By Carla Cuthbert
"Kids, we sure could use your help," Sheriff Johnson said. "We have a real mystery on our hands.""Go ahead, sheriff," Lindsey said, fetching her spiral-bound detective notebook.
The sheriff took off his hat. "I'm sure both of you know that our town's beloved librarian, Beatrice Mapplethorpe, was buried last week," he said. "Yesterday, someone"―he paused, wiping the sweat from his forehead ―"some sicko defaced her grave."
"Gosh, what did they do?" Cody and Lindsey cried out in unison.
"They spray-painted 'Here lies a Satan-worshipping whore' on her headstone," the sheriff said, his voice quaking. "That's what they did."
Cody put down his mug of hot chocolate. "Interesting," he said. "Is there any chance Miss Mapplethorpe was, in fact, in the service of the Dark Lord?"
"And also a prostitute?" Lindsey chipped in. "Perhaps a crack-smoking prostitute?"
The sheriff gasped. "No, no. Miss Mapplethorpe was a good, God-fearing woman!"
"Why would she fear God so much?" Cody inquired.
"Good point!" Lindsey exclaimed. "Maybe she felt guilty for all those stupid library fines she gave me!"
"Or maybe she regretted telling my parents about that book on whiskey distillation that I tried to check out!" Cody said.
The sheriff sighed. "Cody and Lindsey," he said, "for a teen mystery-solving duo, you're not helping me very much."
"Oh really?" Lindsey said. "Sheriff, I couldn't help noticing that you wiped your brow with a red handkerchief. Care to explain that?"
Sheriff Johnson could not explain the redness of his handkerchief, much less what that had to do with the defacing of Miss Mapplethorpe's grave. And thus, the mystery only deepened.
(Be sure to read the first of Cody and Lindsey's exciting adventures!)
4 comments:
oh, the red handkerchief... seen it before myself. a harbringer for a sheriff with a lost love and a soft spot for necrophilia if there ever was one.
A violent rebel, I planted a bush of minature roses between my grandparents' headstones, though posted cemetary rules clearly stated that I was to get permission for permanent plantings, which I chose not to do. I defaced my grandparents' graves.
You may be saying that a rose is beautiful or that what I did wouldn't be called "defacing," to which I would reply: THAT'S JUST MY POINT, FRIEND! For we must define the word d-e-f-a-c-e and what it might mean outside our individual realms of knowledge.
I submit that Mistress Mapplethorpe, innocent librarian, was a bondage freak and flesh-devouring maven of pain. Her memory lives on in part due to the loving tending of her grave by a man-child in a diaper, with whip marks on his back and stilletto heel bruises on his nutsack. Defacing, indeed.
Five bucks says the sheriff's red handkerchief was part of his ball-gag. Fellow respondent Sam Wilson is spot-on with his analysis.
Both you gentlemen sound like Scorpios who have problems with authority.
if there is one problem with authority hugh and i share, its undoubtedly with those dogs at the international cemetary commission.
the first time i found myself in their sights was when i too was accused of "defacement". sure, i danced on grandfather wilson's plot. who hasn't? but apparently the fact that i did it during the funeral, naked and lubed up in ky jelly was just too much for those bastards at the i.c.c.
by god, i haven't seen so many black robed men chasing after a naked, lubed up boy since the last time i was at mass.
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