Riverside's Perfect Murder

Clue's

Ollie and Rita carefully stepped over papers, broken lamps, and desk drawers. The bookshelf was tipped over and the books scattered across the floor. The couch cushions looked like they were in a knife fight and lost. Stuffing pulled out and tossed.

Ollie studied the scene on his way to the kitchen, and Rita did the same on her way to the bedroom.

Rita was trying not to step on the glass, but every step crunched under her feet. On the floor near the broken bedroom mirror was a photo. Rita stooped to pick it up. It was a photo of Nick and Rita when they were kids. Rita smiled a sad smile. She remembered that day. She turned the picture over. "Ollie. I think I found something."

Ollie came carefully into the bedroom and stood next to Rita. Ollie looked at the photo. "Is that you and Nick?"

"Yes. We went to the park swimming that day. It was a hot summer, and that day was brutal. Nick and I took off in the morning and went swimming. On the way back we ran into some friends, and one of them had a Polaroid camera. He took this picture. Adam was his name.

"We caught hell that day. We had skipped out on our chores."

"That is nice but..."

Shaking her head. "No, see on the back, Nick wrote this," Rita said.

The Yellow Night had forty-eight children.

"No, you don't understand. This is a clue for me. I am meant to find this." Rita sounded excited.

"What kind of riddle is that?"

"Yes."

"Well, I am impressed."

"We did this a lot as children. Hide presents, to be found only through clues." Rita opened the book to page forty-eight. "Here, on the bottom near the spine."

tilted windmills, Sancho at his side died in the age of his birth

"Ok. I get the reference to Don Quixote, windmills and Sancho, but what is the rest."

"Ollie can you find the book while I think a minute. The book was originally published in the sixteen hundreds in two parts. That's too vague to work with."

"Here it is. Wow, this is old. Copywrite Nineteen-twenty-two," Ollie said.

"OK. Nineteen-twenty-two drop the one, try page Nine-twenty-two."

"No, only eight-hundred plus pages."

"OK. Drop the last two, try page one-ninety-two."

"Bingo. Here." Ollie handed the book to Rita. "There near the spine."

Ruddy bluddy Kippy snippy and a Jungle Too

Ollie watched in fascination as Rita's brain struggled with this puzzle.

"All right. Important words are Ruddy, Kippy, Jungle, and Too. Too is probably two. So, Jungle Two. Of course. Ruddy, Rudyard Kipling, wrote Jungle Book and Second Jungle Book. See if you can find a book called The Two Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling."

"Here it is. Copywrite..."

"No. That won't work here. It's late eighteen hundred with various Copywrite dates. We used this once before as kids. There is a poem. Camp animals. No. Beasts parade. Together. Shit, why can't I think what the poem is called?"

"I am seriously impressed you got this far. Give yourself a break."

"My brother may not have a break," Rita snapped. "Sorry.