19th Anniversary Cop Shop Mystery

Written for "The Bard's Hall Contest" . The prompt is as follows...

Bard's Hall Prompt ▼

Who is holding our library and our beloved Mrs. Stone, town librarian hostage?

The 19th Precinct of Bardstown, is preparing for the annual Founder’s Day celebration in the town. Captain O’Leary’s shift ended and he left the cop shop to get spruced-up for the evening’s events. Officers Smith and Jones were the “volunteers” who offered to be at the precinct in case there was any emergency calls during the evening. They figured since it was a town-wide event, nothing would disturb them that night. All the events would keep the Bardstown folks busy participating in the many scheduled activities. Being avid chess competitors, they planned a quiet evening of games, and some munchies like popcorn, and Moxie. And then the phone rang!

“Hello, Officer Jones, here. How may I help you?”

Caller: “Stop talking, Jones and listen to me carefully. I have Mrs. Stone. The library will be closed until I get what rightfully belongs to my family! Give me what I want, and the doors will reopen and Mrs. Stone will be free.”

Jones: "Okay, sir, well, what is you want?”

“ I want the key to the library basement. The early settlers to this town, which include my ancestors, hid a map to a buried treasure inside the Retired, Yet Valuable Books storage room. Mayor Writon holds the key. Get it from him and bring it to the library. I’ll be watching. And no funny stuff! Remember, I have poor old Mrs. Stone as a hostage!”

As soon as the stranger hung up the phone, it rang again. This time it was Captain O’Leary.

“Jones? This you? Something’s not right! The Library is CLOSED! Kids are banging on the door trying to get inside for the Founder’s Day Annual Story Hour, and there’s no answer! One of you go down and check it out immediately!”

Jones explained the previous call and what was going down at the library.

O’Leary lets out an audible groan. “Not another Founder’s Day interruption! The mayor will be livid! Now I’ve got to get him to give me the storage room key! I'll meet you guys at the steps of the library after I talk to the mayor. Call in retired detective Fife to cover the precinct tonight. Once, just once I’d like to celebrate this occasion without some crisis interrupting!. Cheese and Rice!”


Back at the Center of Bardstown, Mayor Writon explained to Captain O’Leary that there’s no hidden treasure map inside the room. “That’s nothing but folklore! What is in that room besides dusty old books, is a time capsule which cannot be opened until next year for the town’s 20th Decade of the town’s founding. “O’Leary, find out who’s behind this heinous act of holding our library, and, Mrs. Stone, of course, hostage! Arrest him as quickly and as quietly as possible!”

Clues:

1) A stranger on a motorcycle stopped by the library earlier that day. Passersby saw the the red Harley cruising through the town a couple times before parking outside the library. They couldn’t describe the person beyond approximate height and build due to the fact that she/he kept the helmet on while running up the library steps. (Isn’t that odd?)

2) Parker Baker, was given 30 days Community Service for his grossly overdue library book fines! The town frowns upon deadbeat book borrowers who don’t pay their fines. Interest accrued and he had a choice of the Community Service or 30 days in lock-up.

3) Mayor Writon’s first wife, who ran off to Duluth with her lover nineteen years ago, is back in town, alone and broke.

4) Inside job? How tired is the Octogenarian librarian of her job?

Solve the mystery in exactly 19 sentences.

Officer Jones knocked on the library door for the third time, worry sneaking signs onto his face as he fiddled with the key that Captain O'Leary had retrieved from the unhappy mayor. (1)

The lock clicked and the door finally opened a crack and someone in a red motorcycle helmet slipped a black motorcycle gloved hand through the crevice, palm up as if waiting for the key. (2)

"Not until you release Mrs. Stone." (3)

The door slammed shut and the glass rattled in complaint. After nearly a minute, Jones raised his knuckles to knock again just as the door was yanked wide enough for Mrs. Stone to stumble through, straight into his arms, then the door closed again, all except the slice wide enough for the gloved hand which waited, palm up, fingers curling impatiently as if to argue that Jones was taking too long to place the key in their clasp. (4-5)

Jones placed the key in the greedy grasp, then wrapped an arm around Mrs. Stone to guide the shaken woman down the stairs as he heard the door slam and lock behind him. (6)

"The collections!" Mrs. Stone cried. (7)

"Don't worry about them, Ma'am, but can you identify the person who held you captive?" Jones asked as they reached the police line where the whole precinct's complement stood, including retired detective Fife, who was supposed to be watching the headquarters, but then, there was a reason he had been "advised" to retire. (8)

"Well, I can tell you it is a woman because she dragged me into the ladies room when she had to go." (9)

Just then, Officer Smith ran up, clearly out of breath from the jog from her cruiser, but then, she'd always enjoyed more of the munchies during the quiet evenings of chess she and Jones tried to share when things were supposed to be quiet downtown. (10)

"Captain O'Leary, I've got the owner of the red Harley Davidson motorcycle--Mayor Writon's first wife, Shirley." (11)

"Shirley Will-Writon-Wall...Well, I'll be," replied O'Leary, rubbing his palm across his chin, "I wouldn't expect this kind of trouble out of her, but I guess it's been a long time since she and I have crossed paths so we'd better bring the Mayor here, Smith, because maybe he's had more recent contact with her than I have." (12)

When Smith and Mayor Writon returned, O'Leary handed the Mayor a megaphone with instructions to do his best to talk his ex-wife into coming out without hurting herself or anyone else...or anything in the library, most especially the Retired, Yet Valuable Books storage room. (13)

The Mayor had been talking for several minutes without a sound returned from the seemingly empty library when finally Parker Barker, who had wandered into the standoff from the Founder's Day celebration, spoke up. He'd been serving community service at the library for unpaid library fines, but had proven to be anything but a model employee, often being found in the basement near the storage room when he's supposed to be upstairs shelving books and now O'Leary, who had suffered through Mrs. Stone's many complaints about her unwilling helper, questioned Barker's reasons for spending so much time down there. (14-15)

"I could go in, pretending to bring her some food and drink," Barker said, "But you guys could put something in it to put her to sleep, then you can just walk in and arrest her in a few minutes," he offered. (16)

It became instantly clear to O'Leary--Barker's willingness to do community service in the library which can barely hold onto paid employees because of Mrs. Stone's obsession with the perfect care of each book, Barker's frequent visits to the basement where this treasure map is supposedly held, Shirley's sudden reappearance and now crime, and the rumor that she'd been caught cheating on her most recent husband with a much younger man, which seemed to be a habit for her--Parker Barker was in cahoots with Shirley Will-Writon-Wall to get this treasure map. (17)

After arresting Parker Barker and finally talking Shirley Will-Writon-Wall out of the library, they were taken to the 19th Precinct and questioned where the surprises continued--Barker was planning on sneaking the map out when he returned from delivering the drugged food to his partner without telling her about the drugs, a double cross, but she was planning a double cross of him as well, and it turned out that the thing that "rightfully belonged to her family" wasn't the treasure map at all, but actually the Mayor, who, in her twisted mind, belonged to her and she believed that seeing the lengths she was capable of going to in order to get him back would impress him enough to take her back--spoiler alert: It didn't. (18)

As Smith and Jones walked back to their cruisers, Jones spoke, "You know, nineteen police precincts in a town this small is proof that crime is just too rampant here--I've been thinking about leaving," he said as his hand tentatively reached across the open space for hers. (19)