Superman Movieverse Forum

Title: Family Reunion
Author: Mr. Beeto
Rating: PG-13
Beta: htbthomas and Shado Librarian
Summary: AU Twist on Donner/Singer Movieverse: Tie the three films together into a cohesive whole, and provide a more credible and interesting reason for Superman to have returned to Krypton.

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Author’s Notes:
Thanks again to the betas, htbthomas and Shado Librarian, a.k.a. dandello.

Chapter 21 – An Unnatural Death

Friday, September 29, 2006 8:30AM EDT
Richard did his best to mask his displeasure as he walked into the Daily Planet building with his fiancée.  They’d had an uneasy truce since the previous night’s argument and an awkward silence had settled in between them.  She was suddenly unfamiliar to him as he struggled to separate which of his perceptions of her were real, and which were merely projections of his desires.  It had consumed his thoughts through the sleepless night, spent alone in their bed while Lois slept on the living room couch.

He was having similar difficulty reconciling the newly revealed truth about Jason, though the little boy wasn’t nearly as complicated as his mother.  Richard still considered him his son and Jason had simply accepted that he now had two daddies:  Daddy and Daddy Clark – Richard was still Daddy.  But for how long? Richard wondered.  The way things have been going with Lois…  She had effectively vetoed nearly every aspiration he had for their relationship, stubbornly keeping their lives together segregated for the most part.  He was particularly bothered by her insistence that she wasn’t having any more kids.  It didn’t reconcile well with his dreams of having a large family.  Doesn’t look like very much will end up the way I thought it would be, he thought.

The ding of the elevator announced their floor, and the couple walked to their respective desks.  Richard noticed the din of the bullpen suddenly diminished and felt his colleagues’ eyes upon him.  So the rumors have already started, he concluded.  He kept his head down as he walked to his office, only looking up briefly to find Kent’s desk conveniently empty.

He was barely through the door of his office when Perry was in the office behind him.  “Rough night?” his uncle asked gruffly.

“Whatever gives you that idea?” Richard asked sarcastically.

“Despite what people around here may think, I haven’t lost my reporter’s instincts,” Perry answered.  He sat down on Richard’s guest chair, propping one foot against the desk as he continued, “We’re going to need to put some new ground rules in place to keep your little situation here from getting out of hand.”

“What situation would that be?” Richard inquired irritably.

“The one where you’re living with Kent’s ex-girlfriend and son,” Perry explained.  “Everyone needs to play nice in the office, and we can’t have any undue influence from management.”  At Richard’s shocked expression, Perry explained, “Polly told me all about last night’s shocker after she sent in the Superman interview – the one that your girlfriend was supposed to do.”

“You already knew,” Richard accused.  “You knew, and you still hired him.”

“Contrary to what you’re suggesting, my first responsibility is to this paper, not your ego,” Perry said harshly.  “You’ve read our own paper this week, haven’t you?  Kent’s one of the best in the business.  I had a fiduciary responsibility to the Planet to make sure his byline didn’t end up in the Star.”

“But you knew,” Richard persisted angrily.

“Richard, how many times did I ask you to get Jason’s DNA tested?  I even offered to pay for it myself,” Perry reminded him.  “If you had known he wasn’t yours, you might actually have listened if someone told you he was his.  It’s all ancient history now, though, and we still have a paper to run, and for now at least, that’ll mean Lois working with Kent.”

“What?” Richard complained.  “You can’t!  Uncle Perry!”

“Don’t get your nose out of joint over it.  The paper comes first,” Perry said emphatically.  “I strongly suggest you take a look in the archives at some of the stories those two wrote together before he left six years ago.  It was some of the best work we’ve ever published…  Richard, I am not going to be hamstrung by splitting up our best team just to pacify your insecurities, especially not when the Planet is facing such stiff competition.  In fact, they’ll probably end up assigned together permanently.”

Richard angrily sank back in his chair.  “Whose side are you on?” he demanded.

“The paper’s…  Richard, we leave the personal bullshit at home,” Perry told him firmly.  He softened his tone and gently said, “Son, I know this is rough on you, but there’s simply no way around it.  We’ll talk about the situation over lunch, if you like.  In the meantime, we still have a job to do, so I’ll explain the ground rules and let you get to work.”

Richard conceded his uncle’s point and after a brief look out into the bullpen at Lois studying her laptop screen, he reluctantly nodded his acquiescence, signaling his uncle to begin explaining the new rules.



Friday, September 29, 2006 9:10AM EDT
Lois absently scrolled through the results of her Nexus search on Lex Luthor.  She already knew there was nothing recent there, but it hid her inactivity while she waited for Clark to show up.  Clark Kent, she thought.  Farm boy, extraordinaire.  Her night had been as sleepless as Richard’s, while she attempted to reconcile the previous evening’s revelations with what she thought she knew of her mild-mannered colleague.  The office dork that tripped over his own feet was also the superhero who bench pressed jumbo jets.  And he’s the father of my child, Lois reminded herself.  Why couldn’t he have explained everything to me after he rolled back time?  And if I had known that Jason was his…

Jason.  She’d spent much of the sleepless night wondering if her son would develop his father’s abilities.  Clark told me that most of his powers didn’t come until after puberty, Lois recalled.  What if that happens with Jason?  It won’t take much for Richard to put two and two together after that... And what if the neighbors notice something?  If Clark thought the tabloids were bad before… 

She pulled herself from her ruminations and looked over to the lobby just as the ding announced the elevator and the doors opened to reveal Clark standing there.  He stepped off the elevator with his laptop in one hand and briefcase in the other, offering his usual goofy grin, and nodding his head in acknowledgement, his encumbered hands preventing him from waving.  Lois observed him as he awkwardly made his way down the aisle, panicking some of their coworkers by his near misses as he stumbled by.  Lois rolled her eyes and shook her head.  I can’t believe that I was I fooled by that.

He had just booted up his laptop when Lois finally approached and leaned against his desk, with her arms crossed over her chest.  “You’re late,” she said sternly.

“Oh, I was, um, talking to Henderson about the Luthor case,” he answered nervously.

“Did you get anything from him?” she demanded.

“Maybe,” he answered enigmatically.  “I won’t know for a little while yet if it’ll pan out, but I, um, have another ‘source’ that was able to peruse those sealed court records, and that provided some interesting clues.”

“Such as?”

“Well, Luthor was represented at his appeal by Forrester and Morrison, out of New York.  Really high-priced criminal defense attorneys…”

“They’ve represented some of the Intergang big wigs, too.  Not much of a surprise there…” Lois commented.

“…except who paid their fees,” Clark informed her.  “It was all billed to Gertrude Vanderworth.”

“Vanderworth?  The ship builders?”

“The same.  Harold’s eighty-seven year old widow, actually.  Two weeks after Luthor got out of prison, he married her, and three months after that, she was conveniently dead and he had a new will that left him everything.  The will was signed the day she died, with a couple of convicted felons as witnesses.”

“And nobody thought that was suspicious?”

“The family might have, but the M.E.’s investigator declared it a natural death,” Clark suggested.  “The family’s fighting the will in probate court.  Their original is notarized, and witnessed by a couple paralegals from their lawyer’s office…  There’s also a bitter fight over her remains.  Luthor wants her cremated…”

“…to destroy the evidence.”

“Probably, but he hasn’t succeeded yet,” Clark told her.  “The family lawyers have been throwing in every delaying tactic in the book to give them time to discredit the new will and win the right to bury her.  In the meantime, she’s been on ice in the morgue, by court order, until the dispute is resolved.  The family’s not thrilled with that either.  They would have preferred burying her within twenty-four hours of her death.”

“Something’s fishy there,” Lois concluded.

“No doubt.  I spoke to Bill Henderson this morning, and he’s calling in the cops that were at the scene of death for me to talk to, and after that, I’m going to try to talk to someone with the medical examiner’s office downtown.”

“I’m going with you,” Lois declared.  “And we’ll also need to talk to the Vanderworths, and maybe the D.A.”

“We should probably add the warden of Stryker’s Island to the list, too,” Clark suggested.  “Maybe there are some clues in the visitor lists.  And don’t forget, we still have the meeting with Faulkner at two o’clock.”

“Hold on,” Lois told him.  She walked briskly back to her desk and returned with a notepad and pen, and pulling her chair behind her.  Once back at Clark’s desk, she sat down and starting writing on her notepad.  “Let’s get our strategy mapped out here.”

“Um, before we get started, I have a request from Henderson,” Clark informed her.

“What does he want?”

“One, he wants us to be careful.  Luthor is dangerous, even to Superman.”

“No argument there.”

“Second, we also need to be careful with any evidence we come across so that we don’t give Luthor’s lawyers an excuse to throw it out.  Bill was adamant that everything had to be by the book.  Luthor was slippery enough without the high-priced lawyers.”

“Got it.  Now let’s get star–”

“Kent!  Lane!  My office, now!” Perry bellowed.

“What now?” Lois mumbled irritably.  She reluctantly rose from her seat and headed to Perry office with Clark following closely behind her.



Perry had mixed feelings on the tableau he observed in the bullpen.  Seeing Lois huddled over on a story with Kent probably meant that he’d soon have a blockbuster from them, just like the old days.  However, he knew the same scene caused his nephew heartache, and although he hadn’t articulated it, he knew that Richard feared losing his fiancée to her old partner.  The paper comes first, Perry reminded himself.  And if their relationship isn’t strong enough to weather the return of an ex after all these years, then it really was never meant to be.  After another moment’s hesitation, he stepped in the doorway of his office and called for them.

He leaned back in his chair while he waited for Lois and Clark to join him in his office.  As expected, the complaint was off Lois’ lips nearly as soon as she passed through the door.  “Perry, we were in the middle of a something huge!” she told him irritably.

Perry threw the morning paper down in front of her and asked, “As huge as this story?”  The headline read “Superman Explains Disappearance” by Polly Harper and included a quarter-page picture of Superman centered underneath it, standing with his arms akimbo on the roof of the Daily Planet with their signature art deco globe in the background.   “That was supposed to be your story!”  Though I have to admit, Harper did a pretty good job, he thought.  And she took Olsen with her for the pictures, something that Lois never considered.

“He wouldn’t talk to me!” Lois complained.  “We’re lucky he’d talk to Polly.”

“What the hell did you say to him Lois?” Perry asked harshly.   “Polly tells me he wants to set up a reporting pool for coverage.”

“Polly’s the one who interviewed him.  Ask her about the pool coverage,” Lois replied irritably.

Perry harrumphed and leaned back in his chair.  After a moment, he continued, “Richard said that you two are investigating Lex Luthor.  Didn’t I tell you just yesterday that he was yesterday’s news?”

“Not anymore he’s not,” Lois protested.  “He married and murdered a wealthy widow, and nearly got away with it...”

“…but he, um, he left some clues behind,” Clark added.  “T-The woman’s body is still on ice at the morgue, and, um, the Vanderworth family’s fighting the new will–”

“Vanderworth?” Perry asked, his interest piqued.  “As in shipping magnate Vanderworth?” 

“Those are the guys,” Lois confirmed.  “Luthor’s trying to swindle them out of their inheritance…”

“…and the estate’s worth about twelve billion,” Clark revealed.

“Later this morning, we’re meeting with the cops who were present at the scene after Gertrude’s death was called in, and then with the M.E. after that,” Lois added.

“And we’ll, um, try to speak with the Vanderworth family and the D.A. this afternoon,” Clark continued.

Oh, this is good, Perry thought...  Tragedy, sex and Superman, all rolled up into the same story.  He was silent for a moment, struggling to suppress a smile from appearing on his face.  Finally, he told them, “You’ve got two days to come up with something I can print…”

“Thanks, Chief,” Lois replied.

“ Just one more thing…”

“Yeah?” Lois asked.

Perry’s voice turned serious and he sternly told them, “I don’t want you two and Richard turning my bullpen into a facsimile of the Jerry Springer show with your little love triangle–”

“Chief!” Lois protested.  “That’s not what’s–”

“Leave the personal bullshit at home!” Perry shouted.

“–happening,” Lois continued.

“I don’t care what you say is or isn’t happening, just keep it out of my bullpen!  Now, get out here, and get me that story!” Perry commanded.  Lois rolled her eyes and huffed, storming out of the office.

“It won’t be a problem, Chief,” Clark assured him before he also left Perry’s office and rejoined Lois for their investigation.



Friday, September 29, 2006 10:45AM EDT
Tom Wallace had been the director of investigations for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for four years, brought in with the new CME, Doctor Wilbur Fontaine, to help reform the institution.  He was rightly proud of the improvements they’d introduced in a relatively short period of time.  M.E. response to a reported death had dropped from an average of fourteen hours to less than an hour, and the expertise and credibility of their medico-legal investigator corps had been sustained in the courts and, even more incredibly, they had won the respect of Metropolis’ finest, which wasn’t readily given.

However, on this morning, he was disconcerted by an enigmatic call from a reporter, suggesting an investigator’s collaboration with the decedent’s new husband to conceal a homicide.  Normally, he would have dismissed the call and sworn to the integrity of his investigator.  However, Kent had pointed out a couple of oddities with the case that raised some red flags, and Bill Henderson had vouched for him.  After a discussion with Doctor Fontaine, he’d called the reporter back and agreed to meet with him and his partner.  His phone rang, interrupting his ruminations, and he quickly answered it.  “Wallace,” he said.  It was the receptionist, informing him of the reporters’ arrival.  “Okay, I’ll be right down.”

A few minutes later, both reporters were seated in his office.  “So, you had questions on the Vanderworth case,” Tom began.  He turned to the side and pulled up the case on his PC.

“That’s right, Doctor Wallace,” Lois replied.

“It’s Tom.  I’m not an M.D.,” Tom explained.  “I’m a physician’s assistant, like the rest of our investigator corps.  Now, the Vanderworth case?”

“Well, um, a few things seemed a little strange about when we looked into it,” Clark told him.

“And you’re challenging the conclusions of our investigator,” Tom finished for him.

“Well, some things seemed a little off, not the least of which is your investigator’s sudden disappearance shortly after Gertrude’s death certificate was filed,” Lois answered as she reviewed her notes.  “Heidi Fineman, was it?”

“Yes, that was her,” Tom confirmed.

“We spoke to the police officers who were at the scene, and they said that she was extremely jittery, which was unusual since it was an almost pristine scene of death,” Lois informed him.  “She had barely walked in the room before declaring it a natural death, and couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

“They also said that they’d seen her a few days before at a gruesome death in Suicide Slum and she was steady as a rock,” Clark added.

“Well, yes, the circumstances are unusual,” Tom agreed.  “Though, aside from concerns for Heidi’s welfare, that’s not a big consideration.  However, the cause of death raises a huge red flag.  It’s recorded as CPA – that’s cardiopulmonary arrest.  Heidi would never have written that down for any death.  It’s not a cause, but rather a result of the cause.  It’s a novice mistake that an intern from one of the hospitals might make, but not one that we’d make.  Not even from a trainee.  And when the hospitals do it, we send the death certificate right back to them for correction.”

“I don’t understand.  What’s the problem with… ‘CPA’ was it?” Lois asked.

“What stopped her heart?” Tom asked rhetorically.  “Stroke?  Heart attack?  Epileptic seizure?  Those things are causes of death, and cardiopulmonary arrest is just a consequence of that.  It’s not the cause.  In any case, the fact that CPA was recorded as the C.O.D. by an experienced investigator like Heidi is odd, to say the least.”

“Maybe she knew of something that she couldn’t talk about and was trying to leave us a clue, in case something happened,” Clark suggested.

“Maybe,” Tom conceded.

“Well, that’s not the only thing about this case that’s suspicious,” Lois stated passionately.  “Did you know that after Gertrude’s death, her new husband filed a will that left him everything, allegedly signed the day of her death?  He married this woman, thirty-eight years his senior, at the beginning of summer, right after he got out of prison.  Three months later, she’s dead, and he inherits everything.   Oh, and he was the only witness to her death.  Quite convenient.”

“He was the only witness?” Tom asked with interest.  “An unattended death is automatically suspicious.  We usually have a better safe than sorry policy under such circumstances and send the body in for an autopsy.”

“Unattended death?” Lois inquired, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

“There wasn’t a physician in attendance at the time of death,” Tom explained.  “As you said, her husband was the only witness.”

  “Something else the police told us stinks to high heaven,” Lois added.  “Apparently, he dropped his wedding ring in a whiskey glass next to her bed and high-tailed it out of there with his mistress immediately after his beloved wife passed away,” Lois added.  “Does that still sound like a natural death to you?”

“Technically, Kowalski was the maid,” Clark clarified.  “But Officer Muncie said family members thought they were spending suspicious amounts of time together.”

Tom wrote a couple lines of text on a notepad and asked, “Am I correct in assuming that Patrick Muncie was the officer at the scene?”

“Um, yes, along with Vince Reynolds,” Clark confirmed.

“I’m going to need to talk to them.  All of this is highly unusual,” Tom commented.  “Unfortunately, Heidi isn’t around to answer any questions.”  He sighed tiredly, pulling off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.  A moment later, he declared, “I’m going to re-open this case for a complete reassessment.  The C.O.D. alone warrants that, and if the other things you’ve told me are true–”

“You don’t trust us?” Lois asked dramatically.

“It’s not a question of trust,” Tom assured them.  “We try to base our work on verifiable methods, rather than subjective opinions, though some of that is unavoidable.  As I said, there is already enough that’s verifiably unusual to merit reopening the case, specifically, the C.O.D.  If I’m unable to resolve the matter to my satisfaction, I’ll recommend an autopsy.”

“Better do it soon, before her grieving husband wins his court case to have the body cremated,” Lois commented.

“The body’s already here, by court order while they fight it out, and it’s not going anywhere until our review is done,” Tom assured him.  “I’ll send a note to the judge to let her know what’s going on.”

“Do things like this happen here often?” Lois asked.

“No, this is an aberration,” Tom answered.  “I’m not going to pretend that we don’t make the occasional mistake, but our goal here isn’t perfection.  It’s perfect honesty.  When we do make a mistake, we own up to it, try to fix it, and we try not to make the same mistake twice.  And if we find that there are flaws in our methods that allowed a mistakes to happen, then we’ll make procedural changes to prevent it from happening again in the future.”

“We appreciate your candor,” Clark told him.  “Sounds like you have a very conscientious organization here.”

  “We do, but if you really want to understand how the process is supposed to work around here, you should spend a few hours with one of our investigators,” Tom suggested.

“I’ll take a rain check on that,” Lois said quickly.

“Maybe after we’ve finished with the Vanderworth matter,” Clark added.  “It sounds like it could be an interesting experience.”

“Oh, it is,” Tom assured him enthusiastically.  “However, it can be unsettling for some people to see human remains in the states that we find them in.”  He was silent for a moment, and then asked seriously, “Are you going to give me time to reassess this case before you go to press?”

“Depends on how long it takes, but we probably won’t publish this before Sunday,” Lois told him.  “Given Luthor’s legal resources and our legal department’s paranoia, we’re going to have to work a little harder to make sure that all of our information is rock solid before we go to press.”

“We should have the review finished by then, if all goes well,” Tom told them.  “Well, if there aren’t any more questions, it sounds like I have quite a bit of work ahead of me.”

“Thank you for your time,” Clark told him, rising from his chair and extending his hand.

“Thank you,” Lois echoed politely and their host escorted them back out to the first floor lobby.



Once they left the medical examiner’s building, Lois turned to Clark and asked, “So how do you think he killed Gertrude?  Some kind of poison?  Arsenic, maybe?”

“That’s not very original for someone with such a superiority complex,” Clark commented.  “However he killed her, it’s clear that he and his men blackmailed or extorted Heidi Fineman into recording it as a natural death.  Perhaps they kidnapped her daughter, since she’s missing, too.  And once they had the death certificate they needed, they got rid of them both.”

Lois felt her body unconsciously shudder at the idea.  “The kid was just nine,” Lois reminded him.

“Not much older than Kara and Jason,” Clark confirmed.  “Luthor’s a monster.”

“That’s an understatement,” Lois agreed.  She looked at her watch and said, “Well, our next appointment is with Harold Junior at one, which gives us almost two hours to kill.  If you want, I can pull Jason out of school and you can take that closer look you wanted.  Believe me, I want to know what to expect there as much as you do.  But, we’ll still need to get him lunch and have him back to school before our one o’clock.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ll have to swing by the farm for the father crystal first,” Clark told her.

“Father crystal?”

“It’s kind of the brain of the crystal computer at the Fortress,” Clark explained.  “I took it with me when I went to get Kara, and never got around to returning it to the Fortress when we got back.”

“Whatever,” Lois muttered.  “How long will that take?”

“Just a few minutes, usually,” he told her.  “But if Mom spots me, she’ll want to chat for a little bit…  She also wants to meet her grandson, by the way.”

“So… did you tell her about Jason or did Kara blurt it out?” Lois teased.

“Lois, Kara really felt bad about spilling the beans like that last night,” Clark told her.  “Anyway, um, I’m the one who broke the news to her.  Once Kara was asleep, I got quite the lecture about putting the cart before the horse.”

Lois snorted and repeated mirthfully, “Putting the cart before the horse?”

“Well, yeah.  And it’s not funny,” Clark protested.  “She was very upset with me.”

“Oh, the big hero, cowed by a silvered-haired old lady’s tongue lashing,” Lois teased, giggling at his discomfort as they walked to her car.  A few minutes later, she reigned in her laughter and told him, “Do you know where Donner Elementary is?”

“Corner of Reeves Avenue and Kidder Lane in North Bridge,” Clark answered.   “Superman put out a fire there in May of ninety-eight.”

“Do you always talk about yourself in third person?” Lois asked.

“Easier to keep track of things that way and less risky if somebody’s listening in,” Clark explained.

Lois rolled her eyes.  “Fine, whatever.  Anyway, go get your crystal thingy, or whatever it is, meet me at the school, and we’ll take Jason to your Fortress for his examination.”  Clark rewarded her with a wide, goofy grin and disappeared in a flash on his way to Smallville, leaving Lois rolling her eyes.  What a dork, Lois thought.  Make that ‘Super-dork’ – I almost forget he was Superman for a moment there...  Geez, working with him all morning seemed so… so normal.  She chuckled quietly to herself and climbed in her Audi for the short trip to Jason’s school.

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