SIEGEL
I study it for a minute, collecting my—
“I see you out there,” an elderly woman’s voice announces. “You here for the air-conditioning?”
It’d be simple to say yes. Or to flash my wallet in front of the eyehole and pretend I’m still a fed. She’s gotta be nearly ninety. She wouldn’t know the difference.
But I would. And this woman—and her family—deserves better.
“I’m—if you can—I was hoping to ask you about your husband,” I tell her.
The door stays shut. “If you’re one of those comic book people, I don’t do interviews. I don’t talk about Superman. I’ve told my stories,” she tells me.
“Ma’am, I don’t care about Superman. I’m here about your husband. Jerry.”
“Then you care about Superman. You think you’re the first yahoo to try that line?”
“Ma’am—”
“I’ve been putting up with people like you since 1948,” she yells through the door.
“I know who murdered Jerry’s father.”
“Nice try. I’ve heard that one, too. Lemme guess: You wanna write a book. Everyone loves a mystery.”
“I know it wasn’t a mystery. And I know Jerry saw it happen.”
There’s a long pause. The pelicans continue to squawk.
“I found these,” I add, pulling the four panels of the old comic strip—with the old Thule symbol—from my pocket and holding it up to the peephole.
There’s another long pause.
I’m expecting a frail Miami Beach Golden Girl. Instead, I get an elderly woman with teased reddish brown hair, lively dark eyes, and the most stunning cheekbones I’ve ever seen. According to the brochure from the museum, this woman posed for Jerry and Joe, making her the physical model for Lois Lane. Of course she’s beautiful.
“Why don’t you come inside, Mr. . .”
“Cal Harper,” I say, extending a hand.
“Joanne,” she says, inviting me in without shaking back. “Where’d you find the art?”
“In Jerry’s Cleveland house. In his room,” I say, watching as she stares at the comic panels in my hand. “You didn’t know they were there, did you?”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she leads me into her living room, which is decorated in light pastels and sea- foam green. Just like the prison. There’s a bookcase on our left, but the rest of the walls are filled—absolutely stacked—with picture frame after picture frame of family photos. Pictures of her and Jerry, her and her daughter, her and her grandchildren. There’s not a single one of Superman.
Over by a white Formica credenza, she reaches for the double cassette player and lowers the Dean Martin volume—but doesn’t turn it off. She doesn’t like being alone. Me neither.
She takes a seat on her wicker-and-peach sofa, crossing her ankles like a true lady. “Tell me what you want from us, Mr. Harper.”
“No. No no no. I don’t want anything.”
“Then why’re you here?”
“I’m just— It’s hard to explain.”
She raises a thin eyebrow. “Every single day of my Jerry’s life, someone wanted something: the lawyers, the reporters, the so-called fans, and don’t even start me on the publisher. Before the whole mess went public, when Jerry was in his sixties, y’know he was reduced to sorting mail? The man creates a billion-dollar legend, and he spent his twilight years dropping packages on people’s desks and fighting to get paid for it. Even when they finally wrote the check and tried to make right, everyone eventually wanted something from him, Mr. Harper. So you might as well tell me: Are you doing this for the cash or just for the story?”
“I know this sounds odd, Mrs. Siegel. But I think . . . I think I’m doing this for my father, if that makes any sense.”
“It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“I know, but I was right before, wasn’t I? Jerry did witness his dad’s murder.”
At first, she’s silent, staring off at the family photos that fill the wall. “You need to understand, in the comic book, Superman was the hero, and Clark Kent was the act. But in real life . . . Clark Kent . . . that was Jerry. The awkwardness, the fears, even the slight stammer—he was the little guy that the bully would kick sand at on the beach. But that would all disappear when he was talking about his stories. Then he was a dynamo—excited, energized—able to hold his own with anyone. It was like he had this well of strength inside him that would overflow once you got him in his element. But only when he was in his element. Did you ever meet anyone like that?”
I can’t help but nod, seeing my own reflection in a nearby picture frame. “Every single day.”
“Y’know Hitler banned Superman? Mussolini also. Jerry was flying then. But when he lost the rights to Superman—when they took his name off it—Jerry the dynamo disappeared, too. But even then, even at his lowest, when the electric company said they were shutting our power off, he was still strong inside. Jerry took that beating in front of everyone. And that—I can’t explain it—but I know that strength came from his dad.”
“That him?” I ask, pointing to a gray-tone photo of a young, mustached man in a Russian army uniform. His body is small and thin, barely filling his buttoned tunic. In the photo, he’s posed in front of a railing, as though he’s holding it to stand.
“That’s Mitchell,” she says.
“So Jerry spoke of him often?”
“No. He just . . . he spoke of him
“But never in public.”
“See, that’s the misconception. Sure, Jerry gave thousands of interviews, but just because he never mentioned his father, people want to see it as a flaw or a controversy—or say that Jerry didn’t want to be pitied as the little boy who lost his parent. But that’s not why Jerry was so quiet about his dad.”
“You think he was protecting him,” I say.
“He was protecting
“And you know what it is.”
“I never said that, Mr. Harper.”
I shake my head, turning toward the bookcase on my left. The shelves are packed with mostly romance novels and a few random hardbacks, but along the top shelf, there’s a set of tall leather books with the words
For the first time since I’ve been here, Joanne Siegel’s high cheeks fall.
To be fair, it was my father who mentioned the story: of Jerry Siegel splitting his ashes between a copper urn and a set of hollowed-out fake books that his wife was saving for when Cleveland finally builds a true Superman museum. But it wasn’t until Alberto said the magic words that the truth finally hit me. Once people think there are ashes in something, it becomes the one hiding spot no one’ll ever open.
Shazam.
“You’re going to take it away now, aren’t you?” she asks.
“I promised you, ma’am, I don’t want anything.”
I walk toward the shelf. Joanne stays silent.
“Can you at least tell me what it is?” she finally asks.
Glancing over my shoulder, I stare back at Jerry Siegel’s widow. Of course he never told her. The contents inside had already cost his father his life. If his wife knew the truth . . . if they ever came after her . . . No way would Superman ever put Lois in danger.
“You really don’t know?” I ask.
“I have an idea. But not for sure.”
I pull out the fake books and realize there’s one more book attached to the set: a green one that says
“Jerry’s other great creation: A murdered man gets sent back by God to take vengeance on evil sinners,” Joanne explains.
