“I'd better get back to work,“ he said.
“Me, too,“ I said, and turned to head back to the reception room. “See you at the pizza thing.“
“Pizza thing?“
I started to turn to give him the scoop on the pizza outing, but just then my pager went off.
“Microwave broken,“ I read. “Like hell it is.“
“Frankie always unplugs it to plug in his popcorn popper,“ Jack said. “Want me to plug it in again?“
“Thanks, but I need to feed George anyway before I take the switchboard back from Dad.“
When I got to the lunchroom, sure enough, I found the supposedly broken microwave merely unplugged. As I leaned over behind the cabinet to reach the outlet, something fell out of my pocket – actually out of the pocket of the sweater I kept around the office for mornings, like this one, when the air-conditioning was out of control.
I reset the time on the microwave. Then I retrieved a frozen mouse from one of the packages in the freezer, put it on the microwave carousel on a paper towel, and punched the button that was supposed to defrost chicken pieces. George seemed to like his mice at whatever temperature that setting produced. Not that I had any idea what temperature that might be, since I was careful never to touch the mice, before or after nuking them. So I'm squeamish. George's favorite food was pinkies, but as soon as I'd found out that was a euphemism for hairless, three-day-old baby mice, George had been put on a pink-free diet, at least for as long as I was feeding him. Adult mice were bad enough.
While the microwave hummed, I fished behind the cabinet for whatever had fallen out of my pocket.
Ted's keys.
I stuck the keys back into my pocket and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed. Which was silly, of course. It was just a set of keys. As long as I didn't make a fuss, no one would suspect they weren't my own keys.
Not even whoever had turned them in when Ted had lost them. At least they hadn't mentioned them to the police. Not surprising; he'd lost them early Monday morning, probably during his first round on the mail cart. I'd forgotten them myself until just now.
And of course I was going to turn them over to the police.
Tomorrow. After I found them again.
Today, I was going to make a little side trip over to Ted's house. In the unlikely event anyone – like the police – caught me there, I could always pretend I was searching for his urgently needed files.
By the time the microwave dinged, this plan had made me so cheerful that I actually hummed as I slid the mouse into George's bowl, shook a little Parmesan cheese over it, which he seemed to like, and headed back down the corridor.
Even running into two of the therapists didn't spoil my mood.
“I'm afraid you're going to have to do something about this,“ the eating-disorder therapist said.
“You can't expect us to conduct therapy in this kind of atmosphere,“ the size-acceptance therapist added.
Isn't it nice how a crisis brings people together? I thought. This was the first time I'd ever seen them join forces to pick on someone else.
“It's not exactly ideal for programming, either,“ I said.
“We've had one disruption after another ever since your group moved in,“ Eating Disorders went on.
“Frisbee-throwing in the corridors,“ Size Acceptance said, shaking her head.
“And this juvenile obsession with the martial arts.“
“It's worse than Fraternity Row.“
“Of course, that's what you get when you have so few women and minority employees to diversify your workforce.“
“And now a murder!“ Size Acceptance exclaimed. “I assure you, we never had a murder before you people arrived.“
“We want to know what you're going to do about this,“ Eating Disorders demanded.
“I'm not sure what we're going to do about it,“ I said. “You have to remember that we never had a murder either, before we moved in with you people. We're still assessing the implications of that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to feed George.“
I held the bowl up where they could see its contents. Apparently they had finished complaining – at any rate, they left rather rapidly. I went back to the reception area to reward Dad and George for their patience.
“Really? How do you know that?“ Dad was saying on the phone as I walked in.
I put the bowl in the holder attached to George's perch.
“Right here in this office?“ Dad said.
“Dad, who are you talking to?“ I asked.
“Some reporter,“ he said, covering the mouthpiece. “An actual murder?“ he went on, to the reporter.
“Oh, Lord,“ I muttered, closing my eyes. “Dad, why are you talking to a reporter?“
“Right here in the reception room where I'm sitting?“ Dad said. “You're kidding.“
“I hope you know what you're doing,“ I muttered.
“No, I certainly didn't know anything about it,“ Dad said. “Thank you for telling me. If you hear anything else, please call back and let me know.“
He hung up, looking very pleased with himself.
“All you really have to do is tell them 'No comment,' you know,“ I said.
“I did that for the first four,“ he said. “It was getting boring. Maybe I should tell the next one about how they have me and the other temps washing the blood off the walls.“
“Maybe I should take back the switchboard now,“ I suggested. “The Doctors from Hell team are probably waiting for you.“
“They just want to talk about FVs and blood gases,“ Dad said as he got up from the switchboard. “Don't you want to hear the details of the autopsy?“
“Do I have a choice?“
He chuckled as if he thought I was kidding. “Of course, it was all very ordinary and straightforward,“ he said, frowning. “No really interesting features at all.“
“I will make a point of conveying your disappointment to the killer, should the occasion arise.“
Dad seemed to interpret that as an invitation to fill me in on the details of the autopsy. For an autopsy with no interesting features at all, there were a lot of details, at least the way Dad told it, in between the phone calls I was answering.
“So what do I know now that I didn't before you told me all this?“ I asked when Dad had finished. At least I assumed he was finished when he began to reminisce about similar but more interesting past autopsies.
I must have sounded a little testy. Dad thought about it for a second and then summed up the previous half hour of conversation with unusual brevity.
“The blow to the throat required quite a bit of strength – not everyone could have done it. If it was deliberate, it could indicate some special knowledge of anatomy or fighting tactics, but the killer could have just hit the right spot by accident. And once he was temporarily stunned by that, strangling him with the mouse cord didn't require greater than average strength. Or special knowledge.“
“So the chief's going to be looking a little harder at anyone who's large, strong, or has special training, but really the autopsy neither conclusively points the finger at anyone nor eliminates anyone,“ I said. “Keisha and Luis may be long shots, but they're still in the running.“
Dad's face lit up. “Is that who you suspect?“ he asked in a stage whisper. “And they were in on it together?“
“No,“ I said, “I named them only because they're about the smallest people on staff.“
“Ah,“ he said, looking glum again.
“The autopsy's not a lot of help,“ I complained.
