The Crossword Case

At 252 James St. on a quiet Saturday morning before the bustle of the city got started in crisp autumn the phone rang annoying the eldest Jones who had just happened to get into the good part of his book, and it also happened to be his turn to answer the phone.
"Jones Residence."
"Is this Webster? This is Inspector Rehuitz."
"This is he. Did I do something wrong inspector?"
"Oh no, not that I know of," Webster heaved a sigh of relief. "However I thought you'd be interested in a young woman who left us a dying clue, her clock was unplugged."
"I'll be right there, thanks Inspector," quickly Webster dropped the phone and grabbed a coat. "Ace! Juniper! We've got a case; do you want to come?" Webster's younger brother Ace immediately jumped up. Juniper, however, had the reply of "Mmm," for no other reason than being immersed in a book. Her brothers decided to leave a note as to where they were going.
The brothers made it to the manor. It was an ancient building; built in probably 1720. It looked like the kind that would have a curse on it, the kind with secret tunnels, booby traps, ghosts, and the reason the Jones were here, the odd murder.
The brothers went into the parlor where they found Inspector Rehuitz, Officer Hutchings, a young woman, and the dead body of a roughly 23 year old woman. Suddenly an unforgettable cuckoo rang on throughout the house.
"Hello Inspector," Ace chimed after the cuckoo rang.
"Ah, hello Jones she was found just here by Miss Sandstun," he replied gesturing toward the young woman. "She was shot with a 22 pistol at about 11:43 p.m. last night. There are no prints at all near the body or on any of the surrounding things. Her name is Clarice Wherton; she was a librarian at the local public library. I'm sure your sister knew her."
"And I see she died just there, no marks anywhere else," Webster began as he investigated the body. "But what do we have here? A crossword puzzle, was she very good?" He finished asking Miss Sandstun.
"Yes she was the only one of the three of us any good at vocabulary."
"Three of you?" Ace asked.
"Yes, Clarice, Holly and, I. We met in middle school and became such good friends many people thought we were sisters. The only true argument any of us ever had was between Clarice and Holly. It was in tenth grade over a boy by the name of James Grutens. Clarice won him over because of the simple knowledge of the works of Shakespeare and such. Holly was furious; the two stopped speaking for what felt like months. Finally James found out about it, and he stopped seeing Clarice. That's when they began speaking again. Holly is the only one to have brought it up since."
"Could that have been a motive for murder, either Holly or James?"
"I doubt it. James hasn't been in touch since graduation, and Holly's too good a friend, but it would be holding back not to say she is bitter when a relationship with a man is brought up."
"Thank you, Miss Sandstun. We will call you if there is anything else," the inspector stated excusing Miss Sandstun.
The group then split up into two groups checking the manor for evidence that the murderer had ever left the parlor. Inspector Rehuitz, and Officer Hutchings looked in the kitchen dining room, and study while the Jones brothers looked in the ballroom, hall, and the two bedrooms. Nobody found anything except a fairly recent cut in the dining room table, and a letter addressed to Miss Wherton, and written by a Jonathan Gumm. The letter seemed to be trying to convince Clarice that Holly was awful.
The group met back up in the parlor, most of them discussed their findings; Ace on the other hand decided to investigate the body. After brief examination he found a fresh bruise on her left forearm.
“Was she right or left handed?” Ace asked not knowing whether or not he was interrupting.
“Right,” Officer Hutchings replied. “Why?”
“She has a bruise on her left forearm.”
“Left? Isn’t that the same one she has the crossword in?” The other Jones brother asked.
“Exactly the same.”
“Are the two related?” Officer Hutchings asked.
“In experience I have never seen a coincidence,” replied the inspector. “Can I see the crossword?” Ace gave him the crossword; the three men gathered around it.
“Look there she erased that one,” Webster said pointing to one of the three letter crosswords. “Not only that it’s question was scratched out and underlined.” He was right the question was “Peggy _____ (1958 song)”
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Not knowing what else to do Ace opened the door, and there stood the third Jones, Juniper. Quickly she, too, joined the group around the crossword.
“‘Peggy Sue’ definitely and it looks as if that’s what she wrote up here,” Juniper began, “Well probably, only the S is legible.”
This struck something in Webster’s mind. “Peggy S. Miss Sandstun. Where was she at 11:43 last night?”
“Yes, but if she did do it why call the police while you're still in town?” Ace asked.
“If we knew that none of us would have a job,” the inspector chuckled. Officer Hutchings called Peggy Sandstun to see if she could establish an alibi. She didn’t come up with anything, but finally she mentioned living at the Blue Way Hotel, and the manager was there doing some late night filing, but that was at 11:33, ten minutes before Clarice was killed.
At this Juniper stood up and went over to the body. “Did you have to move anything when you grabbed the crossword?” She asked.
“Now that you mention it no, nothing but her hand,” Ace replied.
“Well that is interesting because the plug in is miles away from the body,” she was right the plugin was a good two feet away.
The group decided that was all they were going to find at the moment. Juniper had taken the bus, so the three Jones headed home together. Early along Juniper suggested they go to the Blue Way Hotel as quickly as possible. It took about twenty minutes, and there wasn’t much traffic.
“At night if Peggy was in a mighty hurry she could get across in 15 minutes,” Juniper noted aloud.
“Unless she never came back to the hotel,” Ace said.
“And that, my dear Watson, is why we’re here,” Juniper said in reply. With that the team went inside.
“Hello,” Ace told a kindly looking woman behind a desk. “Are you the manager?”
“Hello? Yes, I am Susan Bernard. Who are you, may I ask?” she replied just as kindly as she looked.
“I’m Detective Jones,” Webster began. “My siblings and I are investigating a murder. Were you here at 11:30 last night?”
“Yes, I was and at exactly 11:33 Peggy Sandstun saw me. She will alibi me I swear,” she said a little hurt.
“I don’t think you understand Miss Bernard,” Juniper said in that motherly way only females seem to be able to. “Miss Sandstun is our suspect .” The woman smiled. “Thank you Miss Bernard. That’s all.”
“Thanks, June there goes our only lead,” Ace sneered at his sister.
“Well, someone killed her,” Webster said.
Later that day Ace turned on the record player. The first record dropped and Buddy Holly began singing ‘Peggy Sue.’ All three froze. They groped for some other meaning in the song. After hearing it about five times nothing. Then out of nowhere Juniper jumped up to grab the case.
“Ah ha!” She cried. She jumped up, ran to grab her coat, flew out the door, and straight for the car.


Challenge to the reader: You technically have all the information pertinent to the correct solution, but just to give you the third thing that was far more difficult to catch, motive, I will tell you where Juniper went and what she found there. Juniper went to the murderer's home with a warrant for a second set of letters written by someone with the initials JG, and she found them. They were convincing X that Clarice was a bad person and went so far as to convince X to kill her. She also went to the Wherton house, and she found a secret tunnel and a spare key.


“Hello, Inspector Rehuitz?” Juniper asked into the receiver of a payphone.
“Yes, Miss.”
“Do you mind calling everyone pertinent to the Wherton case to the Wherton house. I mean everyone, Hutchings, Peggy, Holly, Miss Susan Bernard, Even James Grutens, if possible. I can call my brothers, though. Please.”
“Well I’m not sure about Mr. Grutens, but if you want the rest of course I’ll call. By the way did you get the letters you were looking for?
“Yes I’ve still got the letters with me.”
Nearly half an hour later all eight people sat in the Wherton parlor staring mostly in wonder at Juniper who was seated at the desk.
When Juniper decided they had waited long enough she stood up and said, “I suppose everyone’s here then. What do we know about Clarice Wherton? Well we know she was smart, and she was worth a lot of money. With these two we can easily say she wouldn’t give us just any simple clue, no, but she would get us there in the end. Let’s start with what happened that night that we know for sure. Miss Sandstun and Miss Wherton were out most of the night. They came back at 10:45. Is that correct?” She finally turned to Peggy.
“Yes, there about, and I left when the cuckoo struck 11:00.”
“She got to her apartment who knows when, but couldn’t find her keys?” Peggy nodded. “Asked Mrs. Bernard the time and left to go back as quickly as possible.”
“And why does this have to be true she could have gotten there at 11:15 to establish an alibi go back over and kill her,” Holly scowled.
Juniper was the one to reply. “Well, that theory works until you look at a couple other things, the first and most important is that it would be impossible to get from there to here in ten minutes which is when her alibi is set. No, the murderer came in later, maybe 11:30. She was invited in; we know this because Clarice was out here when she was killed not in the library where I certainly would prefer to do a crossword. When Clarice saw the murderer take out a gun she extended her arm over the crossword knowing it would be found when her body was examined. I know this by the bruise on her arm. At 11:43 Clarice realised she could explain her clue a little more so she simply stopped the clock and underlined just here.” She pointed at the bottom line on the crossword. “But the murderer knew she could drop a piano on Peggy and keep all eyes off them, so they simply scratched out ‘song,’ because Peggy is the only of the group born in 1958.”
“Then why didn’t I see them running out?”
“Oh, well here we get to the second thing. They heard you knock, so they ran down this hallway. I know this because the cord is two feet from the body,” Juniper led the group down the long hall and into the dining room. She pulled one large book without a title and a door opened to a tunnel. “This goes out just past the back door or past the front door depending on which path you take. With this the murderer escaped unnoticed. Now we get to whom it is and that gets down to what she meant to say with the cross word. In the song 'Peggy Sue' there is nothing more to get except Buddy Holly, or more precise My Buddy Holly.” She turned her gaze to Holly, and held up the stack of letters she had with her. “In your house I found this stack of letters written by a Jeremy Grimm, that I’ll bet anything you like is actually James Gruten, convincing you that Clarice was obsolete.”
Holly tried running for the door, but Webster got her and read her Miranda rights to her.
“June, how did you know the passage would be in the library?” Ace asked. “You only had twenty minutes.”
“Clarice was a friend of mine. I knew she’d spend all her time in the library, and the best place to have a spare exit or entrance would be where you spend the most of your time,” Juniper said. “Let’s go finish our books.”