Supercop: 9/9
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"Kind of narrows the field," Lois said. "Jimmy's doing a little research into that right now. We'll let you know if he finds anything interesting."
"You do that." Henderson grinned to himself. Mad Dog Lane was in hot pursuit of their would-be killer. He wouldn't give the guy a snowball's chance in Hades of hiding his identity. Not that he would admit that to her. He'd been a little irritated when they'd called him in from home to talk to the suspect but he'd flown over and found that the case had advanced another notch with the capture of a shooter. Ballistics was going over the rifle now to try to determine if it was the same one that had been used to shoot at Lane the day before. If it turned out to be the same weapon, they would be well on their way to a solution.
He tucked the cell phone into his back pocket and concentrated on making a super speed approach to the back window of his home. Judging by the smells issuing from the kitchen, Sue was just about to serve dinner. Maybe, he thought, it was a good thing that he'd acquired Superman's powers. The way his wife cooked, he'd had to devote more time than ever to working out, just to maintain his normal weight over the last year and a half. If he kept the powers, maybe he wouldn't have to worry about that anymore.
**********
And now, the Finale:
Returning quietly from a rescue at 2 AM, Clark slipped into his sleeping shorts, intending to get into bed beside his wife and stopped as the sound of typing reached his ears.
A glance at the alarm clock confirmed that it was just past two in the morning. He picked up his robe and stepped into the hall. Beneath the guestroom door, he could see the flickering light of a computer screen and hear Jimmy muttering to himself. Quietly, he crossed the hall and knocked. "Jimmy? Are you still awake?"
There was the scrape of a chair and Jimmy's footsteps crossed the carpet. "Is that you, CK?"
"Who else would it be?" he inquired.
Jimmy pulled the door open. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?"
"No, I couldn't sleep. How's it going?"
"Not too bad." Jimmy yawned widely.
Clark grinned. "Why don't you get some sleep? I'm sure this can wait until tomorrow."
Jimmy shrugged. "I'll sleep tomorrow. I've dug up some stuff you might want to see." He yawned again, nearly dislocating his jaw. "I don't suppose there's any coffee around?"
"As a matter of fact, there is." Clark crossed his fingers behind his back, rationalizing that he hadn't exactly said the coffee was ready to drink. Still, they had some of that gourmet instant coffee in the cupboard, and it was at least twice as good as the newsroom java. "Why don't I get you some, and then you can tell me what you've got. You want sugar and cream? I guarantee it's real cream."
"Sure." Jimmy plopped into the desk chair again and began to type. "I think I've got ... ah! There you are, you little devil!"
Clark grinned at the exclamation and hurried on downstairs to make instant coffee at super speed. A few minutes later, he presented the cup and saucer to his coworker. "What have you got?"
"What's going on?" Lois's voice interrupted from the doorway. She yawned behind her hand. "Don't you guys ever sleep? It's quarter after two."
"Jimmy's been digging into those backgrounds for us," Clark said.
"Any luck?"
"Maybe," Jimmy said, cautiously. "Of the people who might know about the list, only a couple really have the money to have made those donations. Quigley's lawyer is one, naturally ..."
"Naturally," Lois said. "Drake Gorton is a barracuda in the courtroom; one of the slickest lawyers in the business. I still can't figure out why he's defending Quigley for free, unless it's just for the publicity."
Jimmy shrugged eloquently. "Well, that's what he's doing -- defending Quigley, that is. Anyway, I looked into his finances and his history. In spite of being a lawyer, he's squeaky clean; won't have anything to do with anything remotely shady. He attends church every Sunday with his wife of 35 years and has two children: a daughter, Kimberly, who is in law school ..."
"Figures," Lois said.
"... And a son," Jimmy continued. "His name is Willard. He's 24, a part time student at Metro City College. Apparently, he's been in trouble with the law on and off through his teens and early twenties. His dad's got him off of some pretty serious charges a few times. Two years ago he was the driver in an illegal street race, rolled his car and is now confined to a wheelchair. There's no expectation he'll ever walk again."
"What does this have to do with his finances?" Lois asked.
"When I saw the stuff about Gorton's son, I looked a little harder," Jimmy said. "The dates of those two anonymous donations coincide with the liquidation of some of Mr. Gorton's assets. Maybe he was the anonymous contributor -- because of his son. The amounts are pretty close."
"That's a good possibility," Clark said. "Nice work."
"Yeah," Jimmy said, "but it still doesn't explain why whoever it is wants to keep Lois from testifying. The other possibility is Gorton's assistant, and I can't see her trying to kill either one of us, either. She's a reputable attorney."
"It does seem pretty unlikely," Clark admitted.
"How about the son?" Lois asked, suddenly. "Would he have access to his father's stuff on the case? And who is the guy we -- we heard that Superman caught this evening?"
"Ultra Woman caught him," Jimmy corrected. "Superman was too busy saving my butt. I guess it might be worth finding out if he has any connection with Gorton or his son."
"Quigley's experiments were showing results," Clark said, slowly. "It's possible that someone who didn't care about his methods might want to save him from prison, if he thought there was a chance for a cure. I'll talk to Henderson in the morning, and you can do some digging into Willard Gorton's history." He fixed Jimmy with a stern look. "In the morning, after you've had some sleep, that is."
Jimmy yawned enormously. "Okay," he agreed with only slight reluctance. "That bed does look pretty comfortable, now that I'm thinking about it."
"Good night," Lois said, pointedly. "You'll work better with a rested brain, anyway."
"Good night," Jimmy agreed. He told the computer to shut down. "I hope we're getting close. Don't you testify on Monday, Lois?"
"Well, I was told to be there at one," Lois said. "After that, nobody will gain anything by killing me, so I hope we catch him before then."
"Me, too." Jimmy sat down on the bed. "See you in the morning."
**********
"Interesting theory," Henderson said. He took a bite of his wife's excellent waffles, trying not to get syrup on the telephone receiver. "Of course there's no direct tie-in, and there's no law that said Gorton couldn't donate his money to Quigley's research, if that's where it went. And I'm not even going to ask where this information came from."
"Call it an anonymous source," Lois's voice said. "It's just about the only lead we have."
"Well, tell your anonymous source to hunt up any connection between Harley James Brown of 1120 Beech Way, Metropolis, and Willard Gorton," Henderson said. "If he can find one, then we'll have something to act on."
"Clark's working on that," Lois said. "He nearly burned up a computer keyboard this morning in the process. Literally. We'll let you know what we find."
Henderson laughed dryly. "I'm sure you will. I'm on the afternoon shift today, so I'll be at the Precinct this afternoon. Or you can always get me via cell phone."
Lois signed off and Henderson went back to eating breakfast. Sue slid more waffles onto his plate.
"These super powers are sure giving you an appetite," she remarked.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I guess I'm burning up a lot of calories when I use them. Superman says that most of his energy comes from the sun."
"How about yours?" Sue asked. "Do you use solar energy, too?"
"I seem to," he said. "I could feel myself charging up in the sunlight yesterday morning, after the fire at the hospital the night before." He grinned. "Taking it in this way is better, though. Face it, honey, I just really like your cooking."
"I'm hardly going to be insulted by that," she said. "Mom always said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach."
"Well ..." He patted her stomach. "Partly, anyway."
She swatted him playfully on the wrist. "Men! Don't you ever think of anything else?"
"Sure," he said. "Baseball, football and monster trucks."
Sue nearly choked on a mouthful of cereal. "Well, at least you're easy to please," she said, when she could get her breath.
Henderson handed her the glass of orange juice she had poured for herself. "Are you all right?"
"Fine." She took a sip of the juice. "I'm going to have to remember not to give you an opening like that."
"Next time I'll wait until your mouth isn't full," he said. "So, I have the morning off. What's on the agenda?"
Sue hesitated. "I hate to ask you on your time off, but the bathroom faucet is still leaking. I got the stuff to fix it when I was shopping yesterday. If you can take care of it, I thought I'd start on your costume this morning before I go to work."
"Say no more, my lady. I'll start working on it right after breakfast," he said. "Let's see if Superman's powers come in handy with household maintenance."
Superman's powers came in more than handy, he discovered. It took only a few minutes to complete the chore that formerly would have taken nearly an hour. He walked in to the spare bedroom that Sue used for a sewing room, which was slowly being converted into a nursery. "All done."
"That was fast." Sue pulled out her tape measure. "Take off your shirt, please."
He raised an eyebrow. "This hardly seems like the time, but --"
She giggled. "Don't be silly. I want to measure you for your costume."
He obeyed, pretending disappointment. "You women! Get a guy's hopes up and then jerk the rug out from under him."
She wrapped the tape measure around his chest. "You should complain. Hmm ... I guess all that exercise paid off. You're going to look good in this outfit."
"Nothing skin tight, though," he reminded her. "I'd be afraid to show myself in public."
"Don't worry. I don't want a bunch of women ogling you like they do Superman. If he ever gets married, I don't know how his wife will stand it. Of course, if it turns out that he's married to Ultra Woman, I guess she's got no room to complain."
"Yeah, her outfit is a little tight," he admitted. "Don't worry, honey. No woman could possibly compete with you."
"Don't try to flatter me. I can look in the mirror," she informed him.
"Maybe, but you don't see what I see," he said, on a note of unaccustomed seriousness. "You're the woman I wanted to marry, after all."
**********
"According to the guy I talked to, Brown's parents managed to get hold of a lawyer and got him released on bail last night," Clark said. "And he *does* know Willard Gorton. Brown was arrested for participating in the same street race that crippled Gorton but his father hired a sharp lawyer and got him off with community service. His father is an executive on the Board of Directors of Cost Mart."
"Just one of Gorton's friends, huh?" Lois said.
"Maybe. Brown's been in trouble off and on, just like Gorton. His parents have somehow gotten him out of some fairly serious stuff. He was caught in possession of designer drugs six months ago. The charge was that he was peddling them to kids over at Metro City College, but somehow the evidence disappeared and the charges were dropped."
"Naturally," Lois said. "Well, hopefully, now that he was nabbed for this, he'll decide it's too risky to try again. He can't hurt me, anyway -- but I don't want somebody else to get caught in the crossfire."
"Yeah." Clark looked dissatisfied. "He's some kind of employee of Cost Mart, now. Unloads trucks, stocks shelves, et cetera."
"I wonder if he does any other kind of work for Cost Mart," Lois said. "Maybe the illegal kind. This could have just been a job on the side for a buddy or something."
"Maybe. And maybe Intergang has taken an interest, too. There could be a lot of money to be made in this deal. Maybe we've got it wrong. Maybe Willard Gorton is just being used for information."
"Whichever way it is," Lois said, "I think Henderson should know about it. And wake up Jimmy. If the emails came from Gorton's computer, he may be able to find out for us, now that we know where to look."
"Exactly what I was thinking," Clark said. "I'm going to give Henderson another call."
**********
"So, after your mysterious informer found the emails on Gorton's computer, and identified it as the source," Henderson was saying, "I told our judge that Olsen had tracked down the email address and we seized the computer. Gorton sent the emails, all right. He paid Brown ten thousand dollars to kill you, Lois."
"How about Brown?" Clark asked.
"He's not talking, of course. Jason Bentworth showed up a little while after Superman brought him in on Saturday, and he walked out on bail an hour later. We're charging him with attempted murder, though."
"Bentworth?" Clark said. "I guess I'm not surprised."
"Neither am I," Henderson admitted. "Of course we don't *know* Brown works for Intergang. It could just be a coincidence that Bentworth has ties to them and is also representing Brown."
"Uh huh," Lois said, dryly.
Henderson didn't comment. "This is off the record for now, got it?" At their nods, he continued. "We found a copy of Quigley's donor list on Gorton's computer, and he admitted that he'd made it for Brown, even though he didn't know why Brown wanted it. He's out on bail, now, too. His father hired one of his friends to handle the case."
"And, I take it, there's nothing concrete to tie this to Intergang," Lois said.
"Of course not," Henderson said. He shared her sense of frustration, although he wouldn't admit it aloud. "But your testimony put the final nail in the case against Quigley. His lawyer went into conference with the judge and the DA right after you walked out of the courtroom. They're in negotiations of some kind. Probably over the terms for a guilty plea."
"Well, that's something, anyway," Lois said, grudgingly.
"Better than nothing," Clark agreed. "Maybe things will change in the future with three of us to work on the Intergang problem."
"At least the odds are better," Henderson said. "I wish I knew how long this was going to last, though."
Clark shrugged. "Bernie Klein is running every test he can think of on Lois," he said. "He said that so far there wasn't any way to tell, but that theoretically your powers could last the rest of your life -- or they could wear off in a year or two. We'll have to wait and see. Well, here we are. Are you ready?"
Henderson glanced at him in his colorful costume and then down at the steps of City Hall where the mob of representatives from every media establishment in Metropolis awaited them. He swallowed. It was odd that the thought of something like this made him nervous. He'd dealt with the press almost on a daily basis for years, but that had been as the enigmatic Inspector Henderson, not as Metropolis's newest superhero. Unexpectedly his mouth was dry.
They paused in the air, and he was conscious of every face in the crowd peering up at them from the ground, two hundred feet below. He checked his costume covertly one last time, made sure his hood was straight, and swallowed.
Lois gave him a surprisingly sympathetic grin. "You can do it," she said. "Just stand there and look heroic. Answer the questions you want to and let them speculate about the rest, just the way we did when we first appeared."
He nodded. Together, they swooped downward to a landing on the steps of City Hall. Superman held up his hands as the crowd surged forward. Henderson folded his arms, aware that every camera present was aimed at him.
"I'm sure all of you have heard of the gentleman standing next to us," Superman began. "He made his first appearance Friday night, to help the emergency services with a fire at Metropolis General, since Ultra Woman and I were dealing with the emergency in Japan. Since then, he has made several more appearances. You've all had questions, and now he's ready to answer some of them, so we'd like to introduce our associate to you today. He's called the Black Knight, and the most important thing we can tell you about him is that he's here to help ..."
The End
