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
“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
