When Churches Come Crashing Down
Folc4evernaday
Part 10
***
Dianna poured over the files in front of her, sipping a glass of white wine. Superman. He had appeared on the scene a little over a year ago. His first interview was with Lois Lane when he had rescued her from the blast at Prometheus. After that, his interviews seemed centered with both Lois Lane and Clark Kent. Other journalists, of course, had had exclusives with the man of steel, but none of them with the same in-depth exclusives as this duo.
“Interesting.” She mused, taking another sip of her wine as the wheels in her mind began to turn.
***
Clark landed in the trees behind the Pine Grove Cemetery. A tradition he’d started since he’d buried his son’s ashes. Maybe. He reminded himself. What if it wasn’t his son? What if his son was in the clutches of this Leigh-Anne person?
He swallowed the lump in his throat and approached the grave. He was surprised to find someone standing over his son’s gravestone. It was Lana. What was she doing here? “Lana? What are you doing here?”
She turned around sharply. Fear was written all over her face. “I…I’m sorry. I should go.” She said, moving away from the gravestone.
“What are you doing here?” He asked.
“I was just…paying my …my respects,” Lana said tearfully.
Clark winced inwardly. “I..I’m sorry. I just…I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“It's fine. I should go.” She repeated.
“You’re crying.” He noticed.
“It’s a cemetery. People are dead, Clark.” She said, pointing out the obvious.
“Yeah.” He said solemnly. He stared at the gravestone marked, ‘Jordan Lane Kent’.
“I’m sorry,” Lana said. “I know I never said it before, but I’m really sorry about what happened.”
He hated this. He hated it when people apologized for Jordan. He never knew what to say or do. “Please don’t.” He said quietly.
“Don’t what?” She asked.
“Don’t apologize for my son.” He said.
“Oh.” Her voice changed to a bit more edgy tone. “Well, like I said. I should get going.”
“Yeah.” He watched her leave then turned back to the grave marker where they had buried Jordan’s ashes. Using his enhanced vision, he scanned beneath the ground to the contents of the urn. He felt his stomach churn and his knees buckle as he examined the contents. “No…” He fell to his knees.
***
From a distance, Lana Lang watched as Clark Kent fell to his knees. What was going on? Why was he on his hands and knees? She’d never seen Clark cry. Not even as a child. He’d always been pretty well put together in more ways than one. She’d been angry when he’d humiliated her senior year of high school by breaking up with her in the middle of the pep rally. It had taken years for her to get over her anger. Looking back, she’d always thought of Clark as the one that got away.
***
Below the cemented gravestone was the urn he’d had buried so many months ago. He hadn’t known what to do with it? The claims of the doctors and nurses that they had cremated their son’s remains had been heart wrenching. Now he saw the lies for what they were.
The closer he examined the contents of the urn the angrier he got.
Why hadn’t he ever thought to examine the contents of the urn before? Why? Anger coursed through him as he stared at the gravestone before him. His son was not dead.
The doctors had lied.
The nurses had lied.
Kidnapped. That’s what Lois had been saying all this time. In the last month or so since Leigh-Anne’s appearance he’d begun to suspect, but now he had the proof that they’d been lied to.
He angrily stalked out of the cemetery as he planned how to get his son back.
***
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. and Mrs. Kent, but I can’t exactly give out personnel information. It would be unethical.” Dr. Benzen said, nervously readjusting his glasses as he looked back at them.
“Unethical? Don’t even start with me on unethical!” Lois fumed.
“Lois..” Clark tried to calm her down but to no avail.
“First we get told our baby died on the operating table; which I’m sure you recall that that is a lie! We watched the tape. We know he cried. Then we get told you had him CREMATED! Another lie. Since when does cremating a human body create wood chips?” Lois was furious.
“Mrs. Kent, I know you’re upset, but I can’t….”
“Upset? Upset doesn’t even begin to cover half of what I’m feeling. You lied to us. Your entire staff lied. Then you have the gall to try and pull the ethics card?” Lois glared at him angrily. Dr. Benzen had backed away from them by a few steps.
“Mrs. Kent…I really really CAN’T. I..I could lose my license…”
“You could lose your license?” Lois asked innocently. She turned around to see a patient being wheeled in. The man wheeling her in was glowing in anticipation. The woman was obviously in labor.
Very loudly, Lois turned to the crowded room of expectant mothers and announced, “Careful, you might wake up and find out your baby was kidnapped like I did!”
“Mrs. Kent, please…” Dr. Benzen pleaded.
The crowd looked at her in shock. She continued. “Yeah, I got told my baby was cremated; only I find out it's only a pile of burn wood chips. No baby. And now, Dr. Benzen refuses to tell me anything about the people that operated on me the day my baby supposedly died.”
“I could sue you for this.” Dr. Benzen hissed.
“Maybe, but you won’t,” Lois said angrily. “I could take this hospital to the cleaners if I wanted. What I want is my baby. You are going to give me the information I’m looking for or I’m going to keep telling all your patients here what you and your staff did got it?”
***
“I cannot believe you just blackmailed that doctor into giving us this information.” Clark hissed as they stepped off the elevator, into the lobby of the hospital.
“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Lois asked. “Now we just need to narrow the search down.”
***
Two Weeks Later
“This is the report on the contents of the urn. The medical examiner said it was impossible for the ashes to have been anything but …but burnt wood chips.” Henderson read off the report.
“The stray pieces of pine are a dead giveaway too,” Clark said angrily as he paced Henderson’s office.
Henderson looked up at Clark and slowly put the file down he’d been reading over. Ever since Clark had come to him about his suspicions of Jordan’s kidnapping he’d been a constant fixture in his office every morning the last few weeks.
“Clark, we’re doing everything we can right now. We’re trying to track down everyone that was working that day and…”
“We’ve already given you all of that!”
“I don’t know how you got that information, but it wasn’t by legal means.” At Clark’s stern look, Henderson sighed, deciding to take a different approach. “I’m doing everything I can right now. I have to do everything by the book or I risk having this case fall apart when it goes before the grand jury. Is that what you want?”
“You know I don’t…”
“Then let me do my job.”
“What am I supposed to do until then? What am I supposed to tell Lois? That we can’t do anything but just…WAIT? Hope maybe you’ll catch this person? Our son is out there somewhere with some….”
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You’re gonna drive yourself crazy.” Henderson laid a supportive hand on Clark’s shoulder.
“How am I supposed to NOT concentrate on this? My son was KIDNAPPED in the middle of a hospital. I had doctors and nurses lying to me for months about what happened.”
Henderson stared at Clark, uncertain of how to answer the young man’s question.
***
“You’re avoiding me.” Jimmy accused.
“You said dinner. I had dinner with you and you gave me my files. End of story.” Lucy harrumphed, turning back to her computer monitor to finish typing up the deposition she was working on.
“A drive-in burger joint wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“Jimmy. I really don’t want to talk about this.” Lucy said in a harsh whisper.
“Why? Are you afraid you might actually have to admit you have feelings, Lucy?”
She glared back at him, “You need to go now.”
“You can’t avoid me forever.” He shot back angrily, turning towards the door to leave.
***
Leigh-Anne sat with Dianna Stride tearing up as she spoke into the microphone, “This last year has been so hard. Sure, I’ve always hoped Superman might give us a little loan or something to get us on our feet…But mostly…” She let out a choked sob, “I just want him to see his boy.”
“Turn that trash off!” Perry bellowed across the newsroom. He then muttered underneath his breath, “I can’t believe Dianna would buy into all that.”
Jimmy looked at him curiously, “You don’t think there’s a story here, Chief?”
“A story? All you have here is tabloid trash; plain and simple. I used to think Dianna Stride was above this kind of tawdry…Well, I was wrong.” He sighed. “The Daily Planet, by the way, will not be wasting one drop of ink on this cock and bull story.”
“Uh, Mr. White?” Allan approached him with a pink message slip. “Publisher called. He wants to talk to you about the Superman scandal.”
“Pencil pushing, yellow-bellied…” Perry muttered as he took the message from Allan and made his way back towards his office to return the publisher’s call.
“What’s wrong with Perry?” Lois asked, walking up to Jimmy and Allan.
“Oh, the publisher called about the Superman scandal.” Allan supplied. “I got to get this down to Doris.” He gestured to the files in his hand and left.
“Amazing, huh?” Jimmy gestured to the muted image of Leigh-Anne on the television screen. “I never thought Superman would do something like this.”
“What makes you think he did?” Lois accused.
“Hello?” Jimmy grinned, pointing at the screen. “That’s hard to deny.”
“All you have is this woman claiming to have his child. Where’s the proof?”
“That photo says a lot.” Jimmy pointed out. Clark walked up to them with a file in his hands. “CK, what do you think? I mean if I was Superman and had, you know, his looks, muscles, and tight pants…women falling all over me…” Jimmy noticed Lois’ glare was darkening as he continued. “I sure might ….” Clark’s glare was equally dark. “Or not. Probably not. Wouldn’t be a thing I’d think about.” He tried to recover.
“Jimmy, do yourself a favor and please refrain from comments like that around my sister. You’ll only dig yourself even deeper into the hole you’re in.” Lois snapped.
“What’s the big deal?” Jimmy asked, not understanding.
“The big deal is that you’ve already found Superman guilty of what this woman claims without even talking to him.” Lois said irritated, “Then you’re over here talking about scooping up women like they’re prizes at a carnival and….” She was in full force Lane babble mode. He could tell she was angry.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said, holding his hands up as a sign of surrender. “I wasn’t thinking. I was joking. I promise. I’d never…”
Seeing Jimmy needed a way out of this conversation before he dug himself any deeper, Clark interrupted. “Jimmy, do me a favor and get me some contact information,” Clark handed him a list from the file he held. Jimmy looked at him curiously, waiting for an explanation, but got none. Clark’s expression was grim. He nodded and headed towards his desk.
***
“So, what’s all this?” Lois asked, taking the file from Clark as they made their way back to their desks.
“The information on the staff that was in the room when Jordan was born,” Clark said solemnly. “I figure it’s a start. The same stuff that everyone was exposed to a few weeks ago is most likely the same substance that made everyone crazy that day as well.”
“Except this time it didn’t have green kryptonite in it.” Lois pointed out.
“Yeah. It’s still out there.” Clark said solemnly.
“So, what have we got here? Amanda Marshall? Surgical Registered Nurse during the c-section. Tony Benzen…Lead surgeon…” Lois read off the list.
“Yeah, I figured we could try and track down the RN and talk to her about what happened in that operating room. Maybe get some clues.”
“Yeah.” Lois smiled weakly. “The sooner we get to the bottom of this the better.”
***
“You want me to what?” Gene asked.
“Break into their apartment and see if you can find anything incriminating on Superman. Bring it back to me. You’ll be reimbursed for your troubles.” Dianna smiled warmly.
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“Unnecessary risks aren’t a part of my job description,” Dianna said.
***
Amanda Marshall watched intently as Lana finished her meeting with one of the victims of a rape from the recent events the last few weeks. She wasn’t sure why Lana was having so many problems with Lucy Lane. She had been nothing but kind to her. She had helped her to get this job when she had been desperate for money. Raising a young child was hard on anyone. She wouldn’t trade her young son for anything, but she hadn’t anticipated the financial cost of having him.
That fateful day at the hospital six months ago had been a blessing for her. After Benjamin’s death, she’d felt an empty hole inside of her that only a child could fill. Steven had left a month after his death, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her life alone.
Dr. Benzen had spoken of placing the young child in foster care when the parents weren’t waking up a few hours after the surgery. There had been so many children that hadn’t made it. Her young son had proven the doctors wrong. He was almost seven months along when he had come into the world and many had thought he would too face the same fate the other premature babies had, but he hadn’t.
It had been fairly easy. Switching the bodies of the two babies and pretending not to know what happened when Dr. Benzen asked. Premature babies had issues all the time. Complications from surgery. Issues breathing. Once Dr. Benzen had filled out the death certificate she’d known she was in the clear. After putting the poor baby that hadn’t made it back in the morgue she’d began planning how she would fake the ashes. She’d lucked out when the mother and father both had remained in a coma for a week. Most people that had been exposed to the gas had only dealt with issues for a few days. She’d taken her new son home and had thought she’d been home free until her visit from Lana Lang.
***
A young man in his late teens stared up at the brownstone on Hyperion Avenue. He checked the address he’d been given. After assuring himself that the address was correct he headed up the steps.
***
“Clark….yes…..” Lois moaned as he moved up her body, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses in his wake. She looked into his eyes filled with the same desire he knew was reflected in his own.
They would be fine. They had to be. He loved this woman so much.
He captured her mouth hungrily. He could feel her body begin to quiver against his touch. He moaned against her lips. Her arms were wrapped tightly around him, his face buried against her neck as he continued to move her body against his.
CRASH!
A noise from downstairs broke them both out of their reverie. “You have got to be kidding me…” He muttered under his breath as he painfully removed himself from his wife’s embrace.
His head was still spinning and his heart still racing from their recent lovemaking. He quickly spun into his clothes and sped downstairs to see what the commotion was that had disturbed him and Lois in the middle of the night.
***
“Lucy, wait!” Jimmy pleaded.
“I told you this was a mistake. Why do you keep pushing?” Lucy cried as she attempted to push him out the door.
“Because I love you.”
“Don’t say that,” Lucy yelled vehemently. Her fists pounded against his chest, “Please just go!”
Realizing he wasn’t going to get anywhere further in their argument until they both cooled down, Jimmy nodded and left. She closed the door behind him, sinking to the floor as she gave into the tears that had been threatening to overtake her. How had her life ended up so screwed up? She barely spoke with her sister anymore. Everyone she knew was no longer who she thought they were, but mostly she was disappointed in who she had become. She no longer felt confident in herself or her choices. She had allowed herself to be duped by the biggest criminal in Metropolis. What business did she have in trying to work with the District Attorney’s office in prosecuting criminals when she couldn’t read the signs everyone had been pointing out to her for months?
***
A dark shadow fled as Clark moved at super speed to catch the intruder. The intruder had been by the bookcase where his suits were kept. Had he seen anything? He looked over at the table where a bag of his and Lois’ belongings had been flung into the bag carelessly. “Where do you think you’re going?” He snapped, grabbing the intruder by the collar.
***
TBC...
