Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon

“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.“

“Instead of a karate chop?“

I set my flashlight on a shelf, where the beam would provide some general illumination, and climbed back up the ladder.

“Imagine you're Ted. You've switched tiles so the mail cart will cruise through here. And you're lying on the mail cart, with stage blood running down from your chest. Down your sides, your arms – and onto your throat.“

“And I stop right beneath the ladder,“ Dad said, throwing himself into his role. He walked along my theoretical mail cart path, leaning back to become as horizontal as he could without actually falling on his back.

“From up here, I wouldn't need that much strength to hit someone hard,“ I said. “Gravity's on my side. So all I have to do is take a step or two down and wham!“ I slammed the book down on an imaginary Ted's throat, with a violence that clearly startled Dad. Startled me, in fact. I was angry. Not at poor irritating Ted, but at the person who'd killed him. The person I'd considered a friend.

“And then,“ I went on, “if there happened to be a mouse cord on one of the pigeonholes of the mail cart – and there probably was since people were always sending each other stray bits of hardware on the mail cart – mice, disk drives, cables – all I'd have to do wduld be to pick it up and finish the job.“

Dad and I stood, looking at each other for a few seconds. Then he reached out and patted me on the shoulder.

“Good job,“ he said. “Let's take this book to the chief and tell him – “

“I knew I was going to have to do something about you,“ came a voice from behind me.