Home V: Obsession -- 17/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
It was Carla's email that caught her eye, and she opened it at once.
"Dear Ms. Lyons," the email began with surprising formality, considering the girl's usual buoyant attitude, "here are the preliminary results of my search. I checked the employees of the gym first. I'll email you back with any other information about the members later, if I find any. (See list below).
"The employees of the Hobs Health and Fitness Center that were previously employed by the Metropolis Fitness Center are:
Connor C. Cooper -- no record of arrests.
Paul Harper Brown -- two speeding tickets in the past 2 years. One misdemeanor charge for underage drinking. Fines paid, no follow up action.
Jacob Warren Prince -- one ticket for littering last year. Fine paid. No follow up action taken.
Marcella Persephone Evans -- Arrested four times in her teens for shoplifting. Records sealed." Lori lifted her eyebrows at that. She definitely had to get together with Carla. The girl had unexpectedly good hacking skills. Maybe even better than her own. "Arrested at age 17 for setting fellow student's clothing on fire. Record sealed." She and Carla *definitely* needed to get better acquainted, Lori decided. "Arrested for assault on department store security guard during shoplifting incident. Charges dropped for unspecified reasons. Record sealed."
Lori pursed her lips in a low whistle. Below was Marcella's address. 1256 Willow Street. She jumped to her feet, half-ran to the door of John's office and yanked it open without bothering to knock. Both men turned in surprise as Lori burst in, waving the hardcopy. Clark took one look at her face and got to his feet. "What is it?"
"Carla came through." Lori had to consciously struggle to keep her voice level. "We have a match."
**********
And now, Part 17:
"A bunch of juvenile trouble but none since," John said, looking the report over. "I guess it could mean that she's cleaned up her act."
"Or," Lori said, "it could just mean that she's been a lot more careful since."
Clark was nodding. "It's not proof, but it's awfully coincidental -- especially since her address matches the address of the car's owner."
"True," John said. "Well, get going. Find out who the owner of this car is. Do you think it's a roommate, maybe?"
"Could be," Clark said. He turned to Lori. "Honey, you stay here this time, all right? See what you can find out from here. There's no point in going out in the cold again."
Lori nodded. "All right. Keep me in the loop though, would you?"
"Count on it. Give Connor a call and tell him what we suspect. He needs the information to protect himself."
"And Velma?"
"Superman's going to drop by and talk to her," he said grimly. "She'll be much more likely to listen to him than either of us."
"Good idea," John said. He turned sharply as Lori sat down suddenly in the nearest chair. "Lori?"
"Could I get a drink of water?" she asked shakily.
Clark was instantly at her side. "Are you all right, honey?"
She nodded. "I just realized. I didn't get lunch today."
John thrust a paper cup into her hands and lifted his wrist talker to his lips. "Ned!"
"Yes sir?"
"Bring a couple of doughnuts and a cup of juice from the machine in here right now. Hurry!"
Clark pushed his wife's head into her lap. "Take a few deep breaths, honey. We'll have something in here for you in a second."
"I'm okay," she said, but he noticed that she didn't try to lift her head. He kicked himself figuratively. Lori tended to get involved in her stories and then would forget to eat, as had happened today. It was past three, and breakfast had been at six this morning.
Someone knocked on the door and John opened it to take the doughnuts and a container of apple juice from Ned. "Thanks." He shut it before the copy boy could get a look inside his office. "Here, Lori, take a drink of this."
Clark removed the water from her hands and took the apple juice, holding it for her. "Sip this, honey." They were silent as Lori sat slowly up and obeyed. She drained the container, and after a few seconds opened her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said.
Clark thrust a doughnut into her hands. "Eat," he said.
Lori took the doughnut and bit into it. "I won't forget again," she mumbled through the cake.
"Honey, you aren't the first and you won't be the last to forget," Clark said. "Lois passed out cold one day in the newsroom because a guy who worked there with us -- Ralph, his name was -- had been razzing her about her appetite and she was determined to prove that she wasn't overeating. I had a few private words with Ralph right after that and he didn't dare open his mouth to her for a week. She didn't find out about it for months, which is just as well, or she'd have killed me."
Lori swallowed convulsively and took the second doughnut. "Really?"
"You had to have known my great grandmother," John said. "She was Mad Dog Lane to the end. None of us but Clark dared to stand up to her." He grinned. "The whole family was proud of her. You know, though," he added, "we're all tremendously proud of you, too. I guess my grandfather has a tendency to fall in love with outstanding women."
"I have very high standards," Clark said. "Are you feeling better now?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
"Good. I'm going to order you something a little more substantial than doughnuts before I go. What would you like?"
Lori swallowed the last of the second doughnut. "You don't have to do that, Clark. I'm perfectly able to order myself some lunch."
"How about an extra-large pizza with all the trimmings and extra cheese?" John said. "Go on, Clark. Lori and I will do fine. I had some experience with this with my sister-in-law, remember."
Clark hesitated. "Well ... all right," he said, somewhat grudgingly. He bent to kiss Lori on the mouth, disregarding the few remaining doughnut crumbs. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't go anywhere without me, okay?"
"Don't rush on my account," Lori said. "I'm not going anywhere. I promise."
"All right." Clark glanced at John, who nodded at him. With a final smile at his wife, Clark left the editor's office and headed for the stairs.
**********
Lori looked at her boss. "I blew it," she said. "I got so involved in the investigation that I forgot to think about my baby."
John shook his head. "Clark didn't blame you. You shouldn't blame yourself."
"Clark never blames *me*. He's too busy blaming *himself*. He thinks he should be perfect."
The corners of John's lips twitched. "That's always been a failing of his. Lois used to jump on him regularly about it. He's Superman. The first of all the supermen, and for a long time the only one. He has to make decisions every day that affect lives. That kind of thing can be overwhelming, and it can give you the feeling that you aren't allowed to make mistakes. That was part of the reason he nearly quit being Superman within a few weeks after he let people know he existed. It was Lois who showed him he didn't have to be perfect -- that whatever he could do was enough. It was one of the things that made Lois so essential to the existence of Superman. She kept him grounded."
"And now I suppose it's my job," Lori said.
"Pretty much, yeah." John regarded her with a little smile. "You're more than equal to it, you know."
"I hope so. If I can get my own act together."
"Don't sell yourself short," John said. "Clark is there to make up for your weaknesses, just as you have to be strong for him sometimes. Alone, each of you is a pretty remarkable person. Together you come as close to an unbeatable team as exists." He turned to the desk-size vidphone that sat next to his computer. "Call Antonio's pizza," he told the phone. "Order one triple-size pizza with all the trimmings except anchovies and hot peppers, with extra cheese. We'll take the special you're offering in today's Daily Planet for a second one of the same size -- this one vegetarian -- at half price. Three side orders of cheesy garlic breadsticks with marinara sauce and an order of lasagna. And three two-liter bottles of soda. This address."
He turned back. Lori found herself staring at him, slightly stunned. "I can't possibly eat all that."
"Nope, but this way you'll get as much as you want, and I'm sure there'll be plenty of volunteers to finish off the rest out there. Maybe I'll get a little more work out of them if they fill up on all those carbs."
The vidphone beeped softly. John swiveled back to it. "Olsen."
"Mr. Olsen," a boyish voice said. "You didn't tell us what kind of crust you want ..."
The pizza arrived twenty minutes later. In the meantime, Lori had settled down at her desk again and emailed Carla an acknowledgement for her work, then called Connor.
His recorded message cut off in the middle and Connor's voice said, "Cooper."
"Connor, it's Lori. We have some news. Are you where you can be overheard?"
A pause. "Nobody's around. I turned the speaker down. What's going on?"
"I had someone doing some background checks on employees at your gym who followed you from the Metro gym. It turned up some interesting information."
"Don't beat around the bush, Lyons," Connor said.
"Okay. You still need to be careful, just in case, but be especially careful around Marcella. Got it?"
"Mar --" He broke off. "Any reason you can give me?"
"You know what we're investigating. Let's say at this point, I wouldn't turn my back on her in a dark alley. I can't be more specific over the phone. Trust me, okay?"
"Is that why Superman is talking to Lieutenant Chow?"
"He's there? Actually, yes."
"All right. Have you been able to find out anything else about Jake?"
"The hospital says he's resting as comfortably as can be expected."
"Which tells us exactly nothing."
"Well, it tells you he's still alive."
"Yeah -- there's that." Connor paused. "Actually, I haven't seen Marcella at all today." Another pause. "Okay, thanks for the information. Call me back if you find out anything else."
"I'll do that," Lori said. "You might ask Lieutenant Chow, by the way. She seems to have more sources of information from the hospital than I do."
"I might," Connor said. "Thanks."
Lori signed off. She munched on the enormous slice of pizza that she had procured from the pizza delivery, in between bites of the breadsticks and marinara sauce, and stared blankly at her computer screen for a long moment. An idea was hovering in the back of her mind, perhaps because of Carla's research, but she couldn't quite pin it down.
Absently, she licked at the pizza sauce and grease on her fingers and then got to her feet. She'd been told that the trips to the bathroom were going to get more frequent now that she was in her second trimester, but she hadn't thought about it before. Drinking all that soda probably hadn't been too good an idea.
A short time later, she was washing pizza grease from her fingers, and watching in fascination as the water seemed to sink magically through the bottom of the basin and disappear. It wasn't magic, of course, but the application of new technology that had become more prevalent in the last five years. The very bottom of the basin was a semi-permeable membrane that felt like the enamel of the rest of the bowl but wasn't. It kept things like hair and other things that tended to clog drains from going down and causing plumbing problems. It could even be opened up, swinging up on invisible hinges in case of some unforeseen problem, although Lori had never seen such a problem occur ...
A light seemed to flash in her brain. Barely pausing to dry her hands, she hurried out to her desk again and typed a command into her computer. There was a pause while the AI searched its database and then a diagram filled her screen.
She studied it. Nothing. Aware of a strong sense of disappointment, she sat back in her chair, scowling. There had to be something she was missing here.
"Thanks for the pizza," Barney Farrel's voice said behind her. "It was great of you and Clark to order it for everybody."
She turned around in surprise. "Who told you that?"
"Mr. Olsen," Barney said. "Would you like me to bring you another slice?"
"Uh ... sure. Vegetarian. If it's no trouble." Lori made a mental note to pay John back for his generosity, when there was no way he could duck out of it. Clark's great grandson hated to be thanked for anything.
Barney returned with a plate containing a huge slice of the giant pizza and set it carefully on her desk. She thanked him with a smile and turned back to her screen. The diagram said that part of Metropolis's sewer system ran directly beneath the parking structure, but there was no outlet into it. Well, that was another dead end. Darn! For a minute she'd thought she had something.
"What's that?" Barney asked, then hastily added, "not that it's any of my business, but it looks like a diagram of the sewer system."
"Yeah," Lori said. She blew out her breath in exasperation. "I'm trying to figure out something and I thought maybe this would explain it, but it's a bust."
"How so?" Barney leaned against her desk. He was a garrulous man, and she had occasionally spoken to him in the lunchroom of the Planet. She knew he was married for life, had two sons and a dog, and he and his wife planned on having a daughter next year. He had been painfully shy when he had come to work for the Planet two months ago, and Lori knew that he regarded his investigation at City Hall to be his chance to prove his worth to his editor.
"Carla was attacked by someone with a knife in the parking tier last night," she explained. "Whoever it was got away, and the police weren't able to find the weapon. They're all but positive that it didn't leave the premises, but no one can find it, not even Superman. I thought maybe if there was an opening to the sewer system here, that he could have dumped it down that, but I guess the police must have already checked the building's blueprints --"
"Oh." Barney frowned thoughtfully. "That's odd. I'm more familiar than I care to think about with the Metropolis sewer system right now." He grinned wryly and Lori grinned back.
"How's that investigation going, anyway?"
"Not bad. I was going to ask for some advice from you or Mr. Kent, actually. I've been doing some checking, and I've turned up some interesting financial irregularities in a bunch of places. It's starting to look like the pensions of the city employees are involved -- excess benefits promised and diversion of some of the fund's principal. This could go a lot deeper than anybody suspected. I could use some pointers from a pair of veterans."
Lori pursed her lips. "Clark should be back in a while," she said. "He's the guy to ask. I think he wouldn't mind giving you a few tips."
"I'd appreciate it," Barney said. He frowned at the diagram on her computer screen. "There's something about this," he said, frowning slightly. "Wait a minute. I remember seeing some of this. Check for updated diagrams. A couple of years ago, they tore down the Timoro Building next door and the parking tier was exposed to rain. It resulted in water pooling in the tier's lowest level. They made some changes. One of the things I was checking into was a bunch of recent city contracts with a company that does the sewer construction and repair for the city, as well as private work. They're relatively new -- and it's their stuff that's been failing recently. That's one of the things I've been looking into -- possible sub-standard material in their work and collusion at City Hall. They were the firm that put in a drainage pipe under the parking tier of the Daily Planet!"
**********
"Really, Lyons," Velma said, a short time later, "are you sure you wouldn't rather come to work for the department? You really need to leave my people something to do."
Lori shrugged at the Lieutenant's face scowling out of the vidscreen at her and took a bite of her last breadstick. "You should thank Barney Farrel for the information," she said. "He was the one that pointed out to me that there were updates for the parking tier's drainage system."
"Great," Velma Chow said. "More reporters from the Daily Planet getting into police work. Maybe I'll retire sooner than I planned." The scowl melted into a reluctant grin. "Tell your friend that he hit the nail on the head. There was a drain -- one of those new 'invisible' ones with a permeable membrane cover to keep trash out of the pipes. The knife was there, all right, six feet down, and you don't want to know what we had to go through to get it. Without those diagrams we'd never have found it. It's in Forensics now."
"Is there likely to be anything to find after nearly a day?" Lori asked doubtfully.
"We'll find out," Velma said. "You're still watching your step, I hope."
"Well, you didn't see me in the parking tier, did you? I'm still at the office. I promised Clark I wouldn't leave until he got back."
"Good," Velma said. "I already talked to Superman. I'd ask where you got the background information, but I'm sure you wouldn't tell me. I can't use it officially, of course, but there's no law that says I can't question Ms. Evans about her whereabouts during the incident today. If we can find her."
"Call it an anonymous tip," Lori said.
"Uh huh. We'll let you know when you can relax. In the meantime, keep on being careful."
"I will." Lori signed off and stretched.
Barney Farrel raised an eyebrow at her. "The lieutenant seems to like you," he remarked.
"What makes you think that?" Lori asked.
"She usually doesn't have time for reporters. Barely gives most of us the time of day."
"Lieutenant Chow got to know me because of Clark," Lori explained. "We're always careful to be as accurate in quoting her as possible and to give her men a fair shake. She's just returning the favor."
"In other words, she trusts you," Barney said.
"Well, as much as she trusts any reporter. We've helped her out a few times, and she's been willing to pay us back occasionally."
"It seems to work out. But what was that business about you being careful?"
Lori gave him a condensed version of the situation and Barney's expression turned serious. "That's not good."
"No," Lori agreed. "That's why I'm here and Clark is the one doing the running around this afternoon." She turned her head at the sound of a distant sonic boom. "He should be back soon, though."
"Sounds like one of the supermen is headed someplace in a hurry," Barney said.
"They always are," Lori said. The door to the stairs opened and Clark stepped in. "There's Clark now."
**********
"Sounds like Barney is really onto something," Clark said sometime later as they rode the elevator to the parking level where they had left the Jeep this morning.
Lori nodded vigorously. "I know he wasn't very enthusiastic about the sewer story when John first assigned it to him, but by the time he's done it may be a bigger story than ours," she remarked. "I hope he can get to the bottom of it. It might not be as exciting as ours, but if the city government is ripping off the taxpayers, it needs to be exposed."
"I agree," Clark said. "I've been wondering about some of the shenanigans for a little while, but things have been pretty hectic recently. If Barney's right, he could blow the lid off one of the biggest scandals to hit Metropolis in years."
"How do you suppose the killer knew about the drain?" Lori asked suddenly. "Even you didn't know about it."
"That's a good question," Clark said. "Maybe when they catch whoever it is, we'll find out."
"Is the weather out there any better?" Lori asked, as the elevator doors slid open. "I'd like it if Mother and Dad could actually see the view of the harbor from the Star Tower."
"Some. It's still snowing." Clark had an arm around her, holding her close to his side as they made the short trip from the elevator to their car. He stood directly behind her, reaching around her to unlock the door and pull it open for her. "Get in quick, honey."
Lori obeyed and Clark shut the door, ran around the back and got in beside her. She fastened her safety harness and glanced at the dashboard chronometer. "We've just got time to get home and change before we're supposed to meet them."
Clark nodded as he backed out of the parking space. The snow was still coming down, albeit more lightly than it had been earlier. Traffic was still heavy but they made good time and pulled into the security parking lot for their apartment building barely forty-five minutes later. Clark scanned the immediate area of the parking structure before he opened the door for his wife, and hustled her quickly into the elevator.
"I was going to ask," Lori said, making no comment about the haste in Clark's transfer of her from car to elevator, "did you find out about the car?"
Clark nodded. "It belongs to Marcella's roommate. Marcella borrows it regularly, according to her."
"I see. Doesn't the roommate need it?"
"Evidently not," Clark said. "She didn't seem too eager to talk about it."
"Oh." The elevator doors opened on the top floor, and Clark checked their apartment beyond before signaling the door to open. He heard his wife give the faintest of sighs as it closed behind them. She pushed back the hood of her jacket. "I'm going to get changed."
**********
tbc
