Batman: Hero of Gotham

49- The Vales' Residence

Batman arrived at the residence of the Vales at 5:46 PM. He realized the front door was already unlocked, so he opened the door and walked in. "I'm inside the Vale house." Batman said to Alfred through the earpiece. Batman further explored the house and saw a dead body on the ground. It was Mrs. Vale. Vicki's step-mother. Her eyes were seemingly stabbed in. "Alfred, the Vales are dead. One body confirmed, but there is a LOT of blood. Alert Gordon."

Alfred sighed. "Will do."

"I don't know how this is connected to the drugs yet. Whatever they knew about it, Vicki made sure it kept quiet." Batman examined something on the couch. It was a syringe. "Seems Vicki hasn't given up her old tricks."

"Is this the same drug?"

"Yes." Batman said as he scanned it. "But this is several times stronger than the dosage I received."

"Maybe she's escalating?"

"This seems personal." Batman looked at Mrs. Vale's stabbed out eyes. "Her eyes are gone. Vicki must have stabbed them out."

"That must be a disturbing sight to view."

"There's an injection wound on her neck. Same kind Montoya and I received, but this one's much worse." Batman noticed the blue veins on the side of Miss Vale's throat. Batman looked at a photo of Mrs. Vale, her husband and a black child standing in front of them. All of them were smiling and they were all standing in front of a truck with a business logo on it. 

"What are you looking at?"

"A recent family photo. But, Vicki's not in it. It shows the Vales with another child in front of an industrial office. There's a logo on the building." Batman walked into the kitchen and noticed multiple blood stains on the walls. "Large amounts of blood spatter across the walls. It's not steady like arterial spray. Someone was swinging wildly." Batman then noticed that there was an indentation mark on the wall near the blood spray. "Wait. There's a slight indentation where something bloody struck the wall with force."

"Something thrown?"

"Nothing I can see." Batman saw someone on the wooden floor that caught his eye. He knelt down. "I found a lock of hair."

"Anything unique about it?"

Batman scanned it. "It was cut at a downward angle. Probably with some force based on how clean the slice is." A clean knife was laid next to a blood trail that led to a closet. Batman first picked the blade up and inspected it. "This knife wasn't used as a murder weapon."

"Then why was it lying on the floor?" Batman shrugged even though Alfred couldn't see him. Batman then walked over to the closet and opened the door. Mr. Vale hung there, dead. 

"Alfred. I found Mr. Vale."

"Alive?"

"No. He's gone. Ten hours at least, judging by the state of his soft tissues." Mr. Vale was wearing a vest with the same company logo as the logo in the picture of him with his wife and adopted son. Batman noticed Mr. Vale was hung with his own belt. The belt was sprawled in blood. "The belt buckle is covered in blood. Before he was hung with the belt, he was beaten with it." Batman linked the logo on Mr. Vale's vest to the logo in the family photo. "The logos match. Mr. Vale owned an oil and heating company."

"I'll look it up right now." After a few seconds, Alfred spoke again. "Yes, he's got a sizeable warehouse in the industrial district, and a fleet of delivery trucks."

"And now Vicki's got it." Batman linked the clean knife to the lock of hair. "It appears that Miss Vale attempted to fight back but only managed to slice through the attacker's hair." Batman then linked the syringe to Miss Vale's neck injection wound. "Same device...same drug. This proves that Lady Arkham is the murderer." Finally, Batman linked the belt buckle to the indentation mark next to the blood spatter. "The indentation matches the shape of the belt buckle. It must have impacted with the wall during the attack."