Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon

by Donna Andrews

  What the devil, I thought, and flipped the phone to night mode so I could see what they were up to. The chief didn't look as if he wanted my company, but he didn't actually order me away, so I followed them into the main part of the office.

  And all the way to the back corner, to Jack's cube.

  “John Ransom,“ the chief said.

  Jack looked up, saw the chief, and frowned. Then he saw me and removed the glasses he only wore when staring at a monitor.

  “What can I do for you?“ he said.

  “You're under arrest for the murder of Theodore Corrigan,“ the chief said. “Read him his rights, Sammy.“

  “Yes, sir,“ the young officer said, reaching into his pocket.

  “You've got to be kidding,“ I said. “What makes you think Jack is the killer?“

  “like I said, that computer printout you brought us,“ the chief said. “We figured out from the date column that the day before his murder, Mr. Corrigan made an approach to his most recent potential blackmailing target – code named the Ninja.“

  “And you think Jack's the Ninja?“ I said. I looked at Jack, who shrugged, leaned back in his chair, and lifted one eyebrow as he watched the young officer. Perhaps Sammy had never arrested anyone before – at least not for murder. He was still nervously patting and fumbling with his uniform pockets, apparently searching for his Miranda cue card.

  “It all added up, once we determined he was the only really accomplished martial artist among our suspects,“ the chief said.

  “Apart from me,“ I said. “Are you really discounting me as a suspect purely on the strength of a few broken bones?“

  “You don't have the same kind of motivation Mr. Ransom has,“ the chief said.

  “And what motivation is that?“ I asked.

  The chief smiled. “Let me use your computer for a minute,“ he said to Jack.

  Jack hesitated.

  “Okay if I save what I'm doing first?“ he asked.

  The chief nodded magnanimously, and Jack's fingers rattled the keyboard rapidly for a few seconds.

  “Be my guest,“ Jack said, standing up and taking a seat on the countertop at the back of the cube.

  The chief sat down and hitched his chair up to the computer. He bobbed his head up and down several times, looking like one of those toy dogs with the nodding heads, until he found an angle that let him see the screen, and then he picked up the mouse and began laboriously moving it around the screen. We all leaned over to see what he was doing, except for Sammy, who was removing stray bits of paper from his wallet and staring at them, apparently hoping that one of them would turn out to be bis Miranda card.

  “I could probably do that faster if you tell me what you want done,“ Jack suggested as the chief continued pecking keys and peering at the monitor. Faster, and no doubt with less danger to Jack's computer, I thought.

  “No, our computer guy showed me how to do this,“ the chief said. “Aha! That's got it!“

  A familiar, colorful graphic appeared on the screen: a cartoon gavel smashing down on a surface.

  “You've started Lawyers from Hell,“ I said.

  “No,“ the chief said. “I've started Nude Lawyers from Hell.“

  “I stand corrected,“ I said, watching as tiny naked cartoon figures began inarching across the screen. “What does either of them have to do with Ted's murder?“

  “Watch this,“ the chief said.

  He peered at the keyboard and pressed several keys.

  The picture on screen changed. Strings sprouted from the wrists and ankles of the cartoon figures, as if they were puppets. The scene shifted, the way it does in a movie when the camera pulls back for a long shot. Now we could see the wooden frames from which the puppet strings hung, and a pair of hands moving the frames.

  “What is this?“ I asked. I thought I'd seen every possible sequence in the game, more times than I wanted to imagine – but I'd never seen this.

  “It's an Easter egg,“ Jack said.

  “What's that?“

  “That's what they call it when one of these programmer fellows sticks in a little something extra that isn't supposed to be there,“ the chief said. “You can see it only if you know what keys to press.“

  He was preening himself as if he'd figured it out himself. “Now watch this,“ he said, pointing back at the screen.

  Jack sighed.

  The view widened again. I could see the rail on which the puppeteer was leaning, stacked with little discarded garments – tiny cartoon suit jackets and trousers, crumpled doll-size judges' robes and minuscule loud ties. Then the face of the puppeteer came into view.

  Jack.

  It was a cartoon version of his face, but larger and more detailed and realistic than the Lawyers from Hell characters, and instantly recognizable. He winked at us, and a curtain began closing over the picture. In a few seconds the game reappeared.

  “You programmed Nude Lawyers from Hell?“ I said, looking up at the real Jack.

  He shrugged sheepishly. “I just wanted to see if I could,“ he said. “And I thought it would make a nice April Fools' gag.“

  “See,“ the chief said. “He admits it.“

  “Some gag, sending it out all over the world,“ I said.

  “I didn't do that,“ he protested. “I just put it on a couple of machines here in the office. I have no idea how it got out on the Web.“

  “For heaven's sake, you know these clowns,“ I said. “Did you really think it wouldn't?“

  “You could have a point,“ Jack said.

  “Now you understand his motive,“ the chief said, leaning back and lacing his fingers across his stomach.

  “Not really,“ I said. “What does Jack programming Nude Lawyers from Hell have to do with Ted's murder?“

  Either Jack was a really good actor or he was looking forward to the answer, too.

  “Mr. Corrigan was blackmailing him,“ the chief said.

  “Ted tried blackmailing me,“ Jack admitted. “Back in April, when he found the Easter egg himself. I told him to go to hell, and he didn't try again.“

  “So you say,“ the chief said. “But Mr. Corrigan's blackmail log says differently. It says he approached you Sunday night – the night before the murder. And you struck the next day.“

  “You can't be serious,“ Jack said. “For one thing, why would I pay blackmail to conceal something that anyone could stumble on if they pressed the right key combination?“

  “And before you strangled him, you stunned him with a blow to the throat,“ the chief said, ignoring Jack's protest. “The kind of blow they teach you in those martial arts classes you've taken so many of.“

  “That's ridiculous,“ I said. “How can you possibly know from Ted's body that the person who hit him was a martial artist, instead of someone who just happened to hit the right place?“

  “And then there's the location of Mr. Ransom's cube,“ the chief said. “Not many places along its route that the mail cart isn't visible to three or four people. But back here, no one but Mr. Ransom here can see the cart when it stops to give him his mail.“

  That was true, anyway, I realized as I thought back to my map.

  “What kind of idiot would kill someone outside his own cube?“ I asked aloud.

  “An idiot who knows he can send the body rolling merrily on its way with the push of a button, and none the wiser,“ the chief said.

  “And Jack would have to be crazy to kill Ted here, when every few minutes, someone pops in to bother him about something,“ I said.

  “He can tell all that to his lawyer,“ the chief said. “Haven't you found that damned card yet?“

  He barked the last question to Sammy, who turned beet red and shook his head.

  “Oh, for heaven's sake,“ the chief muttered. He unbuttoned his top left shirt pocket and pulled out a laminated card. He looked over his glasses, reproachfully, at Sammy, and then pushed them up on his nose and looked back at the card.

  “You have the right t
o remain silent,“ he intoned, and then he gave the entire Miranda warning. Not that he seemed to need the card and he didn't rattle it off, either. He paced himself, savoring each word, with the rich, round delivery of a revival tent preacher or an old-fashioned small-town politician. By the time he finished you wanted to stand up and sing “God Bless America.“

  “You keep it in your uniform shirt pocket,“ he said, tucking the card away in Sammy's pocket. Sammy blushed again.

  “I guess that means you're going to take me off to jail,“ Jack said.

  The chief nodded. Sammy stepped forward, but the chief held up his hand and stopped him.

  We watched as Jack exited the Nude Lawyers from Hell game, turned off his computer, put his glasses in a case, and stuck the case in his pocket. He pushed back his chair, stood up, and then reached over to grab an Affirmation Bear that was sitting on the counter of his cube.

  “Here“ he said, tossing the bear to me. “Little souvenir.“

  “Do you have a lawyer?“ I asked.

  “Not yet,“ he said. “Guess I should.“

  “I'll call and send somebody down,“ I said, remembering that I still had the names of the lawyers Michael had recommended.

  “That'd be great,“ he said.

  I watched as the chief and Sammy led Jack out; then I looked down at the bear.

  “Damn,“ I said, and I punched the bear in the belly to take out my frustration.

  “Here's looking at you, kid,“ the bear said, Bogart's voice sounding particularly incongruous coming from its smiling pink face.

  I went back to my desk, fished out my notebook, flipped through till I found the names of the lawyers, and called one for Jack. The one Rob wasn't using. And then, when I was sure the lawyer was on his way down to the jail, I called Michael to vent.

  “That's great,“ he said when I told him the news.

  “Great? What do you mean 'great'?“

  “Rob's off the hook, right?“

  “Yes, but Jack's on die hook, and I'm not sure that's a big improvement.“

  “He's got a good attorney, right?“ Michael asked.

  “One of the ones you recommended,“ I said. “The one who isn't representing Rob.“

  “He'll be fine,“ Michael said. “You've managed to convince the police that Rob didn't do it – maybe you should back off.“

  “I can't,“ I said. “I just don't believe Jack did it, and I don't believe the chief is going to keep digging until he finds out who did.“

  “What's so important about this Jack character?“ Michael said. Oh, dear. Was that a note of jealousy? I could have said that he was an attractive guy who'd been flirting with me, not to mention doing the kind of thoughtful, helpful things Michael would have been doing if he weren't three thousand miles away, and that maybe I felt just a little bit bad about not having discouraged him a little more firmly. But I didn't think that would go over too well. So I stuck to the business side of things.

  “Apart from the fact that I've figured out he's the one who really runs the shop, and Rob desperately needs him to get Lawyers from Hell II finished on time and keep the company afloat, it bothers me that the chief used something I found for him to pin the murder on someone I think is innocent.“

  “Let his lawyer make a fuss, then,“ Michael said. “There's no reason for you to keep putting yourself in danger.“

  “I'm not going to put myself in danger,“ I said. “I'm just going to keep doing what I have been doing.“

  “Sneaking into the office by yourself in the middle of the night?“

  “If you were paying attention, you'd remember that I've never managed to be by myself in the office in the middle of the night,“ I countered. “There's always at least one other person sneaking around.“

  “And what if the next time the person doing the sneaking is the murderer, and decides you're too close on his heels?“

  “I'll be careful,“ I said. “I'm not incapable of taking care of myself. Besides, there's only one thing I need to sneak back into the office to do.“

  “There isn't anything you need to sneak back into the office to do.“

  “I need to finish studying the mail cart trail.“

  “I thought you said you'd done a complete map of the mail cart trail last night.“

  “Yes, but that only shows where the cart goes.“

  “And anyplace not on your map, the mail cart doesn't go,“ he said. “What's to find out?“

  “I have the marked tiles that form the real trail mapped, and I know where there are loose tiles that show that Ted messed with its path sometime or other,“ I said. “But I haven't checked to see where there are loose unmarked tiles. That would let me figure out where the mail cart went that it wasn't supposed to go. The wrong paths.“

  “But what does that have to do with Ted's murder?“ Michael said. “You don't know when the wrong paths were used; they could have been done for practical jokes days before the murder. Just tell the police about them.“

  “I already told you the police aren't listening.“

  We squabbled about it for a few minutes. We would probably have escalated to a full-scale argument, except his signal started fading slightly, and I decided it would be better for all concerned if I pretended we'd been cut off completely. When Michael tried to call back, I turned my cell phone off and left it off for an hour.

  I fumed. And then something struck me. I pulled out the tote bag and extracted my copy of Ted's blackmail list.

  “Of course,“ I muttered. Jack said he'd told Ted to go to hell. Which was exactly what Ted had written beside the name Professor Higgins on his sheet.

  “My Fair Lady,“ I exclaimed, recalling the cover of the original Broadway album, with its pen-and-ink drawing of Eliza Doolittle dangling like a puppet from the strings held by Professor Higgins. I'd have bet that Ted, like me, had grown up with a copy of that around the house, and had remembered it when he saw Jack's Easter egg.

  “And if Jack's Professor Higgins, he's not the Ninja.“

  But it would take more than a copy of the soundtrack of My Fair Lady to convince the chief. I'd need more evidence.

  While I had the bag out, I fished out the legal documents that had been in the cache. As I now suspected, they were copies of the agreement the disgruntled Eugene Mason had signed on joining Mutant Wizards, and the yet-unsigned exit agreement. Had Ted stolen Mason's copy? Suspicious, but slim grounds for murder.

  I was still fuming when Doc showed up again around lunch-time, bearing his black vet's bag and a bag of soy burger bribes.

  “Come to see Katy?“ I asked.

  “Yes, please,“ he said. *

  Rico didn't answer when I called his office, so I flipped the phone into night mode and went looking for him.

  “That's odd,“ Rico said when I finally tracked him down in Frankie's cube. “He didn't mention needing to see her again.“

  “You know Doc, always worrying about his patients,“ Frankie said, looking up from the computer he and Rico had been assembling. Or disassembling – it was hard to tell which. For all I knew, perhaps they were creating an abstract sculpture.

  “Katy's down in the conference room,“ Rico said. “I'll bring her out.“

  When I got back to the reception room, I found that Doc had grabbed George's perch and had dragged it out into the middle of the room.

  “Doc,“ I said. “What on Earth are you doing?“

  “I am liberating this poor downtrodden symbol of our country's national bird!“ Doc shouted.

  “You must have flunked your ornithology classes at veterinary school,“ I said. “Or maybe you're having a flashback to a previous animal liberation adventure. He's a buzzard, not an eagle.“

  Doc glanced at George, who hunched his neck and looked unmistakably buzzardish.

  “This poor, downtrodden symbol of… of our society's callous insensitivity to the environment,“ Doc corrected. He took a deep breath, ready to continue orating, but he made the mistake of tak
ing it too near George and began gagging.

  “Just leave George alone,“ I said over the coughing. “I don't think he wants to be liberated.“

  “You'd be surprised how quickly wild animals learn to fend for themselves again,“ Doc wheezed. “His hunting skills will return to him when he returns to his native habitat.“

  “Buzzards don't hunt; they eat carrion,“ I pointed out. “Besides. George only has one – “

  “He'll learn to find his own carrion, then,“ Doc said, beginning to sound a little irritated. He grabbed George's perch and began dragging it again. Now I realized that he was heading toward the window at the other side of the room.

  “You're crazy.“ I said as I headed for the switchboard to call the police. Giving Doc and George a wide berth, of course.

  “Here you go, George!“ Doc shouted, flinging open the window and setting the perch upright again beside it. “Independence Day!“

  George, who had been scrambling to keep his grip on the moving perch, greeted the outdoor air with as much enthusiasm as if Doc had tried to stick him in an oven. Which, considering that the temperature outside was again in the high nineties, wasn't too far from the truth. George gave an angry squawk and began sidling away from the window.

  “You see, he doesn't want to return to nature,“ I said.

  “He's been corrupted by civilization,“ Doc said. “We must push him out of the nest.“

  With that, he tipped the perch so it slanted rather steeply toward the window. George shrieked in terror.

  “Stop that, this instant!“ I ordered as I rushed over and tried to set the perch level again.

  “Fly free, little bird!“ Doc shouted, shaking the perch.

  “He can't fly free, for heaven's sake,“ I exclaimed. “He's got only one wing.“

  Doc gaped at George, whose lopsided condition was now obvious – he was flapping his single wing wildly, trying to regain his balance, but unsuccessfully – he was sliding inexorably toward the open window.

  “Oh, my God!“ Doc exclaimed. After gaping for a few moments, he lunged out and grabbed George just as the buzzard's first foot slipped off the end of the perch. George, not surprisingly, interpreted Doc's lunge as an attack. He lashed out with beak and claws and then vomited on Doc. When the squawking died down and the blood, feathers, and other things stopped flying, George and Doc were sulking in separate corners, nursing their wounds and glowering at each other.