The Vampire Murders: 8/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"When Clark gets back," she told Jimmy, "tell him I've gone to check into that stuff we discussed last night. He'll know what I mean."
"If you mean Cost Mart, I haven't had the time to get the plans yet," Jimmy said. "Clark said you were going over there after work."
"I figure lunch hour should be even better," she said. "There'll be more customers around. Don't forget to let Clark know, if he gets back in time."
"But --" Jimmy's voice trailed off uncertainly. Lois paid no attention to his feeble protest. With a brisk step, she headed for the elevator.
**********
And now, Part 8:
In the end, Lois drove her Jeep to Cost Mart.
The snow was coming down more heavily than it had been earlier and instead of a coating of half-melted slush on the sidewalks and in the gutters, an actual layer of white crystals was beginning to collect on awnings and to form little snowdrifts against buildings. It looked as if the first snow of the season was going to be more than a foot note in the weather report tonight, she thought, as she left the Daily Planet. Superman must be having a good time, trying to prevent accidents.
Lois considered the options of catching one of the crowded city buses, no doubt packed to bursting with damp people, versus taking a cab, driven by a cab driver who treated the snow as a mere inconvenience and his car as one of the flying vehicles out of the Jetsons, and decided that if she was going to risk her neck that it would be in her own Jeep. Besides, one never knew when one was going to have to make a hasty exit, and trying to flag down a cab at such a time was bound to be more than a little awkward.
The parking lot at Cost Mart was very crowded, which meant, Lois thought with satisfaction, that the store was going to be crowded as well. All to the good. It took her more than ten minutes to find a spot, which she grabbed without courtesy when a Ford pulled out of a space, beating another car to the punch and narrowly avoiding a collision as she did so. Ignoring the colorful comments of the other driver, as well as the single digit salute he threw her way, Lois pulled triumphantly into the spot.
Shoppers streamed through the store's main doors in an unending mass. Lois joined the crowd and entered the big building apparently unremarked by any of the employees. Grabbing a cart, she rolled it down the first aisle, trying to look the same as the hundreds of other patrons rushing into the discount store, searching for bargains during their lunch break. Passing a shelf offering mouthwash, Lois appropriated a bottle at random, and a moment later a bottle of aspirin. A real customer was going to have merchandise in her cart so, to blend in, she needed it is well.
From her previous visit, she knew that the manager's office was in the back of the store, reached through a door adorned with an authoritative sign reading: "Employees Only". Lois worked her way through the mob of shoppers, pausing now and then to throw some small item into her cart, until she had reached a spot from which she could see the door that opened onto the hallway that led to the office of the manager and whoever else might be in some position of responsibility here.
There were, of course, two employees presently within sight, who would be certain to see her, Lois thought in disgust, if she attempted to go through that apparently hallowed door. She stopped before a shelf displaying several different brands of bug spray, and pretended to be examining the offered products. It was too bad, she thought belatedly, that Clark wasn't with her. He was good at creating diversions when she needed to get in somewhere without being seen.
Well, she was just going to have to figure out how to get past them by herself.
Lois replaced the can of bug spray on the shelf and continued on down the aisle, closely inspecting the wares displayed on the shelves. Maybe the employees would go away on their own. One of them was sweeping the area of floor in front of the door through which she wished to pass. The other was apparently changing the prices on the items on the bottom shelf next to the door. Neither showed any sign of going away any time soon.
Lois glanced casually around, and after a moment's inspection she verified what she had suspected. Although they were inconspicuously placed, there were surveillance cameras in strategic spots around the store: Security here was tight, which made sense, considering the variety of clientele that patronized Cost Mart. Anything out of the ordinary that she did was going to be observed. Unless ….
The ladies' room a short distance away wouldn't have cameras.
Without further internal debate, Lois turned in the direction of the washroom. Leaving her cart by the door, right against the wall where it was unlikely to impede traffic and might thereby draw attention, she entered the ladies' room.
There was someone in one of the four toilet stalls and another woman brushing her hair in front of the sink. Lois glanced upward, striving to assure herself that there were no viewing devices evident, but could discover none. Well, at least they seemed to be allowing their customers some level of privacy. Lois entered one of the stalls. In her purse, she had the equipment to create her distraction. Now, all she needed was the opportunity.
After a moment, she heard footsteps and the bathroom door opened and closed. That was probably the woman who had been brushing her hair. That left one woman in the bathroom stall ….
The toilet flushed and after a moment she heard footsteps again. The water came on. Various noises told her that the unknown woman was washing her hands. She would probably leave shortly. Now, if no one else came in ….
The water went off and Lois heard the rattle of the paper towel dispenser. Then footsteps and the sound of the door again.
In an instant, Lois was out of the stall. In her hands was a ball of wadded up paper towel and a bottle of fingernail polish remover. She stuffed the wad of paper into the trash container, typically filled nearly to overflowing with paper towels. Without pausing, she twisted the lid from the bottle of polish remover and dumped it over the paper ball, saturating it. In the metal container, in the tile-lined room, no fire was likely to go far, especially with the sprinklers that she had already noted, installed in the ceiling, but the metal swinging door and domed lid of the container should prevent it from being put out too soon. It would set off the fire alarm and/or the smoke detector, which might very well draw the employees away from their very inconvenient posts for a few vital moments.
She always carried a cheap lighter in her purse in case of emergency. Now she flicked it on, lit another paper towel, pushed the little swinging door of the container open and dropped it atop the lighter-soaked ball of paper towel.
The paper lit instantly and flame burst upward as the lighter fluid caught. Lois wedged the metal door partially open with another wadded towel, turned and walked to the door, exited casually and reclaimed her cart. Trying not to look as if she were hurrying, she steered it quickly back toward the doorway that was her first goal, expecting at any second to hear the wail of the fire alarm.
But she reached her destination without any sign of her sabotage bearing results at all. She considered with mild dismay, the possibility that it had gone out instead of lighting the paper towels in the trash container, and stood, apparently studying (again) the various brands of bug spray. She was comparing a can that promised to exterminate roaches, termites and ants to another that promised to eliminate those pests in addition to fleas, spiders and flying insects as well, when the shriek of the siren nearly made her jump out of her shoes.
The results, however, were all that she could have wished. People looked around frantically, then dropped whatever they were doing and converged on the source of the alarm. Even shoppers trailed after the employees rushing toward the ladies' room. Lois smelled the smoke from the burning damp paper towels. It seemed as if her sabotage had been effective after all. And if she was lucky, it would distract the attention of the persons monitoring the cameras as well.
Without hesitation, she abandoned her cart and walked briskly toward the door that led into the back sections of Cost Mart.
**********
Having been here the previous morning, she identified without difficulty the office of the manager. Lois went past the door without a pause or a glance, scanning the area for any indication of a way into the basement of Cost Mart.
There was none in sight on first sight, but ahead the corridor ended in a T crossing, which went right and left. Lois hurried to the intersection and looked quickly both ways.
To her left was a very ordinary sign that announced the elevator and beside it, the stairwell.
She turned left. As she approached the elevator the bell signaling the arrival of the car rang sharply and she heard the distinctive sound of compressed air that announced the opening of the doors.
It was too late to hide. Lois stood still, trying to look as if she belonged. The doors slid aside and a man emerged.
Lois gave him a casual glance and moved past him into the elevator. He was a short, dark man, dressed neatly in jeans and a green T-shirt with the logo of Cost Mart on the left breast. He barely looked at her, but moved down the hall in the direction of the main store. Lois looked over the control panel and punched the button for the basement.
The elevator moved downward, and an instant later stopped with a soft sigh of air in what was purportedly the basement of Cost Mart. The doors opened.
The hallway beyond the elevator doors was white-walled and otherwise featureless. Lois stepped out, listening closely for sounds.
Somewhere, not far away to her left, she could hear voices and the sounds of people moving around. Would there be a way to access the sub-basement that she knew was here? Probably, but it might not be obvious. Still --
Lois turned right, away from the voices and other sounds, toward a place where the hallway branched, going left and right. Perhaps, if she looked around, she could find some other way down. There didn't seem to be much in the way of activity down in this direction, so maybe that would be where they would hide a secret stairway or something.
The intersecting hallway, when she reached it, was deserted and quiet, and led to a series of doors in each direction. Lois turned arbitrarily right and moved quickly to the first door. Pushing it open, she saw it apparently led to a storeroom where large crates stood ready for unpacking. The next, somewhat farther down the same direction, was more or less the same. The hallway ended beyond the next door in a pair of wide doors that opened on another dimly lighted room. Large, wooden crates were stacked against one wall, and stacks of pallets and cardboard boxes were piled about the room. An aisle-truck, its fork stacked with several boxes, was parked beside a pair of doors that apparently marked a freight elevator.
That might be what she was looking for, of course, but she could come back to check once she had verified that the hallway in the other direction held nothing of interest. Lois turned and retraced her steps to the place where the corridor branched.
The passage in the other direction was short. It turned to the right, jogged right again in a short dog-leg and ended in a blank wall. Lois stopped. This was to say the least of it, unexpected.
As she hesitated, the apparently blank wall began to move, sliding silently aside, revealing a lighted interior, and three men, standing within. For an instant, no one moved, and then, Clarence Brunner, the manager of this branch of Cost Mart, followed by two other men, exited. Beyond them, before the door slid shut, Lois could see that the small, lighted room was actually an elevator. She had, apparently, found the way to the sub-basement. Unfortunately, the circumstances were not exactly ideal.
Lois stood still. The Cost Mart manager regarded her expressionlessly.
"Miss Lane," he said. "I see you found it necessary to explore the premises on your own. That was very unfortunate."
Lois backed away a step. "The last I heard, trespassing wasn't a federal crime."
Brunner smiled faintly. "Trespassing? Of course not."
"Well," Lois said, "if you're going to call the police and arrest me, get on with it."
Brunner shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He nodded to one of the men. "Bring her along."
Lois found each of her arms being grasped by an unsmiling man. The sliding door to the elevator opened again and Clarence Brunner stepped back within, followed by Lois and her captors. The panel slid shut.
"Hey!" Lois said. "What are you doing? Are you crazy?"
The manager didn't answer. The elevator dropped slowly and came to a stop.
"This way." The doors slid open and the man led the way down another hallway and paused beside a section of blank wall. Lois heard a faint beeping sound, and the wall slid open without a sound. She was pushed unceremoniously through, into a small, square room.
"What are you doing?" Lois protested. "All I did was --"
Brunner smiled without humor. "Miss Lane, I don't have time to fool around with snoopy reporters. You found too much for me to let you go free. I'll have to consult with my superiors to decide what to do with you. There's no way out of that room without the key, so I advise you to behave." He stepped backward, and the door slid shut with a soft click of finality. Lois was alone.
*********************
"Where did she say she was going?" Clark asked, a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
"You know Lois," Jimmy said. "She said to tell you she'd gone to investigate what you were discussing last night. I think she meant the Cost Mart you guys staked out. I know you said you were going there after work, but she said she thought the lunch hour would be even better."
"Oh, great." Clark knew better by now to even doubt that Lois would do any such thing. Of course she would. "How long has she been gone?"
Jimmy glanced at the wall clock. "She left about noon It's been nearly four hours."
"I'd better go over there and see if I can find her," Clark said. "If she gets back before I do, page me, okay?"
"Sure," Jimmy said. "I hope she didn't get into any trouble."
"So do I." Clark headed for the stairs.
**********
tbc
