A Killing at Pennsylvania Avenue

"Those are the witnesses?"

"Yes, sir," said the White House butler.

The Secret Service Agent folded his arms over his chest and looked them up and down. "How did they get in here?"

"They live here, sir."

"Huh?" (The Secret Service Agent had never been in the East Wing.)

"They live here, sir."

"You said that already." He turned to the witnesses. "What are your names?" With that, the witnesses took off running. "Goddammit!"

A couple miles to the east, the Capitol Police were also dealing with a killing: the bodily remains had been found stuffed into a worm composting box kept behind the cafeteria. "This is why Boehner banned cafeteria composting!" exclaimed a Republican Congressman from Idaho.

"Get him out of here!" shouted the detective.

Washington Post reporter Perry Winkle (who had also been lunching in the House cafeteria when the screams erupted) crouched lower behind the glass recycling bin.

"A liver, two kidneys, and the lower intestine--that's all?" asked the detective.

"Yes, ma'am," said the forensics officer.

"We need to do a lockdown and start searching for the rest of the body," she replied. Suddenly a paper airplane sailed clumsily through the air towards the detective, then landed a yard away from her feet. Nobody moved, except for nervous eyes looking around for the sender. "Would somebody pick it up?!" the detective finally hollered.

One of the police officers bent over to pick it up, unfolded it, and read aloud the message written on it: "The victim is probably Congressman Duffeldooly's legislative assistant, missing since Monday night. Ask Congressman Herrmark's chief of staff about her! She's a zombie! She probably didn't eat those organs because they're gross."

Back at the White House, the Chief of Staff was sitting in his office, contemplating assassination attempts in Syria, Israel, Iran, and Pakistan. Is it too late to bring back the Ottoman Empire? "NO!" shouted Ghost Dennis, and the Chief of Staff jumped out of his seat.

"Who said that?!" (Ghost Dennis was standing right in front of him, but the Chief of Staff could not see him.)

A head popped into the doorway. "Sir?"

"Do we have the new exit strategy for Afghanistan yet?" asked the Chief of Staff.

"Is it too late to bring back the Soviets?"

"Ha, ha," said the Chief of Staff.

"You can't talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand!"

"Stop singing!" ordered the Chief of Staff.

(Back in the East Wing, the murder witnesses were still on the run....)

A block away, Laura Moreno had her nose pressed to the grindstone in the Prince and Prowling workroom. Nobody in the entire firm had said a word to her about the lawsuit that had succeeded in voiding the huge inheritance Wolfgang Prowling had intended for her, but one thing was clear: they were never going to fire her...ever. She would be a temporary attorney at Prince and Prowling until she quit or died: no health insurance, no holidays, no vacation days, just toil-toil-toil until she dropped. And I'm one of the lucky ones. She stole a glance at the contract attorney who had been working at the next table since Monday...and whom would probably be unemployed again within two weeks. She's worked for half the law firms in this town, and most of the temp. agencies. Nobody will give her a permanent job, even though she's really good. Moreno saw the temp start bopping her head to the music coming through her headphones. Why?

Upstairs, Bridezilla was enjoying a surprise visit from her new boyfriend, Bucky, an actor in the Kennedy Center's "Shear Madness" production. She was still munching from the lunch he had brought her as he recreated for her the most recent improvisational turns occurring in the murder/mystery/comedy. "Die, die, die!" he shouted gleefully, as he grabbed the scissors from her desk and began stabbing the dirt in her ficus tree pot.

"Don't!" she hollered, remembering her gun was still buried in it.

(Too late.)

"Wow, those roots are strong!" Bucky was examining the dented scissors in wonder.

"Sing me the alibi poem again!" she exclaimed, removing the scissors from his hand.

Back at the White House West Wing, the witnesses had finally been cornered outside the wine cellar.

"We just--." The Secret Service agent bent over to catch his breath. "We just need to tell the President what happened. Did the dog really do it?"

The twin preschoolers exchanged glances, then looked over to their mother, the butler.

"Reggie, Fergie, you need to answer the agent. What happened to the Sidwell bunny? Malia needs to tell her classmates how it died."

"It was Bo, but it was an accident," said Regina.

"The dog chewed up the bunny...by accident?" asked the agent.

"It was possessed!" said Ferguson.

"Bo was possessed?" asked the agent.

"No, the bunny!" said Regina.

"Bo was very brave," said Ferguson.

"Right." The agent looked around at the other adults in the room. "What happened was that the bunny got into the vents and crawled into a rat's nest, and the rats chewed her up. Got it?" Everybody nodded and started heading back upstairs, except for the butler's family.

"Go on," said the butler. "Bridge will have washed the blood off Bo by now. Go and play." The butler leaned back against the wall, watching her twins head for the stairs. Maybe this HIV has made me crazy. Why can't I ever understand my kids?

Back in the West Wing, Ghost Dennis was trying to explain to the White House Chief of Staff why everybody has to die, but nobody has to kill; however, the Chief of Staff kept jumping up and exiting the office every time Ghost Dennis opened his mouth. This haunting thing is tricky!