"It is true, sir," said the robot secretary. She had been standing off to the side, holding the smashed smoke detector in her hands and making sobbing noises. "As regards the residency in our ballroom. The fact that we've booked this series of concerts is an indication of this group's ticket-selling pulling power. 'Stardom', if you will."
The detective stared a moment, made a 'whatever' gesture and turned back to the coroner.
"I'm in bad need of facts here. Hurry up with your 'professional' opinion, doc! I want to know the time of death of the deceased!"
The coroner bagged his camera, slipped off the rubber gloves and returned the pipe to his mouth.
"Well, in this case death clearly occured sometime between last Tuesday and ninety minutes ago."
The detective scribbled this down, shaking one of his heads.
"I'd say he was pretty much dead when we came in," Rivqua filled in. "If not, he certainly was after the chemical reaction blew up his insides."
"Chemical reaction?" First one head looked interested then the other one joined in. "Was that the funny smell we felt?"
Zana nodded. "He kinda sizzled inside. Sounded like fish fat on coals. Then steam blew out of his mouth. Great big clouds of it. Could've used a foghorn in here. He threw up blood too. Grossed me out."
"We've had nicer welcomes, put it that way," Rivqua added.
"Have you taken samples of the blood?" the detective asked the coroner, pointing.
The medical examiner pocketed his pipe with a sigh and dug into the other pocket.
"No, but I was just about to."
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