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Clark and Chloe's story came out in fits and starts, first one talking, and then the other. Angela had to keep stopping them when they seemed to skip important points.
"So then Clark peeled up the photo, and there is was. Someone else's picture was under it. Which means it was probably a forgery…"
The girl called Chloe talked a mile a minute. Whatever fright Angela's sudden appearance had given her had quickly worn off, and now she seemed positively thrilled by her unusual find.
The boy, Clark, seemed much more wary. But then Angela hadn't bothered explaining why she was there. She was far too busy listening to their convoluted and, truth be told, downright bizarre story. Angela had done her share of stupid things at their age, but breaking into a house in search of evidence? If she were of a more maternal bent she would probably deliver a lecture about how pulling stunts like this could ruin their lives.
But Angela had other things on her mind.
Smallville again. Hamilton, Lex, and now these two. Coincidence? She thought not.
And then there was the really disturbing issue of the photograph. It lay now on the table between them. She carefully studied the tiny sepia-tone photo of Roshenko as a young man, and then the photo that had been under it. She'd never seen the other man before. Chloe and Clark showed her all the other papers as well, the Soviet documents and the old letters. Older than anything else in the box, the letters predated World War II. She'd been in Roshenko's house a dozen or more times over the years, but she'd never seen anything of a personal nature—no photographs, no souvenirs from his travels, no letters. Clark's discovery of the hidden box disturbed her more than she was willing to say.
As they talked Angela put on water for tea, and when the teenagers finally seemed out of things to say she gave each of them a mug with a tea bag in it.
"I don't suppose either of you read Russian."
"Nope." Chloe's eyes lit up. "Do you?"
"No. French and German. Most foreign scientific journals are in one or the other."
"So, um, you work—worked—for Dr. Roshenko?" Clark asked. It was obvious the breaking and entering had been the girl's idea. He looked like the kind of kid who would never get into trouble on his own. Rosy cheeks, green eyes, the whole all-American thing. Angela had a pretty good idea why Chloe dragged him around with her.
"I did." She poured hot water from the kettle for each of them and sat back down. "His funeral's tomorrow, and the university's lawyers will be coming by. Apparently he left this place to the school. I thought I'd try to make it…presentable. You may have noticed he wasn't much of a housekeeper."
Angela didn't bother adding what a shock it had been to come up the back path and see two heads silhouetted in the kitchen window. If she'd been less preoccupied she would have called the cops first and asked questions later. Instead she'd burst in to find two high school kids in Roshenko's kitchen. Curiouser and curiouser.
"Listen, I hope we didn't…upset you. I mean, I know this looks really bad," Clark said, "but we were trying to help. In our own weird way."
Drinking her tea, Chloe nodded in agreement. "We just want to see justice done. Hamilton…"she trailed off helplessly, not sure what to say.
"Oh, that." Angela tapped her fingers against the sides of her mug. "I don't believe Hamilton killed Roshenko."
Clark's eyes widened. "How can you be sure?"
"The pieces don't fit," she said absently.
He smiled at her over the rim of his cup. "If it's any consolation, I don't think they do either."
"Hang on here, guys," Chloe said. "The D.A.'s building a great case as we speak. If it wasn't Hamilton, who was it? And why?"
"Do you think there could have been something else in Roshenko's background, something that might explain why he was murdered?"
"Clark, a week ago I would have said 'no.' Now," and here she idly thumbed the old papers, "I'm not so sure. He never told me what his life was like before he came here. I just assumed he didn't like to talk about it."
Clark and Chloe exchanged a long look.
"What do you think we should do now?" Chloe asked her.
"Find someone who can read Russian, I suppose."
"And we can look into Dr. Roshenko's background, uh, just to see. Y'know." Chloe seemed to have remembered she was speaking to someone who had known the man, and was still mourning his loss.
Angela collected the letters and papers back into a neat stack. "Look, I don't want either of you to say anything to anyone about what you found. It's obvious the police never searched this place, or, if they did, they did a lousy job. That could mean a lot of trouble for you two."
"What will you do with them?" Clark asked.
She sighed. "For the time being, they'll go back where you found them. If I can find someone to translate the papers, I'll let you know." Angela glanced at her watch. "You know, it'll be past midnight by the time you get back to Smallville. You guys should get going."
Angela flipped on the lights in the living room so they could safely find their way to the front door.
"Thanks for talking to us, Angela," Chloe smiled. "And for not freaking out."
"Sure. I'll wait until you're in your car—this isn't a great neighborhood."
Clark looked at her, then at the mountains of books and other debris.
Angela gave him a tired smile and shrugged. "The doc never could throw anything away."
His green eyes showed concern. "Will you be all right?"
"I'll be fine, Clark. Now get moving—Chloe's waiting for you."
Angela waited in the doorway until Chloe's old car had rounded the corner at the end of the block. Then she went back into the kitchen.
The dishes from Roshenko's last meal, now coated with a hard crust, were still piled in the sink. She added the cups from this evening, washed and dried the dishes, and put them away in the cabinets.
When she'd done this she revisited the metal box that Clark had found. To this she returned the Soviet documents. She was going to stick Roshenko's photo back on the paper it had come from, but holding it in her hand it dawned on her that she didn't have any photos of her teacher and mentor. She pocketed it instead.
The box went back down into the crawlspace, and with the slightly warped floorboard back in place it was impossible to tell what was there. She moved a chair over the spot, just in case. The letters, however, went into her bag.
Then she did the best job she could at clearing pathways through the living room, which mainly consisted of relocating stuff from one pile to another. She hated the thought of a bunch of lawyers being here, poking through her friend's possessions, even though logically she knew that, wherever he was now, Roshenko was beyond caring about such things. She had to smile at the evidence of his life still all over the house—one shoe under the sofa, a coupon for detergent half-buried in the soil of a potted plant. Lord only knew what people who hadn't known him would make of it. Hopefully his books would go to the university library, and the rest of it to charity. Although, she thought, eying the lumpy sofa, even charity might not want it.
On the mantel she found a tall stack of his technical papers, including one that the two of them had been collaborating on. The sheaves of data and notes belonged back at the lab with the rest of his work; there was already some talk of donating his papers to the archives. If they ever returned from the Metropolis police department, that is. Too tired to sort through it, Angela decided to take the whole of it with her and sort through it later.
At home she took a hot shower to try and get some of the knots out of her back. Then, wrapped in her robe, she removed the pile of letters from her bag. She curled up on the sofa where there was more light and examined them silently for a while. Then she carefully removed the first one from its faded envelope and started to read.
p
On Monday morning Lex got a call from Angela McKay asking him to meet her at the plaza in front of the Daily Planet. He'd spent the weekend in town, trying to simultaneously keep on top of both LuthorCorp's business and his own. He'd also gotten a call from a very conciliatory Langsdon Carter, assuring him that his best man was working Hamilton's case and it looked largely circumstantial. There had been no parties, no nightclubs, and no one interesting to talk to, and he found himself looking forward to meeting Angela again.
She'd chosen a particularly nice spot, one often featured on picture postcards of Metropolis. In the center of the plaza a large fountain helped soften all the concrete and glass around it, and at night it lit up in shades of blue and gold to match the newspaper's famous revolving logo. In a few hours the space would be filled with office workers eating their sandwiches and trying to take in some fresh air before returning to the daily grind, but it was now only mid-morning. Under different circumstances he would have arranged to have an early lunch waiting for them someplace private.
Angela was already standing by the fountain.
"You missed a nice funeral," she said when he showed up.
"It was on the evening news. Looked like quite a turnout."
"It was," she nodded. "Everybody cried, even the students he had flunked. The president of the university made a dull speech and the department secretary's mascara ran all over the place. The National Academy of Sciences set a huge arrangement of lilies and orchids—they must have cleaned out every florist in the Midwest. And there was a wake, too, at Dean Carroll's house."
He'd never heard Angela prattle before, and he looked at her a little oddly. The sun had brought some color to her cheeks, but she was still pale. Her eyes seemed unnaturally bright. Funerals could be draining experiences, and having the shadow of murder hanging over this one would have made it even worse. Lex wondered if maybe the stress of Roshenko's death was finally getting to her. She'd seemed fine last week, but…
"Are you feeling all right?"
"I'm fine, thank you." She said stiffly.
"You don't look fine. Why don't you sit down?" He tried to take her arm, but she pulled away.
"So what did Dr. Hamilton say? When you spoke to him?" she asked.
"He wouldn't see me," he said cautiously. Her blue eyes seemed to get even brighter, as if she was running a fever. Maybe he should take her home.
"No, I thought not."
"Angela…"
"Oh, and I met some friends of yours the other night. Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan." She looked at him through widened eyes. "Ring any bells?"
For a moment he was completely taken aback, but he didn't let his composure slip.
"What did they do this time?"
"Just a little breaking and entering. Considering it's not my house I'm not going to press charges, but you should probably tell them that's the kind of things that goes on their permanent record."
"I'm sorry, Angela—Chloe has a burning ambition to become a journalist. I was afraid they might try something like this, but apparently my talk with Clark didn't do any good."
"I suppose they're friends of Dr. Hamilton, too?" She regarded him pointedly, then looked away and sighed. "Would you like to tell me the truth now? I'm pretty tired of playing this game."
"It's not a game, Angela," he said honestly. "I do want to help Hamilton, and I needed your help. I don't believe he killed Roshenko, and neither do you."
"I'm not sure what I believe any more." Angela twisted her fingers together. "I really don't think there's any point to this. I don't trust you; you clearly don't trust me."
"I do trust you, Angela." As he said it he was surprised to realize it was true. "And it matters because Hamilton's still in jail." Something else was going on here—this wasn't about Chloe and Clark's interference.
"You could get him out tomorrow if you wanted to, Lex—you have the data proving Roshenko was far more valuable to Hamilton alive than dead. All you'd have to do is turn it over to Harris. But somehow I don't think you're going to do that."
"Angela, what is going on?"
She ran her hands over her eyes. "I'm tired, Lex. Very, very tired. Roshenko's dead, and I don't think he'd want me tangled up in this mess." All of her focus was gone--she sounded like a different person. "He'd want me back at work, doing what he trained me to do. So as of now, I'm out. You and Dr. Hamilton will just have to take your chances without me." She smiled wanly. "Have a nice life, Lex."
Lex was too astonished to do anything except watch her walk away from him.
p
Someone had painted the visitor's room at Metropolis jail an anemic shade of green. They had probably thought it would be cheerful, Angela mused, but in reality it only made the room look more depressing than it had to be.
Of course, any room divided in half by wire-reinforced Plexiglas and patrolled on either side by armed policemen would be depressing, anyway.
One of the officers pointed her to a chair near the end of the row, and as she sat Angela tried very hard not to eavesdrop on the conversations around her. From the sound of it, though, the other visitors were either girlfriends or lawyers. And both groups main point of conversation seemed to be money.
The door on the other side of the room opened, and Dr. Hamilton was led in. Angela was surprised to see how much he'd aged since their last meeting: faint streaks of gray touched his temples, and he looked as if he hadn't been sleeping. Angela couldn't blame him—she probably wouldn't be able to sleep in this place either.
He sat down at the desk across from her, and for a moment she wasn't certain how they were supposed to communicate through the glass. Then she noticed the pattern of tiny holes cut through it.
"Thank you for seeing me, Dr. Hamilton," she said experimentally, unsure how close she would need to be to make herself heard. "I know that you've been turning away most visitors."
Hamilton slouched a bit in his chair. "Because most of those so-called visitors only come because they want something from me."
"Like Lex Luthor?"
Startled, he leaned forward. "How did you know about that?"
"Because he's been to see me, too." Angela folded her hands on the desk. "Look, Dr. Hamilton, I know this isn't a good time, but you're the only person I can ask about this. Did Dr. Roshenko say anything to you the night he died? Was there anything he was worried about?"
Hamilton shook his head.
"Did he ever mention someone named Janus Illyovitch?"
"We didn't exactly sit around and chat, Ms. McKay."
Starting to lose her temper, Angela leaned forward. "Look, Dr. Hamilton, I need you to help me. I know your work with the meteorite rocks is finally showing progress. I know you enlisted Dr. Roshenko's help to chart their mutagenic effects. He developed a logarithm so you could explain to the world that the meteorite's effects are real. They aren't random at all—not at the molecular level. That's why you came back to the university; that's why the cops found your prints all over our lab. It didn't all make sense until I realized why the mass spectrometer hasn't been working—it's been exposed to low-level radiation. Your meteor rocks."
Hamilton sighed. "Emil always said you were a sharp girl."
"Dr. Hamilton, why weren't you honest with the police? That you had no reason to kill Dr. Roshenko? That he was helping you?"
"I didn't say anything because I don't want anyone to know about my work. Not yet. I haven't identified the mechanism that triggers mutation. I still haven't located the meteors' point of origin."
All of this seemed ridiculous to Angela. "Listen, I understand your devotion to your work. But you'd prefer people think you were a murderer?"
Hamilton ran a hand over his eyes, and then looked at her directly. "You're very young. Do you have any idea what it's like—to have the scientific community turn its back on you? To be an outcast, to be shunned?"
Angela shifted uncomfortably.
"I took that chance once—I tried to tell people about my theories, and they laughed at me. I'm never going to make that mistake again."
"Not even if it saves your neck?" She asked incredulously.
"Not even then."
"But whoever killed Dr. Roshenko is still out there," she said desperately. "I've been trying to come up with another theory, another explanation, but nothing seems to make sense. Are you sure you didn't see or hear anything that might help? No matter how insignificant it might have seemed at the time?"
"No, Angela. I didn't."
Sighing, she rested her chin in her hands. It had been a long shot, but she had hoped that Hamilton might hold the key to the puzzle. But if he did, he wasn't sharing.
"Dr. Hamilton, I've been trying to reach Emil, but I haven't had any luck. I think whatever he's working on is classified. I'm sorry."
Hamilton shook his head. "I'm sure he wouldn't come if he knew."
"I think you're wrong."
"I don't want Emil involved in this—I don't want him anywhere near the Luthors, either. You tell him that when you speak to him." The older man eyed her sharply. "And you should stay away from them, too. Lex Luthor uses people, Ms. McKay, and when they're of no more use he throws them away."
"He hasn't thrown you away," Angela retorted. "Why is that?"
"I mean what I say—stay away from the Luthors. You're smart enough to recognize how dangerous they can be."
Angela smiled wryly. "Believe me, Dr. Hamilton, I have no intention of becoming involved with that family." She reached down and picked up her purse. "Thank you for your time. If you change your mind and want me to talk to the D.A., let me know."
Hamilton nodded. "I will. And Angela?"
She turned back to look at him once more.
"I really do hope you find out who killed Dr. Roshenko. He was a good man."
Angela nodded. "He was."
p
"Chloe, a fax just came through for you." Pete held up a slightly wrinkled sheet of paper. "We have got to get the new principal to spring for a better fax machine."
"I'll add that to the list, right between the new Xerox machine and an espresso bar," Chloe sighed.
Clark smiled. Chloe was constantly aggravated by what she regarded as the "substandard" conditions of the Torch's office. He was kind of surprised she hadn't hit Lex up for a grant. She probably would, if he put the idea in her head. So Clark kept his mouth shut.
"I still can't believe the two of you actually broke into the dead guy's house." Pete shook his head. "Why am I always at home when the exciting stuff happens?"
"It wasn't exciting, Pete—terrifying is more like it," Clark corrected.
"Oh, c'mon, Clark, it turned out fine. And we learned some really interesting things about the late Dr. Roshenko. If that was his name," Chloe said skeptically.
"It only turned out ok because it was Angela McKay who found us, and not the cops or one of the neighbors. We'd still be sitting in juvenile hall otherwise."
Pete sat down at his desk, opposite Chloe's. "Do you think he could have been a spy? I mean, why else would he need false documents?"
Chloe shook her head. "I haven't been able to dig that deep into his past. But since he's been here his record has been totally clean—not even an unpaid parking ticket." She glanced up. "Angela seemed pretty sure he wasn't into anything shady, but he might have been lying to her all along, too.
"I don't know, Chloe, Angela seemed pretty sharp to me. She's worked with the guy every day for two years—it would be hard for him to hide anything from her." Clark knew from bitter experience how hard keeping secrets from close friends could be. He just kept reminding himself that it was for their safety, as well as his own. Maybe Roshenko had felt the same way about his own secret, whatever that was.
"It sounds like she took the news pretty well, anyway," Pete mused. "So," he winked at Clark, "is she pretty?"
"Um, yeah, she's very pretty."
"Ok, you two horn dogs, listen to this." Chloe had been perusing her fax, and now held it up for inspection. "My cousin's roommate works in Accounts at the university. She got her to look up Roshenko's payroll statements. According to this, he was pulling down almost $63,000 a year."
"That can't be right." Clark leaned over her shoulder to read the fax. "Is she sure she got the name right?"
"How many Evgeny Roshenkos can there be at one midwestern university?" Pete shrugged. "I though you guys said he lived in a dump."
"He did." Clark remembered the tiny, filthy house.
"So what was he spending all his money on, I wonder?" Chloe said thoughtfully.
"Maybe he didn't spend it. Maybe he just put it in the bank, hording it. Angela did say the guy was a little, uh, eccentric."
"Or maybe he put it in some offshore account where he wouldn't have to pay taxes. Rich people do that all the time." Pete smiled. "Or maybe he hid it in the house—did you check under the mattresses?"
"Shut up, Pete." Chloe drummed a pencil against her desk. "I wonder if they've read his will yet. If he really did leave everything to the school they might be getting a fortune. I think we need to make another trip to Metropolis, guys."
"Hey, do we have Zoë's article on the new parking lot yet?" Pete asked.
"Yeah, I'll get it." Clark rifled through the papers on his desk. The Torch would come out next week, and things were already beginning to get stressed. The last week was always an endless rush to collect articles, get faculty approval, and fill empty column space. That usually meant all-nighters for Chloe. And she was going to try to squeeze in another trip to Metropolis?
Sure enough, she grinned at them. "Stop trying to change the subject. O.k., who wants to run down Trey and get the article on varsity basketball, and who wants to drive into Metropolis with me tomorrow night?"
Clark lost the coin toss.
"Is your dad ok with all the mileage you're piling on this car, Chloe?" Clark asked as they made the long drive into Metropolis for the second time.
"Uh, well, he's been pretty busy with the whole buy-out at the plant," she explained. "Besides, it wouldn't be an issue if somebody would ask to borrow his dad's truck."
"You know my dad would only let me use it in an emergency. And he'd want to know exactly where we were going, and exactly what we were doing." Clark grinned. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell him?"
Ok, ok," Chloe grumbled.
They had gotten out of school early, on the pretense of visiting the Torch's printer, but even so the sun was going down by the time they reached the city. They parked in a student lot, now nearly empty, and walked together to the science complex. Clark couldn't help but admire the campus: it was big, but lots of trees gave it a comfortable feeling. Chloe pointed to the small groups of students lounging on the grass and throwing Frisbees.
"That'll be us in a couple of years, Clark."
"Maybe."
"No maybe about it, Clark. They have a great journalism department here," she nearly skipped with happiness. "Yes, Virginia, there is life after high school."
Clark didn't bother pointing out that his own chances of going to college would be largely dependant on whether or not he got a scholarship. Otherwise it would be part-time at a community college until he could scrape together enough money. His parents always seemed convinced the family would be able to pay for college one way or another, but sometimes Clark had doubts. He couldn't imagine anything worse than being left behind in Smallville, though. He should probably ask Angela McKay if the science department had any good scholarships. The SATs were only a year away.
They couldn't find Angela listed in the directory for the main lab building, so they ended up at the department office where a secretary glanced up at them in annoyance.
"I'm sorry, we close at 5:30."
"It's only 5:28," Chloe retorted.
The woman sighed, checking her lipstick in a small hand mirror. "Fine. How can I help you?"
"We're trying to find Angela McKay. She works—worked—for Dr. Roshenko. Molecular Biology, I think," Clark offered.
The secretary waved her hand toward the closed door behind her desk. "She's in an emergency meeting with President Brooke and Dean Carroll."
"Why? Is she in trouble?" Chloe frowned.
The secretary continued to study her reflection. Clark could only assume she had a date waiting.
"Dunno, but I hear they want to shut down Roshenko's lab."
"Shut it down? Why?"
"How should I know?"
The door opened, and two men in expensive navy suits emerged, followed by a very subdued Angela McKay.
"Ms. McKay, some students here to see you." The secretary pointed to where Clark and Chloe stood. "Dr. Carroll, will there be anything else?"
"No, thank you, Debbie—you can go home." Dean Carroll, an older man with elegant gray sideburns, eyed them curiously.
Chloe had already whipped out her micro cassette recorder. "President Brooke, I heard you're closing down the Molecular Biology lab. Is this connected to Dr. Roshenko's murder?"
The university's president looked flabbergasted. "Excuse me, young lady. Who do you work for?"
The Dean cleared his throat. "I'll be happy to speak to these young people, Bill. After all, it is my department."
Brooke nodded, his mouth drawn into a thin line. "Very well. Good evening, Thomas. Ms. McKay." Looking at two students as if they were a particularly repulsive form of insect, he followed Carroll's secretary out of the room.
"Now, what's all this about?"
Angela sighed. Clark couldn't help but notice how tired she seemed. "Dean Carroll, this is Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan. This is Dr. Thomas Carroll, Dean of Sciences here at the university."
Chloe withdrew the tape recorder a bit, but didn't turn it off. "We've heard rumors that Dr. Roshenko's lab will be shut down."
Clark had to hand it to the dean; he was pretty smooth. "The measure is only temporary, until we can find a suitable applicant to take over operations. Ms. McKay," and here he patted Angela's arm, "will have her hands full teaching the late doctor's fall courses."
"What about the state's case? It's been suggested Metropolis' finest didn't look as hard at Roshenko's life as they could have."
"I beg your pardon?" Dr. Carroll recoiled a bit.
"Surely there were others with a motive to kill the doctor? Someone with a grudge, say, or maybe something in his past?"
"Young lady," Carroll said huffily, "I've no idea what you're implying. But I worked with Evgeny Roshenko for more than ten years, and I can assure you, he was one of the most upstanding individuals I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Ms. McKay," he turned a frosty eye to his employee, "who are these people?"
"They're in my freshman Bioethics class. Journalism majors—you know how they are." Angela shrugged apologetically. To Chloe and Clark she said, "Why don't we go downstairs—we can talk about your assignment there."
"The assignment. Right." Clark seconded.
Chloe's recorder disappeared back into her bag. "Thank you for the sound bite," she told the dean smoothly. "I'll be sure it's passed right along to our editor."
Angela took hold of Chloe's sleeve and fairly towed the younger woman out of the room. Clark followed, leaving a startled-looking dean staring after them.
"Ok, you two," Angela said as soon as they were safely back in the lab. "What's the big idea?"
"Sorry, but I just figured I should push him while I had the chance," Chloe offered.
Angela rolled her eyes. "Great."
"Did you really get fired, Angela?" Clark asked apprehensively. "They didn't find out about our, uh, visit the other night, did they?"
Pulling up a stool, Angela shook her head. "No, nothing like that. And I haven't been fired, so much as…reassigned."
Chloe gestured at all the exotic and obviously expensive equipment around them. "But you know more about all of this than anyone!"
"Yes, but Dr. Roshenko hired me. It was his name and his research that got all this funded—not mine. Now that he's gone, the university wants to find someone equally prestigious to fill his shoes. They don't want me down here unsupervised." She smiled bitterly. "After all, I'm just a dumb grad student—I might spill Coke on the computers or use his research notes for paper airplanes."
"I'm really sorry," Clark said.
"Yeah, well, that's university politics, I'm afraid. That's why a lot of people prefer working for private labs."
"I think university politics suck," Chloe said tartly.
"Angela, this has turned out to be a really bad time, but we found out something about Roshenko today that we can't explain." Clark looked to Chloe, and she produced the folded fax out of her bag.
"We did a little digging, and we found out what Roshenko's salary here at the university was," Chloe explained.
"Something around 60K, I should imagine."
"You knew?"
"Sure," Angela shrugged. "That's actually kind of on the low end for the amount of work and publicity he brought the U. I always wondered why he didn't go some place else, but he said he was fixed here. What does that bother you?"
"Look how the guy was living, Angela," Chloe protested.
"I told you he was eccentric."
"There's eccentric and then there's bizarre," the girl responded.
"Chloe…" Clark began, but Angela interrupted him.
"That's ok, Clark. I know Roshenko's behavior looks…weird to people who didn't know him. But what would the guy have spent money on? He had no family, no hobbies; he didn't even own a car because he never learned how to drive."
Clark was thoughtful. "Are you sure he left everything to the university? That there isn't somebody else out there who is going to benefit from his death?"
"I'm sure. I haven't seen the will, but it should be available to the public by now. Everything went to the school, to use as they saw fit."
"So it must have been a lot of money, right? So maybe President Brooke or the dean had him bumped off, y'know, like people who kill relatives for their inheritance."
Angela shook her head. "I really can't answer that, Chloe. If you want I'll get a copy of the will from Roshenko's lawyer and send it to you. I've already talked to him—he seems like a nice guy. Has a bunch of papers the doctor wanted me to have. Hopefully its his last draft of the article we were working on."
"That would help, Angela, thank you. Listen, have you found anyone who can read those documents we found?"
"Hmm? Oh, those. No, I've been a little busy." She brushed some dust off the counter. "I was able to read the letters—they were in French, but I don't know who they're from. I don't think they're important."
Something about the way the woman ducked her head made Clark wonder if was telling them everything.
"What's in them?" He asked.
"Oh, romantic stuff mostly." Angela blushed ever so slightly. "They're clearly from a woman to a man, I'll tell you that much. But, again, nothing really significant."
Clark was tempted to press the point, but as usual Chloe's mind was off on another tangent.
"We've got to get the other ones translated—those are bound to be important. But Hamilton still figures into this somewhere, too. Man! This is the craziest case."
"Chloe, Clark, let me ask you—do you know who Hamilton was working for when he was living in Smallville?"
"Just himself, I guess," Clark answered. "He made ends meet by selling phony meteorite fragments to tourists."
Angela raised her eyebrows. "And that funded a laboratory? What sort of equipment did he have, do you know?"
"Clark never saw the lab, but I did." Chloe was thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know what to call any of it, but he had some serious-looking stuff. A lot like what you have down here, actually. And then a couple of months ago he just upped and vanished. There were some suspicious…incidents. I guess he thought he should get out of Dodge for awhile."
Clark watched Angela closely; she was frowning to herself.
"Angela? What is it?"
"I'm not sure. It's just…odd, that's all."
"Everything about Dr. Hamilton is odd," Clark offered.
Angela laughed.
"You two should probably get going," she smiled. "And next time you need to talk to me, you can just call, you know."
"I prefer the security of face-to-face communication," Chloe opined.
Darkness had fallen while they were talking. They walked back to Chloe's car across the deserted campus and Clark mulled over what they'd learned.
"Any of it making any more sense to you?" Chloe asked hopefully.
"No. It's all just random bits and pieces."
Chloe sighed. "I feel the same way." They reached Chloe's car, fortunately parked under a streetlight. "I mean, we've got a world-renown scientist, who may not have been who he claimed to be but who everyone says was the nicest guy on earth. We have Dr. Hamilton—definitely not the nicest guy on earth—working on something with him. World-renown scientist gets killed, but no one seems to have a concrete motive, including the guy arrested for the crime. Like you say, Clark, a lot of interesting bits and pieces, but no big picture."
Clark smiled down at her—the streetlight had created a halo around her blond head. "I guess it really is a puzzle, Chloe. We just have to figure out what that big picture is."
"I hate puzzles," Chloe grumbled as she fished in her pockets for the keys.
Clark heard the shot before Chloe did. With lightning speed he grabbed her by both arms, pushing her hard against the car door.
"Clark, what the…?"
He felt the projectile ricochet off his shoulder into the air, where is struck the streetlamp, shattering it. As broken glass rained down on them Clark dropped both of them to the ground.
"Oh my God, Clark?" Chloe was breathing irregularly. "Was that what I think it was?"
"Ssshhhh!" He whispered. Quickly he x-rayed the bushes around the parking area, but there were no forms outlined against the darkness. Whoever it was had already made his or her escape. And Clark wasn't about to leave Chloe here so he could run off after them, even at super speed.
Chloe was whimpering, a very uncharacteristic noise for her. "Clark, are you ok? If you hadn't shoved me…"
"I'm fine, Chloe." He laid a hand against the side of her face; she was shivering. "I'm fine—are you?"
"I think so. You've got glass in your hair," she laughed shakily.
"So do you." Clark was tempted to laugh, too.
No more than a few minutes had passed before a campus police car roared up. Two officers who couldn't have been much older than Angela McKay jumped out, their weapons drawn.
"Are you two all right?" One demanded. "We had a report of shots fired."
"Only one, and it hit the light, not us," Clark explained, pointing to the now-dark lamp above them.
While one of the officers searched the bushes, the other helped them to their feet. "Are you sure you're ok? She doesn't look too good," he gestured at Chloe.
"Just a little…startled, is all," Chloe said bravely, even though her teeth were chattering. She had both her fists knotted in Clark's jacket.
"No one's here, Joe," the other officer reported. "Found a shell casing, though—better call Metropolis P.D. down here."
"What kind of shell was it?"
Clark gave Chloe an affectionate squeeze. Even in shock Chloe's journalistic instincts were as finely tuned as ever.
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