AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Miss Nickinson was standing near the back the entire time, and only bothered to look up from her riveting read of The Dragon Heir to notice there was someone dead on the floor. She tightened her ponytail and stood up.

"Wait, did I miss something?"

"You only missed the most disappointing death in ages." Ouija responded to Miss Nickinson's question. Ouija's attempts to woo the young women were deemed fruitless when Epona's fangirls shifted their attention away from Ouija's words and onto Scott's clumsiness tripping their beloved outside his door.

"Regardless, there's nothing that can be done about it now. Just find who did it." Ouija continued. He glanced down towards Miss Nickinson's book. "It is a party you know. Must be one nice read to be distracting from the has-been company of Miss Tiedrich and her untimely death."

Awkwardly, Scott tried to apologize to both Epona and his fangirls at the same time, but to no avail. His answers came out only as incoherent stuttering.

Giving up on his faltering apology, Llewellyn decided it best to just help the man off the floor and hope that he would not think Scott had intended to trip him.

"Oh, uh, yeah...It is."

Well now, what were we gonna do, Nickinson thought. I won't be able to ski with this going on--oh wait, that's Katie, isn't it? Oh snap!

Hans, gather our guests in the dinning hall.

The butler nodded at this command and walked sharply back into teh foyer as one of the maids walked in with a wireless phone and a whisper into Alex's ear.

Troubling, thank you Maria.

"Well, it looks like she was killed very recently, she very possibly may have been alive when tripping over the wire at the top of the stairs. the poison is very fast acting and she would not have survived more than a few minutes at the most after drinking it. it also looks like the killer had set up the wire at the top to make it look like she died from falling, maybe to frame someone else. but i'm no detective, i only work on the autopsies."

"Ow, thank you," Epona said, "And you don't have to apologize to me...especially not to them," he seemed a bit exasperated by their attention.

Epona didn't even want to bring those three ditzy girls to what was supposed to be a relaxing trip with friends. Unfortunately they were his boss' daughters and it would look bad if he didn't bow to their wishes... to a point.

"Ow ow, I think I hit my shin with something," he said trying to stand up. The pain was too much and he held on to Scott for support. It was somewhat to no avail since Epona was a big guy (albeit shorter than his helper) and Scott looked like he was going to be blown away by the breeze.

"Yes. It really is a shame, miss." Ouija replied to Miss Nickinson. He looked over at the door at the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant was looking over Katie's body and was informed by what happened by his informants and Stephen Li. Ouija then noticed the entrances and exits were sealed off for the good of the crime scene. "Looks like none of us are going home this evening."

He looked over to her and took a good look at the young lady. "How come I never noticed you earlier on in the party? I don't remember you walking in and quite frankly, I don't know how I could have missed a lovely woman such as yourself."

"Hey you guys, no time for chit chat!", Stephen said to everyone. He was a very tense person, especially at a crime scene, and rather disliked useless dilly-dallying. "We've got a murderer in this place, so we need to keep our eyes open and stick together. Hasn't anyone called the police and an ambulance yet?"

Scott nodded in reply and tried to keep Epona, and himself, from falling over.

Once he finally managed to find the words, Scott responded, "I'm sure we'll be able to find a doctor somewhere in here." He briefly glanced around, then, pointing out an elderly man in a Bowler hat, and what appeared to be a navy Frock coat of sorts, he said, "I'm sure he'll be able to look at that for you."

Somehow, they managed their way through the crowded room, though this was partially due to the help of Epona's fangirls, who made themselves useful in clearing a path for them, and upon reaching the old man, explained the situation to him.

Fortunately, Llewellyn had been correct in his assumption of the man being a medical professional. He had served as a doctor in one of the wars of his youth and quickly checked to see if anything was wrong.

Meanwhile, Scott turned his attention to the body of Miss Teidrich. He had always had an affinity for putting the facts together, but never the muscle to put it into action on the Police force. A shame, his Mother had said, he would have made an excellent Detective.

"As far as an ambulance goes, I don't know if anyone has contacted them here, but we do appear to have a doctor here. And concerning the police, it seems as if the Lieutenant has that covered. I believe he said his fellow officers would show up soon." Ouija replied. Ouija turned around away from Miss Nickinson for a moment and noticed the slender gentleman Scott standing there.

Ouija walked over to the man with his hands in his pockets. "That killer must have been incredibly elaborate. I mean, the killer managed to set a trap that nobody noticed and poisoned our dearly departed Miss Tiedrich. Something doesn't add up. Nobody could have possibly ignored one of those details. I think this was a joint effort. But then again, I'm no detective by any stretch of the imagination."

Ouija took one more look at the slim man. "What do you think Mr...?"

I'd like to add that whoever ends up being the murderer is obligated to include some sort of Scooby-doo reference...

Stephen continued to examine the body and pulled out a few forensics tools, which he always carried, on the job or not, out of a small bag on his shoulder. A short while later, he placed the tools back in his bag and called up Mr. Ouija.

"You wanted to know what kind of poison was used? I'm not too sure, but it could have been any one out of a few easily obtainable poisons. They all have the same properties though, and all that matters is that: one, the victim needs to take in about a spoonful of the poison to cause death, and two, the poison acts in a few minutes usually, depending on the stature of the person in question. For someone Katie's size, it might have taken about two. It doesn't look like there are any other odd things about the body, other than the bruising from that fall earlier."

He then took off his lab coat and stuffed it in his bag, revealing a shabby suit underneath. The suit, frankly, was very old, nearly thirty years old, and was a bit small for Stephen's large stature. Stephen then noticed Mr. Oujia chatting with a wiry man looking at the body.

"Hey kid, do you know anything about detective work? Since you're apparently interested in looking at the body I figure you might know something about it. It's better than nothing, seeing as Alexandy demanded we have nothing in the name of crime solving or self defense."

Unused to the sudden attention, Scott replied hastily, "Uh, Mr. Llewellyn. But please, call me Scott. It's much easier to remember." He was clearly more at ease when speaking about the investigation. "Well, I believe that the murderers were likely to be very close to Miss Teidrich, seeing as they would have to have immediate access to her food and free movement around the house, otherwise, they would have been noticed far too easily."

Scott seemed to be deep in thought now, and wandered closer to the body. "I'd like to take a look around the tripwire, if it wouldn't be too much trouble." The few people gathered around the stairwell moved out of his way, and he climbed to the top stair, where, just above the floor, was a barely noticeable wire. He crouched down to take a better look at it, primarily where it was attached.

It was hasty work, Scott noted, and with good reason. Whoever put it up obviously did not have much time to put their plan into action. It must have been done shortly before Katie came to descend the stairs, since the help had been going up and down prior to the incident without any mishaps.

Manuel, the Retarded Mexican chewed on his rake eying the scene. Everything scared him, his pants were warm. "MISSTUR SIR, THE HEDGES NEED MORE PINE SOL."