Batman: Shadow of the Bat #55

Issue Details

Synopsis

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE Bruce Wayne kneels over the dead body of Madolyn Corbett, holding the bloody knife that was used to kill her, as two police officers burst into her apartment with their guns drawn. He insists he can explain, but the officers arrest him and bring him to GCPD Headquarters.   At the station, Bruce calls Alfred and tells him he has a very important date tonight, one Dick Grayson is going to have to keep for him.  Commissioner Gordon and Detective Bullock then enter the interrogation room where Gordon unlocks Bruce's handcuffs and Bullock begins the interrogation. He asks how well Bruce knew Madolyn Corbett, and Bruce says he barely knew her--she showed up at a party he threw uninvited, then kept showing up in his life and once attacked his neighbor's son Tim when he found her lurking in the shrubbery. He claims he only went to her apartment tonight to calm her down after he rejected her proposal of marriage earlier that evening. He worried she'd do something irrational.   Gordon plays the recording of Madolyn's 911 call in which she says, "Police? This is Madolyn Corbett at Hillside Apartments! Please--help me!--my boyfriend, Bruce Wayne--he's threatened to kill me!" The officers were at Madolyn's apartment within five minutes of that phone call, and they found Bruce with Madolyn's body.   Two shopkeepers, a husband and wife, peer out the window looking for someone who has yet to show. The wife wants to call the police, but the husband believes their word will mean nothing to their persecutors'. He pulls a gun out of the safe and says violence is the only language they understand.   Gordon defends Bruce to Bullock, claiming he's a solid citizen, but Bullock speculates about what the rich get up to behind closed doors. Especially when there's a beautiful broad involved. While Bruce seems innocent and open, but they're always the ones with the big, dark secrets.   Batman lurks outside the station, listening in to the coroner. The coroner says there are traces of alcohol and antidepressants in her system, not enough to be dangerous but enough to cloud her judgment. Madolyn's fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, with Bruce's overlaid, and there are traces of paint and plaster on the end of the hilt. The coroner thinks there's no way Madolyn could have done it herself, so Wayne must be lying--but Batman knows better.   The Bat-Signal goes up, pulling Gordon out of the interrogation room. Bruce asks to use the men's room, forcing Bullock to escort him. While Gordon waits on the rooftop, wondering why the signal is lit but no one is there, Bruce speaks to Dick (dressed as Batman) through the window in the bathroom. Bruce tells Dick the address for his "important date" in exchange for what Dick overheard at the autopsy.   Back in the interrogation room, Bruce recounts what happened after he rejected Madolyn's proposal. She scratched him across the face and left, and he drove after her in his convertible, promising Alfred he wouldn't be long. When he got to Hillside Apartments and buzzed her apartment, she told him via the intercom that he'd be sorry. She kept him waiting downstairs for several minutes while she called the police, then when she let him up, she was already stabbed through the chest and came staggering out of the kitchen. She said she didn't want to live without Bruce and handed him the knife before dying, which was when the officers arrived.   Bullock tells Bruce to just tell the truth and admit he killed her, and even Gordon advises him to call his lawyer now.   Six gangsters break into the market and demand protection money from the shopkeepers, who refuse. The husband pulls his gun on them, but it is knocked out of his hand by a Batarang. The leader of the gangsters is lassoed and pulled back out into the night. His followers come after him, only to come face to face with Batman, who handles them easily while lecturing them. The shopkeepers embrace as Batman stands over the defeated gangsters.   Bruce advises Gordon and Bullock to have their scientists check the wall of Madolyn's kitchen for a mark. Since Bruce didn't do it and there was no one else at the apartment, Madolyn must have held the knife to her own chest and slammed herself forward into the wall just as she heard Bruce at her door. She framed Bruce for her death as a gesture of warped love.   Bullock thinks the story makes sense as Gordon stalks off to get the police scientists on it.   Alfred picks Bruce up at the station after he is released from custody. Bruce regrets that he was too busy to pay attention to Madolyn, or he could have gotten her the help she needed. He asks Alfred if Dick did as he asked just as Dick races past them in the Batmobile. Alfred says Dick can tell Bruce himself, if he can catch up to him.