“I um… I did not. Hey, did you call Grady?”
She nodded, the cap bobbing on her lip. “He’s on his way over. He’ll be here any minute.” She’d be ready for him. She’d be ready for justice.
Ben stuck his face around the corner. “What’s going on?”
Matt said, “Murder!”
The general manager bounced with glee. “Oh, goodie! Have we solved the case?” He sidled into the tiny office that barely fit one man and one desk and one magnetic board. With the addition of the velvet-clad elder-Goth boss, it felt like an elevator car at the downtown convention center.
Matt retreated until he was sitting on a three-drawer file cabinet against the wall, awkwardly crossing and uncrossing his legs—trying to figure out where to put them. He settled on the corner of the desk, while Ben rested on the farthest corner of the same. Leda hugged the board and tried not to mess up her progress. She smeared two brightly colored cards onto the floor with an inadvertent swipe of her arm, collected them, and stuck them back where they belonged.
Niki came skidding into the room. She drew up short when she realized how little space was left, so she accepted the tiny square foot she found immediately in front of the desk. “What’s going on? What are we doing? Why is everyone in here?”
Leda paused and pointed the marker at her. “I’ve figured out who the murderer is, and now I’m mapping it out on the board so I can show Grady, and he can go arrest the bastard who killed Tod. Matt was in here already, Ben came in to see what the commotion was about, and now you’re here… so I think you’re all caught up.”
Tiffany poked her head around the doorjamb. “Catches who up, with what? Oh, hey, party in Matt’s office…” She slipped inside to squeeze herself beside Niki. “What are we talking about?”
“Murder!” Niki and Matt shouted.
Ben laughed. “I was going to say ‘psychic mumbo jumbo,’ but I didn’t want to offend my star attraction.”
“Psychic mumbo jumbo, yeah,” Leda said, taking no offense. “That’s kind of what happened, actually. I think I’ve figured out how it works!”
“How what works?” Grady asked. He shuffled inside a few inches—next to Tiffany, who nudged Niki so far to the right that she opted just to sit in Matt’s lap atop the file cabinet. It creaked and teetered beneath their weight but held steady.
Leda grinned like a maniac. “There you are! So glad you could join us.”
“I got here as fast as I could. Um, is there someplace we could do this… somewhere with more floor space?”
Ben suggested, “We could move the murder board to the stage, if you like.”
Silence fell. Leda looked at the board. Matt and Niki exchanged a shrug. Tiffany said, “I’ll make drinks for the big reveal! There’s nobody in here yet, so I’ll just tell Steve to keep people out for a few minutes.”
Ben clapped his hands. “Let’s do it! I’ll grab my laser pointer.”
Leda felt a weird twist in her stomach, like this wasn’t how she’d expected it to go. A big reveal? A man was dead. Two men. No, three. Fine, a lot of people were dead. But Tod was the one who mattered the most to her. She almost protested; it felt a little public and flashy. But then again, it was a hell of an occasion. It wasn’t her friends’ fault that they hadn’t known and loved her fiancé the same way she had.
She forced herself to brighten her face into a performer’s smile. “You have a laser pointer?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “And you may use it, upon this momentous occasion!”
With that, he squished himself past Grady and around Tiffany, and vanished down the hall in the direction of his own office. The bartender followed, heading back to the bar. Matt used his feet to push his rolly chair into the small space the shift opened up, and Niki hopped off his lap.
“I’ll help with the board,” she offered. “You guys go take a seat. We’ve got this.”
Grady said, “Take a seat?” like he was none too sure about this.
Matt gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder and said, “Yeah, man. Front-row seats. Come on, I’ll get us set up.”
“This is nuts,” Grady said as he followed him out. “This is not how we conduct police business.”
But relocating the murder board only took a couple of minutes, and they only lost a few index cards and a handful of magnets in the hallway as Niki and Leda maneuvered it toward the bar and stage area. Once there, they found that either Ben or Matt had added a pair of chairs to stand in for an easel.
The women set down the board, and Leda went back to the corridor to collect all the bits she’d lost along the way. While she arranged, adjusted, and added a few notes to the cards, everyone else took up seats at two of the small tables down front. Tiffany brought out a flight of multicolored drinks that looked vaguely like fancy party favors. She passed them out, keeping one for herself.
“Everybody ready?” Leda asked, since she was as ready as she was ever going to be. Then she frowned past the lights on the floor and said, “Wait, where’s Ben?”
“Right here!” he called from the front door, where he was locking up. “I put a sign up saying we’ll be open in twenty minutes. Oh, this is so exciting!”
“How about that laser pointer?” Leda reminded him.
He pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it to her, underhand. “Catch!”
Leda ducked, and the pointer hit the board, then bounced off the stage and into Matt’s drink. He fished it out and handed it up to the psychic psongstress, who wiped it dry on her pants. With a press of the button, she had a handy red dot. She waved it at the ceiling, and then got the hang of swiping it around. With a great flourish, as if she were directing an orchestra, she made the dot dance across the shiny whiteboard, the brightly colored index cards, the novelty magnets, and the chairs that held them all.
“Ooh,” Ben purred. “This is going to be fun.”
If not fun, Leda thought, then decidedly satisfying. She took a deep breath. Straightened her back. Tossed her hair; exhaled by blowing a big raspberry.
And started talking.
25.
Leda Foley lifted her borrowed laser pointer like Lady Liberty’s torch. “Ladies, gentlemen, and the otherwise affiliated… I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”
This opening line received a smattering of enthusiastic applause from Tiffany and Niki but groans from Grady and Matt. Ben gave her the rolly hands gesture for Keep going. She kept going.
“I’m here to reveal the identity of a murderer!”
Grady called from the front row of the audience: “You already told me who it was.”
She pointed the laser right at his forehead. “Yes. I did. I told you, and you said it wasn’t enough that I merely knew who did it. You said I have to prove who did it.”
“Well, who was it?” asked Niki. “Don’t leave the rest of us hanging!”
Leda aimed the pointer at her best friend’s cleavage. “I will. But first, a brief explanation of what I’ve learned about my psychic abilities throughout the course of this case.”