ToC - for previous parts.
Waking a Miracle -- (15/??)
Well, that had gone splendidly, Lois thought as she stormed down the hallway toward her apartment, the loud thunder of her footfalls harking her arrival for all to hear. Thud, thud, thud, came the dragon.
Jimmy had bounded up to her as she had stalked toward the elevator. Shaking and stuttering under her withering, unforgiving glare, he had slipped a small piece of paper with a phone number jotted on it in the messy chicken-scratch typical to the male species. The number had been labeled, "Hannover," which Jimmy had mumbled to her suddenly fascinating shoes before he had skittered back down the ramp, darting for the nearest available cover. She would have to tell him later that ducking under somebody else's desk was not exactly the most inconspicuous way to hide. Not only did she know that from countless investigations, she was able to see his shoes poking out.
The paper was still clutched in her hands, and although her perspiration had made the numbers bleed and smudge a little, the writing was legible, barely.
The emotions of the interview still raged within her, black, discordant, festering, and she found little satisfaction at all in the fact that her rabid curiosity had finally been tossed a bone. Instead, there was this angry, writhing, dark pit of fury, just waiting to explode upon the next human soul she encountered.
In the basest, most cut and dry sense of the word, Clark Kent had committed no crimes. But he, with full knowledge of his actions, had let a murderer go free, unhindered. And even worse, he had had the gall to try and tell her to stay off the story, as if it were some sort of furniture item. Bad, Lois. Stay, Lois. Good girl, Lois. Contrary to her nickname, she was no dog. She was a person, and she would tread where she damn well pleased.
The phone began ringing just as she jammed her key into the top lock. Pushing her full weight into the door, noting offhandedly that the extra pressure made it extremely hard to turn the key, but that the outlet of extra energy was at least quite satisfying, she unlocked the last deadbolt with a growl and barged forward into her apartment like a stampeding... well... Like a stampeding Lois. There was simply no other comparison necessary.
She threw her stuff onto the kitchen counter with a mighty heave, and stalked toward the phone. "Hello!" she snarled as she grabbed the offending, noisy thing off the hook. Her word was not a question, nor said with the exuberance of greeting. No, it was belted in the exact tone that sent telemarketers into stammering, quivering messes. She held the phone more as she would to strangle a victim than to listen intently.
If this was an insurance salesman, he was doomed.
There was a small pause, and she thought with a wicked smile that she may have sent some poor soul into heart failure. Take that, Solicitor Man!
"Wow, Lois, did I catch you at a bad time?" The familiar voice of Bobby Bigmouth chuckled into the phone, and she felt the immediate urge to smite him for being so darned happy, but alas, despite all the hate that she could manage to conjure, he was still breathing on the other end of the line.
"Bobby."
"Hey, babe," Bobby chuckled some more. She wrapped the phone cord so tightly around her index finger that the tip started to turn a purplish color. Don't. Call. Me. Babe. She thought it, but with bated breath, she somehow managed to restrain the words from actually tumbling from her lips.
"Don't act so happy next time I call," Bobby continued. "Listen, all I can find on Bureau 39 is that it deals with defense against aliens--"
She snorted, interrupting him. The information wasn't a surprise, but in her current state of mind, anything would have seemed ironic. The world is about to be hit by a giant asteroid and blown to smithereens, you say? Goodness, how amusing! A tidal wave of mass destruction? Now that's funny! Next you'll tell me a computer virus is coming to take over the world, and Linda King is in town. That'd be enough to finish me off. Oh, it's a real barrel of laughs.
She started to wear a trough into the floor.
"Yeah, that's what I thought too. Anyways, that's all I can find for now. I'll keep my head down to the ground and see if there's anything else, but that's all for now. You can treat me to lunch next week, preferably when you're not contemplating tearing the next living thing you see limb from limb."
And with that, he'd hung up, apparently afraid of her reply, and rightly so. "Oh, yeah!?" she snapped as she brought her pace to a full stop, glaring into the receiver. "Well, I'm going to pick all the chocolate icing off your éclairs and feed it to my fish!" She knew full well that he wouldn't hear her, but it still felt better to say. She slammed the phone back on the hook.
She stood there, still for a moment. She needed to calm down. She really did. She had work to do still. People to call. Hannover's number was almost illegible at this point.
No. What she really needed, was Rocky Road. She went to the freezer and was happy to find the carton exactly where she'd left it. With a lustful smile, she pulled the container out of the freezer. Hmmm. It was awful light.
She peered inside and looked, aghast. There were exactly two spoonfuls' worth of chocolate ice cream left, and a lone marshmallow, sitting in the corner, alone, and mashed like the runt of the marshmallow litter.
Lucy had struck.
Lois grabbed a spoon and impaled the last little chunk of ice cream. She stuffed the contents of the carton in her mouth all at once, even the solitary little marshmallow. The smooth dessert melted across her tongue, sending small synaptic flares of pleasure coursing back into her brain.
But it was simply not enough.
Lucy had eaten all of her ice cream.
Was there no justice left in the world!? Murderers walking free, dessert thieves roaming every corner. Her sister was very lucky that she wasn't home right now. Lois absolutely despised people who ate all but the last little smidgen of something in the fridge, and then left the entire container behind, a beacon of false hopes and promises for anyone who might happen upon it later. A single swig of orange juice. A tiny slab of butter. A spoonful of ice cream. Servings of inadequacy, the entire purpose of their existence was to enact the simplest of lies. That there was actually enough food left to be a satisfying meal. What a crock.
It was like Clark's morals, apparently, only Trask was the thief, and she had *no* idea how all the puzzle pieces fit together, or what, if anything, any of this had to do with Miracle Man.
Well, no. She didn't *really* mean that. The part about Clark, anyways.
She sighed as she collapsed onto one of the kitchen stools stared at her collection of evidence. Trask's wife had been killed in 1975. Clark Kent's parents had been killed a few months later. There had to be a connection there. Why would a seemingly stable military pilot suddenly up and kill a little boy's parents?
And why would Clark not say a word about it until you practically forced it out of him? a small voice asked. Her fury abated somewhat as she recalled the look of unadulterated terror in his eyes as she and Jimmy had peeled back layer after precious layer of detail in Trask's life. His eyes had gone wide, in a strange, unfocused way, and he had spent the majority of the time looking completely surprised, or in a dull state of shock. Many of the clues they had unraveled, it was obvious to her, he had never unraveled either. Which meant... that he knew Trask had killed his parents, and he hadn't even lifted a finger to try to prove it. Hadn't searched for even the easiest to find information. If it had been her, she would have been desperate to bring the man to justice, but something had kept Clark quiet.
Fear? But what leverage did Trask have when Clark's family was already dead? Wasn't that the part in the movies where the hero went all loner Rambo and got revenge?
There was still a piece of this puzzle that she just wasn't seeing. There had to be. And no man as compassionate and friendly as Clark would just roll over like that. Would he?
God, this was giving her such a headache.
There was no sense of satisfaction that Clark had fallen farther and farther from her initial evaluation of near-perfection. She had no sense of angry smugness. No, "Hah! I *knew* you were just a typical rotten man!" shouts jittering out of her mouth or around in her head. Despite the fact that she wanted to strangle him with his own freakish ties for being so darned over-protective, she really, honestly, and truly couldn't say she felt anything other than hurt. Not by him. For him.
And now, more than ever, she wanted to wrap Trask, Thompson, and all their sins into a nice neat package for the front page of the Daily Planet.
She relinquished her seat long enough to pick up the phone again, and then sat back down. Readying a pen and notepad, she dialed the number on the crinkled little piece of paper.
"Hannover residence," a gruff, throaty sounding voice answered. She pictured the man on the other end to be heavy-set and balding, overall a round man, with glasses and a mustache kind of like the Monopoly guy. Didn't seem to fit with the sheriff persona, but, oh well.
"Hello, this is Lois Lane. I'm a reporter for the Daily Planet. I was wondering if I could speak to Mr. John Hannover?"
There was a small pause, and rustling noises. A faint, steady, mumbling sound in the background, a television perhaps -- she thought she could hear the Jeopardy tune -- faded away as the phone jostled about.
"This is he. Now, what's this about?"
"Well, Mr. Hannover," Lois began, "I'm preparing to write an expose on presidential candidate George Thompson--"
"What's that have to do with me?" Mr. Hannover cut her off.
"George Thompson was the investigating agent for the FBI in a murder case that happened around your area. I have listed here that a Sarah Trask, Smallville resident, was murdered in her home in 1975?" She asked the question and held her breath. Mr. Hannover didn't seem to be the most forthcoming of individuals. Not outright hostile, but he didn't seem that interested in being helpful either, at least not right away. Weren't small-town folks supposed to be friendly?
There was silence on the other end of the line. Mr. Hannover made a sniffling sound. "You're a reporter, you say?" he finally asked, though his voice was weaker and more vacant.
"Lois Lane, Daily Planet," she reconfirmed, suppressing a tired sigh. She really hoped she wouldn't have to do much more convincing. As she finally sat here, calm, and relatively unstressed, the day was finally catching up to her. She'd been on her feet almost twelve hours, and she was running off a nap's worth of sleep.
"I quit."
"Excuse me?" she blurted. She hadn't even asked any questions yet!
"I quit in 1976." Mr. Hannover sighed. "Round these parts, well, you can go a career without seeing much of anything. 1975 was a bad year, I try not to remember much about it."
She was at a loss for words. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as a few superficial condolences bounced around in her head, but the tone in this man's voice said that not a single one of them would be adequate enough. And at the same time, she wondered. The deaths of three residents all in the same year in such a small town... well that had to hit them hard. She hadn't ever considered it. Three murders in a place like Metropolis, while regretful, were barely even news.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Lane." There was another wracking sigh on the other end of the line. "I'll try and help, but I don't know how much I'll be able to tell you." His voice was less abrupt and less grating. More dismayed than anything.
"Thank you, Mr. Hannover. Can you tell me anything about George Thompson?"
"Well... I saw him around town quite a few times. I think he was a close family friend of the Trasks."
Lois filed that away. So. Trask and Thompson had kept in touch, even after they'd gone separate ways, the former to become a decorated pilot, and the latter to join the FBI. Interesting.
"You mean he didn't just come into town for the investigation?"
"Hmmm," he said, a throaty warble that vibrated in the lower registers. "No, I believe he was in town already, visiting."
But... Trask was just arriving back from Fort Leavenworth that day. Wasn't he? Wouldn't Trask and Thompson have planned around that, especially if they were friends? The whole thing just screamed that something was wrong, to her.
"Mr. Hannover, are you absolutely sure of that?" she asked.
The noise of jostling came through the line. "No, Ms. Lane. I'm not. It's easy to come and go using some back road. And I don't think I ever saw him in town."
She tried to tap her frustration away with her pen, but it didn't work very well. At least with each passing question, the caution in Hannover's voice faded a little bit more. He was opening up to some degree. She switched tactics. "Well, can you tell me anything about Sarah and Jason Trask?"
More jostling. "They seemed happy enough to me. I really don't remember, Ms. Lane. They were pretty much on the peripheral of the community. Rarely did more than the essentials in town. Trask commuted out of town, and Sarah was a housewife."
More of nothing. No clues. Zip.
"What about the murder itself?"
"Well, now that's the weird part, Ms. Lane. I got a call about a noise disturbance. When I got there, the door was ajar, and I heard voices inside. Thompson and Trask were both in the living room, and poor Sarah was on the floor, but that was all I saw before Thompson flashed his badge and backed me on up out of the house, saying it wasn't my jurisdiction. I--" Hannover made a strangled sound, and his voice cut off abruptly. She could hear rustling, and jostling, as if he were pacing.
"It's all right, Mr. Hannover," she soothed. "Take your time."
"There wasn't much else I could do. I called up a storm and everyone I asked said the same thing. Stay off it. Like I was some sorta dog that was in the way."
Lois grimaced, trying to suppress further thoughts of Clark for the moment. She knew the feeling all too well. "Was there anything leading up to the murder that was suspicious?" she asked.
"Well, a few months back, I got a complaint from one of the town gossips. I didn't put much heart in what she said. You know how rumors go, especially in a small town -- three quarters of them are blown up so darned far out of proportion you have to laugh when you see what started it. She mentioned that she thought Sarah Trask was having an affair, but... There's not much I can do in a situation like that."
She tried not to grip the phone too tightly. Her hand was beginning to hurt. "Did you ever corroborate it?"
"No, Ms. Lane. And Susanne never said another word about it."
"Susanne?"
"The gossip."
Lois shook her head. There was something just not right about this whole situation. If Thompson had been there already for a visit, which seemed strange if Trask was out of town, that had to have meant he was there *during* the murder. Where else would he go if not into town? She doubted Smallville had a lot of surrounding attractions. And if he hadn't been there to start, his timing must have somehow been lucky enough that he got to the scene before the Sheriff, but after the deed had been done, which seemed unlikely.
She considered that a moment.
*Unless* Thompson *hadn't* been visiting Trask at all! Her heart quickened and she felt a dull electric thrill as pieces started to assemble. Thompson was visiting *Sarah*. She was willing to bet her salary on it.
Had Trask arrived home too early and caught them in the act? Maybe Sarah had somehow gotten caught in the scuffle, and Thompson had used his weight in the FBI to cover it up as an unsolved case? But then why would Trask *follow* Thompson to the FBI? If anything, wouldn't he want to get farther away?
Something still seemed a little off, to her, but she could tell she was closer to the truth than before. But... this brought about the question, once more. What did this have to do with Miracle Man? And what did this have to do with Clark Kent?
"Is there anything else you can remember?" she asked.
"No, Ms. Lane. It was eighteen years ago, and like I said. I try to forget it. Trask stayed in Smallville another year at best, and then, well, that's it." Hannover sounded genuinely regretful that he couldn't help more at this point. She was satisfied that he wasn't intentionally or unintentionally leaving out any other details.
"All right. Well, I do have some other questions to ask
you."
"What else can I help you with?" Hannover asked.
"What can you tell me about Clark Kent?"
There was a long pause, and she was immediately worried. Had she said something wrong? "Clark's a good boy, Ms. Lane. He wouldn't hurt a fly," Hannover finally answered, but his voice sounded strained. Defensive. And altogether odd. "May I ask what this has to do with an expose on George Thompson?"
"Well, Mr. Hannover, this is probably going to sound a little off-the-wall, but I think Sarah Trask's death may be in some way connected to the death of Clark Kent's parents."
Although how, even she couldn't fathom at this point. A wife dying in the midst of a scuffle between the husband and the other lover didn't really seem to lead towards an act of violence against the Kents. Even if they *were* connected by place of residence. Maybe she had come to the wrong conclusion about Trask, but it seemed to fit so perfectly, given what Mr. Hannover had told her.
"I think you may be one conspiracy theory short of Big Brother," Mr. Hannover replied, his tone considerably more biting.
"Please, Mr. Hannover, just bear with me," she pleaded. "What can you tell me about the accident?"
There was another long pause. "Wayne Irig," Mr. Hannover began, but from the sound of his voice, it was mere anguish to remember. He had to pause again, and she heard a sniffling sound. "One of the neighbors, was the one who called it in. When I got there, little Clark was sittin' cross-legged down the road a bit, staring at the dirt. Lord, I will never forget the look on that boy's face for as long as I live. I couldn't even get him to speak at all for three days. I think he saw the accident, but he never would say a word about it. Ms. Lane, please don't drag Clark into this. That boy deserves some peace."
Too late, Lois sighed. Could Clark have been mistaken, though? Maybe Trask hadn't had a thing to do with the accident at all, and Clark was just looking for somebody to blame. Although it seemed more feasible than her own theory being wrong, she found it odd that out of the billions of people on this Earth, Trask was the one he had chosen, if that were the case. And the panic attack his image had instilled... Well that couldn't easily be faked. Could it?
Her head was starting to spin as theories flew about.
"Is there any chance the accident could have been foul play?" she asked.
"The brake line was frayed, not cut. It could go either way. But there were no witnesses aside from maybe Clark. The tread patterns on the road indicated the Kents swerved to avoid something, or perhaps lost control of the vehicle. Went straight into a telephone pole. The Kents didn't survive impact." Mr. Hannover sounded clinical as he went through the details of the accident, and she wondered if perhaps it wasn't similar to the way doctors tried to distance themselves from their patients. Or the way *she* tried to distance herself from her stories.
Oh, get off it, Lane. If you're distanced from your stories, I'd like to see what you think close is, a voice griped. She had to admit that particular rule was like a speed limit. Just a suggestion that nobody ever followed.
She swallowed. There was a lump forming in her throat that she didn't quite know what to do with. "What happened to Clark afterwards?"
It appeared Hannover had the same problems as she did, however. His voice went back to a carefully controlled, low-volume tremor. "Well, the Irigs took him in for a while until Social Services took over, and from then on, he bounced around. Tough life for a kid, but he was never a troublemaker. Real damn shame if you ask me. The Kents were wonderful people -- Clark was no different."
"You say that like Clark wasn't a Kent."
"Originally, no. The Kents adopted him when he was very young. But that made him no less a part of their family."
"Huh," she grunted.
So Clark had not only had his family killed, he'd been lifted from his home, and bounced around like nothing more than a sack of hot potatoes. The thought was sickening to her. Was this what all foster children had to go through if no one would commit to actual adoption? Or was Clark a rare case? She made a note to investigate it later.
"That's what finally made me quit, you know."
"Pardon?"
"Seeing Clark's face, when I drove up to the scene. I didn't think I could ever bear to see that again as long as I lived. And so I quit. I guess I just wasn't cut out for this Sheriff business."
Her vision blurred a little bit, and after she had clenched the phone between her ear and her shoulder, she swiped at her eyes with her fingers. She realized that taking notes had long been forgotten. She found she could easily imagine the look the Sheriff described on Clark's face.
"And you have no reason to suspect that Trask was involved with the accident?" she asked weakly as she readjusted the phone.
"I didn't see him anywhere around when I got there."
"Well," she sighed, unable for once to think of anything else to ask. "Unless you can think of any other information that might help me in this investigation, I think I've taken up enough of your time."
She gave Mr. Hannover her contact information, in case he thought of anything else, and then got up to hang the phone up. She leaned against the wall, thinking, her head resting near the receiver. She'd connected a few dots this interview, but had ended up, in the long run, with even more question marks, and a lot of squiggly miscellaneous lines that were wrecking the overall picture. Actually, what she mentally had at this point was a finger painting that looked like it had been done by a five-year-old.
What was the connection between Clark's parents' deaths and Sarah Trask's death? Aside from the alleged perpetrator. What she couldn't get a grasp on was motive. And there was *still* a huge question mark over Miracle Man. What did a murdered wife, Clark's parents, George Thompson, and Jason Trask all have to do with that? She wracked her brain and came up with squat.
Squat.
A sigh of frustration curdled in her throat as she shoved off the wall and began to pace agitatedly. She rubbed her eyes as spots started to form. Her headache seemed to be on the verge of coming back full force as well. She ignored it and began to tick off her options.
Jason Trask was still a ghost in all of this.
George Thompson was touring Metropolis for a few days on his campaign tour. He was due to make his exit speech tomorrow.
She had a security card for the Bessolo Warehouse in her purse.
She decided she was vaguely confident that the Bessolo Warehouse wasn't going to grow legs and walk away. Which would actually be quite damning, in and of itself. Mad warehouse stalks the streets of Metropolis. Round, and round, and round it goes, where it stops... nobody knows!
With a wry smile, she gathered up her things. George Thompson, she thought as she stalked back towards the door, you're next.
Clark Kent.
On the way out the door, the words slipped past in her head like a jingle of a tune that just couldn't be booted from memory and brought her charge to a jarring halt, left shoulder in the hall, right shoulder still in the relative shelter of her apartment.
She glanced back at the phone. She wasn't really seeing red anymore, and knew despite his protests, he probably would want to be in on this. She glanced back out at the hallway. Clark was the quintessence of drag, like one of those parachutes they used to stop racecars. She pictured herself running from the bad guys, Clark dangling from her angle by a tightly clenched hand, taking care to bump into every obstruction as she went, and she heard his voice echoing in her head. Lois, stay! Lois, it's not safe! Bad, Lois! Good girl, Lois. She glanced back at the phone. He had been terrified at the fact that she was doing this investigation. He wouldn't want her to do this alone. She glanced back at the hallway. Which was precisely why she was going to do just that.
The door closed with a bang as she pulled it shut behind her.
*****
TBC...
(End Part 15/??)
