The Mystery Megapack

from the opening episode of Werewolf Hunter ’s next season, and he’d promised to pick one of the contest winners to perform with him.
    About twenty-five minutes into the wait, my walkie-talkie buzzed again. “Regina, this is Pinky, outside Bane’s room.”
    “Go ahead, Pinky.”
    There was no response.
    “Pinky?”
    There was a burst of noise, which I later decided was from the button of the walkie-talkie hitting something, and a horrific yell.
    “Pinky!”
    Now there was nothing.
    “Linus! Outside Bane’s room!” I barked into my walkie-talkie. Then I ran as fast as I could, not knowing or caring who I ran into. Elliot, who was closer to Bane’s room, beat me there, and was at the bottom of the stairs leading toward the suite. When he heard me coming, he turned to stop me.
    “There’s nothing you can do, Regina.”
    Elliot was six foot something to my five foot four, but I pushed him out of the way just the same, and saw Pinky’s body at the foot of the stairs. I’d thought our shirts were blood red until I saw real blood staining his. His walkie-talkie lay on the sidewalk next to him.
    “There’s no pulse,” said Elliot, who was an EMT in real life. “He must have fallen just the right way to break his neck.”
    More like the wrong way, I thought.
    Shannon padded up behind me, still wearing her fur bikini and boots. The other redshirts came on her heels. “Andi,” I said, “get hotel security. Donna, call the cops.”
    Bane stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at Pinky, swearing fluently. I wondered what the fans would have thought if they’d heard him, because for the first time all weekend, he’d dropped his Aussie accent.
    The hotel’s security man got to the scene first, and, ignoring Elliot’s protests that Pinky was dead, insisted on checking himself, getting bloody in the process. Ted showed up, too, but just dithered uselessly.
    Eventually the cops arrived, followed by a doctor to examine Pinky’s body and take it away. The police were visibly tense at first, but then got more relaxed, and I realized that they’d decided Pinky’s death was an accident. But it didn’t seem right to me.
    Pinky had buzzed me to tell me he was on his way to Bane’s room, and presumably he’d gotten there without incident. So why had he buzzed me later? Why would he have been heading down the stairs? I mentioned my questions to the cops, but they figured he was going to get a drink or take a break, and was going to let me know. They didn’t understand that Pinky would never have left Bane’s door unattended, and didn’t think there was anything odd about him buzzing me just before he fell—one officer even suggested that he might not have fallen if he hadn’t been using the walkie-talkie.
    Bane was no help. “I should have let the bloke come into the room,” he said apologetically, the accent back in place, “but I was fagged out and wanted a minute alone. He didn’t seem to mind.”
    “Did you hear anything?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “Not a sound. I was in the WC at first, and I had music playing. Poor bastard. Has he got any family or anything? I’d like to pay my respects.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I only met him yesterday. There wasn’t really time to get acquainted.” But that wasn’t true. One of the best things about a convention was the way you could go from stranger to close friend in just a weekend. But Pinky had been all business. Not to mention the fact that he’d intimidated the heck out of me, and annoyed me even more.
    “Bruce,” one of the cops said, Pinky’s wallet in his hand. “His first name was Bruce.”
    I hadn’t even known that.
    The cops didn’t stay long, and looking at the horrified faces of my team members, I realized I had to get them moving again. “Elliot, will you take Bane for the rest of the weekend?”
    He nodded.
    “Good. Ted, what’s the status on the masquerade?”
    “The judges are ready, but maybe we should cancel.”
    “No, Pinky would want us to go ahead.”
    “You’ve got to be joking,” Bane said.
    I glared at him. “Haven’t you ever heard ‘The show must go on?’”
    “Yeah, but—” He stopped. “Right. Let’s do it. But I want to say something about Pinky afterward.”
    “Good idea,” I said. I turned to the rest of my team. “Okay, the crowd is going to be restless. Our job is to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Andi, you and Donna roam the halls, make sure nobody’s