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.”