“So they found the bug?” the chief asked.
“No,” I said. “We found the bug because Ted - “
“Or whoever planted it,” Liz corrected.
“Or whoever planted it gave in to the temptation to broadcast from one of his microphones over the office announcement system,” I said. “That shut things down pretty quickly.”
“However, the weekly security inspection enables me to demonstrate that the firm took the appropriate action to prevent electronic surveillance and cannot be held responsible for the bugging incident,” Liz said.
“That’s nice,” the chief said. “But I guess the shrinks have to stay on my suspect list for now.”
“Meg,” came Dad’s voice from the office door. “The medical examiner’s here!”
I should have known Dad would manage to attach himself to the medical examiner. He had stuck his bald head through the partially opened office and was looking steadily at us with a deceptively innocent look on his face. You’d think he had no interest whatsoever in the corpse that was still reposing on top of the mail cart - unless, like me, you knew what excellent peripheral vision he had.
“Shall I bring him in?”
The chief nodded and made a little shooing motton at Liz and me.
“Let’s move out in the hall, shall we, and let the medical gentlemen do their job.”
“Fine,” Liz said. “Better yet, unless you need me for something, I’d just as soon not hang around in the hall while they work.”
“That’s fine,” the chief said, nodding. “But if you could stay down there in the parking lot…”
“Understood,” Liz said. I could see her pulling her cell phone out of her purse as she crossed the lobby to the stairs.
Apparently Dad had managed to attach himself to the ME’s entourage. At least he stayed behind in the reception area when the chief and I moved out into the hall. I made a mental note to avoid having dinner with Dad. Let him spoil someone else’s appetite with all the grisly forensic details.
The chief was still quizzing me about the therapists’ patients when the young technician stepped out into the hall.
“Chief,” he said. “What do you make of this? We found it when we moved the body.”
I recognized the lethal little circle of metal he was holding up on one latex-gloved hand. It was a shuriken.
“A what?” the chief asked.
“A shuriken” I repeated, and spelled it out this time.
The technician was opening up a baggie in which to store his find. Okay, it was probably some kind of official evidence collection container, but it looked like a baggie to me.
“Shuriken,” the chief said, nodding. “That’s those things martial arts people are always throwing around.”
“Not throwing around very much, unless they’re either quite advanced or morbidly fascinated with self-mutilation,” I said. “You could slice your fingers off on that thing and hardly even notice till they’re on the floor.”
“If it’s sharpened,” the chief said.
As if on cue, the technician slid the shuriken into the baggie. It sliced right through the bottom and thunked to a halt in the carpet, about three inches from the chief’s left boot.
“It’s sharpened,” I said.
The chief looked at the technician, eyes narrowed. The technician avoided his boss’s stare as he fished another baggie out of the pocket of his lab jacket, pried the shuriken out of the carpet, and placed it, more carefully, in the baggie.
“Interesting,” the chief said.
“Very interesting,” I said. “You don’t usually see them that well made; most of the ones you could buy ready-made, at least around here, are cheap, flimsy pieces of junk that wouldn’t hold an edge like that.”
“You can buy those things?” the technician asked.
“At any martial arts supply store. They’re illegal in a lot of states, but Virginia’s not one of them. Still, since Ted appears to have been strangled, does it have anything to do with anything?”
“You let us figure that out,” the chief said. “So… all you folks do around here is make games?”
Did this have something to do with the shuriken, or was he deliberately changing the subject?
“That’s right,” I said.
“The kind where you shoot a bunch of space aliens and all that?”
“No, Lawyers from Hell isn’t a live-action combat game; more of a combination role-playing and simulation game.”