Free Play It Again by Stephen Humphrey Bogart

turned away. The view out the window hadn’t changed. “I don’t know. It’s not even a hunch yet. Just—something doesn’t look quite right. I can’t tell you any more.”
    “Can’t—or won’t?” There was a cool challenge in her voice. He turned back to face her.
    “Why don’t we look at the tapes, and I’ll let you know?”
    She studied him briefly, then nodded. “All right. I have them right here.” She pulled open her shoulder bag and took out four plain videocassettes.
    Casey crossed to the far side of the room and R.J. followed. She had a twenty-seven-inch Sony monitor set up there and a rack of VTRs: two three-quarter-inch, one VHS, even a Beta. There was a joystick editing panel mounted on a small counter, two smaller monitors, and some other equipment for film as well as video.
    “Quite a setup,” R.J. said.
    She shrugged. “Not really. It’s kind of primitive. But it lets me do some of the rough cuts here, without that asshole Pike reaching for my knee in the dark editing bay.”
    R.J. snorted. “Should’ve known he was a knee-grabber. Few more years, he’ll probably be a Shriner.”
    She put in the first tape and started to rewind it.
    “You haven’t told me yet what you think about my mother’s murder.”
    She didn’t look up. “I don’t think it was a mob hit or anything like that. Too pretty. And I don’t think it was a jealous wife, for the same reason.”
    “Pretty?” R.J. snarled. “What the hell was pretty about it?”
    The tape made a snapping sound and popped out of the machine. She pushed it back in. “Have you seen pictures of the crime scene?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Whoever it was didn’t just come in, shoot them, and go out. Whoever did this, they spent a lot of time composing the picture they would leave behind. I’ve been in this business awhile, and I can tell a pro at work when I see one. This guy was a pro.”
    “What, you mean a pro killer?”
    She shook her head. “I mean show business,” she said. R.J. blinked hard as she went on. “Everything was just so, just like somebody was setting up models for a picture. A very startling and unusual picture.” Now she looked up at him. “That’s why I brought these other tapes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because in the last eighteen months there have been other unsolved murders where the crime scene was arranged the same way.”
    R J. felt for his cigar and stuck it into his face. He bit down hard. “Do the cops know about this?”
    Her eyes gleamed. “They have the same information I have, R.J.”
    He barked out a short laugh. “But they don’t have your brains, right? You’re okay, kid.” He sank into the other chair beside her. “All right. Let’s take a look.”
    Casey leaned forward and grabbed the joystick. “This is the first one,” she said, leaning the stick forward. She wound quickly past some standard-looking interview footage, a few exterior shots, and then: “There.” She stopped the tape.
    The camera was looking down on the back of a nude body, male, middle-aged. The guy would never have made anybody’s pin-up calendar alive, and dead he was far beyond a little unsightly.
    A pool of blood spread out around the body, although no marks were visible on the man’s back.
    Just out of reach of his outstretched hand was a battered ukulele.
    R.J. frowned and leaned closer. “What’s that?” He pointed at the screen. Something was barely visible, tucked in between the cheeks of the body’s naked buttocks.
    Casey gave him a grimace. “It’s a spread of pictures. Polaroids. Cops wouldn’t let me see ’em. Said they were too gruesome.”
    “Jesus.” He shook his head. “Cause of death?”
    She was already rewinding the second tape. “The closest they could come was to say either shock from multiple injuries or loss of blood. They said it looked like some kind of crazy surgery, where the doctor didn’t really know what he was looking for, but he kept looking anyway.”
    She