Appearing in issue #31, August 5, 2013

Title: Coin return

By Author:  Adrian Ludens

Tag line:  The thief was going to end up paying a high price for stealing the valuable coin!

Police characters:  A non-identified security officer.  

The gist: Karen, the manager of the convention center, was on hand while the coin show was being set up.  There were to coin dealers at the moment in the center setting up their booths.  A heavy-set dealer accused the taller vendor of stealing a valuable coin while he was busy bringing in cases of coins.  The coin, a quarter, was in a plastic holder, a two by two, and had a price mark on it of $1600.00.  It went missing while the heavy-set dealer was away from his table.  The only other persons in the room were a janitor who was putting trash bags in the cans, and a soda vendor who was filling up the soda machines.  Karen called for security and security got the story and asked both men to turn out their pockets.  In the meantime, Karen went around and looked in each trash can.  In the can nearest the soda machine she found the empty coin packaging and an unopened soda can.  

Crime scene:  Convention center. 

Clues:   The empty packaging and the unopened soda can. 

Suspects:  The four men involved; two coin dealers, the janitor and the soda man. 

Red herrings:  None.

Solution:  The soda delivery driver took advantage of the vendor’s inattention while setting up.  He spied the valuable coin and stole it.  After restocking the soda machine he threw the empty coin packaging in the trash, put the stolen coin in the vending machine with other quarters, bought a soda so that the coin would drop in the collection bin and not be available if someone pressed coin return, then threw the unopened soda in the trash.  He planned to return after the event and collect the valuable coin from the machine. 

My two cents:  I was pretty happy with the way this story was going until the soda guy threw the unopened can in the trash.  Huh?  He was stocking the soda machines for the event, right?  Why wouldn’t he have just put the can he just bought back in the case with the rest of the soda?  Why throw it away?

 If you stole something valuable, wouldn’t you discard the evidence a little further away than the trash bin right next to where you’ve been seen standing?  I would have had him flush it down the toilet in the men’s room.  

Another thought, if this guy had the key to the vending machines why didn’t he just open the machine, pretend to add soda or count stock or something, and place the coin amongst the other quarters inside the coin collection tin and lock up?  

I wasn’t crazy about the tag line.  It was a bit lame.  All thieves end up paying a high price for their crime.  Something along the lines of ‘coin collecting’ would have been sharper.  

Once again the title to the story gave too much away.  It could have been titled Coin Collector without giving up the clue.    

No sense even mentioning there are three exclamations points in the first three sentences.  ((sigh))

I did like the fact that this author didn’t use any names except for Karen.  It’s much easier to keep track of the players when they are just described.  The heavy-set man, the taller man, and the security guard; as opposed to John Jones, Bill Smith and Adam Carlton.  Using this method the reader is not pulled out of the story to try and figure out  -- Who is Bill Smith again?

Title: Gone goes the weasel!
By Author: John M. Floyd

Appearing in issue #23, June 10, 2013
For sale date: May 31, 2013

Tag line:  The high school mascot was missing.  Was one of the students a thief?

Police characters: Sheriff Jones and his old school teacher and amateur crime fighter Angela Potts

The gist:  The school mascot, an otter, is stolen from the gym.  Teacher Teresa Garver gave the sheriff a list of students that attended a meeting in the gym on the night the mascot was stolen. The cleaning crew reported the otter missing when they came to clean one hour after the students had left.  There were no security cameras in the gym, nor in the parking lot.  

A note was left on the scene that read “For Sheriff Jones.  I’m vacation-bound. But if I’m to be found, just whittle me down, and then turn me around.  Nora Michael”.  There were no fingerprints on the note.

Sheriff Jones is studying the note when Ms. Potts drops in.  She figures out who stole the mascot.

Crime scene:  School gym.

Clues:  The poem and list of seven names.

Suspects: The list of seven attending students: Jo Nell Gorman, Kevin Higa, Stuart King, Brittany Raw Bourgeois, Joseph Cook, Leah Jean Cimaron, and Allison Wingo.

Red herrings:  None.  It is not this author’s style to throw in red herrings.  His interactions between the sheriff and Ms. Potts are what make the story interesting.

Solution:  Leah Jean Cimaron.  Her name, when whittled down to remove the Jean and turned around, spelled backwards is Nora Michael.

My two cents:  These two characters appear in WW often. This time the sheriff keeps calling the mascot a weasel and he seems a bit cranky. Ms. Potts feels the thief wanted to embarrass the school or maybe even the sheriff, but really students nab each other’s mascots (and even their own) and hold them for ransom just for the fun of it. It happens almost every year. The student even left a clue. This wasn’t really a theft, it was more of a prank.  As soon as I saw the list of names I started reading them backwards and found the culprit quickly. The story was mildly entertaining but not memorable.

Key to the crime

By Tracie Rae Griffith

Appearing in January 14, 2013 issue

For sale date: January 4th

Tag Line:  Detective Kay began to wonder if the thief had managed to make a clean getaway …

The police: Detective Kristine Kay.

Overview:  Antique 24-carat gold earrings are missing from a guest’s room.

Crime Scene:  Hotel room.

The suspects: Front desk clerk, the housekeeper  and the handyman. 

Clues:  Room 181 still had the maid service card dangling from the knob when the detective arrived.   There was an unmade bed, waste basket full of paper, and wet towels in the bathroom to indicate the maid had not been in there yet.  The victim claimed she had worn her earrings the night before to an event and had left them on the bureau before she retired and they were still there in the morning. The victim rose at 8:00 AM, made tea in her room and turned on the weather channel.  She tried to do some work at the desk but the lamp did not work.  The victim took a shower, hung the maid sign on the door, and went downstairs for breakfast.  She was gone for about an hour.  When she returned to her room, the earrings were gone.  The handyman stated he had been tied up on another floor and hadn’t had a chance to fix the lamp yet.  The housekeeper maintained that she hadn’t been in room 181 to clean yet as she arrived late for work and was behind in her duties .
Detective Kay noted that the two people who had door keys alleged to have not entered the room to do their job. While the detective mulled over the case, she turned on the TV in the room via the remote and watched a hockey game in progress.  This act gave her the information she needed to solve this crime.

Red Herrings:    The desk clerk told the detective there were no signs of a break-in even though he was not asked.  The words ‘clean getaway’ in the title send the message that it was the maid. Upon hearing there had been a theft, the desk clerk paled and called the police.  Yet later he stated that the victim must be mistaken and that the hotel has a flawless reputation.  The desk clerk surely has access to the master key that opens every room on the property.   

Solution:  The handyman did it.  He had gone to the room to fix the lamp, had turned on the sports channel to check the score for his favorite team, saw the earrings, stole them, then left without fixing the lamp so he could say he had never been in the room.

My two cents:    I was not able to figure out how a hockey game on the TV fit it.  My weather channel has sports and news clips in between the weather bits, so I didn’t think anyone had changed the channel.   Perhaps it should have read the 24-hour all weather channel.  And the hockey game didn’t lead me to the handyman.   That part was a bit stereotyped.  The maid couldn’t be a big hockey fan?  My daughter is.
All in all this was a good story.  Worthy of WW.  It read well, was consistent and was not easy to solve.  

NOTE:  The author of this story advised me that WW changed a lot of her details, including the title and the clue that solved the crime.  This happens all the time with WW.  “My Two Cents” critiques the story as WW presented it.