“Doc,“ I said. “If you really want to find George a better home, I'm all for it. He doesn't belong in a reception room. I'm sure there are places that take wounded birds of prey and try to help them lead the most normal lives possible. Come back and tell me you've gotten George a berth at one of those places, and I'll help you carry him out. But until then, leave him alone.“
“Should I dress his wounds?“ Doc asked.
We both looked at George, who fluffed his feathers out, bobbed his head, and shrieked.
“You can try, if you like,“ I said.
Doc limped out. I considered and discarded the idea of moving George back to his original corner. He was a little in the way, but I figured he wouldn't appreciate moving again right now. I cleaned up the reception room as well as I could, removed the old newspapers, and spread out a new set beneath George's stand.
By this time I calmed down and felt bad about hanging up on Michael. But now, of course, he wasn't answering his cell phone. Chill, I told myself. He's probably on the set, with it turned off. I'd catch up with him sooner or later, and make peace. And maybe it was better if I didn't until, say, tomorrow – when I would already have made my final late-night visit to the office and wouldn't be lying when I promised never to do it again.
About two o'clock, a call came through the switchboard that made me do a double take. A rather officious secretary asked to talk to Dr. Lorelei Gruber and, when I told her the doctor was out, left not only her boss's name and number but also their firm name. A law firm whose name sounded familiar, probably from when I was looking up numbers for the attorneys Rob recommended. I pulled out the yellow pages to check.
Yes, there it was. Savage and Associates, divorce attorneys. The wonderful aptness of the name for a lawyer specializing in divorces had made it stick in my mind.
Was Dr. Lorelei, the self-proclaimed expert on relationships, looking for a divorce?
Of course, there could be some perfectly innocent reason for a divorce attorney to call her. Perhaps he referred clients to her, clients who had some hope of reconciliation. Perhaps he was her client – even divorce lawyers must sometimes have troubled relationships. Perhaps he was her cousin.
Or maybe she was getting a divorce. Had she, perhaps, found out about her husband's secret life as Anna Floyd?
Normally, I pretended to be oblivious of the contents of the messages I gave people, but I couldn't resist. When Dr. Lorelei strode into the office after lunch, I looked her straight in the eye as I was handing this one over.
“Your lawyer called,“ I said.
She started visibly and looked around the reception room as if to see if anyone else had heard. “I hope you realize how inappropriate it would be for you to gossip about this,“ she said.
“I hope you realize how insulting it is for you to even say that,“ I replied.
She looked hurt, and I wondered if I'd been too sharp. Then she began fumbling in her purse, pulling out a half-shredded tissue, and I realized that she was blinking back tears.
“I'm sorry,“ she said. “This is very difficult for me.“
“Here,“ I said, quickly pulling out several tissues from the box on the reception desk and handing them to her. If I were a better person, I thought, I'd go over to hug her, but I couldn't quite bring myself to try. She patted her eyes carefully, trying to soak up the tears before they hit her makeup, then blew her nose vigorously and held the used tissues back to me. I blinked at them, then picked up the wastebasket and held it up so she could deposit them.
“Sorry,“ she said.
“It's okay,“ I said.
“This is very embarrassing,“ she said. “In my situation.“
“If you don't love the guy anymore, why keep beating your head against the wall,“ I said, shrugging.
“It's not that I don't love him,“ she said. “I do. But he doesn't meet my needs.“
I was fishing for information, I admit, but this was way too much information.
She must have deduced my reaction from my face. “My emotional needs,“ she added.
“I see,“ I lied.
“He's just not romantic enough,“ she explained. “He's very intelligent and reliable. We have a very honest, healthy relationship. But he has… no imagination. No sense of play. Not a hint of romanticism.“
I stifled the urge to giggle, remembering some of the more purple passages in Anna Floyd's books. And wondered whether or not I should reveal her husband's secret. Would it rescue their marriage? Or was his lack of romanticism only an excuse she could replace in a heartbeat with being dishonest, impractical, and a male chauvinist pig.
What the hell. But she'd never believe me if I told her. I pulled open the drawer and snagged one* of the Anna Floyd books. Under it lay the unfinished Anna Floyd manuscript. The first page had Anna Floyd's address – a post office box in a nearby town – and e-mail address: [email protected]. I grabbed a pen and jotted the e-mail address on the inside front cover of the book.
“Here,“ I said, holding out the book. “You should talk to the author.“
Dr. Lorelei stiffened and backed away a step. “I really don't see what I would have to say to her,“ she began.
“It's a him, using a female pseudonym,“ I said. “I jotted his e-mail address inside.“
“And why would I want to talk to him?“ she said, backing up a few more steps.
“I think you'll find he has some useful insights on relationships,“ I said. “He might have some advice you'd find useful.“
“I know you mean well,“ she said, backing away. “But I really don't think you understand.“
With that, she fled toward her office.
So much for trying to help the lovelorn, I thought. I dropped the book on the desk and answered a ringing line.
I tried to call Michael's cell phone several times before I left the office. No answer. I left a message at his hotel. Then I went home and repeated the process several times. Dammit, if he was going to sulk this long just because I resented his trying to order me around… I'd settle things with Michael tomorrow. After I finished skulking around the office one more time. I put on my skulking clothes, made sure the black light was in my purse, and then, realizing that 6:30 was a little early to reappear at the office, lay down on the sofa to kill an hour or so leafing through Mother's latest decorating tome.
It was past midnight before I woke up again. I just don't get this nap thing. I was sweaty from the stuffy air of the Cave, and more tired than before, thanks to nightmares of being chased down the halls of the office by bolts of flowered chintz. And while I knew the picturesque patterns ironed into my cheek by the tufted sofa fabric were unlikely to be permanent, I really hated having to go out of the Cave looking as if I'd gotten a Braille tattoo. Even if the only people likely to notice were any Mutant Wizard staff with nothing better to do than hang around the office after midnight.
As I strolled over to the office, I realized that I was getting rather used to prowling about Caerphilly in the wee small hours. I knew when to cross the street to avoid yards with overgrown shrubbery in which muggers or shoelace-hating cats might lurk. I knew that exactly in the middle of a particular block, a large fierce-sounding dog would begin barking when he heard my footsteps and persist until an irritated, sleepy voice called out, “Shut up, Groucho!“ I knew that at some point along the route, a streetlight would buzz and go dark as I approached it, and even though I knew that it was probably due to a burned-out bulb or a malfunctioning photoelectric cell, I would, as usual, wonder if my body had undergone some strange mutation and now gave off streetlight-killing rays. And when a police car passed by the end of the block, I would make an extra effort to look relaxed and nonchalant, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be strolling about town after midnight in dark pants, a dark shirt, and black Reeboks. Just another hardworking cat burglar on her daily commute.
By this time, I knew better than to barge into the office assuming the coast was clear. I s
kulked in the shrubbery at the edge of the parking lot until I was sure no one else was hiding there. Although come to think of it, all I could really be sure of was that anyone hiding there had more patience than I did. I waited inside the front door until my eyes had adjusted to the inside light level, which turned out to be useful. If I'd gone upstairs right away, I would probably still have noticed the suspicious shadow in the hall outside the Mutant Wizards office. But if my eyes hadn't been adjusted to the dark, I probably would have leaped out to neutralize the shadow's owner with a few swift kicks and punches, and I would have been very embarrassed when I realized I'd attacked an old-fashioned floor mop resting harmlessly in a pail outside the janitor's closet. I made a mental note to complain to the cleaners tomorrow.
I crept inside the office, easing the door shut so no one would hear me coming, and I skulked about from doorway to doorway, looking for signs of other skulkers.
And I spotted something. A flash of light. I paused, and peered in the direction of the light. There it was again. Someone was in one of the cubes, using a flashlight.
To be precise, someone was in Ted's old cube.
I slid silently through Cubeville until I was right outside the cube where the light had appeared. I readied my own flashlight and was about to leap out and confront the intruder when –
My pager went off.
“Oh, hi, Meg.“
Dad stuck his head out of the cube while I was struggling to silence the pager. Hell, struggling to find the pager, which had apparently migrated to the very bottom of my purse.
“You can turn on a light if you like,“ he added.
I sighed and pulled out the pager. Rob had called. What now?
“Hi, Meg,“ he said, when I called him. “Do you know where Dad is?“
“You're in luck; he's right here,“ I said. Of course, I didn't mention where here was. “Want to talk to him?“
“No, that's okay,“ Rob said. “I was just worried. He's usually home by now.“
“I can send him home,“ I said.
“No, if you two are busy, that's okay,“ he said. “Just remind him he's supposed to take Spike when he gets home. Unless you'd like to – “
“I'll remind him,“ I said, hanging up. “Rob was worried,“ I added, to Dad.
“That's nice,“ Dad said. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor mat in Ted's cube, groping around to see if anything was hidden on the back of the file cabinet, on the underside of the desk surface, or inside the partitions.
“Having any luck?“ I said after watching him for a minute.
“No,“ Dad said. “Ow.“
He'd scratched himself on a sharp edge inside the partition. He sat for a few moments, sucking the cut and favoring the partition with the sort of disappointed look that suggested he was half expecting it to apologize.
“No, I don't think there's anything here to find,“ he said. “I can help you with whatever you're doing.“
Normally, I'd have waffled. Dad helping with a task all too often escalated into Dad taking over and turning it into something larger, more complex, and completely different from what I intended.
Then on the other hand, considering what I wanted to accomplish…
“You're welcome to help if you like,“ I said. “I'm afraid it's not very exciting.“
“You forget,“ Dad said, sounding hurt. “I've participated in investigations before. I know crime solving sometimes involves a level of patient, meticulous effort that would seem tedious to the uninitiated.“
Yes, Dad probably did know that, but since patient, meticulous effort wasn't exactly his forte, he'd probably used the knowledge to make sure he was elsewhere when any such effort was going on.
“Right,“ I said. “Okay. What we need to do is test every floor tile in the place to see which ones are loose.“
“Loose floor tiles?“ Dad said. “Does this have something to do with the murder?“
Did he think I dropped by the office at midnight to catch up on maintenance work?
“Remember how you were riding around on the cart, trying to see where Ted could have been ambushed?“ I reminded him.
“Yes,“ he said, shaking his head. “And I'm afraid the only place it seemed at all likely was right outside poor Jack Ransom's cube.“
“And I don't happen to think Jack did it,“ I said.
Perhaps I said it a little too vehemently.
“I don't see why you're so upset about his arrest,“ Dad said, frowning. “I mean, at least the chief doesn't suspect your brother anymore.“
“Oh, it's okay to arrest an innocent person as long as he's not family?“
“Well, what do we really know about Jack?“ Dad said. “He's a nice enough fellow; I can see why you might be worried about him, but – “
“I don't care if he's nice or the most obnoxious person left on staff now that Ted's gone,“ I said. “As far as I can figure out, he's an essential part of the Lawyers from Hell II development team, so if he's unjustly jailed or having to spend a lot of his time fighting a bogus murder charge, that's bad for the new release, bad for Mutant Wizards, and bad for people like you and me who have money in the company. So if there's a chance this very important staff member might actually be innocent, I think we should find out.“
When I put it that way, Dad seemed reassured that I wasn't taking an inappropriate interest in Jack's welfare and reluctantly turned his attention to the floor tiles. At least, he was reluctant until we discovered that the best way to test whether they were glued down tight was to dance around on them in a sort of modified soft-shoe step.
Of course, this discovery drove any hope of stealth and secrecy out the window. Dad progressed from humming to singing as we skipped, stepped, shuffled, and moonwalked our way up and down the corridors.
“Singin' in the rain! I'm singin' in the rain!“ Dad caroled, waving an imaginary umbrella and splashing through imaginary puddles. The next thing I knew, he had frolicked his way into the men's room, which had much better acoustics. Of course, it didn't happen to have any carpet tiles, but presumably the lengthy session of tap dancing Dad conducted on its ceramic tiled floors was essential to determine whether Ted had been interfering with the integrity of the grout.
I had less fun than Dad, since I interrupted my own pirouettes frequently to map any loose tiles the two of us dislodged. Gradually, a pattern of Ted's mail cart experiments emerged. Apparently he had tried to send them through the bathrooms – die women's room, anyway. I suspected that the ultraviolet dye didn't stick well enough to the tiles to make diis scheme work; only in die grout could we detect any traces of it.
We'd been dirough the entire office once already, but Dad had switched from Gene Kelly to Fred Astaire and had begun retesting one of the large main hallways.
“You say tomayto, and I say tomahto,“ he was warbling. I went into the reception area, spread my map out on the reception desk, and frowned down at it.
At least half a dozen cubes showed signs that Ted had rigged the cart to chug in and ram the occupant, and if he hadn't actually detoured the cart through die lunchroom, die conference rooms, Rob's office, the library, and the computer lab, he'd been planning to do so. And as I was staring at die map, something started to take shape in my mind.
“Anyplace else we need to test?“ Dad asked, sticking his head into the reception area. “The hallway outside, maybe?“
“No, we're finished,“ I said. “I've got all die loose tiles marked on my floor plan now.“
“So what do you think it all means?“ Dad asked. “Meg? Did you hear me? I said – “
“Right, right,“ I muttered. I heard him, but my mind was elsewhere. So completely elsewhere that I tripped over one of the loose tiles on my way back into the library.
“Meg?“ Dad said, following me.
“Hang on a minute,“ I said.
I glanced around for the library steps, then pushed them back into place, where they'd been on Monday. Tucked the flashlight under my arm
, climbed to the top, and sat where Liz had been sitting. Where she was in the habit of sitting. My shoulders were level with the top shelf of the bookcase, and if I looked to my left, I could see the reception area. I shone my flashlight down and to the right. With the beam, I followed a path outlined by the loose tiles – a path that, if you replaced the blank tiles with marked ones, would lead the mail cart right up to the base of the ladder. The spots that made the cart stop could have been where one of the tiles was loose at the base of the ladder.
“Have you found something?“
“Maybe,“ I said. This was crazy. It didn't necessarily have anything to do with the murder. Ted could have switched the tiles at any time since we'd moved in, to harass Liz.
Funny she hadn't mentioned it, though.
Maybe she had just been too exasperated to talk about it. This is Liz you're talking about, I told myself. We'd laughed together, commiserated together, become friends.
I stuck the flashlight back under my arm and turned to climb down. The beam hit the bookcase in front of me, and I saw something. One of the thick legal volumes had a small red stain on the spine. I plucked it off the shelf, examined it, and then climbed back down the ladder with it.
“What do you make of this?“ I said, handing it to Dad. He trained his flashlight on it.
“It's not blood,“ he said, handing it back with a shake of his head. “Blood wouldn't stay red after it dried.“
“No,“ I said. “It's stage blood. I've spent enough time with Michael and his drama department cronies to recognize the stuff when I see it.“
“You think this is connected with the murder?“ Dad asked, frowning.
“I suppose it's remotely possible that this book was already stained with stage blood before Monday,“ I said. “But I think you're looking at how the killer managed to stun Ted before strangling him.“
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon Page 23
