Our calendars now read October Bearcats, and to kickoff the month of Halloween, the Paw Press will be releasing a mystery. Each week a clue from a mystery will be published in this article giving you until Halloween to solve the riddle. The first one to guess who committed the crime and why it was committed will receive a prize!
Part One:
In a bookstore, you are looking for your next favorite novel. Upon reaching for the book, another hand reaches alongside yours. The owner of the hand is August Dutton and after a good conversation, the two of you become fast friends. One night while hanging out, you discover August’s natural talent for analysis when trying to decipher the name of an actor you forgot. Later in the night, you read a headline in the newspaper describing the murder of Lucy Brown and her daughter, Camille. Reading the headline aloud, you begin to wonder if August is just as good at solving a murder as a simple riddle. The clues are found as follows: around three a.m. neighbors hear shrieking and voices from the fourth flour (the same floor Lucy and Camille live on), the apartment is a mess when the police break in reporting a, “blood-smeared razor, locks of gray human hair, bags of money, and an opened safe,” there are traces of soot leading to the chimney where Camille is found, and Lucy is in the courtyard of the building with a cut on her throat. Oh, and two voices are heard. One voice is deep and French and the other is higher and Spanish.
Part Two:
The 46,000 dollars Lucy just withdrew from the bank was in her apartment, causing the police to be highly suspicious of robbery as the main motive. Increasing the level of the crime, Camille was confirmed by the medical examiner to have died by choking whereas Lucy died from brunt force trauma. To make matters worse, the police have arrested Adam Le Bon, one of August’s good friends. The arrest peaks August’s interest in the case even more. August thinks the police are overlooking many of the specifics of the case, including the source of entry. He noted the type of windows in the apartment which open from the inside. The police formally believed they were shut for good. He noticed a nail bent in the window. No one thinks the murderer could enter from the windows, but August points out the possibility of leaping from the lightning rod outside onto the shutters which requires great agility. Lastly, the hair extracted from Lucy’s fingers was not human hair.
Part Three:
August felt the police were lacking in open mindedness. What if the crime committed has never happened before? August looked at every detail with a fresh perspective, including the hand-prints. After drawing out the size of the hand that killed Lucy and Camille, he noted the body part did not belong to a human. He also noted that the lightning rod has a strange knot at the base. The knot was of a naval knot-tying pattern.
The Reveal:
August finally put all of the points together and solved the crime. An orangutan escaped from his owner with a razor blade and managed to swing up the road to the window ledge. The knot on the rod made sense as it was the sailors attempt at getting the animal before the orangutan killed Lucy and Camille. August confronted the sailor and he confessed to everything.
