paper. I want to see if that's what our victim was killed for.”
Gordon lifted a stack of papers and put them in the center of the pile of loot. He leafed through them quickly until he found one older than the rest in a language he didn't understand.
“This what you want?” he asked as he handed it to Batman.
“It's in Langaj, the language of voodoo,” said Batman.
“What does it say?”
“The bearer be crippled,” responded Batman as he exited the room bearing the scroll.
Harley Quinn finally had to be sedated for the night, but awoke early the next morning, gripping the side of her cheek
“Ob, my toob!” she complained.
After being restrained, she was taken to the medical center of Arkham Asylum and a cursory examination revealed a large cavity in one of her teeth. She was returned to her cell with some Darvocet and a dentist was scheduled to visit the Asylum later in the week.
The night following the poker room murder, Joker lay in his bed, completely unaware of Harley Quinn's concerns, capture, or caper. Alone in his padded cell with no windows and bolted down furniture, he entertained himself by staging a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with his toenails as the principal players.
A soft skritching noise interrupted the play, however.
“Hey, no heckling from the cheap seats!” yelled the Joker. The two guards outside his cell had long learned not to listen to anything he said. In fact, they only opened his meal slot to push in his food and take back his plate. The last person to look in the slot at the Joker's request lost both his eyes, his septum and his ability to whistle.
Still the skritch skritch skritch continued, audible only to the Joker.
He got down on his hands and knees off his bed and tried to locate the sound of the noise. If it was an escape, he wanted in. Eventually a corner of the cell was located as the source of the sound. Joker scratched back at the surface and the skritching stopped. He scratched twice and received two skritches in response. There was someone on the other side scratching through. He checked the door, then began to work at the padding in the corner of his cell, removing the protective layers until finally a small hole, about 2 inches in diameter was revealed.
“Come out, come out, whoever you are!” sang the Joker
At first nothing moved. Then a small pink nose came into the light, followed by white whiskers, brown beady eyes, and brown fur. Joker reached quickly and snatched up the rat.
“So you're the peanut gallery that's been interrupting my play,” chided the Joker, “Naughty naughty. Now what's this you have?”
Joker took his finger and pulled from out of the rat's fur a small rat necklace. It was a blonde hair with small hard white bits looped around the rat's neck.
The rat bit the Joker's finger, forcing him to drop the rodent, “Ah! You diseased infectious exile! I thought we were sympatico!”
The rat fell and as he straightened himself up began to grow, up onto its hindlegs and into a large man with dark skin and tattoos across his body.
“Oooo,” the Joker smile childlike, “a magic show!”
The large man grabbed the Joker by the shoulders and slammed him into the bolted down bed, then threw him against the wall. The Joker straightened himself, then kicked him in the groin and stuck a thumb in his eye. The large man stood there, emotionless and not registering pain, with an eye that turned bloodshot.
The door to the cell flung open as one of the guards lept on the back of the large man and cut off the blood supply to the carotid arteries. The large man swung around, and slammed the guard against the wall, but was unable to dislodge his attacker. He finally fell to his knees and Joker kicked him in the face. Looking Joker in the eyes, with blood trickling down his nose, he fell to his hands and knees and quickly shrank back into a rat and scurried out the hole as the Joker lept after him and missed, slamming face first into the wall.
“OoooOOoooh...” moaned Joker as he turned to see the guard gone and the door relocked. Joker crawled up to the meal slot and pulled it open. Outside his door he saw one unconscious guard and one guard's uniform. Next to the uniform was a mask made to look like the guard that saved his life.
“Oh, Batman, honey. You just can't stay away from me, can you?” he mused, grinning evilly through the meal slot.
Gordon woke up with a sore tooth.
Detectives gathered around a poker table to investigate a murder. A man sat in his chair, bludgeoned to death from behind. In front of him, a stack of chips, all the chips at the table. The other four people wear gone.
“Odd that the other gamblers killed him and left the chips,” said Gordon.
“I don't think the other gamblers did kill him,” said Batman, walking past Gordon from the shadows. Gordon had long since stopped being surprised by his mysterious entrances, “And the leftover chips indicate that the other gamblers didn't want to win whatever they were playing for.”
Batman knelt down and removed tweezers from his belt then removed a hair from between the floorboards. It had little white pieces stuck to it.
“Bone and hair from the victim?” asked Gordon.
“Maybe. I'll take a look back at the lab,” said Batman as he pocketed the evidence. Gordon had also long since stopped protesting his removal of evidence.
Under a microscope it became clear that while the fiber was indeed hair, the specks were teeth not bone. They were very small chips of teeth with very small holes drilled in them for the hair.
“Voodoo, sir?” inquired Alfred.
“Looks that way. To force evil spirits to attack a victim you need a piece of them. The more you have, the more powerful the spirit. Or so they say. The sample isn't from the victim, but shares partial DNA with him. It's pieces of immediate family. Probably a brother,” Batman said, leaving the sample on the slide under the microscope. He tapped his earpiece in his cowl, “Oracle?”
“Online,” replied Barbara Gordon.
“Send the files of known murderers with connections to voodoo to the Batmobile. There was a murder tonight in the backroom of Dumas Pub. I'm going to the police station to talk to Gordon about the victim's family.”
“Dumas Pub? Harley Quinn just turned herself in for stealing the money at a poker game there.”
Batman jumped into the Batmobile, “Turned herself in?”
“Yeah, I'm watching the feed from Arkham. She looks terrified. My dad's there, too.”
“I'll head to Arkham. Keep me posted,” Batman said as he hung up on Oracle.
At Arkham Asylum, Harley Quinn beat her fists against the plexiglass. The side of her face was pressed against it, smearing makeup as she yelled down the hall to guards, “You gotta protect my puddin'! Call the police! Call the national guard! Call the...”
Lightning flashed and thunder cracked and in front of the plexiglass stood the Dark Knight.
“Batman,” finished Harley Quinn with a whimper as she backed up. She then took a step forward and addressed him with urgency, “You gotta go check on Mistah J, Bats! The Kneecapper's gonna get him cause of me.”
“Tell me about the Kneecapper,” said Batman. He knew from studying psychology how to ask questions to manic individuals to get the most information.
“Kneecapper goes after whoever makes you who you are. He takes them away from you. He kills them to cripple you. You mess with his scroll and that's all it takes. Then he tracks down your special somebody and whacks them to pieces!”
Batman stood for a second to see if she was finished, “What makes you think he's real?”
“Look, I admit it! I robbed the Dumas Pub,” she trailed off talking to herself, “I thought it was a funny name. DUMas, duMAS, get it? It's misspelled, but I still think it's funny.”
“And you found the scroll,” Batman said to bring her back to the story.
“Well yeah. I went for the cash, but mixed in with the cash was some watches, some jewelry, some IOUs, some deeds, and another piece of paper that I figured was just another deed or something, but it was the scroll! I didn't even think it existed! But I touched it and now my puddin's gonna die for it!”
She banged her fists against the plexiglass to emphasize the final statement. Batman stood still and emotionless and then turned to leave, his cape sweeping around him.
“You gotta protect him! You gotta protect Mistah J, Batman!” she screamed as he walked down the hall.
Gordon thanked the Arkham guards for the company. It was his way of asking them to leave so he could take the evidence back to the precinct.
Gordon smirked, “You won't surprise me this time. We heard Harley yelling at you from the other side of the building.”
Gordon turned to his right and lost his smirk. No one there. As he turned back, he was startled to see Batman looking over the table of evidence.
Batman started in, “If you heard her, you heard about some scroll or piece of paper. I want to see if that's what our victim was killed for.”
Gordon lifted a stack of papers and put them in the center of the pile of loot. He leafed through them quickly until he found one older than the rest in a language he didn't understand.
“This what you want?” he asked as he handed it to Batman.
“It's in Langaj, the language of voodoo,” said Batman.
“What does it say?”
“The bearer be crippled,” responded Batman as he exited the room bearing the scroll.
Harley Quinn finally had to be sedated for the night, but awoke early the next morning, gripping the side of her cheek
“Ob, my toob!” she complained.
After being restrained, she was taken to the medical center of Arkham Asylum and a cursory examination revealed a large cavity in one of her teeth. She was returned to her cell with some Darvocet and a dentist was scheduled to visit the Asylum later in the week.
The night following the poker room murder, Joker lay in his bed, completely unaware of Harley Quinn's concerns, capture, or caper. Alone in his padded cell with no windows and bolted down furniture, he entertained himself by staging a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with his toenails as the principal players.
A soft skritching noise interrupted the play, however.
“Hey, no heckling from the cheap seats!” yelled the Joker. The two guards outside his cell had long learned not to listen to anything he said. In fact, they only opened his meal slot to push in his food and take back his plate. The last person to look in the slot at the Joker's request lost both his eyes, his septum and his ability to whistle.
Still the skritch skritch skritch continued, audible only to the Joker.
He got down on his hands and knees off his bed and tried to locate the sound of the noise. If it was an escape, he wanted in. Eventually a corner of the cell was located as the source of the sound. Joker scratched back at the surface and the skritching stopped. He scratched twice and received two skritches in response. There was someone on the other side scratching through. He checked the door, then began to work at the padding in the corner of his cell, removing the protective layers until finally a small hole, about 2 inches in diameter was revealed.
“Come out, come out, whoever you are!” sang the Joker
At first nothing moved. Then a small pink nose came into the light, followed by white whiskers, brown beady eyes, and brown fur. Joker reached quickly and snatched up the rat.
“So you're the peanut gallery that's been interrupting my play,” chided the Joker, “Naughty naughty. Now what's this you have?”
Joker took his finger and pulled from out of the rat's fur a small rat necklace. It was a blonde hair with small hard white bits looped around the rat's neck.
The rat bit the Joker's finger, forcing him to drop the rodent, “Ah! You diseased infectious exile! I thought we were sympatico!”
The rat fell and as he straightened himself up began to grow, up onto its hindlegs and into a large man with dark skin and tattoos across his body.
“Oooo,” the Joker smile childlike, “a magic show!”
The large man grabbed the Joker by the shoulders and slammed him into the bolted down bed, then threw him against the wall. The Joker straightened himself, then kicked him in the groin and stuck a thumb in his eye. The large man stood there, emotionless and not registering pain, with an eye that turned bloodshot.
The door to the cell flung open as one of the guards lept on the back of the large man and cut off the blood supply to the carotid arteries. The large man swung around, and slammed the guard against the wall, but was unable to dislodge his attacker. He finally fell to his knees and Joker kicked him in the face. Looking Joker in the eyes, with blood trickling down his nose, he fell to his hands and knees and quickly shrank back into a rat and scurried out the hole as the Joker lept after him and missed, slamming face first into the wall.
“OoooOOoooh...” moaned Joker as he turned to see the guard gone and the door relocked. Joker crawled up to the meal slot and pulled it open. Outside his door he saw one unconscious guard and one guard's uniform. Next to the uniform was a mask made to look like the guard that saved his life.
“Oh, Batman, honey. You just can't stay away from me, can you?” he mused, grinning evilly through the meal slot.
Gordon woke up with a sore tooth.
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