Here's one more that might be a bit tougher to solve:
Private Investigator Bob Banning walked into Police Detective Ed Kramer's office at the Shelby Montana police station. "You call for me, Ed?" he asked.
"Yes," Kramer replied, "I need your help solving the robbery last night."
"Ahh, I read about that," Bob noted. "The Heritage Bank. The robber got away with about $75,000, right?"
"Closer to $80,000," said Kramer. And we don't have many clues to work with. Of course, we rounded up the usual suspects. Some have vaid ailbis, others don't. We originally narrowed it down to six people: Fingers Freddie, Klondike Kate, Yukon Eric, Indian John, Cindy the Fencer, and Mike the Mooch."
"Not the types you'd invite to your daughter's wedding," Bob grinned.
"Nope," Kramer agreed, "not that I have to worry about my daughter getting married. You know her preferences....."
"So does the rest of Shelby," Bob noted, "all of upper Montana, and most of lower Canada."
Kramer cleared his throat and continued, "Anyhow, here are the clues we have. The robber didn't use any force. The locks were opened cleanly, and the safe was opened normally. So the robber didn't use any dynamite, crowbars, jimmies, or glass cutters to get in."
"Why didn't the alarms go off?" Bob asked.
"The system was down last night," Kramer answered, "and nobody even knew it. The night crew at Simms' Security isn't too swift. Anyway, there were some other weird things. The robber didn't take any the stacks of ten or twenty dollar bills, but he or she did take all the stacks of ones and fifties, as well as the hudreds, of course."
"Weird," Bob acknowledged. "The robber didn't like twenties for some reason."
"Another weird thing," Kramer said, "You remember that the company that cleans Heritage Bank went out of business last week?"
Bob nodded.
"Well," Kramer continued, "the bank hasn't hired another company to do its cleaning yet. But the robber took care of that for them. All of the floors were mopped and the counters were wiped down with one of those smelly lemon-ammonia Mr. Clean type cleaners, the carpets were vacuumed, and the desks were all cleaned and varnished to a bright buff. The robber was a neat freak. He or she must have robbed and cleaned the place just before they got there in the morning, because the floors were still damp in places and you could smell perfume or cologne in the air---whoever did the job must have been wearing a whole bottle of it."
"No fingerprints?" Bob queried.
"None," Kramer replied, "and here's more weird stuff: the robber turned down the temperature on the thermostat. It was about 50 degrees (Farenheit) in there when they opened the doors in the morning. Also, for some odd reason, the robber stole all of paper clips and rubber bands. Every desk was cleaned out of those two things." Kramer sat up suddenly, then blurted: "Darn! Why didn't I think of this sooner?"
"You onto something," Bob asked?
"Klondike Kate!" Kramer said authoritatively. "She likes to keep things clean, which would explain why everything was tidied up, she's a real pack rat----you ever seen her house? There's junk stored in every nook and cranny---and she was raised in the far North and loves the cold---it's always chilly at her place. And the perfume part would fit." He got on the phone and spoke: "Stan: tell the guys to start concentrating on Klondike Kate. She's our chief suspect."
"No, she's not," Bob said mildly.
Kramer looked up. "What makes you so sure?"
"The robber is trying to set it up so it looks like Kate did it," Bob said, "but it couldn't be her. Kate hates the smell of perfume. Remember when you had her in for questioning last year in the hardware store robbery and she was in the lineup next to Sue the Snitch. You know how much perfume Sue wears. Kate didn't stop complaining about it for a half-hour."
"Darn, you're right," Kramer said with a sigh. "Do you have any idea who it might be?"
"I do," Bob said. "It was in one of the clues." Bob told Kramer who he thought it was.
"Bah, that's hokey," Kramer laughed. "But that person is a likely candidate anyway, and we have nothing to lose. We'll follow that lead." He got back on the phone. "Stan, we have a new chief suspect...."
It turned out that Bob was right. Who did Bob think it was, and why?  |