The fun and games killer

“It's all fun and games until someone gets murdered,” he reads on a letter inside an evidence bag, “what the heck is this? Not another body, I am getting sick and tired of this!”

“Yep.” Charles Parker says looking up from playing solitaire on his computer.

“When did this happen?” George Parker screams.

“Don’t you watch the news!” his brother Charles yells at him from another desk.

“They are having a briefing in five minutes in the conference room,” Barbara Mattel the new precinct secretary informs them both as she slinks by in her skintight skirt and enough cleavage to make a grown man cry.

The Parker brothers have been the detectives on the Fun and Games killer since the first body dropped six months ago at Hasbro Park downtown. Since then, we have been able to connect four more bodies found in or near the chutes and ladders in the playground area. Moments later The chief takes the podium and gives out the details of the murders as he knows it, he seems to have reached the pinnacle of his aggravation. Everyone in the room knows crimes are solved in the pursuit of knowledge that turns into evidence, not a trivial pursuit, but a crucial one. He discusses the Risk involved and the clues we must follow to gain dominion over this sick twisted individual that would kill in such a manner. When the Chief is finished, he gives out assignments, we are going to set a mouse trap and catch this killer once and for all. Detectives are placed undercover on all the streets surrounding Hasbro Park, Mediterranean, Michigan, Vermont, and Baltic avenues. The pieces will be set and hopefully, we will not be sorry or troubled for our little game of chess. The Parker brothers have been asked to sit uptown near Park Place, to protect the Boardwalk where the battleship Uno is docked nearby. The chief pulls the brothers aside after the meeting and tells them about a witness who came forward. The problem he said is that the last victim was the only sketch artist for the entire city, and he wanted us to sit in with him and help with the witness before we went out on assignment.

I ordered some Chinese food from the restaurant next door with the weird name, Checkers. When the food was delivered Mrs. Yahtzee brought the food personally because her delivery drivers were too scared to work with a killer on the loose. I reassured her that we are putting the pieces together and will soon have the killer in custody, once we connect that fourth piece, is when we usually have a clear idea of who did it. She left feeling better, so, I took the food into the chief’s office where he had a large paper notebook set up on an easel and the witness standing next to it. The witness an illiterate deaf-mute, so we spent the next half hour trying to figure out what she was drawing and piece together what she had seen.

“I need a dictionary to understand what she is trying to say!” The chief exclaims.

“No! We need a pictionary to understand those drawings.” George jokes.

At first, it was boggling our minds, everything she drew was so scrambled but in the end, this mystery mansion of drawings came together as a masterpiece. We finally had the best Clue we have had so far, and we were eager to explore it and see if it produced any fruit. We left the precinct and checked out what she said she saw, apparently there was this woman Shelly who was selling seashells down by the seashore. She said she saw something but was selfish, insincere and scatterbrained. She said she was sorry but probably shouldn’t help. So, we were on to the next clue a guy by the name of Peter Piper.

“What kind of a name is Peter Piper?” George asks.

“Peculiar.”

“What did he do?” George asks.

“Apparently he picked a peck of pickled peppers,” Charles replied.

“A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked, Huh?” George repeated.

“If Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled peppers, where is the heck is the peck of Pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?” Charles pondered.

“In a professional packing plant, I am positive.” George pondered.

After checking the clues that the witness gave them, they settled in for the day to keep watch over Park Place and Broadway. As stakeouts go, they ate a lot of junk food, they were hungry, hungry hippos. That is what George’s daughter calls them at family dinners. They watched and watched, they were tired and sleepy it was hard to sit there in the middle of all these rich people, acting like they had a monopoly on being snobby. Then the call came over the radio, “Be on the lookout for an older man with a white mustache dressed in a tux and tails, red bow tie, and top hat holding a cane with a dollar sign on top. He drives a race car, and during the chase, he lost a boot.”

“He got away from them he must be very thimble,” George says.

“You mean nimble?” Charles asks correcting his brother.

“Yes, that’s it! Let’s get this guy!” George says and they drive away.

The detective brothers Parker raced down Baltic Avenue and soon caught up with the others in pursuit of the man in the race car wearing a top hat. It was a race down Tennessee Avenue headed for the way out of town, past Virginia Avenue, and over the tracks at the Reading railroad yard. If he makes it, he will be on the wrong side of the tracks, the seedy side of the city that has given him so much.

“This man is in big trouble,” George says as he tries to bump into the race car and make him crash.

“He is going to be sorry for what he has done, I will make sure of it!” Charles yells excitedly, the chase pumping adrenaline through his veins.

“Why would he do this? What did he have to gain from all of this?” George asks.

After a moment of reflection, the only answer he can produce is the simple truth.

“He thinks it is a game!” Charles exclaims.

As they come around the corner by the electric company they see the tracks ahead at Reading railroads yard, a train blocking his escape. George slams on the brakes and stops in time but the man in the top hat slams into the train and dies. From the flames a top hat rolls in circles before coming to rest in front of the brother’s car.

“It’s a sad ending to a tragic story, huh George?”

“In the game of life this is what happens when you commit a crime in Candyland…”