Title:  Murder to go
By Author Susan Furlong-Bolliger

Appearing in issue #8, February 25, 2013
For sale date: February 14, 2013

Tag line:  Detective Ramos preferred to start her day with a cup of strong coffee, not a crime scene in a diner…

Law enforcement: Det. Sylvia Ramos, Det. Wes Weston

The gist:  Someone stabbed and killed Frank, the owner of Frank’s Diner

Crime scene:  Frank’s Diner

Clues:  Frank was found stabbed in his back in the kitchen of his diner.  Time of death was determined to be around midnight according to the coroner. The murder weapon was a knife pulled from the block of knives in the kitchen.   The waitress, Nancy, found the body when she arrived in the morning.  She stated that she came in at five, keyed in, turned off the alarm, got a pot of coffee going and then went into the back of the kitchen for creamers and found Frank.   She claimed Frank was a nice person and had no enemies but that the diner had not been doing well lately financially.   The dishwasher, Ted, claims he left at eleven last night and Frank was still there doing office work.  Ted claims a homeless guy has been hanging around getting free coffee.  

Suspects:  Nancy the waitress.  Ted the dishwasher.  Some homeless guy.

Red herrings:  Ted threw in the homeless guy. 

Solution:  Since the waitress had turned off the alarm when she arrived only an employee would know to set the alarm when they left last night. Since Frank was dead, that left Ted.  Under questioning Ted confessed that Frank had discovered that Ted had been stealing and confronted him about it.  A fight ensued that ended with Ted stabbing his boss.  Force of habit caused him to lock up and set the alarm.

My two cents:  This stabbing bothered me a little.  When two men start arguing and get into a physical altercation they are facing each other.  When Ted picked up the knife most likely Frank would have been stabbed in the front part of his body, not in the back.  Of course, Frank could have walked away from Ted and Ted took that opportunity to stab him.  Perhaps the solution should have been a little neater.  I also would have like a small clue in the story about the till being light at times.

Det. Ramos kept going on about wanting coffee.  Smelling coffee.  Wanting to pour a cup but not wanting to disturb the crime scene.  At the very last part of the solution Ramos asks Nancy, who is distraught over finding her boss dead (a stabbing is a bloody mess), to get her a cup of coffee.  Seems a bit cold.  And now she doesn’t mind disturbing the crime scene?

Title: Diamonds are forever
By Author John M. Floyd

Appearing in February 18, 2013 issue.

For sale date: February 7th

Tag line:  A diamond heist let Sheriff Jones show off his crime-solving skills to Angela Potts!

The characters:  Sheriff Jones, Angela Potts, Deputy Dawg (just kidding…seeing if you’re alert) Deputy Prewitt.

The gist:  An armed robber stole three diamond necklaces while one person, Danny, was manning the jewelry store. Only one other witness saw Danny going to his car.  The witness did not see any other suspects. When the call came in from Deputy Prewitt, Ms. Potts was in the sheriff’s office and listened to the call on the speaker phone.  Ms. Potts had just been lecturing Det. Jones on how you catch crooks by watching for inconsistencies.

Crime scene:  Fowler Jewelers.

Clues:  The owner of the store was out sick.  His son, Danny, was minding the shop.  Danny described the robber as a white male, 40ish, dark hair, blue shirt and jacket, tan pants with a belt that had “J” on the buckle.   A witness down the street saw Danny walking back to his car afterwards.  Danny claims he ran to his car to give chase but gave up realizing it was useless.  Danny said the getaway car was a black Ford Escort.  Danny added that the thief wore running shoes and red suspenders, which he saw when the man pulled his coat back to draw his gun.  The woman never saw anyone else besides Danny.

Suspects:  Danny and an unknown male.

Red herrings: There are usually no red herrings in a Jones/Potts story.  Ms. Potts usually solves the crime before Det. Jones can figure it out…much to the embarrassment of a frustrated Jones.

Solution:  Suspenders and belts are both designed to hold up trousers, but most men don’t wear both at the same time leading Det. Jones to question Danny’s story.   Mrs. Potts was pleased that Jones followed her advice about inconsistencies. Det. Jones told Deputy Prewitt to ask Danny if the police could search his car.  Deputy Prewitt balked asking “Don’t I need a search warrant for that?”  Jones replied, “You don’t need one to ask him.”  Which led to Danny falling apart and admitting that his wife wanted a bigger house and made him steal the jewelry.

My two cents:  This all worked very well.  For once Sheriff Jones got to solve the crime before Ms. Potts did, but of course, only because she just gave him a lecture on how to solve crimes – lol.  My only comment is that a search warrant from a judge is not necessary.  If the police ask permission to search your car and you give it to them, they have implied consent.  You will be asked to sign the implied consent form and then the police will search the car. If you do not give them permission, then they will have to get a standard search warrant, and for that they have to apply to a judge in a written request, and they have to have probable cause to want to search.  But just the threat of a search could very well scare the suspect.  And it did.

Title: An eye for fashion

By Author M.J. McGovern

Appearing in February 11, 2013 issue.

For sale date: February 1, 2013

Tag line:  The murder victim was all dressed up … but with no place to go except to the morgue.

The police characters:  Sheriff Trudy Conway, Deputy Troy Logan.

The gist:  The victim, Marlene, was found dead on the floor of her walk-on closet, a heavy brass candlestick lying on the floor next to her.  The husband, Gary, claims he saw his wife alive two hours ago around 5:15 or 5:30.   Said they were going to a birthday barbeque and that he left early to help set up the party.  Marlene was going to be driven to the party by Stella.  Stella arrived at 7:00 as planned.  The door was locked and when Marlene didn’t open her door or answer the phone call Stella made, Stella called Rachel who lives nearby and has a spare key.  Stella had called Gary to find out if the plans maybe had changed.  The two ladies found the victim.

Crime scene:  a walk-in closet in victim’s home.

Clues: Victim was dressed in a flower-print dress with black patent-leather pumps.  Stella was dressed in purple gingham Capri pants.  Stella and Marlene had spent the day together getting facials and French-tip manicures and pedicures.  They wanted to look nice for the party.  Rachel didn’t go out with the girls claiming she had to babysit her granddaughter.

Suspects:  The victim’s husband, and two friends; Rachel and Stella.

Red herrings:  The nearby neighbor Rachel had a key.  She claimed she was babysitting all day. 

Solution:  Gary and Marlene had argued about Gary’s gambling debts.  He had struck her with the candlestick, then to disguise the time of death he dressed her for the party pairing a summer dress with black patent leather shoes, which is an odd choice to begin with, but also not knowing she had had her toes done to wear sandals.

My two cents:  First of all, Deputy Troy made a snarky comment when he first saw the body and was standing over it.  He said, “Uh-oh.  It looks like someone’s night out just got cancelled.”  I thought it was disrespectful.  But with that said it’s very true to what happens in real life.  Cops and crime scene people are exposed to such a sad parade of misery that black humor is often their way of coping.  If they gave even 10% of their emotions to the victims, they would be used up in a week.  To avoid that, they try to stay cold and distant and often use gallows humor.  However, I’m not sure it belongs in WW.   I would have cut that line.

     Regarding time of death, the ME can tell time of death pretty accurately by body temperature, rigor mortis, and lividity, which is the color or lack of color of the skin.  When a person dies, the blood in their body (and other fluids) gets pulled down by gravity and pools turning the bottom of the body a darker color.  When Gary moved the body and dressed his wife, he interfered with that flow which would cause a different pattern that the ME would immediately pick up on.  Of course, Gary doesn’t know all this as he tried to stage the scene.

    When you hit someone with a blunt instrument, there will be blood.  There was no mention of blood on the dress, and if she had been killed in the dress blood spatter patterns would have been detected.

     There was no mention of fingerprinting the murder weapon.  Had it been wiped clean? 

     Gary didn’t even try to make it look like a home invasion gone bad.  He didn’t break a window or scatter furniture or have anything of value go missing.  He deserved to get caught.

     Capri pants are named after the Italian island of Capri and can be known as Capris, but the name is always capped. 

      The last sentence was the worst:  "I think Marlene was murdered -- and I know who did it."  Duh. Did the sheriff think she hit herself with a big candlestick while getting ready for a party? 

     All in all I thought this murder story was clumsy and not well thought out.  It didn’t work for me.

Title:  Wound up
By Adele Polomski

Appearing in February 4, 2013 issue.

For sale date: 1/25/13

Tag line:  The thieves had been real pros.  So why had they taken the time to knock over the grandfather clock?

The police: Chief Nancy Taylor, Deputy Rex Hauser

The gist:  Someone broke into an antique store and stole several pieces, the most valuable in the store.  A grandfather clock got knocked over and the hands stopped at 10:10.

Crime scene:  An antique gallery.

Clues:  The security system was down for scheduled maintenance.  The manager hired their usual backup security guard.  The grandfather clock had been knocked over during the robbery and stopped working at 10:10. The manager noted that he wound the clock himself every evening and it had been working.  He thought the thieves were professionals.  There were no fingerprints on the clock.  Mimi, the assistant manager, has worked there for one month and claims to have left at 6:00.   She prepared a detailed list of stolen items for the police.  Mimi has a degree in art history and believed four of the stolen paintings had been forgeries and had told the manger, who told her they would bring in an expert to check them out.  The manager told the police that the stolen paintings had all been authenticated and Mimi was wrong.

Mimi claims to have been home alone at 10:10.  The manager, Poole, said he had a late dinner at 9:00, then joined friends for drinks, then came home at midnight.  The guard said he arrived at 7:00 and before Poole left he instructed the guard to walk the perimeter of the building every hour, same instructions as last time.  When he wasn’t doing his surveillance, the guard sat in his van out front.  He does not have a key to the building. The theft was discovered in the morning when the manager and the security guard entered the building and saw the clock knocked over.  A back window had a broken lock.

Suspects:  Louis Poole, manager.  Mimi Cox, manager’s assistant. Matt Donnelly, security guard.  Or random thieves.

Red herrings:  The security guard looked wide awake for a guy who hadn’t slept all night.    Mimi doesn’t have an alibi.

Solution:  Poole, the manager, stole the paintings.  After Mimi left and before the security guard arrived he adjusted the hands of the clock to 10:10 to secure his alibi.  He wiped the clock clean of any fingerprints and pushed the clock over to stop the time and divert suspicion from himself.  He then broke the window lock and loaded up his car.  He staged the robbery to remove forgeries he had swapped for authentic paintings.

My two cents:   Why didn’t the guard, who walked around the building every hour, not see the broken window lock?  If you could only see it from the inside, that’s a clue missed by the cops. How do you break a window lock from the outside without it being seen? How big was this window that paintings were supposedly removed from?  If the crooks came in through the window, they probably exited through a back door with the goods.  Was the door locked in the morning?  Was there a back door?  Were the paintings small? These things were never addressed.

There was no mention of dusting for prints at the entry point, the window.

Just how long is ‘scheduled maintenance’?  What kind of security system has scheduled maintenance that leaves their customers without security on their valuable property so that you have to hire a guard?  Not in this day and age.

For me the main clue was that Mimi told Poole she thought the paintings were forgeries and he told her he would bring in an expert, but he told the police she didn’t know what she was talking about.  He already knew she was right, which prompted him to get those forgeries out of the gallery through a fake burglary.  Knocking over a large grandfather clock and then cleaning off all fingerprints was just dumb on his part. But who says crooks are smart?  lol 

This story is portrayed as a robbery, but it is actually a burglary.

 

Torched!
By Laird Long

Appearing in January 28, 2013 issue.

For sale date: January 17th

Tag Line:  The classic Cadillac convertible had taken its final drive.  Question was: Who’d been behind the wheel?

The Police: Detective Drew Warner, insurance investigator Cliff Ramsey.

The gist:  Bill Johnson’s 1967 Caddy went missing and was found torched, a total loss.  Bill had taken it out for a ride on Monday night and had the top down.  When he returned, he left the top down and parked the car in his locked garage.  Next morning he flew out of town on business, taking a cab to the airport.  When he returned Tuesday night he found a broken latch on the garage and his car missing.  He reported it immediately to the police.

Crime scene:  Behind an abandoned building.  

Clues:  Bill’s bedroom window faces the garage and he claims his window was open all night and he didn’t hear any smashing of locks.   He hadn’t seen anyone suspicious around the neighborhood.  When he left on Tuesday morning he didn’t notice any damage to the garage lock.  It had rained hard all day Tuesday.  The car was found three days later.   The top was down on the convertible.

Suspects:  A  joyrider.  Bill Johnson.

Red herrings:  I didn’t find any in this story.

Solution:  If the car was stolen on Tuesday when it was pouring rain the top wouldn’t have still been down.  Johnson set it ablaze on Monday night then left for his out-of-state trip that would give him an alibi.   If Bill had checked the weather forecast he would have put the top back up before he torched the car.

My two cents:  Well, it doesn’t all add up for me.  The car was found three days later.  If someone had stolen it on Tuesday when Bill was gone and taken it for a joy ride, they could have ridden around for two more days, putting the top back down after Tuesday’s rain.  It’s a convertible.  It’s Florida.  They’re going to want to ride around with the top down.   The fact that it was found with the top down is no surprise.  After a few days of fun, they would realize they have to ditch the car, so they set it on fire to burn away any fingerprint evidence.

 Bill Johnson has a job that takes him out of the state but he doesn’t have air conditioning in his bedroom?  Florida is hot and muggy and he had his window open all night?   I lived in Florida.  That doesn’t happen. That was more of a clue to me than Tuesday’s rain.  The story never said why Bill set his car ablaze.  I assume it was insurance fraud.

On scene Detective Warner asked the insurance investigator: “Why?  And by whom?  And can you tell me when?”  How would the insurance guy know why and by whom?  The only solid dialogue here is “Can you tell me when?”  Also, most cops don’t say whom. 

VOTES:  1 - solved
               2 - Needs help

Turn right at the light
By John M. Floyd

Appearing in January 21, 2013 issue.
For sale date: January 11th

Tag Line:  Angela heard the distress call come in, and she didn’t like the sound of it.  Not one little bit …

The Police: Sheriff Charles Jones, Sally the dispatcher.
Not the police but a regular character: Angela Potts, Sheriff Jones’ former schoolteacher.

Overview:  The sheriff is sent to a fake call to get him away from the jail, where young Jeffy Barrow was currently a guest.

Crime Scene:  The sheriff’s office.

Clues:  The man who made the call identified himself as “Joe Smith”.    He might as well have said Joe Blow.  Joe called for police saying there was a fight on his front lawn.  When asked his address Joe noted that the movie theater located at 216 Oakwood Drive was right across from his house which was 218 Oakwood Drive.  This is not the way lots are numbered in the United States.  (For our UK fans the lots are numbered odd on one side and even on the other.) Joe also told the sheriff to turn right at the light and go straight to reach his property.  The street the sheriff’s office is located on runs east and west and has a stop light at either end.

Red Herrings:  There really are no red herrings in a Sheriff Jones/Angela Potts story.  She always figures it out before the sheriff does.

Solution:  Jeffy’s father made the call to get the sheriff away from the jail so he could break his son out.  Angela Potts realized Joe was giving directions as if he could see which way the cruiser was parked, and also that the house number was wonky.

My two cents:   First let me say that author John Floyd has sold 50 stories to Woman’s World magazine.  His Sheriff Jones/Angela Potts stories are popular.  With that said I will comment that this was not one of John’s stronger stories.  The entire first column, one-fifth of the page, had nothing to do with the mystery but was utilized to introduce us to the characters. 

     In my day job I work around cops, and I know that it is against departmental policy to allow a non-official person to ride in the front seat of a patrol car.  It is an insurance liability.  Yet Ms. Potts hops in and Sheriff Jones lets her.  This is a small town police department with only two law enforcement officers, so things are a bit lax in some areas.  Okay, I can live with that.   

     Normally the dispatcher talks to the callers and then relays the info to the officers, but in this town people call in and talk right to Sheriff Jones, which tells me  that Sheriff Jones knows his town and its citizens.  He should have known there was no “Joe Smith” residence across from the theater.   In addition, we have caller ID on our phones now.  The dispatcher should have been able to see who was actually calling.

Votes:  1 - figured it out
               2 - delightful
               1 - so-so

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.