Eastercon Flash Fiction

Murder at the Convention

The con-chair was dead, but that was only to be expected. After all, he'd been predicting it since the first progress update.

Still, it was rather unsightly, the spectacle of a body in the main atrium. The hotel people were starting to ask questions.

NorEas'Con had been using the Teaneck Hyatt through several incarnations -- the TeaNeck Raddisson, the TeaNeck Hilton, even a prief flash when it was the Teaneck Trump. The facilities chair knew the hotel better than any of its own facilities people and had even consulted, once, upon a

particularly difficult HVAC problem. The facilities people, they trusted old Tom. Or, as his badge had it, 3TOM3. No one remembered what the 3 stood for.

The con chair was dead, and he lay sprawled in the middle of the atrium. Some wag had deposited a hall costume coupon on his chest, which was considered to be in pretty poor taste by all present. The con committee, of course, had been expecting this. After all, they'd signed off on all the progress reports.

3TOM3 had given some thought to the problem of disposing of the body. Randall was a large man, and difficult to shift, and that was before both arms and both legs had been subjected to multiple compound fractures. Carrying the con-chair now was a *messy* business, and there were sharp bits that protruded.

But it had to be done.