Woo hoo! Part 2 of the Solve-the-Mystery Contest. Five posts. One mystery. One prize.
Read all about it here. Read Part One.
The Assignment
Agent Chloe gasped. The package. It was time. Her first assignment. With her phone, she snapped a picture, then picked up the envelope.
For the love of Bond, she thought, this is heavy. For a brief moment, panic seized her chest as she thought back to ninth grade English and the Fellowship of the Ring. She prayed there would be no Elvin songs for her to translate. French, Russian, German, and Mandarin had been hard enough to learn. She only knew a few basic words in Elvin, like house and dog.
She clutched the package to her chest. First, she had to inspect the area. She pried open the door with her elbow and made a sweep for bugs in the bathroom. All clear. Except for a beetle, due North. After planting a video device on the back wall, next to the paper towels, she put on a special pair of sunglasses with a video feed. Then she closed the door to her office and got comfortable.
With a sigh, she started on page one. She tapped her stiletto heels. Weather? On the first page? She could not figure out why it was so important for her to know that clouds laced with pink floated across the clear blue sky like a dove in early morn. Get to the point already, she thought. Her frustration grew as she skimmed pages and pages of more weather, description of places and people, and seemingly drab conversation between people who didn’t seem relevant to the case.
But then, on page 116. A murder. In a hotel. Near a waterpark. She didn’t need to know anymore. She’d read enough. One man, with bushy brown hair, was obviously the killer. And the man ate Oreo cookies by the dozen.
The assignment was clear. Find the Oreo Cookie Killer. Before he struck again. She always loved a cozy mystery. She rushed from the stall. From her big black purse, she pulled out a simple black comb but when plugged into her cell phone it became a paper shredder. Quickly and quietly, she shredded the assignment.
Secrecy and stealth would make or break her first case.
Okay, so my husband read the whole story and didn’t have a clue. My 11 year old daughter read the story and knew right away the answer to the mystery. Of course, I disguised the clue that she saw so easily…And he’s not a writer, so things didn’t click like it should for writers.
Hint – Almost every random detail is there for a reason.
Love it! And I LOVE that every seemingly random detail is not so random…. LOVE that!
okay, so the bit about her only knowing the words dog and house in Elvin was a random clue that I included only because it cracked me up. If it is of some importance, I’m not sure what it is yet. Let me think about it.
But some of the random clues in these first two posts are crucial to solving the mystery.
By the love of Bond, now I’m really craving Oreos. Is that wrong?
This is too fun! I’m trying to keep track of the details, but there are so many of them. I love the part about the weather. Wonder what that has to do with the mystery. Hmmm…let me think.
Um, so like I said. Maybe not all the details are crucial to solving – like the weather. 🙂 Hopefully, connections will be made in the next couple days when we met Agent Zelda.
Laura, this is too funny!!!