Free Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) by Edie Claire Page A

electric chair. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but that wasn’t surprising, given that the boys were still in the process of unearthing it.
    “This is so cool!” Mathias crowed. “Hey, Aunt Leigh, do you think my mom would—”
    “Not a chance,” Leigh said quickly.
    “Ooh!” Chaz cried out, practically leaping across the room to reach them. “It is still here! That was my favorite room ever. The ‘execution room!’” He plopped down in the seat and placed his arms in the fake straps, smiling from ear to ear. “See, what happened was, we had the whole thing set up just like an execution room in a prison. And when the people first walked in, it was really dim, and they could just see the chair. For a moment, nothing happened. They were just standing there in the dark. But then the chair started to spark and sizzle! And then — this is the really cool part — we had a plant going through with the group, see. He was one of us, but he was dressed up like a businessman who just got off work, with a briefcase and everything. And the people thought he was one of them. But in this room, he all of a sudden jumps the ropes and says, ‘This is so bogus! That’s not a real electric chair! Look, here’s the switch!’ And he goes over to the wall and reaches up and grabs this big switch, see, and then poof!”
    Chaz yelled so loudly, the boys beside him both jumped. He cracked up laughing. “It went totally dark then, you see, and nobody could see anything. But when the light came on again, it was a red light, and a strobe, and there was heat and smoke and steam everywhere, and right where the dude had been standing, there was a charred corpse! Still holding his briefcase!”
    Chaz dissolved into laughter again. “Scared the crap out of people, that did. They didn’t realize until then that he was a plant, you see. But we had a swinging panel in the wall, and Josh, he just slipped out and went back to meet up with the next group at the front of the house again.”
    Leigh looked down at the briefcase. “So this was the prop you used?”
    Chaz nodded. “Yeah, that was the burned one we stuck to the skeleton’s hand. Josh had another one he kept with him.”
    “How did you make the smoke?” Mathias asked.
    “It was just a fog machine,” Chaz replied, “but we had red lights and space heaters, and a guy on a ladder behind the wall would toss ashes down over the corpse, so it looked and even smelled like smoke!”
    “That is too cool,” Mathias said with admiration.
    “Do you remember where you got this briefcase?” Allison asked Chaz seriously.
    “Oh, no, I never thought about it,” he answered. “Probably somebody brought an old one.” His eyes sparkled with sudden enthusiasm. “I remember burning it, though! We built a little bonfire out in the parking lot, and we tossed in the case and the extra suit and shoes. Not the corpse, though. It was plastic, so we just had to smear ash on it. But the other stuff we let burn for a while, and then we sprayed the hose on it. The guys wanted to burn other stuff too, so we made a second bonfire, but then some guy threw his lighter in it, and a neighbor wound up calling the police, and then the fire department—”
    Chaz’s trip down memory lane was interrupted by a string of Spanish words flung at him by an unhappy Gerardo. Leigh couldn’t understand a word of it, and neither, she suspected, could Chaz. But Gerardo’s caustic tone left no mystery as to his meaning.
    Chaz stood up from the chair, his expression sulky. “Fine! I’m getting back to it!” Then he grumbled just loud enough for the kids and women to hear him. “Sheesh, what a slave driver!”
    Chaz moved away, picked up an armload of props, and slowly began walking toward the stairs. Gerardo stood still at the bottom of the stairway, glaring at him. Chaz stuck out his tongue, then bolted up the steps. Gerardo shook his head with disgust and got back to work on the trash pile.
    Bess leaned over