Sixty-Second Solutions 1

Samantha Spade was the world’s greatest detective.

Unfortunately, she was the only person in the city of Sallami who knew it.

Since she had been old enough to read, Samantha had devoured the mystery books on her father’s bookshelf. She read the adventures of Sherlock Holmes from cover to cover, admiring how the master detective untied knotty clues. She loved writer Edgar Allen Poe, whose stories were full of giant apes and poisoned letters. She especially enjoyed tough guy stories by Dashiell Hammett; his character, Sam Spade, had inspired her father to name her “Samantha.”

After exhausting her father’s bookshelf, she went to the library to find real-life stories of police officers, detectives and other experts. By the age of eleven, she knew more about police procedure and science than any child her age, and was better than most adults at applying observation and deduction. She worked hard to be a good amateur detective, and it showed.

But it hadn’t shown in Sallami – yet.

That’s because we just got here, thought Samantha, as she stepped out of the passenger side of the yellow moving van. Her father, computer programmer Kent Spade, had stopped the van in front of the two-story house that they would rent for the next year while he installed new computer systems for the local school.

Samantha pulled her long brown hair into a ponytail and secured it with a rubber band. She looked at the house and sighed. This would be her third home in as many years. Her dad’s job kept them hopping from state to state and school to school. She wondered what Sallami Middle School would be like, if the teachers were nice, and if she would make friends.

And she wondered where she would find her first mystery.

She didn’t have long to wait.

“Your dog bit me, you little punk!” a voice screamed.

A yellow Labrador retriever and a boy about Samantha’s age, with a newspaper delivery bag over one shoulder, sprinted around the back of a house across the street. An orange-haired teenager wearing a pair of biking shorts and a dirty T-shirt burst through the front door. He was the one yelling.

The younger boy and the dog scrambled across the street and around the van, almost running into Samantha.

The teenager caught up to him, grabbed the younger boy by the shirt and shook him. The dog growled and jumped on the teen’s back.

“Ouch! See, he did it again!” the teen screamed. “Dumb dog bit me twice!”

Samantha’s dad stepped between the two boys. “What’s going on here?”

In between plenty of yelling and finger-pointing, they told their story. The teen, whose name was Vinnie Furnier, had been watching television when he heard the Labrador retriever rooting through the trashcan in his backyard. He ran out to stop it.

“And that’s when the kid told the dog to bite me!” Vinnie said.

“I did not!” said the younger boy, whose name was Billy Archer. “He didn’t even come outside. Just yelled at my dog, Chief, out the back door!”

“Well, if that’s the case, how do you explain the teeth marks on my behind? I’ll sue you, and what’s more, I’ll get you fired from your stupid paper route!”

“Let’s take a look at the bite marks,” said Mr. Spade. “You might need a doctor.”

“No way!” Vinnie retorted, covering his rump with his hands. “Forget it!”

“Well, son, how do we know if you’re telling the truth without seeing the evidence?” Mr. Archer asked.

Samantha spoke up. “Dad, there’s an easier way to…get to the bottom of this.” She giggled at the pun.

“And who are you?” asked Vinnie, arms folded across his chest.

“I’m Samantha Spade. My dad and I are your new neighbors. And I’m also an amateur detective.”

Vinnie snorted. “Detective, huh? Gimme a break!”

“With your permission, I’d like to investigate.”

“OK with me,” said Billy, shifting his newspaper bag to the other shoulder. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Vinnie glared. “Whatever. Do your worst, Sherlock.”

Samantha looked up at her father. “Is it OK, Dad?”

He smiled. He knew his daughter couldn’t resist a good mystery. “Go ahead, honey. But be careful.”

Samantha, Billy and Vinnie crossed the street. They walked along the sidewalk and then stepped into the backyard. Even though it was the middle of January, the lawn was a muddy mess. Unseasonably warm weather had melted all the snow, and two days of rain had turned soggy lawns into mud pits.

“OK, here’s the proof, Sherlock,” said Vinnie, pointing to the trashcan. The lid had been knocked off, and garbage was strewn all around. The handles of the can showed teeth marks. Samantha showed them to Billy.

“I never said my dog didn’t get into the trash,” said Billy. “I was cleaning it up when Vinnie started yelling out the back door.”

Samantha ignored Billy. She said, “Go ahead, Vinnie. What happened next?”

Vinnie said that he ran into the back lawn to chase the dog away with a broom. When he reached the trashcan, the dog bit him. After the dog bit him, both it and Billy ran around the side of the house, while Vinnie ran back inside.

Samantha looked for footprints, but the ground was so muddy she couldn’t see any. She asked if they could go inside.

In the kitchen, she saw a table with four chairs, refrigerator, stove, white tile flooring and wooden cupboards. A broom stood in the corner. Samantha could hear the sound of the television set, presumably in the living room.

Samantha and Billy wiped their feet on the mat. Vinnie didn’t bother, but marched into the kitchen, his shoes leaving a single set of muddy tracks behind him.

“I came inside and ran right out the front door to cut off the little creep,” Vinnie said, massaging his rear end and wincing. His eyes welled up with tears.

“And for the pain and suffering that mutt of yours caused, I hope you lose your job!” he said, pointing directly at Billy.

Samantha laughed. “There’s about as much chance of Billy losing his job as there is of you winning an Oscar for those crocodile tears.”

“W-what?” Vinnie stammered.

“Not only were you never bitten by Billy’s dog, but you were never even in the backyard.”


HOW DOES SAMANTHA KNOW THAT VINNIE IS LYING? See below for the solution! 


SOLUTION:

When Vinnie invited Samantha into the house, she noticed that his shoes left a single muddy track across the white tile floor. If he had truly been in the muddy backyard earlier, there would have been a second set of footprints, as well.

When Vinnie saw his scheme was foiled, he confessed that he only wanted to get Billy fired from the paper route so he could take it over.

Billy and Samantha became friends. When he told everyone at school that she had solved his dilemma in less than 60 seconds, her reputation in Sallami was off to a fine start.

Vinnie got a job at the local restaurant, mopping floors.

* * * * *

The above story is the first in a series of twelve, originally published around 2001 or 2002 in The Alliance Review. Unlike the series I reprinted earlier this summer (The Story Plague), each installment is self-contained. I don't believe that Steve Wiandt, who illustrated the previous series so wonderfully, created any art for this. 

As I recall, these ran as quarter-page pieces, with the reader instructed to turn to another page deeper in the paper for the solution. 

My inspiration for Sixty-Second Solutions was the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries that I enjoyed so much as a kid. 

I don't remember much else about writing these, except for the realization about halfway through that plotting mysteries was harder than I thought it would be. I tried to play fair, not assuming any special knowledge on the part of the reader, but instead including everything necessary to solve each "crime" in the story itself. 

Did anybody catch my Alice Cooper reference in this installment?