Home: On the Fourth Day of Christmas ... 2/?
by Nan Smith
For a geneology on the Kent clan, go here: http://www.zoomway.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=002513
Warning: this part contains the not-so-waffy stuff.
Previously:
"I met her, at the party," Uma said. "She seems okay."
"I'd forgotten," John said. "Well, that incident should have shown you a few things about her. Lori is an extremely competent journalist, Uma; nearly as good as Clark." The corner of his mouth twitched. "In some ways, she's better than he is, and he'd be the first to tell you so."
Uma felt startled. How could *any* woman be a better reporter than Clark? Especially one like Lori Lyons? She hadn't even been a real reporter for a full two years, yet! "That's not possible," she said, hoping she sounded reasonable. "How could somebody like her be as good a reporter as Clark? He's got so much more experience than she does."
"But she makes the intuitive leaps of logic," he explained. "That's how she broke the NTSU drug ring last year, when none of my investigators managed to connect the dots. If she hadn't, both Meriel and Clark would have been dead. You can learn as much from her as from Clark. Go on out there, now. They're going to be heading out in a few minutes. There's been another murder, and I want them to cover it for the Planet."
"*Another* murder?" Uma felt slightly dismayed. Her single semester of experience on the Garner High School Roadrunner hadn't included any murders.
"Unfortunately, yes." John said. "We've had a series of murders recently, and the police think it's the work of a single person: a serial killer. Go ahead. It should make an interesting point in your report."
Uma gulped. She hadn't expected this.
**********
And now, Part 2:
"They call this guy the Christmas Killer," Lori said. She was driving, which Uma thought was kind of odd. Most guys preferred to drive the car. It was just one more indication to Uma that Lori wasn't the wife for Clark. She was just too aggressive. Clark was a nice guy who let her walk all over him, she thought. Otherwise, how could you explain the way she held his hand as if she was afraid he might stray from her side? Possessive, Uma decided. Clark needed to be free to pick the wife he wanted. Her, of course.
Clark glanced back at her as Lori negotiated the streets of Metropolis. "Whoever it is, he started it last year. He killed twelve young women, one a day, starting on the day after Christmas, then suddenly it stopped. They thought he'd been killed or got himself arrested on something else, but it seems that he's back."
"How do you know it's the same person?" Uma asked.
"According to the police report John gave us," Lori said, "he started again on the 26th, and left a note. They matched it to the note he left last year when he started this; same printer, same idiosyncrasies in the wording."
Uma remembered vaguely seeing something about it on the news, but she hadn't really paid attention. There were so many murders that most of them got ignored, except locally. Somehow, she hadn't thought of Clark as having to associate himself with this kind of thing. He was a superhero who dealt with disasters and exciting rescues. He shouldn't have to get involved in sordid things like murders. "And they don't have any clues?" she asked, weakly.
"Sure," Lori said. "They've even got suspects -- a whole bunch of them -- but no way to prove anything -- yet, anyway. Clark and I worked on it last year, but came up dry. Anyway, according to Velma Chow, it's him, all right."
"That's scary," Uma said. "Who's Velma Chow?"
"She's a Police Lieutenant, here in Metropolis," Clark said. "She was the officer in charge who showed up at the Christmas party."
"But, why do *you* have to investigate stuff like this?" Uma asked, before she thought. "I'd think that Superman would do things that are so much more important than report on ordinary things like murders. I've seen you catch shuttles and stop aircar crashes ..."
"The first thing you need to remember," Clark said, sounding unexpectedly stern, "is that when I'm not in my costume, you must never associate me with Superman, Uma. You know that. Secondly, reporting is my *job*. I'm an investigative reporter, just as your father is a civil engineer. My job involves things like investigating the murders of young women by serial killers. And sometimes because of that, I can stop those killers from killing anybody else."
Uma looked down at her hands clasped tightly in her lap, figuratively kicking herself. She'd made a mistake there. You didn't criticize a guy before you got a commitment out of him. There would be time enough to convince Clark to change his job later. Maybe he could try out for Editor, she thought. That would better suit his status. Wasn't John old enough to retire in a few years? Clark should be running the paper, not working for it as a mere reporter. "I didn't mean that," she said, quickly. "I was just surprised. Who were these women that he killed, anyway?"
"Mostly, he seems to pick them up in bars," Lori said, her voice almost expressionless. "A number of them have been hookers, but not all. Some were just women who went to the bars for ... company."
Hookers, Uma thought with an inward sneer. Well, didn't they know the dangers of their profession? They should be more careful, especially with a killer who prowled the bars looking for his victims. Didn't the police -- and Superman -- have more important things to occupy their time?
"The girl who was killed last night," Lori said, still in that expressionless voice, "was a runaway, sixteen years old; just about your age. She was found on the Bayview Expressway, just before the launch point for the skystream. She'd been strangled."
"A ... runaway?"
"Trying to break into show business," Clark said. "Whoever this guy is, women seem to trust him."
"Let's see what else Velma will tell us about it," Lori said. "I want to continue last year's investigation, Clark. If there's any chance ..."
"Why do you think that you can do what the police can't?" Uma asked, trying not to sound as incredulous as she felt. "You're just a reporter."
Lori didn't speak for several seconds, and Uma felt a little thrill of triumph. Score one for her! Maybe it would make Clark realize that Lori Lyons was too conceited for him. How could she even imagine that she could solve a crime that the police couldn't?
"I don't know if we can," Lori said, finally. "But we need to try. Someone has to stop this person before he kills somebody else, and we do have a few advantages the police lack."
"Superman?" Uma said. "If the police, and the supermen in the city can't catch him, how is that going to make a difference for you?"
"I wasn't referring to Superman," Lori said, and Uma thought she sounded a little irritated. "I was referring to the fact that Clark and I are an investigative reporting team, and a darned good one. We've got nine days left before this guy disappears for another year, Clark. I say that we see what we can do. It can hardly hurt."
Clark didn't answer for a moment, then he glanced at her. "Are you sure you can handle it? Especially now?"
"You bet I can," Lori said. "Just because there's one little complication that didn't exist before ... Besides, it will give me something to think about until Rhonda gets back to us."
"Complication?" Uma said, conscious of annoyance. "I know how to stay out of the way."
"Lori wasn't referring to you, Uma," Clark said. "Actually, you've got a point, honey. She said we should have the report by tomorrow, anyway. I think it's time we got seriously involved in this thing."
Uma shook her head in disgust. How on Earth could he not see through the woman? She had to get him alone soon, before he made a complete fool of himself. He was a superhero, not a cop. Her father helped the police apprehend criminals, just as he helped the emergency services when some kind of disaster occurred, but she'd never once seen him playing detective to track down killers. She'd seen the Kent and Lyons byline on articles about crimes and stuff since she'd been taking this class, but really! Reporters just didn't normally get into actually solving crimes, did they?
True, she was taking an introductory class in Journalism Science, but only as an elective. Mostly, she'd taken it so she would be able to sound informed about the job of her husband-to-be. It didn't really seem like something that would interest her. Uma actually wasn't sure what her final choice of a career would be, but journalism didn't appeal to her. She had considered the possibility of being a nurse, but the summer she had spent as a Candy Striper had convinced her that it wasn't for her, either. Taking care of messy sick people wasn't something she wanted to do. Being a day care provider had sounded good, until she'd tried it as a volunteer. A two-year-old boy had thrown up on her best slacks and she'd decided that was out. If she had been tall enough, being a high fashion model would have been perfect, but she wasn't. She'd considered that possibly a career in business would be the best for her. A business executive had a lot of prestige and made scads of money, like Uncle Jon, but how one got such a position was a little unclear in her mind. You had to attend business school in college, she knew, but even the idea of having to deal with accounts and stock markets and all that stuff was daunting, and besides, math wasn't exactly her best subject. It was too bad you couldn't have a career in cheerleading, since she was the head of the Cheerleading Squad at Garner High. Still, Clark would probably know how to go about it. He'd been around long enough that he probably knew a lot about nearly everything. Once they were married, he could arrange something for her.
She had been thinking so hard she hadn't realized that they had stopped moving until Clark opened his door and got out. She glanced quickly into the mirror to assure herself that her hair was smooth and her makeup hadn't become smeared, and opened her door as well. Lori and Clark were already standing on the sidewalk waiting for her when she stepped out to join them.
Lori raised an eyebrow but didn't comment when Uma moved between them and took Clark's arm. Clark said nothing either, but after a moment he disengaged his arm from Uma and gave Lori a hand up the embankment toward the small group of men and women standing around a sheet-covered form among the ice plant and the inch-thick layer of snow. Uma scrambled up the inclined surface, struggling a little, and Clark reached down a hand to help her but released her as soon as her feet were on level ground. "Careful," he said. "Don't slip. Come this way, and don't touch anything unless Lieutenant Chow says you can."
You couldn't pay her to touch anything around here, Uma thought, distastefully. If she'd ever been in doubt about being a journalist, this would have convinced her that it definitely wasn't for her. There was mud all over the place, the police looked nothing like the handsome young detectives they portrayed on the vidscreen, and the thin, sour-looking woman who was directing the whole operation definitely wasn't the glamorous female detective-type she had seen on "Angels in Uniform" the other night. In fact, she reminded Uma unpleasantly of her neighbor who was always complaining about the Kent family dog burying his bones in her flowerbed. And the fact that there was the body of a murdered woman under that sheet turned her stomach. Murders weren't real. You read about them, or heard the vidnews reports about them, but they didn't really happen. Uma stood back, watching Clark and Lori talking to Lieutenant Chow and tried to pretend that it was nothing but a vid drama. When one of the police flipped back the sheet to show Clark and Lori the face of the victim, she looked away. Investigative reporting certainly wasn't the job she wanted for Clark. He was much too good for such horrible stuff. She really had to get him away from it, or they would never be able to have a happy married life together. Surely he'd want her to be happy, she told herself. But she had to talk to him soon. She wasn't going to be able to endure this for very long.
"Are you all right, Ma'am?" A young police officer clad in a heavy coat against the chill of the December air, was standing beside her.
"Yes. I'm fine." Uma drew a deep breath, keeping her eyes averted from the victim.
"I'd offer you a place to sit, but I'm afraid there isn't any," the man said, smiling. "Kent says you're accompanying him and his partner for a school project? I take it you're not really used to this kind of thing."
"Not really," she said. "I'm Uma Kent. I'm taking a journalism science class, and I'm supposed to shadow a real reporter for a couple of days, then write a report on it."
"Well, it can be interesting," he said, "but it isn't for everybody. If it bothers you, don't look."
"Thanks." Uma kept her head turned away. "I didn't expect a murder."
"Well, if your high school gave you the assignment, they must have known it was a possibility," the cop said.
And, of course, they did. That was why Uma had chosen this particular excuse, only the actual shadowing assignment was scheduled for later in the year. Her father had already signed all the necessary forms when she had signed up for the class in September.
She nodded. "They told us that, but I didn't really expect it when I picked ... Uncle Clark," she said.
"Oh, you're related to Kent?" the man asked.
"He's a distant cousin," Uma said, conscious of the usual cover story. "I've always called him my uncle."
"I see. Well, my boss told me to give you the facts, if you want them right now," he said. "Basically, this is probably the Christmas Killer's latest. It's too bad. She had a fake ID, but her real identification was in her purse." He nodded to the pathetic little bag lying in the mud a few feet from the sheet-covered form. "The police database matched it up within a couple of minutes. She was a runaway from Cincinnati, according to the report; several friends believed she was trying to break into the theater."
Uma shuddered. This was unbelievable. Things like this didn't happen in real life. Not at Christmas. The cop patted her on the shoulder. "Why don't I take you down to your car again," he suggested. "I think you've seen enough for now."
Uma thought she had, too. She didn't even look back as the young officer led her down to the Jeep.
**********
Clark helped Lori carefully down the embankment, surreptitiously utilizing his flying ability to prevent either of them from slipping. Uma was sitting in the front seat of the Jeep, looking away from the crime scene. He glanced at his wife's expression. Lori's mouth was set and her face was paler than usual, which didn't surprise him. He doubted that Lori would ever become hardened to the loss of life or the fact of murder.
"Are you all right, honey?" he asked her, softly.
She nodded. "Clark, she was just a little kid!" she burst out, her voice breaking. "We're going to get that son of a ..." She bit off the word sharply. "Whoever he is, he's a monster!"
"Yes, we will -- one way or another," he assured her, a little startled at her vehemence. "Come on; let's get back to the Jeep."
She didn't say anything more until they had pulled back onto the Expressway. "Did Velma give you all the details?" she asked.
"She said she'd send anything else they found over," he said. "I promised that nothing will be printed without her okay." He put a hand over hers. "Are you sure you're okay, honey?"
"Clark, I'm fine! Just a little upset, that's all. I'll never be able to do what Dr. Pruden told us -- to always keep a proper perspective on our stories and not to get emotionally involved. I can't see something like that and not get angry!"
"Neither can I," Clark said, quietly. "I guess it's personal, now, huh?"
"You bet it is."
He nodded soberly. "For me, too. Head back for the office, and we'll get started." He glanced back at Uma, who was watching them curiously. "Are you okay, Uma?"
She nodded. "I can't believe you do this stuff all the time," she said.
"It's part of the job," Clark said. "We don't have to like all the parts of it but it serves a purpose. We're going to catch this guy. He'll be looking for another victim, tonight. It's his pattern. Lori and I have some research to do, and in a hurry."
"You don't really think you can figure out in one evening what the police haven't been able to figure out since last year, do you?"
"Maybe not," Lori said, "but we have to try."
**********
Shadowing Clark as he went about his job wasn't turning out quite the way Uma had expected. She had hoped to have a little time alone with him by now but right after their return to the office, he had been called away by an emergency. Minutes later, Uma saw him on the monitors, along with Superwoman and Henry Olsen in his red and black uniform, clearing away a weather-related accident in the anti-gravity field above the bay.
Lori was busy on her computer, and Uma wandered over to see what she was doing. Clark's wife was studying what appeared to be a police report, munching on a doughnut and drinking a cream soda as she worked.
"Last year, the guy killed twelve women," Lori said, not removing her eyes from the screen. "Each time, they were apparently killed between twelve midnight and one A.M. I figure there's not enough information to identify him, but we might be able to get some idea of where he's going to hit, tonight. I've superimposed the locations where last year's victims were found on a map of Metropolis, marked in red, and their last known location before they were killed in blue. I've also marked as much as we know about the locations of the three victims so far this year, before and after, in green and yellow. Do you see any pattern?"
Uma shrugged. "Not really. You don't really think you can solve this thing if the police can't, do you?"
"We have before," Lori said. "Ask Clark about the theft of the Westhaven diamonds, sometime."
Uma shrugged, crossly. "He shouldn't be doing this sort of thing, anyhow. He's better than ..." she glanced contemptuously around at the busy newsroom, "...This."
Lori glanced curiously at her. "You seem awfully interested in how Clark lives his life, Uma. Why are you really here?"
"I told you. I have to shadow Clark for my project. It's a third of my grade."
Lori raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Sure you do. I took high school Journalism Science too, you know, eight years ago. That's usually the big project at the end of the year -- not at the end of the first semester."
Uma bristled. "Maybe that's how they do it at your school, but not at mine."
"Garner High, right? In Virginia." Lori turned back to her computer. "I checked out the course outline for Journalism Science at your school. The Shadow a Journalist project is due to be assigned in April. I don't know what you're up to, but you're not shadowing Clark for any school project."
Uma stared at her, feeling her cheeks burning with both anger and shock. How on Earth had this little tramp figured that out? She'd been sure her cover story would fool everyone -- and it had fooled John and Clark, but Lori had caught on.
"That's nonsense!" she said, weakly.
"Is it? What would happen, I wonder, if I contacted your school and asked your instructor? I can, you know. I looked you up, and I happen to know your Journalism Science class is in Third Period and is taught by Mr. Putnam."
"They wouldn't tell you anything!"
"Probably not," Lori agreed. "But it's a sure bet that they'd tell your parents if they asked the right questions. Besides, I'm sure a lot of people, including your mother and father, would be very interested in what you're doing, and why, don't you?"
"You wouldn't!"
Lori didn't glance away from her computer screen. "Try me."
"If you got all that information, you had to have hacked into the school records. That's illegal!"
Lori smiled. "Prove it. You won't find any traces on my computer -- *or* on theirs; I guarantee it."
"I'll tell Clark!"
"Go right ahead," she said. "You won't be telling him anything about me that he doesn't already know."
"It's ... what I'm doing is none of your business," Uma said, a little desperately.
Now she did look at Uma, meeting her gaze levelly. "Uma, you're part of Clark's family, so I really hope you aren't doing anything that can hurt my husband. But if you are, I'm warning you right now: Don't. If you even try, you're going to have to deal with me first, and believe me, when it comes to his welfare, I'm not anywhere near as nice as he is. Is that clear?"
There was an eerie familiarity to this situation, Uma thought, uneasily. It was rather like the time they had been holding the big company party at her home, and her mother had confronted that junior engineer, the one at the firm where they both worked who had been trying to undermine her dad and get him fired. Her mother had ripped into him like a tiger, right in front of the boss, and ended up getting the other guy fired, instead.
Uma stiffened her backbone. "Are you threatening me?"
"Not at all," Lori said, mildly. "If whatever you're up to doesn't hurt Clark, then it's none of my business."
"I wouldn't hurt Clark!"
"Then there isn't a problem, is there?" Lori said.
Uma didn't answer. Lori's discovery of her falsehood had thoroughly shaken her. John had been right when he'd told her that Lori was smart. Uma wouldn't underestimate her again.
**********
Clark stepped out of the stairwell nearly two hours later. Uma watched him cross the room to Lori's desk and lean over her shoulder. She moved quickly to interrupt before they could get all lovey-dovey again. If it hadn't been so annoying it would have been pathetic, watching the two of them making out in public like lovesick seventh graders. "How did it go?"
Clark straightened up and glanced at her, his heavy eyebrows drawn together in a slight frown. "Fine, Uma. I got a quote from Superwoman to fill out the article, too." He turned back to Lori. "Find anything, honey?"
"Maybe a pattern." She indicated the screen. "The red numbers are the locations and sequence of last year's victims, and the blue are their last known location before they turned up dead. And the green and yellow --"
"Are this year's," Clark finished. "This was the location of Mandy Hart." He touched the tiny, yellow 3, grimacing at the reminder of the earlier scene by the Expressway. "Her last known location, according to what Velma told me a few minutes ago, was the Old Telephone Company Bar, over on Notary Street."
"About a mile away." Lori added the green three. "See the pattern, Clark?"
He nodded. "I think so."
"What pattern?" Uma demanded.
"The names of the streets. He's picking them up in locations starting with the same letters as the ones last year, and in the same order," Clark said. "Which means that sometime between twelve and one, tonight, he's going to be on some street beginning with the letter D, looking for his next victim."
**********
(tbc)
P.S. If anybody can suggest a nice, non-corny name for Henry Olsen's super-identity, I wouldn't mind. Thinking up names for super-heroes is hard.
