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A new Lei Crime Kindle World novella by Kim Hornsby

Strange things had been happening onstage for the last hour and a half, unlike anything she’d ever seen before, not that she went to the theater on a regular basis. But this particular play was bizarre, and Lei had long ago turned off her cop warning signal to simply enjoy the spectacle of The Rocky Horror Show. Apparently it was normal for the crowd to yell “Asshole” every time one of the characters said his name, and to have flashlights waving and rice being thrown. Most audience members seemed to know when and how to perform each ritual.

So, no, Lei hadn’t reacted when the giant moon crashed to the stage, crushing a cast member. It was ten seconds before she pulled herself together, ran down the aisle and joined Stevens on stage.

Lei’s friend, Kali, who played the tap dancing groupie, Columbia, stood near the feet of the dead woman looking horrified. Her hands covered her mouth as if to keep from screaming, or crying. Nora, the victim, had been a favorite with the cast. That much Lei knew.

The murder weapon, a large quarter moon prop, that until ten minutes ago had held Frank-N-Furter as he descended from the theater’s rafters, lay on its side beside Nora, like a dog who won’t leave their dead owner. When the prop broke free, the main character, a transvestite scientist, had been seated on the curve of the moon singing “Don’t Dream It, Be It,” in full spotlight. Thanks to quick thinking, he’d jumped to a level spot at the top of a staircase while the moon continued its path to hit Nora on her head. Lei attributed Derek’s fortunate landing to his dance training. He looked flustered.

“You okay?” Lei asked him.

He nodded, but Lei knew no one was really okay.

Although Stevens had taken the victim’s pulse immediately and feeling nothing, shook his head, one of the cast ignored the pronouncement and was now doing CPR.

Lei stared at the grim scene on stage. From one angle it looked like Nora lay on the stage floor like she’d decided to take a nap. From another angle you could see that the amount of blood pooled by the woman’s left ear had to indicate a fatal injury. Lei fingered the smooth stone in her jacket pocket, her reminder to not let the darkness take over at horrific moments like this. Dissociation was a bitch sometimes. Somehow, the stone helped.

The theatre stage door flew open and paramedics burst into the once gorgeous, but now charmingly decrepit theater. Audience members had scattered, some going home, many spilling into the aisles talking and maybe still hoping. Lei knew this woman was dead, never to be revived by any amount of CPR. “Let’s move over here,” she said, directing the cast to the back of the stage. “Make room for the paramedics.” She wasn’t wearing her police detective badge, Stevens either, but the cast of twenty actors and crew did as they were told. No one on stage looked vindicated like this death was what they’d been hoping for. Lei noticed things like that.

Both wires that had held the moon prop led to a carabiner-type loop that connected them to one central line that now dangled uselessly. She bent over the wire, took a photo with her phone, just in case it got moved before the police photographer arrived, and wondered how a wire simply gives out. Someone would have to go up in the rafters to investigate. The break looked too clean for fraying. Tonight’s tragedy might not have been a horrible accident after all. It might have been a murder.