View Single Post
Old 05-11-2010, 09:02 AM   #16
Rock Lobster
PI for hire.
Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Rock Lobster ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Rock Lobster's Avatar
 
Posts: 94
Karma: 511896
Join Date: Feb 2010
Device: I keep a notebook handy, just in case.
I left the bird cage and looked sharply at Zippy. "Something you meant to tell me, Doll?"

"Well, there is that temporal dysjunction mechanism that some of the members were trying out a while back. Or was it forward? Anyway, when you were in talking to Patricia, I slipped out and went what I thought was forward in time and started to clean up things. We have an open house next week and I thought it a good idea to get started. Things like a dead body in the middle of the floor tend to upset visitors. I may have goofed."

"Having a clean crime scene is one of those essentials of life, I suppose. What did you do, exactly?"

"Well, the crowbar was just lying there, all messed up, so I wiped it off and then put it back on the floor. I was going to find a place to put it when you came out of Patricia's room. I had to hurry back here."

I busied myself scratching out references to string in my notebook and drawing some loopy circles around Zippy's name and the crowbar being cleaned.

"Let's get on with it!"

The last door was marked "PilotBob." When I opened it, I saw a penguin wearing a tuxedo and top hat. He was moving lots of magnetic labels all over a white board.

"Frakking rattin', frakafraka!" he said.

"Problems there, Pengy?" I asked.

"Frakking forum redesign! There's no way to do it so that everyone is happy! You have no idea how many hours I've spent trying to get this thing perfect!"

"What's the beef?"

"Everyone wants the design to be simple and elegant while at the same time able to accommodate every single reader ever developed and all the attendant bells and whistles that are unique to those readers. Impossible! I have half a mind to just dump everything into one forum and label it 'Miscellaneous!'"

"Was pshrynk one of the big offenders?" I asked, hoping to maybe get lucky at least once this case.

"He was annoying but tended to stay out of the way. He was more concerned about there being a way for members to pay their bills than anything else."

"I'm wondering about that MTravellerH character. He looks like a cagey sort to me. Does he lie a lot?"

"MTH? Lie? I doubt that very much. He lacks... imagination for it."

"Some folks here say that you saw everything that went on in the Suite. What can you tell me about what happened during the murder?"

"Well, Zelda was napping in a corner, but also appeared later by temporal transpostioning. Can't say that I've ever taken to that sort of thing myself. Nate was running around putting string on everything. Again. Patricia was distracted in the corner. Verencat was following Nate and batting the string all over, which caused Nate to be annoyed. Dale was writing everything down for the wiki. Ravenne was spraypainting a small grey dog. NatCh was crawling around on the floor looking for his spleen. MTH was polishing the cases for the prizes, and pshrynk was complaining about not having a new reader for free. But I was sort of distracted by Netseeker trying to confess something to me and the FRAKKING REDESIGN! Now what?" He picked up a red phone and carried on an animated conversation with someone named Montsnmags.

I walked out of the room and looked through my notes. There was something missing, but what? I drew a few more lines and arrows, connecting key points and wracked my brain.

All of a sudden, it hit me! I looked over at Zippy and said, "Get everyone back in here! We have to have a little talk!"
Rock Lobster is offline