His parents died before midnight. All the years he'd been Batman, and all the years before he became Batman, Bruce Wayne never forgot how his parents were murdered on the Gotham sidewalks because no one was around to come to their defense. The Batman costume and persona were designed to put fear in the hearts of those who walked on the wrong side of righteousness, but Bruce had become Batman because the innocent had to be protected---especially when they got lost in the dark.

So when he'd heard the woman screaming in the next block, he'd gone immediately, tracking it down without the least suspicion until he beat down the door and saw the deceitful videotape player flickering in the middle of the empty room. Empty---except for the message scrawled on the virgin-white wall:

The body's not here. It's in an alley, up the street.

It's your fault---you on the rooftops---you made him jumpy

Drug gangs---terrorists and scum.

Killing them is no loss at all.

I take their money and put it to a better use.

But you don't understand that.

You won't mind your own business.

So you have to be tricked---for your own good.

While the Bat's at bay

The cat's at play.

Batman had crushed the tape player beneath his heel. He would have gotten rid of the message, too---if there'd been any white paint lying around. Catwoman was wrong. Justice must be served, and the end did not justify the means. Catwoman didn't understand---apparently could not understand---and that, in a tortured way, made her one of the innocents. He suspected she was supporting herself by stealing from the drug gangs, where her crimes disappeared in the statistical rounding. And his own passage through the area had probably forced her hand. It didn't make what she did right, but it did mean he didn't have to hurry.