The hallway was as quiet as church on a Friday night, that was not good. The main entrance was past Max’s desk and though he hated to do it he stopped by and picked up his ‘office’ bat. Signed by Steve Garvey this Louisville Slugger was a minor prize among the items in Max’s collection, not too valuable to keep in his shrine at work, just impressive enough to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ his coworkers. Now if Garvey ever made it into the hall of fame, the bat would become something more treasured and might have to be brought home for the ‘wall of fame’ that Max was slowly building next to his mantle. For now it should prove useful if Fred or Nancy came calling. He made his way to the front doors of MAC co. without seeing anyone. The security guard the company employed to sit at the desk in the lobby didn't start until seven forty-five, so this was not unusual.

Without seeing anyone? Something was definitely wrong, a few phones were ringing, he did hear a muffled conversation, but he saw no one. In an office building, during business hours? On a Friday? Sure, sure it was only seven in the morning, but a few of the regulars should have been in by now. Max held his bat and waited, shifting his grip around, looking at the number ‘six’ on the end of the handle and the ‘Good luck, Steve Garvey’ in faded ink near the top of the bat. Bloodstains, were now pretty evident from Max’s grip, he looked around, thought for a moment, propped the front door open with a trash can and then ducked back into the hallway towards the men’s room. It had only been a couple minutes, no way the police could get here that quickly with the rush hour just starting but he didn’t want to take a chance of missing them.

Stepping into the men’s room the first thing Max saw was a pool of dried blood on the floor in front of the handicapped stall.