[September 20, 7:18 AM: Making some changes to the story, based on comments and suggestions from my thread full of BR's (which I love, by the way!). Gold star goes to Framework4, for providing me with an easy way to fix the opening scene without having to completely re-think it.]
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
I'm posting this at least two days later than expected, mostly because I found myself particularly unable to stop the process of writing and re-writing certain scenes and passages to death, this time around.
With some helpful nudges from my BR (hi, HappyGirl, and thank you as always
), I suspect I managed to avoid getting trapped in too many cliches at once. But I'll let you be the ultimate judge of that, of course.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me repeat here once more that good, bad and ugly comments are all very welcome in the FDK thread.
Enjoy the read!
***
I’m sitting in the same windowless, bare bones, badly lit interrogation room I so intimately got to know every nook and cranny of this morning. I’ve been here for at least the past two hours, perched on the same spectacularly uncomfortable plastic chair I spent most of the morning actively abhorring. Across from me is the man who — less than twelve hours ago — introduced himself to me as Inspector Juan Ferreira, complete with a smile and a friendly handshake. Then, he was a man who I thought had come to offer me salvation from the lunkheaded incompetence of the Officer Joneses of this world. Now, he’s a man fixing me with a forebodingly dark stare that seems to want to communicate something along the lines of ‘you better come clean to me right this minute, young lady, or else.’ That never worked on me as a teenager, though, and under different circumstances, the fact that Ferreira seems to think it should work on me now might amuse me.
The Inspector and his partner — he never told me his name, but I’ve secretly dubbed him Lars, on account of his being young, tall, blond and handsome — are both having coffee and doughnuts. Nobody bothered to offer me either this time, and for that I’m eternally grateful. The rest of their ‘you are worth less than the air you are breathing’ routine, however, I could have happily lived without. I declined their offer to let me call a lawyer — I’m innocent, but more to the point, there are things he or she would want to know about last night that I just can't tell anyone. Now I’m also cranky, though, and I’m beginning to wonder if the presence of a witness would have made a difference in the way they chose to treat me. I had to ask twice before they freed me of the hand cuffs. I’ve twice asked for a bathroom break I didn’t get, too, and right now, I could really, really use a drink of water, but nobody here seems to care. I suppose these bozos think they can simply inconvenience me into telling them whatever it is they need me to say. I suppose they’ve never heard of Mad Dog Lane.
“Look, pal,” I begin, looking Ferreira straight in the eye and sounding far more daring than I feel, which is exactly the effect that I’m going for, “Just in case reading newspapers is beyond you, let me clarify a few things for you here: I am Lois Lane. I’m a top-notch investigative reporter for the best newspaper in the world. As I keep telling you, I’m also innocent, so I should have justice on my side in any case. But even if I can’t count on you and your buddies to do your jobs right, let me tell you right now that I have powerful friends among the press, and *they* will stop at nothing to uncover the real truth about this crime. You, on the other hand, are a Metropolis P.D. functionary with a very big stick up his ass, who at some point will inevitably end up looking exceptionally bad for having wasted precious time and resources on something that, with a few well-aimed nudges from the right commentators here and there, could very easily be construed by the public as a witch hunt. Now tell me, Inspector Ferreira: who in this room do you really think stands to loose the most in this whole sordid affair?”
As far as Ferreira is concerned, I might as well have kept my mouth shut. The stony-faced expression remains exactly where it has been for the past half hour or so, and there is nothing to indicate that the man even so much as heard what I said. I can’t help but feel a measure of grudging respect for a guy like that; a guy who obviously refuses to be intimidated by anyone. His partner, however, is another story altogether. He’s having a very hard time keeping his features schooled into the bland mask of indifference that I’m now reasonably sure all Police Academy recruits have to spend a prescribed amount of time practicing in front of a mirror before they’re even allowed into an interrogation room. I can see I’ve hit *some* kind of nerve with Lars. I smile at him for effect.
“You think you can *make* me confess to a crime I didn’t commit by way of the intimidating statue routine, or, God forbid, by denying me that pitiful sludge you call coffee? Think again, pretty boy.”
Lars smiles back at me. That’s when I realize I may have underestimated the man.
“Now, Miss Lane,” he says sweetly – too sweetly. “Surely you realize that being rude to an officer of the law will not help your case at all. We found your fingerprints all over the scene *and* the bodies. We found long brown hairs that look suspiciously like yours all over their clothing. I’m sure that once we analyze the skin cells found under their fingernails, we will find that those are yours, too.”
“Of course you will! In case it escaped you, I work in that building, on that floor, in that room! The bodies were found right next to my desk! But, more to the point, Doctor Leit and Mister Munch *abducted* me in broad daylight, and then they took me to the Planet’s newsroom at gunpoint, because I’d told them the device they were looking for was there. We didn’t find it where I expected it to be, so they turned aggressive and we struggled. But I certainly didn’t kill them! I assure you, they were still very much alive and kicking when I left the building.”
“Oh, yes. I’m glad you brought that up.” Lars continues, and the expression on his face almost manages to convince me that he’s genuinely pleased. Almost. “There is, of course, the rather interesting question of how exactly you did leave the building last night, is there not, Miss Lane?”
He pauses, as if expecting me to say something to that, but I just look at him blankly. He picks up a piece of paper from the table between us.
“Mr. Thomas Connelly, formerly Sergeant Thomas Connelly of the Metropolis Police Department, confirms your entrance into the building at eight forty-five PM on Sunday evening. According to his account, you were in the company of two men, whom he described to us rather convincingly as bearing an uncanny resemblance to the two people who most recently took up residence in the medical examiner’s freezer. Mr. Connelly tells us, too, that he bid you a good evening, and you smiled at him while returning the favor. He particularly remembers that part, Miss Lane, because you are apparently not known for extending such common courtesies on a regular basis. When asked how he would characterize your normal behavior, he described you as ‘cold’ and ‘ruthless when she’s on to something’.”
He arches an eyebrow and just looks at me. I ignore him. He’s so obviously trying to bait me that it’s become almost comical. When it finally dawns on him that I’m not going to pick up the gauntlet, he casts another glance at the piece of paper he’s holding, and goes on.
“Then you and both of your companions went up in the elevator. Mr. Connelly had never seen either of the men before, but he assumed they were there as your guests and with your approval, so he didn’t question it. He did not see any of you again before the shift change at 2 AM, but he was quite clear about one thing, Miss Lane: at no point during your interchange did you do or say anything to make Mister Connelly — a trained police officer, mind you — suspect you might be in any kind of danger or discomfort.”
He stops there, looking at me as if that says it all, and I stare at the man incredulously.
“From this, you infer that I *must* have gone willingly into the newsroom with these men, where I then cold-bloodedly knocked the life out of them for no apparent reason, and finally left their bodies to be found by the police on what is practically my own doorstep?”
He just stares back at me, as if the answer should be obvious.
“And then what? I jumped out of a fifth-story window and hoped for the best?”
Lars shakes his head and blinks, as if to clear his mind. Apparently, he hasn’t really thought this through past the point where I was the last person known to have seen the victims alive. His partner, however, who is clearly older and more experienced, isn’t confounded so easily.
“Miss Lane, surely you must realize how all this looks to us?” he jumps in, the expression on his face still cast in iron. “You claim to have been abducted by these men; an abduction of which we have no record. You claim that there was a struggle in the Daily Planet’s newsroom, over a device that might as well be a simple ballpoint pen for all I can tell. You say you were the victim in that struggle, but so far you have shown us no evidence that you were at all injured in the encounter. The other party, meanwhile, is obviously in no condition to tell us anything at all. You apparently fled the scene rather quickly, but nothing indicates that you even cared that you’d just let a pair of alleged abductors go free. And according to your own timeline, it took you over two hours to contact the police after you left the building. When you finally did call us, Miss Lane, you chose to report only the fact that you had in your possession a device we might be interested in. You did allude to ‘something else we might need to know’, but didn’t elaborate on it at all. The transcript of your conversation with the operator doesn’t even contain the phrase ‘Daily Planet’, let alone anything about you having been abducted and taken to the paper’s newsroom at gunpoint by the two people who were later found dead there, and who must have died very shortly after you left. That’s *if* it is in fact true that you were not present when it happened. All that, Miss Lane, and then we haven’t even touched upon your rather perplexing exit from the building yet. Analysis of what remains of the broken window in the newsroom shows that it was broken from the inside. In order for that to happen, someone or something must have gone through it at some point, right? And since we know you didn’t leave through the front door, and that you’re on a first name basis with pretty much the only resident of this city who could safely have gotten you out of there any other way, we don’t think it would be much of a leap for us to assume you had some help there.”
I snort. “Oh, so this is about Superman, is it?”
Superman. Clark Kent. Whoever.
I’ve been afraid of the moment your name would come up — which is exactly why I’ve been very reluctant to talk about the fight in the newsroom until now. If I admit that you were there with me, how long will it be before someone wants to know why you made no attempt to restrain the so-called perpetrators? How long will it be before these guys get the bright idea to call you in as a witness? How long will it be before one unscrupulous bastard gets his hands on that testimony, and the whole world knows that Superman is blind?
There’s just no way I can do that to you; to the man in tights who has saved my life more times than I care to count; to the loyal friend who is always there for me when I need him most; to whoever it is that you are when you’re both of those men at the same time.
I choose to persist in the sarcastic routine instead.
“You think Superman had anything at all to do with the way these men died?” I ask, not having to act very much in order to sound incredulous and condescending at the same time. “Next thing I know, you’re going to sit here and tell me you suspect him of being the real killer, but when you couldn’t get to him, you figured arresting me would be close enough. I’m curious, Inspector: are you also hoping that my arrest will lure him here? Do you think you’ll get a confession out of him by threatening to hold me until he tells you what you want to hear? I’d watch out if I were you, sir. You’re starting to develop some of the very same nasty habits harbored by the kind of people you claim to be protecting us from.”
Ferreira frowns. “We have no reason at this time to suspect Superman of having done anything illegal, Miss Lane — although if he was in fact at the Daily Planet when Doctor Leit and Mister Munch were killed last night, he could be liable for accessory to murder charges.”
I huff. “Let’s see if I’m getting this straight, Inspector. Step one: you find a couple of dead bodies and a broken window in the Daily Planet’s newsroom. Step two: you talk to a frustrated old buddy of yours, who ends up telling you that I’m a cold and ruthless person. Despite the fact that by his own admission, the guy has never had more than a thirty second conversation with me, you take his word for it. Step three: after an undoubtedly *extensive* investigation that lasted for a grand total of one whole workday, you decide that since I’m the only person who admits to having seen the victims alive anywhere near the estimated time of their deaths, I must, therefore, have killed them. Not only that, but suddenly *Superman* — who, after all, has been known to carry on an actual conversation or two with the cold and ruthless bitch that I apparently am — becomes the kind of person who condones murder. How am I doing so far, Inspector? Am I anywhere near the ballpark here?”
“This obvious disdain for the way we do our jobs is getting you nowhere, Miss Lane.” Ferreira tells me somberly.
I shrug. I know he’s right, and that these people, in a very real way, are holding the key to my freedom. But at this point I really don’t care. At this point, there is nothing I can do but keep fighting, for my integrity and yours, with the only weapon I have at my disposal. So I talk.
“Let me tell you something, Sherlock: if Superman really wanted to help someone get away with killing another human being, the evidence of said killing — if it existed at all — would probably be somewhere in orbit around Earth. It would most definitely not be waiting for you to find it in the one place in the world Superman is known to have any kind of persistent ties to.”
There’s a silence in the room after that. I suspect I’ve at least convinced them of the absurdity of trying to drag you into this.
You, defender of Truth and Justice, who would no doubt qualify for sainthood if it weren’t for the pesky little detail of your not being dead yet. You, goody-two-shoes Clark Kent, who probably couldn’t hurt a fly if he tried. And these guys think that *you*, of all people, may have been an accessory to murder? They have no idea what they’re talking about.
But then again, do I?
***
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know about that, sir. I’m told she’s a tough nut to crack.”
“No sir, I don’t think so. Cause of death is still undetermined. Questions won’t be asked for a while yet.”
“Sir?”
“But sir, I really don’t think…”
“She’s innocent, sir! I’m not really in a position to…”
“No, sir. You are right, of course. I did not presume to…”
“Of course not, sir. I definitely wouldn’t want that. You can… you can count on me, sir.”
With a trembling hand, the man wipes a trickle of sweat off his brow, and then he puts down the phone. There is much to be done.
***
“She got arrested, mom! They slapped the cuffs on her right in front of me! They think she killed those guys!”
I’m pacing around my apartment. I know I shouldn’t be doing that while I’m angry or frustrated, and certainly not while I’m both, because I’ve learned from experience that I am quite literally capable of wearing a trench in the floor. I *really* shouldn’t be doing it now, as my blindness is still causing me to occasionally knock something over by accident. I don’t even want to think about the sorry state that my apartment must be in by now.
“Well Clark, she *didn’t* kill them, did she?” comes the soothing, impossibly grounded voice of my mother. Sometimes I wonder if she has her own secret set of superpowers — the kind that would enable her to effortlessly bounce from being utterly shattered one minute, to being completely on top of things the next. “She’s innocent. You know that, and I know that, and I’m sure that the police will figure it out sooner later, too. We just have to wait for the investigation to run its course.”
I shake my head vigorously. I can’t just sit around and wait for that to happen! In the days since I became blind, there have been many things about not having my eyesight that have annoyed, or angered, or saddened, or just plain bugged me. But this… this is pure agony, and the irony of it is that I’m not even sure it would make all that much of a difference in this instance if I did still have the ability to see.
Well, that’s not exactly true. If I hadn’t been blind, I’d have delivered Munch and Leit to the police long before anyone else ever got their hands on them. Now, I’m stuck having to defend you from a police department that apparently thinks you’re the worst kind of criminal.
“I have to go to the police and tell them, mom! I was there! I may not have been able to actually *see* what happened, but I absolutely *heard* everything that went on in that room. I *know* that Lois didn’t kill those men!”
There is my father to provide a note of caution, as usual. “Are you sure you want to do that, son? You were there as Superman. There is no way you would be able to make a statement on Lois’ behalf without letting people know that Superman is blind, and how that came about. Once word gets out, there’s no telling what will happen. There are a million ways in which this could all be going south very quickly once you make a halfway public appearance.”
There is my mother to be understanding and supportive, as usual. “Now Jonathan, of course there are risks here, but I don’t think Superman should be the first of our worries under the circumstances. If you think you can help Lois by telling the police what you know, son, then you should definitely go and talk to them. But do you really think you *can* help her? I mean, I don’t doubt that Lois is innocent, but since you obviously didn’t see what happened in that room yesterday evening, someone else might be tempted to cast some doubt upon the validity of your testimony — and then where would you stand?”
“I didn’t need my eyes to know those guys were still alive when we left, mom. There were four distinct heartbeats in that room at all times, including my own. And since it is public knowledge that Superman has the ability to hear anything within a thirty mile radius, I don’t think I’ll have much trouble convincing the right people that I have something meaningful to say in this matter.”
I hear my father sigh, and I know that it means he’s accepted the fact that he won’t be able to stop me from doing this. It doesn’t mean that he’ll stop worrying, but it means that, whatever happens, I’ll be able to count on his support once it’s done. That means a lot more to me than I will ever have the words to tell him.
“Then by all means, go to them, Clark. But eh… maybe you should talk to Lois first? I mean, with her having been arrested and all, I don’t…”
I sigh before I cut in. “It’s OK, Mom. She already knows.”
“Oh. And how do you think she took it? I mean, I assume you guys didn’t really get to…”
“No Mom, we definitely didn’t get to have the kind of conversation that something like this merits. Don’t worry, though. If I know Lois at all, you can be sure I’m going to get my head handed to me before too long. After all, it’s not like she’s not going to have all the time in the world to fret about this, if I don’t get them to release her soon. Right now, though, I doubt that I am anywhere near the forefront of her mind.”
I’m getting agitated again. I know that’s definitely not going to do either of us any good when it’s my turn to be grilled by the police, but despite that, I seem to be powerless to stop it. I can get myself deeply entangled in a rescue effort in the middle of a war zone or a natural disaster, and remain almost unnaturally calm throughout the effort, while evidence of unspeakable atrocities and deep personal tragedies keeps piling up around me. I can go head to head with the most vicious, unscrupulous criminals out there, and not even flinch until they’re safely behind bars. I have even been known to mediate a few successful talks between individuals, nations or institutions I didn’t fully trust, and who refused to trust each other. Through it all, I have learned to value all the different flavors of law enforcement, emergency services and armed forces this society and most others around the world have to offer. Many of the men and women I have worked with in any of those capacities, managed to earn my trust in practically no time flat. But somehow, when the person I’m trying to protect is you, I become incapable of trusting the American criminal justice system not to convict an innocent citizen of murder.
***
I’ve gone from an uncomfortable plastic chair in a windowless and badly lit interrogation room, to an uncomfortable sticky mattress in a windowless and badly lit holding cell. I guess I should be thankful for the fact that, at least, I’m finally free of the Inspector and his irritating knack for not getting intimidated, ever.
Three hours of non-stop verbal battle between me, Ferreira and his disgustingly cute younger partner have not helped any of us much. They still don’t have the confession they obviously need very badly. I still don’t have a clue how they got it into their heads that I’m the one who did it in the first place.
OK, so maybe that’s not exactly true. They did find some of my DNA at the crime scene, but, hello, can I help it if the victims happened to drop dead in the middle of the one room in Metropolis I spend more time in than any other? No news there. The DNA on the bodies, I have to admit, is a little harder to ignore. But if everyone who ever touched someone on the day they died, or was alone with them at some point during that day, were to suddenly become a murder suspect, God, half the world would be locked up somewhere. Right?
Ferreira and the blond hunk have long gone home, to what I secretly hope doesn’t amount to much more than an empty living room and a bottle of beer — secure in the knowledge, I suppose, that they will be properly compensated for all the overtime they worked trying to crack me. They left me here in this barren room, on this barren mattress that reeks of at least a couple dozen drunken and filthy former occupants. Maybe they’re hoping that a night in limbo will convince me to be a little more forthcoming in the morning. Maybe they know that it works.
No matter. It’s not like I don’t have enough stuff going on in my life right now to keep my mind occupied. Apart from the fact that some people seem to be determined to lock me away in a hole like this for pretty much the rest of my life, there is this little situation where my best friend just told me he’s also my idol.
There are so many pictures of you tumbling around in my mind right now — pictures of you, Superman, and pictures of you, Clark, and pictures that, now that I think about it, should have made me realize a very long time ago that both of you are the same man.
I think about all the times you pretended; pretended that you couldn’t open the peanut butter jar; pretended that you hadn’t heard or seen something, when clearly you must have; pretended that you had a headache. I think about all the sudden disappearances, and about your ongoing effort to come up with the flimsiest excuse ever conceived of in the history of mankind.
Why? Why did you feel the need to keep playing such petty games with me? I was your partner – you always *said* I was your best friend, too. Is this the way you choose to treat all your friends then, Kent? Or is it a privilege uniquely reserved for me, the nosy investigative reporter?
You didn’t trust me with your secret, Clark – I doubt you even really trust me with it now. You probably just figure Superman has become completely irrelevant, now that you’re blind – and if you did take this incident as a reason to retire the superhero, nobody would blame you; least of all me. But the fact that you only told me the truth about yourself when circumstances forced you to do so? That hurts, Clark. It really, really hurts.
As I lie here in the semi-darkness on my sticky mattress, flinching at the memories of you, of you and me, of me trying to impress you and making a complete fool of myself, and of you constantly deceiving me, I’m certain of one thing: no ten squads of determined police officers are going to keep me from having a very serious conversation with you. Soon.
