Case of the Claw

by Keith DeCandido

  "Mayor Sittler held a press conference late last night, and had this to say…"

  "First of all, I want to express my condolences to the families of all of those who lost their lives tonight. Two of those were very dear to me personally. Olga Bludeau has been a valued member of my team since my City Council days, and she will be sorely missed not only by her husband and children, but by everyone in City Hall. As for Charlie Duffy, he's been a fixture in the press room since long before people started calling me 'your honor,' and I figured he'd still be there long after I'd moved on. I got to know him very well when he followed my mayoral campaign for the Gazette, and he was a true man of the people and a tribute to his profession. It won't be the same in this building without either of those two. Second of all, I want to express my gratitude to the Superior Six, as well as the others who aided them in driving off these invaders, and also to the Terrific Trio, the Bruiser, and the Cowboy, who were all assisting emergency services in rescue operations in KirbyPark and in SimonValley. The world would be a much worse place and a lot more people would have lost their lives if it hadn't been for their intervention, and I cannot begin to express how much SuperCity appreciates the continued presence and good work of these costumed heroes."

  "The mayor went on to announce that a parade in honor of those who participated in the battle against the aliens will be held Monday morning on Nantier Boulevard. Channel 6 will be showing the parade live, with coverage beginning at nine a.m. with Matt Barnett and Judi Bari."

  "Congressman F. Richard Wert of Montana, author of new legislation that would compel people with enhanced abilities to register with the government, had no comment last night or this morning regarding the attack or the fact that we owe or lives to the heroes whose activities would be curtailed by his bill."

  "One of those heroes is a new face in a familiar costume, Chuck. Several witnesses to the alien attack claimed that a new Old Glory was on the scene aiding the Superior Six and their allies. Some only saw the trademark flags being fired into the air and destroying the alien attack drones, but a few saw Old Glory in the flesh—and with an important difference. This Old Glory…is a woman! Adriana Berardi has the story."

  "Before his tragic death, Super City Gazette reporter Charlie Duffy was making cell phone recordings of the fight against the alien ship, which was being streamed live on the Gazette's web site. It's become the most-viewed video both on the paper's site and on YouTube."

  "SonofaBEEP. Ladies and gentlemen, there's a new Old Glory in SuperCity, and she's a woman!"

  "The new Old Glory was able to stop several of the attack drones from reaching ground level before the ship was taken care of, and she disappeared after that. While the Superior Six has yet to make a formal statement, I was able to talk briefly with Sharon Parsons, the Six's spokesperson, who told me that the Six is very grateful for the new Old Glory's assistance and is looking forward to working with her further. On a personal note, Charlie Duffy was a good friend and colleague, and we're all going to miss him a lot. He won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for his interview with the last person to wear Old Glory's costume, and it's only fitting that his final act was to break the story of his successor—and the first woman ever to take on the mantle. For News 6 at 6, I'm Adriana Berardi."

  "Thanks, Adriana. The first Old Glory fought with the Allies in World War II, and continued to fight enemies foreign and domestic until 1956, when he was killed on Nantier Boulevard by the Red Menace. His true identity remains classified by the U.S. government. Four more men took up the mantle over the years, including Jack Burke from 1959 until he was killed in Viet Nam in 1968; two more, one from 1971 until he simply stopped appearing sometime after 1980, and another who was seen sporadically throughout the eighties and nineties; and then Samuel Teeo, who took on the costume after the events of September 11th, 2001, and who was a founding member of the Superior Six until his death five years ago. Chuck?"

  "We've got plenty more, including details on the Terrific Trio's saving of an apartment building that borders Kirby Park, the end of the Claw's reign of terror, and more on what last night's events mean for Congressman Wert's controversial bill."

  "We'll be right back."

  8.25am

  Under other circumstances, Peter MacAvoy would've enjoyed his partner staying quiet for an extended period of time. But Milewski had been close-mouthed ever since last night when they cut short their planned trip to the SchwartzBuilding after being summoned by Zimmerman to the Ankhmeni residence on 82nd Street. Expecting a proper crime scene, they instead found Zimmerman already there, along with Commissioner Dellamonica and Regina Dent, of all people, waiting for them with detailed instructions on how to proceed.

  Crime scenes with brass at them always were pains in the ass. Crime scenes with brass and the department spokesperson were absolute nightmares. MacAvoy's thirty couldn't possibly come fast enough.

  Now they were finally sitting in the butt-ugly waiting room on the fourth floor of the SchwartzBuilding. A different woman was sitting at the reception desk—she was much younger, looking like she was barely out of high school, and had half the hair and twice the makeup of the other one.

  Unfortunately, staring at her was all MacAvoy had to do, since Milewski was just sitting on the cracked leather couch staring straight ahead with her eyes hard and nasty, and her lips pursed in that annoying way of hers. MacAvoy's last two trips here had enabled him to exhaust the waiting room's reading matter, such as it was. So he paced the floor, trying not to look at the picture of Starling at the ShusterBridge that was still on the wall.

  Finally, the painted lady answered a buzz from the phone in front of her with a thick Southern accent. "Yeah? Okay." She hung up. "Y'all can head on up."

  "Joy of joys. You comin', rook?"

  Milewski just rose from the couch quickly enough that the cracked leather didn't even make the farting noise, which MacAvoy found oddly disappointing.

  Once they were teleported up to the blimp, Milewski actually took the lead, storming out into the fancy reception area.

  But nobody was waiting for them. That disembodied female voice said, "Welcome to the Superior Six's flying headquarters. Someone will be with you shortly. Please make yourself comfortable."

  "Like hell," Milewski muttered. "After all this bullshit, we have to wait longer?"

  For his part, MacAvoy was staring at the flat screen, watching it cycle through various images. One of the images now was from the alien invasion last night. While they waited, it went through the entire run of images before cycling back to the alien invasion, and MacAvoy noted that there were no images of Starling anywhere to be found.

  Spectacular Man strode in from the same rear door that Komodo Dragon had come through the last time MacAvoy and Milewski came up here. MacAvoy didn't feel all that intimidated by the costume this time, though.

  "Greetings, Detectives. What can the Superior Six do for you this morning?"

  "You can kiss my ass!"

  To MacAvoy's surprise, he wasn't the one who said that, though he wouldn't deny thinking it.

  No, it was Milewski. Her eyes had gone from hard to blazing, and she was walking right up to Spectacular Man, pointing an accusatory finger up at his face, and looking at least as unintimidated as MacAvoy, even though the costume had well over a foot of height on her.

  "You knew—the whole time, you knew that Starling was the Claw!"

  Spectacular Man just stared down at Milewski, his jaw set. MacAvoy found himself wondering what, exactly, he was thinking at that moment. He often went through that with suspects, trying to discern what was going through their minds based on their facial expressions, but it was harder in this case thanks to the mask that covered the costume's eyes.

  But then Spectacular Man turned away, and MacAvoy had no trouble reading that.

  "Not the whole time." Usually, Spectacular Man spoke with a deep, booming voice, but now he sounded subdued—which was almost ridiculous coming from a behemoth in a red-and-blue s
kintight outfit.

  He continued: "At first, we…. But I should explain. You see, when you travel to a place called Dimension X—"

  MacAvoy interrupted. "We know. Read all about it—turns you into your evil self, gobby gobby, whatever."

  "All right." The costume seemed nonplussed. "When the Claw first appeared, we had no idea it was the Starling's Dimension X analogue. We—"

  Milewski rolled her eyes and stomped away from the costume, apparently not wanting to be that close anymore. "It wasn't an 'analogue.' That means it wasn't really Starling, just his counterpart in that other dimension—like Spock with a goatee. But when Officer Baptiste shot him—after your 'hero' teammate killed an innocent woman and Officer Fontaine—he turned back into Starling, with bullet wounds in the exact same spot. And we read the article, we know that it changes people. Also? We ran Starling's DNA. It's the same that was on every single one of the Claw's eighteen victims. So don't give me this 'analogue' shit, all right?"

  MacAvoy tried not to grin.

  "My apologies," Spectacular Man said after a moment. "My point is—we didn't know at first. When the Claw didn't come back for so long, we assumed him to be a one-shot."

  Frowning, MacAvoy asked, "A what?"

  "A one-shot. Someone tries on a uniform to see what it's like, or someone who had enhanced abilities and only uses them once before realizing that being a villain—or a hero, in some cases—isn't all it's cracked up to be."

  "He killed five people that first time," Milewski said through clenched teeth, "including one of ours. That isn't 'one.'"

  MacAvoy stared at his partner's second semantic rant in as many minutes. "You really were an English major, weren't you, rook?"

  "Fuck you, Mac." She didn't even look at him, as she was back to staring daggers at the costume. "So what happened when he did come back?"

  Tersely, Spectacular Man said, "He killed one of ours." Then he let out a sigh, which felt like a stiff summer breeze. "That was when we found out it was the Starling. We tried to stop him. Herakles felt that we should go public, but the damage to our ability to function would be tremendous. The balance of the membership voted on it, and we agreed three to two to keep it quiet for now. Herakles then quit, and went after the Claw himself."

  "Are you serious?" Milewski walked back toward him, again pointing a finger in his masked face. "Are you serious? Your 'ability to function' is based entirely upon the fact that you go ahead and function without any oversight, any regulation, any anything."

  "But we do have the good will of the general public, Detective Milewski," Spectacular Man said sharply. "The public trusts us to help them, and that enables us to do our jobs."

  "They're not 'jobs'!" Milewski snapped. "They're, at best, hobbies that you—"

  MacAvoy stepped in before she could continue. "Before my partner goes off on another language rant, lemme ask—why'dja keep the secret after Herakles was killed?"

  "We thought we cured him. Komodo Dragon came up with a treatment that would stop him turning into the Claw, but—" Another stiff-breeze sigh. "Two years later, it happened again. The Bengal tried to reason with him, but in that form…"

  "So you just swept it under the rug?" Milewski was sneering now.

  "Tell me, Detective," Spectacular Man snapped, and for the first time since he walked in, MacAvoy was a little scared of him, "what would you have done if it was one of yours? If, say, Detective MacAvoy here turned into a serial killer by a force out of his control?"

  "I'd put his ass away," Milewski said. "Or, at the very least, keep him from ever killing anyone ever again. But you didn't do that."

  "We tried."

  "You should've tried harder!" Milewski screamed.

  "All right, that's enough." MacAvoy stepped in between the costume and his partner. "Just calm down."

  Milewski chuckled bitterly at that. "I'm barely getting started."

  "Just shut up, already, okay? You've made your point."

  "No, honestly, Mac, I don't think I have." Now she was pointing in his face. "You realize what we should be doing up here?"

  "Which raises a rather pointed question." Spectacular Man now stood with his massive arms folded over his expansive chest. "What are you doing here? I assume you didn't simply come here to upbraid us for our role in this rather unfortunate affair."

  "Don't!" MacAvoy said, putting a hand on Milewski's shoulder, since he just knew she would start to pick on his use of the word unfortunate.

  Letting out a quick breath, Milewski said, "We're here to let you know what we're not doing. We're not arresting you—and Komodo Dragon, Bengal, Olorun, and Suricata—as accessories to fifteen counts of murder. We're also not arresting you all for obstruction of justice. Mind you, we could do that. We could build an airtight case against you so good that the chief prosecutor's office would have a collective orgasm. And I really really really want to do all of that—but we're under orders not to."

  "Y'see," MacAvoy said, "the commissioner himself was at our crime scene last night. Since he became top cop, Enzo Dellamonica don't show up at crime scenes unless there's a problem. And the problem we got is you guys. See, you just stopped an alien invasion. Saved the whole fucking planet. Sittler's givin' you guys the keys to the city—again—there's gonna be a parade, the whole nine. Everyone on the damn planet's ready to give you all blow jobs in the middle of Everett Square. We stick you guys in the middle of a nasty murder investigation, and it all goes sideways. It's a PR fucking nightmare. It'll give that stupid bill that guy in Montana's pushing through all the traction that last night took away. Besides, the Claw's dead, anyhow. So we're here to tell you that you dodged a bullet—or, I guess in your case, let it bounce off those six-pack abs of yours."

  "We would also prefer," Spectacular Man said slowly, "to have the public remember the Starling as a hero. He did a great deal of good for the world, and he had no control over this transformation. He—"

  "Yeah, yeah," MacAvoy said, waving him off, "we already got the spiel from our own spokesperson. Starling died while helping Fontaine and Baptiste stop the Claw. Baptiste is on board, since he wasn't thrilled at the idea of being known as a costume-killer, even if that costume did rip open his partner's throat. Anyhow, you're in the clear."

  "For now," Milewski added. She had wandered back to the window, and was looking out at the view of SuperCity while she spoke. "But we know what you're capable of. We know you're even more arrogant than could possibly be believed, and even more dangerous to innocent people than we could ever have imagined. Yes, when you guys acted last night, you saved a lot of lives, and I can admit that I'm grateful for that." She turned around to face Spectacular Man. "But by failing to act when you goddamn well should have, you allowed more than a dozen people to die, including two of your teammates."

  "Only one of our teammates was killed by the Claw."

  Milewski walked toward the costume. "No, it's two. Herakles—and Starling. If you'd gone public, if you'd explained what was happening, maybe Starling would still be alive."

  To MacAvoy's shock, Spectacular Man had nothing to say to that. Milewski just stared at him for a few seconds, then turned on her heel and walked toward the teleporter.

  MacAvoy smiled at the costume. "Guess you're gonna have to change your name—I suggest the Fucked-Up Five, myself."

  "Actually, we've invited the new Old Glory to join our ranks."

  Milewski turned back around. "Seriously? Do you even know anything about her?"

  "We do now. Our charter requires a consistent membership." Spectacular Man gave a slight smile. "We can hardly call ourselves the Superior Six if there are only five of us, after all."

  With a scowl, Milewski said, "You can hardly call yourselves superior at all." She went on into the teleporter.

  Hesitating, MacAvoy asked, "Who was the other vote?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "You said Herakles voted to go public with Starling being the Claw, and that he lost, three to two. I wanna know who the other ye
s vote was."

  Spectacular Man hesitated for a couple of seconds before finally saying: "It doesn't matter. The vote was final."

  "It matters to me. I wanna know which one of the surviving members of your little team I might almost respect a little."

  Impatiently from the inside of the teleporter, Milewski said, "You coming, Mac, or what?"

  "Yeah." MacAvoy ambled over to the teleporter, suddenly overcome with a massive desire for nicotine.

  To MacAvoy's relief, Milewski went back to being stony and silent once they stepped into the teleporter, and she barrelled ahead after the glow dimmed, storming past the over-made-up receptionist to the elevator. MacAvoy took his time on the theory that he had the keys to the Malibu, so she had to wait for him.

  The elevator didn't even arrive until after he caught up to her at the bank. As they rode down, he reached into his jacket pocket for his pack of cigarettes, only then remembering that he smoked the last one on his way here.

  Still, there should have been a spare pack in the car. Homicide always took their cars from a particular set of the ones in the motor pool, and since all but three of the detectives in the unit were cigarette smokers—the exceptions being Milewski and her asthma, Fischer and his perfect teeth, and Schiazza, who stuck with cigars—there was almost always a spare pack in the well of any given Malibu signed out to them.

  They exited the SchwartzBuilding, and MacAvoy was hit with a sticky coldness. There was still some humidity in the air from the rainstorm, and it remained cloudy. The whole city was dank, like it was covered in a haze. Milewski would probably call it a miasma, if she'd been in the mood to talk.

  When they got to the spot where they'd parked three blocks down, MacAvoy climbed into the driver's side and found a fresh, unopened pack. Not his brand, but at this point, he could give a damn.