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Chapter Three - Nice of you to finally show up Mister Kent
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(9 AM Thursday Morning)

"Clark Kent, Daily Planet," Clark said as he stood in front of the receptionist's desk at Forever Loved. "I'd like to speak to Mister Jones please."

The receptionist was an extraordinarily well-dressed man, too well-dressed to be a receptionist, Clark thought.

"Another reporter? Do you have an appointment?" the man asked.

"No, but would you let Mister Jones know I wanted a quote about him being at Permanent Memories last night? I'm sure he'll speak to me."

The receptionist looked hard at Clark. "Hold on a moment," he finally said as he picked up the phone. He pressed a button. "There's a reporter here who says he wishes to speak to you about being at Permanent Memories last night." He paused and looked at Clark. "Yes, I'll tell him." He turned to Clark and said, "Mister Jones is in a meeting now. He wanted me to tell you that he has no statement. Good day, Mister Kent."

Clark stepped back from the receptionist's desk and bumped into a short, squat older man with thinning hair in an ill-fitting gray suit. "Watch where you're going, young man," the older man said. Then he looked at the receptionist. "Any messages for me, Frank?"

Clark noticed that the receptionist's eyes widened then very quickly narrowed as he shook his head at the short man.

Clark played a hunch. "You tell Mister Jones that if I don't get a quote from him within the next two minutes there will be a story in the Daily Planet tomorrow about Forever Loved closing the only profitable store in the association."

The man in the gray suit tapped Clark on the shoulder. "I'm Randall Jones. What's this business about store closings and needing a quote?"

"You're Jones? I thought you were in a meeting." Clark looked at the frowning receptionist.

"Just walked through the door," Jones answered. "What's this about a quote?"

Clark flashed his press pass at Jones. "I'm Clark Kent with the Daily Planet. Is there a place we can talk?"

"My office," Jones said as he turned to the receptionist. "Hold my calls, Frank."

Clark glared at the receptionist. "Nice tie. It lies well ... on you." Then he followed Jones through the double wooden doors down the hall and into a small office. While they were walking, Clark slid his glasses down the bridge of his nose and used his x-ray vision. There were six small offices down the hallway and behind the door at the end of the hall was a warehouse area that held a large blast furnace and what looked to be pottery molds, probably the manufacturing area. The furnace was cold and there were two workers packaging ceramic urns in boxes.

When they entered Jones' office, Clark repositioned his glasses. Jones tossed his briefcase in the visitor's chair in front of his desk. Clark smiled to himself. This guy wasn't dumb.

Jones sat down behind his desk. "Now, what's this all about? What quote?"

Clark took out his pencil and notepad. "Last night you closed down the only profitable store in your association? Why?"

"We closed Permanent Memories to do inventory. We don't know if it will re-open yet."

"How do you stay in business if you only have one store in your group making a profit?"

Jones laughed and stood. "I think you misunderstand the principles of our Association, Mister Kent. Two years ago, a few of us in this business got together to get better pricing for the items we sell. But the member stores don't work for Forever Loved. We don't share profits or losses - only inventory. Forever Loved is my store and just happens to be the name of the association."

Clark nodded. "The name of the store and the association, huh? So was Blair the treasurer of your store or your association?"

The smile faded from Jones' face. "Don't be stupid, man - the Association, of course. Blair was a business competitor. And as such, it would be to my financial advantage to put him out of business." He paused. "But the loss of his business would hurt the Association's ability to buy from me in volume. You see the dilemma, right?"

"I do. So how do you fund your group? There must be some overhead. Who pays that? You?"

Jones shook his head. "Each member agrees to buy all of their merchandise from Forever Loved, the Association. The Association adds a ten percent markup to my manufacturing cost and that's the price the members pay. They pay my manufacturing cost plus forty percent of the mark-up. The other sixty percent pays all of the Association's overhead. Because I do the Association manufacturing, I don't pay the mark-up."

Clark stopped writing. "Sounds like a good deal for you. So with Blair's business gone I would imagine that the ten percent mark up will rise. Fewer members equals higher prices, right?"

Jones shook his head again and then a wisp of smile crossed his lips. "No. Bob planned for that possibility and so far it has turned out well. The Association takes out a million dollar life insurance policy on each principal member and that money is used to offset the difference if a member dies."

"Bob?"

"Robert Franklin. He's in charge of the Association."

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(Thursday - Mid-afternoon)

Lois sat at her desk gnawing on a pencil while she studied the information sheet Franklin had given her before he threw her out of his office. She wasn't going to admit it to Clark, but there might not be a story with Blair's death beyond a random homicide after all. She looked up just as Clark sat down at his desk.

"Well! Nice of you to finally show up Mister Kent. Did you oversleep?" she said as she returned her attention back to the information sheet.

"As a matter of fact, no, Miss Lane. I've been very busy."

Lois smirked. "Oh, do tell."

Clark yawned. "I got a tip this morning that I had to follow up on."

Lois looked at her chewed up pencil, threw it in the trashcan and took another one from her desk. "Any bet that the tipster had blue eyes?"

Clark grinned. "No bet." Then he stood, moved over to her desk and proceeded to tell her about his phone call from Gala Party and his visit this morning to Forever Loved. She told him of her conversation with Robert Franklin.

Lois leaned back in her chair. "So Blair had a million dollar life insurance policy?"

"Yeah. The Association gets his store inventory and a million dollars. How is the police investigation going?"

Lois frowned. "Well, the police aren't giving out any info, but based on what we know --" She stopped as Kent's phone rang.

He moved back to his desk, sat down and answered the phone. "Clark Kent speaking ... Sure I can meet you at five." He glanced at his watch then looked back at Lois, puzzled. "Where?" he said into the phone. "Okay, I'll meet you there, instead. Can you tell me what's it about?"

Clark looked at the phone and then over to Lois. "He hung up," he said to her.

"Who hung up?" She stood and walked over to his desk.

"Randall Jones. He said he just looked at his books and he thought he found something. He was at Blair's store and wanted me to meet him there at five o'clock."

Lois looked at her watch. It was two-thirty.

Clark shook his head as he frowned. "Something bothers me, Lois." He took the information sheet from her desk and returned to his seat. "How could Jones, who isn't the President of the Association, get a court order to close the store?"

Lois smirked. "I think your blue-eyed tipper has led you astray. I thought I saw a Jones on that sheet as the Chief Financial Officer of the Association. Maybe the court order was to inventory the store and he told your new girlfriend the store was closed so she'd find another job and the store couldn't reopen, eliminating his competition."

Clark shook his head. "Do the math. It's to his advantage to have more stores in the Association." He paused. "Look, how about if you talk to Jones while I do a little more research on the memorial business?"

"Lois! Clark! Where's that story about Heaven's Doves?" Perry shouted as he rapidly walked out of his office and stopped at Lois' desk. "And how come one of you isn't typing?"

"Working on it, Chief," Lois said. "And it's Forever Loved."

Perry's eyes narrowed. "Judas Priest! I don't care what's it's called. When am I going to get the story?"

"Soon. Very soon," Clark said clearing his throat. "Lois has an appointment with the Company President, don't you, Lois?"

Lois' eyes widened. "Yes. Yes I do," she answered recovering. "Also an appointment with the association Chief Financial Officer." Clark's eyes flashed wide for a second. Lois did a quick head bob in Perry's direction.

"Good! Now that's what I want to hear, but what I want to see is a story on my desk by tomorrow morning." Perry turned toward the newsroom. "Olson, where are the wire photos from the mudslide in Chile? Make sure we use the one of Superman saving those kids in the orphanage before the hillside collapsed!" He didn't wait for Jimmy's answer as he turned back toward Lois and Clark. "Nice to seeing you two working together on this."

Lois watched Perry retreat back to his office followed by Jimmy with a handful of photographs.

"Nice save with Perry," Clark grinned.

"Back at you," she smiled back.

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Lois pulled up in front of Permanent Memories at five P.M., turned off her car and walked up to the store entrance. Other than a man using the pay phone on the corner near the alleyway, the street was deserted. The lights were out in the store and the sign on the door read: "Closed." Figuring that perhaps Jones was inside waiting for Clark, Lois knocked. The door swung open.

"Hello," she called out as she cautiously entered the store. "Mister Jones? Lois Lane here. I know you were expecting Clark Kent, but he couldn't …." The store looked like it'd been ransacked. Everything was on the floor and broken.

There was no answer from within the store. "Hello!" she called out again. "Mister Jones?" Since Clark still hadn't shared what he saw in the backroom, Lois thought, this would be her chance to find out for herself.

She moved toward the stockroom and stumbled over what she initially thought was a tipped over display case leg. She caught herself in time to keep from falling.

There was a shoe attached to one end of the leg and a man's body attached to the other end. Lois knew she wasn't going to get an interview from this man.

She cautiously looked around her immediate surroundings, making sure there were no other dead bodies for her to stumble over. Then she walked out of the store to the corner pay phone and dialed Clark.

"Clark Kent, Daily Planet." he answered.

"Clark. Lois. Can you describe Randall Jones?"

"Sure. About fifty. Shorter than you. Heavyset. He was wearing a gray suit when I saw him a couple of hours ago. Why? Didn't he show?"

"No. He showed. I saw him just a moment ago. He's dead. Looks like he's been shot, at least once, maybe -" Suddenly there was a swoosh and a strong breeze as Superman stood in front of the store. "Twice in the back," she said as she hung up the phone.

She joined him in front of the store as Superman rapidly scanned the store. He shook his head. "There's no one here. The door in the back of the store is opened, but there's no one within sight. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but the police are going to want me to stay and answer questions. And I don't have a lot of answers."

"Just tell them what you know: Clark Kent took the call and you showed up to do an interview. You found Jones dead and called the police. I'll stay until they arrive."

She went back to the pay phone and called Detective Stahl of Metropolis Homicide.

Superman accompanied her as she went back into the building after finishing her call. "I wonder what he wanted to tell us," Superman said as he knelt next to the body. Lois walked around the body and stood behind the cash register counter. There she noticed the phone next to the cash register was off the hook, dangling to the floor. "Didn't you say he hung up on you?" she asked.

Superman moved behind the counter to stand next to Lois. "See," she said pointing to the phone. There was a notepad by the phone. The top sheet was blank. "Wonder if he used the pad." She leaned over until she was eyelevel with the notepad, hoping for impressions from previous pages.

She couldn't see anything. Shaking her head, she straightened up and frowned. "There's always a clue on the notepad on television."

"I wonder," Superman said. He moved back to the body and stared at it and then turned back to Lois. "He has a sheet of paper from that notepad folded in his coat pocket. The sheet has writing on it. It looks like the word "shrink" and the letter F.

Lois shook her head. "Any idea what it means?"

"None."

A few minutes later Detective Stahl and his partner arrived. Superman stayed long enough to ensure that the detectives understood that Lois reported the crime, but was not a witness to the murder. Then Superman excused himself and flew off.

The police questioned her for about fifteen more minutes before Stahl said, "Well, Miss Lane, I don't think we'll need anything else from you at the moment. I'll ask that you not report the cause of death or anything else about this until we give you the say so. Obviously, don't leave town and we'll call when we're ready for you to sign your statement."

A uniformed patrolman approached the detective and said, "Detective, looks someone cut the phone wires in the back of the store." Stahl turned, noticing Lois writing in her pad what she overheard. "You report none of this, understand?" he barked at her.

Lois frowned. "Come on, Detective, don't do this to me. At least, let me at least report the cause of death." She stopped and put her pen to her lips. "Wait a minute. Didn't you say the same thing to Gala Party when she reported that Blair been shot?"

Stahl's frown deepened. "Who told you he was shot?"

Lois was silent for a moment, then she started backing up toward the door. "Oh, you know we reporters hear things on the street. Gotta go. You've been a big help."

Detective Stahl looked momentarily confused, then snapped. "Lane, you report the circumstances of these two deaths and I'll personally throw you under the jail. Got it?"

Lois smiled as she walked past the officers. "Got it, Detective," she called back as she got in her car. She checked her notebook and then headed to Forever Loved.

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