Home: On the Fourth Day of Christmas: 4/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"I see." Velma nodded in a businesslike way. "Well, since you spotted the pattern, you and Ms. Kent can sit in my office and listen in on the operation, if you like, but stay out of the way, got it?"
"Got it, Lieutenant," Lori said. "I was supposed to let you know that if you need to get hold of Superman, I can contact him for you."
Velma Chow raised an eyebrow at that. "Other than just yelling 'Help, Superman'?"
"I have his 'talker number. I'm not supposed to give it out, though."
"Not even to me, I suspect," the officer said, sourly. "I'd sure like to know why they do things the way they do, but I guess they've got their reasons. All right; I have to get going, but give me your number, just in case."
Lori did so, then followed the assistant back to Velma's office. The receiver was already tuned in to the police frequency, and the man gestured to the couch and two armchairs that, besides the lieutenant's desk and chair, a file cabinet and a single side table, were the only other pieces of furniture in the room. "Make yourselves at home."
"Thank you," Lori said. "Is it all right if I work on my laptop while we're waiting?"
"Not a problem. Call if you need anything." The man left, leaving the door ajar.
**********
And now, Part 4:
Uma shifted restlessly on the leather chair and glanced at Lori. Clark's (temporary) wife was absorbed in something on her computer screen and seemed to be oblivious to the occasional reports coming over the speaker. Since nothing seemed to be happening, at least so far, it wasn't surprising. She glanced at the chronometer on her wrist talker.
It was only three minutes before midnight. Somewhere out there, in some bar, the Christmas Killer was probably moving in on his next victim. The idea was a little creepy, but she reminded herself that the women who frequented those bars should be more careful. Her parents had always warned her about the hazards of going with strangers from the time she was small. *She* would never take the risk of going off with some strange man, no matter how trustworthy he looked.
She yawned behind her hand and shook herself. The unaccustomed activities of the day must have been more tiring than she realized. If she sat here much longer, she would be sound asleep when Clark came back to pick them up. That wasn't the kind of childish impression that she wanted to make on him.
Lori also looked tired, she noticed for the first time. There were dark circles under her eyes, but she was scowling intently at her computer screen. Obviously, the woman was obsessing about this killer.
Uma shrugged. Let her obsess. The sooner Clark got away from her the better, as far as Uma could see. She wasn't the kind of woman who should be the wife of Superman. She was bossy and possessive, and seemed to take her job way too seriously, sticking her nose in where she had no business. She'd had no right at all to start snooping into Uma's affairs! And look at her tonight; trying to do the job the cops were hired for! All work and no play, Uma thought, contemptuously. No wonder she was just now learning to ski. Clark had probably had to drag her away from that dreary newsroom long enough to actually take a vacation. When you lived with a man who could fly, the very least you could do was to utilize his talents. When she was married to Clark, she intended to insist that they eat in a foreign country at least once a week.
Uma got to her feet and walked to the door. There was a water cooler across the hall, and she went to get a drink. The water woke her up somewhat, and she looked around, wondering if there was any kind of candy machine around this place. In spite of what she'd told Clark this evening, Uma usually ate considerably more than she had at dinner and her stomach was rumbling.
"Can I help you?" a male voice asked. Uma turned in surprise.
A young police officer was standing behind her and Uma recognized him at once as the cop who had talked to her this morning at the crime scene. He seemed to recognize her as well. "Ms. Kent, isn't it? Why are you here?"
"I'm with Lori Lyons," she explained. "Lieutenant Chow -- I think that's her name -- is letting us listen in on --"
He nodded. "On the operation, tonight," he said. "I'm just going off duty, myself. We've all been pulling double duty what with the usual Christmas viruses and this business, too. Is there anything I can do for you? You seemed to be looking for something."
"I was looking for a snack," Uma explained. "I'm supposed to be shadowing Kent and Lyons, but I'm falling asleep just sitting in there."
"Oh." The young man grinned. "Well, unless you like petrified sandwiches, and coffee that'll dissolve a spoon if you leave it in your cup longer than a minute, there isn't much to eat around here."
"Oh," Uma said.
"Tell you what, though," he continued, "there's a deli just around the corner. Why don't I take you over there and you can pick up something to tide you over? I'll drop you off back here before I go home."
Uma hesitated, but the urge to do something besides sit in a room with an uncommunicative companion, listening to boring police reports coming out of a speaker, was too strong. Besides, Officer Benson was a handsome man, even if he wasn't Clark. "Okay," she agreed.
"Great. You get your coat and meet me out front. I'll have my car waiting by the time you get there."
"Okay," Uma said, telling herself that she would be back long before Clark returned. "I'll be right there -- uh, Officer Benson."
"Gary," he told her. "See you in a few."
**********
Lori glanced up as Uma re-entered Velma Chow's office. The girl removed her coat from the rack behind the door.
"Going somewhere?" Lori asked.
Uma sealed the front of her coat. "I'll be back in a few minutes," she mumbled.
"You're not planning on going out alone, I hope," Lori said. "As long as you're with us, Clark and I are responsible for you."
Uma glanced at her, and Lori could see the dislike in her face. "Not that it's any of your business," she said, shortly, "but Officer Benson is taking me over to the corner deli. That chicken salad wasn't very filling."
"Oh," Lori said. She turned back to the computer as Uma left the room with an excellent imitation of a flounce.
Silence descended on the room as she stared at the screen, broken only by the monotonous reports issuing from the speaker on Velma Chow's desk. The map of Metropolis with the colored numbers stared back at her. Lori rubbed her face, trying to concentrate. There was something here that she was missing, she thought for the hundredth time, something so obvious that she should see it, but somehow she wasn't able to pin it down.
Well, the pattern of the Christmas Killer's murders hadn't been really apparent until tonight. There was no way, a year ago, that she and Clark, or anyone, really, could have spotted what she had this evening. The street names were different, but of the three murders that had taken place this year, so far the first letter of the street where the victim had disappeared matched the first letter of the street on the equivalent day last year. The guy had a very definite pattern. It must have something to do with the sequence of streets, she thought. Why hadn't she considered that before? Maybe if she listed the street names in order, it would tell her something.
A moment later, she was staring at her answer, something, as she had thought before, that was so obvious that they had all missed it.
Seventh
Anderson
Ninth
Dobson
Riverview
Apple
Bridgeport
Evergreen
Noble
Sycamore
Olive
Nuthatch
**********
Uma glanced at Gary Benson as he pulled his ground car out into the thinning traffic.
Even at this hour, with the snow falling, there were a respectable number of cars on the streets. The young officer gave her a cheerful smile.
"The engine warms up pretty quickly," he said. "I'll turn on the heater in a minute."
That would definitely be a good thing, Uma thought. It was cold enough in here, even with her coat on, that she could feel the goose bumps on her arms.
"Where's the deli?" she asked, as he pulled up at the corner stoplight.
"One more block down, on the corner of Domino and Wyoming," Gary said. "Wyoming is the second cross street." He pointed at the glow of the red light ahead of them, blurred by the blowing snow. "We'll be there in a couple of minutes."
Uma crossed her arms over her chest and huddled back in the seat. She was beginning to have doubts about this whole trip. It wasn't worth freezing to death just to pick up a deli sandwich.
"Heater on," Gary said.
A blast of warm air responded and Uma gave a sigh of relief. "That's better."
He nodded, smiling.
"You missed the turn," Uma said suddenly, as they went through the light at the next intersection.
"There's a pothole right in the middle of that lane," Gary explained. "I'm going down one more street and around the block."
Uma nodded, accepting his explanation. The inside of the car was quickly reaching a comfortable temperature and she uncrossed her arms, soaking in the warmth. The car slowed at the next intersection, and he took the turn to the left.
"The next street's a one way, the wrong way," he said. "I'm going to have to go another street over. It won't take long."
Uma sighed, definitely wishing now that she hadn't gone along with this plan. Still, it would only be a few more minutes.
They crossed the street that Gary had said was one way. It didn't look like a one-way street to Uma, but a police officer would know the city better than she, especially since she was only visiting. Ahead, across the next street, Uma could see an unlighted patch and the silhouettes of tall trees against the sky: a park, she thought.
Gary turned left and headed back in the direction of the deli, but why was he slowing down? She stiffened, a touch of nervousness beginning to run along her nerves. Abruptly, Gary turned the car right into a narrow road that ran directly into the wooded area and cut his lights.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
He didn't answer, and now she could see that the smile had vanished from his face. He slowed further, only the dim parking lights illuminating the surface of the road ahead of them.
Uma stared at him, a horrifying possibility bursting in her mind. She reached for the door lock.
"Don't," Gary said. "If you put up a fight, it'll be much worse."
A jolt of panic shot through her. Gary Benson grinned slightly.
"Didn't your parents ever teach you not to go with strange men?" he asked.
She stared at him in paralyzed shock. This couldn't be! The man was a police officer!
The car slowed further as the road curved to the right. Uma cowered back in the seat, one hand still groping for the door lock.
Gary chuckled, softly. "I think the best part is when they realize who I am," he said, glancing at her, and suddenly his face wasn't handsome in the least. "I like to see that part."
Uma moved suddenly. One foot came down hard on the brake pedal and the car jerked to a halt. Gary swore, but she wasn't listening. She shoved open the door and threw herself out into the snow.
**********
Sandra Benson. Lori stared at the name while her computer printed out the list. This string of murders had something to do with a woman named Sandra Benson.
She got to her feet, taking the printout with her. This was important. She had to tell Velma's assistant at once, to let him know what she had found. Whoever Sandra Benson was, she must be the key to this whole, horrible episode. The name sounded familiar, somehow, but she was sure she didn't know a Sandra Benson ...
The hall was deserted when she stepped out, but she could hear voices from the front of the station, and she hurried in the direction of the voices. The desk sergeant on duty now, she saw, was Jim Parker. The two of them maintained an armed truce, but she was well aware that the man regarded her as a nuisance who stuck her nose in where it didn't belong a good deal more than necessary. He was speaking to a tousled-looking woman with a black eye, and Lori winced, guessing that it was the reason for her presence. As she approached, he pointed, directing the woman toward a desk and then turned to Lori.
"Yeah?" he asked. "Did you need something, Lyons?"
"Um, ... yeah," she said. "Is Lester around, Sergeant? I think I've found something that he might want to know."
Parker regarded her stolidly. "Why don't you tell me, and I'll decide if it's worth interrupting him for," he said.
"I think it might be," Lori said. "I was looking at the streets where the Christmas Killer picked up his victims last year and I tried listing the names in sequence." His eyebrows rose. She stopped and thrust the printout under his nose. "Look!" she said.
He stared at it. "What am I looking for?" he inquired.
"Look at the first letter of each street name," she said, patiently. "I think it may be the key to this whole thing."
He cast her a skeptical look, then took the paper and examined it more closely than he had the first time. His eyebrows rose. "Sandra Benson?"
Lori nodded. "Does it mean anything to you?" she asked.
He didn't answer, but touched something on the board in front of him. "Les, Lyons is out here and needs to talk to you. She has something that I think you should see."
"Send her back," Harold Lester's voice said, "but it better be important."
Parker handed her the printout. "Go ahead," he said. He hesitated. "Sometimes you can be real useful, Lyons."
"Gee, thanks, Sarge," she said and headed back in the direction from which she had come.
The door to Lester's office was closed, but Lori marched up to it and knocked firmly. In the back of her mind, a sense of urgency was growing, the conviction that time was of the essence.
The door slid open and Lester glanced up from his computer. "What is it, Lori?"
"Here." Lori set the printout on the desk in front of him. "These are the streets where the Christmas Killer picked up his victims last year. In sequence. Look at the first letter of each street."
Chow's assistant didn't waste time asking questions, she noted. He read the list and his bushy eyebrows snapped together. "Sandra Benson?"
Lori nodded. "Does it mean something to you?"
Lester didn't answer. Instead he spoke into his office intercom. "Dispatch! Put out an APB for Officer Gary Benson. He's driving his own vehicle, and he went off duty about twenty minutes ago. Move!"
Lori stared at him, and suddenly she knew why the name sounded familiar. "Oh my god! Uma went with him! She said he was taking her to the corner deli!"
Lester was on his feet and heading out the door, speaking into his own wrist talker. Lori looked after him, and then punched Clark's 'talker code into her own. Less than a second elapsed and Clark's voice said, "Superman."
"It's Lori," she said, rapidly. "Cl ... Superman, Uma is with a cop. His name is Gary Benson, and he may be the Christmas Killer. They're putting out an APB right now. She left with him about fifteen minutes ago, so they may still be somewhere in the vicinity of the Precinct."
"Got it," Clark's voice said. The connection went dead.
**********
(tbc)
