TW: discussions of murder, drug use, and overdose, but nothing is described explicitly
—
“The world turns and the world changes,
But one thing does not change.
In all of my years, one thing does not change,
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
Forgetful, you neglect your shrines and churches;
The men you are in these times deride
What has been done of good, you find explanations
To satisfy the rational and enlightened mind.”
— from “Choruses from The Rock” by T. S. Eliot
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…”
Given the several hours he’d watched Meg and Melanie fret over the large birthday cake sitting in the center of the table, Jason was surprised that they had been so willing to jam 29 candles into the top of it. Still, though it was a fire hazard, it was kind of spectacular…
“…happy birthday, dear Silas…”
…and Silas wasn’t appreciating any of it. His gaze was wandering to the other side of his apartment.
“Happy birthday to you!”
There was an odd pause. Wax from the candles dripped onto the cake.
“Silas?” Meg prompted.
Silas started. “Sorry! Sorry.” He quickly leaned forward and, quite impressively, blew out the candles in one breath.
Meg frowned at him. “Are you okay? You’re being spacey.”
Silas grinned, and while Jason didn’t know him extremely well, even he could tell it was forced. “Fine,” he said, making a show of leaning back on the dining room chair he was sitting on. “Just thinking about my birthday wish—serious business, you know.”
“Riiight, and I’m a big purple dinosaur named Barney,” Melanie said sarcastically. “What’s going on?”
“Work?” Meg questioned.
Silas made an attempt at waving them off. “Always, but that’s not important right now.”
“Seems like it is,” Meg persisted. “You’re usually way more excited about cake.”
Silas’ face grew serious. “Meggie, I promise, you don’t want to hear about this.”
“He’s been a bit of a mess ever since he got promoted to the homicide unit,” Jason suddenly remembered Meg telling him a couple of weeks before. “Good for his career, of course, and he’s doing good work…but it eats him up a bit, I think. I guess you can probably understand that better than me.”
Jason studied him more closely. Sure enough, the dark circles under Silas’ eyes were carved so deep that he looked like someone had drawn them on with a ballpoint pen. He seemed both exhausted and extremely twitchy—a combination that Jason was all too familiar with. He had all the energy of a coiled-up spring.
“—and anyway, it’s my birthday,” he was protesting. “You guys went to all this effort to celebrate, and—“
“—that’s sweet,” Melanie cut in, “but we all know you’re just going to be thinking about work the whole time. Just tell us what’s up, and then we’ll get back to the cake.”
Silas looked at Jason.
Jason shrugged. He had to admit, he was curious. “The cake will keep.”
Defeated in all fronts, Silas gave a long sigh, surrendering. “I’m not sure you’re going to want cake after this,” he said, expression darkening. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He got up and strode across his apartment—despite his change in attitude, it was like he had suddenly been charged with energy. Motioning for them to come over, he pulled down a bedsheet where it had been draped across a huge cork bulletin board perched on three dining room chairs.
“And here I was hoping your dryer was broken,” Meg muttered.
Jason found himself staring at the most stereotypical crime drama rendition of a crime board he’d ever seen—burry photos, illegible handwriting, red string and all.
Tim would love this guy, Jason found himself thinking. I’d introduce them, if that weren’t the stupidest idea since the invention of the clown.
Silas turned around to face them, arms crossed. He suddenly had the air of someone standing at the front of a college lecture hall. “How much do you all know about the Zsasz case?”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up.
“Zsasz?” Meg echoed.
“Oh,” Melanie said, face registering recognition. “Victor Zsasz. The serial killer—you know, the one that liked posing his victims after he murdered them. He had this thing about death being liberation—like his killing sprees were charity work, freeing people from their flesh prisons.”
Meg shuddered. “How…morbidly Gnostic.”
Jason had to work hard to suppress a shudder himself. Bruce had never brought him with him when he knew he might encounter Zsasz, but Jason had still met him, once. The tally marks he had carved into his skin for each kill wasn’t something a small child forgot easily. Especially not when you’d had to watch him carve one.
“But he’s dead,” Jason said quietly. “A woman shot him when he broke into her apartment a year or so ago.”
“Correct,” Silas said, pointing at him with the energy of a professor acknowledging a student who had answered a question correctly. “People said it was only a matter of time before one of his victims had a firearm on hand. Made a big stir on the news.”
“Oh,” Meg said, eyes widening. “That sounds familiar.”
Melanie was staring at Silas, a concerned frown on her face. “Listen, I get getting wrapped up in cold cases, but if you’re obsessing over open-and-shut stuff like this—“
“—but that’s just it, it’s not.” Silas suddenly burst out. “It’s—“ He stopped himself, staring down at the table. There was a strange desperation in his eyes that he was clearly trying to curb. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Just—just let me finish, Mels, then decide if I’m crazy.”
Jason shot Meg a look, but the one she shot back didn’t look incredulous—just concerned. He remembered that Meg had said that Silas had a disconcerting knack for being correct. Jason felt a hint of dread growing in the pit of his stomach.
Silas pointed to a map of Gotham on the bulletin board that was covered in pins. “Over the past several months we’ve been following a string of murders across the city, the only thing connecting the victims being the fact that their bodies were found in various poses.”
“That’s what they’re saying down at the precinct.”
“But that’s not what you think,” Jason finished.
Silas started pacing. “It’s not about what I think. It’s what I know.” The statement would have sounded more arrogant if it weren’t so tinged with anxiety. “What I know is that nothing about it felt right to me. Especially since—“ He stopped himself again. “Well. I’ll get there. Anyway, I did some digging.”
“And you found something?” Meg asked.
“No, and that’s the rub—I should have. See, I went looking for anything I could find on that case, anything in writing—“
“—you weren’t there?” Jason cut in.
“Not my case. The Commissioner had me working narcotics at the time. Anyway, I went looking for the results from Zsasz’s autopsy—there weren’t any.”
“As in, they didn’t find anything?” Melanie asked.
“As in, from what I can tell, they didn’t perform an autopsy.”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up.
“Is that…unusual?” Meg asked.
Jason knew the answer to this question, but of course kept his mouth shut.
“This is Gotham, Meg,” Silas replied. “Autopsies are standard procedure, especially on known serial killers. Not doing one on a case like this, even one that seems so straightforward, is unheard of. And so I did more digging. Didn’t find much else, but then I saw the name of the woman who killed Zsasz, Victoria Schmidt—not that I hadn’t seen the name before, but seeing it again jogged something in my memory. It occurred to me that it might be helpful to talk to her—and then I ran into a wall. Because I found out very quickly that Miss Schmidt is dead.”
Meg started. “What?”
“Did any of you know she was a drug addict?”
Melanie blinked, surprised. “No. I guess the news conveniently left out that part.”
“Doesn’t sound as good,” Jason commented.
“That it does not,” Silas said sardonically. “She overdosed two weeks after her encounter with Zsasz, right in the same apartment where she killed him. Her landlord found her when she came to talk to her about rent going up. She was still alive when he found her, but unfortunately she passed at the hospital a few hours later.”
“How awful,” Meg said quietly.
“So…” Melanie said, frowning, clearly struggling to follow Silas’ train of thought, “dead end.”
“I would agree with you there,” Silas admitted. “But there’s one problem—Victoria Schmidt wasn’t a drug addict.”
Melanie stared at him incredulously. “But you just said—“
“—I know what I said.” Silas looked sharply at Jason. “Remember how I said I used to work narcotics?”
“Oh my gosh,” Meg gasped. “You were there?”
“Yes—or at least, I was a bit later. See, the drug she overdosed on turned out to be heroin mixed with fentanyl—illegal manufacturers deliberately contaminate opioids with the stuff to make it more potent, but it can be lethal in even the tiniest amounts. We’d been tracing a sudden uptick in heroin-laced-fentanyl deaths and trying to follow them to their source, so I assumed hers was another such case.”
“I remember that,” Melanie said. “I think I administered more Narcan in one week back then than I usually do in a month.”
“I wound up searching her apartment the next day,” Silas continued. “What I found was a fairly clean apartment, some overwatered succulents, and a completely legal firearm. But according to the report I submitted, I found drug paraphernalia.”
“I don’t understand,” Melanie said. “You did, or you didn’t?”
“Silas…” Meg began slowly, “are…are you saying that someone changed your report?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Silas said vehemently. “Because I can tell you right now that I did not find drug paraphernalia of any kind in that woman’s apartment.” Casting about him, he picked up a nearby small notebook (the kind that easily fits in inner jacket pockets), flipped it open to a page roughly halfway through, and slapped it down on the folding table next to him with more force than was probably necessary. “If you want proof, there are my old notes. I was so sure that nothing was there that I came out of that investigation assuming they’d sent me to the wrong apartment.”
Melanie immediately picked up the notebook and began examining it. Meg, obviously disquieted, stared at her brother. “What does this all mean?”
“It could mean nothing,” he admitted. “Someone could have accidentally added something to a police report, accidentally not performed a standard procedure autopsy, the death of Miss Schmidt just two weeks after her face was plastered all over TV screens could be just a coincidence, and the string of deaths now could be an unrelated copycat killer that no one can seem to catch.”
“Or?” Jason asked.
“Or I’ve stumbled upon some sort of conspiracy, and someone is working very hard to obfuscate the facts around the death of a serial killer. And I have no idea why.”
There was a long silence. Meg sucked in a breath. Silas looked up at her. “What’s the verdict, Sis? Am I crazy?”
Meg hugged herself. “Sometimes I wish you were,” she said heavily, staring at his bulletin board.
Jason was still getting used to who he was these days, to the fact that he took up space in people’s lives again. This was why the time between the desire to comfort Meg arose and the realization hit that oh, right, I’m her boyfriend, I can do that was a beat or two longer than one might expect. Even so, he hesitated for a moment before reaching out and putting his hand on her shoulder, still half-expecting her to shrink away or ask him what he thought he was doing. But of course she did neither of those things—instead, she reached up and put her hand over his, squeezing his fingers.
Meanwhile, his mind spun. While Zsasz was certainly clever enough to fake his own death, this was a scheme he couldn’t have possibly pulled off alone. But who would want to help him? Who would have any interest in keeping him alive? Zsasz couldn’t have hired help; he’d burned through his rich family’s inheritance long before his murderous career began. So either he’d encountered a sudden windfall that allowed him to hire help…or someone was very invested in Zsasz’s murder sprees continuing. Either way, Zsasz’s accomplice, or accomplices, could only come from a very limited number of places.
After a moment, Meg asked, “Have you brought this to the Commissioner?”
Silas was leaning on the table now, staring down at his scattered notes. Instead of answering, he hesitated for a long time, then said quietly, “Meg. There’s a limited number of people who can alter a police report.”
Her grip tightened on Jason’s hand. “Don’t tell me you suspect him,” she exclaimed, horrified. “After everything the Commissioner has done for us—“
To Jason’s immense surprise, Silas swore, shoving off the table. “Do you think I want to?” he exploded. “Do you think I want to suspect any of them? I’ve worked with these guys for years. I look up to all of them.” He was gesticulating wildly. “Most of them had a hand in training me. They’ve all bought me lunch at least once. I considered them, at least until recently, some of the best men I knew. The thought that any of them could be involved in this seems unthinkable, but thinking the unthinkable is my job, Meg, however awful it feels, and someone in the GCPD being involved is the only thing that makes any lick of—“ He was cut off by a sudden stream of blood gushing from his nose. He jerked his head back. “Crap, not again—“
While he dashed to the kitchen sink, Melanie dropped the notebook she’d been holding and snatched up a nearby box of tissues and shoved a handful into Silas’ hands. “Uh-uh,” she said sternly, switching to a tone that Jason suspected was something close to her “nurse” voice. “Look down, not up.”
There was another period of silence while Silas rapidly ran through tissues. Meg seemed hesitant to break it. Melanie, on the other hand, was not. Apparently completely unmoved by Silas’ earlier outburst, she leaned her hip on the counter next to him, arms crossed, saying lightly, “So, you’ve established that this all sucks. Good for you. Let’s talk about solutions. You can’t really ask any questions, right? Might tip somebody off.”
“If I haven’t already,” Silas managed.
“Where’s Batman when you need him?” Melanie joked.
Jason stiffened.
Silas gave a half-laugh. “No kidding. Do you know if they make Bat-Signals that fit in apartment windows?
Very quickly, so quickly that he almost didn’t catch it, Meg glanced at Jason out of the corner of her eye. It was for a mere fraction of a second, and was likely involuntary. She now resolutely wasn’t looking at him. He bit his lip, teetering.
Still bent over the sink, Silas sighed, saying, “Sorry, Sis. I’ll eat soap later, promise.”
She gave a small, though still troubled, chuckle. “You better, or I’ll do what Mom used to do and find a good wooden spoon to smack you with.”
Jason desperately did not want to do this. But there wasn’t any other way.
Leaning down, he whispered into Meg’s ear, “I’ll be right back.”
She turned to look at him, eyes wide in shock, instantly understanding what he was going to do. “Jason, you don’t have to—“ she whispered.
But he was already halfway across the apartment. Stepping out into the hallway, he quickly pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. He knew that if he were going to do this, he was going to have to do it quickly before he could think about it too hard. But he still wasn’t quick enough finding the right contact—his thumb hovered over the call button. His stomach did backflips. His hands started to shake. Forcing himself to take deep breaths, he tried to work through a script.
Hey, Bruce, I know it’s been a long time and you probably were happy pretending I was still dead, but—
B, I’m sorry for everything, but I need your help—
Dad—
He chickened out and called Dick.
Dick picked up almost immediately. “Hey, Jaybird,” he said, sounding concerned. “Are you okay?”
Jason winced. Showed how often he was the one to call. “I’m fine. But I need your help.”
“Straight to the point, huh? No ‘how are you’s, ‘how have you been’s?”
Jason rolled his eyes. “How are you?”
“Great, thanks for asking,” Dick answered cheerily. “Except for the hamstring I pulled yesterday getting my foot caught on a roof tile. Now, what do you need help with?”
“I, uh…” Jason hesitated. “I need you to pass along a message to B for me.”
There was a pause. “Jay, it’s been seven years.” He sounded more frustrated than Jason had been anticipating. “You can’t even pass him a note yourself?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.”
“But it’s not important enough that you can’t tell him yourself?”
“I—“ he cut himself off. “I just can’t, okay?”
“He misses you. We all miss you. You know he’d be happy to hear from you, right?”
Jason wasn’t so sure about that, but he stopped himself from contradicting him. “Dick, please.”
There was a long pause. “Fine,” he gave in, still sounding frustrated. “But only this once, got it? The next time you need to talk to Bruce, you do it yourself.”
“Thanks, Dick. I mean it.”
“You better,” Dick grumbled. “Now what am I telling him?”
“There’s this friend of mine. He’s a cop—“
“—you have a friend who’s a cop?” Dick asked, flabbergasted.
“Uh, yeah. Long story.”
“I’m gonna need that story.”
Jason ignored him. “He’s stumbled onto something bad—and I mean, really bad. It’s looking like Zsasz is back, and someone from the GCPD is involved.”
“Zsasz is dead.”
“I did say ‘really bad,’ didn’t I?”
“You did,” Dick admitted. “Just another Tuesday, right?” There was a pause. “You know you are going to have to tell me which cop this is.”
Jason sighed. “Callaghan.”
“Silas Callaghan? You know him?” He gave a long whistle. “Dang.”
“You know him?”
“Yeah. Worked with him a few times. He’s a good cop, but uh…a bit intense, isn’t he?”
“He’s a good guy,” Jason said defensively. “And he knows what he’s talking about.”
“I believe you. But how do you—wait a minute.” Dick’s voice suddenly turned mischievous. “Callaghan has a sister, doesn’t he?”
Jason froze. “Uh. Yeah.”
“His sister wouldn’t happen to be that girl you’ve been seeing, would she?”
“I’m not answering that question.”
“You owe me,” Dick said warningly.
“Ugh. Fine. Yes.”
“Wow. You’re dating Silas Callaghan’s sister. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy for you, but…wow.”
‘Wow’ is the word, Jason thought.
“Does he know who you are?”
“What do you think?”
“Yeah, didn’t figure. But she knows?”
“Yeah.”
“Dang. You’ve got some guts on you, Little Wing.” Dick thought for a moment. “What’s her name?”
“I’m not—“
“—you owe me!” Dick reminded him.
Jason grumbled under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Meg,” he admitted. “Her name’s Meg.”
“Aww, pretty name. Can’t wait to meet her.”
“You’re not meeting her!”
“That’s what you think.” Dick’s tone turned serious again. “Okay, I’ve got to go. Please be careful, Jay, whatever this is you’re mixed up in.”
“I will. And really, thank you. I really appreciate this.”
“I know.” Dick hung up.
When Jason reentered the apartment, Meg was draping the sheet back over Silas’ bulletin board. When she caught sight of him, she mouthed, thank you.
It occurred to Jason that she probably thought he’d done more than he actually had. He whispered in her ear, “I called Dick—he’s going to pass along the message to B—to my dad for me.”
Meg’s expression didn’t change. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she repeated.
Meanwhile, Silas’ nose appeared to have finally stopped bleeding, and he’d cleaned off his face, though he still had blood on his shirt. Melanie had his chin between her fingers, examining him. “If you’re having nosebleeds this often, you should really get your nose cauterized.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
“Want me to just do it now?” she teased. “Pretty sure I have a cautery stick back at my apartment.”
He snorted. “Hard pass, thanks.”
Jason frowned. “Wait. Are they—“
Melanie turned away from Silas before Jason could finish his thought and clapped her hands. “Okay! Everyone feeling up for cake now? Because Meg and I worked moderately hard on it and it’d be a shame to waste it.”
Silas glanced again towards his crime board, but quickly forced his gaze away. He forced a grin on his face, which at the very least seemed more genuine than it had previously. “Yep. Cut away.”
