Sixty-Second Solutions 11

Sgt. Frank McDaniel’s turkey was AWOL.

The sergeant and his wife had opened the refrigerator on Thanksgiving morning, ready to put the pop the plump bird into the oven, but found an empty space on the bottom shelf where the turkey should have been.

After rousing their two children, Tom and Mary, who had no idea what happened to the bird, he called his neighbor, Samantha Spade.

Spade was in seventh grade, two years older than Tom and three years older than Mary, but her reputation as an excellent amateur detective had spread to people and students of all ages in the city of Sallami.

Samantha came right over, her hair still dripping wet from the shower. The McDaniel’s dog, Ginger, met her at the front door. She jumped on Samantha and licked her face while Samantha struggled to remove her coat.

“At ease, Ginger,” Samantha giggled, pushing the dog down. For a recruiting sergeant who prized discipline, Sgt. McDaniel had one of the worst-behaved dogs ever.

Mary grabbed the dog by its collar and pulled it off Samantha. “Get down, you dumb mutt!” she yelled. Mary had dark circles under her eyes, and Samantha had never heard her speak to Ginger so sharply.

“Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Samantha said.

“Don’t mind her,” said Mrs. McDaniel. “We went out to dinner and to see a movie last night and didn’t get home until late. She usually sacks out in the backseat on the way home, but couldn’t because of all the noise from the muffler.”

Sergeant McDaniel explained that their car’s exhaust system was going bad again, only one month after they had it replaced. The whole family had heard it rumbling last night.

“Dear, I think she’d rather hear about the turkey?” asked Mrs. McDaniel.

The sergeant ran his fingers through his crew cut as he led her to the kitchen.

“It’s like this,” he said. “Yesterday, at seventeen hundred hours…”

“Or five o’clock,” Mrs. McDaniel interjected, translating military time.

“Correct,” McDaniel said. “At five o’clock, I closed the recruiting office, turned off the lights, and exited through the back door to my vehicle. I drove to the Shopper’s Corner and picked out a turkey for today’s dinner, along with other items on a list that my wife had given me.”

Samantha liked the way Sgt. McDaniel talked as if he were testifying at a military tribunal instead of explaining how he had shopped for groceries the night before.

“The list had ten items,” said Mrs. McDaniel. She started to tick them off on one hand: A loaf of bread, a box of stuffing, a pound of flour …

“Actually, it’s all right here,” said Tom, pointing to the kitchen floor.

There, Samantha saw two brown bags filled with groceries. Sheepishly, Frank lifted the two bags to the cupboard, grunting at their weight. He began to put the groceries into the cupboards.

“Frank’s not much for putting things away once he’s bought them,” Mrs. McDaniel confided.

The sergeant told Samantha that while he did forget to put away the groceries, he distinctly remembered opening the refrigerator door and clearing a spot for the turkey.

“After I took the groceries from the trunk and carried them inside, I took the family out for dinner and a movie,” he said.

“Dad’s so absent-minded he even forgot to close the trunk, snickered Tom. “I did it for him when we left.”

“What time did you get home from the movies?” Samantha asked, eyeing Ginger suspiciously. If Sgt. McDaniel had absentmindedly left the bird out of the refrigerator, Ginger may have feasted on turkey while the family went to the movies.

“The movie ended at approximately twenty-two hundred…I mean, about 10 p.m.,” the sergeant said. “We got home soon after, maybe around 10:45.”

“It was 10:39,” said Mary McDaniel. “I saw it on the clock in the car when I should have been sleeping. Dumb muffler.”

“And was the turkey in the refrigerator when you got home?” Samantha asked.

“I don’t honestly know,” said Sgt. McDaniel. “We went straight to bed.”

“And where was Ginger?” Samantha asked.

“She was sleeping upstairs on my bed like she always does when we’re not home,” said Tom.

“Well, that clinches it,” said Samantha, petting Ginger’s head. “I know exactly what happened to your turkey.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TURKEY, AND WHAT CLUES DID SAMANTHA USE TO SOLVE THE CASE? SEE BELOW FOR THE SOLUTION. 




The turkey was still in the trunk.

After Samantha heard Sgt. McDaniel grunt when he picked up the two bags of groceries, she knew he couldn’t have carried them and the turkey into the house at the same time.

Instead, she realized that Sgt. McDaniel had put the two grocery bags on the floor, opened the refrigerator and cleared a space for the turkey. He intended to go back to the car and bring the bird on a second trip. Samantha realized this when Tom said he had closed the trunk of the car, an indicator that his father had something else to carry inside.

But the clinching clue was the rumbling of the car’s exhaust, even though Sgt. McDaniel said that the muffler had been replaced last month. The “rumbling” was actually the turkey, rolling back and forth in the trunk.

Luckily for the McDaniels, the weather was cold enough to preserve the turkey in the trunk overnight. They popped it in the oven and enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving meal that afternoon, courtesy of Samantha Spade’s sleuthing skills.