Title:
Put it down!
By
Author: Martha Martin
Appearing in issue #37, September 16,
2013
Tag line: When Sam retired to his basement hideout, he was absolutely
positively certain he’d left no clues to his whereabouts!
Police characters: None.
The gist: A man escapes from the county jail
and decides to hide out at his aunt’s house, which was only a mile from the
jail. His plan was to evade the police
for one day, and then when the police thought he was long gone, he would steal
his aunt’s jewelry and keep running.
Aunt Clara was elderly, lived alone, went out every day to the senior
center, he knew where she hid her key, and she had a great dark cellar that she
never went down to because the stairs where too steep for her. So Sam, our escapee, made it to Clara’s house
even though he was wearing a bright orange jail jumpsuit. He had been lucky that no one saw him
sprinting through the woods. When he got
to Clara’s house her car was gone, so before he went to the cellar he used the
bathroom, making sure to dry out the sink with a paper towel after he washed
his hands. Then he made himself a
sandwich of just one slice of ham and one slice of cheese, using two slices of
bread from a full loaf, thinking Clara would never miss any of them. He also took one bottle of water from a
carelessly stocked but full shelf. He
went upstairs to the bedroom closet and found old clothes from his late uncle
that he felt Clara would never notice were gone so he could change tomorrow
when he left. Then he went down to the
basement to make himself comfortable and eat.
He heard Clara come home and turn the television on. Sam fell asleep. He woke to the cellar light being turned on
and two cops looking at him with guns drawn.
What had been his mistake?
Crime scene: None really.
Clues: He was very careful not to leave any clues…but he forgot one
thing.
Suspects: None.
Red herrings: None.
Solution:
He used the bathroom and made the typical mistake of forgetting to put
the seat back down. When his aunt heard
on the local news that her nephew had escaped and then came home to a toilet
seat in the upright position, she called the police.
My two cents:
This was delightful. It moved
along quickly. I never figured out the
clue. At first I thought maybe he had
been snoring. Or that he didn’t throw
away the paper towels. When I read what the
clue really was, I laughed out loud.
There were no technical problems with this
story. Where I live and work, orange
jumpsuits are only given to high risk prisoners so that if they escape they are
more easily seen. Also orange is only used
for state prison inmates here. This guy
was in county jail. But colors and their
uses vary from state to state so Sam could very well be in orange at the county
jail. I know that some states use orange for ‘reception’ which is where incoming
inmates are processed. Another fact in
police work is that the police immediately make contact with the families and
girlfriends of these escapees and search their houses and run checks on the
phones, but our runner in the above story might not have known that. So it
made sense for him to think he could hide at Aunt Clara’s.
The title that WW chose to use is pretty much a clue, but it went right over my head as I don't have any men in my house and I didn't even think of the toilet. Nice job, Ms. Martin.
