The Case of the Grieving Widow
Of all the private investigators, the grieving widow chose me.
I use “grieving” loosely, because Gloria wore a pink dress when she hired me to solve her husband’s murder. The cops already have a suspect—her. Gloria’s prints were on the bottle of poison-laced pills he downed, and police knew about her flings. But she said she was framed.
Days later, Gloria answered my knock on her door. A younger man was with her.
“I found the killer,” I announced. “At the county clerk’s, I obtained a recent forgery of your husband’s will. It leaves everything to…him.”
The younger man bolted.
The Look-Alike Art Mystery
Abbot held himself in a strict straight backed posture, his chest heaving certain that to this red-headed teenage girl-- this teenager they'd ABDUCTED!-- must have seen a monster baring down onto her.
She didn't look petrified. She didn't beg or cry.
She just took another dollop of pudding to her lips.
Blinking balefully at him.
"I'm sorry, and also sorry," she said as she began to pull at the hem of her plaid skirt, "that my friends and Adam absolutely won't give up the evidence."
Abbot just groaned, continuing his guard duty of Molly Jones seated.
"Tell me about you."
The Last Wordle
The professor lay slumped on his desk, dead. One hand hung down; a finger hooking an empty coffee mug. His other arm pointed to his MacBook laptop. Before the man of letters drew his last breath he had been engaged in a game of WORDLE. His final game guesses:
BIKER
BITER
BOWER
BAYER
FUDGE
Detective Jeanette Fowler noted the last clue seemed strange. She understood BAKER as the next guess, but FUDGE? She grabbed pen and pad. Rearranging the letters, she looked at suspect Doug Fletcher, the chemistry professor. “I know you poisoned him. I guess your feud is over.”
Not Quite the Low-hanging Fruit
My mandatory investigating partner is an AI-bot, and I haven’t solved a case in months before the machine does. One notorious thief, who leaves a cryptic signature behind, has eluded us both though.
At this crime-scene, random objects hang from the ceiling.
“Based on the MO, here's a list of suspects.” My partner crackles and rattles off names.
"Ha!” I scoff and walk to the entrance.
“I sense disagreement.”
“Don’t you see the burglar’s signature?”
“No.”
I take a picture of the room and the bandit's smirking face, a juxtaposition of random objects, mocks me with all of its notoriety.