Just a typical Monday off, which was spent by Johanna Smith, a 17 year old girl at Tanger Outlets, one of her favorite places to shop, I mean, Starbucks, American Eagle, Nike, and so much more! Why wouldn’t she spend her day off there? I mean what could happen?
The only thing that was a little bit different was her jewelry that day. She wore her very special red ruby locket. It was a family heirloom and it meant a lot to her. It was given to her by her mom, who received it from her mom, etc. She decided she would wear the necklace because it was a beautiful day, and why not? I mean it matched her shoes perfectly!
3 of her friends accompanied her to the mall that day, Bindy, Val, and Noemi. They
all had great style, so if Jo was going to be buying clothes today, these girls were going to be there with her.
Her and her friends went into H and M, one of her favorite stores. She picked out a couple cute tops and skirts to try on in the fitting room. The necklace didn’t match the outfit she wanted to show her friends, so she left it on the shelf in the fitting room. The outfit took a long time to get on, but after Jo got the outfit on, she came out to show her friends. Bindy had quickly left to go to the bathroom, but almost right after Jo came out, she was right there ready to critique the outfit. Her friends had many things to say about the outfit, pretty much all the comments were telling her that she should purchase the the outfit. Her friends spent most of their time telling her that the price was great, and they thought it looked great on her! Jo finally agreed to buy the outfit, but when she came back into the fitting room, she realised something, something that provoked her to scream at the top her her lungs.“The necklace! It’s..It’s..Gone!!!”
“What do you mean?” worried Val
“I put my necklace in the fitting room,” Jo started to explain, “then after I showed you guys that outfit, I came back in here and the necklace was gone!”
“It was a crappy piece of jewelry anyways.” murmured Bindy.
“What was that?” Jo asked.
“Nothing” replied Bindy, she knew she probably shouldn’t had said that.
“Well what do I do now?” worried Jo.
“You could hire a detective, my ex-husband Detective Sam Parker is a pretty decent detective, and I have his number if you want to contact him.” said Noemi.
“That’d be great! Thank you!” replied Jo.
The next day, Detective Sam Parker was asking Abby some questions, just to he got a clear view of the case.
“It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, birds were chirping, it was lovely, so I thought that it would be a great day to wear my red ruby necklace. So Bindy, Noemi, Val and I went into H and M, one of my favorite stores at the mall, I picked out an outfit to try on, so we all headed to the dressing room, the necklace didn’t go with the outfit, so I took it off and I set it on the shelf in the dressing room, then I came out to show my friends the outfit, it didn’t take very long, probably about 3 or 4 minutes to convince me to buy it, but when I came back into the dressing room the necklace was gone!”
“Thank you.” replied the detective, “besides you and your friends, there were only 3 other people in the store besides the cashier, I have actually set up interviews with all of them, so if you will excuse me, I need to go get to those interviews.”
First up he interviewed her friends.
“I have good news for two of you, but bad news for the other one. We actually found a hair on the shelf in the dressing room, and since you guys all have different hair colors, two of you are innocent.”
“Who are they?” asked Bindi, hoping she was innocent.
“Well the hair was brown, so Val, Noemi, you’re free to go, but Bindi, I’m afraid I will need to ask you some more questions.”
Val and Noemi left, but Bindi sat there, sweating so much she could hardly talk.
“When Jo was in the dressing room, you left, but where did you go?” questioned the detective.
“I went to the bathroom, before that me and the girls had gone to Starbucks, and that molten chocolate frappuccino, or was it a molten chocolate latte, anyways it just went right through me.” answered Bindi, still sweating.
“Have you ever had a reason to be jealous of Jo?” asked the detective,
“Well she did beat me in the presidential elections in Middle School, but that’s in the past. But really, what reason did she have to participate? I was more liked by the entire grade, and had way better grades than her, I still think that teacher told us to vote, and then she really chose the president, oh if I could go back to that day, I would find out what really happened, I bet she bribed the teacher, with all the money her parents had, she probably did!” replied Bindi.
“Well thank you Miss, you may leave now.” the detective told Bindi.
“Thank you.” replied Bindi, and with that, she left.
Jake Onstott was the next suspect to enter the detective’s office. The detective started,
“Did you ever enter the fitting rooms when you were in H and M?”
“No I was just inside protecting myself from the rain, I had just purchased new Sperrys from the Sperry store just down the path, and I didn’t want them to be wet right after wearing them.”
“But Sir, their boating shoes, they can get wet.”
“Oh right, they were, um, sorry Pink Yoga pants for my girlfriend, she loves Pink.”
“Okay, did you even know Jo? Like did you guys have some sort of relationship?”
“No” replied Jake, “I don’t even recognize the name.”
“Thank you Sir, you may leave now” said the detective
The last two suspects to enter were Owen and Raleigh. They were a couple who were also in that store.
“For what reason were you guys in the store?” asked the detective.
“Oh,” started Raleigh, “he was just buying me some new clothes, like any great boyfriend would do.”
“Does this happen often?” asked the detective.
”No, his family doesn’t have a lot of money, but I was very glad to hear that he was going to take me shopping.”
“Owen,”started the detective “have you ever been in relationships with any other girls?”
“Well, in Middle School I did date this one girl named Johanna Smith, she was gorgeous, but I hear that now she’s off dating somebody else, I wonder what ever happened to her…”
Raleigh quickly joined the conversation,
“But you didn’t love her more than you love me right!”
“Of course not!” replied Owen. “I will always love you no matter what.”
“Okay, thank you, you two, you are free to leave.”
After the interviews detective Sam Parker had figured out who did it? Did you?
Solution:
Bindi was innocent. Yes she was very jealous of Jo, but that’s just because she still was mad at her for beating her in the presidential elections all the way back in Middle School. She did leave, but she actually had gone to the bathroom, they really did stop at Starbucks, and she really did get a mocha frappuccino, she just gets frappe and latte mixed up, and she sweats when she gets nervous. When she was getting interviewed, she was very nervous, she didn’t want to say the wrong thing and then be put in jail because of it.
Owen and Raleigh were innocent, his family didn’t have a lot of money, but he had recently gotten a new job, so since Raleigh didn’t have much money either, he decided it would be nice and be a great boyfriend and buy her a new outfit. H and M doesn’t cost much, so he thought that would be the perfect place to shop. He did date Johanna Smith in Middle School, but really didn’t know what happened to her, and had no clue that she was the victim of the crime, he never was or has been the brightest kid in school after all.
Jake was the real culprit. He wasn’t hiding in H and M, it was a beautiful day outside, he was in there to make sure that other people would be in there so that he wouldn’t be a huge suspect. Another thing, the store Pink isn’t even in Tanger Outlets, and about his girlfriend, Jake was making that up, he hoping that the detective would be dumb enough to buy his lie. And he was right about not knowing who Jo was, but he did have an exact idea of what the jewel looked like, and where it would be at what time. But don’t worry, Jake was arrested, and put on trial, they ruled that he was guilty, so he had two days before he was going to be taken to jail, every thing was going to turn out well, well that’s what everybody thought, then this happened…
Before Jake got to jail, he got a call, it wasn’t one of his contacts, but he knew exactly who it was….
“We did it!” the voice said, “right now I am on a plane to London, England to exchange that priceless jewel for the millions dollars it was worth. After 3 days, I will come back, break you out of jail, and give you your half, then I will have prepared fake identities for us. We will leave our phones in the United States so that we won’t be able to be tracked, fly to Rome, Italy, then travel by train to Venice, where we will fly to Luxembourg, where we will live among the rich for the rest of our lives.”
“Sounds great,” replied Jake, “I can’t believe our plan actually worked, and you don’t have to call me Jake anymore, just call me by my real name, Victor Jewels.”