Read Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) for Free Online Page A

until the time it electrocuted Sid.
    “Hot Flash,” he repeated. “Boy, that machine sucked. Lousy playfield.” He stopped for a moment. “Didn’t it have metal side bars and a wooden front rail?”
    “Yeah,” I answered, my heart giving an eager little hop. That’s right. If the front was wood and the sides were metal, then Sid touching the metal sides could have completed an electrical circuit—
    “But still,” Craig went on, obviously thinking as he spoke. “The guy wasn’t standing in water or anything, was he?”
    “No.” My heart settled back down.
    The phone was silent for a moment.
    “But wait, now I remember,” Craig said finally. “Hot Flash was one of those machines with American and European transformer potential, 120 or 220 volts.” His voice took on speed and enthusiasm. “Now if the ground wire of one of those metal side bars was connected to the 220 volt tap of the transformer instead, it could effectively double the power of the house current.”
    Then he stopped again.
    “But?” I asked impatiently.
    “But it would’ve had to have been electrically isolated and correctly grounded until the magic moment. Or else the first person to play it would have gotten fried.” I wished he hadn’t used the word “fried.” My stomach fluttered as a picture of Sid’s body seizing accosted my mind’s eye. Craig went on obliviously.
    “Of course, you could initiate the magic moment through a special relay or two, maybe as a double throw switch with a secure firing mechanism.” He paused. “But how? Set for a specific sequence? A tilt? Or, hey—how about a remote control?”
    “Sid had a remote control,” I interrupted.
    “The guy that got fried?”
    “Yeah,” I answered. “I think Sid was using it to make the machine do the funny voices.”
    “But was there a second remote control?” he asked, his voice thick with excitement. “Because if there was—”
    “I know,” I interrupted soberly. “Because if there was, Sid was murdered.”
     
     
    - Four -
     
    “Jeez, I wish I could have been there to see it,” Craig breathed.
    “Well I was!” I snapped back. “I saw an old friend die, and let me tell you, it wasn’t any fun—”
    “I’m sorry, Kate,” he said contritely.
    I kept my sigh internal. Contrition from Craig was not normal. Just one more sign that Craig still hoped that Wayne and I weren’t going to get married. Just one more sign that he still hoped he had a chance with me. A romantic chance. For some reason, once Craig had divorced me he’d begun to woo me all over again, and he’d never stopped. I’d tried my best to make it clear that he would never, ever, have another romantic chance with me. Without being too cruel in my rejection. Because Craig was not a bad man. An insensitive man at times. A complete jerk at others. A social idiot—but, anyway, not a bad man.
    “Dating any neat new women?” I asked.
    “Well,” he answered hesitantly. “I met this woman, Tillie, Scottish country dancing. Someone told me it was a great place for computer nerds to meet women.”
    “And…”
    “And she’s a vegetarian. Plus, she’s a technical writer.” He paused. “But she has a lot of cats.”
    “How many is a lot?”
    “Twenty-three,” he whispered.
    I tried to imagine that many cats in one room. And succeeded. Suddenly, I could picture each of them in different colors and stripes and spots, all yowling and racing around. My nose began to tickle allergically.
    “And you know what else?” Craig’s voice went even lower. “They all sleep with her. In shifts.”
    I hung up not long after that, glad I was living with Wayne, not Craig. Glad I was living with one cat and occasional visitors.
    But I wasn’t quite sure Wayne was as happy about our living arrangements as I was. I found him sitting in one of the chairs that hung from the ceiling in the living room, but he wasn’t swinging in it like he usually did. He was just sitting, arms crossed,