WHODUNIT?
This gruesome picture, snapped this morning just as the sun rose over the high grass of the Frog Blog Bog, shows our beloved Frog belly up and covered in a viscous, sickly-sweet smelling substance that must surely be blood. Look closely. (Assuming, of course, that you've already digested your breakfast.) You'll see that in his left . . . um . . . hand? foot? flipper? . . . is a partially-eaten chocolate chip cookie. Note the bloody candlestick, gun, rope and wrench nearby. Partially concealed beneath him is a wicked carving knife. (It didn't show up very well in the crime scene photo, so you're just going to have to take our word for it.)
Who could have committed this murder most fowl? (I mean foul. The neighboring chickens were asleep at the time and therefore not involved in any way. Forensic evidence will bear this out.)We have, of course, rounded up the usual suspects for your consideration. It's up to you to use deductive reasoning (or whatever reasoning you have at your disposal) to solve this heinous crime. Submit your best guest of a suspect, weapon and motive in the comments section of this blog.
Was it . . .
. . . A CRIME OF GREED?
Little Robbie WELLS, as you may recall, recently used his father’s wrench to crack open his piggy bank and run away to Disneyland. He’s back in the neighborhood now, delivering newspapers on his broken-down bicycle, pondering graduate school, and desperately seeking cash. Did he hear the rumors about Frog’s pot of gold? (You only think leprechauns hide pots of gold. It’s really frogs; that's how the fable about little green men got started.) Did The Frog arise tragically early this morning and surprise Robbie trying to ROB him?
. . . A CRIME OF PASSION?
Romance divas SARIAH S (the S is for Shrewd) WILSON and Julie C (the C is for Cunning) BELLON have long been vying over the Frog -- both are desperate for him to pose for the cover of their next bestseller. Perhaps Julie arrived first last night, set a tantalizing meal on a candlelit table, and then remembered she’d forgotten mosquitoes for the salad. While she was out hunting, SARIAH arrived and was overcome by the smell -- or probably even the thought -- of deep-fried flies. In a hormone-fueled delerium she grabbed the candlestick and lit into the first thing she saw.
Or perhaps JULIE was the one who came late, saw that Sariah had beat her to Frog-baiting (or Frog-beating, as the case may be) and grabbed the first weapon she saw, determined to prove that Canadians are not as nice (and pro anti-gun laws) as everyone says they are.
. . . A CRIME OF DESPERATION?
Still searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, did sweet STEPHANIE hear from the mean aunt of the evil HR lady’s next-door neighbor’s manicurist’s anonymous cousin (I won’t mention any names, but his initial’s are FHL) that Jennie had been exchanging recipes with The Frog and that he now had in his possession a formula for the pentultimate chocolate chip cookie? (You know, the one that is worth a fortune because it was stolen from Neiman Marcus and now is carefully guarded under lock and key and never, ever, ever passed around the Internet, no matter what.) Was our would-be baker driven mad by the smell of melted chocolate chips, causing her to BLACK out, grasp the knife from the counter, and carve "Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry!" into The Frog's slimy skin?
. . . A CRIME OF OPPORTUNITY BY THE PERSON YOU'D LEAST EXPECT?
Perchance a dowdy dowager of death tiptoed through the tall grass and . . . Nah. Impossible. Nobody in their right mind would suspect saintly KERRY BLAIR. (Consult Julie's blog archives if you don't believe the adjective.) We'd better move on quickly. . .
. . . SOMETHING WORSE?
Imagine, if you will, this scenario: In a secluded studio at the edge of the Frog Blog Bog, JEFFREY R (the R stands for deRanged) hunches over his latest project -- a soon-to-be-released NYT bestseller of the horror variety. He grins maniacally into the dim greenish glow of his laptop, unaware that a rope has just snapped (about the same time as his mind) and released a SAVAGE monster into the dark and stormy night to prey upon an unsuspecting amphibian who was, moments before, enjoying a midnight snack of milk and cookies.
There you have it: a crime scene photo and six probable (I mean possible) suspects. You have only two days to solve the mystery by coming up with the right suspect, weapon & motive. (Be sure to explain your thought process.) On Sunday -- when we gather for The Frog's funeral -- we'll post the solution. In the unlikely event two or more of you get it right, we'll drop your names in the casket and decide the thing by random draw. Winner receives a mystery novel of their choice!
So, my friend, The game's afoot and the answer, dear Watson, is elementary! (Possibly middle school level, but no higher.) We double-frog dare you to come up with it!
Kerry Blair — 3/30/2007 11:36:00 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Hmmm... I see no one else has left any comments yet. Perhaps they don't want to give away the right answer to everyone else. This is a mystery, and may I ask how do we know that everyone didn't do it together? Perhaps they were all jealous of the spotlight the frog received? Why else would there be so many weapons? If that is not a possible solution, then I would have to go with Kerry Blair- the person who seems the most innocent is usually the guilty party. I saw that movie Clue! She probably stole those weapons from everyone else and set the stage...with the other authors out of the picture she was free to have the blog all to herself. Now doubt is casted upon everyone but herself.
PS- this was a fun one!
I started typing my answer here, but then I got carried away. So if you want to know the TRUE story of the Frog's demise, go here.
Since there is a cookie may I set aside all the usually suspects and point out that perhaps Cookie Monster (Or Veggie Monster, as the case may or may not be? http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/veggie.asp) was involved and I suspect Rob has ties with the Cookie Monster (what with the small children and love of cookies and all)...
(do they have an inflatable frog resurrection?)
I'm never any good at unmasking the villain, even though I love reading mystery novels. Still, I'm going to take a stab at this, just in fun, of course, and I propose that Kerry Blair, although she has made it appear that she had less than a ghost of a chance of being the perpetrator, is closing in on becoming a serial killer by starting with one particular amphibian. No doubt she also plans to make her victims into mummies. The word is, you won't have to be digging up the past to see that what you initially took for a chocolate chip cookie actually contains flies instead, so that Kerry could approach the frog with the magic word "duyuwannatreat?" and then suffocate the amphibian by stuffing one cookie down its throat and leaving half of another one in its flipper, to make it look like the frog's heart has its reasons for an "accidental" asphyxiation. But listen to your gut feelings and those of your other internal organs -- the heart only knows that he was trying to teach Samantha Shade to speak amphibian language and Kerry was afraid she'd truly croak.
Okay, so I'm probably like the truth -- out there somewhere, but far from the correct solution. I wish I could solve mysteries, instead of just reading the books for fun. If I could just master the art of spotting the villain, then I could spend the rest of eternity crowing "I know Whodunnit," because we all know that the art has forever.
Melanie Goldmund
I never liked that frog anyway. He always thought he was the only frog in the bog, er blog.
You don't mean the frog is really dead, do you, as in, no more frog? Tell me this is a dream, like how JR didn't really die!
Meshlo Schloker and the Case of the Fetid Frog
I arrived early to the crime scene, but alas, too late for the victim. His deflated corpse lay in the grass, surrounded
by a host of deadly weapons, most of them bloody. This would prove to be a difficult case to untangle, but if anyone could,
it would be me.
I examined the crime scene from every possible angle and re-interviewed the witnesses. The pieces fell into place, one by one.
When I was done, I was startled by the final answer. No one, not even a crazed LDS suspense author, could come up with such an
improbable premise. In the end, there were five attempted murders, but the Frog was done in by the one who had not meant to harm
him.
Here's how it happened:
First, Rob Wells came after the Frog for his wealth. I determined that Mr. Wells was a fan of the Oscars and had seen the Frog
on the Red Carpet, and assumed he had the wealth to go with the fame. Rob tried to throw a wrench into the Frog's plans, but
it bounced harmlessly off his skin.
Then there was the ill-timed dinner dates the Frog had planned with Julie and Sariah. The Frog had been spending time in Arizona,
where there is no Daylight Saving Time and mistakenly gave out the same time to both of them. Sariah got there first, but when
she spotted Julie coming with with a bouquet of lilies for his pad, she grabbed the candlestick. Unfortunately for her, the candle
was lit and she burned her hand and dropped the weapon in the wet grass. Upon seeing the crazed Sariah, Julie dropped the lilies
and went for her gun ("When in Rome," she said.) Her hands, wet from the flowers, slipped on the handle of the gun and it went
flying. The Frog, unlike Superman from the Fifties, didn't duck, but let the gun bounce off of him just like the wrench.
Then the saintly Kerry came and offered the Frog a freshly baked cookie. What the Frog didn't know was that this cookie was
purloined from Stephanie's house. Stephanie saw that she only had one cookie left, the penultimate one having been stolen by
Kerry, ran out with a carver to catch the cookie culprit. She didn't see Kerry, who had slipped away when she saw Stephanie, but
instead saw the Frog with her cookie! Before she could threaten the frog - and I Believe 'er when she said she would have popped
him like an inflatable - she heard a growl from behind.
It seems that Jeff let his pet cougar free of his rope leash and because he wanted to have a little French cuisine for dinner.
Stephanie turned to face the Savage cat and managed to cut him and the leash as he went past, spraying blood all over the Frog and
everything around him. The cougar ran off to lick his wounds and Stephanie ran off to get cleaned up, lest she be blamed for the
mess.
The Frog, finally alone, picked up the remnants of the rope and slyly coiled a noose out of it, and began to laugh at the absurdity
of the evening. Unfortunately, he began to choke on the half-eaten cookie. With no one around to give him the Heimlich, the Frog
croaked. In the end, I wasn't sure I could make any of the charges stick. I decided to leave the Frog alone; this old man came
rolling home.
After carefully inspecting all of the clues and evidence I have come to the conclusion that our very own "Saintly" Kerry Blair is the one who killed our dear froggy friend early in morning on March 30, 2007. Her weapon: A poisoned cookie. Mrs. Blair for years made herself appear innocent so that, when the time came, she would have the perfect alibi when she committed this terrible crime. Since she always appeared to be an angel with a glowing halo it was easy to offer Frog a freshly baked POISONED cookie without him thinking anything of it. Why did Mrs. Blair do this dreadful crime? Because she didn’t want Robbie Wells to get his money. She wanted Sariah S. Wilson and Julie C. Bellon to stop fighting over the amphibian. She also wanted to stop Stephanie Black from getting the cookie recipe, and to stop Jeffrey R. Savage from… doing whatever he was doing. By killing said frog, Kerry Blair beat everyone else to it to ruin everyone’s fun. And maybe it was a saintly act since she stopped everyone else from committing the serious sin of murder.
You are ALL terrific! (And more creative than I will ever be!) I love it! Well . . . except for those of you who thought it was me. I'm the NICE one, remember?
That said, if this had been an actual mystery, you'd have been right! Good job, Sherlocks.
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