Okay, I realize that I'm still working on The Hottest Team in Town, but I've hit a difficult transition, leading up to an important part, so I decided to take a little break with this one, which has been cooking in my head since about August. It's going to be short -- just a few parts, and is a stand-alone. I could, I warn you, interrupt it at any time for another part of THTT when I get it worked out to my satisfaction.
Nan
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Disclaimer: The recognizable characters and settings in this story are the property of D.C. Comics, Warner Bros., December 3rd Productions, et cetera, and no copyright infringement is intended.
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Supercop
By Nan Smith
William Henderson glanced at his watch with a sensation of mild surprise. It was just before noon, and definitely past time for lunch. He was just passing Centennial Park and for once, succumbed to impulse. He pulled his car into the parking area and picked up the food he had purchased at the corner deli in anticipation of working through his lunch hour -- again. He didn't have to be anywhere for an hour and fifteen minutes, and the temptation to eat in the quiet and relative cool of the park was irresistible.
He wiped perspiration from his forehead as he got out of the car and glanced at the black thunderheads that had been gathering overhead since late morning. It was suffocatingly hot, and had been since yesterday. The forecasters were predicting a thunderstorm, but so far the only traces of it were the clouds and the occasional low rumble of distant thunder. He hoped the blasted weather gods would make up their minds soon before the heat and humidity had half the city keeling over from heat exhaustion.
Centennial Park was only marginally cooler than the rest of the city. The trees provided a certain amount of shade, but the moisture in the air was just as bad as everywhere else. He sank down on a shaded park bench, fanning himself with a section of newspaper that had lain on the wooden seat. It wasn't often that he had the chance to actually sit down and enjoy a few minutes of peace during the workday. The demands of his job usually made him eat lunch on the run between one case and another, but this was one of those rare occasions. A pity that it was so hot.
He laid the paper down and opened his deli sandwich, glancing at the headline as he did so. It was the sports page of the Daily Planet. The picture next to the lead article showed Superman teeing off at the local Charity Golf Tournament. The superhero participated in the event every year to help raise funds for kids with crippling diseases. Henderson had other reasons to appreciate his presence in Metropolis, most notably last week when he had saved the lives of two police officers pinned down by gunfire from the occupants of a stolen car. It had struck him at the time how many of his friends and coworkers owed something to the Man of Steel and decided that now might be a good time for the Metropolis Police Department to show him some gratitude. It was amazing to him that so few people in the city actually seemed to appreciate what the man had done for them, although plenty of them were eager to criticize when it looked as if their hero might be less than perfect. Witness the flap last year when the Dirt Digger had manufactured a supposed affair between the Man of Steel and Lois Lane. A great many persons had assumed the worst, but Henderson hadn't believed it for a moment. He'd come to know Superman over the previous four years, and it just wasn't in his character to conduct himself that way.
A distant clap of sound smote his eardrums, but this time it wasn't the rumble of thunder. Residents of Metropolis had become used to that particular noise over the last five years. It simply meant that Superman was on his way somewhere, fast. A few months ago, the Mayor had brought up the issue of enforcement of the noise abatement ordinance regarding Superman, and subsequently the superhero had been too late to prevent the crash of a small passenger plane into the Hobs Bay Bridge. Thanks to him, no one had been killed but there had been quite a few injuries and the bridge sustained significant damage. The City Council had responded to the outcry of its citizens following the accident and acted quickly to grant their most famous resident a special exemption that Her Honor had the wisdom not to protest. For some time, Henderson had had his doubts about the woman's good sense, but it wasn't his job to criticize her. Hamstringing a resource like Superman wasn't exactly the brightest move he had ever seen but she was the choice of the city residents as long as she kept the majority of them happy. It was too bad that she hadn't thought of that before the plane crash. He just hoped that the next time she would use better judgement.
He bit into the sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. He'd presented his idea to the Police Commissioner for some sort of event by the Department to honor Superman and the man had been very favorable. Commissioner Brighton had been a cop not all that long ago and had seen far too many of his colleagues hurt or killed on the job not to appreciate the difference that Superman had made. So now, Henderson was in charge of the event. It figured, he thought cynically. The Army should have taught him that good deeds never went unpunished. Still, he might as well take an active role in this shindig. At least that way it would get done right.
He opened the cup of iced coffee and took a swig. Normally, hot black coffee was his beverage of choice but today, anything hot would have been too much. He sat drinking the liquid, considering exactly what it was he wanted to include. Superman had never said so but Henderson had long ago gotten the impression that the Man of Steel wasn't really all that enthusiastic about over-effusive praise and flashy ceremonies. The Kryptonian was in actuality a rather quiet man who didn't seem to want the adulation of the masses. Something dignified would be appropriate, Henderson thought, with as many present as could be managed of the ordinary beat cops who had reason to want to thank him.
He finished the coffee and tossed the container into a wire trash receptacle. Time to get back to work. It was too bad his car's air conditioning was on the fritz again. Driving along with the windows open just didn't fill the bill.
Getting into his car, he grimaced and removed his jacket. It must be over ninety, and the humidity made it seem well above that. Henderson glanced at his watch. The third day of the Quigley trial would be getting underway in an hour and he was due to testify for the prosecution. Time to get moving.
By the time he had found parking, his margin had shrunk to fifteen minutes. He picked up his jacket once more and shrugged his shoulders into it as he strode quickly toward the imposing building. At least, he thought, he would get a little relief from the heat, although the air conditioning of the Courthouse left a lot to be desired. Expenditures for the less vital maintenance had been cut due to budget shortfalls, although Henderson noticed that somehow various projects designed to win voter approval for members of the City Council always seemed to be adequately funded.
Thunder rumbled overhead and there was a sudden light pattering of raindrops on the pavement as he hurried toward the Courthouse. As he approached, he caught a glimpse of red and blue overhead and then Superman touched down on the sidewalk ahead of him.
"Hi, Bill," Superman said. "I guess you're here for the Quigley case, today?"
"Yeah. I'm supposed to testify this afternoon." Henderson glanced up at the clouds. "Looks like we're finally getting that rain they promised us. It sure held off long enough."
"I hope it makes some difference in the temperature," Superman said. "I just transported a woman with heat exhaustion to the hospital. She'd been sitting in traffic for an hour."
"Yeah, I heard you," Henderson said.
Superman's lips quirked, but he didn't comment.
"Hi, Henderson." The voice from behind him was familiar and he glanced around. Lois Lane, her dark hair sticking sweatily to her forehead, glanced past him at Superman. "Hello, Superman. Here for the Quigley trial?"
Superman nodded. "Are you covering it today, Lois?"
"I'm a witness," she said. "I've been following it from the beginning and I'm going to see it through to the bitter end, but I can't report on it until I've testified. They didn't know if they'd get to me today, but I was told to be here just in case." She glanced at the young man trailing along like a worried puppy dog. "He's going to take notes until Clark gets here. Clark'll be writing the article, at least for today."
The tiny sprinkle of rain, Henderson noted in disgust, had stopped. The three of them ascended the steps of the Courthouse together and Superman politely held the door for them.
"Thanks," Henderson said. He gestured Lois ahead of him through the door and followed, wondering for the millionth time where the Kryptonian had learned his old-fashioned courtesy. In the five years since he had appeared in Metropolis, Henderson had never known the man to be anything but courteous, except for the occasion when a deranged illusionist had used hypnotism to convince him that wrong was right -- hardly something for which you could blame him. However he had learned them, Superman had human customs down perfectly. He even spoke English with a Midwestern accent, which spoke volumes about the thoroughness of his instruction before his arrival on Earth. There was the rumor, of course, that some top secret government agency had found and then lost a ship that had brought him to Earth as a baby, but he had never seen any proof of the story, and Henderson wasn't much on conspiracy theories. It seemed extremely convenient to him that the ship had been so fortuitously "lost" and the only witnesses to its existence were supposedly rogue agents who were fleeing the wrath of their own government.
In any case, his history was his own business, as far as Henderson was concerned. The New Kryptonians certainly hadn't measured up to his example, and he could understand why Superman had chosen not to accompany them back to their colony, wherever it was, once Nor was dead and they finally left. He doubted that the man would have liked ruling over a batch like that, anyway. If ever he'd met a bunch of cold fish, that crowd qualified; even the ones that hadn't been part of Nor's followers. If Superman was a refugee from a dead world, like the New Kryptonians had claimed to be, there was probably a good reason he hadn't wound up with them in their colony. It was just too bad that they had managed to find him anyway.
The courtroom was small, hot and crowded, as Henderson had expected. Her Honor hadn't arrived yet, although Quigley and his lawyers were already in place, and the Assistant DA, who was prosecuting this thing, was conferring with two other persons on the far side of the courtroom. Henderson identified three other witnesses, and here and there in the crowd were family members of two of the victims, come to watch the proceedings. Security was very tight, just as it had been the last two days. Quigley's cold-blooded experiment had killed four people, and left two others severely crippled. It was only Superman's intervention that had saved Lois Lane's life and the lives of the three children who had been intended as his next subjects. Emotions had run high at the time the case broke and very few persons had forgotten it. City Hall received an average of three or four death threats every week regarding the man, from every part of the country, and the presence of the Metropolis PD was twice as heavy as usual in the vicinity of the Courthouse this afternoon.
Also, completely inexplicable to Henderson, a crowd of twenty-something females occupied the rear-left corner of the gallery, just as they had yesterday and the day before. Those were Quigley's groupies. How anyone could have romantic fantasies about the miserable excuse for a human being now on trial for murder and worse, he couldn't comprehend, but there were quite a few of them. He turned back to face the front of the courtroom, shaking his head. Sometimes people baffled him.
Her Honor entered the courtroom and everyone stood. Henderson glanced at the defendant and saw a sneer twist his lips. The man's sheer arrogance was appalling. He had been so convinced of the rightness of his theory that he had been willing to sacrifice the lives of human beings on the grounds that the ends justified the means. He still swore that given time, he would be able to re-grow the severed spinal cords of accident victims, and that the results should exempt him from the consequences of his actions.
The law, however, didn't see it that way, nor did Lois Lane, who had tracked down the perpetrator of the mysterious murders and located the three children who were intended to be the next subjects. Henderson, the arresting officer, had been appalled at what they had found in that laboratory, but had felt it incumbent on him to protest the risks Lane had taken. If Superman hadn't shown up, she would have been the fourth subject.
Lane had shrugged it off with a sarcastic comment. Superman, of course, had said nothing. In actuality, Henderson had a good deal of respect for Lois and she for him, but wild horses wouldn't have dragged the admission out of either of them. They had maintained their relationship for years, and it showed no sign of changing. Henderson liked it that way; he enjoyed their exchanges and suspected that she did as well; he wouldn't have known what to do if Lane were to drop her caustic attitude. He saw her turn to look at Quigley, her face carefully expressionless, and the man stared straight back across the room to meet her eyes. Henderson saw a look of pure hatred on the defendant's face. Lois didn't react overtly, but Henderson saw her hands, clasped behind her back, clench suddenly. Lane wasn't nearly as indifferent as her expression might indicate. Well, he knew that. Lois Lane had never been one of those journalists who remained aloof from her stories. She was passionate about what she did and her writing showed it. Not that he would ever admit that he knew that, either. Or that he even read her articles.
The judge took her seat and the rest of the courtroom sat down. The proceedings began.
Henderson followed Lois out of the courtroom as Superman was called to testify. As she departed, Lois glanced at her subordinate with a warning expression that made the man cringe slightly.
The Man of Steel's testimony didn't take long. He emerged from the courtroom fifteen minutes later, a grim expression on his face.
"Done?" Lois asked.
He nodded. "The defense attorney didn't keep me long. I guess he realized it wasn't doing his client any good. Good luck in there."
"Thanks." Lois leaned back in her chair, looking bored.
As Henderson expected, his name was next on the list. It was as he took the stand that he saw Clark Kent enter the room and approach the youthful reporter who was substituting for Lois. Even from across the room, he could have sworn he saw the tension drain from the young man's shoulders.
Henderson's testimony was longer and more involved, and it became apparent to him within minutes of the beginning of the defense's questioning that the man was endeavoring to pin a charge of police misconduct on him. Fortunately, Henderson was familiar with the tactics of a defense attorney with no other refuge to fall back on and had been extremely careful with his procedures in the investigation of Quigley's crime. He had documented everything meticulously, and had his facts and figures memorized, and the defense got nowhere.
At last, the defense attorney let him go. By that time, it was nearly four and the judge called a temporary halt to the proceedings for the day. Henderson reclaimed his jacket from the spot where he had been sitting and stood while Her Honor departed. Clark Kent, next to him, gave him a nod of approval.
"Nice work," he commented.
He allowed himself a sour smile. "I just told the truth," he said.
"True," Kent said, "but that lawyer was trying to make it look like you framed him."
"I know. Expect the same when they get Lois on the stand. If he can't make it look like a frame-up, his client's toast and he knows it."
The crowd was slowly vacating the courtroom. Henderson waited with Clark Kent and his subordinate, unwilling to fight his way through the worst of the mob. Clark glanced at him, a slightly worried expression on his face. "Any progress on that threat against Lois, Bill?" he asked.
Henderson shook his head. "Not yet. We've got our people trying to trace the email, but it's a long shot at best. Your boss promised to lend me Olsen this afternoon."
"I get threats like that all the time," Lois's voice said from behind them and Henderson turned, to see Lois standing there, having somehow forced her way through the departing mob. That figured, he thought. Not even a crowd like that could stand against Mad Dog Lane.
"I know," he said, in reply to her remark. "If you'd take my advice, I'd suggest that you watch your step, and I know you aren't going to, but you're a key witness. At least try to remember that."
"Yeah, I know." Lois didn't sound particularly concerned.
Henderson grunted. "As hard as it is to believe, Quigley's got some supporters." He jerked his head at the groupies who were waving and trying to get the attention of the defendant as he was escorted out of the courtroom by half a dozen deputies. "And they're not the only ones."
"Bill has a point, honey," Clark said. "Nobody in his right mind would be on this guy's side, but we don't know what's behind it. I don't want something to happen to you."
Lois gave a long-suffering sigh. "Yeah, you're right."
Henderson stared at her for a stunned second, not quite comprehending what he had just witnessed. He had never heard Lois Lane concede a point before. Being married to Clark Kent had certainly softened Mad Dog Lane, he thought as they trailed the stragglers out the door.
Lois glanced at him, her expression daring him to make a remark, but Henderson remained prudently silent. "I hope it's cooled off some," he remarked as they emerged from the courtroom and made their way reluctantly toward the big, glass doors at the end of the hall.
Lois's note taker crossed the hallway toward a water fountain where several persons were waiting to drink. Henderson could see, to his disgust, that the concrete beyond the big doors was still bone dry. Little shimmers of heat arose from the surface.
"The rain was still holding off when I came in," Clark said, correctly interpreting his look. "Hopefully, we'll get some relief by tonight. This is the worst heat wave I've seen since the one in November, the year I came to Metropolis."
"And Lex's nuclear plant was behind that one," Lois said. "I wonder if that was one of his attempts to get rid of Superman. I does seem awfully suspicious, considering what we learned about him, later."
"Wouldn't surprise me a bit," Clark said. He opened the door for his wife and Henderson and held it for them as they exited into the oppressive heat of the late afternoon.
If anything, it was worse than earlier in the day, Henderson thought. He hadn't believed the humidity could get any higher without drowning all of them, but it had. It was as if he'd been hit in the face with a warm mop and he could feel the perspiration springing out on his skin. It was as they reached the foot of the steps leading up to the Courthouse that he heard the screech of tires. A car that had been parked across the street, perhaps half a block down, pulled away from the curb and accelerated toward them. As it came opposite them, Henderson heard two loud reports. Then, he discovered that he was seated on the ground, pressed painfully against a concrete planter by Clark Kent, as three more shots rang out. Lois was jammed tightly against him, and he could see blood running down her forearm and dripping on her skirt. Somewhere, not far away, a woman screamed and he could hear the diminishing sound of the engine as the vehicle raced away.
"Lois! You're hurt!" Henderson didn't recognize his own voice. He'd been shot at before but never had anything in his prior experience happened so fast.
"I'm okay." Lois held up her arm, and he could see that the blood was coming from a deep furrow torn in the skin just below her elbow. "They didn't quite miss."
"Stay here," Henderson pushed at Clark Kent, but he might as well have been pushing at a steel pillar. And that was when it happened.
Henderson had the feeling that the entire world lit up brilliantly, and the simultaneous explosion of sound nearly deafened him. Then it was gone, leaving his muscles twitching with the aftermath of electric shock, and there was a distinct smell of ozone in the air. Rain crashed down like a waterfall.
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"I'm fine," Lois said, crossly. "It's barely a scratch and it's already stopped bleeding. Hasn't the Metro PD got anything better to do than harass me when those guys that shot at us are running around loose?"
"We've got an APB out for the car," Henderson said. "I'll never know how you remembered that license plate, with everything that was happening, Clark."
"He's got a photographic memory," Lois said. She glanced at Detective Reed who had been attempting to interview her. "I already told you, I didn't see a thing. I heard a shot and Clark pushed me down against the planter, and then there were some more shots, and I realized the bullet had just grazed me, and then lightning hit the planter. It happened so fast it was all a big blur."
"You three are all lucky to be alive," Reed said. "By all rights, you should have been incinerated." Henderson had to agree with him. He still hadn't quite sorted out the sequence of events in his mind, but Lois's description sounded about right. He glanced at Clark. The man still looked shaken, and Henderson couldn't blame him, since his wife had apparently been the target. He must have moved nearly as fast as the lightning to get the three of them out of the line of fire before the second shot. Adrenaline was an incredible thing, he thought. It made ordinary men into supermen in an emergency.
"Is that all?" Lois persisted. "I want to go home and change my clothes. This skirt is ruined."
It figured, he thought, keeping his face straight with difficulty. Someone had just tried to kill her, and Lois Lane was more concerned about her ruined clothing.
"Fine with me," he said. "Are you sure you don't want a doctor to look at that?"
"I'll put some iodine on it when I get home," Lois said. "Come on, Clark. We've got some work to do. See you later, Henderson."
She pushed open the Courthouse door and marched out into the rain.
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(tbc)
