Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon (12 page)

Admin

„How's it going?“ Dad asked.

„Great!“ I said. „At least, now that you're here. I need your help!“

„You've got it!“ he replied. „What can I do?“

„Mind the switchboard for a little while.“

His face fell. I could see he was trying to think of an excuse.

„I don't want to ask just anyone,“ I said, dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. „We need to have someone here who'll notice if a suspicious call comes through.“

„What kind of suspicious call?“

„Precisely!“ I exclaimed. „If I could define suspicious, anyone could do it.“

Showing him how to operate the switchboard took a little longer. Strange that most of the vapid young women the temp agency sent over managed to grasp the rudiments of operating the switchboard far faster than a man who had graduated from medical school near the top of his class. But eventually I decided he was ready to solo, and hurried off. I had a feeling his enthusiasm for serving as a human wiretap would fade rather quickly, and I wanted to get as much done as possible in the time I had.

Given all the interruptions we'd already had this week, I didn't want to bother anyone who seemed to be doing actual work. So I headed for the lunchroom. Sure enough, I found
half a dozen of the staff hanging out there. Better still, they were already talking about Ted. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and joined the edges of the group.

Unfortunately, my arrival silenced them.

„Don't let me interrupt you,“ I said. „Go back to whatever you were saying.“

They all looked uncomfortable.

„Unless, of course, you were saying uncomplimentary things about me, in which case, you'd better change the subject.“

„Actually, we were saying uncomplimentary things about Ted,“ Frankie volunteered over the nervous laughter. „Kind of a rotten thing to do, I guess.“

„Getting murdered didn't make him a saint overnight,“ I said.

„Tell that to the
Caerphilly Clarion,“
the usually silent Luis murmured, gesturing with the front page of the rag in question.

„Yeah, listen to this,“ Frankie said, snagging the paper from Luis:

„He was a gifted programmer,“ said Mutant Wizards spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell. „He has made a significant contribution to our upcoming release, Lawyers from Hell II, and I think I speak for the entire staff in saying that his loss will have a profound effect upon all of us.“

„Like maybe we can get some work done without having to dodge water balloons,“ Keisha grumbled.

„And maybe we'll actually get credit for our own work for a change,“ Frankie said. He propped himself against the wall, his height allowing him to achieve a Jack-style lean that was reasonably authentic – until he surrendered to the temptation
to tuck one foot behind him like an advanced yoga pose.

„Are those the main things everyone had against him – the practical jokes and hogging credit for other people's work?“ I asked, a little disappointed. It sounded like the Ted I knew, but neither sounded much like a motive for anyone to murder him.

„If it was just hogging the credit, yeah, that was irritating, but we just blew it off,“ Frankie said. „I mean, we figured everyone knew who really did the work, and if Ted wanted to pretend he was some kind of supergenius, let him. He wasn't fooling anyone. At least that's what we thought.“

„Until year-end bonuses came out,“ Keisha put in.

Much head-shaking.

„The amounts everyone got were supposed to be confidential, see,“ Frankie explained. „But in a place like this – word gets around.“

„Yes, I imagine it does,“ I said. „Especially if whoever's supposed to keep the bonus amounts confidential is foolish enough to put them in an unencrypted file on the network.“

Several people looked sheepish.

„Rumor has it Ted got way more than he had a right to get,“ Frankie went on. „And some other people got way less as a result.“

„What other people?“ I asked.

„I think Jack was the most hurt,“ Frankie said.

„The jury selection logic was all Jack's invention,“ Luis put in. „And the cross-examination sequence – in fact, the whole courtroom module would never have gotten done if not for Jack. Everyone knew that.“

„And Ted claimed credit?“ I asked.

„Yeah,“ Frankie said. „Ted was always getting up in meetings and grandstanding about how he'd fixed this and he'd thought up that. Nobody realized anyone believed him.“

„I'm sure Rob didn't realize – ,“ I began.

„Exactly!“ Frankie said. „That was the whole problem. We know Rob thought the accounting people knew what they were doing… but they didn't. They fell for Ted's bull – uh, Ted's blarney. If you get a chance, tell Rob that he needs to keep an eye on them this year. Or better yet, decide on the bonuses himself.“

A chorus of agreement greeted this statement. I nodded, while wondering to myself how Rob managed to lead such a charmed life. I happened to know that Rob had decided on the bonus amounts himself. He'd dithered about them all through the Thanksgiving weekend, trying to decide how much to give for seniority, how much for team spirit, how much for spectacular individual contributions. Accounting may have figured out how much Mutant Wizards could afford to give out and done all the final calculations, but the percentages were Rob's doing. Not that I was going to tell the staff that. Still, was it a motive for murder?

„I'll keep it in mind,“ I said. „People are still pretty resentful eight months later, I see.“

„The closer we get to the initial public offering, the more people are going to resent it,“ put in Rhode Island Rico, the graphic artist. „Bad enough Ted got such a honking big pile of cash to wave around in January… but knowing he could get thousands – maybe millions – more than he deserves when the IPO happens… man! He didn't steal any credit from me, but it still burns me up, how much more he gets than he deserves. I can imagine how ticked off people like Jack are.“

„Yeah, working like they did, only to see a jerk like Ted reap all the benefit,“ Luis said.

I sighed. I wasn't sure I liked the way this was going. Yes, I was looking for suspects other than my brother. Not that I expected to find Ted's murderer myself – I don't share Dad's
conviction that solving murders in real life is as easy as it seems in the mystery books he devours by the dozen every week. But I did want to present the chief with a couple of plausible suspects other than Rob. His growing legal team didn't anticipate any difficulty getting Rob acquitted if the DA tried to charge him with Ted's murder, but in the meantime the trail of the real killer would be growing colder and colder.

But I wanted to point the chief to a plausible alternative subject, and I had a hard time believing Jack Ransom fit the bill. And I didn't think it was just because I liked him. He was one of the few genuinely sane people around the office, which made him, in my mind, one of the least likely suspects.

Or was I too influenced by selfish motives – specifically, my investment in Mutant Wizards? Was that coloring my thinking, making me deliberately shy away from steering the police toward a key employee like Jack at this critical time in the development of the new game? At least he seemed to be key, and fairly high ranking. The only organizational chart I'd ever seen was ten months out of date, and Rob had allowed people to choose their own creative job titles, which meant I had no idea how the firm was really organized. Was a Unix Crusader – the disgruntled ex-staffer – more important than Keisha, the Cyber Goddess? Would Frankie, as Programming Warlock, report to Luis, the Senior Software Guru, or vice versa? I had no idea, apart from observing how they treated each other, of course.

When Frankie suggested something, people shrugged. When Luis suggested something, people listened. When Jack suggested something, people scrambled to do it.

But even Frankie appeared to perform a key role, if the number of people who complained when he played hooky was anything to go by. Which led me to another, more useful thought. Now was certainly a bad time to throw any obstacles
in the path of the development team. Unless, of course, you wanted to cause Mutant Wizards the kind of problems that would result from a missed deadline on the new game. Was it possible that someone had killed Ted not for any of his many unpleasant characteristics but merely as a way of sabotaging Mutant Wizards? Who would have a motive to do that? Obviously not Rob or any of the other Mutant Wizards staff I knew and liked, since they all, like Rob, had a major stake in the company's success. It would have to be someone who had it in for the company – another strike against Liz's bete noire, the disgruntled ex-staffer? Assuming, of course, that Ted's death would cause obstacles. No way to know without asking.

„So how badly will Ted's death hurt our deadlines, anyway?“ I asked.

Apparently this was the topic du jour. The group erupted into a flurry of incomprehensible technical jargon, until I called time-out.

„In English, please, someone,“ I pleaded.

„Losing Ted won't hurt us all that much if the police would just bring back bis computer so we could get his damned files,“ Jack Ransom said. Having arrived, apparently, in the middle of the argument, he was leaning against the doorjamb, taking everything in. The several people who had been propped against various walls or articles of furniture leaped to attention. I wasn't sure if they wanted to look alert in his presence or just felt too embarrassed to exhibit their inferior leans in the presence of the master.