Chapter 7: The Case Board

"It's a prop," Zelda said. "Hen. It's a twenty-dollar bottle of blackberry syrup."

"It's my twenty-dollar bottle of blackberry syrup."

"Who breaks a lock to steal syrup and leaves the good wigs?"

"Exactly."

The air over the trunk was busy.

[oh my god the bottle]

[THAT'S the bottle. chapter 41. the cops find it in her car]

[blue glass with the skull. the author described it like four times]

I sat down on the floor of the prop room in my good green blouse.

In somebody's book, a girl was going to collapse in the Gold Ballroom.

And somebody had just taken the one object the police would hold up and say, "This is hers."

"Zel," I said. "Where were you this afternoon?"

"Laundromat. All the victim dresses. Five to seven."

"And the door?"

"Locked. I swear. I checked it twice because of Columbo."

So someone had come in through a locked door in two hours and known exactly which trunk.

I got up.

"Get the yarn," I said.

"The red yarn?"

"The red yarn."

Zelda's face lit up.

"Are we doing a case board? A real one? Not for a show?"

"A real one."

She ran.

We cleared the wall beside the stage, where the old supper club menu used to hang.

I used index cards, because I had a thousand of them.

THE BOTTLE. Stolen Tuesday, between five and seven.

THE CONTRACT. Edmund. Forty thousand. Guest of honor: Maxine.

THE DINNER. June 6. Gold Ballroom. Three hundred.

THE KITCHEN. Who has keys. Who touches a plate.

Zelda pinned each one and ran yarn between them until the wall looked like a spider had a breakdown.

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