Part 6
Lois stomped off the elevator the next morning. It had definitely not started well. After finally falling asleep in the early hours of the morning, she woke up late for work, and then, while putting water into the coffee pot, she accidentally knocked it against the faucet and cracked it. She then spent her precious time picking up the broken glass from the sink. As if that wasn’t enough, she was delayed because of an unusual build up of traffic en route to work. Apparently, an older man had a seizure and his car went out of control. Sitting in the resultant back up, she saw Superman fly in and take control of the situation. For the first time in her career, she remained in her Jeep and avoided the superhero, in the end, losing out on an interview with him. His save would go unheeded by the Daily Planet.
The problem was that she knew exactly why she hadn’t approached Superman to get an interview. She was mad at him, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to speak to him. Once more she thought about his attitude toward her. The same argument went through her head: he suspected that Lex was not what he appeared to be, and even though Superman knew that Lois was going to marry him, and that she would be upset to learn that he was a criminal, Superman failed to tell her. He was wrong not to tell her. Saying that Clark had told her shouldn’t let him off the hook. She might admit that she was wrong in not trusting Clark’s motives for telling her, but Superman left her in the position where she made a bad decision about marrying Lex because she didn’t know all the background. She wouldn’t have accepted Lex’s proposal if she had known that he was a crook... Lois gasped. Did that mean that Superman thought so little of her that he thought that she would marry Lex even if she knew about his criminal activities? No. That wasn’t important: that Superman had hurt her was. She was definitely mad at the superhero. And she knew that she did mad well. Nonetheless, she realized that she had to look at her relationship with the Man of Steel realistically. She couldn’t let good stories fly by her just because of her personal resentment. She would act like a professional next time she saw him in a newsworthy situation.
And then there was Clark...
Lois sat at her desk reviewing her notes from the evening before. She had to find the identity of the men who were pushing Stan and Al around, and she had to find the kind of business in which they were involved. That would take time and...
"Lois?"
"Whaaat?" she asked throwing her arms in the air and knocking the coffee out of Clark’s hands. Hot coffee trickled down her arm running under the sleeves of her blouse. She pulled wads of tissue from the box on her desk and began wiping her arm. "What the heck do you think you’re doing?" she asked. "That stuff is hot! And my blouse..."She turned around to look at a wide-eyed Clark who was standing behind her, holding a coffee mug in each hand, his jacket, tie and shirt covered in the remainder of the coffee.
"Sorry," she said grabbing another fistful of tissues and dabbing at his wet clothing. But her mood suddenly changed and she turned on her partner. "Kent, why are you sneaking up behind me?"
"Sneaking? I usually bring you coffee in the morning."
"You’re supposed to announce your arrival, not scare me half to death." She stood up and faced him. "What were you thinking?" But before he could say anything, Lois plowed on. "Oh! Thinking. No. You haven’t been thinking with your head lately, have you? Nope. Didn’t look like it last night when you couldn’t keep your hands off Mayson Drake on national television. Nope. Your mind must be totally elsewhere that’s for sure..."
"Lois, what are you talking about?" Clark asked lowering Lois’s flailing arms to her side.
"Last night. On television. For the whole world to see. Get a grip, Kent. The world doesn’t have to know about your private life."
Clark, still trying to figure out what she was talking about, watched Lois. She pushed her finger at his damp jacket and explained. "I was flipping channels after the news and watched you kissing Mayson at the football game."
"Oh," Clark said thoughtfully, "And that was something bad?"
"Yes...No. It just wasn’t appropriate. You’re not horny little teenagers."
"You’re jealous."
"No, I’m not. Get a life, Kent."
"I’ve got a life, Lois. I’m the one who was out on a date last night. You’re the one who was flipping channels."
"Right. If you call going out with Mayson Drake a life." Turning around, she sat back at her desk. "We have work to do, and I have to tell you what I learned after you left yesterday."
Clark glared at Lois. Whatever else was going on, it was obvious to him that Lois was upset about his date with Mayson and the fact that she had seen them kissing on television. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was jealous. Clark decided that he liked that. Maybe Lois saw him more than just the friend she claimed he was. He’d think about that later; now they had a mystery to solve.
After Lois shared what Carla had told her the previous evening, the two reporters realized that they now needed to find out what Stan and Al Rossi knew that had gotten them killed and who the two men were who probably killed them. Clark thought that discussion lacked their usual comfortable volleying of ideas and he was relieved when Jimmy approached them grinning.
"Do you guys want to know what I found out?
"Of course," answered Lois having no patience for Jimmy’s guessing game. "Spill."
"Well, Abbott was the management company that Stan and Al Rossi owned."
"We knew that, Jimmy."
"Okay. Did you know that Bennett Realty owned the properties that the Rossis managed."
"Yes, we knew that yesterday. Get to the point."
"Bennett was selling a lot of property to Campbell-Thompson Development which is a construction company building mega-stores and mega-malls as well as office complexes all over the city. I did a land-title search for some of their properties and many of the properties were managed by Abbott before Campbell-Thompson bought them."
"Were they owned by Bennett first?" asked Clark.
"No. There’re a variety of owners. But somehow the Rossi brothers have managed about fifty per cent of the properties."
"So?"
"Don’t you get it, Lois?" Clark asked. "There must be some connection between the Rossi brothers and Campbell-Thompson."
"So?"
"Were all the properties in poor condition?"
"Hard to tell on a land-title search. There were some properties with liens on them, but the prices were low compared to other properties in the area sold at the same time."
"Are you saying that the Rossis neglected the properties to drive down the value for Campbell-Thompson to buy at bargain basement prices?" asked Lois.
"That’s what it seems like to me," said Jimmy.
"Our next step..." Clark stated.
"...is to visit Abbott Management’s office and look at their files. We can do that today, and then tonight we can check out Campbell-Thompson."
"We can’t do that, Lois."
"Why not?"
"Because it’s breaking and entering."
"We won’t break anything. Come on, Clark. We have work to do."
*************
Clark reluctantly followed Lois to Abbott Management where they found a young woman who looked like a recent high school graduate on the phone, filing her nails.
"No, Mom, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do...I finished up my regular work, and now I haven’t heard from anyone...I guess I’ll stay here until five and then I’ll lock up and go home... Mom, I gotta go. Some people just came in...See ya."
Lois nudged Clark whispering, "Play along."
"Hi," she said raising her voice as if she was expected to say the girl’s name but couldn’t remember it.
"Jeannie."
"Right. Jeannie. My partner and I are from Bennett Realty and we’re supposed to organize the files before they get moved over to our head office." Lois pushed Clark’s hand away. She knew that he wanted to stop her lying to get to the files, but she also knew that there was no other way.
Jeannie looked uncertain. "I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I’m new here. Stan never told me what do if him and Al got killed."
Lois elbowed Clark in the ribs. He leaned forward and smiled as he said, "Hi," venting charm toward Jeannie.
"Don’t worry," Lois consoled her. "Where’s the person who worked here before you."
"Mrs. Sirkodar?"
"Yes."
"She got a better paying job with J.A. Macdonald Associates as a section manager. I’m alone here now."
"That’s all right, dear. We know exactly what to do. Since Abbott managed Bennett properties, the files belong to the company. We’re not going to move them, we’re only going to categorize them. Just show us where."
Jeannie hadn’t removed her eyes from Clark who kept smiling at her. She quickly glanced at Lois, shook her head nervously, then returned her gaze to Clark. She smiled back at him.
"I guess it’s all right." She stood. "Follow me. I’ll take you into Mr. Rossi’s office." She led them into a large room which contained two desks, some office chairs and a row of filing cabinets.
"Thank you," Clark said, as he put his hand on Jeannie’s back and led her toward the door they had just entered. "We’ll take care of everything from this end."
Jeannie beamed as she looked up at his face. "No problem. If you need anything else, just shout." She kept staring as he gently closed the door between them.
"Wow!" she said.
"I’m not happy with what we just did there, Lois."
"We’re in, aren’t we?" Lois saw Clark staring at the door that he had closed. "It’s not illegal, and we didn’t break in. Come on. We’ve got work to do."
"Semantics," Clark muttered.
Lois and Clark took their time examining the room. Clark started with what he soon learned was Al’s desk. The top drawer contained racing forms with horses circled in different races. Al’s desk calendar listed the horses the he had bet on or that he planned to bet on. Although Al had accumulated a stack of complaint letters, it was obvious from searching his desk that Al’s first interest wasn’t the management business at all.
Stan’s desk was a little more interesting. He had several ledger books in his bottom drawer. While Lois’s back was to him, Clark skimmed through them very quickly. The first few showed accounts receivable and payable for the various properties that Abbott managed. The fourth ledger that he found was more interesting. It contained a listing of addresses, dates and cash figures. When he pointed it out to Lois, she reached in her satchel and handed him her camera. Clark snapped photographs of the pages in the ledger. Back at the Planet, he and Lois would find the significance of the amounts and the dates.
Meanwhile, Lois found that many of the files were organized by address. She looked up the one for 2047 Bayside Avenue. She photographed the file and then found the folder for another apartment complex. She photographed that one so that she could compare the differences.
They managed to work for about an hour when Clark heard voices other than Jeannie’s prattling on the phone with her friends. "Lois, shh," he warned, signalling her to put the camera away.
"What?" she whispered back, instinctively following his non-verbal instruction.
"Someone’s coming."
"Who?"
Before Clark could answer, the door opened and Inspector Henderson walked in. He eyed the occupants of the room and guffawed.
"Lane and Kent. Why am I not surprised?"
"Inspector," said Clark.
"Henderson," said Lois. "It’s about time you got here."
"Lane, this is a murder investigation. I could have the two of you up before a judge for tampering with the evidence and..."
"Yes, you could Inspector," Clark interrupted, "but you know us. We’re after the same thing."
"I know, but I wish you would do your real jobs, so that I could do mine." He looked around the room. At least whatever they did was done neatly. "Do you have anything to share?"
Lois stared at Clark raising her eyebrows. "No nothing. Looks like it’s all business to me. What do you say, Clark?"
"Al’s heavy into gambling on the horses. No indication if he’s a loser or a winner. Stan looks like he’s the one with the business sense. You’ll find ledgers in the bottom drawer, but you’ll probably need an accountant to go over them."
"Thank you, Clark. That was helpful. Now, I’d like the two of you to get out of here, or I’ll be talking to the DA."
"Thanks, Bill. Let us know what you find."
"And you two let me know what you learn from today’s little escapade. If that child who calls herself a receptionist hadn’t let you in, I would call this a B and E."
tbc...
