It took more arguing than it should have, but they finally put together something of a timeline. At least, a timeline of when everyone had gotten to the party and what they said they had been doing. Not, unfortunately, of what had happened.

But since none of them were mind readers…

Okay, actually, Danny needed to ask Ghost Writer - Andrew - if that was part of his powerset. It certainly wasn't part of Danny's. As occasionally useful (and creepy) as overshadowing was, knowing what the person he was overshadowing was thinking was beyond him.

As far as Danny knew, none of them were mind readers. So, they had to work with what they were given. And what they were given was a headache and a half.

Mr. Lancer had been there alone for most of the morning.

(If any of them knew how to tell how long a body had been dead (or if they had internet access) that might have been an important data point.)

He'd asked Technus (Nicholas Tea, aka ghosts were horrible at aliases apparently, and, no, Danny wasn't considering himself an exception) to come early to help him set up the game system and some other electronics that weren't working quite right. Danny made a note to go over everything Technus had worked on. Not because he thought Technus had killed anyone, but because he didn't trust the ghost not to have added something ectoplasmic that would animate all the wires in the house.

After that, Irving Burns (Nasty Burger guy), was the first to arrive. He'd come with desserts from the Nasty Burger and spent the time Technus was fixing things talking to Mr. Lancer about…

"My drag hobby," said Mr. Lancer. He sounded nervous.

"Like, drag racing?" asked Kwan.

"No," said Mr. Lancer, "as in, performance."

Irving was staring at him with something like shock and… From Mr. Falluca, was that disgust? Whatever was on Lance Thunder's face was just weird. Like he couldn't decide how to feel.

Everyone else, well…

Yeah. Danny was surprised, too. But, in the long run, what Mr. Lancer did in his spare time wasn't all that important.

Ghost Writer had come in next, and had gotten into a 'debate' with Mr. Lancer and Technus about video game novelizations, novels made into video games, and video games with novels in them. Danny was surprised the house was still standing after that. Ghost Writer and Technus must really like Mr. Lancer.

… Was it possible that they had killed Mr. Lancer so they had a new ghost buddy? Danny didn't feel like that was super likely, but he decided to keep the thought in mind, anyway.

During that time, Irving had just sort of… hung out, but since everyone else in the house had been otherwise involved, Danny didn't see what he could have gotten up to.

Then, Mrs. Ishiyama and Kwan had arrived, followed seconds later by Tetslaff. They'd gone to put food items and presents in the kitchen.

The Fallucas came next, and while Mikey and Kwan had disappeared into the game room together (weird), no one was entirely sure what Mr. Falluca was doing. Hanging around the edges of the three way video game book debate.

Combine that with his statement that he and Mikey had been on the first floor the whole time…

Yeah, that was suspicious.

Then again, Tetslaff and Mrs. Ishiyama were also suspicious, because they had stayed in the kitchen. Neither of them gave off the impression of being particularly enamored of kitchens.

Irving had gone to talk to them at some point, but he hadn't stayed long. Suspicious again!

"What else were you doing?" asked the Beholder, raising an eyebrow. "There's not a lot to do in this house."

"I'll have you know," said Irving, "that I was listening to their discussion." He nodded in the direction of Lancer, Technus, and Ghost Writer.

Mr. Falluca sniffed. "I highly doubt that, with your grades. You might as well tell everyone what you were really doing."

"Oh, come on, you kept pointing fingers at me about that all through school! Will you never give it a break?"

"Yes," said Mr. Lancer, "I don't think that this is the place for that at all, James, and Irving has done quite well for himself these past few years."

Mikey leaned around his father's (admittedly small) figure and mouthed 'sorry' at Irving.

The Beholder and the Thunder family had come after the Fallucas, but no one could remember the order.

Star had immediately gone upstairs, and her father had followed her, although he'd come back down shortly after. He said that he'd then had several one-on-one conversations on the ground floor.

The Beholder had… Beheld, Danny guessed. Anyway, he'd camped out in the center of the living room and read poetry. Loudly. The whole time. He'd gotten into a not-quite fight with Ghost Writer about it. A rhyming fight.

Danny was equal parts glad and sorry he'd missed it. It sounded dreadful.

Nothing really screamed 'this guy had the opportunity to dismember an adult (probably) human with various power tools.' The only people who were, by that accounting, alone together for a long time (other than ghosts who Danny was tentatively ruling out) were Tetslaff and Ishiyama, and Mikey and Kwan.

Neither of those possibilities were ones he wanted to think about.

On the other hand, everyone was very obviously thinking about them. Especially Mr. Falluca, who was openly glaring at Kwan, Tetslaff, and Ishiyama. Mostly at Kwan, however.

"I'm not dead," said Mikey.

"We weren't–" started Mr. Lancer.

"You were. But Kwan and I are friends. I help him with his homework all the time!"

Wow, Mikey was really giving the homework slave thing a positive spin, there. On the other hand, yeah. Danny couldn't see Kwan killing anyone, except maybe by accident.

Mr. Lancer put his head in his hands as everyone started arguing with each other, with lots of finger pointing.

"How do we know those three didn't have something to do with it?" asked the Beholder. Danny looked up just in time to see a finger jabbed first at him, then Sam, then Tucker.

"Because we were here for, like, a minute before Danny found the body?" suggested Tucker. "That's a bit fast for a murder."

"But he knew there was a body there. You can't just know when there's a body. At minimum, someone had to tell him."

"Uncle Bobby," said Star, "trust me when I say Fenton is just weird like that. He finds so many bodies."

"Excuse me?" said the Beholder. "Bodies, as in, plural? Am I the only one hearing this?"

"Putting all that aside," said Mr. Lancer, removing his face from where it had been buried in his hands for the past several minutes.

No one liked that.

"PUTTING ALL THAT ASIDE," he repeated, much louder, "I think we need to challenge some of our assumptions. Collect clues. Investigate."

"Did you learn that in one of your novels?" grumbled Thunder.

"Considering that you are in a novel," said Ghost Writer, "there are worse places to look for inspiration."

Mrs. Ishiyama sighed. "What do you want to look at first, William?"

"Feasibility. We're all convinced that the power tools were the murder weapon, or at least what the killer used to…" He trailed off, looking green. "Well. I did pay for good soundproofing, and I know you kids were playing the game, but is that enough to drown out power tools?"

"Great," said Irving, pushing himself up out of the armchair. "We can check these guys' game scores or whatever at the same time."

They went to the stairs, Danny, Sam, and Tucker hanging in the back as everyone else filed up the stairs.

"Shouldn't we be in the front?"

"We haven't magically become detectives just because we're in this situation," said Danny.

"Still, you are the most experienced with dead things."

"Forget that," said Sam, leaning close, "don't you think this is all a bit strange? This house, I mean."

"Yeah, that it's still under construction is weird," said Tucker.

Danny scrunched his nose. "Is it?"

"Danny, your parents are outliers in everything."

"Actually, how is Lancer affording this place?" mused Tucker. "I didn't think teachers made all that much."

"We don't," said Mrs. Tetslaff, who had better ears than Danny had thought. "He got some kind of inheritance thing."

"Really?" asked Danny. "Like, a big inheritance?"

"I don't know," said Tetslaff, shrugging aggressively. "Before you get any ideas, it didn't sound like something a guy would kill over." She turned to climb the stairs.

People killed over so very many stupid things, so Danny rather doubted that.

"Oh, wow," said Tucker, when they finally got into the gaming room. "This is a sweet setup."

"Yes, well," said Mr. Lancer, "the idea was to have an enjoyable space for myself and my guests." He walked over to where a controller was sitting abandoned on the ground and clicked a button, which in turn woke the screen.

Golden words spelled Apple of Eris on a red and black background.

"Oh, man," said Tucker. "I've been wanting to try that game."

"Mhm," said Mr. Lancer, "I haven't had a chance to play it yet myself."

"Why?" asked Tucker. "I'd've played it as soon as I got it!"

"Perhaps that explains the state of your recent essay. You really have to stop spilling food on them. It makes them very difficult to grade."

Mr. Lancer navigated to the 'load game' screen, and, sure enough, there were a variety of save files for two and three person games, all staggered across the last two hours. They weren't all even time jumps. There were a couple big skips after Star joined in. But, again, Danny couldn't really imagine his classmates being murderers. Victims, maybe, but not murderers.

"There we are. Now, let's check the sound."

"Actually," said Danny, interrupting and turning to look at Technus. "Can you show us the part you had to fix?"

Technus tapped his fingers together, somewhere between nervous and annoyed. "I don't know why you–"

"Just to see it. I don't think it was you, but it's still good to be able to see what you were doing." Plus, he wanted Technus and Ghost Writer to be ruled out in other people's minds, too.

Technus, grudgingly, popped the side off the console and pointed.

"Huh," said Tucker, slipping around Danny, "I'm not super familiar with this type of console… But is that standard? What did it connect to, do you know?"

Technus shrugged. "That's part of what created the problem: A small short! One I repaired rapidly!"

At least everyone here had been telling the truth.

"Now," said Lancer, "we will need some people here, to play the game, some on the first floor, to listen, and someone upstairs to run the power tools."

Silence.

Kwan raised his hand, hesitantly.

"Yes, Kwan?"

"Uh, Mr. Lancer," said Kwan, "I haven't read many mysteries, but isn't splitting up usually a bad thing?"

A question like that could only be followed by one thing: an argument.