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    Jake's Monthly- Locked-Room Mystery Anthology
    Jake's Monthly- Locked-Room Mystery Anthology
    Jake's Monthly- Locked-Room Mystery Anthology
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    Jake's Monthly- Locked-Room Mystery Anthology

    By Jake Johnson

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    About this ebook

    Welcome to Jake's Monthly. This look at the weirdest and best genres out there has taken us to Locked-Room Mysteries- Mystery fiction where the crime is specifically impossible.

    These stories are largely contemporary with a bit of Western flair. Some of them are incredibly immersing and others are opportunities for a shrewd reader to solve the mystery before the investigator.

    So, welcome. Take a seat.

    We hope you enjoy your stay.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJake Johnson
    Release dateApr 8, 2012
    ISBN9781476106304
    Jake's Monthly- Locked-Room Mystery Anthology
    Author

    Jake Johnson

    A seventeen-year-old freelance writer and professional editor, Jake J. Johnson is not using a pseudonym. Starting to read at any early age, he built up college-level reading comprehension on a steady diet of imaginative SF and horror before entering high school. It was around this time that he discovered a talent for writing, and, shortly thereafter, another for editing. He is rather disenchanted by novels which appear in English curricula, and much prefers newer, original stories created using recent media. For example, the interactive stories told through the video games “The Stanley Parable” and “Dear Esther”, the concept of the “light novel”, and the community-told story of “The Fear Mythos”. He much prefers looking to the future to studying the past. His favorite novel is both Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” and Lawrence Miles' "This Town Will Never Let Us Go", and his favorite short story is Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question”. His ultimate goal is to become an anthology and manuscript editor at ACE, ROC, TOR, or DAW. For now, he's content with gaining a hold on the world of publishing.

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      Book preview

      Jake's Monthly- Locked-Room Mystery Anthology - Jake Johnson

      Jake’s Monthly

      (Part 7)

      Locked-Room Mystery Anthology

      Edited by Jake Johnson

      ***

      Table of Contents

      Copyright Page

      Preface

      Murder Step by Step by John H. Dromey

      Rabid Revenge by Matthew Wilson

      Silas Tully’s Last Case by Tom Sheehan

      High Stakes by John H. Dromey

      Spurge Wickett’s Murder Case by Tom Sheehan

      Homer’s Quilt, or the Rocking Chair Detective by John H. Dromey

      Next Time

      About the Editor

      ***

      Copyright Page

      Published by Jake’s Monthly on Smashwords.

      All featured authors now receive their reprint rights.

      ***

      Preface

      Welcome to Jake’s Monthly’s seventh volume. This project has succeeded in taking a look at some of the best and weirdest genres in fiction, and we’re not done yet! With five collections left, who knows what gems we’ll uncover?

      Anyway, the current genre is Locked-Room Mystery, also known as Locked-Door Mystery- a special type of mystery where the crime is completely impossible. Or, at least, it seems to be. Closer inspection reveals a clever solution, one which an enterprising reader may or may not be able to guess ahead of it.

      While I’d usually include a briefing giving some basic information on each of these stories, I feel that this would diminish the mystery.

      We hope you enjoy your stay.

      ***

      Murder Step by Step

      By John H. Dromey

      Although an anchor business at the mall, Brenner’s was an old-fashioned department store in many ways. Collectively, the board of directors firmly believed there was no substitute for hiring the right man, or woman, for the job. The friendly clerks were there to help the customer, and the customer was always right. During business hours, phone calls were answered by real, live persons. State-of-the-art electronic security was supplemented by the highly-visible presence of a floorwalker during the day and by an armed watchman after hours. That last precaution was redundant in many ways since the place was locked up tighter than a drum as soon as the sales staff left for the day. There were no snakes in the jewelry cases and likewise no vicious canines prowling the empty store at night.

      Randolph Crandall was the right man for the post of store detective. Recently graduated from a military prep school, he was both disciplined and very much dedicated to doing a good job. The distinctive tap, tap of his spit-polished leather shoes on the tile floors presaged his arrival. Although Brenner’s store occupied both stories of a large building, Randy had an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. For that reason, he seemed to be everywhere at once. Rumor had it he was psychic.

      Shoplifters stayed away in droves. Employee theft first slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely after the dismissal of a summer hire for trying to smuggle out a briefcase full of gizmos and gadgets from the computer department.

      Randy read the local newspaper online the following day, but failed to find any mention of the dismissal. He went to his superior.

      The man should be prosecuted, Randy said. He felt entitled to that opinion, since he was the one who’d caught the culprit.

      That’s not store policy for a first offense, Mr. Byrnes told him.

      Byrnes made a show of holding his left hand and arm over the keyboard to block from view the index finger of his right hand as he entered a long string of data.

      I just used my universal password to get into the company’s employee files.

      He leaned forward and squinted at the screen.

      I was right, Byrnes said, the man had a clear record. I’ll take the items he gathered up home with me as ‘evidence,’ just in case there’s a need for them later on, but in the meantime we don’t want any bad publicity from a high-profile prosecution.

      A lenient attitude toward bad conduct on the part of workers was news to Randy, who’d read the employee’s handbook from cover to cover. He took his concerns to the chairman of the board.

      I want you to keep this strictly confidential, but those particular items could have been used to disable the store’s electronic surveillance system from the outside, Randy said.

      To what end?

      Burglary on a grand scale, I suspect. To succeed, of course, the night watchman would have had to be neutralized somehow.

      The chairman was a blabbermouth. Word of Randy’s vindictive attitude got out and about and spread quickly. His stance on crime became an open secret among the other employees. There was a backlash.

      Who’ll be the next to go? was the question of the hour. Give him enough time and he’ll get us all fired on some trumped-up charge.

      Whenever the target of their malicious gossip was out of earshot, his story was told in whispers, spreading like a toxic oil slick from one employee to another. Since nobody seemed to know any specific details about the store detective’s life outside of business hours, most of the stories were complete fabrications. Tales of alien abduction during Randy’s youth could be dismissed out of hand, despite a prominent

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