Read Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery for Free Online

Not many, you understand, but nobody is perfect. Until now, however, I had never actually put a guest to sleep. I shook my head. A sad, sad first.
    “Halsey!” I yelled, again holding the mike in front of her slack mouth, hoping for one last word, but nothing. I knew our telecast was running way over our show time. I had to give up.
    Flat on my back, looking straight up at the camera, I brought the mike back to my face and wrapped it up. “Folks, I could not make this up. A sadder and more dramatic scene of Hollywood excess you could not see. A nineteen-year-old actress who should be inside the Kodak Theatre right this very minute, seated and waiting and hoping to learn if she has won the world’s most prestigious film award for her jaw-dropping performance as the Nazi officer’s girl in Scorsese’s The Bones of War, is instead right here next to me, lying on the red carpet. Distressed. Demeaned. And…” I looked at the unconscious beauty, searching for one more d word, noting her long auburn hair splayed out on the carpet and realized…oh my God. She wasn’t breathing.
    Dead.

3
Best Missing Camerawork
     
    A nd then there were boots. And legs. And men. And a gurney.
    Before I could grab Halsey’s wrist to feel for a pulse, we were suddenly under siege. Eight or nine storm troopers in ill-fitting tuxedos nearly trounced upon my up-swept curls in their heartless scramble over my prostrate body to get to Halsey.
    Hello? Celebrity down!
    In two seconds, flat a series of draped panels had been erected around my camera crew, Halsey, and me, blocking the view of our tragic scene from the crowds of gathering gawkers and especially from the lenses of so many rabid photographers. Pulling the delicate hem of my gown from under the heel of a cheap size-12oxford, I snarled. These beefy penguins must be a phalanx of security guards and emergency medical techs, and their formal wear was simply Academy Awards–night camouflage. Where the hell had these overdressed EMTs come from?
    I tried to get up, but one of the men almost tripped over me and another turned and said, “Do us a favor. Just stay put, would you? We’ve got enough to attend to right now.”
    “Halsey, honey,” I called out weakly, lying back down as I was told to do, but in the tumult of medical triage, my cry was lost. And not one of the fine, young ambulance men thought to stop and check for my pulse.
    I figured this medical unit stands by on Oscar night, available in case some old actor suffers a coronary. At an event where big losers outnumber big winners four to one, hearts were bound to break, and with the mean age of your average Academy member up above fifty, plenty of likely emergency-room candidates were inside the hall. But I guarantee at no time could anyone on the planning committee have imagined that the second-youngest Best Actress nominee in the history of the awards, right after the kid who rode on a whale, would collapse out in front of the ceremonies while being interviewed—I looked around nervously—by moi.
    I twisted just in time to avoid being trod upon by a size-13 patent leather evening slipper—at least this footwear was designer—as I strained to peer between a dozen moving black-sock-covered ankles for a glimpse of Halsey.
    On the one hand, I could try to get up again, but on the other, down on the ground I was much more likely to overhear the kneeling medical techs talking about Halsey’s condition. It was a risk, but I was on a story now as well as personally concerned for the girl. Swarmed by a dark, moving forest of manly pant legs, I grabbed a handful of fabric from the next passing cuff and pulled. Its owner didn’t notice, so I yanked harder. “Hey,” I rasped upward, “is she okay?”
    A thick-chested guy shot a quick suspicious look down at me. “What’s going on here, Ms. Taylor?”
    “Me? Not a thing. They told me to stay put, so I’m staying put.”
    “Did you give Ms. Hamilton anything to eat or