Part 8
Watching the next couple in line, the hostess of the Roma Cafe knew that, even though the man and woman were dressed in business suits, they were not at the restaurant for a professional meeting. The attractive woman peered into the handsome man’s eyes as if she never wanted to let go. The man’s soft smile answered her unwavering gaze. The hostess led them to a table in a secluded corner of the restaurant where they could have some privacy. She knew a date when she saw one.
"I don’t have a lot of time for lunch today," Mayson said when the hostess left them with the menus. "I have to be back in court at two."
"That’s all right. I’ll get you there on time," Clark reassured her. "Can you handle a glass of wine if you’re going into court?"
"Just one."
They looked at the menu, quickly deciding on what to order. When the waiter came around, Clark ordered two glasses of white wine for them, a Greek salad for Mayson, and a cajun chicken sandwich with fries for himself.
"Fries," Mayson said. "I’m jealous."
"I usually order them so Lois can nibble..." Clark let the sentence trail off while he examined the pedigree of the cutlery. "Uh. I’ve been looking into LexComm."
"LexComm? Why? It’s been taken over by Metrotek."
"I know, but I was wondering if your father’s death could be related somehow to his having worked for Lex Luthor."
"Are you implying that my father was doing something illegal?"
"Uh...No. Not at all. But we know that whatever Luthor did, no matter if it had a bright, shiny surface, the deeper one would dig the darker it would get."
Glaring at Clark, Mayson leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest and tried to control her breathing. "Why are you doing this?"
"Mayson, after you told me about what happened to your parents, I looked up the story and saw the police files. Something in me is screaming that this wasn’t an accidental shooting, a burglary gone bad."
"The case is closed. The murderers are dead."
"Mayson," Clark said, keeping his voice steady, "I looked up the records of the two men in the car. They were petty criminals with a long record of burglaries. They got caught fencing merchandise and were in jail several times. They weren’t too smart."
"So?"
"They never used weapons of any kind."
"They could have started carrying guns. MOs can change, you know."
"But your father worked for Luthor. He might have known something."
"My father, I’ll have you know, was a good, honest man. He was a talented engineer who helped create some of the high tech communication systems that we have in this city today. He happened to have worked for the major communication system corporation in the state. The only game in town, as it were." She sat up straighter taking the glass of wine that the waiter had brought while they were talking. "I expected better of you," she whispered after she had drained the glass. "My father would not have stood for anything illegal going on."
"Mayson..." Clark pleaded.
When the waiter approached with their lunches, she ordered another glass of white wine.
They ate in relative silence, commenting only on the food. Mayson was merely dabbling with her salad, picking at random lettuce leaves, moving them around on her plate before eating them. By the time Clark finished his sandwich and fries, Mayson had eaten less than half of her salad.
"Mayson, I’m sorry," Clark said after the waiter had brought her a third glass of wine. "I didn’t mean to imply that your father was crooked. It just doesn’t make sense why four people would end up killed in what seemed to be a simple robbery. I can’t seem to get this out of my head. Something doesn’t feel right."
Mayson picked up the glass of wine. Clark put his hand on hers before she could drink it. "You have to be in court soon," he said quietly as he waved the waiter over to bring them coffee.
"Would you like some chocolate cake?" he asked Mayson while he was ordering coffee.
"No," she said. "I don’t like chocolate."
The hostess watched the couple at the secluded table. The man was sitting forward in his seat, slowly sipping his coffee. The woman was leaning back in her chair looking at her hands which were playing with the coffee cup in front of her. She didn’t look at the man. After a few minutes, the woman glanced at her watch, got up and walked away from the table. The man leaned back, motioned to the waiter for his bill, and sighed. This had not turned out to be the romantic lunch that the hostess had envisioned for these two.
****************
Lois marched up to Detective Inspector William Henderson’s desk. When the detective looked up, he smirked and announced to his fellow officers, "Batten down the hatches, men; Lane is here."
"Very funny, Henderson."
"How can I help you?" he asked in his usual non-committal monotone.
Lois, pulling up a chair to his desk, leaned forward and said, "I need to know what you’ve found out about Stan and Al Rossi’s deaths."
"Not for public consumption, yet."
"Come on Henderson, this is me, Lois."
"Right. Ms prize-winning investigative reporter. That’s the same as public knowledge."
"Henderson," Lois whispered conspiratorially, "I’ll show you mine if you show me yours."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"I have some information that might help you find the killers."
"If you don’t tell me, Lois, I can have you charged with withholding evidence," he whispered, mimicking her tone.
"If you don’t tell me, I can make you the most disliked man in Metropolis, where even your family...even your mother won’t like you."
"They don’t like me already."
Lois stared at the taciturn detective. Somehow he always seemed to win a face-off against her, but she also knew that he could be trusted. Well, maybe not completely, but she would get some information here.
"All right. You know the button I found in the laundry room?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, Clark found the trenchcoat that was missing the same button. It was hanging in the security trailer at a CTD construction site."
"How did he find that?"
"Well, uh...mmm...we were looking...uh...for the night watchman when he saw it hanging in the trailer."
"Right?"
It amazed Lois that the man’s face remained poker straight even though she knew that he knew that she was giving him an edited version of the truth.
"Now, remember that I told you that I spoke to someone who saw two men in trenchcoats threatening Stan and Al."
"Pretty circumstantial and flimsy at that."
"I know, Henderson, but it does link CTD to the murders and fire. It’s a beginning."
"Yes, it is." Henderson pulled out a file from his on-going tray and opened it. "I had an officer go through Stan and Al’s papers. They weren’t very organized, but on a rough pad of paper, Stan had the draft of a letter. It wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, but it did have some interesting information. It looks like he was trying to coerce someone."
Henderson passed the letter over to Lois who glanced at it. "Interesting," she said. "So Stan knew that whoever the letter was for, was planning to evict all the tenants and then sell off the building and that ‘whoever’ was going to change the zoning by-laws for commercial structures. He was looking for a larger cut. I wonder if he sent the letter?"
"That’s what we’re trying to find out, but there’s no record of it on his computer."
"Thanks, Henderson." Lois turned to leave. "Oh, by the way, Clark found these gloves in the pocket of the trenchcoat with the missing button. He suggests that you send them to your lab to have them analyzed." She reached into her purse and pulled out a baggy with the gloves in it. "Clark was careful when he picked them up." She handed him the baggy.
"Good to see that you weren’t planning on withholding any evidence from me, Lois," he said taking the gloves from her. "I’ll let you know what the results are after I get them."
****************
Lois was busy staring at her computer, using the mouse to scroll down the page that she was reading intently. She didn’t hear Clark approach, but felt him standing behind her peering over her shoulder.
"How was lunch?" she asked, not looking at him.
He grimaced. "Good food, but I think I put my foot in my mouth several times during the meal." He walked around to face her. "Here, I brought you a sandwich. I figured you wouldn’t have stopped for lunch."
"Thanks," she said, not really surprised that he had thought of her. She unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. "Mmm, this is good. What is it?"
"Cajun chicken...from Roma’s."
"Delicious."
"Finish eating and then tell me what you’ve been doing."
"I’ll talk in between bites because this is too good to gulp down. I’ve been trying to figure out why Stan and Al got killed, so I went to see Henderson at lunch time..."
****************
Their next assignment pulled Lois and Clark away from investigating the Bayside Fire as they were beginning to call it. Perry had scheduled the reporters, along with Jimmy Olsen, to go to Fort Truman to observe a PR demonstration of the Automated Tactical Assault Soldier. Instead of a straight promotional story, Lois and Clark ended up looking for Ryan Wiley, the fiancé of Lois’s college roommate. They believed that Wiley, who was supposed to be dead, was responsible for General Marshall’s death by the ATAS. In the end, Superman managed to save the city from the brink of destruction, and Wiley and his fiancée, Molly Flynn, had to face the justice system.
Lois was pleased that her reaction to Superman, each time she saw him, was professional. She had thanked him politely, once for saving the people in the stands from being sprayed by ATAS fire, and once for saving the city from Wiley’s treachery as well as releasing her and Molly who were tied up in the computer room of Fort Truman.
Once they returned to the newsroom, Lois and Clark wrote up the unbelievable story and sent it to Perry. It was late, too late to visit the CTD construction site, and feeling too edgy to go home, Clark decided to use some of his down time to look at the file that he had started on the Drake murders and Paul Drake’s relationship with Lex Luthor. As he was reading the file for the umpteenth time, looking for some piece of missing information, he heard a cry for help. He left the office to answer it. When he returned, Lois was sitting at his desk, with a cup of coffee in her hand, reading over the file. He felt like kicking himself for leaving it on his desk. He really didn’t want to talk to her about Mayson and perhaps start another tiff; yet, he knew that the file would pique her curiosity.
When he walked up to his partner, she looked up at him and said, "You know, Clark, if I were a shrewd crook, this would be a perfect crime."
"What do you mean?"
"I was looking at the Drake file..." She lifted some pages in the air.
"You were snooping...I should have known..." he said scooping up the pages and closing the folder.
"We’re partners, and...it was in the open, Kent." She glared at him, trying to figure out, he was sure, why he had made the comment about snooping. "Do you want to hear what I was thinking?"
"Sure, go ahead," he said, knowing full well that she was going to say what she was thinking with or without his consent.
"Okay." She patted the edge of his desk, indicating that he should sit down. "If I wanted to kill someone, this would be the perfect set up."
"So you said." This was exactly what he loved most about Lois. Her enthusiasm. The excitement of the chase made her eyes sparkle. He dreamed of the day when her eyes would sparkle for him in that same way.
"I would hire a person who specializes in breaking and entering and tell him that he’s going to rob a place—tell him there’s valuable stuff there. Then I’d make sure I arm him. I’d know when the victim was expected to be home, and I’d make sure that the robber would be there at the same time. Then when the victim arrives, B&E guy is surprised and shoots the owners. He then sets fire to the house."
"But, what if the police get B&E guy? He could rat on you."
"Ah, there’s the brilliance of my plan."
Clark raised his eyebrows, nodding his head to encourage Lois to go on.
"I’d get rid of B&E guy."
"How?"
"In some kind of accident."
"Like a car accident?" Clark stared at Lois.
"Ford Pintos were notorious for exploding on impact. If I remember correctly the gas tank was in the trunk."
"But how could B&E guy kill all four people who walked in?"
"Maybe he didn’t," she suggested looking for a reason. "Maybe he had an accomplice."
"Then he was killed, too?"
"Possibly...or, in this case there were two B&E guys who were accompanied by a third guy who was sent to oversee the plan. Make sure it was carried out. Then his job was to get rid of the other two."
"That’s a lot of people knowing the plan." Clark paused. Something still wasn’t right. "But the two B&E guys weren’t known to carry guns, and automatic weapons are pretty sophisticated for these guys."
"How did you know that?"
"The rap sheet. Here, look." Clark passed the rap sheets over to Lois. "They just pulled off small scale robberies, home invasions when no one was around. The convenience stores that they robbed were closed."
Lois read the files as Clark looked over and pointed out certain lines as he spoke to her.
"As you can see, neither of them ever carried guns. In fact, there’s no indication of any violence at all."
" These guys stayed away from people. So why did they change their MO?" Lois asked trying to make sense of the information.
"That’s what’s been bugging me all along. Their deaths made it easy for the cops to close the case. No motive other than robbery. Why did they have guns in this particular robbery?"
"That’s what we have to find out, partner," she said slapping his knee.
Clark thought about Lois’s story. It was far-fetched, and yet it worked. "The two men who were killed in the accident were patsies, framed. Luthor always made sure that the trail led away from him."
"Are you suggesting...?"
"Sorry, Lois..." Clark worried that Lois was still sensitive about her near marriage to Lex Luthor.
"No. Don’t be sorry. You might be right. I know who Lex Luthor was. And if Paul Drake knew something that he should not have or that he was involved in some way, then it could very well have been Lex who sent someone to kill Drake. Killing the family may have been used as a blind, to obscure who the real target was."
"But why do you suspect Lex?"
"Did you know that Mayson’s father worked for one of Luthor’s companies?"
"No."
"I’ve looked into Drake’s work record and even talked to Mayson about it, but I can’t seem to find a connection."
"You talked to Mayson about it?"
"Well, yeah. She might have known what her father was doing."
"Right. So what did she say?"
"She wasn’t too happy about the implications. She shut me out."
Clark leaned back in his chair. Lois’s theory made sense. It even sounded similar to what happened at the Bayside fire. Two bodies were left in the building, and if it wasn’t for the bullets and the fact that the two men didn’t live in the building, it could have appeared as a result of the fire.
Lois had enough experience with police investigations that her theory could be plausible. She was brilliant in that way, her intuitive powers finding the track that usually led them to the right answers. And, having nothing better than a suspicion himself, that not all was what it seemed, made Lois’s hypothesis a viable one. He loved to watch Lois solve a problem. There was a certain grace to it.
Mayson, on the other hand, was more of a linear thinker. As he thought over the events of the Drake murders, he was bothered thinking that Mayson could have been killed that day as well. She was planning to go back to the house with her family. They were going to continue the celebration. Luckily, she had been called away. Luckily...but if the robbery and murders were premeditated then Bill Church’s phoning her to help out a client might have been planned so that she would not get hurt.
"Lois!" he exclaimed. She had already risen from his chair and had walked over to her own desk where she shut down her computer. She turned around at her partner’s outcry.
"What if I’m...we’re...looking in the wrong place? What if I’m so keen on getting Luthor one more time, that I’m not seeing clearly?"
"What are you getting at?"
"The night of the fire, Mayson was with her family, but as they were driving back to the house, she received a phone call from Bill Church asking her to come to his condo to speak to a client. What if that call was a diversion to keep her away from the house..."
"...Because Bill Church wanted her to live. Then there’s a different reason to pursue this case because Church is still a threat." Lois walked back to Clark’s desk. "But how can we find a link to the Drakes? And what was the motivation behind the killings? Was he trying to scare Mayson?"
"I don’t think so. At least, Mayson doesn’t seem scared of Church. She acts as if he’s a father figure."
"So then, if he is involved in this, she has no idea."
Lois thought about that for a moment.
"Have you found any connection between Mayson’s father and Church?" When Clark shook his head, she continued. "What about her brother? Or maybe her mother? Did Mayson have a stay at home mom or did her mother have a job?"
"A job. Mayson mentioned that she was a latch-key kid. You think I’ve been assuming that the Drakes were killed because of the wrong parent?"
Lois shrugged. "It’s a thought."
She’s brilliant, he thought again as he watched her walk back to her desk. She would take hold of a situation and look at it in a way that he would consider illogical, but then she’d make the impossible, possible by seeing something that he totally missed. Yet, once he thought about it, her conclusions made sense.
He watched Lois clean up the scattered papers on her desk.
Mayson, he thought, was willing to accept the obvious answers, not probing deeply beneath the surface. She was bright and efficient, but he’d never seen the spark of excitement that Lois had when she got an idea into her head. She never set off the sparks in Clark the way Lois did.
He wondered, not for the first time, why he was leading Mayson on, dating her, having lunch with her. If he was honest with himself, he knew exactly who he wanted, and he knew that it was time that he did something...
"What?"
Clark blinked. "I didn’t say anything."
"You’re smiling at me."
"Sor..." He stopped himself from completing the word. He wasn’t sorry that he was staring at her. He loved watching her move, but he couldn’t tell her that. "I was just thinking."
"Happy thoughts?"
"How incredibly brilliant you are. I love the way you face a problem head on and come up with a solution."
Lois opened her mouth, but she was unsure of what kind of answer that statement deserved. Smiling, she turned to switch off her computer. And I love the way you smile at me, she thought.
"It’s time to call it a day, Clark. Come, I’ll give you a ride home."
Still smiling, Clark followed Lois to the elevators.
tbc...
