#idaville pd

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Hidden Money

Lou Warwick called Chief Brown to tell him that a large sum of money had been taken from his desk. “I was really calling for your son, because he’s the one who will probably end up helping me. But I suppose you could come too. I mean, someone needs to drive him over here.”

I’m guessing Warwick didn’t really said all of that, but I like to think that he did.

Since retiring from the U.S. Army, Warwick had spent his time fixing up old military vehicles. Chief Brown and Encyclopedia went to Warwick’s garage and went down to business. Warwick said that the theft happened in his office. He thought he’d be able to figure out who took the money, but he couldn’t. That’s when he called Chief Brown.

Encyclopedia looked around the office. There was a desk, a chair, bookshelves, a four-drawer filing cabinet, a water cooler and a door leading to the bathroom. Warwick said that there had been a couple from out of town around earlier that morning. They were there to buy an amphibious jeep. They ended up paying in cash, which they carried in a backpack. Warwick said he wasn’t prepared for all of that cash, as he usually got paid in checks. He put the cash in a few manila envelopes to take to the bank later. However, while he was stuffing the envelopes, a customer walked into the garage. Instead of asking the customer to wait a moment, Warwick rushed with cash and just left it on his desk where anyone could just walk in and take it.

I’m not saying the thief was right for taking the money. I’m saying that maybe Warwick should be more careful just leaving thousands of dollars in cash lying around.

Warwick said that he noticed the three people in his staff enter the office in the half-hour he was helping his customer. All of them swore that they had nothing to do with the theft. He believed them, because the envelopes were too big to have been smuggled out of the office unnoticed.

Ed Winslow, the mechanic, was first in the office. He said that he had gone into the office to get a drink at the water cooler. He noticed the envelopes on the desk with a few bills sticking out, but he didn’t touch them.

Phil Riggs, did body work for Warwick. He told Chief Brown that after Winslow left the office, he went in to get a drink of water. He said he saw the envelopes on the desk and a few bills, but he didn’t steal anything.

Olga Simpson, the small, white-haired woman who handled paperwork, told Chief Brown that she had been in the office to get a drink after Riggs. She said she saw the envelopes and a few bills on the desk, but that she left them there.

Chief Brown and Warwick discussed other possibilities, but Warwick couldn’t think of another way the money could have gone missing other than one of those three taking the money.

Encyclopedia spoke up to give his theory. The money was still in the room. Warwick said that he had searched the entire room, but didn’t find it. Encyclopedia explained that the money was under the filing cabinet. Olga, the thief, put it there, knowing that no one would think to look under there, nor would they suspect that she lifted the filing cabinet.

Warwick didn’t believe Encyclopedia. How could the little old lady have lifted the filing cabinet by herself? Encyclopedia demonstrated. He pulled open each drawer of the cabinet as far as they could go. With the weight distribution thrown off, Encyclopedia was able to pull the top of the cabinet forward, allowing the it to tip. When he did that, the back of the cabinet rose, revealing the envelopes.

Okay, but how did Encyclopedia know that Olga was the one who stole it? Because she was the last one in the office. Since everyone, including her, said that the envelope was on the table, that meant that the last person in the room must have been the one to take the money.

If Warwick knew that Olga had been the last person in the room, why didn’t he suspect that she knew what happened to the envelopes of money? Even if Olga was covering for one of her co-workers, that meant that 1) she knew something and 2) there were two other possibilities. Warwick’s call to the police shouldn’t have been “someone stole money and I don’t know who,” it should have been, “one of my employees stole my money and I don’t know how.”

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Friendly Watchdog

Right before Chief Brown left for Glenn City to help their police investigate a holdup, a theft had taken place in Idaville. Instead of offering a heartfelt regret to the Glenn City PD because crimes in his own town were a priority over Glenn City’s, Chief Brown went along and left town and had his crack squad investigate the case themselves. He had one of his officers leave a copy of the police report with his family. I’m sure that’s common procedure in most police departments.

After dinner, Mrs. Brown read the police report to Encyclopedia. The report started off by mentioning that jewelry had been stolen from the home of Adam and Gilda Lang. Instead of going on and describing the events about the actual theft, the police report gave a pretty detailed history of the Langs’ Great Dane named Morris.

Morris was a very friendly dog, but the Langs worried that he was too friendly. He never barked at strangers, so he didn’t make a very good watchdog. Mrs. Lang took Morris to a number of obedience schools, but he wasn’t interested in doing much. She then entered him into some sort of dog show that based solely on looks and not on ability to follow commands (this is the sort of dog show that would only exist in Idaville). While a woman was judging him, a bald man tripped and accidentally knocked the judge over, causing her to fall and hurt her hip. From that moment on, Morris barked at every bald man he saw.

So the dog who they were unable to train had the mental faculties to discriminate against bald men because one accidentally knocked over a complete stranger? Even if that was possible or likely, why would any of that be in a police report about a burglary?

The police report then changed gears and spoke about the crime at hand. Mrs. Lang noticed that the jewelry was missing after returning from being out of town for two days. Her brother, Dudley Nelson, lived across the street and took care of Morris whenever the Langs were out of town. She had told Nelson that two repairmen would be coming on one of the days they were gone. Hans would be there to fix the pool pump and Tex would be there to fix the lawn sprinklers.

Nelson was doing some work on his yard, waiting for the two men. They both arrived in the morning, and he realized that both men were bald. He offered both men hats to wear so that Morris wouldn’t bark at them. Hans was given a Yankee hat and Tex a ten-gallon cowboy hat, I guess because he name was Tex. That would seem like an impractical hat to wear while trying to fix someone lawn sprinkling system.

Both men worked in the backyard, where Nelson or other neighbors were unable to see them. At some point, both left separately and returned later with shopping bags. Each man was alone in the backyard while the other man was gone. Both men claimed that they had bought parts for their respective jobs, and that turned out to be true.

I find it distressing that a police report about a theft included no details about where the top suspects went during the time in question, yet it gave the entire history of the family dog’s obedience school career. 

The doors to the Langs’ home were locked, but the back door had a doggie door for Morris. Since Morris was such a big dog and Hans and Tex were both small men, either men could have climbed in through the doggie door and taken the jewelry while the other man was out buying supplies.

At that point, the report ended. Mrs. Brown commented that the report gave all the facts except who the actual thief was. I’m guessing that it wasn’t in the report because the police had no idea. Encyclopedia knew that it was Hans.

Tex was wearing a wide-brimmed hat. He wouldn’t have been able to climb in through the doggie door while wearing the hat, and he wouldn’t have been able to take the hat off otherwise Morris would have barked at him. Since no one reported to have heard any barking, that meant that Morris came into no contact with a bald, hatless Tex. Hans, on the other hand, would have been able to climb in while keeping his hat on.

We don’t learn any of the details of the investigation Chief Brown was taking part in in Glenn City, but I’m left to assume that Encyclopedia figured out the solution to that one as well.

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Missing Songs

The Browns were waiting in line for Fiona Slocum’s concert. Slocum was Chief Brown’s favorite country western singer. While waiting in line, the three discussed Slocum’s career. That's where we learned that her first album was successful, but she took some time off after that tour and that this was her comeback tour.

Encyclopedia noticed two police officers heading towards them. The officers told Chief Brown that they were needed. The three were escorted backstage where they were introduced to Colonel Abner Singleton, Slocum’s manager. He explained that the sheet music for Slocum’s latest songs had been stolen. She was planning on performing the song for the first time that night. She was so distraught over the missing sheet music that she needed to be alone. She refused to see anyone. Due to Slocum’s secretive nature, no one knew anything about these songs; even Singleton himself.

Encyclopedia asked if the songs could be rewritten, but they couldn’t. Slocum wrote the music down, but since her memory wasn’t all that great, she was unable to perform without sheet music. She couldn’t even perform songs that she had done hundreds of times before without sheet music.

I'm no doctor, but that seems like a terrible condition. She seems to have some serious brain condition where she has absolutely no muscle memory. It makes me wonder how she was even able to become a successful musician if she couldn't play any of her music from memory.

Singleton told Chief Brown that there was one suspect. His name was Chuck and he had followed Slocum from city to city. Singleton admitted that Chuck hadn’t done anything illegal. So basically, Chuck was only guilty of being a fan.

Singleton begged Chief Brown to find the sheet music as soon as possible. He said that without her new love songs, Slocum may not get the comeback that she wanted.

Encyclopedia asked how he knew they were love songs if only Slocum knew what the songs were about. Singleton knew that he had been caught. He had heard that Slocum had wanted to fire him as her manager, so Singleton had taken the sheet music. He had hoped that if he was the hero that found the music, he would preserve his job.

Okay, I get that part. He wanted to keep his job. I don’t understand why the police were there.

A singer was claiming that music, that only she saw, was missing. There was no evidence of a break-in or any other wrongdoing. This doesn’t sound like theft, it sounds like the singer just misplaced the music. This doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary because we’ve already established that Fiona has exceptionally shitty memory. So getting the police involved at that point would be like me calling 911 because I couldn't remember where I put my keys.

But let’s say that this story takes place in a town where the local police force has nothing better to do and are totally fine with wasting their resources (read: Idaville). That doesn’t explain why Singleton was being helpful to the police.

This is the guy who stole the music and whose plan revolved around him being the one to find the music. Why would the guy whose plan revolved on no police involvement get the the police? Even if Slocum told Singleton to get the police, there was nothing stopping him from lying and saying he did because he was holing herself up in her dressing room. 

If Singleton couldn’t even do this properly, it’s a wonder why Slocum didn’t fire him sooner.

Let's pretend this wasn't an inside job and let's pretend the Idaville PD's only way of solving cases was hoping Chief Brown's young son didn't pick up on someone accidentally giving too much information. What kind of investigation would the police be able to launch if the one person who had access to the music locked herself in a room and refused to be talked to?

Yeah, nothing in this story makes any sense.

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Vanished Sculpture

Chief Brown was distracted for yet another dinner, because of a case involving a theft at the Idaville Museum. A one-foot-tall statue of the Roman god Mercury was stolen from the museum after it had been closed for the night. Mrs. Brown asked if the museum had security cameras or an alarm system. They did, but there were still three employees inside, so the alarm system had not been armed yet. Someone had shut the cameras off after everyone but the three employees had left.

The three employees being suspected were the Curator of Antiquities, the security guard and the janitor. The curator would be the one of the three who knew how much the statue was worth, but he claimed to have had no idea how to turn the security cameras off. The security guard did know how to shut the cameras off, but he was nowhere near the control room where the switch for the cameras was. The janitor claimed to know nothing about art.

Chief Brown didn’t arrest anyone because each suspect was each other’s alibi. The security guard saw the curator working in his office and saw the janitor washing the floor in the lobby. And both of them saw the janitor rolling the pail away with the mop over his shoulder.

That was a sufficient alibi according to Chief Brown? They saw each other at some point? That doesn’t really work for me. They saw each other working and then went on about their business. It wasn’t as if they were with each other the entire night? Who’s to say that one of them didn’t steal the statue directly after being seen?

Encyclopedia was able to go beyond criticizing his father’s poor police work and was able to figure out who actually stole the statue. He thought it was odd that the janitor, the man whose job it was to keep the floors clean, would carry the mop over his shoulder. That would cause the wet mop to drip on the floor. Why not keep the mop in the pail? Because, according to Encyclopedia’s theory, the janitor had the statue in the pail and there wasn’t room for both the statue and the mop.

How did the janitor get the statue out of the museum? Did he roll the pail all the way home? And then I suppose the janitor’s plot was to find someone who knew the value of the statue who was shady enough to knowingly buy a piece that was stolen from the museum.

I also like how Chief Brown automatically gave the janitor a free pass because he said he knew nothing about art. He wouldn't need to know anything about art to know that the statue was worth something. It's a museum. I think it would be a safe assumption to say that everything in the museum is valuable, otherwise it wouldn't be worth displaying in a museum. It's not like a museum would display a lot of inexpensive crap to trick those would-be thieves who don't know anything about art.

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Missing Medallions

Chief Brown had just picked up Encyclopedia from the library when the police radio came alive. A robbery was in progress at the Den of Antiquities. Chief Brown, unsure the nature of the robbery or if anyone was armed, went straight to the scene with his 10-year-old son.

When they arrived, they saw shop owner Roger Cuthbert standing out in front of his store, holding young junk collector Winslow Brant by the arm. Cuthbert was claiming that he had caught Winslow in the act. Chief Brown asked Cuthbert to let Winslow go and suggested that everyone went inside so that they could discuss this with civility.

Inside, Cuthbert explained that he had closed up shop for the day. He had more work to do, so he left to get some coffee. When he returned, he saw Winslow standing in front of the store and that the storefront window was broken. Cuthbert noticed that a set of three medallions, together worth thousands of dollars, had been stolen. The Browns looked and saw the sidewalk covered in broken glass.

Winslow admitted that he was in the store earlier that day and that he was interested in the medallions, but he didn’t steal them. Chief Brown asked Winslow to empty his pockets. Winslow complied, but that did not produce the medallions.

Cuthbert wasn’t convinced. He thought that maybe Winslow had stashed them somewhere, or that he was working with someone else and his partner had them. Already, we know that Cuthbert was lying. He said he caught Winslow in the act, but he obviously didn’t. If he had, Winslow would have still had the medallions on him.

Remember that time when Bugs Meany claimed that he had caught Encyclopedia “red-handed,” and Encyclopedia’s entire defense was, “actually, he used that term incorrectly”? That, for some reason, worked. Here, Cuthbert said he had caught a child in the act, and no one batted an eye despite the fact that he was obviously lying.

Chief Brown changed gears and asked if anything else was missing. Cuthbert didn’t know, but it looked like the only thing that was disturbed was the display case where the medallions were being kept. Cuthbert went back to pinning blame on Winslow and went off with a tirade. When he was done, he excused himself so that he could get a piece of plywood to board up the broken window.

Cuthbert disappeared to the back of the store and Chief Brown closed his notebook. “It doesn’t look good, Cuthbert.” Winslow tried to defend himself saying that he hadn’t stolen anything, but Chief Brown already made his decision.

Apparently, the only evidence the police needed was the fact that he had been near the store when the store owner discovered that the window was broken. It was Chief Brown’s job to close cases, not to use common sense, logic or police work to make sure an innocent boy wasn’t blamed for a crime.

Encyclopedia finally spoke up. The broken glass from the window was on the sidewalk, which meant that the window had been broken from the inside. The only person who could have done that was Cuthbert.

It turned out that Cuthbert faked the robbery of his own store, going so far as to break the window for insurance money. We got tricked here, because normally the insurance fraud stories include someone conspicuously mentioning that the item in question was insured.

Since Winslow had been in the store earlier and Cuthbert knew he was interested in the medallions, Cuthbert decided to just try to put the fake robbery on this child, collect insurance money and then sell the medallions.

Any decent adult in Cuthbert’s situation would look at Winslow and think, “Hey, here’s a kid who likes miscellaneous treasures, and I’m a guy who owns a store that sells that sort of thing. In a way, we’re kindred spirits. I should encourage him to come in more often. Maybe I could teach a few things. Hell, maybe he could become a valuable customer in the future. At the very least, as an adult, I should try to set a good example.”

No Cuthbert saw Winslow and thought, “Hey, here’s a kid who likes miscellaneous treasures, and I’m a guy who owns a store that sells that sort of thing. I should frame him for a fake robbery so that I can commit insurance fraud.” So far, everyone we’ve met in Idaville with the name Cuthbert has shown themselves to be a total dick.

And I’d like to reiterate the point that Chief Brown almost arrested a boy despite the complete lack of evidence.

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Scrambled Eggs

The Brown Detective Agency had an unlikely customer one morning; Bugs Meany. He was carrying a carton of eggs. He needed Encyclopedia to guard the eggs and to bring them to the intersection of Main and Elm Streets at 1 p.m. He explained that he’d ask one of his fellow Tigers, but they were all busy.

Encyclopedia opened the carton and it didn’t seem like there was anything special about them; it was a dozen normal looking eggs. He asked why Bugs needed him to bring those specific eggs to that specific location at that specific time, but Bugs answered that it was personal and it wasn’t important for Encyclopedia to know any of that for the job.

When Bugs left, Sally expressed her disbelief and said that she was sure something was up. Encyclopedia, whose naivety dripped through his pores, suggested that Bugs was trying to turn over a new leaf.

Encyclopedia showed up where he was supposed to and soon found out that, yep, it was a trick. Bugs appeared with an unnamed police officer and told some story about how he had seen Encyclopedia carrying a carton of eggs. He said that Encyclopedia looked suspicious, so he followed him and watched as he threw two eggs at windows of a house. Bugs said that Encyclopedia did that to create business for himself, so that his victims would hire him to find out who had done it.

Bugs even pulled out a bag that had pieces of the eggshell as evidence. I’m not sure how that would be evidence of anything, it wasn’t as if the police would be able to match the shells Bugs had with the eggs Encyclopedia had. Bugs’ stupidity knows no limits.

Encyclopedia pointed out that if he had just egged someone’s house, there would have been eggs missing from his carton. Since he was carrying a full carton, it couldn’t have been him. And since Bugs said he had followed him the whole time, Encyclopedia couldn’t have replaced those eggs without him knowing about it.

Bugs confessed to trying to frame Encyclopedia and he “had to clean both the windows at the house as punishment.” Well, yeah. I should freakin’ hope so. Someone egged that innocent person’s home. Either Bugs did it himself or he happened to have found a house that someone had egged and decided to use that fact for his latest attempt to try to frame Encyclopedia. The latter seems pretty far-fetched, so that means that Bugs egged this house.

His only punishment was that he had to clean up the mess that he made himself? Did he get any punishment for framing an innocent person? Or lying to police? How about for egging someone’s house specifically to lie to police about it and frame an innocent person? Extremely lax punishment like this is the very reason why Bugs keeps pulling this shit.

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Stolen Stamps

Chief Brown had yet another case he was helpless to solve on his own, so he gave it Encyclopedia to take a swing at it. A robber had hit Terrence’s Stamp Store. I hope that tip of the hat to actor Terence Stamp was on purpose. It seems like an odd celebrity to make a reference to in a book for children, but I suppose when an author writes about a town hit with as many instances of stamp thievery as Idaville, a Terence Stamp joke would be inevitable.

Ten stamps, together worth thousands of dollars, were taken from the store. He took the most valuable stamps that were on display. Three of them were from Europe and six were from the U.S. The other one was an ordinary stamp, the kind used every day to mail a letter. Terrence reported that nothing else was taken from the store, but that the stationery on his desk had been disturbed. He didn’t know if any of the stationery had been taken; he was more concerned about the stamps.

Red Finster was spotted near the store soon after the crime. Chief Brown explained that Finster was “known to fence stolen goods.” That’s kind of an odd way of putting that. I would expect Chief Brown to say “he has a criminal record,” but he didn’t say that. Instead, he said that Finster was “known” to have done that; which implies that the police knew about it, but never arrested Finster for it.

Finster claimed that he was innocent, and the stamps weren’t on him. Finster gave the police permission to search his home without a police warrant, but they couldn’t find them. Chief Brown also said that it was unlikely that Finster was working with someone, because he had always worked alone in the past.

Finster was still in police custody, but Chief Brown knew that he was going to have to release him the following day if the stamps didn’t turn up. I’m not sure of the constitutionality of holding a guy despite the fact that they had acknowledged that there was no evidence that he was the suspect other than his past and the fact that he happened to be near the scene of a crime. I’m not saying that sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life; I’m saying it’s a dick move.

Encyclopedia figured it out. The Terrence’s stationery at his desk was disturbed because Finster was looking for an envelope to mail the loot to himself. That is why the tenth stamp that he stole was a regular one. The following day, the found the envelope Finster had sent himself in his mail, and they were able to arrest him.

That means that Terrence put his regular mailing stamps on display with the valuable stamps. Shouldn’t the regular stamps be kept with his stationery? That’s like Bath & Body Works keeping the soap for the employee restroom on the shelf next to the merchandise.

And I guess the police got lucky that the envelope got delivered to Finster’s house the next day. I suppose it wasn’t impossible, since it was probably going within the same ZIP code. There was still no guarantee, though.

I wonder if the police were actually going to charge Finster this time around, or just release him as they appeared to have done in the past.

[brownencyclopedia]

The Case of the Gym Bag

Saturday morning, Encyclopedia and Chief Brown went to the high school to watch a track meet. The meet was between Idaville High School and Glenn City High School. It was a foregone conclusion that Idaville was going to kick serious butt at the meet, but people poured in to watch the meet anyway because of the rivalry between Fleet Fletcher and Baldy Jones, who both ran for Idaville.

Baldy earned his name because he shaved his head before each meet, thinking that a bald head helped him run faster. It wasn’t explained how Fleet got his name, but I’m guessing because he was fleet of foot. The meet went on with Baldy and Fleet splitting four of their races.

After the meet, when Encyclopedia and his father were walking to the car, they heard an argument coming from the locker room. The argument had drawn a small crowd, implying that people can walk into the high school locker room and watch teens change their clothes.

Encyclopedia and his father pushed their way to the front of the small crowd attracted that the argument had attracted. (This implies that high-school aged boys were now showering and changing their clothes in plain sight of this 10-year-old boy that was just able to wander in.) When Fleet noticed that Chief Brown was there, he told him to arrest Baldy for taking his stamp collection.

Here, we thought that this was going to be another mystery about someone cheating or sabotaging their rival during the meet, but it turned out to be another case of stamp-theft. Is anyone else concerned about the stamp-theft or the coin-theft rates in this town? It seems to be way above the national average. Idaville is not a friendly place for philatelists or numismatists.

Chief Brown broke the argument up and asked them to tell him what had happened. Fleet explained that after showing and getting dressed, he went into the coach’s office. When he came out, he saw Baldy leaving the locker room with Fleet’s gym bag. Baldy broke in to explain that it was his gym bag and he knew it was because it was holding his stamp collection. Fleet claimed that it was his stamp collection.

So both were claiming to have kept their stamp collection in their gym bag. Why would anyone keep their supposedly valuable stamp collection in their gym bag along with their sweaty socks? Fleet explained that there was a stamp collector in town for just that day, and he wanted to see if he was interested in buying some of his rare stamps.

That still doesn’t explain why the collection would be kept in the same bag as the smelly gym clothes and a damp towel. Also, I’m not sure why the stamp collector needed to be seen in person. This story was published in 2009. Didn’t the Internet never make it to Idaville?

Both of them admitted that the bag didn’t have an ID tag, so there was no way for an outside observer to know whose bag it was. Chief Brown opened the bag and removed the items. There was the stamp collection protected in a plastic folder, a damp towel, soap, deodorant, hair gel and a clean pair of socks.

Chief Brown was puzzled. He didn’t know what to do, so he told them that they would have to wait there until this was all sorted out. Fleet didn’t like the sound of that because that meant he was likely to have missed the stamp collector.

Encyclopedia told his dad to give the bag to Fleet. He knew it belonged to Fleet because it had hair gel in it. If Baldy shaved his head before every meet, then he would have had no need to carry hair gel with him.

Except not really. We know that Baldy shaved his head before every meet. That implies that he let his hair grow at some points, either between meets or during the off-season? While he may not need hair gel in his bag during meets that doesn’t mean he never used it. Who’s to say he doesn’t keep the hair gel in his bag for if and when he needed it? Or maybe he just never got around to removing the gel from his bag; kind of like how I still have an expired library card from a city I don’t live in anymore in my wallet.

Okay, let’s say for argument’s sake the bag did belong to Fleet and that Baldy was the thief. Was Baldy’s plan to take Fleet’s bag and leave his own? How did Baldy know what was in Fleet’s bag? Did Fleet tell Baldy that he had valuable stamps in his gym bag or did Baldy just assume that Fleet was carrying the stamp collection in his bag because keeping stamps in your gym bag is totally normal?

Say what you will about this Baldy asshole, at least he didn’t expose his 10-year-old son to naked teenagers.