As the sleek silver Jeep Grand Cherokee whipped through Metropolis’ late-night traffic towards the business center of downtown, Eugene exclaimed, “Miss Lane! Don’t drive so fast! The police will pick us up for speeding long before we get to RoxxTen!”
“If you had worn the right outfit when you first came downstairs, I wouldn’t have to drive so fast!” she retorted. “Who ever heard of someone wearing a white shirt and tie when they are going to break into a building?”
“Sorry, I forgot to consult my latest copy of ‘What the Well-Dressed Burglar Should Wear!’” Eugene snapped back, tugging at the sleeves of a black wool turtleneck sweater that protruded from beneath a heavy jacket.
Talmadge couldn’t help but smile. Their reluctant computer expert passenger had guts talking to Lois as if they were bickering siblings. But Eugene Laderman was in for a surprise. Talmadge’s smiled turned into a smirk as he said, “Relax, this is Lois’ normal driving.”
Tapping Lois on the shoulder, Eugene said, “You didn’t drive like that during the Ides of March caper –”
Lois interrupted, “I couldn’t risk it then! At that time the police were always two steps away from arresting us! Look, consider this night out an adventure! How many of your colleagues ever leave the comfort and security of the classroom or computer lab to hang out with two intrepid reporters and stop the wrongdoings of an international criminal organization?”
“Only me, but –
“So, now you’re ahead of the curve! But my temporary partner and I are the experts, so like the man said, relax and leave the driving to me.”
Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Eugene said, sitting back with a reluctant groan.
Talmadge’s normally mild tone lifted with a touch of humor. “That’s why we asked you to help us; nobody else would be crazy enough to do it.”
“Terrific. That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Came the petulant reply from the back seat.
“Sorry, Talmadge,” Lois corrected, “But Eugene isn’t the only scientist who tagged along with me and … Clark.” Her voice wavered on his name.
It was quiet inside the Jeep for a few moments and then, Eugene sensing how much it cost to mention her missing fiancé’s name said. tried to shift the conversation, “Who else went with you on nights like this?” He still couldn’t bring himself to say they were going to break into RoxxTen.
“Bernie Klein.”
Eugene gave a low whistle and said in a respectful tone. “Doctor Bernard Klein?”
Talmadge looked first at Lois and then turned in his seat and glared at Eugene, “Who is Dr. Klein?”
His companions proceeded to tell him about the shy genius scientist who worked for S.T.A.R. Labs and Lois filled in how he had assisted her and Clark on a number of daring escapades. Lois was secretly grateful to Eugene for quickly taking the spotlight off Clark and shifting the focus onto their scientist friend. After all this time, she was still uncomfortable talking at length about her fiancé in front of Talmadge.
On they drove through the cold, dark night, passing the Daily Planet, Napier Avenue and Centennial Park. As they sped by the lovely park, wrapped in early winter’s drab hues, Lois stared straight ahead, refusing to look at the now deserted fountain where Clark had proposed. Although Centennial Park’s main fountain was not musical like many others that had been built around the same time, the water patterns which spurted from the fountain were ever-changing, with soft twinkling lights, as gentle as a lover’s kiss. That enchanted spot held too many happy memories, and right now was not the time to revisit them.
Finally, Lois made a hard right turn, and from the back seat came a sharp intake of breath. However, to Eugene’s credit, he never uttered another word of complaint. Maybe talking about how brave Bernie had been on his stake-outs had helped firm his own resolve to go on one himself.
With that last abrupt turn, the Jeep pulled deep into a dark alley and parked in the rear of a single black dumpster filled with all kinds of trash, that recked terribly despite the cold night. With this action they were leaving bright streetlights behind. The only illumination now was slivers of light from the full moon high above, slicing between the two tall rectangle office buildings.
In a low whisper Lois said, “Okay guys, we are here.” She reached into the backpack and, after rummaging around in it, pulled out a pair of thin, plastic surgical gloves. “Wait a minute, Eugene. Put these gloves on. Remember your fingerprints are in the Metro PD database.”
Eugene closed his eyes and made a slow groan. But he wordlessly slipped the gloves over his fingers.
Everybody out,” she said, opening her door. Phew! That dumpster stinks of spoiled cabbage and rotten eggs!” Lois muttered.
The threesome quietly exited the car. Talmadge handed her the backpack and she slung it over her shoulders. Speedily and silently the trio made their way to the side entrance. The oxygen that was expelled from their lungs made clouds of frost in the freezing night air.
Before them was a heavy door with a square steel lock. Quickly, Lois pulled out the gleaming lock-picking tools and went to work on it. In a very few seconds, the lock yielded to her ministrations and the door swung open with a slight metallic click. They all winced upon hearing the sound, echo down the alley, hoping no one was inside the building to hear it.
They entered the maintenance area and proceeded soundlessly up a flight of concrete stairs. They were in luck, as the building seemed to be unusually devoid of life, but it was late Friday night and doubtless, most, if not all, of the staff had departed early. At this hour, even the cleaning crew had completed all assigned tasks and headed for home.
“What floor is Simcoe’s office on?” Eugene asked.
“The fifth. Its where all the customer service reps are stationed.” Talmadge replied.
“How … how do you know so much about this place?” Eugene’s breath labored as they ran up the stairs.
Lois whispered the answer, “Like any good reporter, he does his research. Now be quiet! We’re almost there!”
They exited the stairwell on Simcoe’s floor after thoroughly examining the darkened corridor to make sure it was deserted. Despite walking quietly, their footsteps made loud clicking sounds on the tile floors. The trio moved down the hallway until they were outside of his office. Lois knelt down so that her eyes would be on the same level as the door lock and again fished out her lock picking-kit from her backpack. As she was unzipping it to get out the tools she thought were needed, Eugene, growing frustrated by the delay and worried that someone might come along, reached out, turned the doorknob, and pushed.
The door swung obligingly open.
Lois was chagrined. Why hadn’t she thought to check to see if it was unlocked instead of just assuming that she would have to pick the lock? To cover any embarrassment, she blew out a breath and said, “Thanks, Eugene.” Standing, she led the way into the office. Once they were all inside, since the door was solid, Paul switched on the light.
“This is the office of a customer service representative?” Lois said incredulously. “It’s larger than Perry’s and has a window!”
Indeed, the office was spacious with a U-shaped desk setup including a hutch with frosted glass doors and covered in commercial grade laminate the color of expresso coffee beans. There was a door next to the desk that must be either a supply or coat closet.
But the most unusual feature of the room was the body stretched out on the tile floor in front of the desk, an ugly purple bruise, long and straight across his face. There were other markings as well, a blue powder. Some of the powdery substance was sprinkled in the man’s hair. Lois, despite being frightened was trying to remember where she had seen such a colored powder before.
Eugene let out a yelp of surprise as his gaze fell on the body, and he turned to exit. Lois laid a restraining hand on his arm and asked in a harsh whisper, “Where do you think you’re going?”
His mouth fell open, all color draining from the normally bland face as he pointed at the body laying down on the floor. He whispered in a hoarse voice. “What did I say earlier about breaking the rules? I knew something awful like this was going to happen! No sooner do I get involved with you in a caper, I’m tripping over dead bodies! The very nature of successfully hacking into a company computer is that no one realizes it’s been done. A corpse changes matters dramatically. People… especially the police, are bound to think one of us is the killer.”
Again, he turned to run out of the room, but Lois grabbed his elbow and, with an effort to camouflage her shaky voice, insisted, “No. We… we have a job to do.”
While they were arguing, Paul knelt down and placed a gloved finger on the throat of the man for a moment before looking up, “The body’s still warm, but he’s gone. Our computer friend is correct. I knew something like this would happen.”
Lois, trying to hide her own shock, said to Eugene, “See, there’s nothing to be afraid of. The poor man is dead already, so there’s no way can he cause us any harm. Look, I understand this is completely unexpected, but why don’t you do what we came here to do? The computer is on the desk. Please examine it.”
Nervously looking at the dead man, Eugene nodded stiffly and moved around the body like a scuttling crab for cover behind the desk. He wasn’t a quitter. No one could have gone through the experiences of falling in love with a traitorous woman like Lena, being used as the patsy for her husband’s supposed murder, and fighting for his freedom, and be a coward. Yet whenever he spent time with Lois Lane and Clark Kent or, in this case the mysterious Paul Talmadge, the most remarkable events took place – such as breaking into an office building and finding a dead body! His was definitely not the normal life of a professor of computer science.
Meanwhile, Paul had been studying the dead man’s features. Lois pulled a camera out of her bag and started snapping pictures. As she did, Paul said, “I recognize the victim. This is Mr. Elden Kraft. He’s the missing accountant/computer genius everyone has been looking for. I saw a dodger on him in Bill Henderson’s office.”
Lois said, “Look at his face, those blue marks, almost like the woad markings on the Scottish Celts in Braveheart.”
“Not exactly; those markings were of a darker hue. This looks more like pool cue chalk.” Talmadge said.
“Chalk?” Lois asked.
Musingly, Talmadge said, “Yeah, like pool cue chalk. Where have we seen that before?”
There was a comment from Eugene at this point, “Hah, gotcha. I was right. It was turned off. It is booting up now. I need to look around. There may be a clue to his password somewhere here in the office.”
Laying a gentle hand on his shoulder Lois said consolingly “Go to it, Eugene. We are counting on you.”
As Lois turned away, Eugene started to examine the items in the office. There were a couple of pictures of Simcoe with a large German Shepard. He mused, “He’s a dog fancier. The password could be the dog’s name. That would make it difficult. I’d have to run a dictionary. What else is there around here?” He continued his search, riffling through papers and floppy disks scattered on the desk. Finally, he looked up at the cabinets above the desk. Prominently, in the center, sat a spreadsheet. It was quite simple, having only a date and a word scrambled next to it. Eugene turned to Lois and said, “Eureka! Apparently, he is a bug about altering his password frequently, but he is only concerned about an outsider attack.” Placing a finger on the spreadsheet, he continued, “This is a list of his passwords! I just need to go backward from today to see which one works.”
Lois said in a whisper, “’Was’. The man is dead.”
“Never mind Lois! Keep working on that machine, Eugene. We need every bit of information it spills out!” Talmadge said, with more life in his voice than usual.
“Exactly. Information. Why is Elden Kraft here in Simcoe’s office of all places? Everyone was after him. Including prominent members of Intergang,” Lois said with a sigh.
Nodding his head, Talmadge muttered, “Agreed. Why Simcoe’s office? Why not his own?
Lois lifted slender shoulders and shrugged; the man has been missing for months now. She replied, “By this time, surely his office is occupied by another accountant. Remember when we interviewed Simcoe? He was so smug about how Kraft had covered up the computer glitch which caused so many clients’ bills to go unpaid. What if all the information we need to know about Belfield’s activities and his connection to Intergang are tied up in that thing’s rusty innards?”
“But what about Kraft’s computer?” Talmadge said.
“Insurance companies are notorious for being tight-fisted. Rather than wiping the hard drive or dumping Kraft’s machine, they would have given it to someone else… like Simcoe.”
“That is cheap!” Talmadge scoffed in annoyance.
Eugene noisily turned around in his chair to join the conversation, cautiously trying not to look at the corpse that lay only a few feet away. “Oh, that’s a very common practice! Our department does that all the time. A colleague departs for whatever reason and the computer is purged of all the former teacher’s passwords and access codes. One associate jokingly said he would leave a backdoor program open so he could always have access to the department’s social calendar. Koechling will do anything for free food and drinks…”
Lois narrowed her eyes and then said, “That must be it! Secret access to whatever RoxxTen had going on. Think about it: Elden vanishes mysteriously, and his computer is taken to have its settings returned to ‘factory fresh’. But either he creates a backdoor or Simcoe gets the computer and continues taking payments from the clients, yet does not grant remuneration for medical services.”
“Good theory, Lane. But what brought Elden here tonight? Most important of all… who killed him and why?”
Rubbing her chin Lois sighed, “Let’s hope Eugene can pull something off the machine’s hard drive. That should point us in the right direction.
It only took a few minutes for Eugene to access what he needed and then insert a disk to copy information off the hard drive.
“Almost done,” Eugene said with palpable relief. Working in a room with a corpse was an unnerving experience, and he wanted it over with as soon as possible.
“Good. We can leave, and no one will ever suspect we were here,” Lois said.
Just as the computer made a short sharp sound indicating the download process was finished, Eugene removed the disk and placed it in his jacket’s inner pocket, they heard the creak of a door opening, male voices, and heavy footsteps approaching.
Swiftly Talmadge turned off the lights, grabbed Eugene and pulled him to hide in the closet. Meanwhile, Lois squeezed into the knee space under the desk, ducking out of sight.
A minute passed, as the footsteps grew closer. Abruptly the door was thrown open, and the light switch hurriedly flipped on. Apparently, the newcomers were not concerned about being discovered.
The sounds of two sets of feet could be heard. Two men: one heavyset, with shuffling steps, and the other, with ultra-light footsteps, who must be as thin as a beanpole, entered the office. With the efficient movements of an undertaker’s assistants, they came to collect Elden Kraft’s body. In the process, they struck the computer desk and bumped the monitor, which awakened from sleep mode.
“Hey McCracken, what about the computer? It’s just lit up! I thought it was off when we was here before. Maybe somebody’s here?”
With a grunt, McCracken said, “Nyah, it was probably on all the time. My nephew says computers go to sleep if nobody’s working on ‘em. Besides, if anybody’s here, I got somethin’ for them.”
“Put that gun away! We… we don’t need no more trouble! What would your geeky nephew think?” Beanpole asked nervously.
“That he needs to keep his head in the books. Look, if ya so worried about a computer, we’ll use it to weigh down the body when we toss it into Hobbs Bay. The guy who’s paying us will like that we’re cleanin’ up loose ends. Especially since he was the one to put Kraft’s lights out.”
“How’s about taking it to your nephew? Tell your sister it’s a gift.” The thin man wheezed with laughter.
“Idiot! The last thing I need is for that kid to be crawling around in a stolen computer, especially one that was used by that weasel, Simcoe. We’ll come back up here and get it after putting Kraft in the trunk.” With that, the two men exited carrying Elden Kraft’s body between them.
Lois sat under the desk thinking one of the men’s voices was familiar, when she heard the meaty thud of a body hitting the floor and McCracken’s voice from the other side of the door growl. “Hicks! Shut the lights off!”
The heavy wooden office door opened again, and they could overhear Hicks muttering darkly about how some people think they are the boss of everyone. He quickly shut off the lights, closed the door and rejoined his companion to complete their grisly task.
The sharp click of the closet door opening filled the now silent office, Talmadge whispered, “Lois, are they gone?”
“Yeah, but let’s give it another five minutes. We don’t want anyone seeing or hearing us leave. Those tile floors are noisy!”
The time passed slowly, but soon Lois peeked out from the knee space. “Whew! That was close! “Guys, let’s get out of here!”
“But what about the computer? We can’t let them take it! There might be essential information on there!” Talmadge said.
In a hoarse whisper, Lois replied, “A good investigative reporter knows when it’s time to cut and run! Those thugs are going to be back in a few minutes. Eugene, did you get everything that was on the hard drive?”
“Maybe…”
Talmadge cut through their conversation in a tone of voice that brooked no argument, “We need to leave. Now. One of those guys is armed and we have nothing to defend ourselves with.”
Without another word, Paul walked across the room and cautiously opened the door. Seeing no one in the corridor, he motioned for his associates to follow. As silently as possible, they departed the empty office and swiftly retraced their steps down the service stairway until they exited the office building into the cold winter night.
Two things hit their faces upon emerging from the building: the frigid, crisp air, and the overripe smells of rotting garbage from the dumpster. Lois slid behind the wheel, waited for Talmadge and Eugene to get in their seats, and then fired up the Jeep’s engine. They pulled out, moving toward the light at the end of the darkened alley, glad to be out of danger."
Little did they realize that a dark figure huddled beside the dumpster, watching them leave with intense eyes. The man pulled a camera from the confines of a stylishly cut black coat. As the Jeep drove out of the alley, the light from a streetlamp spilled over the vehicle and he took a single photo of the license plate.
***
Lois released the breath she had been holding as the Jeep turned a corner, narrowly missing a Metrocab. The driver leaned hard on his horn, and the deafening noise echoed down the street, but her response was to push harder on the accelerator.
“Are you trying to draw the authorities down on us?” Eugene asked nervously.
“No. I’m looking for a place to stop so I can call the cops.”
Eugene fairly squeaked, “What! Lois, why? They will know we were there at the scene of a crime. That I was there! What about that promise that my name wouldn’t come up? As reporters … especially you Miss Lane … the unexpected is expected. But with Superman gone…” His voice trailed off at the same time that Lois pulled into a brightly lit twenty-four-hour gas station.
Once the engine was silent, she turned to Eugene and said. “That promise is still good. No one needs to know Eugene Latimer was in Simcoe’s office unless you tell them. But a crime, a murder, has been committed and it must be reported. Inspector Henderson can send over his team hopefully before those two thugs get too far.”
Opening up the car door, Lois said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“What happened to your cell phone?” Talmadge asked.
Looking towards the ceiling she groaned, “Forgotten at home. Still not used to carrying the pesky thing!” With that, she jumped out of the Jeep and ran for the pay phone inside.
It was silent for a moment in the Jeep, then Talmadge, using his chin, pointed in the direction of the gas station, and spoke. “Eugene, trust her. Nothing is more important to that lady than loyalty. She will do everything in her power to keep your involvement in this situation anonymous.”
Eugene sighed then said, “I know that’s true. To be honest, if I had really wanted to stay out of this situation, I should have told both of you to leave my office. Don’t worry about me complaining anymore Mr. Talmadge. By the way, where is your cell phone?”
Embarrassed, he said, “Regardless of what everyone tells me about how important they are to modern life, I’m still not used to having a mobile, either. I forgot to put it in the docking station!”
Despite all that had happened to him that day, Eugene started to laugh. “Welcome to my world, Mr. Talmadge. My mobile is rarely charged!”
His companion gifted Eugene with a tight smile. The computer professor had turned a corner. He was going to be okay. “No need to be so formal after all we have been through this evening. Paul. My first name is Paul.”
