Team LaDow Fun Friday: The Suspect Lineup
Four fictional characters. One stolen book. You decide who did it.
Welcome to the Suspect Lineup — a brand new Fun Friday feature here at Laugh, Love, LaDow.
If you've been following along, you know I've been deep in drafting my second mystery. Somewhere between plotting a lighthouse confrontation and deciding exactly how guilty someone should look while being completely innocent, I thought: the Team LaDow would be very good at this. So here we are.
Here’s how it works: I give you a crime, four suspects, and exactly enough information to be dangerously confident in your theory. You vote in the poll, you defend your reasoning in the comments, and we all get to feel like we’re very good at this.
There is no wrong answer. There is only the suspect you can’t stop thinking about.
This week’s crime is a serious one.
THE CRIME
Sometime between closing time on Thursday and the library’s Friday morning staff meeting, a first edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque disappeared from the locked rare books room at Oceanside Public Library. The case was locked. The room was locked. The only people with keys were staff, and one very insistent after-hours visitor who claimed to be just browsing.
Four people were in or near the library that evening
One of them did it.
THE SUSPECTS
SUSPECT #1: ELIZABETH BENNET
Occupation: Gentleman’s daughter, noted reader, currently between suitors
Last known location: The reading room, third armchair from the left, until precisely 7:42 p.m.
Alibi: Claims she was writing letters. Refuses to say to whom.
Known motive: Has strong opinions about what belongs in whose hands. Has been known to act on principle in ways that inconvenience everyone, including herself.
Suspicious detail: Her bookmark was found on the floor of the rare books room. She says she has no idea how it got there. She does not seem particularly troubled by this.
SUSPECT #2: HANNIBAL LECTER
Occupation: Retired psychiatrist, enthusiastic dinner host
Last known location: The periodicals section, where he spent forty minutes with an 1891 shipping manifest but did not check it out
Alibi: “I was simply appreciating the architecture.”
Known motive: Collects rare things. Has a complicated relationship with the concept of ownership. Finds Poe’s work “pedestrian but inspirational.”
Suspicious detail: The librarian on duty reports that he complimented her perfume, and she has been unsettled ever since. Also, the rare books room smelled faintly of expensive cologne when it was opened the next morning.
SUSPECT #3: ANNE SHIRLEY
Occupation: Schoolteacher, aspiring writer, catastrophist
Last known location: The poetry section, where she was observed whispering lines to herself and crying a little
Alibi: Says she lost track of time and didn’t realize the library had closed. This is entirely plausible.
Known motive: Has a romantic and deeply personal relationship with books, particularly those she cannot have. Has been known to make impulsive decisions, which she later says “a kindred spirit would understand.”
Suspicious detail: She told the librarian the Poe collection deserved to be “somewhere it would truly be appreciated.” When asked what she meant, she said “nothing” and looked out the window for an uncomfortably long time.
SUSPECT #4: JAY GATSBY
Occupation: Entrepreneur (details vague), party host, romantic
Last known location: Standing in the car park looking at the library for an unusually long time before entering
Alibi: Says he was meeting someone. That someone has not been identified.
Known motive: Collects first editions as props for a life he is constructing. Has been known to acquire things through channels that do not involve asking.
Suspicious detail: A single white rose was found near the rare books display case. No one put it there. No one saw him near the case. He owns a greenhouse.
WHO DID IT?
Cast your vote below, then get to the comments and make your case. Circumstantial evidence is welcome. Wild theories encouraged.
xo, MJ