Club Calypso was dark.

And not just dark, but darker than usual. She immediately eliminated the possibility that it was closed. It was eight o'clock on a Friday night, for Pete's sake (whoever Pete was). The posters had been up for almost a month, declaring open season on her title. And now, on the very night she was to defend the title, the Club was closed? No way. No way in the deepest pits of Hades.

Then why was the neon sign off, the window revealing nothing but upturned chairs on tables, the doors locked? Daniela frowned and moved around to the back of the building.

Marianna's Porsche was parked in the alley. The only reason that Dani could tell it was her sister's Porsche (it's rather dark in that alley, and the car is black) was the license plate: MARI-911. It was odd at the very least. Mari never drove the Porsche; it was more precious to her than her children or husband. Daniela made a "hmm" noise through her teeth. She shifted her weight from one platform to the other.

Something crashed inside the Club. Daniela thought it sounded like metal hitting metal. She had a flashback, sort of, of that Doreen twin from the Trekkie universe. Daniela didn't like thinking about the multiverse. Or Doreen's twin. Or the other twins. Particularly UPChuck's twin. She thought there was something not-quite-right about him. She shook her head.

Time to see if the back door would open... nope.

Oh, this was bad.

Bad, bad, bad.

Marianna now understood how throwing things could make one feel better. Lorin was a pretty smart kid, for an alternate-universe alien.

She picked up another handful of spoons and threw them against the far wall. As they flew, a few dropped out in mid-air, so there was a nifty sort of cascade of sound, a huge crash, plus the echo. Note to self, she thought, Sample this sound when I find time.

Alan would be worrying. She'd told him where she was going and why. He probably didn't think it would take this long, though. How was he to know she'd driven the entire length of Layla:) before coming to the Club? No matter. She'd be home soon.

Mari's ears picked up the silence from the main room. The printer had stopped. She carefully picked her way through the forest of forks on the kitchen floor, swore a little as one poked at her sandal-exposed toe, and eventually landed safely behind the bar, no worse for the wear.

The under-counter printer had spewed out signs on a variety of neon colors. Mari assigned places for them as she flipped through the pile. Pink for the west window, orange for the east, blue for the handicapped-access door, green for the main door, and yellow for the back entrance. "Dance Contest Cancelled," they read in large blocky text. "due to lack of interest. Daniela wins by default. Club will reopen on Monday." She grabbed the masking tape out of a drawer and headed back through the kitchen.

A few curses later, she was out the door.

"Daniela? What the hell are you sitting on my car for?!"

Out front, an otherwise completely insignificant young woman silently lost her head.

Literally.

"Well, obviously the cause of death was decapitation!" said the blonde woman standing in the morgue's autopsy room. Three cats twined themselves about her legs. The largest one was sucking on a sock.

The police officer (attention: this is the annual cop-bashing!!) filling out the official reports frowned. "Would you say it was a homicide or a suicide?"

"Cut's too clean to be suicide," the coroner said firmly. "At least, with the absence of a guillotine."

"Okay, suspected homocide," the cop mumbled. "Any other clues for us?"

"Cut patterns on the vertebrae indicate use of an axe, most likely something medeival..."

In the reception area, Mari and Dani sat in shock. "Another death... another death on the night the dance contest was to be held. My Club is cursed," Mari said, head in her hands.

Next to her, Daniela was in a similar posture. "The contest is cancelled," she moaned. "I don't believe it. The biggest social event of the year, cancelled." She paused. "And blood all over the sidewalk! At least Alan had the decency to poison Pez last year!"

Marianna slowly turned her head to stare at her sister.

"What?"

"Daniela, you amaze me sometimes."

"What?!"

A vibration on her hip distracted Mari. "'Scuse me, that's my beeper... Alan's probably having a fit now." Sure enough, the page was from Alan. "Phone, phone," Mari said, looking around randomly.

The coroner came out just then, practically shoving the cop out the front door. "I'll let you know," she said. "Just go away now. I can't work with you hanging over my shoulder!" She grinned at Marianna, who was still looking for the phone. "Phone's under all that paperwork on the desk. Do you know what it's like to work with a cop around?"

"No, I usually hang around hired killers," Mari said, digging out the phone.

The coroner laughed, then she realized that she was the only one laughing. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yeah, she's married to an ex-killer," Daniela said. "That's who she's calling right now."

"Hey, hon," Mari said into the phone. "I'm at the morgue."

For blocks, people could hear Alan's reaction.

"For a hired killer, he's sure got an aversion to morgues," commented the coroner, who had seated herself next to Daniela.

"Isn't that body going to rot if you don't do something to it soon?" Dani asked.

"It'll be okay for a while. By the way, I'm Joanna." A cat jumped on her lap. "This is Sprout. The one with the sock is Biff. And... where'd the other one go?" A cat suddenly appeared in the doorway between the autopsy room and the reception area, with what appeared to be a human hand in his mouth. "There he is! That's Howard. Howard da boy."

"That's nice," Daniela said. She didn't like being at the morgue. It was weird enough without a cat toting around a hand.

"Yeah, I'll be home soon. Half an hour at most, and I swear on your life I'll call if I'm going to be any later." Mari laughed, and Daniela guessed Alan had made some comment about reserving a spot for him in the morgue's freezers. "I'll call. I promise. Love you too. Kiss Polly good night for me. Make sure she doesn't sneak out of bed and go on the Internet. Love you. Yep. Yep. Buh-bye." Mari hung up the phone and rolled her eyes. "Not gonna worry, he says. Riiight... he'll always worry. I'm just a little bit too weird for him, I guess."

"Too weird for the hired killer?" Joanna asked.

"Oh, so Dani's told you about that? Okay, that saves explaining it later. And you are?"

"Joanna. And that's Sprout, Biff, and Howard," she said, gesturing to the cats.

"Are you new in town? I haven't seen you at the Club."

"I don't get out much. I'm either here, or I'm at home."

"Where's home?" Daniela asked.

"Behind a bush."

"Huh. I used to know a girl who lived in a box."

"Linzy, right?" Mari said. "She was a basketcase."

"I bet she didn't live with a black guy, a white guy, and a midget," Joanna put in.

"Uhh, no..." Daniela said, eyes widening.

"Come by the Club sometime," Mari invited, and Daniela's eyes widened further, begging no. "First drink is free."

"Oh, well, if you put it that way, I'll be there tonight!"

"No, we're closed tonight. Closed till five on Monday, actually." As Mari explained this, Daniela made a pouty face. "Ah, shush, Dani. I just don't want to deal with peoples' lack of enthusiasm anymore."

"You're just in a bad mood because Alan made you go on the pill."

"Am not!"

Seeing that this was going to quickly devolve into a pointless argument, Joanna racked her brain for something interesting to confuse the two sisters with. "I had a boyfriend named Alan once." Marianna and Daniela turned in unison as if to say, "So what?"

"Not really. I just called him that. It was a sort of in-joke at the place I worked at."

"Where was that?" Mari asked, worried about the answer she might get.

"The drycleaners on North Street. Fairy's. Glad I'm not working for that jerk anymore."

"And the morgue is so much better?" Daniela asked.

"Wait a sec, Fairy's Cleaners?" Mari said, an odd look crossing her face. "They're the ones that cleaned my wedding dress."

"The sundress?" Daniela asked. "I could have sworn that was machine washable."

"No, not that one. From when I married Mac. The one with all the beads on it. The cleaners melted the beads."

"I remember a wedding dress getting melted," Joanna said. "That was right before I quit, about five years ago."

"Yeah, that's about the right timing," Mari said. "Whoever called to apologize had a really nice phone voice, according to Mac."

Joanna started laughing. "That was me! And the funny thing is, I knew his voice from years before, when I was working for the phone sex company!"

Mari raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Did he call that often?"

"Well, he was one of the few guys with an accent like that... but, yeah, he called pretty regularly."

Mari and Dani burst out laughing along with Joanna. "The things you learn in a morgue," Mari said, gasping for breath. "The things you learn..."