Title: In hot water
By Author Tracie Rae Griffin

Appearing in issue #18, May 6, 2013

For sale date:  April 24, 2013

Tag line:  Detective Kay arrived on the scene and wondered: Was this a slip-and-fall accident?  Or was it murder?

Police characters: Detective Christine Kay, Sgt. Bill Morgan

The gist:  A man is found dead in his home.  He is in his swim trunks by his hot tub. It appeared to Det. Kay that the victim was pushed, fell backwards, and hit his head causing a fatal blow to the skull.   Sgt. Morgan knows the victim.  His name is Joe and he’s partners with Pete at Two Guys Plumbing.  As Sgt. Morgan is examining the crime scene he finds a blue button near the body.  The police go over to Pete’s house to question him and find that he is wearing a shirt with a button missing.  Pete denies being at Joe’s house today.  Then when pressed he admits he was there but when he saw the dead body he ran because he has a past criminal record.  He said he went to Joe’s to talk business, Joe didn’t answer the door but Pete could hear the hot tub on so he went to the window to peek in.  He claimed the window was steamed up so he cleared a spot to see in. When he saw Joe on the floor, Pete kicked the door in and ran inside but Joe was already dead, so he fled.

Crime scene:  Joe’s home. 

Clues:  The hot tub is on and bubbling.  A small, blue button is found near the body.  The door leading in is smashed in.  A neighbor woman, who said there’s been three burglaries in the area lately, heard the crash of the breaking door, looked out, and saw what she thought might be a van leaving the area so she called the police.  Two Guys Plumbing uses blue vans.  

Suspects:  As the police return to their car they hear dispatch report a burglary close by.  Sgt. Morgan wonders if Joe was the victim of a burglary gone bad.

Red herrings:  The rash of burglaries in the neighborhood.

Solution:  Pete said he had wiped steam from the window to peek in…but steam doesn’t build up on the outside of the window.  Pete was lying.  He had been embezzling money and when Joe threatened to call the police, the men argued, Pete pushed Joe who fell and hit his head.

My two cents:  This all works.   By not having the neighbor be able to positively ID the van that drove away the reader was left wondering.  Pete had a good excuse for breaking the door in and for not reporting the death.  He also could have lost his button when he was checking out Joe on the floor.  All circumstantial...until he made the one error about wiping away the steam off the window.  This is a solid story that had good clues, a red herring, and was well written.

  He got caught by a little old lady…heh heh.  WW loves little old ladies… :)

Title: A doggone crime
By Author Emma Courtice

Appearing in issue #17, April 29, 2013

For sale date:  April 13, 2013

Tag line:  The detective was leery of giving a criminal the benefit of the doubt, but maybe this one time…

Police characters: Det. Sgt. Marie DeLuca

The gist:  Benny Goyette, aka Benny the Mouse, a well known burglar, was seen by police leaving the neighborhood where a murder had been committed and was brought back to the house for questioning.   The body of the woman who lived in the house was still at the scene at this point.  Benny denies killing the woman, claiming when he was in the house there wasn’t anyone else there.  So he doesn’t deny stealing from this house, but he denies killing the woman.  Benny’s MO does not include physical violence of any kind.  The safe in the master bedroom of the Darwins had been drilled out and a valuable stamp collection and jewelry had been taken.  According to Mr. Darwin, he and his wife had come home early from a dog show, surprised the burglar, who then hit both Mr. and Mrs. Darwin over the head with a fireplace poker.  Mrs. Darwin died from her injuries.  Mr. Darwin survived but had a gash on his head.  The Darwins owned a miniature poodle and the dog was seen by police running through the doggie door and into the backyard.  There were no fingerprints.  There were tool marks on the door. Benny, who professes to be a pro, said he would never gain entry by prying open a front door.  

     This is from the story: “You think I (Benny speaking) pried open that front door to get in?  Ha! Whoever did that was an amateur.  I had no need for a pry bar and I can prove it.”  With that he got up from the chair and strode toward the kitchen and the back door.  Before Marie could stop him, he was gone.  And almost as quickly a policeman marched him back inside.

Crime scene:  The Darwin’s home.

Clues:  There are no fingerprints.  Benny the Mouse doesn’t commit bodily injury crimes.  He’s strictly a burglar with a lot of experience.   There are pry marks on the door, something Benny claims he would never do.  If you believe Benny, there wasn’t anyone else in the house when he was there.  Their poodle ran out of the house through the back door doggie door.

Suspects:  The story is all about did Benny hit the couple over the head with the poker and kill the wife or not. 

Red herrings:  Not so much red herrings as false information.  See below.

Solution:  The solution was a full column.  Since Benny took pride in his work and considered himself a pro, he would never leave pry marks on the door.  He showed the cops how he got in by going through the doggie door.  When the Darwins came home to find their house had been burgled Mr. Darwin took the opportunity to kill his wife with the poker and knock himself in the head to make it look like the burglar did it.  The solution said the poker did have fingerprints on it…and they belonged to Mr. Darwin. Also Mr. Darwin used the poker to make pry marks on the door which was a mistake because the real burglar, Benny the pro, would never have done that.

My two cents:  First off, when you have to use a full column (there are only 4 columns to the whole page) to explain the solution, you haven’t set the crime up well enough.

The author didn’t make it very clear that Benny left through the doggie door.    She also gave us a false clue when she said there were no fingerprints, when there were.  The author didn’t tell us where the fatal blow was on the wife.  Back of the head?  Front?  Where was this gash on Mr. Darwin?  Could it have been self inflicted or not?  Did he fight the guy?  The killer didn’t conk them on the head, one-two, while they just stood there.  Did Benny have any jewelry or stamps on him when he was caught moments later leaving the neighborhood?  Mr. Darwin witnessed the whole thing, why can’t he identify the killer?  No one asked him to give a description of the killer?  None of this makes sense.

Although the solution took a whole column, the author used almost half a column in the body of the story telling us about the dog running around the house, and getting out the front door but a police officer grabbed the dog and got a bite for his troubles, and there was dog hair in the house, and how the Darwins had come home early from a dog show for their prize dog….on and on and on.  All wasted space.  All that adds nothing to the story.  Cut all that nonsense and give us some good clues, or even red herrings.  Benny could have had dog hair on his clothes from going through the doggie door.

This story was not well thought out.  Too much fooling around with the dog details and not enough setting a good crime scene.  There is no excuse for misleading the reader by saying they found no fingerprints and then at the end of the long solution throwing in, oh by the way, Mr. Darwin’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon.  So I guess he conked himself on the head.  I know I felt like doing that to myself after reading this disaster.

Title: The Missing Link
By Author Tracie Rae Griffith

Appearing in issue #16, April 22, 2013

For sale date: April 10, 2013

Tag line:  Trying to figure out who’d committed the burglaries was driving the detectives crazy!

Police characters: Det. Kristine Kay, Sgt. Det. Bill Morgan

The gist:  Ms. Dawson had gone to a doctor’s appointment. When she returned home she found her front door ajar and jewelry and $200 cash missing.  Det. Morgan examined the door and concluded that it had been jimmied.  The victim noted that her bad luck was coming in threes as her car had to go to the shop, her doctor told her she needed surgery, and now she had been burgled.

No sooner did the police begin to drive away but they got a call that another burglary had taken place.   This victim, Mr. Baker, had been attending a wedding during the afternoon and when he returned home he found his door ajar and his pocket watch collection missing.  Mr. Baker noticed a delivery van in front of his house before he left for the wedding.  He said he had had a few drinks at the wedding, but he was sure he locked the front door.  He told the police not to worry; he hadn’t been driving, but had taken a cab.

The next day the police received a third call from the same neighborhood.  This time Mrs. Dell reported she had gone to her hairdresser’s and returned to find her door broken into and her jewelry and late husband’s coin collection missing.  Ms. Dell was fuming, telling the police that her car had been stolen a week ago and it still hadn’t been found. 

Crime scene:  Three homes in a senior community. 

Clues:  Back at the station Det. Kay noted that the perp took only small items, no TVs or computers; that the targets were all in one senior community; and that the burglaries occurred within a 2-day time frame.  The first victim went to the doctor’s, the second went to a wedding, and the third went to the hair salon.  All three victims had car problems.

Suspects:  A delivery van guy.

Red herrings:   The delivery van guy.

Solution:  The cab driver who picked them up drove them to their destinations, then circled back and robbed them knowing they would be out.

My two cents:  This story works.  It makes sense and it is paced out well.  We were told about the car problems in different ways so we didn’t immediately think of the cab driver. 

My only comments are on the accuracy of the wording.  In order for a robbery to take place a victim must be present.  These houses were burglarized.  When the second call came in Det. Kay said, “Another robbery, let’s go.”  She’s a cop.  She knows the difference.  She would have said burglary.  (Mrs. Dawson said it correctly.)

 Also Det. Morgan examined the locks and pronounced they had been jimmied.  To jimmy a lock you take a small pick and insert it into the hole and manipulate the tumblers the way the key does.  There is no way you can tell that a lock had been jimmied from looking at the outside of it, any more than you could tell if someone had slipped a duplicate key into it.  Perhaps the door jamb should have been broken with some kind of sharp object, like a screwdriver. 

In the real world crime scene would have dusted those doors and locks for prints, and since all cabbies are fingerprinted they would have gotten their man… but in WW stories we only have about 700 words to get the story out.   And in a WW story we want the detectives to figure it out before they get the lab results back.  Of course we love that the female detective figures it out before the sergeant does.

Title: The drive-by detective
By Author S. Furlong-Bolliger

Appearing in issue 15, April 15,  2013

For sale date:  April 4, 2013

Tag line:  Mrs. Whortle was in the right place at the right time – which was bad news for the tire-slasher!

Police characters: Officer Christine Bell

The gist:  Someone slashed all four times of Nate Spencer’s sports car in the night.  He discovered it the next morning.

Crime scene:  On the street in front of his house.

Clues:  Mrs. Whortle, Nate’s elderly neighbor, had been driving late last night and saw what she perceived to be a man dressed in black running from Nate’s car.  When asked why she thought it was a man she replied “who else could have done this kind of damage?”  As she drove past the ‘man’ she saw that he got into a parked car and she saw the vanity plate in her rear view mirror.  It said HOT.  Nate believes that stood for Harold O’Toole, his partner.

Suspects:  According to Nate there were plenty of people who would slash his tires.  His co-worker Harold O’Toole had been furious that Nate got the promotion and had threatened that he’d get even.  Nate’s ex-wife wanted the car in the divorce and Nate wouldn’t let her have it.  She worked at a successful home brokerage by the name of Topsell Offices and Homes.  Nate also claimed that his brother had lost a bet on a game and was mad about it.

Red herrings:  Nate seemed to have a lot of people who would have a reason to slash his tires.  I don’t know that they are so much red herrings as much as Nate is a bit of a jerk that nobody likes. 

Solution:  That’s it…that’s all you get.  Can you solve it from the above info?  Officer Bell did.

My two cents:  The author did a good job of making the victim an unlikeable character.  That makes it harder to find your suspect.  I was thinking of slashing his tires when he whispered to Officer Bell that his nice elderly neighbor lady, who was trying to help give the officer some valuable information, was a busybody, and then he proceeded to roll his eyes.   

I don’t think tire-slasher as used in the above tag line should have a dash.  WW did that.  Those things are out of the control of the author.  And WW always uses a lot of exclamation points.  Not my favorite thing.  Looks very high school to me, but that is also out of our control.

Title: Swan Song
By Author Kendra Yoder

Appearing in issue #14, April 8, 2013

For sale date: March 29, 2013

Tag line: A scene-of-the-crime-investigation revealed an open-and-shut case!

Police characters: Officer Phil Perkins and his partner Officer Wendy Kerr

The gist:  Ricky, a musician, is shot to death in his home garage where the band rehearses.  The coroner believed the victim was sitting on a folding chair, was shot by a known person, and slumped to the floor dead.  The makeshift practice area in the garage looked like this: catty-corner from the chair was a music stand with a song book, on the floor beside that was an open guitar case holding an electric guitar, and in the opposite corner stood a set of drums.

Crime scene:  In the garage with the garage door open.

Clues: Ricky knew his assailant.  When questioned Ricky’s wife stated she was in the kitchen making lunch when halfway through a song she heard a bang.  Officer Perkins told his partner that the wife was lying.

Suspects: Ricky fired Bo, the lead singer, last weekend. Bo was a bad influence, always staying out late and drinking. Bo was furious and called Ricky a dead man before he stalked off stage.  Ricky’s agent had just been accused of skimming money and they argued yesterday.

Red herrings:  The fight with the lead singer and the fight with the agent.  Both were orchestrated to throw you off the wife’s track.

Solution: The wife said she could hear Ricky practicing his guitar when he was shot, yet his guitar was still in the case.  The wife was tired of her husband’s drinking and carousing so she decided to end her marriage the quick way and try to frame one of the men.

My two cents:  It is possible for someone to enter through the garage door opening, wave to Ricky to stop playing, Ricky puts down the guitar (most musicians are careful with their expensive equipment and lay it in the case when not in use) , and when he looks back up he immediately gets shot.  I think the wife’s statement should have been written better.  “Halfway through a song and she heard a bang” is not clear enough for the officer to think she was lying.  Also Bo stating that Ricky was a ‘dead man’ was a bit of a forced clue by the author.  I don’t know that much about the music world, but do ‘garage bands’ even have agents?

Title: Just the right size
By Author Dede Hammond

Appearing in issue #13, April 1, 2013

For sale date: March 21, 2013

Tag line:  Daisy picked up on an important clue that everyone else seemed to have missed.

Police/characters: Chief of Detectives David Glenroy.  His sister Daisy.

The gist:  Daisy sees her brother, the detective, going into her neighbor’s house.  Then she sees the neighbor’s very tall business partner and very short nephew both enter the house.  She goes over to snoop and learns that the neighbor has been murdered.  Both men are bickering about how the other could have done it.  All three were at a lodge meeting the night before all wearing the maroon lodge jacket.  The business partner drove the victim, Mitchell, home, dropped him off and said he didn’t even come in.   He has no alibi for the rest of the night, saying he was home alone. There was a problem with an audit at work that the nephew threw in the business partner’s face.  The business partner noted that now that the uncle is dead, the nephew will inherit all his property.  He added that the uncle has had to bail the nephew out from gambling debts.  There is a maroon lodge jacket that had slipped to the floor.  Daisy picked it up and placed it on the back of a chair.  She noticed the hem dragging on the floor.

Crime scene:  The victim’s home.

Clues:  There was no sign of forced entry.  The victim knew his assailant.  The maroon jacket was large enough to hang to the floor.

Suspects:  The business partner or the nephew.

Red herrings: Trouble with the audit and gambling debts.  The business partner did make a good argument that if he had killed Mitchell he certainly would have a better alibi in place. 

Solution: Daisy realized the maroon jacket was too big for the neighbor and must belong to the business partner.  Turns out the business partner did come in last night and following a heated argument about the shady accounting he killed Mitchell.  In his haste to leave he grabbed the wrong maroon jacket.

My two cents:  Well, it all works.  Notice this author didn’t tell us how he was killed.  We don’t have any mention of a body, yet they are in the house where the murder took place.  This is a “cozy” murder. No gruesome details, no blood splatter, no knife sticking out of somebody.  The author portrayed the nephew as being a nasty little thing.  You almost wish he had done it.  That was a type of red herring as she was leading you to dislike one of the characters.

Title: Revenge at the gym
By Author Kendra Yoder

Appearing in issue #12, March 25,  2013

For sale date: March 21, 2013

Tag line:  It Turned out that someone’s workout was a real killer!

Police characters: Sheriff Mark Peters, his partner Officer Allie Cooper

The gist:  Someone bludgeoned the victim on the back of the head with a 10-pound dumbbell.  She was found dead in the locker room by the front desk clerk, Gina.  Vanessa, the victim, worked out every day between 4:15 and 4:45 AM. Gina told police that she didn’t know her personally but that Vanessa had a reputation with the men.

Crime scene: The BodySlim Gym

Clues:  The gym opens at 4:00 AM.  Police were called at 4:43 AM and arrived at 5:04 AM.  The victim checked in at 4:33 AM and was found dead at 4:43 in the locker room by the front desk clerk, who had immediately called the police.  As she was killed in the locker room 10 minutes after she checked in, Officer Cooper thought someone must have been waiting for her.

Only two other people logged in at the gym: Dixie, who was in the weight area lifting dumbbells, arrived at 4:15 AM; and Chelsea who was in the swimming pool.  Dixie told police that she had found Vanessa fooling around with her husband and she had nothing good to say about the woman, but she didn’t kill her. Chelsea reported that she had been swimming laps in the pool since the gym opened at 4:00 AM and told police that Vanessa had been a bridesmaid in her wedding.  Officer Allie Cooper enviously made a note of Chelsea’s great swimmer’s body, smooth skin and perfect manicure and pedicure.

Suspects:  Gina the front desk clerk, Chelsea who had had the victim in her wedding party, or Dixie who found her husband cheating on her with the victim.

Red herrings:  Dixie used dumbbells.  The victim had fooled around with Dixie’s husband. 

Solution: Chelsea.  She said she’d been swimming laps since 4:00 AM but her hands and feet were not wrinkly from her alleged 45-minute swim.  Come to find out victim Vanessa had been fooling around with Chelsea’s husband, too.

My two cents: Since all the evidence points towards Dixie you almost know she didn’t do it.  But this was a solid story.  It does take about 30 minutes to start pruning in water.  If Chelsea had thought it through and realized she needed to have wrinkled fingers, she could have swum for a bit first and then go and wait in the locker room as Vanessa usually arrived by 4:15 AM.  In that event she might have left a water drop trail along the way though.  At that time of day it was very quiet at the gym but she did take a chance that the front desk clerk wouldn’t go check the pool area, as she had the locker room area where she found the body.  If it hadn’t been for Officer Cooper being a bit jealous of her, Chelsea might have gotten away with it. This was a decent story where the author had all her ducks in a row.