Recognition (Truth)

By Ccmalo

"What do you suppose they're planning to do out there? I can't
believe they've bought the Lemieux place to farm it. The land's
rocky, with thin soil, and about a third of it slopes down from
the ridge. The only thing it's got is a good view of the
woods."

Jane Malenkov and her old and good friend, Allison James, were
walking briskly along the main street of Legatteville. Jane
laughed. "Allie, don't be so suspicious! You're letting that
'paper' of yours shape your attitude. They're a nice young
couple, and if they don't know everything yet, they'll find
out. It takes time to forget the city." They walked through the
doorway of an old two-story brick building and into the small
dark foyer of a comfortably shabby restaurant. "Now tell me what
your niece has been doing. You must be looking forward to seeing
her again after all these years."

***

Clark Kent spun out of the 'suit' in the dingy alley behind his
apartment building and emerged into the neon luminescence of
Clinton Street. In a few minutes he was in front of the double
grey door that led into his apartment. Slowly he let himself in,
the loneliness of the day returning as he walked down the few
steps into his living room. He smiled slightly, recognizing the
source of his feelings, remembering the last twenty-four hours.
He missed her.

They had met outside the heavy bronze doors of the front entrance
to the 'Planet' after he had delivered Diana Stride to the FBI.
It had been late and Lois had been on her way home, when he told
her that he had got them 'the exclusive.' Turning, she had
smiled crookedly, and said, "You're some partner."

"Is that all I am, Lois?"

"I don't know." And she had looked at him, searching his
face.

And then he had made it easier for them; suggesting they finish
the chess game that they had begun a few days earlier, before the
whole Diana StrIde thing had exploded. Smiling, she had taken his
arm and they had entered the Planet, riding up to the seventh
floor in companionable silence and then finishing their game. He
had won, and surprisingly she hadn't seemed to mind. Looking up
at him, she had smiled and said softly, "You win, Clark Kent."
For a moment, he had stopped breathing as his eyes met hers.

Then she had giggled. "This time, Kent! Come on, I'll drive you
home but you can start thinking about a rematch when I get back
from Minnesota."

The next morning he had gone to the train station, hoping to see
her before she left. Catching sight of her, he called her name
and she turned, a huge smile covering her face. "Clark!" She
hugged him. "I wasn't expecting this, to see you. I'm glad you
came." She stepped back from him, but kept one hand tentatively
on his chest as she took a deep breath and then looked at him
directly. " Clark, about the date thing."

"Yes?"

"I was thinking. Next Saturday when I get back ... dinner? You
decide where."

"Yes!" He felt incredible.

Quickly, she kissed the corner of his mouth and then turned and
strode off to catch her train. He had watched her go, a
ridiculous grin on his face.

***

The landscape passed by in a blur, a result of her inattention
rather than the hypnotic speed of the train. Looking out the dull
glass of the large window, Lois Lane saw the events of the last
two days, not the brown-green of late winter fields. So much had
happened. She was relieved right now that the train was taking
her away from it all, giving her time to sort through her
conflicting emotions. Really, she was not sure she wanted this.
She had felt safe, retreating into the security of her work: she
loved it; she believed it could be important; she knew it had
become her passion. And she knew that it always would be. But
there were different passions, and right now that was her
problem.

To be blunt, she admitted to herself, her problem was her
partner. To her surprise, she had fallen in love with him, really
in love with him, and she disapproved. It violated 'the rules'
she had set for herself five years earlier, after her first year
at 'the Planet.' She liked being in control: of her work, of
her emotions, of herself.

Any emotional entanglement she had previously experienced had
proven to be a federal disaster, she thought wryly. Even her
father had proven unreliable: rarely there, and critical when he
was there. Her mind catalogued her past relationships: the
groping inadequacies of her first "love", a second-year college
football player who had quickly spread exaggerated reports of
their few encounters to his teammates and, then, in her senior
year, the editor of the college newspaper who had also been
sleeping with her friend, Linda King. Apprentice intellectuals
had proven no more sensitive than quarterbacks, and finally
Claude, a sexily charming Frenchman who had been working at the
'Planet' when she had first started there, fresh from her
internship at the 'Washington Post.' Then he had stolen her
story, her research, her work, and had won a Pulitzer.

Then Lex. At least she had not gone to bed with him. He was the
first man who had asked her to marry him and after years of
dedicated work at the Planet, she had thought maybe it was time
to marry. That she was not in love with him had been part of her
consideration. This time, she was in control and that had pleased
her, but, to be honest, she had been attracted, drawn by his
power, and charmed by his sophistication. And he had cared for
her, been in love with her, when the man she had thought she was
in love with had been remote, had told her that there was no hope
for them.

<Okay> , she sighed , < What are you going to do now? Maybe a
week away will help you get a grip, get things in perspective,
get him in perspective, figure out how to get back to being
totally absorbed by your work, get back to normal.>

***

Lois got off the train at Legatteville, a small town in the woods
of Minnesota where patches of sugar snow still pooled over the
pale vegetation of late winter. Her eyes lit up with pleasure
when she saw the slim, dark haired figure of her aunt waiting for
her on the grey concrete platform . She waved, "Aunt Allie!"
The two women hugged affectionately, and Lois felt briefly as
though, in a way, she had come home. As they walked towards her
aunt's small car, chatting about her trip, Lois noticed the
freshness of the air, with its hint of coming spring and she felt
herself relax. It would be good to be away from Metropolis for a
week.

After dinner that night she sat with her aunt and uncle in front
of the fire in the comfortable living room of their old log
cabin. It had been in her uncle's family since the 1920's, a
large structure built of dark logs with high ceilings and a porch
that ran along two sides. She had come with her family as a child
and this place and these people had been a temporary refuge from
her parents' raging battles. Allison James was her father's
sister and, after her parents' marriage had exploded, Lois and
Lucy had come alone as Sam Lane drifted even further from his
family and Ellen had retreated for a few years into alcoholic
isolation. Lois smiled as she realized that the only other place
where she had felt like this was when she had been at the Kent's
farm in Kansas -- -- or for that matter whenever she had been at
Clark's place. < Not good> she thought. <You're supposed to be
putting him in perspective, not thinking about how good you feel
when you're with him.>

Their conversation moved away from family updates about which
cousins were doing what and moved toward her life ( which meant
her work ) in Metropolis. Lois told them about the story on the
growing number of homeless in Metropolis which she had just
finished for this Sunday's edition and avoided mentioning the
Diana Stride story which had been in this morning's paper.
<After all, old news now,> she thought. And 'news' that had got
her tangled up in those feelings about Clark that she didn't
want to think about.

Her uncle, however, could not to be trusted to stick to her
script. "Read your Diana Stride article. Amazing story. Can't
believe she was using ABC as a cover for criminal activities for
the last five years. Executives at that network must be pretty
dim." He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "You know,
Lois, I remember you said you like to work alone but I've read
the articles that you write with your partner and I can't tell
what's yours and what's his. They appear pretty seamless. How
do you do it?"

"Oh ... well ... practice ... you know ... We both do a lot of
stuff on our own too."

"Like the homeless story."

"Well no, not that one. Others."

Allie knew evasive action when she saw it. She smiled. "What's
he like, Lois?"

"Clark? ... Tall, sort of ... not as experienced as me ... small
town ... "

"He won a Kerth last fall, didn't he?" As the editor, chief
reporter, and bookkeeper for the 'Legatteville Link,' Allie
kept up on what was going on in the 'business,' particularly
where it was connected with her niece's paper.

"Yes." Lois smiled as she recognized her Aunt's trap and
shifted their talk to her aunt's paper and listened with genuine
interest as she talked about running a small town newspaper and
then about the article she was researching on old farms in the
area. Most of these farms had been marginal, set up almost a
century ago to meet the needs of the mining companies that had
operated in the area at that time and then had been abandoned or
operated at a subsistence level once the mines had shut down.
Then she started to talk about the old Lemieux place and her
interest in the young couple who were going to work it. "Mohair
goats or something. I ask you."

"Why don't you interview them?" Lois suggested. "It would
give you a chance to find out more about the place for your
article."

"And get the inside story on goat herding," her uncle Dave said
dryly.

***

Lois passed the next three days happily puttering around
Legatteville, becoming reacquainted with some of the places and a
few of the people she had known when she was younger, but she was
getting restless; she was afterall a big city girl. So on
Wednesday morning she wandered down the town's main street and
into her aunt's office, only to catch that energetic lady on her
way out the door.

"Come with me. I'm going to interview the goatfarmers. You'll
get to see a * real* reporter in action!" Soon they were driving
through the countryside, its flat fields broken occasionally by
stands of bare-branched trees and hard planes of rock angled into
the grey and beige landscape of late winter. Allie looked
sideways at her niece. "Missing Metropolis?"

Lois grinned. It had always been difficult to hide things from
her aunt, more than anyone else in her family. Even with their
infrequent contact over the last few years, it was still
difficult. "Not really." Not exactly the truth.

"The Daily Planet? Don't lose yourself in your job, Lois."

"No, I haven't. Not really. The 'Planet' can function without
me." She actually didn't believe this. She looked out the
window, not seeing the passing fields. Instead, she saw the
productive chaos of the newsroom, and she saw Clark standing
against the edge of his desk, his face mock serious, as he teased
her about some detail over which she was currently obsessing. She
banished the thought.

They drove around a bend in the road and approached the hill
leading to the ridge where Allie said the farm was located. Then
they turned into the gravel drive leading up to a small frame
farmhouse, its unpainted siding weathered a silver grey. The
place looked bleak, somehow uninhabited. The front porch was
unwelcoming, lacking even the clutter that often accumulates as
the householder copes with the uncertain weather of late winter.

The front door was opened by a tall, slim man in his early
thirties, neatly dressed, a dark flannel shirt tucked into faded
jeans. His bland good looks suggested an accountant or a poet
rather than a farmer. His polite smile did not reach as far as
his eyes and his voice lacked inflection as he invited them into
the small front room where he introduced them to his wife, an
attractive redheaded woman. She seemed more interested in her
visitors than her husband had been. She offered them coffee, and
then they settled in the sparsely furnished room to do the
interview.

Lois listened with considerable restraint, not invading her
aunt's territory as she chatted with the Andersons about their
plans for the farm. They were still in the process of fixing up
the place, no goats yet -- the first pair were to arrive next
month, yes they had worked in Minneapolis for several years, no
children, they had not been married long, Legattville was a nice
town ... As Lois listened she began to share her aunt's
suspicion that something did not fit. They were far too urban,
lacking any detectable enthusiasm for this 'return to the
land.' They didn't really say very much; it was all so general,
so rehearsed, she thought. She was uncomfortably reminded of a
couple of times when she had gone undercover for a story. And why
didn't she quite believe that they were newly married or married
at all for that matter? <How would *you* know> she thought wryly.
Still she hadn't sensed that connection between the two that she
thought would be there in a newly married couple, that physical
awareness of each other .

As they were driving away afterwards, Allie turned to her niece.
"So, what did you think?"

"I'd like to see how you write that one up. It was hard for me
to see a 'human interest' angle in it.' What they said seemed
too pat, too predictable, and he seemed very reserved."

"So you think I'm right, that this is not quite what it
seems?"

"Perhaps, but Allie, you can't print that. You don't have any
evidence. You know you can't just go with your gut instinct."
She couldn't believe she was saying that. She sounded like her
editor, Perry White. "Why are you suspicious of them?"

"You sound like Dave. I know they've only been here a month and
maybe I'm reacting more to this sense I have that they're not
interested in farming, but in something else. Lois, I do know
small towns are different from big cities; after all I lived in
one for most of my life. I know city people are less open; but
these two seem evasive when you talk to them, and why this
particular farm?"

"What do you mean? It looks pretty normal, just run down."

"That's the point. There are two others about the same size for
sale on better land and with houses in less need of repair. You
know, I've always felt there was something a little sinister
about that place." A small smile flitted across Allie's face.
"Well, maybe I'm just reacting to that old impression. Jane
mentioned once that, when they were kids, they used to come out
here a lot and that there were all sorts of stories about odd
things happening."

Lois raised her eyebrows. "I don't know Aunt Allie, from what
I've heard, most of what happened in the fifties was a little
odd -- -- take Elvis Presley, for instance."

Allie laughed. "You think I'm imagining it then?"

"I don't know, Allie," Lois replied. "I had that same
feeling, that they were evasive.

***

Lois phoned Clark that night, though she wasn't sure why. She
had tried to talk herself out of making the call, reminding
herself that she was trying to put some distance between them,
and her feelings for him. But she had found herself randomly
thinking about him over the last few days, wondering how he would
react to the town, if he would like her aunt and uncle, what he
would think of her aunt's paper, if it would seem familiar to
him. < I'm probably reacting this way because he's from a small
town too > she thought. Anyway, she made the call.

"Can't take the hectic pace of being on vacation, Lois?" he
teased when she told him about tagging along with Allie that
afternoon. "I knew you couldn't do it." He slouched back
comfortably into the cushions of his sofa as he talked to her.

"Ha-ha. Anyway, Clark, there are all sorts of odd rumours
connected to the place the Andersons have bought. "

"For instance?"

"Well, the place was abandoned briefly in the '50's. Clark,
they say it was because of alien landings in the early 1950's!
After that it was apparently used by teenagers at times as a
place to hang out, go with your boyfriend, and, well ... you can
imagine the rest. Some very wild times according to Allie who
heard about them from her friend Jane. According to another one
of Allie's friends one of the girls who was a regular apparently
went missing and the rumour was that she had been murdered, but
her body was never found. Then in the 1960's the place was
bought and run, not too successfully, by a hippie commune. They
left in the early 1970's and the place was later bought by a
Vietnam veteran. I remember that because he was still living
there when Lucy and I came in the summers. He was a recluse, they
say haunted by what he had seen in the war."

"Lois it's a great human interest story, but you're going off
on a tangent if you think there's anything else there. There are
rumours like that in every small town."

"Oh yeah, farmboy. Is that your Smallville experience talking?
Did you use to party at abandoned farmhouses? Somehow I can't
see that. Or were you the alien?"

He felt his heart pound and he held his breath for a moment. <
Lois, I should tell you ... >

"Clark?"

"Funny, Lois." He steered the conversation in a safer
direction. "So how are your aunt and uncle? What's it like
being back there after all these years?" He could hear the
pleasure in her voice as she responded.

"I'm enjoying it, Clark. It's been great being with them
again. They are so ... o sane. I know you'll like them when you
meet them."

Clark paused for a moment as he realized the implications of her
comment and then he said softly, "I'll look forward to it Lois
... Oh, by the way, what time does your train arrive on Saturday?
I thought we could go to dinner at Angelina's."

"Angelina's sounds great. I hear they have incredible chocolate
desserts there. I get in at five so we should have lots of
time."

"I'll meet you at the station." He paused and took a risk. "I
miss you, Lois."

"I miss you too, Clark. G' night."

"Good night, Lois." Smiling, he put down the phone.

***

The dining room of the old, ( and only) hotel in Legatteville was
unusually busy for a Thursday afternoon. In the far corner, Lois
and her aunt were sitting with Jane Malenkov whom they had met
for lunch. Most of the tables were occupied and the waitresses
were moving a little faster than usual through the cheerful buzz
of Legatteville's more prosperous citizens. Sunlight shone
through the large windows, onto the dark panelling of the walls,
bathing the room in a soft mellowness.

The buzz subsided suddenly and Lois looked up, surprised to see
the tall, confident figure of Tony Gates, the senior Senator for
New Troy, enter the dining room, accompanied by the Mayor and two
of Legatteville's more prominent businessmen. Then she
remembered that his family had originally come from this area,
his grandfather having made a fortune from the local mines before
they closed down. That original fortune had been parlayed into
other investments, particularly during the Second World War, so
that the family had become incredibly wealthy. Now the Senator
was purportedly testing the waters for a Presidential bid.

Lois watched thoughtfully as the Senator stopped briefly at some
of the tables to chat to people he knew. Invariably, their faces
lit with pleasure at the momentary attention they were receiving
from the charismatic and popular politician. Then he caught sight
of the table where she was sitting with her aunt and Jane
Malenkov. He walked towards them, smiling.

"Jane! I haven't seen you for years. You haven't changed at
all. Still the prettiest girl in town."

Jane blushed. She was an attractive woman in her late fifties,
but she was also an intelligent one. Lois wondered if Jane felt
flattered or skeptical about the extravagance of his comment.
"Tony," Jane said, a reserve in her voice that gave Lois her
answer. "I don't know whether you've met Allison James and her
niece, Lois Lane."

Flashing white teeth, he reached out a bronzed hand and took
Allison's hand. "Yes. We met, I think, at a fund-raiser a few
years ago. Mrs. James , how are you? Are you still running the
local newspaper? And Ms.Lane, it's good to see you again. Are
you here on business or just visiting? When we last met a year
ago, I had no idea that you had ties to Legatteville."

This time it was Lois's turn to look a trifle chagrined as she
remembered that last 'meeting' had been a small dinner party at
Lex's, just after they had become engaged. She was still
appalled at how easily she had been taken in by Lex, seeing only
what she had wanted to see in him, not recognizing the truth.
However, she quickly composed herself, and said pleasantly, "I
imagine you had more important things on your mind that evening,
Senator. Are *you* here on business or is this a family visit?"

"Now, Ms. Lane," he laughed lightly, "is this off the record
or ... " he let his voice trail off as he was interrupted by an
attractive blonde woman in her late thirties who managed to
convey both competence and an understated sexuality . The Senator
had a reputation for 'appreciating' such skills. After a brief
word with her, he turned to say good-bye to them and then
accompanied his associates into a smaller room on the south side
of the large room. After he had left, the dining room seemed to
relax back into its "pre-celebrity" conviviality. Jane arched
her eyebrow expressively and said quietly, "I don't think he
has my vote."

"Why not, Jane?" Lois asked. "I know he has a reputation with
women but his record in Congress has been solid." The arrival of
their lunch stopped her from asking Jane more about her opinions
of the Senator and their talk flowed to different things.

***As it turned out it was the goat farmers who found the body,
or at least the remains of the body. They had been using a metal
detector on the land towards the bottom of the ridge on which
their house was situated when the detector's sensor had alerted
them to something beneath the ground.

When Lois, Jane, and Allie returned to the 'Legatteville Link'
after lunch, they heard about the discovery from Charlotte
Ibbitson who ran the bakery next door to the 'Link.' They
promptly headed out to the site where they found the police
already at work. Pulling her jacket tightly against the cold
wind, Lois forgot about protocol and went into reporter mode, an
instinctive response.

"Any idea who he is?"

The police officer on duty looked at her coldly and then noticed
her companions. Allie spoke up, "My niece, Lois Lane, Frankie.
She can't help it. She works for the 'Daily Planet' in
Metroplolis."

He unbent somewhat, more out of regard for the two older women
with her than for Lois's credentials. "Don't know much yet,
but it looks like it was a woman, not a man. I'm not sure, but I
think she may have been pregnant at the time of death. Look at
the small cluster of bones in the area where the womb would have
been."

Silently, the women walked closer to where two police officers
were carefully brushing dirt away from bones still partly covered
in bits of faded red fabric. Matted black hair spread around the
hollow eyed skull with its high cheek bones.

One of the men who had been crouched by the remains stood up.
"It looks like the skull has been fractured." His changed
position gave them all a better view of the body.

Jane stepped back, a look of horror on her face, and sighed,
"Alice."

Frank Johaansen looked up quickly. "Who?"

"Alice Cardinal. She disappeared our last year in high
school."

"How do you know it's her.?"

Jane was silent for a moment and she seemed much paler. Her eyes
were fixed on the stark grimness before her. Then she spoke, her
voice a whisper. "The locket ... around her neck ... I had one
just like it. We shared the same birthday ... and the lockets
were a present from my grandmother that year. Each locket had a
picture in it of the two of us." Her face turned bleak as she
struggled with her feelings. "Poor Alice. This shouldn't have
happened to her."

Allie took her friend by the shoulder and turned her away from
the grisly remains of the body. "We'll take you home, Jane."

Lois had a thousand questions she wanted to ask -- of the
Andersons, of the police, and especially of Jane but they could
wait. Forty years had passed since the murder; another day
wasn't going to make any difference.

***

About 7 o'clock that evening the three women drove out of town
along the dark road cut through the jack pines to the Ojibway
reservation where Alice's mother lived alone in a small tidy
house. She welcomed them into her home, leading them into her
kitchen where she made a large pot of tea. As they talked, it
became clear to Lois that no one outside her family and a few
friends had taken the disappearance of Alice Cardinal very
seriously. The reserve had been much poorer in those days,
attitudes had been different, and Alice had been a wild and
somewhat rebellious teenager. When she had gone missing, the good
people of Legatteville had the usual explanations.

'She's run away to the city for some excitement ... She's
pregnant by a married man and she's gone to the city to have the
baby ... She ran away with that trucker who seemed to have an eye
for her ... No money here, but the city has money for beautiful
girls who know how to please men ... She'll show up again in a
few years, back on the reserve.' And then she was forgotten.

Mrs.Cardinal had heard all the rumours and had felt bitter about
the ease with which people had explained away her daughter's
disappearance. She had her own suspicions about what had happened
and, to be fair, the police had listened but had found no traces
of the girl. And they too had attributed her disappearance to a
combination of promiscuity and rebellion against her parents,
both of whom were held in some respect by the Ojibway community.

Lois looked at the pictures of the young woman and thought how
beautiful she was. At eighteen, Alice Cardinal had already
developed into a striking woman, tall with independence in her
dark eyes. Beside her the young JaneMalenkov was merely pretty,
obviously programmed for a life of respectability, but the two
girls had been close friends, and Jane was still alive.

Lois looked at Mrs.Cardinal and said softly, "She was very
striking. She looks like she was very special."

"Oh, she was. She knew about the woods and the stories of our
people. She knew about your people too. She was so eager to do
everything, but she had not learned when to be cautious, when not
to trust. She gave her heart too easily. I could not tell her
this." As she spoke, the old woman traced her finger over the
image of her daughter and sighed, "Now it is over." Standing up
, she picked up the teapot and filled it with more hot water.
"Thank you for coming, Jane. You have always been a good
friend."

They were interrupted at this point by neighbors who, on hearing
the news, had come to talk to her, to be with her as she
remembered her daughter. There was anger too as the old
resentment against a police system that had too often seen their
people as the criminals and been too slow to investigate when
they had been the victims. Lois listened, saying little,
wondering what would happen now, how thorough the investigation
would be this time. She felt that, finally, it was important to
find the truth.

***

The next morning, as she ate breakfast with her aunt and uncle,
Lois was full of plans for covering the story. Her aunt looked at
her with some astonishment.

"Lois, I can't do all that. This is a pretty small operation I
run here. I'm not only a reporter; in fact, today I'm the
bookkeeper and editor. I'll check with Frankie, but that's all
I have time for."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm here then! I think this is
important, Allie. There's more here than a forty-year-old case.
It's a matter of truth, of justice. We can't just wait for the
local sheriff to hand us a press release!" she said scornfully.
"So let's get started." She stood up and began clearing the
breakfast dishes from the table. "I'll go into town with you
this morning, Allie, and start working on it."

"Planning on wrapping the whole thing up before your train
leaves tomorrow?" her uncle asked innocently.

Stopping in the middle of the kitchen, Lois turned to him. "I'd
forgotten. Well, I'll have to stay a little longer. " Then more
uncertainly, "You don't mind do you?"

Her uncle grinned at her. "Mind? And miss my big chance to watch
a prize winning investigative journalist in action?"

Allie looked up at her. "Lois, we'd love it if you stayed
longer, but I thought you were going out with Clark tomorrow
night. Ordinarily I don't advise young women to put everything
aside so that they can go out on a date, but I had the feeling
that you thought this date was important, that Clark was
special."

"Oh, you know. He is ... but he'll understand. We can go out
any time, but this story is important. Clark and I can go out
when I get back to Metropolis. He'll understand," she repeated.
"I'll call and tell him." Then she paused, looking conflicted
as she realized she really didn't want to miss tomorrow night.
What she really wanted was Clark here.

"Why not do both, Lois? Ask him to come for the weekend, for a
few days if he can. He can take the train from Metropolis tonight
and you can go back together on Sunday . Maybe you can convince
your editor to let you both stay an extra couple of days to do a
more in depth article, and you could still have your dinner date
at the Legatteville Hotel on Saturday night. "

***

Straightening his tie, Clark Kent came out of the elevator,
grabbed the morning edition of the paper, and headed for the
coffee. Although it was only 7 A.M., the news room of the Daily
Planet was beginning to show signs of life. A few of the skeleton
night staff were still there, wrapping up last details as the
early morning light flooded through the huge window that took up
most of the east wall, casting a hazy brightness over the
surfaces of desks and computer terminals. Clark looked across the
room to Lois's empty desk and smiled. He would see her
tomorrow.

He was nervous about their date; so much depended on it. He
thought back to the night of their 'almost first date,'
remembering how incredible she had felt in his arms as he had
carried her to the bedroom of the yacht where they had been on a
stake-out. Her arms had been around his neck and her hair had
bushed against his cheek as she had rested her head on his
shoulder. The hardest thing he had ever done in his life, he
thought, had been to leave her at that bedroom door.

But she had pulled back from him again, resisting setting a new
date. He knew she was afraid of the whole thing turning into a
disaster, and he had assured her that if it did, 'they would
always be friends,' but he wasn't sure if he could keep that
promise; he thought it would hurt too much. He shook his head to
clear his mind and smiled ruefully. < You've got it bad, Kent.>
He sat down at his desk turned on his computer, and started to
work.

About half an hour later Lois phoned. "Hi Clark. Something's
come up and I won't be taking the train back tomorrow." His
heart sank and he did not reply. Her voice was excited. "Clark?
Are you still there?"

"Yeah, Lois. I'm here. What's happened?"

"I've decided to stay until Monday, but I'm hoping that I can
convince Perry to give me a couple of days next week as well. The
local police here have found the body of a girl who was murdered
about forty years ago. I think there's quite a story here and I
want to work on it. I was wondering if you would come up here. If
you caught the train this evening you could be here around
midnight. We could work on the story together." She finally
paused for a moment and continued, and this time he could hear
that her voice was less confident, nervous. "I mean, I know
it's a lot to ask. You probably have plans for tonight and other
things to do. It's nice here though. A small town. Nice people.
You'd like my aunt and uncle. You could stay here with us. We
could still go out tomorrow night; it just wouldn't be
Angelina's but the Legatteville Hotel. It's good though."

As he listened, Clark relaxed and a grin split his face.
"Lois," he began.

"I'm babbling aren't I?" she said.

"Like a brook," he said as he tilted back in his chair back,
stretching. "I'd love to come, Lois. I'll catch the train
tonight, after work. You'll meet me at the station at
midnight?"

"Of course. And you can stay here with us."

"Are you sure your aunt won't mind."

"No. In fact she's the one who suggested I ask you to come."

Clark made a mental note to himself that they would name their
first daughter after Lois's aunt.

"I think she wants to meet you," Lois added.

"Oh," he asked innocently. "Why is that?"

"Clark."

"Lo-is." Then more seriously, "Tell me more about this story.
Do the police know who the victim is?"

Lois filled him in on what she knew so far which was admittedly
not too much, but he agreed that it was time for people to
remember Alice Cardinal.

***

After breakfast Lois accompanied her aunt into town and then
borrowed her car to drive out to interview the Andersons about
the discovery of the body. As she drove along the winding road,
her thoughts returned to her conversation with Clark and how much
she was looking forward to seeing him tonight. Then her fears
about a relationship with him returned and she spoke sternly to
herself.

< You're not doing a very good job distancing yourself from him.
> < Why do you want to do that anyway? You know how you feel
about him> < That's why I want to do it. >

She pulled into the gravel driveway leading to the rundown house.
As she got out of the car she thought how beautiful this spot was
despite her earlier unfavorable impression. The lot was heavily
treed with spruce, pine and several types of deciduous trees
which Lois could not identify. Swelling buds brushed bare
branches with the suggestion of colour. Through them, Lois could
see the flat land of a large field at the base of the ridge on
which she was standing. She wondered if it was part of the
property. If it was, it made farming seem a more likely
possibility. Still, she would have expected to see more activity
around the farm, particularly now that the snow had mostly melted
and the first day of spring was only a few days away. At the
moment, the only activity was that of two police officers working
methodically around the roped off area of the shallow grave.

After getting no response at the house, Lois walked down to the
far end of the ridge were the police were. Johaansen remembered
her from the previous day and greeted her politely, hoping that
she was not about to take much of his time. He wanted to get this
site sweep done before the rain predicted that morning forced
them indoors.

"I was looking for the Andersons," Lois told him, "but they
don't appear to be in."

"They left about half an hour ago, down to the field over
there." He pointed towards the barely visible couple some
distance off. They appeared quite absorbed in what they were
doing although from this distance, Lois could not figure out what
that was. Turning to Johaansen, she asked if he knew.

"They took that metal detector with them. Never seen one like
it, latest high-tech yuppie version, I guess."

As Lois turned to go, she stopped, and asked almost as an
afterthought, "Find anything more here this morning?"

He sighed. He had known this was coming. "Why are you interested
Ms.Lane? Thought you were just visiting for a few days. Nothing
here for a big city newspaper."

Lois smiled at him. "Oh, Aunt Allie's short-staffed and, quite
overwhelmed with paperwork. I thought I'd give her a hand before
heading back to Metropolis. It's the least I could do after all
she's done for me."

He softened a bit. Family helping out was right, he thought. "I
can't tell you much that you don't already know, Ms. Lane. We
haven't found much so far. After all these years, I doubt if we
will. The grave was shallow, not much more than two feet deep.
Just enough so that the body wouldn't be shifted by the spring
thaw. The autopsy will probably give us more information about
how she died."

"Any idea yourself on that?"

"You saw the body yesterday so you know as much as I do. I'd
only be guessing."

Even if he seemed more friendly, he still wasn't very helpful.
Lois wondered uncharitably if all police officers were given a
standard training course on not answering questions from the
press. < Evasion 101,> she thought grumpily.

As she was saying good-bye, the young woman who was working with
him called over. "Frank, I've found something."

Lois walked the few yards with him to where the young officer was
bending over a small item embedded in the soil. Reaching for it
with her plastic gloved hand, she carefully picked up a gold
locket and placed it in a plastic bag which she neatly tied. Then
she labelled it meticulously, noting exactly where it had been
found relative to the location of the body.

As far as Lois could tell, the locket looked identical to the one
which had been around the neck of the skeletal remains of Alice
Cardinal. She remembered Jane's comment and felt her stomach
knot. She turned to look at Frank Johanseen, and she could tell
by the grim look on his face that he had not forgotten Jane's
comment either.

Lois heard herself saying carefully, "It's a common type of
locket. I think I was given one when I was a girl."

"I don't like coincidences, Ms. Lane."

The policewoman looked up from her task. "What are you two
talking about?"

Frank turned to her. Before answering her question, he introduced
Lois to Jenny O'Rourke. "Jenny, Ms. Lane is Allison James'
niece. They were up here yesterday when we were removing the
body. Jane Malenkov was with them. She I.D.'d the body when she
recognized the locket around Alice's neck. Seems she had one
just like it."

"Oh." Jenny looked at the two thoughtfully, "I wonder how it
got here, how long it's been here?" Lois and Johaansen both
shrugged so Jenny returned to her methodical search of the area.

Lois and Johaansen walked back to Lois's car. "You'll be
talking to Jane?" she asked as she opened the car door. "Will
you give me time to tell Allie so she can be there when you
do?"

"It can wait. It's an old crime. We'll finish here and head
back to the station before we do anything else. " His eyes met
hers for a moment. "This isn't Metropolis, Ms.Lane. We're all
pretty close here."

Lois felt rebuked. His comment reminded her that people in this
community had known each other for a long time and were governed
in their daily relations by that closeness.

***

Lois drove to the bottom of the ridge and stopped beside the
ditch that ran along Lemieux field. She got out and walked over
to talk to the Andersons, who seemed to be quite busy examining
the area. They stopped as she approached and they greeted her
without enthusiasm. In response to her questions, they briefly
described how they had found the body yesterday as they were
checking out the lower terrain of the ridge. Then Lois tried to
find out more about what they were looking for. However, her
probing proved futile.

As she returned to the car, Lois wondered again what it was about
this place that had interested them? Perhaps one of the old mines
had been found to have ore still worth extracting. The mining
business was a risky one, often with dubious claims of quick
wealth motivating disreputable companies to commit illegal
actions cloaked in secrecy. At any rate, Lois figured the chance
of any goats grazing in *that* field any time soon were pretty
remote. Perhaps, if she had time, she would follow that hunch and
see where it led while she was covering the Cardinal story.

***

As she made the thirty-minute trip back to town, Lois thought
about how Jane's locket could have got to that spot. If it was
Jane's locket. Lois knew she was right about it being a common
type of jewelry, often the first special gift for a teenage girl
-- from her parents or grandparents, or her first boyfriend, or
from her best friend. She wondered what picture would be inside
this one, if it would still be recognizable, if Jane had put the
picture there. She told Allie all about this when she arrived at
her aunt's office.

When she finished, Allie looked at her niece and said gently,
"Don't look so worried, Lois. I don't have any idea how it got
there, but I do know Jane. I've known her for over thirty years,
ever since I first came to this town, and I do know that Jane is
not a murderer. Frankie may not be a 'big city' cop, but he's
pretty good at what he does. He'll sort this out."

"I hope you're right, but people aren't always what they
appear to be." Her aunt raised her eyebrow and Lois blushed,
realizing she had sounded a bit patronizing. She smiled ruefully
but continued anyway, "Seriously, Allie, sometimes even a best
friend can be hiding a major secret. People aren't always what
they seem." The painful memory of Lex Luthor, and how easily he
had deceived her, briefly flashed through her mind. "And
besides, people will think that Jane did it because the locket
was found there."

"Lois, you're becoming much too cynical. I've known Jane for a
long time. David has known her even longer, since he started to
spend his summers here with his family. She's always been a kind
and generous person. The town knows that." She stood up, and
then continued as she reached for her coat, "But this will be a
shock for her. I hope Frankie hasn't told her yet." Allie left
her desk and walked across to the old-fashioned wooden coat rack
by the door. "Well, are you coming with me?"

Lois smiled and nodded, suddenly aware that the high octane
energy which she thought she was the only Lane to possess was
quite possibly genetic. She jogged to catch up to her aunt.

***

They found Jane across the street in the old brick library where
she volunteered one morning a week. The three women went into a
quiet back room and settled into dilapidated leather armchairs,
the donation years ago of an appreciative patron.

Jane's face froze for a moment as they told her what Jenny had
found. Lois wasn't sure if the look on the older woman's face
was fear or sorrow. Jane stared out the large, paned window as
she spoke quietly, "Alice and I were best friends all through
school. My grandmother gave us the lockets on our eighteenth
birthdays in February. I always wore the locket and so did Alice,
but I lost it that summer, about the beginning of August. I
looked for it but never found it."

"Do you think it could have been stolen?" Lois asked.

"I never thought of that." Lois noted the surprise in Jane's
voice as she spoke. "Perhaps it was. Anyway, I never saw it
again."

Lois persisted, "So you don't have any idea how it could have
got to the mur ... the ridge?"

"No. Why do you want to know, Lois? Is there something you're
not telling me. Are the police planning to talk to me?" Jane
sounded calm but she turned to Allie and asked, "Do you think I
should call Jeff?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think you're going to need a lawyer,
Jane, but Frankie will want to talk to you. I think you can count
on him to handle it properly. If he thinks you'll need Jeff,
he'll say so."

Lois was astonished at all of this. Was this what small towns
were like? She thought that Jane should get a lawyer, fast. Lois
had occasionally seen police focus on the first clue as the
determinant of who was guilty and then build a case after the
fact. It was easier than a more time consuming, thorough
investigation. Lois was hoping that her aunt's assessment of her
friend's character and her confidence in the local police were
correct, but she also knew she had better do some investigating
on her own.

Lois got to her feet. "I'll leave you two alone. I want to go
back out to the reserve to check a few things before I write this
up. I'll have it for you in time to go into tomorrow morning's
edition, Allie."

***

It was raining lightly when Lois got into the car. As she drove
along the narrow road to the reserve, she thought about the
questions she wanted to ask when she got there. Then she began
planning her approach to the story on Alice Cardinal's death
and, along the way, did some revisions. Better keep it objective
until the investigation is finished.

And then, a detail that surprised her. She knew clearly that she
would not mention the locket specifically; she would refer to
'items found by the police near the site of the grave.' She
wondered how Clark would react to that little bit of censorship.
She could just imagine the skeptical look on his face, one
eyebrow raised slightly in a silent question. At times, he could
be quite critical of her work although he had always supported
what she had done. Even a little break and entry. At first, she
had been angry at Perry's insistence that she and Clark work
together on some stories but now it seemed so natural.

Her mind stayed with thoughts of her partner, shifting to
different memories. She could see his smile as he teased her,
feel the touch of his hand as he guided her into the elevator,
feel his arms around her as he comforted her, and then as he had
carried her to the bedroom door when she had that bad reaction to
Ralph's Pagoda take-out. Just as well she had felt a little
sick; the way things had been going that night, she would have
been in bed with him 'faster than a speeding bullet.'

She giggled at that idea. During the time when she thought she
had been in love with Superman, she had never dreamt about going
to bed with him. Oh, she had wondered if "the suit came off,"
but that had been more curiosity than desire she realized now.
Her subconscious mind had left the thought unexplored. On the
other hand, she had been having increasingly erotic dreams about
Clark almost from the day they had met. After the first one, she
had awoken quite shocked and had ruthlessly compelled herself not
to think of it. She remembered now that she had been particularly
hostile to Clark the next day when Perry had sent them on an
assignment together.

When was it she had fallen in love with him, she wondered. She
had no idea. All she did know was that she had finally recognized
her feelings when she had been dressing for her wedding to Lex.
That fiasco should have been a sign, she thought with some
bitterness. She had thought her heart would break when Superman
had rebuffed her that horrible night in her apartment. But it had
not been Superman she had so desperately missed during her
engagement; it had been Clark.

Lois was pulled away from her reverie by a sudden increase in the
tempo of the rain on the windshield. She paid more careful
attention to the road which she was not remembering very well
from her previous trip. After all, it had been night and she had
not been driving. She was not even sure that this was the right
road. Maybe she shouldn't have taken that turn a couple of
minutes ago. She always got into a car with the blind assumption
that she knew were she was going. <When am I going to stop doing
that?> she thought. Suddenly, she saw a grey Mercedez sedan
coming from the opposite direction. Startled, she looked at the
driver and saw that it was Senator Gates and that he was alone.

He had not noticed her as he drove past. Lois wondered what he
was doing out here and decided to find out more about his
connections in this area. She was so used to his political
presence in New Troy and in Metroplois that she had never stopped
to think much about his connections elsewhere. Although she was
critical of many politicians, she admired Gates' work. He had
taken a strong stand on environmental issues and on other social
issues that she cared about. Understanding more about his
background could be helpful in writing an article on his
legislative activities.

As it turned out, she was on the right road because a few minutes
later she saw the outline of the cluster of houses that made up
the village. She stopped and asked directions to Mrs. Cardinal's
house and a moment later pulled up in front of it. She wasn't
the only visitor. Jenny O' Rourke was standing just inside the
white picket fence talking to one of the most striking men Lois
had ever seen. He was about the same age as Jenny, tall, with
dark hair and bronzed skin, his face sculpted in planes and
angles. As Lois got closer she realized that they were arguing,
about what she couldn't tell. She heard only acrimonious
snatches of anger. They stopped abruptly as Lois approached, and
she saw that Jenny's face was flushed while the man's
expression was obstinate.

"Hi, Jenny," Lois said. "I was hoping to get a few more
background details >from Mrs. Cardinal before finishing the story
for the 'Link,' if you think she's up to it." Jenny's
companion looked at her suspiciously but said nothing. Lois was
not sure if he would be an adversary, blocking her attempts to
get the story. He obviously did not appear to want to cooperate
with the police.

"Hi, Lois. I'm sure that'll be O.K. Mrs. Cardinal wants the
truth about her daughter to be out in the open."

"I'll come with you, if you don't mind." Jenny's companion
stretched out his hand to Lois. "I'm Matt Thomson, Mrs.
Cardinal's neighbor." And protector, Lois thought as she shook
his strong hand briefly and introduced herself. Then he turned to
Jenny, who was about to leave. "I'll see you later?"

"Maybe." Jenny's voice was terse but she smiled at Lois and
then walked through the front gate, her body still rigid with the
anger of their earlier argument. Lois wondered if it was personal
or if it had to do with Jenny's investigation. Relations between
Native reserves and small town police forces were not always the
best and a case like this could no doubt bring out any repressed
grievances. Perhaps that's why this neighbour wanted to be
present during her talk with Mrs. Cardinal.

Lois stayed for about half an hour as Mrs. Cardinal talked about
her daughter, about Alice's ambitions and what she had been
like, and the last night that she had seen her daughter. It had
been late summer, the evening of a weekend dance held at the
Legatteville Pavilion. Alice had been excited, looking forward to
the evening. There had been a small crowd of laughing young
people in the Cardinals' front room before they set off for the
dance, but Mrs. Cardinal remembered thinking that her daughter
had seemed preoccupied. That thought had worried her. Alice had
come home after the dance but had left again shortly afterwards.
She had not come home ever again.

Lois touched Mrs. Cardinal's arm. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Cardinal.
Thank-you for talking to me about this. I know it's been
difficult, and I want you to know I'll do everything I can to
find out what happened."

As Lois stood up, Matt Thomson did too. "I'll see you to your
car, Ms. Lane."

Outside, as they stood in front of her car, Lois said good-bye to
him.

"I'll be interested to read your article, Ms. Lane." Then he
turned to look at her directly, as if searching for something.
"Mary seems to trust you." His comment surprised Lois; she had
only talked with Mary twice. Then Matt added, "Let's see if
this time the town takes more interest in what happened that
night."

***

An out-of-control fire in a Mexican oil field had prevented Clark
Kent from catching the train in Metropolis as he had planned and
so he had flown to Minneapolis, hoping to board the train when it
arrived there. He'd almost missed it, and had got on hastily,
running across the dimly lit platform moments before the train
began to leave the station. Grinning, he fumbled for his ticket,
and gave it to the smiling conductor as he climbed the narrow
steps into the passenger car. Looking around, he noticed that the
car was about half empty. At this time of year, there were not
many people going north, especially into the damp cold of
Minnesota's late winter. Usually, Clark liked to talk to fellow
travellers during those few trips he took by conventional means,
but tonight he was glad to be alone. He was tired, something
unusual for him, and he was looking forward to having time to
just read a novel. Reaching forward he pulled "The Englishman's
Boy" >from his luggage and relaxed back into his seat.

The novel held his attention for about half an hour, but he found
the motion of the train hypnotic. Putting the novel on the empty
seat beside him, he looked out the window on his left, into the
darkness. Although he could see quite clearly if he focused, he
did not do so. Instead his mind roamed over the events of the
last couple of hours and then of the last few weeks. He saw again
the burning oil field and heard the screams of the workers
trapped on the rigs before he had rescued them. Several had been
badly burned, but no one had died and for that he was grateful.
Then his mind turned to the hectic events of the week: the rush
to finish the series of articles on the upcoming municipal
elections, the chaos of a flood in China, and his routine evening
patrols over Metropolis.

He had missed Lois. Sometimes he felt she was the only thing that
kept him anchored, connected to something indefinable, deep in
his soul. He smiled as he looked out the window, picturing her
again as she had said good-bye to him last Saturday morning,
remembering her surprising shyness as she had mentioned their
date. She was never very far from his thoughts. For a change, he
allowed himself to think that maybe, finally , she was beginning
to feel something more than friendship for him. He knew, of
course, that when Lois said she planned to work on this story she
meant it, but it pleased him that she had not wanted to break
their date to do so. It also pleased him that she thought it was
safe to introduce him to her aunt and uncle. Seeing Lois in a
'normal' family setting should prove interesting, he thought
with another smile. He picked up his book again, but he soon
drifted off to sleep only to be awakened at midnight by the
train's slowing momentum and the conductor's announcement of
the upcoming stop at Legatteville.

Through the window, he saw her standing alone at the end of the
platform, her features illuminated by the glow of the overhead
light. He thought again how beautiful she was and how cold she
looked as she waited for him. He grabbed his luggage and eagerly
stepped down from the train trying not to use 'superspeed' to
get to her. She called his name, and then they were hugging each
other. Pulling back a bit from his embrace, she looked at him,
her eyes bright .

"Hi," she said, laughing as she raised her voice so he could
hear her over the noise of the departing train.

He touched her cheek with his thumb. "Hi." Without thinking, he
bent forward and kissed her gently, a sweetly sensual kiss, their
first kiss really. Pulling apart briefly, they grinned at each
other, oblivious to everything around them. Her arms slid around
his neck so he kissed her again, this time more deeply, lost in
the softness of her lips beneath his. "Lois," his voice was
low, husky with emotion.

She broke their kiss and smiled at him shakily, overwhelmed for a
moment. Then she spoke, "I guess we should go. My ... uh, car is
um ... parked over there."

Clark slowly came back to reality, but his voice was soft.
"Yeah, we should go." Then, his voice back to normal, he said,
"Lead the way, Ms. Lane."

It took only a few minutes to walk to the parking lot where Lois
had left her aunt's car. After stowing his bag in the trunk, he
got in the car and watched her as she pulled out of the parking
lot onto the highway leading west. She was a good, if somewhat
aggressive, driver and he admired her skill as she swerved
quickly to avoid a deer that suddenly leapt out of the darkness
onto the road only a few yards ahead of the car. As it bounded
back into the woods along the highway she let out a long breath.

"That was close," he said. "I didn't even notice it." He had
been too distracted by her to notice the deer when it had lept
out onto the highway.

"Thank goodness! Uncle Dave says there are more deer than usual
this year. It would be horrible to hit one." She turned to look
at him, her pleasure at being with him obvious in her smile. And
then she thought <I don't want to just head home and then say
good night to you, Clark. >

So she said, "How was your trip? Are you tired? I mean, if you
are we can go straight home, but I was wondering if you'd like
to stop for some coffee before we do. It would be nice to talk
for awhile. My aunt and uncle are in bed by now and I don't want
to disturb them, but it's O.K. if you don't want to ... " <You
sound like a schoolgirl> she thought. <Get a grip! Why does he
have this effect on you?> Then she remembered the sweet intensity
of their kiss at the station. <You know why.>

He was surprised at her nervousness, and touched. "Lois, I'd
love to stop for coffee."

Minutes later they were pulling into the darkened parking lot of
the only all-night diner around, patronized by truckers taking a
short cut as well as by locals looking for somewhere to hang out.
Its decor had probably not changed in thirty years. The tables
were set with paper placemats providing information and pictures
of 'gamefish of Minnesota' and the walls were panelled with
dark laminated wood, decorated with a few stuffed fish mounted on
dusty wooden plaques. They had been there since Lois was a
teenager.

"Bet this reminds you of Smallville, Clark," she grinned.

He grinned back at her. "Yep. I bet they have great apple
pie!"

They sat at a small table in the far corner of the room, next to
a display of photographs of local fishermen and their prize
catches. A pleasant looking middle-aged woman approached their
table to take their order, returning a few minutes later with
large white mugs of steaming coffee and one large serving of
apple pie with ice cream.

"Want some?" Clark offered, inching the plate towards her.

"No, thanks. I had a huge piece of chocolate cake for dinner."

"It's great! As good as my Mom's. You should try some."

"Can't be great. Doesn't have any chocolate."

"Lois, you have got to get rid of these petty prejudices.
You'll miss some of life's great experiences."

"For instance, farmboy?" her voice a seductive drawl and her
eyes teasing.

Clark put down his fork and grinned at her. Then he covered her
slender hand with his. "Feeling courageous with this crowd for
cover are you, Ms. Lane ?" He stroked her hand with his thumb as
his gaze held hers.

Lois looked down at their hands and said without raising her
eyes, her voice quiet, "Not very. Actually, I'm afraid,
Clark."

He moved his hand to gently tilt her chin so that she had to meet
his eyes. "You told me that before, Lois, and I told you I was
afraid, too. And I am. I'm afraid that I'll lose the chance to
be with the only woman who has ever meant anything to me."

In his dark eyes, she saw an intensity and sincerity that made
her catch her breath for a moment. He withdrew his hand and
placed it over hers again on the table. She curled her fingers
around his, thinking how right this felt. She'd been a coward,
she thought, running away from him since the day they'd met,
running away from her need to love someone real, running towards
powerful and remote men who made it easy for her to avoid her
soul.

"Then I guess I'll have to take a chance on you, Clark Kent,"
and she smiled at him shyly. Then she withdrew her hand and
looked at him somewhat defiantly, trying to regain control. "But
I should warn you. My past relationships have all been federal
disasters."

"Then I will be your first non-federal disaster." < And Lois,
you will be my first, my only, my forever > he thought.

Then Lois smiled again and leaned back in her chair. "I'm
really glad you've come this weekend, Clark. This will give us
the kind of time together that we don't usually get."

He relaxed, too. "You mean this was all a clever ruse? You never
actually intended to work this weekend? You got me down here just
so you could have your way with me? In the woods of Minnesota?"

"You wish, Clark Kent!" Lois's laugh was a choked giggle.
"You just be ready to start at nine tomorrow morning."

"Ah, I knew this was all too good to be true." His gesture
managed to include both her and the diner. "Good thing I was
able to convince Perry to give us until the middle of the week to
work on this. "

"Clark! How'd you do that? He can't be interested in anything
happening in a small town in Minnesota! "

"I presented him with *your* angle on the story, partner. That
with a bit of digging we can do a feature with the murder as a
lead-in to the larger issue of what and who gets police attention
and what and who doesn't. I downloaded some background
information on local police enforcement with respect to Native
Americans in Minnesota, New Troy, and New York. Also some general
history on the Ojibway, and a couple of interesting profiles of
business ventures they've recently set up."

"Great! That'll help set the context. I'll show you the
article I wrote tomorrow and we can build on that. I think we
should ... "

Lois was distracted from their conversation as the door of the
diner opened and Jenny O'Rourke and Matt Thomson came in out of
the darkness. He placed his hand on her waist and turned to say
something to her which made her smile. That simple gesture made
Lois realize that there was something between them, an emotional
bond. They looked right together, she thought, Jenny's blonde
wholesomeness, a foil for Matt's dark intensity.

As if aware of her scrutiny, they looked over to where she and
Clark were sitting. Jenny smiled and they walked across the room.
"Hi, Lois. I see you've found the best diner in Minnesota!"
She looked at Clark with curiosity as he rose to his feet.

"Hi, Jenny. Matt. This is Clark Kent, my partner at 'the
Planet'. He's just arrived on the midnight train. Clark, this
is Jenny O'Rourke and Matt Thomson." She watched as Clark
acknowledged the introductions and reached his hand out first to
Jenny and then to Matt.

"You wouldn't be Matt Thomson of Thomson Airways would you?"
Clark asked as he shook his hand.

Matt smiled. "I'm surprised. I wouldn't have expected someone
from out of town to know that. We're still a pretty small
operation."

Jenny slid her arm through his and Lois noticed an engagement
ring on her finger as her hand rested on Matt's arm. Jenny
looked at Matt proudly and said. "But a fast growing
operation."

"It sounds exciting," Lois said. "Will you join us for
coffee?"

"Thanks, we'd like to," Jenny said, removing her jacket and
placing it on an empty chair behind her.

The waitress approached their table again and asked Matt, "The
usual?"

"Please, Maddie. Hope the coffee's extra strong. It's been a
long day." Matt then sat back in his chair and, looking at Clark
and Lois, explained. "This afternoon we got an emergency call
and had to fly a patient from the lumber camp north of here to
Minneapolis for surgery. That forced us to delay a charter until
this evening. We just got back from running the charter to
Chicago."

"And then the poor, exhausted man had to pick me up after I
finished at midnight and wait stoically without anything to drink
but lukewarm, weak coffee until I finished some paperwork."
Jenny's expressive face took on the look of a martyr as she
mimicked what she imagined her fiance's plight to have been.

Clark smiled, observing the light teasing between the two. "What
keeps you working so late on a Friday night, Jenny?" He asked as
Maddie came over with 'the usual.'

"I'm a police officer. Had to work a double shift today because
one of the guys has the flu. Flyboys aren't the only ones who
put in the time." Her face turned saintly.

Clark chuckled, enjoying the new expression that flitted across
Jenny's face as she poked fun at the man beside her. She would
have made a good actress, he thought. "Sounds like it's pretty
amazing that you get any time together at all," he commented.

Matt smiled. "It takes some planning, but she does find a few
minutes every once in a while to pencil me into her schedule."
He paused and looked at the two people across from him. "So what
brings you to Legatteville, Clark? Lois said you were her partner
at 'the Planet.' Does that mean you're here to work on a
story?"

Clark wasn't quite sure how to answer. The truth was, he'd
wanted to see Lois but he figured she wasn't ready yet to
acknowledge any relationship with him other than their
professional one. After all, she had introduced him to Matt and
Jenny as her *partner at 'the Planet'*. So he said, "Lois
wanted to work on a story about the body of the girl that was
just discovered outside of town. I wasn't busy this weekend so I
thought I'd come up."

"Don't tell me 'the Daily Planet' would be interested in a
forty-year-old murder in the middle of nowhere?" Matt sounded
surprised.

"It could be. Like most stories, it depends on what we find.
And, of course, with our incredible talent, it will be a great
story," Lois said lightly.

"An Indian girl disappears and nobody gets too worried. They
don't want to probe too deeply. It's not important enough."
Lois was surprised at the bitterness in his voice and again was
convinced of the appropriateness of the angle she and Clark
planned to take on the story.

"Well, *we* think it's important," Lois said and she became
aware of a tenseness in Jenny O'Rourke. She wondered why.

"I don't think we need a lot of outside attention on this,"
Jenny said. Noting her reserved tone, Lois decided to back off
and smiled supportively at the woman across the table from her.
Jenny unbent and added, "It's premature right now. We're
working on the case and we'll deal with it."

Matt turned to her, his voice controlled. "Premature? Jenny!
Forty years have gone by. It's time we looked at why Alice
Cardinal was so easily ignored. Why it was so easy for someone to
get away with murder. Jenny, I don't think that can happen with
just the Legatteville police and media involved."

Jenny's face tightened and she seemed to distance herself almost
physically >from the man next to her. "You don't think we can
do the job, do you, Matt?" Both Lois and Clark were aware, now,
that they were outsiders, caught in the tension between the two
people across the table from them.

"The job *wasn't* done by your predecessors," Matt said
flatly.

"It will be done this time." Jenny turned to Clark. "Please,
give us some time. We may be a small town, but we're still
professionals. We care about our work and we know what we're
doing." She stood up and started to put on her coat. Looking at
Matt, she said stiffly, "Perhaps you could take me home. As you
said, it's been a long day. Good night, Lois. Clark."

She turned and marched toward the door without waiting for Matt,
her back very straight. Lois saw the distress flicker across
Matt's face as he got up to follow her. <So that's what this
morning's argument was about> she thought. Suddenly she felt
dispirited, distressed at the thought that their conversation had
triggered the resumption of the couple's quarrel. Lois realized
that Jenny's pride was at stake, but she sympathized with Matt,
too. For him, the murder was tied up with the larger issue of the
treatment of his community.

"Clark, maybe we should be going, too."

He touched her hand as it lay on the table. "They'll work it
out, Lois."

"They're on opposite sides in this, Clark. Two different
worlds."

"If they love each other, they'll bridge those worlds."

"You think love can do that?"

"I hope it can." < It has to, Lois.>

***

Clark awoke about 7:30 Saturday morning, a smile on his face as
he remembered fragments of a pre-dawn dream. He had been flying
with Lois, and then they had floated down to a small, deserted
island, landing on the beach. Slowly they had sunk to the sand as
they kissed deeply. Somehow their clothes had disappeared as
their passion increased and they had made slow, satisfying love.
Lying back in the sheets comfortably, he wallowed in the memory
for a moment, then stretched his powerful body and got up.

Clark took pleasure in the sounds of morning, as he descended the
stairs. The piping calls of cardinals and the sweet, raucous song
of returning finches provided the background for the subdued
sounds of breakfast preparations and the languorous murmur of a
man and a woman. He walked across to the kitchen and the cozy
odor of coffee and muffins.

"Good morning, you must be Lois's Clark."

"Yes," he smiled as he shook her outstretched hand .

Allie liked the look of the young man in front of her. "I'm
Allie James and this is my husband, Dave."

"Morning, Clark. We're glad you could come. Allie's been
curious to meet the man who Lois has been talking so much
about." Clark was pleased; so he had been in Lois's thoughts,
too, this last week.

"Clark, I'm about to fry some eggs and bacon for Dave before he
heads out to the clinic. Would you like some too?"

"Please. That would be great." He turned to Dave. "Lois told
me you're a doctor. What's it like practicing out here in the
countryside? "

"It can be pretty demanding for our full time G.P. I spend two
days a week substituting for him. I know a lot of my colleagues
think doctors are supermen but no doctor who is exhausted can
deliver quality care. We could use another full time doctor but
it's proven difficult to attract young men to practice in a
small town.

"Perhaps the town should try attracting young women instead?"
Allie said pointedly.

"Ah ... the sexist slip. Didn't mean it, honey. And no, it
wasn't subconscious."

Allie looked at Dave suspiciously, a look that reminded Clark of
Lois when she was about to zero in on him and he grinned . He
wondered if Allie would let the comment go or move in for another
shot, but the woman was clearly more mellow than Lois and she let
it go. Instead, she explained to Clark: "Dave had a heart attack
about ten years ago and, astute man that he is, (the second shot
was subtle, Clark thought) he decided to leave his practice in
Minneapolis and retire early. So now we live here full time."

"I can see why you would want to. Your house, this spot, is
beautiful." Clark was sincere in his admiration. The dining area
of the large open kitchen was enclosed by three walls of
floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a view which gave him the
feeling that he was eating breakfast in the woods. The bare limbs
of deciduous trees allowed a better view of the lake below than
would be possible in the summer.

Dave handed Clark a lose pile of newspapers. "Here's today's
papers. The 'Daily Planet,' the 'Star Tribune,' and the
'Legatteville Link.' If you're anything like Allie, you
probably can't go a day without catching up on the news." He
rose and kissed his wife's cheek. "See you later, honey. I'll
try to get away by four so I can grab a quick nap before we head
to Jim and Tasha's."

Allie sat down across from Clark at the table and picked up her
coffee mug. "Clark, I'm sorry, but Dave and I will be deserting
you tonight. It doesn't seem very hospitable, I know, but we
have a standing monthly date with Jim and Tasha Peterson to play
bridge. We'll have to leave you on your own." Her eyes
twinkled. "I'm not sure you'll mind."

Clark had known this woman for just under half an hour and
already he liked the way her mind worked. He grinned at her. "I
think we'll be able to handle that. Being alone with your niece
will be rough but I think I'll be okay ." He continued, "We
thought we'd go to the Legatteville Hotel for dinner. Lois told
me she made a reservation for tonight."

"I know. It's a good idea to do that at this time of year.
Everyone's restless after winter and, on Saturdays, the hotel
has a small band so people can dance. The food's good there,
too. It's a pretty popular spot. Not in the same league with
Metropolis though, or even Minneapolis."

Sensing her anxiety, Clark said "It sounds perfect." And he
thought it would be. They talked for a while longer as Allie
asked about The Planet and then about Smallville. That led them
to a discussion of shared experiences working on small-town
newspapers. He could appreciate the juggling act that Allie
performed each week as she put together that Saturday's paper.

As they talked, Allie wondered how her niece had managed to
resist this man for so long, or was it that he had managed to
resist her niece? She couldn't understand that either. Suddenly,
he seemed distracted she noticed, as though his attention had
been caught by the sound of something else happening in the
house, but she heard nothing. Then she did: Lois entered the
kitchen and murmured a sleepy 'Good Morning' and Allie watched
Clark's face light up as he turned to look at Lois, and Allie
knew then that it was Lois who had resisted Clark.

Lois sat between the two of them and poured herself some orange
juice from the large glass pitcher in the centre of the table.
"You know, you have a bird problem out here, Allie. They're
awfully noisy first thing in the morning."

Clark looked at Allie and explained, "The police sirens of
Metroplolis are much quieter. You scarcely notice them."

Lois was waking up slowly and she frowned at Clark. "Clark, you
still don't appreciate the city. Probably a bad idea to bring
you here. You'll probably regress." But she smiled at him when
he offered her a blueberry muffin. "Maybe the birds'll fly
south soon," she added hopefully.

Clark rolled his eyes and said to Allie "I've tried to broaden
her outlook but it's been hard work."

Allie watched the two and thought that they were made for each
other. She would have to do whatever she could over the next few
days to make sure her niece realized this, too. "What are you
two planning to do today?" she asked, hoping she was going to
hear about long walks along country roads.

Lois spread a small amount of butter on her muffin as she
replied. "If you don't mind, Allie, we thought we'd like to do
some research, dig back through your archives to get background
on Legatteville around the time that Alice Cardinal
disappeared."

Clark continued her thought. "Finding out about the area at that
time could help us understand the circumstances surrounding her
death. Unless Matt Thomson was right and her disappearance went
unnoticed."

"And I'd like to talk to both Jane Malenkov and Mary Cardinal
some more, but I think we need more preparation before we do if
we're going to add anything to the story," Lois added.

Allie sighed, Lois was hopeless; but she had to agree that their
plan made a lot of sense.

***

Allie drove them into town, dropping them at the only car rental
agency. Lois had decided that it would be more flexible if they
had their own car so Allie wouldn't have to be concerned about
being without hers. After completing the paperwork, they headed
over to the paper where Allie showed them the small room that
archived the old editions, going back as long as the 'Link'
did. The storage room had the musty odor of old paper and Lois
thought it smelled wonderful.

After Allie showed them the order in which the back issues were
kept, they pulled out those from the spring and summer of 1957,
piling them on a dark, heavy table in the middle of the room.
"Okay, kids, they're all yours. I'll see you later on."

After she left, Clark turned to Lois and said casually, "So what
did you leave out of the story you wrote for your aunt?"

Lois turned the pages of the first edition, avoiding his eyes,
and said nonchalantly, "What do you mean?"

"Lo-is," his voice was soft. Then he quoted her, "items found
by the police," his voice a question. He waited expectantly but
there was no answer. "You were there when they found 'the
Items.' Why didn't you say what they were?"

Then she told him about the locket. "Clark, I'm not sure why I
left it out. I know I wouldn't have if I were back in
Metropolis, but this is a small town and Jane is my aunt's
friend. and I believe her when she says that Jane is not a
murderer. Clark, I can't believe I'm saying this! But finding
that locket there is probably just, you know, a coincidence."
She knew it sounded lame before the words were out of her mouth.

Clark was surprised at her reaction. "Lois, it's not like you
to avoid following up on a clue like this. If you're worried,
why don't you talk to your aunt about it?"

"Yeah, I should. I will." She turned to the yellowed newspaper
in front of her and started to leaf through it, the pages
crackling as she did. Soon she was absorbed in the accounts of
lives that time and place made so much different from her own.

Some minutes later she found an item that made her chuckle.
"Clark, listen to this. UFOs were sighted out on the ridge at
the Lemieux place ! Apparently this wasn't the first sighting.
According to this, the UFO actually landed and a being bathed in
light emerged from the ship. No one abducted though; *that's*
disappointing." A mock sigh, and then she giggled as she read
the rest of the story. "And you didn't believe me when I told
you this, Clark."

"Lois, there are hundreds of those stories out there. Probably
the result of too much cheap beer on a Saturday night."

"You are no fun," she announced.

He grinned at her, his smile distracting her for a moment. "Am,
too. Just you wait, Ms.Lane."

Lois's eyes lit up and she grinned back at him. "I'm holding
my breath, farmboy. Waiting to see Smallville in action!"

"Tonight, Lois, tonight! But I'll need to know just how much
action you want to see," his tone was innocent, but there was a
gleam in his eye.

She laughed, but decided she was on unsafe ground now and so she
retreated into the task at hand. They read for about half an
hour, taking notes on the few references that they found on the
local Ojibway community. The reserve was much poorer in those
days and appeared to face serious problems. Attitudes then were
quite different and the paper was conservative, not willing to
give much sympathy to the problems of violence and alcoholism
that occasionally spilled out of the reserve and into the town.

"Lois, these people turned quite a blind eye to the challenges
facing the Ojibway in those days. These articles are pretty
judgmental."

"I know. No wonder Matt cares so much about this particular
case. It must represent past injustices for him."

"Lois, look at this. It's a picture of Alice Cardinal. She won
a scholarship to attend the University of Minnesota, to study
biology. Apparently she wanted to become a doctor. The article
makes a big deal of the fact that she was Indian and a woman and
that her winning the scholarship was *amazing*." He made
quotation gestures with two fingers of each hand as he said this
last word.

"Patronizing," Lois said, "but typical of the times. Look at
my parents. Dad became the doctor and Mom the nurse. What's the
date of the article?"

"April 7th."

"So Alice would probably have been pregnant then. I wonder if
she knew it."

"Don't women know these things pretty immediately?" he asked.
"You know, sense it or something?" Aside from the obvious stuff
that he had learned on the farm and in health classes when he had
been fourteen, he had no idea.

"Clark, where do men get their ideas about women from?" a pause
and then, "Don't answer that. I *know* where they get them
from: the football team! No, women don't sense it or something,
but I'm not exactly experienced in that area."

<Would you like to be? I hope so.> Clark looked at her dreamily
for a moment as this pleasant thought crossed his mind.

"What?" Lois noticed he seemed distracted.

"Nothing. I just thought you knew everything."

"Nearly everything."

"Ah."

"Clark, being pregnant and unmarried would have changed
everything for her. There was quite a stigma attached to it in
those days. I wonder who the father was?"

"We'll need the coroner's report. It should tell us how old
the fetus was and then we can count backwards and try to find out
who, if anyone, remembers who she was dating then. How do you
think her mother will handle that type of question? Does she know
that Alice was pregnant?"

"Yes. She didn't know at the time but the police told her when
they told her they had found the body. She had sensed that her
daughter was worried about something but she didn't know
what."

Lois moved her chair closer to his so they could both read the
paper at the same time. She began to read the article aloud and
commented. "She sounds pretty confident, looking forward to the
future. I don't think she can have known about the pregnancy."
They read for another hour or so, their conversation limited to
reading each other bits of data that they thought pertinent to
either the case or the feature article that was taking shape in
both their heads.

Lois found two more references to UFOs and said jokingly, "Well,
right now the only pattern that is emerging is that this murder
happened during the same period that aliens were making pit stops
in Legatteville. I'm beginning to conclude that the father was
an alien and that was the motive for the murder."

"You're probably right, Lois. I can see the headline:
'Minnesota Native Killed in Jealous Rage over Alien Love
Child.' Perry'll send us right over to the 'National
Whisper.'"

"What? You don't like my argument? You don't think an alien
could impregnate an earth woman?" Her voice feigned
disappointment at his lack of imagination and then she looked at
his face. "Clark, what is it? Are you all right?"

"Lois, this alien thing. There's something I should ... " He
didn't finish; he heard footsteps in the outer office and then
Allie entered through the open door of the room where they were
working. She was carrying two cups of coffee and a small, white
bakery box which she placed on the table.

"Muffins," she said. "From Charlotte's bakery next door.
Believe it or not, they're even better than mine."

"Thanks!" They both spoke in unison.

Allie indicated the stack of papers with a wave of her hand.
"Find anything useful?"

"Not yet. Just a reference to the science scholarship that Alice
won that year."

"Really. That's interesting. You know, I don't think I ever
knew anything about Alice at all."

"Has Dave ever talked about her?" Lois asked.

"No, he's never mentioned her although they were about the same
age. He was just a summer visitor so he likely didn't know her.
Jane never talked about her either. Just that one time years ago
when she was showing me a picture of Dave when he was a teenager.
The picture next to it was one of her and Alice."

"I don't suppose you remember what Jane said then?" Clark
asked.

"Not really. It was a long time ago, but I don't think there's
anything to remember anyway. But, now that I think of it, I do
recall that when I first started to spend summers here with Dave,
after we were married, kids used to say that somebody was
murdered on the ridge and that the Lemieux place was haunted. Oh,
by the way, I ran into Jenny on the way over. She's expecting
the coroner's report this morning. I asked her if she'd talk to
you about it later today and she said she would."

Lois smiled. "It helps to have contacts in the community."

Allie said seriously, somewhat aggressively, "This is my town.
Whatever happened out there may be long in the past, but it's
still important to find out the truth." As she turned to leave,
Allie said, "And don't you two forget that you have a date this
evening. I was talking to Ben outside the hotel. Says there's a
good jazz group there tonight." And then she was gone.

"Are all small towns like this, Clark? Everyone knows everyone
in some kind of intricate pattern of relationships. I can even
see that in the papers we're reading."

"Probably. At least Smallville is. But like Smallville, this
town is probably going through changes too. Getting bigger, but
losing some of its young people to better opportunities in bigger
cities. Matt Thomson is the exception, staying here to build
something new."

"Yes, but I expect he stays because of his commitment to his
people. His dad's the band chief."

She flipped through one more paper. Then she spotted a picture
that caught her interest next to an article on the events of the
'first day of spring' celebration. "Clark look at this." She
slid the paper across to him and Clark looked at a large picture
of a few young people laughing at something that had happened
during one of the day's contests. There, in the centre of the
picture, were two couples, David James hugging Alice Cardinal,
and Tony Gates and Jane Malenkov, who were jointly holding a
large cup pronouncing them the winners of the 'Spring Slush'
contest.

Clark quickly read the article which accompanied the picture and
then raised his eyes to meet Lois's. "I guess they knew each
other pretty well at that time." His voice was soft, thoughtful.
Then, "I didn't realize Senator Gates had ties here."

Lois ignored his latter comment and voiced the first thought that
had occurred to her. "Clark, do you think Uncle Dave was dating
Alice Cardinal then? That would mean that he could be the father
of her baby."

He looked at the worry in her face and tried to reassure her.
"Lois, he's just hugging her. The last I heard, it takes a
little more than that."

She relaxed. "You're right, but don't you think he would have
mentioned Alice to Allie at least once or twice, later on. You
know, when he was reminiscing about the past."

"Why? If there was nothing between them, I doubt if he would
even think about it."

"I guess so." But she still didn't like the intuitive twinge
she felt about this.

It didn't take them long to finish going through the few
remaining papers . They found the notice of Alice's
disappearance at the end of August and the follow up story that
suggested she had "eloped" with an out-of-state trucker she had
met while waitressing at the diner during the summer. Then there
were no further references to the incident. It appeared that Matt
Thomson was right; the town had ignored the whole thing and gone
on with its life. Dave James had become a doctor, married, and
remained a summer visitor with his wife and family; Jane Malenkov
had stayed in Legatteville and married one of the town's leading
businessmen; and Tony Gates had moved >from the family business
to national politics and prominence.

Clark finished reading the last paper. "Let's put these back
and go get some lunch. Then maybe we can see if the police have
finished with the coroner's report."

***

Jenny O'Rourke looked up from her work with mixed feelings as
the reporters from the Daily Planet entered her office.
Personally, she had taken a liking to them but, professionally,
she was wary. As reporters for one of the largest newspapers in
the country, their motivation would be to get the 'Big Story,'
probably including in it as much sensationalism as possible. She
hoped that the 'Planet' would not run the story. After all, the
murder was a very old one; there must be dozens of similar
incidents in Metropolis.

Her face took on a very official look as she spoke to the two
reporters. "I take it you're interested in the report we got
this morning?" She slid the report across her desk towards them.
Lois picked it up, skimming quickly through it as Clark read over
her shoulder. Alice had been between five and six months pregnant
at the time of her death. The cause of death was a blow to the
back of the skull, although there was also damage to the
collarbone and the neck vertebrae, and the left arm was
fractured. Death probably would have been instantaneous. Not much
more.

Clark looked up. "Do you know anything about the last week of
her life?"

"Not much. I wanted to have this report before I asked Mary
Cardinal more about that." Her face was serious. "Don't talk
to her yet. I'll be going out there later this afternoon and
I'm not sure it'll help either the case or Mary if you two are
there at the same time."

"Are people out there pretty upset by this? Matt seemed hostile
about it last night," Lois asked.

Jenny's eyes flashed briefly. "Understandably. His family is
close to Mary."

"We would like to talk to her, but it can wait until tomorrow.
Anything else you can tell us from the lab reports?" Clark
asked.

"The locket you already know about. Textile fragments indicate
she was wearing a red dress, a synthetic satin type fabric. One
earring was found. Blood particles on some of the hair on the
back of the skull. That's about it." Her last comment was a
dismissal.

Out on the street, as they walked to the car, Lois expressed her
frustration. "Clark, she isn't being very helpful. I wonder if
Henderson was running the course on 'Media Relations' the year
she took her training?"

Clark turned to look at her, his face composed. "No, not likely.
He probably saved himself time and just sent a fax to all the
graduates, 'Beware Lois Lane.' He's quite effIcient, you
know."

Lois made a face at him and then turned more thoughtful. "She
has a lot at stake in this too. I wonder if she and Matt resolved
their differences."

"I don't know. Let's hope the Legatteville Police handle
things more thoroughly this time, but it's a very old trail to
follow." He opened the door of the car for Lois to get in and
they headed out to the Anderson's place so that Clark could take
a look at the site of the crime.

***

Clark's first thought as he looked at the Lemieux house was that
it needed a lot of work. The steps of the small porch tilted
slightly downward, paralleling the angle at which the porch had
settled. Grey paint was flaking off the wood of the window frames
and the front door. Jeff Anderson opened it to the two reporters
and invited them into the small front hall. After Lois had
introduced Clark, she explained why they had come.

While she was talking, Clark looked over to the spartan living
room where he saw a computer terminal up and running. Remembering
Lois's suspicions about the couple, he decided to check out the
monitor. While Lois was politely asking about Jeff's wife, Clark
unobtrusively lowered his glasses and zeroed in on the computer
screen. What he saw surprised him. It was a compilation of all
the UFO sightings that had been reported in the area. The address
on the report was even more interesting: Bureau 39.

For a moment he was very still. He had thought that Bureau 39 had
been shut down over a year ago after Trask's paranoia and
criminal activities had discredited government investigations of
alien contact. He had been naive to think that he realized now.
Government agencies rarely closed. Some bureaucrat or politician
must still think Bureau 39's mandate was valid. Remembering what
had happened with Trask in Smallville, he wondered what else the
Bureau was investigating, where else it was investigating.

His thoughts were interrupted by Brenda Anderson as she entered
the front hall. After introducing her to Clark, Jeff said, "I
think I've read some of the work you two have done in the
'Daily Planet,' stories about Superman." He turned to look at
Lois speculatively, but his tone was casual. "Ms. Lane, there
seems to be some connection between the two of you; there's no
other individual Superman has been linked with in the reports
I've read."

Lois was surprised at this turn in their conversation, not much
liking it. She knew that some people had thought there was
something between her and Superman, but she didn't want them
thinking that now, especially not Clark. She looked at him, but
his face was blank, a mask. So she said to Jeff, "I've got into
trouble a few times, chasing down leads. I've been lucky that
he's been there to bail me out."

"He's an amazing creature," Jeff replied.

"Creature!" Lois's voice was angry. "You make him sound
inhuman."

"Well, Ms. Lane, he's not human, is he? He's an
extraterrestrial."

Clark was aware of the sudden flash in Lois's eyes, recognizing
the sign of an impending eruption of the Lane temper. Now was not
the time to alienate Jeff Anderson; not before he could figure
out what the Andersons were looking for. Quickly thanking them
for their permission to look around, he took Lois by the arm and
turned her to the door, not giving her a chance to speak again.

As they walked away from the house, Lois said indignantly,
"Clark, why did you do that? I wasn't finished with that man!
Clark, what he said is just so ... so ... " her voice trailed
into a sputter.

"True?" his voice was bitter and she looked at him in surprise,
forgetting her anger at him.

"Clark! Not you too!" She stopped to stare directly at him.
"Surely you can't think that way. You're his friend too."

He kept walking, as though he were avoiding her. He'd been
thrown off balance by what he'd seen in the Anderson's living
room. He hadn't liked Jeff's interest in Lois's relationship
with Superman. That she could be threatened by that relationship
had been a fear in the back of his mind, and it now came unbidden
to the surface. "Let's check the lower ridge," he said as he
walked down toward the area that was still marked off by the
yellow ropes and wooden stakes left by the police. He willed his
mind to focus on the crime they were investigating, blocking out
the implications of Jeff Anderson's comment, and tried to
distance himself from the attractive woman behind him.

Her startled cry caught his attention and he looked up to see her
in the process of falling. In a flash he was beside her, catching
her just before she fell. He was doomed he thought; he would
never lose that protective feeling he had for her.

Steadying her, he said softly "You okay?"

"Yes. Thank you." She was walking gingerly, testing the
reliability of the ankle that she had twisted a moment ago when
she had stumbled on a loose rock. "You moved quickly, Clark!
How'd you do it?"

"Adrenaline, I guess. I seem to have a sixth sense where you're
concerned, Ms. Lane."

"Good. That's good." She smiled at him and put her hand on his
chest, and then searched his face. "Clark, what's bothering
you? Why did you pull me out of the house so quickly?"

He let out a shallow breath. He didn't want to talk to her about
this yet. It had been unexpected and he wasn't sure what to do,
but he knew that Lois would be sure what to do. She'd whirl back
in that living room like a righteous tornado. "Lois, I'm okay
... And you ... you were about to blow! The Lane volcano!"

She wasn't satisfied with his response, but she decided to let
it go for now. Tonight, they would have time to talk. So she
said, "Okay, partner, let's get to work."

He took her hand ( in case she tripped again, he told himself ),
and they walked farther down the ridge, their feet cushioned by
the fallen leaves of last October. When they got to the place
where Alice Cardinal had been buried, they stopped. Lois looked
back at the house while Clark tramped around the site looking for
anything that the police, with less powerful vision, might have
missed.

Lois was trying to reconstruct in her mind what had happened. She
walked over to him and said, "Clark, what do you think might
have happened that night? I know that Alice left for the dance
with a group of friends. Likely one of the group was her date. We
could ask Mary Cardinal that tomorrow."

"I wonder if they went directly to the dance or if Alice and her
date decided to come here first, to the empty house?" Clark
added.

"Jane might know that," Lois said. A small unbidden voice also
said, < and ask your uncle>. "Perhaps Alice and her date used
the house to talk, most likely about her pregnancy. Then a
fight?"

"Or, instead, maybe they came here after the dance. I think that
would have been more likely, but, given the coroner's report, I
think you're right about the fight, Lois."

"Assuming they fought in the house, then Alice's body would
have been dragged or carried down the ridge to where we're
standing." Lois looked around her. "This spot is heavily treed
and completely hidden from the road. It would be possible to dig
a shallow grave and not be noticed."

As Clark listened to her, he followed her gaze up to the top of
the ridge, to the back of the old house. "Let's go back up
there and try to work out the easiest way down. I think we just
took the quickest way down, rather than the easiest." They
climbed back up to the top and then walked along the ridge
looking for a likely way down.

"I don't suppose after all these years we'll be able to find
anything." Lois said as she looked over the landscape. "Anyway,
if something dropped or fell off, it's probably buried now
beneath a couple of inches of decayed leaves and soil."

They walked down the easiest incline this time and stood looking
back up through the trees. Clark was standing behind her so it
was easy for him to do a quick scan of the hillside, and then he
thought he saw it, a bit of gold lying under the dark earth along
the path they had just taken. He wondered how he could
legitimately 'find' it and then he remembered what Lois had
told him about the metal detector that the Andersons had been
using.

"Lois, why don't we ask the Andersons if we can borrow their
metal detector to scan this part of the slope. Maybe we can turn
up the other earring." Then he realized grimly that this might
also give him another chance to find out more about what the
Anderson's were looking for.

When they reached the front of the house, Brenda was outside,
about to get in her car. She agreed easily to their request and
minutes later Clark was carrying the instrument and a rusty
garden trowel that Brenda had found in a small shed near the
house.

"Do you mind if I come with you?" she asked. They looked at her
in surprise. "I admit, I'm curious about what did really
happen. If you do find something, I can act as a second witness,
so to speak."

"That's a good idea," Lois said.

Once again they made their way down the slope and began to search
the 'route' Lois had pronounced to be the easiest but found
nothing. About half way up the second path, they heard the high
pitched frequency of the electronic sensor and stopped. Digging
carefully, Clark uncovered the earring. It was gold, a large hoop
incised with stylized outlines of two snakes, each set with a
small garnet.

"Don't touch it," Brenda said automatically. "I'll contact
the police and they can check this area properly. They'll be
able to say if it's a match for the original." She stood up and
climbed briskly up the slope.

"Why do I get the feeling she's not unaccustomed to finding
this sort of thing, Clark?"

"She does seem pretty efficient."

"Clark, what do *you* think they're looking for out here?"

He looked at her for a moment, uncertain what to say. He wanted
to be sure before he told her. Then he spoke quietly, "Lois, I
don't know. Look, why don't we continue scanning the hill." He
stepped away from her, sweeping the detector back and forth
across the earth, noticing as he walked backwards down the slope
that the instrument he was using was quite sophisticated, able to
sense more than mineral fragments. As he worked, he wondered if
the Bureau was still interested in Superman, or if Jeff's
earlier comment had been coincidental. He would have to find
out.

Lois watched him, his head bent as he concentrated on his task.
She felt chilled, as if he had removed his warmth from her. She
wasn't sure what was going on. It was like he was running out on
her again, only here there was no video store to flee to. What
was he afraid of? Sitting on an exposed boulder, she watched him
until he reached the bottom.

He looked up at her. "Nothing," he said.

As he was walking back toward her, Brenda appeared at the top of
the ridge and called down. "I've phoned the police. They're on
their way. Why don't you two come up to the house for some tea
until they get here?"

Lois stood up and turned around. "Thank you. I could use a cup
of tea right now."

Clark was beside her. "That would be great. Thanks."

Moments later they were standing on the faded linoleum floor of
the Anderson's front hall. Lois removed her boots. "Do you mind
if I use your washroom?" She slid out of her jacket and handed
it to Brenda.

"It's upstairs, second door on the right," she said as she
tossed Lois's coat on a chair and then turned towards the front
room. She paused for a moment as though noticing the room for the
first time. "We still haven't completely moved in." Her voice
was apologetic as she spoke to Clark. "Sit down. I'll go make
some tea."

Clark looked around the room while Brenda was in the kitchen. He
wondered were Jeff had gone but was glad for the moment to be
alone. He walked over to the corner which housed the computer,
printer, modem -- all the peripherals, the latest and the best.
He did a quick scan of the workspace but noticed nothing unusual.
The top of the desk was almost bare, mail neatly organized in a
black mesh holder and files stacked by the computer. Lying to one
side was a magazine on farming, one that he recognized as having
been a mainstay in his home back in Kansas since he was a boy.
That and the 'National Geographic,' he thought with a smile,
suddenly nostalgic for the simpler times of his childhood. This
particular issue of 'Natural Farm' featured an article on goat
farming. He smiled appreciatively. <Nice touch > he thought.

He turned as he heard Lois's footsteps on the stairs and he
watched her as she came into the room. Then, at that moment, Jeff
entered the room, carrying an armload of firewood. "Hi. Have you
two finished checking things out, then?" He walked across the
room and deposited the wood in front of the dark brick fireplace
in the centre of the far wall. Kneeling, he carefully arranged
logs and kindling in the hearth and then lit a match. Once he was
satisfied that the fire was burning successfully, he sat down and
smiled slightly at his visitors.

"We seem to have stumbled on quite a mystery out here," he
said.

"I understand you found the body quite by accident, " Clark
said. "While you were searching for something else, I
believe."

"Just a hobby," Jeff said. "We heard there were a lot of mines
in this area once. Perhaps we might find something worthwhile."

Brenda entered the room and placed a tray with a brown teapot and
plain mugs on a small square table in front of the sofa. As she
poured the tea, she said, "We haven't found anything yet,
though."

"I guess you'll have to keep looking. Never can tell what
you'll find." Clark decided to do some digging." Lois tells me
there were rumours of aliens being spotted out here years ago.
Maybe you'll find some evidence of that."

"I doubt it. You two have probably had more contact with aliens
than I have." Jeff sipped at his tea and then said, "Afterall,
Superman is not exactly from around here."

Brenda spoke. "What's he like? You know, I'm not even sure if
he is an alien. He could be the result of secret government or
corporate experiments in biotechnology and genetic engineering.
If so, it'll be interesting to watch how he develops over the
next couple of years. The results of these experiments are often
short-lived, I believe."

Lois was floored, but before she could speak, Jeff said, "It's
a great opportunity for you two as reporters though. When the
next big development connected with him happens, you'll be on
top of the story."

Clark placed his mug on the table carefully, fearful he might
break it if he got distracted. "Development? What are you
expecting?"

"Remember last year when Superman was out of control, committing
acts of vandalism?" Jeff asked.

"Yes, but that wasn't his fault," Lois spoke in Superman's
defence.

"Wasn't it? I know what your paper said, but next time, it
could be more serious. People could be seriously injured,"
Brenda said.

Lois tried to be reasonable. "Look, you don't know Superman,
but we do. He wouldn't hurt anyone."

Brenda was not convinced. "I don't know if I agree. Remember,
Superman shows no signs of emotion. I recall when he first
appeared, he seemed to have some feeling for you, Lois, but that
could have been part of the plan; after all, it's useful to have
a media connection, particularly one with your credentials."

Clark was aware of Lois's intake of breath and the increase of
her heart rate as Brenda finished speaking. Surely she didn't
believe that Superman had been using her. He didn't recognize
his voice when he spoke; it seemed to be coming from someone
else. "You think he's a threat then?"

"No. Not at the moment," Jeff said.

Silence, and then Lois spoke, astounded at what he had said.
"Not at the moment? Superman has saved so many lives! How can
you even think that he could be a threat?"

"Ms. Lane," his voice was serious, "You're obviously too
close to him. We don't know what he is, how he got here, why
he's here. He's been here less than two years. There may be
more like him and who knows what they are planning, what their
goals are? We don't know much about him either, except that
he's not human."

Brenda spoke, her voice almost clinical. "It would be
interesting to know more about his body, his biological
structure. I wonder if anyone has ever been able to take a sample
of his body tissue?"

Lois felt her blood go cold as they spoke. "I don't think you
understand. Maybe it's because you don't live in Metropolis,
haven't seen the things I have, we have." She turned to look at
Clark, to include him in her comments. "Superman has helped so
much, made such a difference to so many people. He's the best we
can be, not some sort of alien threat. He's not some specimen to
be dissected!"

"How can you feel so strongly about him. How do you know you can
trust him?" Jeff looked at her skeptically.

"Because I can." There was no doubt in her voice. "I know that
he would never willingly hurt anyone or betray anyone."

"You haven't said very much about this, Clark. Perhaps you
don't agree with your partner." Jeff's voice was speculative
as he spoke.

Clark had been listening, not pleased with Brenda's perception
of Superman as a potential lab specimen, but he spoke lightly,
"I know better than to disagree with my partner." He somehow
felt Lois's icy glare. "I do agree, however, that Superman
would never willingly hurt anyone. He is no threat." His voice
was firm. Then he said, "I'm curious though, Jeff. Do you think
the government should keep Superman under surveillance, just in
case he does turn out to be a threat?"

"It would be a good idea. We can't afford to be caught by
surprise. Superman's intentions may very well be harmless but we
don't know very much about him. It's our lack of information
that's dangerous."

"I suppose the government has some sort of contingency plan in
case he does turn out to be a threat," Clark commented.

Jeff shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?"

Lois had been surprised by Clark's questions but decided to
follow his lead. "By the way, we saw references to UFO sightings
in this area in the 'Link' when we were doing a background
check on Alice Cardinal this morning."

"I've checked out a few reports, nothing in any depth," Jeff
said. They continued to talk about the reported sightings around
Legatteville for awhile and then turned to other things, both
Lois and Clark trying to probe more into their background and not
having much success.

About 4 o'clock Frank Johaansen arrived and they all walked with
him to where Clark had uncovered the earring. Frank had come
prepared and now he opened his kit and put on a pair of plastic
gloves. As he carefully turned the hoop in his hand he said,
"It's a match for the other one. Must've come off as the body
was dragged downhill."

***

For awhile, they drove back to Allie and Dave's in silence, each
preoccupied with unwelcome thoughts. Lois stared unseeingly out
the window of the car and then turned to look at Clark's hands
on the steering wheel, finding some reassurance in them. He
rarely drove, so when he did she was always surprised at how good
a driver he was. His hands were large, strong, and calm on the
wheel. He's like that she thought. Her gaze shifted to his face
and her reassurance vanished. The skin across his cheekbones
seemed tight, his face a mask as he stared ahead at the road. She
didn't understand what was happening.

Somehow, he seemed to sense her uneasiness. He turned, a small
rueful smile crossing his face.

"What happened back there, Clark? About Superman, I mean?"

He let his breath out slowly and she could feel his tension. She
touched his arm gently, her eyes fixed on his face, and waited.
"Lois, have you ever really *thought* about Superman; I mean,
who he is, what he is? Have you never really thought about the
fact that he's, well, not normal?"

"Clark," Her tone told him that she thought his question was
pretty obvious, "he can fly! I had noticed that no one else I
knew could do that."

"Lois!" but he relaxed slightly at the teasing tone of her
voice.

"Okay, I admit, for a moment, I was shaken. It had never crossed
my mind that he could be using us. Is that what's upset you,
too? I know you thought he was your friend. And he is. Clark,
what the Andersons said is not true. He's risked his life for
Metropolis. Remember rule number one: always consider your
source, and the Andersons I doubt. For starters, they're not
married."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, when they're together, they've never seemed like a
couple to me. There doesn't seem to be a connection between
them. You know." He turned briefly to look at her, his face a
question. Women were astonishing he thought. How did they reach
these conclusions?

"Proof?"

"Ah hah!" Her voice was pleased. "When I was upstairs the
doors to the bedrooms were open so ... "

"You couldn't resist and found ... "

"Not much," her voice was triumphant. "Like the rest of the
house, a place to stay, but not ... "

"a home. Empty rooms ... " he continued her thought.

"One empty room," she corrected him. "The other two bedrooms
are both being used. Clark they aren't ... "

"sleeping together."

"Right! Clark, if we were married we definitely would be sharing
the same bed." Then a pause as she realized what she'd said.
"I mean, you know ... most couples ... it's only natural ...
"

"Yeah." He grinned and took her hand. He'd thought about that.
A lot.

***

But Jeff and Brenda's comments wouldn't leave him. He dressed
slowly for his date with Lois, wondering, for the first time, if
having a relationship, if getting married was the right thing. He
had wanted that for so long, been so sure that they were meant to
be together. He had never lost that conviction, even during the
nightmare that had been her engagement to Lex Luthor, but Jeff's
comments this afternoon had shaken him. That, and the
reappearance of Bureau 39.

Apparently the government had not dropped their investigations,
did not fully trust Superman. What right did he have to pull Lois
into this, to put her at risk? It was bad enough that his parents
were involved. Maybe he had been wrong to think that he could
have a normal life, friends, a job, someone to love. Maybe it
would be more responsible to isolate himself, to retreat into
solitude.

Bleakly, he looked in the mirror, searching for some sign that he
was different but he couldn't see one. He wished that Jeff had
been right about his lack of emotion; that he were some kind of
Spock-like being, operating on pure logic, mildly bewildered by
the human feelings around him. He had rarely felt physical pain
in his life but he felt it now as his stomach twisted at the
thought of what he knew he had to do tonight. He could not put
Lois at risk. He would tell her that he had been wrong, that they
could not be together.

He was waiting in the living room when he heard her steps at the
top of the staircase. He stood up and turned to look at her,
catching his breath as he did so. He thought she had never looked
more beautiful, more seductive, her dark hair skimming the top of
her bare shoulders. Her dark burgundy dress was cut low over the
swell of her high breasts, emphasizing the narrowness of her
waist and the curve of her hips. He could not move.

Lois smiled at him radiantly as she entered the living room. He
really was gorgeous, she thought. He was wearing dark charcoal
slacks and shirt, and a grey tweed coat and she wanted very much
to kiss him. Instead, she walked over to him and slid her arm
through his. "Shall we go, Mr. Kent?" She felt him flinch as
she spoke and looked up, surprised. His face had taken on that
tight, drawn look that she had seen earlier today. She pulled her
hand away from his arm, suddenly uncertain.

"I'll get your coat," he said, and walked to the closet to
pull her long woolen coat from its hanger. Standing behind her,
he helped her on with it, distracted by the fragrance of her
perfume, the softness of her hair as it brushed lightly against
his cheek. For a moment he kept his hands on her shoulders and
then said softly, "Let's go."

Their date was a disaster. Clark behaved like an idiot, acting
more like a Vulcan than a Krptonian raised in Kansas by loving
and affectionate parents. The drive to the Legatteville hotel
seemed to take forever as Clark confined his conversation to
polite observations about the similarities between Smallville and
Legatteville. Lois thought he sounded like a cultural
anthropologist. At one point she thought hysterically that she
was on a date with Data and started to giggle only to be met by
his silence. By the time they were walking into the hotel, she
was so unnerved she wanted to bolt.

Dinner was no better. Their conversation was stilted with only
the occasional welcome relief of the waiter bringing the next
course or pouring water or wine. Her mouth was dry and she kept
drinking water like someone who has been lost for days in a
desert. Once, she reached across to touch his hand and he had
immediately withdrawn it. She was sure she could hear the sound
of her knife on her plate.

Lois was panicking; she had known it would be a mistake to go out
on a date with him and she had been right. All her relationships
were disasters, she thought. How could she have been so wrong
about him? After all, he did keep disappearing on her, usually
when she wanted to talk to him about something important. That
should have been a big clue! But she had thought there had been
an intensity there in his feelings for her. It was what had
frightened her until she had recognized, and then accepted, that
the intensity was there in her too.

Clark was miserable. He looked across the table at Lois, sitting
very straight in her chair, pushing her food back and forth
across her plate and drinking incredible amounts of water for
some reason. Her eyes had long ago lost the glow they had held
when she had walked over to him at the beginning of the evening.
"I guess this wasn't such a good idea, " he said finally.

"I guess not." Her voice was toneless and she kept her eyes on
her plate. For a horrible moment she thought she was going to
cry, her sense of loss seemed so great.

"I'm sorry, Lois." He knew he owed her more, but he couldn't
bring himself to speak. He hadn't known anything could hurt so
much.

The band started to play, the music an old standard, smoothly
romantic, ironic. "Let's go Clark. There's no reason to stay
any longer." She stood up, feeling she had to escape. "I'll
just visit the Ladies' Room and then I'll meet you in the
lobby."

He watched her cross the room, a look of longing on his face. He
signalled the waiter and asked for the bill.

In the washroom, Lois looked at herself in the mirror, not
pleased at the despair she saw there. What had happened? Until
this afternoon she and Clark had been so close, quietly pleased
with themselves about their upcoming date, each of them aware of
it in an almost conspiratorial way. What had changed that?
Thinking back to this afternoon, she realized he had started to
act oddly after their talks with the Anderson's about Superman.
Was that it? Had those conversations reminded him of how she had
thrown herself at Superman? Did he think that he was her second
choice and realized he couldn't accept that?

Her face took on a determined look. "Well, Clark Kent, I'm not
giving up on us that easily." She spoke out loud to her
reflection in the mirror, then suddenly realized she was not
alone. She turned to the woman who had stopped to look at her and
said the only possible thing in the circumstances. "Men!"

The woman smiled and said, "Good luck."

Clark was standing in the lobby waiting for her when she came
out. As she approached him, she had a look in her eye that made
him uneasy, one he had seen before but never directed at him. He
held out her coat for her. She took it, folded it over her arm,
and looked at him like a general about to go into battle.

"Okay, Clark. This has been the worst date of my life. Even
worse than the date with the computer guy in my second year of
college." She jabbed him in the chest. "Even worse than the
blind date that Cat set up for me with the sales rep from
Microsoft." She jabbed his chest again "Even worse than ... "

"I get the picture, Lois."

"And, *you* are coming with *me* right now." She gestured
toward the hotel bar. "We are going to talk." She moved away
from him, striding into the darkened bar, and then, spotting a
table in the far end of the room , she headed toward it. She did
not look back to see if he was following her. She sat down in the
corner alcove, sinking back into the leather-covered bench,
watching him carefully as he approached the table. He slid onto
the bench so that he was sitting at a right angle beside her, but
he said nothing. The waiter came over, quickly took their orders,
and left.

"All right, Clark, what happened out there this afternoon?" Her
voice was firm, insistent. Then she reached out to touch his hand
and her voice lost its aggressive edge, "I thought you wanted us
to be closer." She watched his face, searching for some clue to
his thoughts.

"Lois, it's not as simple as that, and I don't think we can
talk about it here." But he didn't pull his hand away, although
he said nothing more.

Lois sighed and decided to raise the stakes, rationalizing that
nothing could be worse than where they were right now. She
absently brushed her thumb across the back of his hand, aware of
his tension. She spoke softly, keeping her eyes fixed on his
face. "Tonight should have been wonderful, Clark. Is it
Superman? That talk this afternoon? Do you think that I'm still
in love with him? Is that it?"

"Lois, this afternoon, I saw a document with Bureau 39 in the
heading on the computer at the Anderson's. I think they're
probably government agents, and given their comments about
Superman, it looks like the government still has not decided what
Superman is. Lois, if you were involved with Superman, you could
be at risk."

She was faintly puzzled by his comments. Why was he so
preoccupied with this? Why did he think that he had to warn her
about this? "But Clark, we are involved with him. We're his
friends and if he's under suspicion, then he needs us. We can't
let him face this alone. He has to know that he can count on us.
In some ways, you know, I think he's a bit naive. He'll need
us."

"Oh, so you're going to protect Superman, are you?"

"Yes. Somebody has to!"

He laughed briefly then, aware of a sense of surprise and wonder
at her attitude, at the decisiveness in her voice, and felt some
of the tension drain from his body. He had overreacted to the
presence of the Bureau agents; there were bigger threats out
there than they posed. And, he thought, Lois Lane wasn't going
to let him face those threats alone, regardless of how much he
might want to protect her. He leaned back against the upholstered
seat and said softly, "You are incredible, Ms. Lane."

She flashed a brief grin at him. "It's about time you realized
that, Clark Kent." Then she shifted in her seat so that she was
facing him. "Clark, I guess it was pretty obvious how I felt
about Superman. He was safe to love. He's honest, good, he cares
about people and I admire those things. I was infatuated with
him, with what he stands for, and I'll always care for him. I
can't imagine not doing that. But Clark, you're like that too.
Only there's more, so much more." Her voice turned shaky and
she looked at him ruefully. "And sometimes when you smile at me,
Clark Kent, the back of my knees go weak." She took a breath and
then decided to go the distance. "I've never felt like this
before, and I'm not going to let you go. I'm in love with you
Clark; nothing is going to change that."

"I guess I've been a bit of a jerk, tonight." His voice was
soft.

"Uh huh. Fortunately, I'm a forgiving sort of person."

"Fortunately." He bent forward and placing his hand on the side
of her face, he kissed her, slowly, sweetly. "I love you too,
Lois Lane. I've loved you for such a long time." He'd been a
fool; the decision about their relationship had never been his to
make; it had been hers. It had been hers since the first day they
had met, and she had been right; he did need her.

The waiter interrupted them as he hovered by the side of their
table for a moment before putting down their drinks. Lois
regained her composure enough to thank him while Clark paid him,
leaving a very generous tip. The waiter grinned appreciatively;
lovers were always generous.

A boisterous group of about seven people entered the bar and took
the empty table next to theirs. Serious conversation turned out
to be impossible and so they sipped their drinks in silence,
holding hands, content to be together, each knowing there were
still things they hadn't said, that they wanted to say to each
other. Later, as they were leaving the bar, Clark impulsively
pulled Lois against him and kissed her hard. Sitting beside her,
just holding hands had taken its toll on his self restraint.

After she caught her breath, Lois looked at him with narrowed
eyes. "I bet you're pleased with yourself, Kent."

"Right now I'm feeling *very* pleased, Lois," he said, his
eyes glittering.

She felt the back of her knees go weak.

***

Shortly after midnight, as she snuggled contentedly in her bed,
Lois drowsily thought about the rest of the evening. After they
had left the bar, they'd returned to the dining room, drawn by
the soft sounds of old jazz classics. A very young and very
talented woman was singing, her voice low and throaty,

*"At last my love has come along

My lonely days are over

And life is but a song."*

As she had continued to sing, Clark had taken Lois's hand and
she had followed his lead as they danced, far enough apart so
that they could gaze at each other as they listened to the lyrics
of the song, their eyes shining. When the song ended, Clark bent
his head and softly kissed her neck, just behind her earlobe.
"That's how you make me feel, Lois," he'd whispered.

Lois fell asleep thinking about how they'd talked and laughed
for the next couple of hours, how incredible his arms had felt
around her as they had danced, how she wanted more, how she
wanted him.

Across the hall, Clark was still wide awake, thinking about the
incredible woman in the opposite room. It had taken every ounce
of his self-control not to use his x-ray vision to watch her, <
spy on > he thought, as she had got ready for bed. Well, okay,
that wasn't quite true. For the first time in his life he
actually had used his vision for that purpose. He had been
dreamily remembering how good she had felt in his arms, how soft
her lips had been as he had kissed her goodnight, and then he had
heard it, the sound of a zipper being pulled down in the room
across the hall. It had been automatic; he had looked.

He had watched mesmerized as she had stepped quickly out of her
dress and then walked to the closet to hang it up. As she hung it
up she had smiled about something and then giggled and it was at
that moment that his conscience caught up with him. He shook his
head and refocused, disgusted with his adolescent behavior.
<Worse than adolescent. You were much more in control as an
adolescent than you are now.> He sighed, and fell into bed,
images of Lois Lane's voluptuous body refusing to leave his
mind. < Lois, we're going to have to do something about this
very soon.>

He was already at the table the next morning when she came down.
"Good morning," he said looking at her for some affirmation of
what they had shared last evening. "How are you?"

"Fine, fine. Dreamt about you last night," she said as she
poured orange juice.

He grinned wickedly at her. "Was I good?"

Immediately she turned red and then the Lane pride took over. She
sat back in her chair and raised an eyebrow, her voice indignant.
"You hope."

But Clark had no pride where she was concerned and he grinned
again. "I do."

They were laughing as Dave joined them in the kitchen. "You two
seem in good spirits this morning." He opened the fridge and
started rummaging for food. "We were a little later than usual
last night and Allie's still asleep. Thought I'd see if I could
figure out how to make pancakes. "In truth, he didn't figure he
could but was hopeful that his niece could, assuming as he was
that it was part of every girl's basic training.

Clark spoke up. "Want some help?" He walked over to the fridge
and pulled out a container of buttermilk and some eggs. "Where
do you keep your flour?"

Dave wasn't sure about that but his third guess turned out to be
right. Realizing gratefully that breakfast was not going to be a
lost cause, he poured himself some orange juice and sat down
beside his niece. For a moment they both watched as Clark
efficiently went about the task of making pancakes.

"Talented guy," he said to Lois.

"That's what I keep telling her," Clark said as he spooned the
batter onto the grill. "I have multiple uses."

Allie walked in at that moment and looked at the scene in front
of her. "I'd offer my help but it doesn't appear necessary."

Clark turned to her, "Just tell me where the maple syrup is and
you'll shortly be having Kent's gourmet pancakes."

As she reached into the cupboard next to the fridge, Allie said,
"So, how was dinner last night? " She hoped she sounded casual
as she asked the question. She was surprised by their response;
Lois giggled and Clark turned to watch her while she answered.

"Well, I'm not sure what I ate; I was so enthralled by Clark's
*brilliant* conversation, it was hard to notice."

Clark rolled his eyes and turned back to his task. As he flipped
the pancakes, he said to Allie. "Nerves. Your niece overwhelms
me. Performance anxiety."

It was Lois's turn to roll her eyes and then she said demurely,
"He improved though." Clark turned and flashed her a happy
grin, and Allie smiled, thinking that this time she would go to
Lois's wedding. She handed Clark a plate onto which he piled the
pancakes. He carried it over to the table and they all helped
themselves .

"These are pretty good," Dave said after he swallowed his first
mouthful. "How'd you learn to make these?" his voice was
thoughtful as he looked at his forkful of pancake.

"Maybe there's some hope for my husband. This could mean that I
would be able to leave him alone for breakfast. He wouldn't
starve."

"Umf," Dave's reply was a grunt as he continued to eat his
breakfast.

"It's my Mom's recipe. I'm an early riser and so she decided
pretty early that I had better learn to manage for myself first
thing in the morning."

"Wise woman." Allie was curious about his parents, what they
were like.

"She is." Lois commented. "Both Clark's parents are pretty
wonderful," she said, remembering how they had always made her
feel part of their family, >from the very first time she had
visited Smallville. "They're half the reason I tolerate
Clark," she smiled at him mischeviously. "Although these
pancakes could be a second reason."

"Good to know I'm appreciated. My hard work, late nights,
endless data searches ... "

"Speaking of hard work," Allie interjected, "did you two find
anything yesterday?" They hadn't really had time to talk when
they had returned in the late afternoon.

"Some things." Lois's words were indistinct as she swallowed a
mouthful of pancake. She made a quick decision not to mention the
picture they had found of her uncle and Alice Cardinal. "Not
much in your archives," she looked up to meet Clark's narrowed
eyes, and then continued in what she hoped was an ordinary voice,
"After that we drove out to the Anderson's because I wanted to
show Clark where the body had been found. There, we found quite a
lot "

Clark continued, "You were right, Allie, to be suspicious about
the Anderson's. There was a memo on their computer that suggests
they're government agents, investigating UFOs."

Dave snorted in disgust. "I can't believe the government is
still wasting money on that nonesense. We used to take all that
stuff seriously back in the 1950's when we were kids. Used to go
out to the ridge waiting to spot UFOs. Nothing. Uninformed people
with over active imaginations see a little moonlight through fog
and the next thing you know they've seen little green men with
big eyes."

"I knew it," Allie said. "That accounts for the all the
activity with the metal detector. Scanning for traces of unusual
materials. Think I'll do a follow-up interview with them."

"I don't think you'll get much." Clark poured more syrup on
his pancakes as he spoke. "The government likes to keep a low
profile on this sort of thing. 'Don't panic the masses.' My
guess is they'll be gone in a couple of weeks after they
determine that there's nothing to be found."

"We also found the other earring. At least Clark did. Frank
Johaansen came out and identified it as a match for the one that
Alice was wearing the night she was killed." Lois explained how
they found it and also what it looked like. "Allie, I'd like to
talk more with Jane about her friendship with Alice. Do you think
she'd mind?"

"No. All this has upset her, but I think she'd like to get it
all out into the open. Jenny talked to her about the locket
yesterday, and I think people are wondering what's going on.
Jane's always been uncomfortable with gossip. I'll give her a
call to let her know you'd like to see her. "

Allie walked over to the kitchen phone and seconds later was
talking to her friend. They could come out before Jane went to
church.

***Jane Malenkov lived in a graceful Victorian house just two
blocks from Legatteville's main street. She was waiting at the
front door as the two reporters walked up the steps of the large
wooden porch. She welcomed them and led them into her spacious,
sunny living room and then she disappeared into her kitchen to
bring coffee. For the first time in her career, Lois felt
constrained by the circumstances in which she found herself. The
coziness of the room, and Jane's long friendship with her aunt
made Lois feel intrusive, as though perhaps it wasn't the
'people's right' to know the truth. Then she remember Mary
Cardinal and Matt Thomson and their need to know.

Clark seemed to sense something of her uneasiness because he
touched her hand and said softly, "It's all right," just as
Jane returned carrying a tray with coffee and china teacups. She
slid it onto the dark polished coffee table. They waited until
she had completed the ritual of pouring coffee and then Clark
explained why they had come.

"We wanted to find out more about Alice's friends during the
last year of her life. I notice you have a lot of pictures of
your family," he gestured toward the fireplace mantel, "and I
wondered if perhaps you had some pictures of your last year in
high school."

Jane smiled. "I expect I have pictures of just about everything.
I think I was born with a camera in my hand and what I didn't
take pictures of, my father did." She left the room for a moment
and then returned with a dusty black album. She looked at the
crowded coffee table for a second and then said, "Let's sit
over by the window. We'll have more room and the light's
better. Bring your coffee."

They moved over to the alcove made by the large bay window to sit
around a small round table, Jane between the two reporters. "You
know, I haven't looked at this album since that summer. I just
couldn't finish it ... " she sighed and then spoke again.
"Perhaps it's time I looked at it again." She opened the album
to the first page, which was also the first day of Jane's
graduating year in high school. One of the pictures on the page
was of just Jane and Alice, both girls laughing, arms around each
other's shoulders. Both were relaxed, smiling, with the joy and
optimism that is maybe only possible to have at seventeen.

Lois said sincerely, "You two must have been the most attractive
girls in your class."

Jane smiled, "You think so? People said so at the time, you
know, but we didn't take it too seriously. But we did have fun;
we had so much fun until it all ended that August."

They turned to a double page of pictures of teenagers in bathing
suits lying on a long wooden dock, diving, playing volleyball,
water skiing and just generally having a good time. Lois was
surprised. "This doesn't look much like the second day of
school."

"It was the weekend after school started. It had been a hot
summer and the weather held that year into the beginning of
October. We didn't waste the opportunity to have a good time."

While the people on the first page were strangers to her, Lois
thought she recognized a few of the faces in these pages. "That
could be Jenny O'Rourke."

"It's her mother, Kathleen. She's a couple of years younger
than us but she was usually with us when we were at the lake."

"Is this my uncle in this picture?" Lois touched the image of a
tall, skinny boy stretching up to spike a volleyball. When Jane
nodded, Lois said, "I thought Uncle Dave was only here in the
summers."

"That's true, but he used to come occasionally during the year,
particularly that year. It was his first year at university and
he didn't start classes until the middle of September. As I
remember now, he spent those two weeks here rather than returning
to the city. "

"I wonder if he still plays volleyball, if he still has that
wicked right?" Clark said. "I'll have to ask him." He paused
for a moment looking at the other pictures on the page and then
pointed at one of an athletic young man water-skiing. "Who's
this? He looks familiar."

Again, Lois was surprised. "It looks like Senator Gates." She
looked across at Jane, waiting for the older woman to explain,
noticing the veil that seemed to touch her eyes for a moment.

"It is. His family has been in the area forever. Lots of money.
He went to a private boy's school about fifty miles from here.
Very exclusive. But he preferred hanging out with us."

"He certainly was gorgeous! Nice body!" Lois said looking at
his handsome face and muscular frame.

Clark looked at her disapprovingly. " Pretty sexist, Lois."

"Just redressing the historical imbalance, Clark," Lois said
piously as Jane smiled in agreement.

"Yeah. Right." Then he turned the page to find more pictures of
the same weekend. This time there were two pictures of Alice and
Jane in bathing suits, both doing the classic pin-up poses of the
1950's. "Am I allowed to comment here or would that be
considered out of line?"

"Definitely out of line", Lois quipped just as Jane said, "Not
out of line at all," and they all laughed.

At the bottom of the page was a smaller snapshot of Jane and Tony
Gates, his arm around her waist. Lois looked up, "Were you and
the Senator a thing then?"

"No, not then, but I saw him on and off that year. We were all
of us pretty close, so I guess it was inevitable that some of us
would start dating. You know how it is in small towns when
you're that age."

"No." Lois spoke just as Clark said "Yes." She looked at him
briefly and told herself to ask him about that later.

"Was Alice seeing anyone?" Clark asked.

"Alice dated a lot of boys. She told me about a few of them but
I never got the feeling that there was anyone she was especially
interested in. She really enjoyed men, and she played the field.
She was so full of life! But she was really interested in school
too. She was a top student and hoped to become a doctor. "

"Like Uncle Dave."

"Like your uncle. Every once in awhile they used to get into
these science discussions and we'd have to bring them back to
earth." Jane smiled at the memory and they continued looking
through the rest of the album.

"Did my uncle ever date Alice?" Lois's voice was casual,
almost disinterested, as though the question were an
afterthought. Clark watched her face as she asked it.

"In a way. They did go out together a few times, but I always
had the impression that they were more interested in science than
they were in each other."

Clark, aware of Lois's worry about her uncle's possible
involvement with Alice, felt a certain tension vanish from his
partner as Jane finished her comment.

For the next hour they continued to look through the album,
listening to Jane talk about the people she had known forty years
ago, many of whom were still her friends. If it had been painful
to bring out the album in the first place, it now was apparent
that looking through these pictures was comforting for Jane after
all, and Lois was glad that they had come.

The last part of the album had not been filled although there
were loose pictures wedged in between two of the pages. As Jane
turned the next page a few of the pictures slipped out, drifting
to the faded oriental carpet beneath the table. Clark reached
down, picked them up, and handed them to her. Jane touched them
and he saw tears almost blur her eyes for a second and then she
regained her composure.

"Thank you. These were the last pictures taken that summer. I
put them here intending to fix them in place later, but I never
did."

Clark looked at the date written in pencil on the bottom of the
photos -- August 15th. "May I look at these?" Jane nodded, and
he spread them on the table. Among the pictures were two
close-ups of Jane and Alice. Jane was with Tony Gates and the
look on her face was clearly adoring. Alice was with a strikingly
handsome young man who looked vaguely familiar.

"I feel I should know who he is," Lois said as she looked at
the picture.

"That's Jim Thomson. You may have met his nephew, Matt. Jim and
Alice had just got engaged when that picture was taken, although
I didn't know it then. I'd forgotten that these pictures were
here. They were taken the night we went to one of the weekend
dances at the Pavilion."

"Was Alice excited about her engagement?" Lois was surprised at
the news of the engagement. From what Jane had said earlier, it
hadn't sounded like Alice was particularly interested in any one
man.

"You know, I don't think so. Not the way you would expect. She
seemed more resigned, the way a woman is when she settles for the
sensible choice and not the man she loves."

With a flash of pain, Lois remembered her engagement to Lex
Luthor, and wondered if Jane too had made 'the sensible'
choice.

"Was Jim the father of her baby?"

Jane bent her head for a moment and spoke quietly, "I don't
think so."

It was Clark's turn and he asked the question gently, "Do you
know who was?"

Jane's eyes were momentarily angry. "It could have been one of
several people. Alice liked *being* with men." Then she stood up
and closed the album. "It's nearly time for church." As she
picked up the album, the two photos fell to the floor. Lois bent
to retrieve them, and as she handed them back to Jane, she
noticed that, in the pictures, both Alice and Jane were wearing
matching lockets.

***

Later, when they were in the car, Lois said to Clark. "The dates
don't match, Clark."

"What do you mean."

"Jane told my aunt and me that she noticed her locket missing
about two weeks before Alice died, but the photos were dated a
week before her death."

"Maybe she was wrong about the time of the locket's
disappearance. It *was* a long time ago."

"Maybe. I hope so. I wonder who Alice's boyfriends were. I
wonder if one of them killed her. And I wonder if Jane was there
that night at the Lemieux place."

They decided to stop for coffee at the diner where they had been
on Friday night. As they got of the car, they noticed that the
sky had become overcast. "Rain, probably, by evening," Clark
said knowingly as he held the door open for her.

"You sound like a farmer's son when you say that, Clark," Lois
teased. "I am a farmer's son, Lois. Skilled in the ancient ways
of reading the skies and the earth," he said solemnly.

She bumped against him briefly, playfully. "Yeah? Five bucks
says you're wrong on the rain. I heard the weather forecast when
we left this morning and rain is not going to happen."

"You're on. Like taking candy from a baby."

As they entered the main area of the diner, they noticed Matt
Thomson sitting alone at one of the tables. Lois headed toward
his table and Clark followed. Matt looked up as they approached
and asked them to join him. As the waitress poured them coffee,
Clark asked him how his business was going.

"Pretty good. We've just finished our best twelve months. I
think we've finally succeeded in establishing ourselves as the
most reliable private charter in this part of the country. It's
taken some time to do it."

"How did you get started in the first place?" Clark asked.

"I've always loved planes. My dad and uncle had a small
seaplane when I was a kid. They used to fly fisherman back into
the lakes in the summer. As businesses go, it was pretty
marginal, but I learned a lot, tinkering with that old plane. Its
engine always seemed to need repairing."

"It must have been very hard work turning such a small operation
into a success," Lois said.

"It still is very hard work. Running an airline is pretty risky
business."

"I understand your company had a hard time raising the initial
capital to expand the business. How'd you overcome that
problem?" Clark asked as he piled excessive amounts of sugar and
cream into his coffee.

"Tony Gates helped out. My uncle knew him when they were kids
and, with his backing, was able to get financing. I never knew
the terms; I was just finishing college at the time, but Senator
Gates' backing has always been helpful when it comes to dealing
with the banks."

"They must have been good friends," Lois commented. " By the
way, we've just come from Jane Malenkov's. Did you know that
she and Tony Gates dated at one time? They appear to have double
dated with your uncle and Alice Cardinal during their
engagement."

Matt's face registered surprise. "What? I never knew that Uncle
Jim was engaged to Alice Cardinal. Then he would have been the
father of Alice's baby." He was quiet for a moment. "Jenny
doesn't appear to be making progress on the case. It took you
two to find the missing earring."

"We were just lucky, and we've had more time with this than
Jenny would have. She's likely working on several cases at the
same time." Clark felt guilty; the earring would probably not
have been found without his special abilities.

Lois decided to move away from this sensitive subject. Clark
seemed gloomy and Matt bitter. Men were always emotional about
the wrong things, she thought. "We were thinking we would like
to talk to Alice's mother again. Do you think this afternoon
would be a good time?"

"Usually, but not today. There's a special ceremony for the new
baby of one of the couples in our community. What you would call
a Christening. Mary is a woman with special abilities and holds
an important place in our village. She will lead us in welcoming
the child into our band." He looked at Lois, "But tonight
should be fine. I'll tell her that you'll be coming." He stood
up to go and they joined him.

Outside the diner, he said. "It's good that you're taking an
interest in this." Then he looked at the sky. "I have a flight
tonight. I hope the rain isn't too heavy."

Startled, Lois looked at him. "What? The forecast said 'no
rain'."

"It's wrong."

"How can you tell?"

"Read the skies. An old Indian skill, Lois." He walked to his
jeep.

From behind her, Lois heard Clark's voice, "Five bucks,
Lois."

***

They drove back to the house for lunch with Dave and Allie and a
leisurely chat about their morning's activities.

"How'd it go, Lois?" Allie asked as she poured some tea.

"All right, I think. Did you know that she hadn't looked at
that album since the end of that summer. I guess Alice's
disappearance was too upsetting, but I thought that she felt
relieved about going through it and talking." She looked at
Dave. "You all seemed to have such good times together. The
second page had pictures of everyone here on the first weekend
that September."

"I thought you started college that year," Allie said
surprised.

"I did, but I spent the last two weeks here, on my own, before
school started. My folks stayed in the city."

"You? On your own? I'm surprised this place is still
standing," Lois said mischievously.

"Oh, we were a pretty respectable crowd compared to some of the
things I see today, like some of the problems we mop up at the
clinic."

"We noticed that several of the pictures were taken at the
Lemieux place," Clark said. "I guess you used to go there a
lot."

"We did. The town kids more than us probably, because we
weren't here all year, but we did hang out there. What started
us going there were the rumours of alien sightings. We decided to
camp out there one night and wait for something to happen.
Nothing did but we had a great time and so we kept going."

"Did couples go there too?" Lois asked. "To, uh, be alone?"

"It did provide a good opportunity," Dave said dryly.

"Dave!" Allie sounded surprised.

"So I heard," he added quickly, grinning.

"Did Alice ever go there with a boyfriend?" Clark asked
carefully and was rewarded with a jab under the table from
Lois's foot.

"She may have."

"I didn't think you knew her, Dave." Allie was peering at her
husband over the half glasses she sometimes wore. "You've never
mentioned her."

"She was part of the gang. The only one from the reserve who
was. She and Jane were great friends, but then you knew that."

"What was Alice like?" Allie asked.

He hesitated for a moment. "Pretty bright. Top student in
science. Won a major scholarship that year." He got up and took
his mug to the sink.

"She was also pretty attractive," Allie commented.

"I suppose so," Dave said as he rinsed out the mug.

Lois spoke next. "I didn't realize that Jane had dated Tony
Gates. Were they serious ?"

Still standing by the sink, Dave said. "I don't really know.
They started dating that year, I believe. Tony would have been
finishing his last year at school here. He missed a year when he
was sixteen when an older cousin offered him the chance to sail
south along the Pacific coast to South America."

"Jane has never mentioned dating him, so I guess that means she
was serious about it," Allie said thoughtfully. "I'm beginning
to feel I don't know these people at all."

"Don't be silly, honey," Dave smiled across the room at her.
Then he walked across the room to pause at the foot of the
staircase. "I'm going to change and then work outside on those
trees that were damaged over the winter."

"Do you want some help?" Clark got up from his chair.

"Thanks. I'd appreciate it."

Both men went upstairs to change, leaving Lois and Allie at the
table, each of them wondering what Dave hadn't said.

***

The two men worked efficiently clearing away the damaged limbs.
Dave wielded a small chain saw on those branches that were still
partially attached to the trees while Clark dragged the fallen
limbs to one side and sawed them into manageable lengths to be
split later for firewood. Then he began working on the smaller
branches. He enjoyed what he was doing, inspecting the trees
carefully in order to remove limbs at the appropriate spot. He
had always found working outside like this calming, his way of
meditation, he sometimes thought. He often did things for his Dad
at superspeed or using superstrength, but Jonathan had insisted
that his son learn to do things at a normal rate, always worried
that someone might notice his son's extraordinary abilities.
Clark smiled as he thought of his parents. He was looking forward
to telling them that he and Lois were getting closer. His mom
would be ecstatic. *He* was ecstatic !

Occasionally, the two men worked as a team, Clark providing
balance or shifting large, heavy limbs so that they were at
easier angles for the chain saw. He was careful not to appear too
strong as he did these things. After about an hour and a half,
Dave called for a break and the two men sat on the trunk of a
large pine that had been toppled in a winter blizzard.

Dave was pleased with how much they had done. "We've made quite
a difference out here," he said looking at the neatly stacked
limbs. Most of this we can use for firewood and I'll take the
rest over to Al's chipper."

Dave shifted his weight, feeling his muscles ache from the
strenuous work, but he still felt uncomfortable. It took him a
moment to realize what was bothering him. He needed to talk to
Clark, but, because he didn't know him very well, he hesitated.
Clark had started working again, sawing large branches into
shorter lengths for the fireplace. Dave observed him, noting the
smooth efficiency of his motions as he worked. It was obvious
that he had done this many times before. Then Dave made up his
mind, realizing that he instinctively trusted this young man,
even though he hadn't known him for very long. That his niece
was so clearly fond of Clark was part of it. Lois did not trust
people easily. <Maybe I don't either,> Dave thought, < but I've
got to talk to someone about this.>

He spoke slowly. "There's something I didn't mention in the
kitchen." He turned to look at Clark, his eyes serious. "I
don't want Allie to find out about this, but I understand that
she might. It's probably inevitable. I guess Lois will have to
know, but I trust how the two of you will handle this."

Clark spoke softly, "You think the baby was yours."

Dave looked surprised. "How did you guess?"

"We saw a picture of you and Alice together at the spring
festival. It was pretty casual, but the idea struck us that you
were seeing each other."

"She was the first girl I had sex with. I guess I could
rationalize it by pleading 'raging hormones.' We had all known
each other for a long time and all of a sudden she seemed so
beautiful. I was attracted to her and that weekend we ... " his
voice trailed off and he said, "You know how it is when you're
eighteen. Hard to control ... "

Clark did not know. He had been attracted, interested, ( the
hormones were definitely there), but he had never felt out of
control. Because of that, his decision not to have sex hadn't
been that difficult. Perhaps, too, the implications of the act
for him had served as a brake on his actions.

As his superpowers had developed, he hadn't been sure what to
expect and he had to learn how to control them and to keep them a
secret. He thought it would be difficult to keep his secret from
any woman with whom he developed an intimate relationship. And
there was another worry too. He was strong, very strong. What
would that mean when he had sex, if he was out of control? And
somehow, too, he had felt that there should be more there than
just 'hormones' between a man and a woman; that there should be
passion, and he had never felt that. Until two years ago, he had
wondered if he ever would. Then he met and fallen in love with
Lois Lane.

"Did you love her?"

"That's the damning part. I tried to convince myself that I
did. After all we seemed to have a lot in common. We were both
crazy about science, about biology, but I didn't love her. I
liked her. After those two weeks ended, we broke it off. I don't
remember that she was upset; I had the feeling that for her, sex
was a way of expressing her affection for someone. She told me
that weekend that I was not her first." He lapsed into silence
again, wondering how he could put the rest.

"We didn't see each other for the rest of the year, which was
not unusual. I was away at college and she was finishing high
school. We wrote occasionally. As I told you, we shared many of
the same interests and Alice was interested in going to medical
school, too. At any rate, I came down in March for a weekend and
we started having sex again. We saw each other nearly every
weekend until the end of April. I didn't do well on my exams
that year."

"Why'd it end the second time?"

"It didn't really. I just never saw her again. I was worried
about my exams and so I barricaded myself in my room, studying
for the last week and a half. After that I went to Europe with a
friend for the summer, something I'd wanted to do since Tony had
talked about his trip. When I came here at the beginning of
September, I heard Alice had disappeared." He stared off into
the distance. "I heard the rumours about why she had disappeared
and, at first, I was worried that she was pregnant. We hadn't
really been very careful."

"But you decided she wasn't pregnant?"

"Yes. I'd written her a couple of times during the summer.
We'd agreed to stay in touch before I left , and she sent me a
couple of letters, forwarded to the American Express at our next
destination. I'd suggested she do that. I reread them after I
heard she was missing but she gave no hint of pregnancy. Clearly
I was wrong."

"Did you know that she was engaged to Jim Thomson?"

"No!" he said in surprise. Then as the implication of the news
struck him, he said sadly. "No. God! Do you think he found out
and went into a rage and that's how ... " He took a deep
breath. "Clark, I don't ... "

He stopped speaking as he saw his wife approaching with Lois,
both women dressed warmly in jeans and jackets, the family
resemblance strong in their energetic walk. "I love Allie very
much. I have from the day we met."

Clark looked at the older man sympathetically. This time Clark
did know what Dave was feeling. He smiled at Lois and took her
hand as she stood in front of him.

"Here we come out to lend a hand but we find you two goofing
off!"

"Just a quick break, Lois," Dave said as he picked up the chain
saw again. "And we need all the help we can get, although Clark
has been a big help. He's amazingly strong."

Clark looked startled, but luckily Lois rescued him. "That's
just his Smallville genes kicking in. I've noticed his Dad is
pretty strong, too," she said as she helped Allie carry a large
limb over to the pile Clark had started.***After dinner, Lois and
Clark drove out to see Mary Cardinal. "Clark, Senator Gates'
summer place is just off the road to the reserve. Let's drop by
and see if we can talk to him."

"Good idea. We should get his angle on all of this."

They hadn't been driving for more than a few minutes when it
began to rain. Clark looked across at Lois and grinned smugly.
"Rain," he pointed out in a helpful tone of voice.

"It has to last for at least fifteen minutes for it to be really
rain."

"What? Lo-is. I thought you were a woman of honour."

"I am. Fifteen minutes."

When they arrived nearly thirty minutes later, it was still
raining. "Okay, okay. You win." Then she grinned, "But it's
not fair, you know. You had an advantage."

"Ah. And that would be ... ?"

"Obvious. You didn't listen to the weather forecast. Those guys
are always wrong."

"Oh." He grinned at her as they got out of the car and walked
up the steps to the heavy front door of the sprawling log
structure where the Gates family had summered for the last sixty
years. Several additions to the original cabin gave the house a
haphazard appearance that somehow looked natural, an outgrowth of
the dark evergreens that surrounded it.

A young man, blond, blue-eyed and as casually elegant as a Ralph
Lauren ad, opened the door and asked them to wait in the foyer
while he went to find his uncle. Lois looked upward at the
exposed rough hewn beams of the high ceiling and then at the pine
panelling on the walls. "This is some place, Clark."

At that moment, Senator Gates, looking fit and relaxed in a navy
sweater and jeans, walked into the room, smiled at them, and
shook both their hands. "Ms. Lane, Mr.Kent. This is a surprise.
What can I do for you?"

"We'd like to ask you a few questions about Alice Cardinal, if
you can spare a few minutes," Lois said.

The Senator's smile vanished, replaced by a look of concern.
"Very tragic, what happened to her, unsettling for her mother to
go through all that again. Look, I have a few guests tonight, so
why don't we use my study to talk?" He led them into another
pine panelled room, the far wall of which was taken up by a
fieldstone fireplace, flanked on each side by bookshelves. As he
sat down, he said "Tell me, why is 'The Daily Planet'
interested in this story? Surely it's too small an item for your
paper to have its two top reporters on."

"We're putting together a profile of Alice for my aunt's
paper. I wanted to help her out." Lois didn't want to go into
more detail until she was sure about how the second article they
were preparing for Perry was going to turn out.

"We've heard that Alice was part of a group that you used to
hang out with then and we were interested in what you remembered
about her," Clark spoke quietly.

"You're right; she was one of the group I hung around with in
the summers but I didn't know her that well. You know how it is;
we did a lot of things together but I guess I knew the guys
better than the girls. I do remember her energy and how
interested she was in everything. I thought she was pretty
bright."

"You doubled dated with Alice and Jim Thomson when you were
going out with Jane Malenkov that summer," Lois's tone implied
a question.

"Yes, we used to go to the weekend dances in town. Most people
around here did. They used to have great groups."

Clark said, "She and Jim Thomson were planning on getting
married. Were you surprised by the news?"

"I'd forgotten about the engagement. They told us about it the
last evening we were all together. Yes, I was a bit. I'd never
thought that Alice was serious about Jim. She'd always seemed
intent on going to college in the fall, so the news that she was
not going to was a surprise."

"They must have been pretty happy that night," Clark observed.

"I can't recall whether they seemed really happy. I do
remember, they were arguing by the end of the dance so I took
Jane home."

"Any idea what the argument was about?"

"None."

"Did they talk about Alice's pregnancy?"

"No."

"Were you surprised to find out that she was pregnant at the
time of her death?" Lois was not pleased with his one word
answers to her questions. In her opinion, all witnesses ought to
have total recall.

"Not really. Alice was, shall we say, promiscuous." Then the
Senator, perhaps realizing that his comment was politically
incorrect, flashed a charming smile at Lois. "I don't think
there can be any point in quoting me on that."

"No, we're not a tabloid, Senator, but we would be interested
to know your thoughts about how she might have died."

"I'd only be speculating, Ms.Lane."

"What did you think when you first heard that she was missing?"
Clark was curious.

"I was shocked. Jim was devastated. He was pretty crazy about
her. He never did marry."

"Any idea who might be responsible for her death?" Lois had to
try the question a second time.

The Senator flashed the smile again. "I'll leave that to the
police, Lois. Look, I'm sorry, but I must get back to my guests.
I'm leaving shortly for Metropolis. I'll look forward to
reading your article and to seeing you both when we get back to
New Troy." The Senator rose from his chair, smiling at them as
they too stood up, aware their interview was over.

***

"Well, that doesn't add a whole lot to our article, Clark! Just
a simple quote from the local famous son."

Clark noted the disgusted tone in her voice and smiled. "What
were you expecting, Lois? That she would have told him she was
going to meet person X at the farmhouse that night and that she
feared for her life?"

"That would have been good. I could have lived with that," she
said as she got into the car and put her key in the ignition. She
pulled out of the driveway and onto the road towards Mary
Cardinal's. "It's funny, Clark. We get so involved covering
what a politician is currently doing, we often forget what
happened when he was young."

"Yeah. But, I guess, like all of us, what happened then shaped
what he is now."

"Do you think so, Clark? Are you what you were when you were
eighteen?"

Clark turned to look at her for a moment, remembering how he had
first flown when he was eighteen and how that had changed
everything for him. But he also remembered his parents and their
influence on him as he was growing up, the world travels which
had opened his eyes to so much, and then his first meeting with
the woman beside him. "In a way, not completely," he said,
"but it was my foundation, the base on which everything else has
been constructed. What about you?"

"I don't know," Lois said. "I think when I was eighteen I was
very directed, focused. I knew what I wanted to achieve. I wanted
to leave everything about my past behind. Now, I don't think
it's that simple." She paused and then said, her voice quiet,
"I've made so many mistakes, Clark." She was surprised at her
admission.

"Like what, Lois?" his voice was soft in the darkness of the
car.

"Well, we could start with my decision to marry one of the
biggest criminals of recent history." Her tone was sardonic as
she continued, "For an investigative reporter, I sure turned a
blind eye to what was going on. I can't believe how easily I was
fooled by him, Clark."

"He fooled a lot of people, Lois, not just you."

"Why didn't he fool you, Clark?" Her voice was curious. "You
never trusted him; it's almost like you had inside knowledge or
something."

"Jealousy," Clark said lightly, wary about getting to the
source of his 'inside knowledge.' He'd tell her soon though.
Right now he just wanted to enjoy their growing relationship,
without the complication he was sure would come when did tell
her.

"Don't believe you, Kent," but she let it go, concentrating on
her driving. They were now on Native land, just minutes away from
the village.

Lois turned the car onto a narrow, gravel road that twisted
around clumps of dark evergreens towards Mary Cardinal's house.
She stopped in front of the small, neat house and they got out of
the car. Clark was looking forward to meeting Mrs.Cardinal; Lois
had told him a bit about the old woman and based on that, and
Matt's earlier comment about her, he thought that it should
prove interesting to talk to her. The door was opened by Matt
Thomson who led them into the living room where Mary was seated
in front of the fireplace. With her was a burly man who looked to
be about sixty.

Clark was aware of Mary's eyes on him as he entered the room.
Matt introduced them and her hand stayed in his for a moment
longer than necessary and she searched his face and then nodded.
She turned to welcome Lois and then Matt introduced them to his
uncle. "I thought it would be a good idea for you to talk to him
and he agreed. I gotta get going. I'm flying Tony Gates back to
Metropolis tonight."

"The weather's pretty bad out there," Lois said. "Is it wise
to fly a small plane in these conditions?"

"It's not the best, but Tony's got an important breakfast
meeting and doesn't want to miss it. I've flown in worse."

"Matt, call Jenny before you go," Mary said sternly.

Matt said nothing, his face set in obstinate lines as he walked
out of the room. Lois guessed he wouldn't make that phone call.

Mary watched him sadly and then moved to the reason for their
visit. "Jim has told me about his engagement to Alice. I didn't
know about it."

Jim spoke at that point. "I don't know if it's right to say we
were engaged but we'd reached an understanding. Alice wasn't
absolutely sure, so we didn't tell anyone until that last night.
Alice told Jane Malenkov. Those two were pretty close. Always
thought it was a mistake the way she hung out so much with town
people."

"How long had you had your understanding with her, Mr.
Thomson?" Lois asked.

"Not long. She'd dreamed about going to college but the
pregnancy changed that."

"And you were the father, Mr. Thomson?" Clark asked.

"Yes." He avoided looking at Mary Cardinal.

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"The last Saturday in August. We went to the dance in town, and
I brought her home. That's the last time I saw her alive." He
stood up and said, "I'm sorry, Mary. I loved her."

Mary looked at him. "I know, Jim," she said sadly.

"Do you have any idea why she went out to the Lemieux place or
who she went to meet?" Clark asked.

"No. Look, I told all this to the police when Alice
disappeared." His face was bleak as he looked at Mary. "Good
night, Mary ." He nodded to Lois and Clark as he went to the
front door and walked out into the stormy night.

Mary said grimly, "He has not told the truth, but I cannot sense
what part is false. I feel he was there that night, when Alice
was dead." She touched Clark's hand and looked at him, an
appeal in her dark eyes. "You will find the truth. You care
about the truth and you are strong. With her," she shifted her
gaze to Lois, "you are even stronger."

For a moment, Lois felt like she had lost her bearings. Why was
Mary looking at Clark so intently and why was Clark so still?
Lois was skeptical about "special abilities," but even if Mary
were psychic, what could that possibly have to do with Clark?
Lois heard herself speaking as she attempted to feel real again.
"We'll do our best, Mrs.Cardinal, but we'll need your help to
do it."

"You want to know what I remember about those last days."

"Yes, if you don't mind," Lois spoke gently out of deference
for her feelings.

Mary looked into the fire for a moment before she began. "My
daughter was so full of life, so interested in everything." Mary
was silent again for a moment. "But most of all, she loved
people. When she was sixteen, she loved Jim. He was a few years
older than her and when I sensed her relationship with him, I
thought it would be good for them to be married."

"Sixteen is very young to be married," Lois said, trying to
keep the disapproval out of her voice.

Mary sensed Lois's disapproval anyway and smiled. "Today, yes,
but in those days, that was the future for our young women, and
Alice was sleeping with Jim, so she was ready to be his wife."

"But they didn't get married," Clark said.

"Her father spoke to Alice to let her know that he approved of
her choice and that he would speak to Jim and his father, but
Alice had no intention of marrying Jim. She was going to finish
high school and then go to college. She enjoyed being with Jim,
but she hadn't even thought about marrying him."

"That must have been upsetting to you," Lois said.

"Yes, we were both upset. Not by Alice's plans for school but
by her attitude to Jim. I knew he was in love with her. He did
ask her to marry him, and when she said no, he stopped seeing
her, at least in that way, but they stayed friends."

"Was she seeing anyone else? Could someone else have been the
baby's father?" Clark asked. Lois looked at him, surprised at
the question.

"It wouldn't surprise me. It pleased us when Alice started to
date Jim again in mid-summer, but she wasn't seeing him before
that, I'm sure."

"Who was she seeing in the March, April?"

"Jenny asked me that same question this morning. I know she was
dating someone during the fall, but I don't know who it was. I
think she was seeing Dr. James in the spring."

Lois felt herself go cold. What if her uncle had got Alice
pregnant and was somehow connected to her death? She fought the
thought. He couldn't be! What little emotional security she'd
felt as her parents' marriage crashed in acrimonious flames had
been during the few weeks she'd spent with her aunt and uncle.
Her uncle was a good man; he couldn't be connected to Alice's
death. She was sure he would have accepted the responsibility of
Alice's pregnancy.

She heard Clark ask, "What happened the last night you saw
her?"

"Alice was quiet which was unusual for her. I knew that
something had been troubling her for awhile but she wasn't
prepared to talk about it." Mary sighed. "She looked so
beautiful that night all in red, and wearing those golden
earrings."

"The design on those earrings was very unusual. Did you give
them to her?" he continued.

"No. I never knew who gave them to her but she wore them for the
first time in June, the night of the graduation dance. I asked
her and she just laughed and said, 'an admirer.'" Lois asked
the final question, "Did she come home after the August
dance?"

"Yes. They weren't late and they were arguing when she came in.
I don't know why. Jim didn't stay and Alice wouldn't talk
about what was wrong. She only stayed a few minutes and then she
left, driving off in the car, without saying a word. That was the
last time we saw her." Mary drew a deep breath and suddenly she
looked her full age, an old woman. She looked at Clark. "Please
find the truth ."

Clark took her hand, "We'll do our best, Mrs. Cardinal."

***

They walked in silence to the car, both clearly preoccupied with
their thoughts. Just as he was about to open the door for Lois,
Clark changed his mind. "It's stopped raining , Lois. Why
don't we go for a walk before we head back to the house?"

She gave him a crooked smile. "I think that's a good idea."

They walked briskly without talking until they were at the edge
of the small village. Aware that Lois was wrapped up in her own
thoughts, Clark finally broke the silence. "Lois, tell me what
you're thinking."

Lois slowed her gait at that and took his arm, touching her dark
head briefly against his shoulder. In the back of her mind had
always been this idea that the one safe, *normal*, corner in her
life had been her aunt and uncle and their relationship. "Oh,
Clark, this is such a mess. My uncle has always been such a
decent, caring man. He loves his family, and he always made Lucy
and me feel we were a part of it." A pause and then, "Do think
that he could be the father?"

"Yes," he said softly and stopped so that they were facing each
other.

"He can't be. He's not like that. Why do you think that?" her
voice was high-pitched, desperate.

He put his hand on he shoulder. "Because he told me." He
watched her faceas he spoke.

She looked at him mutinously for a moment, and then turned and
strode briskly farther down the road. He walked quickly to catch
up with her. "Lois, stop."

"No." She continued her quick pace. And then she started. "I
thought he was different. I've always trusted him, looked up to
him. I never even thought about it. I used to wish he was my
father, but he's no different from my father, and all along
he's had this big fat secret. And why'd he tell you, and not
me?" She was upset, living again the pain of her father's
rejection.

"Lois, calm down, slow down." He reached for her shoulder but
she shook his hand off and turned abruptly to face him.

"Are all men like this, Clark? Are you, too? What secret are you
hiding?" She saw him wince and her heart raced, her eyes
blazing, "Did that happen in Smallville, too, Clark, did you ...
"

He cut her off, distressed. "God, Lois, I haven't even been
with a woman, let alone ... "

This time she cut him off, her face astonished. "What? Clark!
You mean you've never ... " she couldn't finish, she was so
surprised.

Clark put his hands in his pockets and tried to sound casual. He
was embarrassed and wished desperately that he could travel back
in time exactly two minutes. He pulled one hand out of his pocket
and gestured with it. "It's not like I haven't dated, Lois.
I've been attracted, gotten pretty close. I mean, in Smallville
there was Lana, and Rachel, and then in college there was ... "

She cut him off. "Clark, I don't want a list of your old
girlfriends." And then, with narrowed eyes, "What about
Mayson?"

"What about her? Lois, we went out to lunch, once. I haven't
even dated her."

His face was taking on a harassed appearance. She noticed it and
her anger began to dissipate. She was being unfair, blaming Clark
for the dishonesty of others in her life. Clark wasn't like
that; he was always honest with her. <The last honest man> she
thought. She let out a breath and put her hand on his chest, a
silent apology. As she did, she thought absently how much she
liked touching him. "Why, Clark? Why have you waited? I mean it
must have been difficult not to ... to *want* to sometimes,
wasn't it?"

He relaxed and touched her hair briefly. Two reasons, he thought,
and he told her one of them. "I guess, because I was never in
love, it wasn't that difficult not to."

She looked into his dark eyes, "And is it now?" her voice
soft.

He slid his hands along her arms. "Yes." His voice was low,
husky and he pulled her against him, one hand moving up to
entwine in her hair as he covered her mouth with his, kissing her
softly, then passionately, possessively. Then he pulled away and
said softly, "Very difficult."

"Clark." Lois slid her arms around him once more and met his
lips again, a soft moan in the back of her throat as his arms
tightened around her once more. It started to rain again, soft
drizzle that neither of them noticed until a loud crack of
thunder brought them back to earth. She smiled at him and said
teasingly, "You know, for a minute there, I thought our feet
weren't touching the ground."

"I know." And he did know. He grabbed her hand as the rain
started to come down more heavily. "Come on, we'd better run
for it."

By the time they were back in the car, Lois had definitely come
down to earth and her mind had returned to what Clark had said
about her uncle and she voiced her worst fear. "Clark, do you
suppose Alice went to meet my uncle that night?"

"No. He wasn't even in the country then. You must know that,
Lois. He and a friend had gone to Europe for the summer. They'd
left after he finished his exams that spring. Lois, he wasn't
even aware that she was pregnant until the body was found."

Lois let out a sigh of relief. Her worst fear was that her uncle
might be implicated in Alice's death. "I wonder why she didn't
tell him? And I wonder who she did meet that night?"

"I think Dave is worried that it was Jim."

"Clark, why would Jim say the baby was his if it wasn't?" She
stared out of the front window, trying to concentrate her
thoughts which were randomly skimming across different angles of
the problem. "Maybe Alice was seeing Jim during the critical
period in spite of what Mrs. Cardinal thinks. Mothers don't
always know everything."

Clark thought that Mrs. Cardinal probably did, but he didn't say
so. "Lois, Dave didn't seem to have any doubt about the baby.
They were seeing each other for over a month."

"I wonder how Allie will react. They've always been so close
and now she's going to find out that she didn't really know him
after all."

"He doesn't want her to know, Lois. He's not happy about your
knowing."

She was quiet for a moment, watching his hands on the steering
wheel, thinking once again how strong and reassuring they were.
"How can she not know? How can a relationship exist without
honesty, with secrets? And anyway, she's going to find out
because Jenny O'Rourke knows that Dave and Alice were dating.
Jenny'll pursue it. She has to."

"I know. I think Dave has to talk to Jenny first thing in the
morning. Given that he was out of the country in August, it may
be that no one else has to know. The father's identity could be
irrelevant in this situation."

"What? Clark, I can't believe you're saying that. Allie has a
right to know this."

"Lois, that's not our decision. This happened before they even
knew each other. Right now he needs our help, not a grenade
lobbed into his living room."

"Clark, I want to go back to Metropolis tomorrow morning. I
don't want to do this story. I want to deal with political
corruption, corporate abuse, criminal conspiracies. Easy stuff.
Not this."

"No, you don't. I've never seen you run away from any
situation yet, and this is going to continue to be tense whether
we stay or not. And besides, your staying will make it easier for
your aunt and uncle."

She didn't respond but sat in silence, staring out the window.
After a few minutes he turned to look at her profile. "So what
next, Ms. Lane?"

"I guess I stay and we search for answers. Like why Jim would
lie about being the father? Why did Alice go to the Lemieux place
that night? Why didn't Dave know she was pregnant?"

"That question has been bothering me. Apparently Alice and your
uncle kept in contact while he was travelling, but there was no
mention in her letters of the pregnancy."

"That's odd. I think it would have been natural to tell him."
Her voice turned hopeful and her eyes lit up. "Clark, maybe
he's really not the father. If she was seeing someone else, he
probably wouldn't have known."

"It's an outside chance, Lois. DNA testing might be able to
tell us if Dave and Jim are willing to have it done."

By the time they got back to the house, the rain had developed
into a major storm with high winds and driving sleet. They found
Allie and Dave in the large living room watching a video of an
old Alfred Hitchcock movie. After Allie stopped the VCR, they
talked about their conversation with Mary Cardinal. Clark told
them about Jim's claim that Alice's baby was his and that he
had followed Alice out to the abandoned house the night of her
disappearance. Dave said nothing at this news but Allie did.

"I can't believe that Jim could have killed her. I know he's a
big man but he's one of the gentlest men I know, and if they
were talking about marriage, he wouldn't seem to have much of a
motive. So what do you two plan to do tomorrow?"

"We're hoping to talk to Jenny, and I'd like to talk to Jane
again too. We ran out of time this morning because of Church,"
Lois replied.

They talked for a few minutes more about the events of the day
and then settled into watching the movie before heading off to
bed. Outside, the storm's intensity increased. A sharp crack of
thunder seemed to explode near the house and the darkened
upstairs hall flashed briefly with light.

***

The strident ringing of the phone awoke them all about one
o'clock in the morning. Clark could hear the urgency in Dave's
voice as he talked in the room next to his. For a moment, Clark
thought that Superman should put in an appearance but he quickly
rejected the idea. A phone call to Dave indicated that someone
needed medical skills, not brawn. Besides, he was trying to avoid
always showing up where Lois was. So he quickly threw on a tee
shirt and jeans and was standing at the top of the landing as
Dave opened his bedroom door. "What is it?"

"Another accident on that blind curve in the highway out of
town. Truck jackknifed into another and caught a couple of
passing cars. They need all the help they can get out there. Our
emergency crews are too shortstaffed for these big ones and
it'll take the state guys longer to reach the scene."

"I'll go with you," Clark said as he headed downstairs and
shoved on his black leather jacket. His voice was firm and Dave
did not think to question his decision. Dave pounded down the
stairs and grabbed his medical bag.

Allie was at the top of the stairs by this time, and had heard
the conversation. Dave looked up at her briefly, smiled and said
"See you later, honey." The two men were going out the front
door as a groggy Lois Lane joined her aunt.

"Wz going on?"

"Let's get dressed, Lois. We'll see if we can be of any help
and we can cover this for the paper."

Instantly, Lois snapped to life and ran back to her room to throw
on jeans and a sweater.

Clark drove Dave's Honda. His unique vision allowed him to see
farther ahead than normal, quickly giving him information about
the unfamiliar road so that he was able to drive at high speed.
They arrived at the site of the accident in just under fifteen
minutes. Impressed, Dave looked at the young man. "So who came
in second at the Indy?"

Clark said briefly, "Jacques Villeneuve."

Quickly the two men surveyed the horrifying scene. One truck, a
large transport, had jackknifed across the curve of the two-lane
highway into the opposite lane, barricading it. The other truck
had been coming towards it; its cab had slammed into the back of
the first vehicle and now was crumpled like an accordion. The
driver would have had no chance. Two cars had piled into the
collision and were skewed at right angles across the road. At
that moment, one of them caught fire, the flames a torch lighting
the slick blackness of the pavement.

Dave ran over to the two ambulances and the fire truck which had
just arrived while Clark raced back to the last car in the
pile-up. In spite of the rain, the car's hood was on fire.
Behind him, he heard the high pitch of sirens as the police
arrived on the scene. Everyone was absorbed in the rescue effort,
working to free people trapped in the twisted wreckage or
administering first aid to passengers. Quickly checking to see if
anyone was watching, he used his superbreath to extinguish the
fire and then ripped open the crumpled door of the driver's side
of the car. There were four young people inside and they were in
bad shape, their bloodied bodies thrust into awkward angles by
the force of the impact. Clark was checking for a pulse in the
driver when two firemen rushed to his side.

"Man, I thought this car was going to blow. The rain must have
doused it," the first fireman said as he and his partner started
to check out the passengers.

"What can I do?" Clark asked.

"Help me lift the passengers out onto the stretchers and get
them to the ambulance while Ted works on the driver. He's in
rough shape and I'd like Dr. James to see him before we move
him."

His partner looked in the back seat. "God, by the look of these
bottles back here, I'd say they'd been drinking pretty heavily.
No wonder they couldn't avoid the crash. Booze, slick roads, and
that blind curve. They had no chance."

Clark and the medic carried a stretcher bearing one of the
victims back to an ambulance. He briefly nodded to Jenny
O'Rourke and Frank Johaansen who were jogging over towards the
trucks when he noticed Lois and Allie getting out of their car.
He glanced at the two women as they walked briskly over to the
small emergency van to grab some blankets and hot tea to take to
those passengers who seemed to be in shock but nothing worse.

Lois caught up with her aunt, realizing that Allie must have done
this before. The road was dangerous here, particularly in this
type of freezing rain. After they had done what they could to
help the shock victims, Lois turned to look for Clark whom she
saw at the far end of the trail of mangled vehicles. He had been
hard to spot in his dark clothes in the black night. She walked
quickly over the loose gravel of the highway shoulder to reach
him.

Just as she was about to call out to him, she noticed a jeep
suddenly appear around the blind curve in the road, speeding
toward the pileup, no possibility of not crashing into it. And
then, in the dim light of the crescent moon, she saw something
incredible. In a blur, Clark moved in front of the speeding jeep
as if he intended to stop it. Lois felt a scream begin to rise in
the back of her throat and then it was over. Clark was standing
in front of the jeep, his hand on the hood. There had been no
collision. How could that be? She watched as Clark, in a fast
moving blur, disappeared back into the darkness.

Lois ran toward the jeep just as Matt Thomson got out. "Are you
all right?"

He looked groggy and shook his head, as if to clear it. "Yeah.
Did you see what happened? I should be dead. It was all so quick.
I was half asleep and I skidded on the pavement coming around the
bend. The next thing I know I'm racing toward this pileup and I
can't brake the car fast enough. I thought I saw a man but that
can't be possible." He shook his head again and repeated his
question, "Did you see what happened?"

"I'm not sure; it all happened so fast." But she was sure; she
was very sure about what she had seen. She put it temporarily to
the back of her mind. "You must be exhausted," she said. "You
can't get back into the car in this state. Come with me.
There's tea over at the emergency van."

They were walking toward the van when Matt saw Jenny, dishevelled
and her uniform blood spattered. She looked exhausted. He hadn't
called her before he left on his flight to Metropolis and now he
regretted it. He might never have seen her again.

Startled, she looked up at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I was on my home when ... " he couldn't finish because she
had flung her arms around him and he found himself holding her
tightly, his face buried in her wet hair.

She pulled away from him, "I can't talk right now. I'll see
you later?"

"Come to my place when you go off duty."

"Yeah," she turned back toward the wreck and he watched her
go.

Clark came up toward them as she left. Lois noticed the way the
rain had slicked his dark hair so that it clung damply to his
skull and wondered why she had never noticed his resemblance to
Superman before. <It had to be the glasses> she thought in
disgust. <and they were *new* ones and I still didn't notice ...
> She wanted to yell at him, to run away from him, to turn
herself in for stupidity. She did none of these things; instead
she controlled her feelings and said hi.

They walked with Matt back toward his jeep. Clark offered to
drive him home and Matt, still shaken from his experience,
accepted. Lois agreed to follow them in Allie's car. <Why,
Clark? You could just fly back,> she thought angrily.

As she followed behind them, she tried to get a grip on her
feelings. She felt more isolated than she had ever felt in her
life. Surprised, she realized that he had been her anchor for
nearly two years and now she felt adrift, not recognizing the
waters around her. Who was he? Which was the act, Clark or
Superman? She remembered reading somewhere about how the former
Soviet Union had planted 'moles' in Europe during the Cold War,
young agents so thoroughly immersed in the culture of their new
home that they blended in perfectly, marrying, having children,
developing solid friendships. As the U.S.S.R. had decayed from
within, these sleepers had never been 'activated' and the
agents had not wanted to return, preferring to stay with their
families, willing emotional captives of the society they had been
sent to undermine. How must their spouses and friends have felt
when they found out, she wondered?

<Like fools!> was her cross answer. <How could you not have
noticed? You were supposedly closer to Superman than anyone else.
Except Clark Kent! Ha! Where were your observation skills?
You're a trained journalist! You should have known. Why didn't
you pick up on the clues? God, there were hundreds of them! All
those ridiculous excuses! Cheesy excuses! You should turn in your
Kerths! And it's not like you've only seen Superman being
'super'. You've seen him when he's been vulnerable: when he
was blinded (now at least you know where he was that night!),
when you dug a kryptonite bullet out of his shoulder, and two
weeks ago, when he was close to death after Diana Stride had
kissed him with that 'special k' lipstick. God, he could be
naive sometimes! >

And then she remembered how he had clung to her when he'd come
out of the atomic furnace that had radiated the krptonite out of
his system. <Oh, Clark.>

Maybe those European spouses had a support group. She'd have to
check the Internet.

Then she focused on Clark. <Why haven't you told me? If you're
really serious about our relationship, you have to tell me.
Don't you trust me? Maybe those agents were right, and I'm part
of the cover. > She dismissed that thought quickly; he didn't
need a cover; Clark was the cover, the media link. <What if Clark
isn't the cover, what if Superman is the cover? Clark, who are
you??>

She was back where she had started she thought gloomily. She
noticed that they had reached the outskirts of the reserve and
were pulling into a gravel driveway leading up to a compact,
cedar house, its simple lines blending into the surrounding
woods. She followed, pulling up behind Matt's jeep. She turned
off the ignition and got out of the small car, noticing that the
rain had finally stopped.

"Thanks again for driving, Clark. It's been quite the night."
Matt said good night to both of them and then walked toward his
house.

Clark looked at Lois. "Shall we go back to the house? I don't
think there's much need for us now at the accident site."

She avoided looking at him. "That's what Allie said. She was
going to wait for Dave, but she didn't think he was going to be
much longer. He's not on call tonight so they won't need him at
the hospital."

Then the memories of the night flashed back through her mind, the
blood, and the pain, the horror of mechanical death. She looked
at him, suddenly realizing that he must have experienced such
scenes so many times before, every time he flew to a disaster.
"Clark, those people ... "

He put his arms around her, and gently kissed her hair. "I know,
sweetheart. Let's go home."

***

Although Clark slept in Monday morning, he was still the first
one up. He grabbed a quick breakfast and then went outside to
continue clearing away the fallen tree limbs. He knew he could
finish the whole task before everyone was up but then he would
have to explain how he'd done it. And, besides, what if he was
caught in the middle of playing 'super lumberjack'? He'd taken
a considerable risk last night, he thought, when he'd stopped
Matt's car, but there had been no choice. Luckily no one had
seen him, and Matt had been too dazed by the whole experience to
realize what had happened. Clark wondered if he had dozed off
while he had been driving.

Thank god for the 'suit,' he thought. It had meant he rarely
had to take risks like that anymore, hide anymore. Except hide
the truth, he thought wryly, but 'the suit' had made all the
difference; it had made it possible to help but also to have the
life he so desperately wanted. He hoped Lois would understand
that when he told her after they got back to Metropolis. Now was
the time to tell her, he thought, now that he was sure of her
feelings for him, but he was uncertain of her reaction. After
all, he had misled her ("lied, Kent," he said to himself ) for
close to two years and he knew she wouldn't react to that very
well.

She had been unusually quiet on the drive back last night,
concentrating on the road in front of her. He wondered if there
was something else though. Probably just the accident and the
need for sleep. He climbed the ladder and started sawing through
a large limb that had split from the trunk of an old maple.

About an hour later, he heard Lois walking over to where he was
working. He didn't have to turn around to know that it was her,
and he smiled at the realization. He turned around and grinned at
her happily, enjoying the sight of her long jeans clad legs as
she strode across the ground towards him, her hair tousled by the
wind.

As she approached him, Lois felt last night's conflicting
emotions resurface. She hadn't slept well, a combination of
exhaustion and blurred images of Clark and Superman chasing
across her mind. He had a lot to answer for today, she thought
with determination. She had been firmly staring at his left
shoulder as she walked, avoiding meeting his eyes, but now that
she was in front of him, she had no choice but to look up. The
warmth in his eyes was unmistakable and then the touch of his
hand in her hair as he leaned forward. The brief softness of his
lips on hers and the huskiness of his voice as he said "Good
Morning." She steeled herself.

He felt her stiffen when he kissed her. Looking down at her
expressionless face, he said, "What's wrong, Lois?"

She stared at him for a moment trying to find the right words but
failed, realizing for the first time since last night that she
wouldn't confront him about this. She needed him to tell her
what he had been keeping secret for so long. She needed to know
that he trusted her with this. "Nothing."

"Lo-is." He put his hands on her shoulders, aware of the
tenseness still there. "Is it something I've done? Because if
it is, tell me and ... "

She interrupted him, caught by the confusion in his voice. She
met his eyes again, surprised by the uncertainty she saw there.
She didn't want that. She just wanted to get *him* straight in
her head, to hear him tell her who he was, to trust her. Okay,
and to yell at him. She smiled inwardly at the thought and
relaxed.

She searched his face with curiosity and wonder, like she was
observing some new life form. (Well, she was.) He didn't look
all that much like Superman aside from his brown eyes.
Superman's features seemed more chiseled, she thought. She would
have sworn that Superman was the taller of the two. Then Clark
touched her face with his hand, caressing her cheek gently with
his thumb and, for a moment, the two men merged into one in her
mind. How could she not have known?

Bewildered and retrieving his hand, Clark watched the range of
emotions flit across her face. What was going on? This thing
between them was still so new that he wasn't quite sure what to
do. So he repeated his earlier question. "What's wrong?"

She put her hand on his chest and told him a small part of the
truth. "Bad dreams. You were in them."

He was put out by that, but he said lightly, "I thought you only
had good dreams about me, Lois. Very good dreams," he said,
alluding to their Saturday morning breakfast conversation. He was
pleased when she blushed and he felt her shoulders relax a bit
more. She gave him a small smile.

"I guess it was what happened last night. Everything seemed to
run together in my mind." She changed the subject. "I'm
actually here on a mission. I've been sent to bring you into
brunch; Allie has a new pancake recipe that she wants to try out
on you."

She took his hand and pulled him toward the house.

***

Early that afternoon, Lois and Clark walked into the Legatteville
police station and found Jenny O'Rourke at work. Her desk was
littered with paper in a way which Lois knew indicated a highly
productive mind. At the moment, Jenny was focused on her computer
screen. She waved the two into wooden chairs beside her desk
while she finished the item she was working on. Then she turned
and greeted them cheerfully.

"Let's go into the conference room so we can talk more
privately." She was inclined to view these two more charitably
than the last time they had been in the station, aware of their
help last night at the accident scene. And, right now, she felt
some sympathy for Lois Lane given the conversation she had had
with Dave James about half an hour earlier.

She had barely got settled at her desk, still feeling the affects
of a less than full night of sleep, when he had walked into the
office and over to her desk. She had been hoping for a low-key
day with time to complete the paper work after last night's
horror. She had been in a good mood, smiling at the memory of her
sleepy fiance reaching out for her as she had climbed out of his
bed about an hour earlier. He was probably still asleep.

At first she had assumed that Dr. James was there in connection
with last night's accident, but then she had noticed that he
looked nervous as he asked for Frank Johaansen. Given what he
said to her next, she was not surprised that he would have
preferred to talk to Frank. To his credit, Dr. James had accepted
her instead without comment.

Jenny closed the door to the conference room and the three sat
down at a plain wooden table in the centre of the small room.

"We appreciate your uncle's coming in, Lois. It took guts to do
that. If, in fact, he wasn't in the country at the time we can
probably keep this information confidential. Still, if it did
provide a motive for the crime, for someone to kill her because
she was pregnant, it could likely come out in court."

Lois felt her stomach tense at this. She cared for her uncle very
much. Dave was clearly not involved in Alice's death but his
reputation would be tarnished if all this did come out, and like
the ancient Romans, he cared about his reputation. It mattered to
him, it mattered to Allie, and it mattered in this town. "Does
that mean you have some idea of who may have committed the
crime?"

Jenny sighed. "None, but I don't intend to fail on this, Lois.
We're under a lot of pressure from reserve leaders to find the
truth. We've be accused too often of being less than interested
in protecting Native interests in the past." Her mobile face
took on an expression that they had last seen on Matt's face in
the diner. "Maybe some of it deserved. I want to show that's
over."

She looked at the two reporters directly for a moment. "Look,
this is off the record. Jane's locket is a problem. She says she
missed the locket about two weeks before the murder. How did it
get to the grave site? Jane denies being at the Lemieux place
that night, as does Senator Gates, who was her date that night.
Anyway, it's not likely that Jane would have killed her. That
the girls had been strong friends since childhood seems to be a
common memory around here. And the physical evidence doesn't
support it. Jane was shorter than Alice, and probably about
twenty pounds lighter. Marks on the neck vertebrae and collarbone
indicate strong pressure was applied to the neck by someone who
must have been stronger than Jane, probably male, and dragging
the body down the hill and then digging that grave would have
been hard for Jane, not impossible, but hard."

"Do you know anything more about the earrings?" Clark asked.

"No, we're trying to trace them, but it's a real shot in the
dark."

"The design is unusual and they were probably expensive," Lois
noted.

"Yeah. That's what makes me hope we can trace them. There's a
jeweller's mark on the one that you two discovered, so we owe
you. I'll let you know if we get anything."

"What about Jim Thomson? "

"I know." Jenny's face turned grim. This angle was too close
to her and she hoped desperately that Jim was not involved, but
if he was, it had to be known, if only to give Mary Cardinal some
peace of mind. "I didn't know they were engaged. Matt told me
yesterday when I went out to talk to Mary again. We both thought
that meant that Jim was likely to be the father of Alice's baby,
but your uncle's confession this morning challenges that."

"We talked to both Jim and Mrs. Cardinal last night. Jim said he
was the father," Clark commented.

"What? Well they can't both be the father," Jenny said,
crossly. "Usually men deny that they had anything to do with it
when unmarried girls get pregnant." She noticed Clark's look of
mild offence and continued in a perfunctory manner, "Sorry,
Clark." Then, "If Jim found out that your uncle was the father,
he could have killed her in a jealous rage. Some men take out
their anger on the nearest target. The pathologist's report
suggests that manslaughter, rather than premeditated murder, was
what happened. The marks on the vertebrae show enough pressure to
suggest strangulation, but death was likely caused by the injury
to the back of the skull. It suggests that she fell against a
sharp edge, perhaps a table, rather than a deliberate blow. They
were interrupted by a knock on the conference room door. A deputy
opened the door, looked in and said, "Sorry to interrupt you,
Jenny. Phone call, he says it's important."

"Thanks for your time, Jenny." Clark stood up as Jenny left the
room. She walked the short distance to her desk and picked up the
phone. She motioned for Lois and Clark to stop as they were
leaving the room.

Jenny hung up the phone a moment later. "That was JIm Thomson.
He wants to talk to me. He'll be in later this afternoon about
five o'clock."

***

It took about fifteen minutes to walk to Jane Malenkov's from
the police station. As they walked, Clark told her about driving
Matt home the night before. "He was really exhausted after the
flight, and he thinks he may have dozed off at the wheel. He was
pretty disgusted with himself; I get the feeling he doesn't like
to be out of control."

<Like you, Clark?> she wondered. < Or is it Superman who's
always in control?> She gave him a sidelong, curious glance.
Suddenly she realized that one of the things she loved about him
was his sense of fun, his teasing. Was that part of 'the act'?
She tried to remember if Superman had a sense of humour. < May-be
> she thought, but she wasn't sure.

Clark had been explaining more about his drive with Matt when she
realized she had no idea what he was saying. "What?"

He turned to her and said, "Yeah, I thought that was
interesting, too."

"No, Clark. I wasn't listening."

"What? I thought you hung on my every word," he said in mock
reproach, remembering how easily she used to ignore him.

"Ha! In your dreams, Kent!" Whoever he was, it had to be clear
that he was not in control of her.

"It's not my words that interest you in my dreams, Lois."

"Clark!" her face turned red and he grinned impudently at her.
She couldn't believe it but she giggled.

"Can we get back to what you were saying that was so important,
now, please."

"Yes, ma'am. Matt flies Gates back and forth between here and
Metropolis regularly. Last night, during the flight, they talked
about Alice's death and Matt asked him what he remembered about
that night and about Alice."

"So, what did he say?"

"Well, Gates said that Alice had a 'reputation' for sleeping
around and that Jim often seemed jealous. He mentioned the
argument and then wondered if maybe Jim continued it later at the
old farmhouse."

"Oh no! He didn't actually say that he thought Jim killed
her?"

"No, but the suggestion was enough. Matt was pretty upset. I
think his preoccupation with that and tiredness led to his loss
of control at the wheel. Lucky he, ah, regained control in
time," Clark finished lamely.

<Yeah, right,> Lois thought, but she said, "That doesn't seem
to fit Jim's personality somehow, but maybe he's mellowed over
the years."

"Maybe. Lois, do you remember Mary Cardinal saying that she felt
that Jim had been there when Alice was dead?"

"Yes, but, Clark, you can't take that seriously. People can't
know things like that. Occasionally it may seem like they do, but
it's just coincidence."

"According to Matt, she has special abilities."

Remembering that strange moment when Alice had appealed to
Clark's strength, Lois was momentarily taken aback. "What do
*you* think, Clark?"

"I think maybe Mary Cardinal was right," he said softly.

"Clark!" she was surprised, but given her recent discovery
about Clark she thought <Who knew? Psychics, aliens, and Kansas
farmboys! So much for scientific skepticism!> She sighed and
refocused on the issue at hand. "Do you think Matt believes that
Jim was there, too?"

"I think he's afraid of that. He said he was going to talk to
him today."

When they arrived at Jane's about ten minutes later, she was
outside, just returning from a walk. Unexpectedly, the afternoon
had turned warmer than normal for that time of year and everyone
seemed to have found some excuse to be outside, walking dogs,
playing road hockey, doing yard work, or just walking. She
greeted them and asked them inside where once again they found
themselves having tea in her comfortable living room.

Noticing again the framed photos on the mantel and on one of the
polished side tables, Clark asked, "Are these pictures of your
family?"

"Yes," she smiled, her eyes lighting with pleasure as she
looked across at them. "My son, Douglas, and my daughters ,
Elaine and Alex. That's my first grandchild, Alex's baby." She
paused for a moment and then said, "I've been expecting to see
you two again. I know there are questions that you didn't ask me
on Sunday."

"If you don't mind," Lois said, noticing that Jane's pleasure
as she had spoken of her children vanished. Now she appeared
almost resigned to the fact that she must face more questions.
Lois was puzzled by this; surely Jane would want to know the
truth about what happened to her friend. "We'd like to ask you
about that last night."

"There's not much to say really. The dance was no different
from the others we had gone to that summer. I don't even
remember the name of the band that played that night."

"Did Jim and Alice quarrel?" Clark asked.

"No, not really. Jim was pretty quiet I remember."

"Was that unusual?" Lois asked.

"Yes. I remember we went to the ladies room when we first
arrived at the Pavilion. Tony had a convertible and the first
thing we always did when we arrived anywhere was to repair the
damage to our windblown hair. Jane told me then that she was
going to marry Jim, probably in a week or so, and that she was
pregnant. That's why I was surprised that Jim was so quiet that
evening. He seemed preoccupied, in fact. I thought that he'd be
really happy. He was obviously in love with her."

"Maybe he sensed that she didn't really love him." Clark
remembered the bleakness he had felt when Lois had accepted
Luthor's proposal. In that one moment, he had felt like
everything he'd hoped for had been blown away, that he had lost
everything. He had never felt more alone in his life.

"I don't know."

"You said on Sunday that you didn't think that Jim was the
father of her baby," Lois said, "but yesterday, he told Mary
Cardinal that he was."

"I must have been mistaken then."

"Do you have any idea who gave her the earrings she was wearing
that night? They were quite unusual."

"No. The first time she wore them was the night we graduated
from high school. I admired them and asked her who gave them to
her but she said it was a secret."

"But you must have speculated. Not knowing that kind of thing
about my best friend would have driven me nuts when I was a
teenager," Lois said.

Clark smiled slightly. It would still drive her nuts he thought.

Jane paused and then spoke slowly and softly, "Alice had been my
best friend ever since we were children. But that spring, I
noticed we stopped sharing everything. I knew she was seeing
someone. She had always told me about her lovers, even about your
uncle, Lois, but this time she didn't. I assumed he was a
married man and I was worried for her."

"That last night, what happened after you left the dance?"

"Usually, we went to Max's for something to eat; but that night
we didn't. Jim took Alice home."

"What about you and Tony?" Clark asked.

Jane's face flushed for a moment and then she said, "He brought
me home." She stretched her arm out to place her teacup on the
table. "I don't think there's anything more to tell you. "

Clark took his cue and stood up, thanking her for talking to them
about what was clearly a painful time in her life.

Just as they'd stepped onto the front porch, Lois remembered.
She turned and asked, "Jane, you said you lost your locket about
two weeks before that last dance, but you were wearing it in that
last picture you showed us on Sunday."

Lois saw Jane's face freeze for a second and then she smiled.
"Oh. I must have been mistaken about when I lost it. It was all
such a long time ago."

***

"Clark, I don't think she's telling the complete truth." They
were walking back through town toward the police station where
they had left the car.

"I don't either, but whether she's lying about something or
just withholding information about something, I'm not sure."

"I wish we had asked the Senator who he thought Alice was seeing
in the spring. Clark, do men know that sort of thing about other
men? I mean, they do boast about their conquests."

"What? Lois, where do you get your ideas from?"

She looked at him as if he were galactically stupid. "I've
heard the morning talk around the coffee machine, Clark."

"And you believed it?"

"Okay. Okay. Not all men, but I think the kind of guy that Tony
Gates and his friends would have been."

"Sweeping generalization, Lois. Anyway, judging from what Jane
said, I'd say that women do their fair share of talking. Alice
doesn't seem to have held back much."

"That's what's bothering me. Why would she all of a sudden not
tell Jane."

"Maybe she thought it would upset her."

"Why? It doesn't seem to have been an issue before."

"Maybe because she thought that Jane ... "

"would be upset ... "

"if she knew who it was."

Then they stopped, looked at each other and said, "Tony
Gates."

"Lois, what if he's the father of the baby? What if they met
later that night at the Lemieux place and they quarrelled? Let's
go back and ask Jane if she suspected anything." He turned in
the street and started to head back toward Jane's.

Lois took his arm and stopped him. "Wait a minute, Clark. I
don't think Jane's going to tell us anything more right now.
Remember, her locket was found there so it seems likely she was
there that night."

"You're right. Lois, let's focus on the earrings instead.
Gates probably gave them to Alice. He would have had the money
for a gift like that."

"Jenny's trying to trace them but maybe we might have better
luck if we go at it backwards, assuming that Gates did give her
the earrings. Where would he have been most likely to get them?
They were probably a special design and ordered some time before
June. I say we go find a phone book and see if there a
jeweller's in St.Urho's where the Senator went to school." She
strode off vigorously toward the library at the far end of the
main street, assuming that Clark would follow. He did.

He grinned at her as he caught up and said, "I sometimes wonder
who's in charge here."

She punched him absently in the arm as they walked. "No need to
wonder. It's me."

"Ah, I remember. 'Top Banana.'"

She giggled. "Yes." Then she turned to look at him and
remembered again what she had learned last night and her face
sobered.

He was puzzled by the change in her expression. "What's
wrong?"

"Nothing," she said and forced a smile. "There's the library
over there."

It didn't take long to check the 'Yellow Pages' for both St.
Urho's and Legatteville. There was one jeweller in St. Urho's
which, according to its small ad in the 'yellow pages' had been
a family-owned business for "over fifty years." Their ad stated
that they were open until six p.m. It would take them a little
under an hour to get there so they should be able to make it well
before closing time. Before they headed off, they stopped by the
police station and asked Jenny to print a copy of the photo of
the earring that she had sent out earlier in her attempt to trace
its origins. After they had explained what they were doing, Jenny
told them that she had checked the local shop in Legatteville but
had come up empty. As she handed them the print she said, "I
wish you luck. You know, this case is turning into a real mess.
If Gates is involved, we're in for a rough ride." Then she went
back to her paperwork.

***

As they drove out along the road past the diner, Lois's mind
returned to the events of the previous evening. As a reporter,
she had seen violent death a few times and the horror had always
been hard to shake. How many times had Clark had to deal with
that in the last two years, she wondered.

"Clark, what was it like for you growing up in Smallville?" she
asked.

He smiled. "Pretty good. Probably a little different from your
life in Metropolis, but probably a lot the same."

"I don't think so. There was no 4-H club in Metropolis," she
laughed.

"Your loss, Lois." He grinned. "When I was ten, my dad gave me
a calf to raise on my own. We won second prize that fall at the
fair. We've always kept a few dairy cows even though there's
not much money in that. I guess it's because my mom says its not
a proper farm unless it has cows. There'll be a couple of calves
born this spring. I'll take you to see them."

"I'd like that, Clark. Your Mom can show me the pictures of you
and your prize-winning calf."

"On second thought, maybe we won't go. You and my mom and the
family photos is a scary thought."

She laughed. "We should definitely go! I'll show you the
picture of me and my prize if you show me yours."

"Deal! What'd you win yours for?"

"Science fair, grade five, first prize, not second, Mr. Kent!"

He couldn't let her get away with that. "Not much competition
that year, I guess."

"My project was excellent, Clark Kent, and *I* did it without
the help of my father."

"He must have been proud of you."

"He never knew. I tried telling him about it but before I could
tell him about the prize, he had to leave for some reason. He did
that a lot." She stopped talking, the memory a painful one.

<So that's why she's so upset when I keep disappearing on her,>
Clark thought. He was appalled. He thought of his own parents,
always there for him, a child who had come out of nowhere, a
child who must at times have been frightening. He had never been
unsure of their love for him. "I'll take you home in the
spring, Lois," his voice was soft, a promise.

Lois recognized the sympathy in his tone, and, while she
appreciated it, her pride kicked in. She got a grip on her
emotions and said, "Are you sure it's safe? I meant it about
your mom and the photos. You think she's on your side, but
she's already made the offer. Your childhood will be an open
book. I'll know all your secrets." She wondered how he was
reacting to that comment.

He smiled. "I'll look forward to it, Lois."

They continued to talk about their childhood and adolescence
until they got to St. Urho. As they talked Lois thought, not for
the first time, that he had been very fortunate in his parents,
that he had had a happy childhood. And as Lois cracked flippant
oneliners, Clark thought, once again that she had not had a very
happy childhood.

They drove past St. Urho's Academy for Young Men on the way into
town. The Academy was reputed to be one of the finest private
schools in the country, attracting the sons of elite families
across the country. Surrounded by forest, its campus was
impressive with large blackened log buildings strung out along
the green shore of a vast, dark lake. It was here that Tony Gates
had spent his youth, acquiring the knowledge, the skills, and the
contacts of the wealthy.

When they got to town, they headed straight for Smith's
Jewellers. The store was a small one by Metropolis standards but
its wooden display cases with their simply arranged displays held
items of high quality.

An attractive woman in her late thirties approached them. "Can I
help you?"

"I hope so," Clark said as he explained who he and Lois were
and what they had come for while Lois pulled the picture out of
her purse. "We're trying to find out who bought this. It was
probably bought in 1957, so we know we're taking quite a long
shot here."

The woman looked at the picture carefully. "It's quite
beautiful. The craftsmanship is of a very high quality. Look at
how intricately the bodies of the snakes twist around each
other."

"Do you recognize it?" Lois asked.

"No, but I'll ask my father-in-law," she said as she walked
toward the back of the shop. "His father was the one who began
this business. Pop learned the trade from him. He's quite good,
not just a craftsman, but an artist."

They walked into a small, brightly lit work room where an old man
was carefully spreading out a small array of opals. He looked up
as they entered. "What do you think?" he asked. "Which are the
best ones? Which ones will enhance their mates and which ones
should we keep for another time? Which colour of gold will be
best for them?" He touched one of the opals lovingly. Lois was
instantly charmed. Her eyes smiled as she introduced herself and
then Clark.

"Does this look familiar to you, Mr.Smith?" Clark said as he
showed him the picture.

The old man raised his eyebrows. "Yes," his voice was pleased.
"My father designed that using an old Ojibway myth for
inspiration. My mother was Ojibway and my father often
incorporated native symbols into his designs. The results were
quite beautiful, quite powerful. I remember this one because he
used it in a necklace and in bracelets too. He gave it to me to
actually make, one of the first important sets that I did."

"Do you remember who bought it?" Lois asked hopefully.

"No, but likely we sold it to someone connected with the
Academy. They've always been our major customers for more
expensive pieces of jewelry like this. I can probably find out
for you though." His voice was pleased and he looked at his
daughter-in-law with a gentle look of triumph. "It is important
to keep old records, not to hastily discard them." It sounded
like one of those important rules by which one lives life.

His daughter-in-law grinned good naturedly; she too had her
rules. "Pop's a pack rat. He's got the ledgers going back for
the full life of the business. Purchase orders, invoices,
receipts, everything. I can understand keeping records of the
designs. Those I think we can still use, but the other stuff?"
She shrugged her shoulders.

"But you see, now it is necessary to have this information." He
led them back to a tiny room, more a large closet than a room.
"This is where my records have been banished. The 1950's I
think," he said as he reached toward the leather bound ledger
books. "What year?"

"1957. Probably in the spring. They were given as a present in
June of that year."

Mr. Smith pulled down one of the dark brown ledgers and opened it
on the table. "See , in those days we wrote out all records of
sales," he pointed to the neat handwritten entries. "This will
take a bit of time to go through, but if you give me a day I'll
find the information for you."

"If you don't object, we could do that for you."

"That would be fine. Here's how we set these records up." He
showed them how the entries had been made, let them know that he
planned to stay until seven that night, and then left them on
their own.

An hour and a half later, they found it. Clark put his finger
under the entry. "This is it, Lois. June 2, 1957. 'one pair of
gold earrings, intertwined snakes, set with garnets'. -- bought
by Anthony T. Gates'."

'Yes!"

***

"That doesn't put Gates at the farmhouse when Alice was
killed," Clark said as they walked out of Smith's. "There's
absolutely no evidence to identify anyone who was there except
Alice, and Jane Malenkov."

"But the coroner's report suggests that someone else was there
too. So who is most likely to have been there with Jane? Tony
Gates. Maybe they didn't go directly back to Jane's after the
dance. Remember what my uncle said."

"So they went to the Lemieux place to be alone."

"Why wouldn't they just go to a hotel?"

"Small town, Lois. Somebody was likely to recognize one of them,
more likely Gates."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that. You know, sometimes your
Smallville background comes in handy, Clark. Anyway, why would
Alice go there?"

"Maybe she suspected that Jane and Tony had gone there and
wanted to confront him."

"Or maybe it was Jane who was the latecomer and interrupted
Alice and Tony?"

"And Jim followed Alice. The question is, when did he get there?
Mary Cardinal said she felt he was in the room when Alice was
dead," Clark said thoughtfully.

"But not when she was dying. So he got there afterward. But,
Clark, we can't go on Mrs. Cardinal's intuition."

"I know," but he was still inclined to accept it; he had no
doubt that she was an extraordinary woman. Maybe it was Jim
Thomson's emotional state that had communicated the information
to Mary. Maybe she was empathic. Afterall, she had sensed
something about him, and about his connection with Lois.

They had reached the small restaurant recommended by the
jeweller's daughter-in-law. Lois looked at it suspiciously and
then said, "Looks O.K." and they went in. Clark automatically
placed his hand on the small of her back as they followed the
waiter to a table along one of the walls of the dimly lit room.
There were only a few people there, probably typical for a Monday
night.

Once they were seated, they both looked around the room
appreciatively. Old brick walls and the dark planks of the wooden
floor gave the room an aura of austere comfort. A few antique
posters of old sci-fi movies like 'Metropolis' hung on two of
the walls across from them. The menus had been inserted in old
copies of science fiction books, all written before 1950.
Portraits of their authors hung on a third wall; large
photographs of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, A. Merritt, Aldous
Huxley, a young John Wyndham, among others. Lois's menu had been
inserted in an old copy of 'Utopia' while Clark's was in a one
of the ubiquitous 'Classic Editions' of 'Frankenstein.'

After the waiter had taken their order, he picked up their menus.
"Some of our customers think the book titles that their menus
are in are significant, you know, like tea leaves." He looked at
their books and said to Lois, "You must be the future in some
way," and then he looked at Clark's and just said, "Oh." Then
he said to Lois, "I'd be careful about going home with him. He
doesn't look like a freak, but who knows ... " he let his voice
trail dramatically.

Lois laughed and then looked at Clark. He wasn't laughing; his
face looked slightly haunted. < Oh no, Clark. Is this what
you've been afraid of?> She reached across the table to touch
his hand. "He's right. He somehow knows that you're a farmboy
from Smallville," she said teasingly and then with mock
importance, "and that I'm your future."

It worked. He took her hand and his face cleared. "I hope so."
His voice was low with emotion, still not quite back to normal.

"Well," her voice a slow drawl, "you *will* have to bring me
flowers and chocolates."

"I can do that." He was recovering. "But I'm shocked, Lois. I
didn't know you could be bought."

She grinned. <Victory> she thought. "Yes, and I want you to know
I don't come cheap, Clark Kent. I have rigorous standards about
everything, especially chocolate."

"I'll have to talk to Perry about a raise; otherwise, I could
be in big trouble here."

At that point, they were interrupted by the waiter who brought
them drinks and salads. Their conversation turned to other
things, to which science fiction writers were their favorites, to
small towns vs. large cities, to each other.

After they left the restaurant, they walked slowly back to where
their car was parked, holding hands, not saying much, enjoying
being with each other. Clark opened the door on the passenger
side for her and then, just as she started to get in, he stopped
her. He touched her hair, then bent to kiss her lightly. "I love
you, Lois Lane."

"I love you, too, Clark Kent." And she did; she just had to
figure out who he was.

***

Dave gave them the bad news when they got back. "Jim Thomson is
dead. He was driving to town when he lost control of his car. It
spun off that back road coming out of the reserve and he crashed
into the bank of granite that lines the road at that spot. He
died instantly."

"Oh god," Lois said and she looked at Clark, stricken.

"How is Matt Thomson?" Clark asked.

"Upset, controlling it; but his father took it hard. He was the
first person to reach the accident. I was at the hospital when
they brought the body in. Jenny O'Rourke came shortly after.
Apparently Jim had been driving in to town to see her about
something."

"Do they have any idea why he lost control?"

"No, but he was driving west and the brightness of the setting
sun could have blinded him momentarily so that he misjudged the
curve. The police are checking the car for any mechanical
problems. It's an old model, at the stage where parts tend to
fail suddenly."

"I thought Jim was a pretty good mechanic from what Matt said
when he was talking about their airline," Clark said.

"Yeah, he does have that reputation. Years ago, when the airline
was just one seaplane and summer business, Jim used to work in
town at the garage at the truck stop. One of the best mechanics
I've ever seen, but that doesn't mean it extended to his own
cars. He's always driven something that looks like it's about
to fall apart. I've known a few doctors who are like that; great
at giving advice but they still smoke or eat french fries
regularly."

"Could he have been forced off the road?" Lois asked.

"I don't know too much about what happened, but there was no
evidence of another car being there. I expect the police will
look for scrapes or paint that suggests contact. The coroner is
doing an autopsy to check for any medical reason that could
account for the accident. I do know Jim was taking medication for
heart problems."

"This is too much of a coincidence, Clark," Lois said.

Clark headed for the kitchen. "I know. I'm going to call
Jenny." When he reached the station, the receptionist told him
that she was off duty but refused to give him her home number.
Standard policy, but she was listed in the phone book, so Clark
tried her home but was frustrated when all he got was her
answering machine. He left a message to contact him and then hung
up.

"Perhaps she's at Matt's," Lois suggested.

Clark was able to get hold of Matt and, after talking with him
for a minute about his uncle, he asked for Jenny and told her
about what he and Lois had found at Smith's. He could hear her
sigh on the other end.

"Somehow I'm not surprised. Look, I know it's getting late,
but could you two come out here? Mary Cardinal seems to think
that it's really important to talk to you. Whatever she has to
say, she won't speak to me until you two are present." Clark
noticed that her voice had an edge of resentment as she made the
last comment.

After he hung up, Clark headed back to the living room and looked
at Lois, curled up comfortably in a big arm chair and gazing
dreamily at the flames in the fireplace. He felt a sudden
protective urge and wanted to leave her where she was. Then
again, she would kill him if he did that. He reached for her
hand. "Come on, Ms. Lane we're going back out."

They drove to the reserve using the back road on which the
accident had occurred, wanting to check out the site for evidence
of a second car. They were taking a chance that the scene had
been marked by the police who would probably want to inspect it
out in daylight tomorrow. When they got to the spot, they got out
of the car, and walked along the road in the darkness.

Clark stood behind her and carefully looked over the area where
the police had roped off the road. He could see the marks made by
the tires as they cut across the gravel shoulder before the car
hit the granite. His x-ray vision picked up traces of blue paint
on the rock, probably from Jim's car.

"It's unlikely there were any witnesses out on this back road.
I expect the police will do their best to find any if there
were," he said.

"Clark, this is the road I took when I first came out here. I
kinda got lost and wound up here without realizing I'd taken the
wrong turn. It's a little longer than the highway. I passed
Senator Gates driving in the opposite direction although I'm
fairly sure he didn't notice me. He was going pretty fast. I was
quite surprised; he was the last person in the world I would have
expected to see here."

"You never told me that."

"To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten. I think that once I
learned of his connections here, I just assumed that he'd gone
out to pay his respects to Mrs. Cardinal the day they found the
remains of Alice's body. I wonder if he talked to Jim Thomson
that day too."

Clark was still mentally reconstructing the accident. "Traffic
on this road is pretty local I would think, just in and out of
the reserve. Either someone tried to pass Jim, coming from
behind, and came too close or someone coming from the opposite
direction deliberately forced him off the road. The granite along
the road gives very little room for escape once you hit the
shoulder and, if you're going at even a moderate speed, I don't
expect you'd have much control."

"Clark, if someone intended to force Jim off the road, I think
the driver might stop to check what happened."

"You know, Ms. Lane, sometimes you are very good," he said
softly. Still behind her, he directed his x-ray vision some yards
farther down the side of the road and, sure enough, saw fresh
tire marks in the damp ground of the shoulder. He wondered if the
police had checked there. Lois followed him as he walked toward
the spot. Oddly, she did not register any surprise when he found
the treadmarks. He wondered why.

She was proud of her restraint. <Two can play this game > she
thought smugly. Kneeling, she looked at the angle of the tire
marks. "What do you think, Clark? Do you think that the angle
indicated the driver was coming >from the middle of the road
rather than from this lane?"

"Maybe," he said thoughtfully. "The indentations are a little
deeper than what ours are, suggesting that he pulled over
quickly." He stood up and let his eyes sweep the path from this
spot to the rock where the car had crashed but he saw nothing
unusual.

"Clark, where do you think he went next? Not likely into the
village. If he turned around, he could get out to the highway or
he could take that turn just before the highway."

"Which goes to the Gates' summer place."

"Yeah. Let's double back and follow it."

After about ten minutes of driving, they pulled up into the
parking area. The only other car there was a two-year old, bottom
of the line Chev. Lois said, as they got out of their car, "Who
do you think we'll find home?"

"Gates is in Metropolis, so who knows. Lois, I'll check the
garage while you see who's home." Clark walked over to the
closed door of the garage and did a quick interior scan: no
vehicles inside. He turned to join Lois as she talked to an older
woman at the front door of the house, overhearing her say to Lois
that she would let the Senator know that they had stopped by. The
door closed and the two returned to the car.

"Everyone's gone back to the city," Lois said. "Notice
anything around the garage?"

"Nothing. It's empty," and then realized his mistake.

"Don't tell me you broke into the garage, Clark!" She wasn't
going to let him off this time.

"Ah ... no ... there's a window on the other side. You can't
see it from here." He started the ignition, being careful not to
look at her as he spoke.

"Oh," Lois grinned in the darkness.

It wasn't long before they got to Matt's. When they got there,
Lois explained why they had taken so long, and Jenny immediately
put in a call to the station to let them know about the tire
marks. "They'll have someone there as soon as possible to check
it out." She reached for her jacket. "Let's go over to
Mary's."

When they were all seated around the fireplace, Mary Cardinal
began to speak. "Jenny," her brown eyes apologetic as she
looked at the young woman, "I did not speak before because I
only wanted to do this once and I wanted this young man and woman
here when I did." Her dark eyes shifted briefly to Lois and
Clark. "Jim came to see me before he left this afternoon to tell
me what he was about to do. He said that he wanted me to know
first before he went to the police."

"After the dance that night, Alice told him that she did not
think she could marry him afterall, that it was unfair to him.
Before she had not told him who her baby's father was because
she thought it would be better if no one knew, but that night she
told him. Tony Gates was the father. She had told him when she
had first found out but his only reaction had been to offer to
help her get an abortion. My daughter couldn't do that; she
thought that all life was sacred."

"And so Jim and Alice were arguing about the broken engagement
when he brought her home," Jenny said sadly.

"Yes. Jim came back to the house later but our car was gone and
he guessed that Alice had gone to confront either Jane or Tony.
The Lemieux place is on the way to town and when he passed it, he
noticed our car there. When he entered the house, Alice was
already dead." Her voice broke and a few tears slipped over the
wrinkled surface of her skin. "She was lying on the floor and
there was blood around her head. Tony was bending over her body
and Jane was standing back, hysterical."

"So Gates killed her," Clark said.

"Yes. He said it was an accident. Alice had confronted him and
started pounding on his chest and then he ... " she couldn't
finish , her face bleak, reliving the images she had formed when
Jim first told her the story.

"Mary." Matt's voice was compassionate as he took the old
woman's hand.

"Why didn't Jim go to the police?" Lois asked.

"I think because of Jane. She pleaded with him not to. It would
ruin everything for them and so Jim agreed. They buried Alice and
agreed that they would never mention it to anyone."

"So that's why he invested in our business, why it has always
been so easy to get loans." Matt's voice was angry, bitter.
"Hush money."

"Did Gates know that Jim was planning on going to the police
this afternoon?" Clark asked.

"I don't know. Jim told me that he had called Jane and told her
that it was time to bring everything out in the open. She asked
him not to but he said he couldn't live with the secret any
longer."

Lois gasped. "I can't believe that Jane would force Jim's car
off the road."

Mary Cardinal agreed. "No, I don't think she could."

"I wonder if she contacted Gates," Clark mused.

Jenny walked over to Mary and hugged her. "I'm going back to
town. I want to start tracking a few of these things before any
more time passes. I'll come by tomorrow, Mary."

As they walked to the front door, Matt said, "I'll stay here
for awhile." He looked at Jenny. "You'll come back when
you're finished?"

"Uh huh." Jenny kissed his cheek briefly and then opened the
front door.

Mary took Lois's hand and then Clark's. "Thank you. It is
better to know the truth."

Outside, as the three of them walked back to Matt's, Lois asked,
"Do you think you'll be able to charge Gates?"

"It's not a sure thing by a long shot. What we've got is
circumstantial and Mary's account will be labelled as hearsay
and irrelevant. If Jane corroborates we'd stand a better chance.
I'll question Gates, but I don't expect much. If we find that
Jim was forced off the road and then a connection between that
car and Gates, we'd have a stronger case."

"A lot of if's," Clark said.

"Yeah."

***

Lois phoned Perry White the next morning to tell him that they
were taking the train late that afternoon to Metropolis. For the
rest of the morning they worked on their article on the police
and the Native community. They used Alice's case to symbolize
what had happened in the past and how much had changed over the
last forty years, but justice had still not been done in Alice's
case. Allie would run the article in Saturday's edition and Lois
hoped that Perry would run it on the same day in the Daily
Planet.

Jenny dropped by after lunch, shortly before their train was to
leave. Although she felt she owed it to them to let them know
what the police had found, she was talking off the record. Until
any charges were laid, confidentiality had to be maintained. She
didn't have much to tell them anyway. Forensics had found enough
evidence to be certain that Jim's car had been forced off the
road but finding the car that had been used was going to be next
to impossible. They'd checked at the Gates compound with no
luck. Gates' staff had been authorized to give the police all
they wanted, which to Lois was very suspicious.

Jane had been at a meeting of the Library Purchasing Committee
between three and five o'clock. Five of the most respectable
people in town could vouch for her presence. In fact, she'd had
lunch with two of them earlier. Jane had maintained that Tony had
brought her straight home that night in August. As for the
locket, Jane had gone a few more times to the Lemieux place with
her friends. She had probably lost it as they were tramping
about. Both the police and the two reporters were nowhere.

"So he gets away with it," Lois said annoyed.

"Probably, but thanks for your help, anyway." Jenny walked down
the steps of the porch and then turned at the bottom. "Have a
good trip back, you two. If you're not busy next month, maybe
you'd like to come to our wedding," and she beamed happily.

"We'd love to," Clark said warmly. Then they both waved as
Jenny drove off in one of Leagatteville's three police
cruisers.

"Well at least there's one good thing that's happened," Lois
sighed as she watched Jenny's car. Clark was standing behind
her, and wrapping his arms around her, he briefly bent his head
to kiss the side of her neck. "Two good things, Lois." She
leaned back into him for a moment and then pulled away. Turning
around, she faced him and smiled crookedly. "So, let's get
ready to catch that train."

THE END