Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon

“Just like Meg showed us?“ the chief repeated, glaring at me. “You've been showing these jokers how to strangle each other with mouse cords? Any particular reason why you failed to mention this?“

“Oh, God,“ I muttered. “Purse fu.“

“Beg pardon?“ the chief said.

“I was demonstrating a martial arts technique one day,“ I explained. “My teacher showed me some self-defense moves using a belt. Which works great if you have a belt, and enough time to take it off before you're actually attacked. But I happened to remark that I almost never wear a belt, and neither do many women, and would the same techniques work with a purse strap.“

“And they work great,“ Rob exclaimed. “Meg foiled a mugger with them once!“

“Anyway, the subject came up around the office one day last week,“ I said. “And Rob asked me to demonstrate. And my purse was locked in my desk drawer, so I used what was handy.“

“A mouse cord,“ the chief said, nodding.

“Actually, it was a Kensington security cable,“ Jack said.

“You show him,“ Rob said to me. “I'll pretend to attack you!“

I instantly went into an alert, defensive mode, the way I usually did when Rob offered to pretend to attack me. I was getting way too familiar with the kind of damage Rob could do when he was pretending to attack. Not that he meant any harm, any more than Katy the wolfhound did when she bounded up to greet me in the morning. But both of them were very young, even for their age; and they didn't know their own strength.

“My hand is still bothering me,“ I reminded Rob.

“You don't have to do it hard,“ Rob said. “Just show how it works, like you did last week.“

“I don't have my purse,“ I said, keeping my eyes on Rob, in case he did something stupider than usual.

“Borrow a belt from someone,“ Rob suggested.

“Are you sure –?“ the chief began.

“Here,“ Jack said, handing me his belt. I gripped it with both hands, which wasn't easy to do, given that the left was still bandaged. I settled for wrapping it around the fingertips of my left hand, which wouldn't work on a real assailant, but would do well enough for a demonstration.

“So pretend I'm a mugger,“ Rob said to the chief. “And I'm going to come up and take a swing at Meg.“

Which he did. A very healthy swing. As usual, he'd forgotten that you were supposed to move more slowly when demonstrating. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see several of the cops start.

I was holding the belt with both hands, leaving about a foot and a half of the strap between them. When Rob swung, I snapped up my arms, bringing the belt taut in the path of Rob's arm.

“And then she – ,“ Rob began, but I'd decided if he was going to swing at full speed and strength, I wasn't going to hold back on my response. With a quick twist of my right hand, I wrapped the belt around his arm. Then I stepped to the left and pulled down at the same time, trying to take as much of his weight as possible with my good right hand. Rob stumbled and put out his arm to cushion his fall, and by the time he hit the grass, I was standing behind and over him. His right arm was still caught in the belt, and I'd wrapped the rest of the strap around his throat.

“Isn't that cool!“ he exclaimed, sounding slightly choked. Apparently I'd overcompensated for the hand. I loosened the belt and sighed. That was one of Rob's better and more guilt-inducing characteristics: he enjoyed showing off his friends' and relatives' skills and accomplishments as much as his own.

And I had to admit, if he were just a little bit more predictable, he'd make the perfect uki. If you translate it literally from the Japanese, uki means “receiver.“ If you ask me, it ought to mean either “punching bag“ or “fall guy.“ In the martial arts world, the uki was the person whose job it was to pretend to attack the teacher so the teacher could demonstrate how easily you could foil your attacker and do unto him something at least as nasty and painful as he was planning to do unto you. Ukis spent a great deal of time horizontal, contemplating their bruises.

I made a fairly rotten uki – I had a tough time not losing my temper and playing too hard. But no matter how many times you flipped, tripped, kicked, punched, or knocked the wind out of Rob, he'd get right back up, smiling. He might get up a little more slowly by the twentieth or thirtieth time, but he never seemed to resent being thrown, or to lose his optimistic belief that next time he'd get the drop on you instead of the other way around.

He also knew how to fall down – largely through being an utter klutz. A vastly underrated stall, falling down. Most people tense up and try to resist a fall, which is the worst possible thing to do. You break and sprain things much more easily that way. Which is why some martial arts teachers spend a lot of time teaching their students how to fall properly – something life had already done for Rob. Tripping and falling was such a normal part of his everyday experience that he almost always landed with the boneless relaxation the rest of us had to work years to cultivate.

From his seat on the grass, he was prattling happily about the wonderful advantage the belt gave me, despite the differences in our weight and size.

“Not bad,“ Jack said as I handed him back his belt.

“Rob*s not hard to impress,“ I said with a shrug.

“I am,“ he said with a slow smile that set off all kinds of alarm bells in my head. Yes, definitely time to bring in the New Year's photo.

Jack looked down at my hand and frowned. “You're bleeding,“ he exclaimed.

“Oh, sorry,“ I said. “I hope I didn't get too much of it on your belt.“

“Never mind the belt,“ he said. “You need a bandage.“

“That's one thing I have plenty of already,“ I said. I loosened the butterfly clip that held the end of the gauze down, unwound a couple of loops, and wrapped them around my knuckles. Time to get Dad to redo my bandage, I noted. I could live with toner, ink, and coffee stains, not to mention Spike's teeth marks, but these days visible bloodstains tend to make people nervous.

“Ms. Langslow,“ the chief said.

“Yes?“

He glanced down, at my hand and frowned. “Should you be doing this with an injured hand?“ he asked.

“Probably not,“ I said.

“What did you do to it, anyway?“ he asked.

“Smashed it with a hammer. By accident,“ I added, rather unnecessarily.

“You did have it looked at by a doctor, I hope,“ he said.

“Yes, by several of them at Caerphilly Community Hospital the day I did it, and my dad every weekday since,“ I said, not trying to hide my impatience at having yet another person fretting about whether I was taking proper care of myself. And then I had to stifle a chuckle when I realized that the chief wasn't worrying about me – he was sizing me up as a suspect.

“So tell me about this strangling lesson you were giving your coworkers last week,“ he said.

“It was just a demonstration,“ I said. “Pretty much what I did just now, only with a computer security cable, instead of a belt. And I managed not to hurt myself that time; last week I had a bigger bandage that cushioned the knuckles.“

“Chief,“ an officer said. “Danny wants to talk to you.“

“I'll be right up,“ the chief said, and headed for the door, motioning me to come with him. “Who was there when you did this?“

“I don't really remember,“ I said.

“Try, then,“ he said. “It could be important.“

“You mean you think whoever strangled Ted learned it from my demonstration,“ I said as we walked in and began climbing the stairs. “Which could be true, but there's no need for me to remember who was at my demonstration. Half the idiots in the office were running around showing each other for the next three days.“

“So pretty much everyone in the office knew about this belt fu thing?“

“Even the therapists probably know about it by now,“ I said. “So I feel bad that I may have showed the murderer how to commit the crime, but that isn't going to narrow your suspect field down any.“

“Damn,“ the chief said with a sigh. “Not getting any easier,“ he told the ceiling.

He strolled into the reception room, and I tagged along. The mail cart was still there, I noticed, though Ted's body was gone. I wondered if the police would be taking the mail cart as evidence.

An officer – Danny, I presumed – hurried over when he saw the chief.

“Found this,“ the officer said. He handed the chief a piece of paper in a plastic baggie.

Whatever he'd found, the chief seemed to consider it very interesting. He read it – probably several times, from the length of time he stared at the paper – and then nodded with a grim look on his face.

“You got someone named George working here?“ he asked, still looking at the paper.

“No,“ I said.

He looked over his glasses at me. “You're positive?“

“If you don't believe me, check the phone list,“ I said. “Or the personnel files.“

“No George? At all?“

“He's the only George around,“ I said, indicating the dozing bird.

“He's George?“

“Can't be,“ the officer said. “Got to be someone with an office.“

“What do you mean?“ I asked.

The chief frowned and then held out the baggie. Inside was a note that said, “Put $5000 in small, unmarked bills in George's office, under the papers, or I'll tell everyone about the naked pictures.“

“That's easy,“ I said. “You're in George's office.“

The chief looked at George the buzzard. And then at the nest of newspapers surrounding him.

“You've got to be kidding.“

“No, but I suspect Ted was.“

“You think the deceased wrote this?“ the chief asked. “Why?“

“I think it's obvious,“ I said. “It fits his sense of humor. He'd leave this around where someone would find it, and then watch to see if they'd go scrabbling around under George's papers.“

“You don't think this could be a real blackmail note, then?“

I considered it.

“It's possible, I suppose,“ I said. “I didn't know Ted that well, of course. But from what I did know of him… yeah, it's possible. But I still think it's more likely it was his idea of a practical joke. The man was an incurable practical joker.“

“Looks to me like someone figured out a cure,“ the chief said, nodding toward the vacant mail cart. “You picked this up in an office?“ he continued, turning to the officer.

“Yes, sir!“ the officer said.

“Why don't you go down and see if you can find whoever belongs to that office and bring him on up here.“

“Or her,“ the officer added.

“Or her,“ the chief said genially. “You run along down to the parking lot and find him or her. Of course,“ he said, turning to me, “statistically speaking, around this place, the odds are the owner of the office is going to be a him.“

“About nineteen to one,“ I agreed. “For some reason, we have a hard time getting women even to interview here, much less take jobs.“

“But it's nice to see the troops are paying attention in all those expensive classes I send them to.“

I nodded absently. I had a bad feeling about this. I wasn't the least bit surprised when the eager young officer returned escorting Rob.

“Hey, what's up?“ Rob said.

“You recognize this?“ the chief asked, showing him the baggie.

Rob peered at the paper inside the baggie and nodded. “Yeah, I found it in my in-basket last week,“ he said.

“And did you comply with the blackmailer's instructions?“

“Blackmailer?“ Rob echoed. “You think this is a real blackmail note? Cool!“

“What did you think it was?“

“I figured it was someone's idea of a joke,“ Rob said. “Or maybe someone was putting together the evidence for a new trial.“

“A new trial?“ the chief asked.

“A new fictitious trial for the Lawyers from Hell game,“ I clarified.

“Yeah, exactly,“ Rob said. “We have this subscription service for registered users, you see; they get to download two new cases a month from our Web site.“

“I see,“ the chief said, looking disappointed. Why did I think he'd have liked it better if Rob's past were filled with prosecutions for blackmail and indecent exposure and other lurid crimes? “So you never followed the blackmailer's instructions?“

“No,“ Rob said. “I didn't realize it was a genuine blackmail note. Do you really think someone was trying to blackmail me?“

“You say it was found in your in-basket.“

“A whole lot of stuff ends up in my in-basket by mistake,“ Rob said.

“Including the occasional bit of actual work,“ I said.

“Yeah, probably,“ Rob agreed. “Most people know better than to leave stuff there. I mean, if they really want me to see something, they usually just stop me in the halls and show me.“

“So when was the last time you cleaned out your in-basket?“ the chief asked.

“July third,“ Rob said promptly.

“That was six weeks ago,“ the chief said. “You're positive?“

“Absolutely,“ Rob said, nodding.

“You cleaned out your in-basket the day before the Fourth of July?“ I said. “What was it, some kind of declaration of independence from paper?“

“Actually I didn't deliberately clean it out,“ Rob said. “A bunch of us were fooling around with firecrackers in my office, and we set it on fire.“

“Your office?“ the chief asked.

“Mainly just my desk,“ Rob said. “But it burned up all the papers on my desk. Melted the in-basket, too. Had to get a new in-basket.“

“So this paper couldn't possibly have been on your desk before July third, but it could have arrived there any time since.“

Rob nodded.

“What nude pictures do you think this note refers to?“

Rob shrugged.

“You've never, for example, posed for nude pictures?“

“Not since I was in college,“ Rob said, as if it were ancient history, instead of less than a decade ago.

“You posed for nude pictures in college?“ the chief said.

“I used to pose for life drawing classes to earn extra money,“ Rob explained. “I expect there are a bunch of paintings of me.“

“Nude?“

“Some of them, yeah,“ he said.

“Could someone be threatening to make them public?“

“They already are public, some of them,“ Rob said. “There's one in the UVA art department student museum that's not too bad.“

This was the first I'd heard of Rob's adventures in the art world, but I wasn't surprised. Rob took after Mother's side of the family, who tended to be drop-dead gorgeous and make Lady Godiva look like a shrinking violet. Apparently I took after Dad's side of the family. Since Dad was adopted, we didn't have any pictures of his blood relatives, but if we had, I was sure they'd show my female ancestors attempting to tiptoe out of range before the cameras immortalized their shapely but far from slender forms.

“So you don't see these paintings as grounds for blackmail,“ the chief asked.

“No,“ Rob said. “Unless the students who painted them decided that they've gotten much better and don't want anyone to see their student work, but then someone would be blackmailing them, not me – right?“

“What about the nude version of your game?“

“Amazing,“ Rob said, shaking his head and snickering, the way he usually did when Nude Lawyers from Hell was mentioned.

“Do you think that could be the naked pictures referred to in the blackmail note?“

“Those?“ Rob exclaimed. “But… they're cartoons! Who cares about naked cartoons? And besides, the note threatens to tell everyone about the naked pictures – what kind of a threat is that? Everyone already knows about Nude Lawyers from Hell. It's all over the Internet.“

“Maybe it wasn't when that note first arrived in your in-basket,“ the chief suggested.

“No, the nude game's been out for months. First showed up around April Fools' Day.“

“What if the blackmail note wasn't even intended for Rob?“ I put in. “What if the blackmailer found out who created Nude Lawyers from Hell and was threatening to tell?“

“Maybe the blackmailer did find out,“ the chief said. “Maybe he found out that you were the one responsible for creating the made version of your own game.“

“Me?“ Rob exclaimed.

“You're the one who knew the game the best,“ the chief said. A natural mistake; I hadn't explained to him who did the actual work around here and who sat around throwing out bright ideas and saying, “Cool! Amazing! That's exactly what I had in mind!“ when one of the programmers finished the work and showed him the results.

“And then there's your knowledge of karate,“ the chief continued. “Mighty interesting, considering the indications we have that someone with a knowledge of the martial arts might have something to do with the murder.“

Even Rob snickered at that, which probably didn't help him in the chief's eyes.

“You mean because of purse fu and the shurikenT“ I said.

“And the crushing blow to the victim's larynx, which was used to stun him so the killer could strangle him,“ the chief said.

“Crushing blow?“ I echoed, and then remembered the chief's conversation with Dad and the ME, when they'd both kept gesturing at their throats. The doctor's daughter part of my brain mused that it must have been quite a strong blow, if the results showed up during the fairly superficial examination they'd have done on the scene. The rest of my brain asked if we could please think about something else now.

“The kind of blow you could do with one of those karate chops,“ the chief went on. He leaned back on his heels with his thumbs tucked in his belt, looking quite pleased with himself.

“Oh, for crying out loud,“ I said. “You don't really believe – “

“I think we should go down to the station where we can talk without all these interruptions,“ the chief said, frowning at me.

They led Rob down to a waiting patrol car, with me trailing after, pointing out things the chief was overlooking, especially the many other people who might have had it in for Ted. Although, since most of those people were standing around, mouths open, watching the chief haul their fearless leader off to jail, I refrained from naming names.

“And what about all the suspicious characters we told you about?“ I said. “The crazy fan, the angry ex-employee, and the sinister biker,“

“We're not going to forget about them,“ the chief said. “We'll continue to explore every avenue.“

But as I watched the patrol car drive off, I didn't believe it.

“Damn the man,“ I muttered. I felt strangely betrayed. I'd told him everything I could mink of about Ted and Mutant Wizards. I'd let him pump me for information. And just when I'd started to feel comfortable and think he was a sensible and intelligent person who stood a good chance of solving the murder, he had to go and settle on Rob as his prime suspect.

Maybe Dad had the right idea after all. Maybe I did need to do my own investigating. At least if the police were misguided enough to focus on Rob as a suspect.

I'd worry about that later. Meanwhile, the first order of business was to keep Rob from saying anything stupid or incriminating to the police. Anything more than he'd already said.

I groped in my purse for my cell phone and the notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, as I called my combination to-do and address book, looked up a number, and dialed frantically. I breathed a sigh of relief when a familiar voice answered.

“Liz! Thank goodness I got you! Where are you?“

“The police told us we could all go home, so I was just getting into my car. What's wrong now?“ she said, sounding tired. Sounding, in fact, as if she were trying very hard not to reveal her irritation, and failing miserably.

“I think they're planning to arrest Rob for the murder,“ I said. “At any rate, they're taking him down to the police station. He needs a lawyer. Could you – “

“I'm a corporate attorney, remember? I do contracts and stuff. I'd be worse than useless; I don't know anything about criminal law. Half the programmers around here know more about criminal law than I do, thanks to the damned game.“

“Yes, I know, but – “

“For that matter, Rob's a lawyer, and he invented the damned game, which means he's forgotten more about criminal law than I'll ever have any reason to learn. So – “

“Yes, and who was it who said that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client?“

A pause. Then a sigh. “I don't know. I could look it up for you.“

“I'd rather you went down to the police station to keep Rob from doing anything really stupid until we round up a good criminal lawyer to help him. I could try, but they'd only keep me cooling my heels outside. They'll have to let you in because you're a lawyer. Besides, he wouldn't pay the slightest attention to what I told him, but he might listen to you.“

She sighed again. “Okay,“ she said. “Can do. Sorry I vented on you; it's been a long day.“

“I know, and I'm not making it any shorter.“

“I'm off, then; get that criminal lawyer down there as soon as you can.“

“Any ideas who it should be?“

“Afraid I don't know the local talent yet. Which is stupid; I should have had someone lined up. I mean, sooner or later, L should have known that a key employee would need a defense attorney; it happens occasionally even in the most normal firms – “

“And it was even more likely to happen in a whacked-out place like this?“

“Well,“ she began.

“Don't worry,“ I said. “I know who to ask. Go put a lid on Rob in the meantime.“

I hung up, and this time I called a number I knew so well I could dial it in my sleep.