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English
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Fic In A Box 2023
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Published:
2023-12-03
Completed:
2023-12-03
Words:
1,284
Chapters:
3/3
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10
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39
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The Mystifying Case of the Murdered Cafe Owner

Summary:

Deductive Logico suspected that something had gone amiss at Kershaw's Coffee Shop the moment he arrived.

Murdle, 3x3, easy.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

The Mystifying case of the Murdered Cafe Owner

February 14, 2024

Deductive Logico suspected that something had gone amiss at Kershaw's Coffee Shop the moment he arrived. Inspector Irratino had invited him around for a drink and a chat over lunch, which he had of course accepted despite the short notice. Yet, when he arrived at the cafe a scant few minutes after hanging up the phone, the Inspector was nowhere to be found. Nor, in fact, was there anyone to be seen behind the counter, though a young man with a delivery bag was waiting impatiently in front of it, checking his watch as if he had been there for some time already. Just as the delivery boy reached out to ding the bell for service, a scream from the kitchen shattered the soft jazz playing quietly from the cafe speakers. Logico rushed back at once, only to find a body sprawled face-down on the floor, white hair and cafe uniform stained with blood. Over it stood a young lady in a flour-marked apron, her hands clasped over her mouth in horror.

"What's this?" Irratino's familiar voice said suddenly from behind him.

"Murder," Logico said.

Cards

🔎
🔎
🔎

Suspects

Deductive Logico quickly analyzed the scene of the crime. The back door to the alleyway had been locked tight from inside and the body was still warm. Thus, he concluded that there were only three possible suspects: the delivery boy who had been waiting when he entered, the baker who had called his attention to the body, and-- cold logic forced him to include the name-- Inspector Irratino.

🚲

Jake Ryder

🥐

Fiona Elm

🔮

Inspector Irratino

Inspect the Cards

Deductive Logico took a deep breath, focused his mind, and began to interview the suspects.

🚲

Jake Ryder

A bicycle courier who was alone in the shop waiting for an order. His own order or a delivery? Why do you ask? Who do you think you are, the cops? Oh.

Wears a delivery uniform

🥐

Fiona Elm

The baker who apparently makes- or made- all the baked in-house desserts at Kershaw's Cafe. The rhubarb tarts were especially fantastic.

Wears a cafe uniform

🔮

Inspector Irratino

Master of Marot, channeler of the unconscious mind, diviner of the depths of the human psyche, handsome and infuriating. Somehow always knows too much.

Wears a handsome suit

Weapons

After a brief search of the cafe, Deductive Logico identified three possible murder weapons. All of them looked to have been cleaned recently, so his job wouldn't be easy.

🍳

Baking Pan

🔧

Wrench

🪑

Chair

Inspect the Cards

Logico added the following information about each possible weapon to his notebook:

🍳

Baking Pan

A large frying pan. When asked, Fiona said that it's used to make Dutch babies, a large baked pancake that she had been planning on adding to the menu soon for the breakfast crowd.

Cast iron • 12 inches wide

🔧

Wrench

A large wrench, useful for tightening lug nuts, working with plumbing or pipes, performing percussive maintenance, and the like.

Stainless steel • 2 inches wide

🪑

Chair

A simple, well-worn chair that looks like it has seen far better days. The legs are a bit wobbly and poorly attached and the seat is scratched up.

Wood • Legs 2 inches wide • Seat 24 inches wide

Locations

Deductive Logico immediately ruled out the main shop area as a possible location for the murder: there were simply too many windows, making a crime too risky; anything that happened within could have been easily seen from the street by any number of passersby. Investigation of the back half of the cafe revealed only three locations where the crime could have taken place: the kitchen, the storage room, and the hallway. The bathroom, where Inspector Irratino claims to have been, was so small that only one person could possibly fit inside, rendering a murder there quite impossible.

☕

Kitchen

📦

Storage Room

🚪

Hallway

Inspect the cards

It didn't take long for Deductive Logico to note down the important facts about each location.

☕

Kitchen

The kitchen is where all of Fiona's baking magic happens. The counters are covered in a fine spray of flour and a lump of dough lies forgotten on a mat.

Dusty

📦

Storage Room

Deductive Logico sneezed violently at the dust in the corners of the storage room when he entered to investigate. "Sorry," Fiona said. "There's too many boxes in there to clean it properly."

Dusty

🚪

Hallway

The hallway that connects the kitchen, storage rooms, bathroom, and dining area is neat, tidy, and free of obstruction. If Logico had been a safety inspector rather than a deductive, he could have happily given it a passing grade!

Clean

Evidence

The facts, as Deductive Logico saw them, were simple enough to sum up.

• Each suspect wearing a uniform is covered in dust of some sort.
• Jake's delivery bag is too wide to fit into the narrow opening of the storage room, and so is the old chair.
• After a dream he had some time ago, Inspector Irratino prefers not to handle cold iron on Wednesdays.
• There is a two inch wide gouge in the fresh floor wax in the hallway that must have been made by one of the weapons.
• Fiona hasn't had time to touch her baking pan yet today.
• A wooden splinter was found tangled in the body's hair.

After organizing his thoughts, Deductive Logico turned to his handy notebook and immediately began to work out the solution to the crime.

NOTEBOOK

Work along with Deductive Logico in your own notebook, or in an online version here.

* 🚲 🥐 🔮 ☕ 📦 🚪
🍳
🔧
🪑
☕
📦
🚪


Get a hint from Inspector Irratino, or solve the case?

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Ask for a Hint?

Reluctantly, Deductive Logico turned to Inspector Irratino for assistance. He couldn't bring himself to say the words aloud, but Irratino knew the facts of Logico's mind as well as he knew the myths of the unconscious collective and understood his difficulties at a glance.

🔮

Ask for a hint

Inspector Irratino raised an elegant eyebrow and consulted the leaves in his cup, seemingly utterly unfazed that they were contained within a tea bag. After a moment's thought, he looked back up at Deductive Logico and confidently pronounced:

🔮

The spirits whisper to me that the person in the storage room was trying to fix the air conditioning pipes...

With this new clue in mind, Deductive Logico returned to the scene of the murder.

Back to the notebook, or forward to the resolution?

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

RESOLUTION

Inspector Irratino killed the victim in the hallway with the broken chair.

Deductive Logico double-checked his conclusion. He did it again, a second time, a third. Logically, it was faultless; given all the evidence, which he had made sure was accurate before he began his process, there were no other possible solutions. And yet-- everything within him screamed that he must have made a mistake somehow, that his reasoning had led him to the wrong destination. It simply could not be true.

When he looked up from his notebook, Inspector Irratino was standing before him, enigmatically sipping at a fresh cup of tea. "I see you have reached a conclusion," he said.

"Good!" said a voice from behind Deductive Logico. He spun about to find Ms. Kershaw quite alive and wiping fake blood from her hair with a bedraggled tea towel. "It's almost time for the lunch rush, and much as I like you, Irratino, dear, we need to get back to work!"

"What?" Deductive Logico said, too stunned to say anything else.

A hand descended on his shoulder, nearly sending him jumping out of his skin. "You hadn't had a case in a while, and you were beginning to look a bit glum," said Inspector Irratino. "But I knew you'd deduce it far too quickly if I was the victim again."

♔♞♗♞♕♚♘♝♖♝♗♛♘♜

Notes:

Thanks to Grayswandir for the user skin and tutorial!