Furry Friday Mysteries: Part 3 - The crime is discovered, but will Harlow catch her suspect?

If you missed part two, click here.

Harlow knew she was closing in on Slim, but still had found no sign of Monty Moriarty.  As in her Uncle's time, she knew that Moriarty would prove to be a most formidable foe and had escaped several times.  She hoped that by  capturing Slim and uncovering their plot she would her finally put Moriarty behind bars.

"Da Momma," she said,"why do you suppose they are flooding the market with counterfeits bills?"

I had no answer for her and we spent the next several hours throwing around ideas.  The only thing we could think of was that perhaps they wanted to devalue something they were interested in buying.

"...but what?" Harlow asked, gazing blankly out the window.

She showed incredible dedication to solving this mystery.

We sat in silence for a while, and then, her mind working in the same genius way her Uncle's had, Harlow looked at me and smiled.

Her grin was sheepish.

"It's fruit, da Momma.  Washington state is known for fruit.  They must want to flood the market with counterfeit bills to force inflation high and make folks leave, and then they'll buy all the fields and corner the market on blackberries and blueberries!"

I was amazed at her logic.  I queried how she had come up with this thought.

"Uncle Sam left a note regarding a vice Monty Moriarty has, an addiction to fruit that has been the driving force behind his past criminal activity."

It was brilliant.  ...but we still did not know how to catch our suspects.

"I fear we may lose Moriarty again," she said.  "Slim however, has been frequenting a burger joint several times a day."  She handed me a photo.  "This grainy surveillance photo shows him there just this morning."

This was definitely the criminal known as Slim!

Despite the fuzzy appearance of the photo, I could tell it was indeed Slim.   I asked what our next step would be.

"We will wait for him, da Momma," she paused briefly on our way to the car, "and arrest him when he arrives."

In a short time we arrived at the restaurant and it did not take long for Slim to appear.  Harlow sprang from the car and yelled, "Slim, you are under arrest!"

We should have known he would not go quietly.  With amazing speed he jumped at Harlow, and a spectacular battle ensued!

Harlow, watch out!

He was definitely not going down easy!

Had Harlow lost?

I'll admit, I feared for Harlow, but she fought our suspect courageously.   In no time at all she subdued him, and we felt secure in our knowledge that one of our suspects would soon be behind bars.

Shifty eyes....

It was only after that she paused to reflect on the day.  "Da Momma," she said thoughtfully, "I fear Slim will not be long in jail before he finds a method to secure his freedom.  This caper will only be over when Monty Moriarty is in jail."

Her face was very serious.

Only later would I realize just how prophetic her words were.

 Join us next Friday for Part 4 of our mystery series!  ;)

Furry Friday Mysteries: Part 2 - An Unexpected Twist....

If you missed part one, click here.

Harlow decided that the first step in solving this mystery would be trying to figure out just who Slim was, and how was he connected to Monty Moriarty.  Sherlock Sam, her famous mystery solving uncle, had discovered that Moriarty had been flooding the market with counterfeit money.  However, he had not been able to deduce why the furry felon had wanted to do so.

A carefully preserved clue.

She retired to the library where she studied the heavy volumes that her dear Uncle had relied on in his day.  She discovered that Slim was well known - but not for the reason she suspected.  Slim, it turns out, was a master of disguise!

"This is startling, da Momma," she confided to me when I joined her later in the study.  She looked out the window, "he could be someone we talk to on a daily basis, and we would not know it."

A moment of clarity, perhaps?

I agreed with her and asked her how she wanted to proceed.  I was dressed for work and would be leaving shortly.

"Go to work, da Momma," she advised sagely.  "I will spend my morning trying to discover why Moriarty and Slim are in Washington."

With those words I left.  I only know the happenings of the day from what Harlow told me later, only after a startling discovery was made.  I have tried my best to capture the days events.

After I left, Harlow returned to the study to review her notes one more time.  She had hoped to track Slim's movements from the time he had left Arizona to his arrival in Washington.  She had no luck and decided to stop by my office to discuss what she had found, or hadn't found. With a sigh she headed into town, stopping for a puppacino along the way.  She took her change from the barista and carefully tucked it into her collar.

Once she got to my office, she nodded at the ranger at the front desk who was currently helping a gentleman wearing a cap and hoodie.  She had a vague feeling she had seen him before.

Where had da Harlow seen him before?

She picked up a book and  quickly purchased it, making sure to ask for her  change in the same denomination the hooded gentleman had given the ranger.  She turned to look for the gentleman, who she knew now to be Slim in a clever disguise, but found he was already gone.

"What is he doing here?" I asked her later.

She was carefully testing the bills given to her as change from both the barista and the sales clerk in my building, working on an idea that had struck her on the way home.

Her intuition proved correct!

She pondered the question for a bit, and then said, "I don't know, da Momma, but I'm beginning to think our coming here wasn't a coincidence!"

She turned to me, her face pale, her voice serious, "The dollar the barista gave me was counterfeit!  Monty Moriarty has begun his plan - his fake currency is in circulation."

Would Moriarty get away with his fiendish plan?

...and then, even more serious, clutching at the arm of my chair "We must hurry, da Momma, and stop Moriarty and Slim!"

The urgency was clear!

 Join us next Friday for Part 3 of our mystery series!  ;)

Furry Friday Mysteries: Part 1 - In Which a New Detective Appears....

Hello, all our readers!  Join us Fridays for our new featured story - "Furry Friday Mysteries", tales of suspense and mystery!  ...but, before I say too much, let us find out what Princess Harlow has just learned...

Part 1:  In Which a New Detective Appears

It was during the move from Arizona to Washington that Harlow discovered the box of letters left behind in the library, written in the precise handwriting of her dear great-great-uncle, Sherlock Sam (click here to read Sam's adventure).  She had heard great things of her beloved Uncle, a skilled crime solver who was renown all over the world.

The great Sherlock Sam

In her Uncle's paw, she read about the one mystery that he could not solve, and his fear that his nemesis, Monty Moriarty, would continue his evil and nefarious plot to enact the greatest crime ever seen.  Harlow knew this news was most grave indeed.

Dis news is most grave indeed.

As she read further, she found that her Uncle had discovered that Moriarty was working with a new crime kingpin, a pup that was as skilled at crime as Moriarty himself.  He was only known by his nickname, she learned, chiefly that of "Slim".  Two photos fell out of the letter, and Harlow got her first glimpse of Moriarty and Slim.

Slim

Monty Moriarty

She read further and found that Sherlock Sam had been unable to uncover their plot and his note, strangely addressed to Harlow, asked her to pick up where he left off.  She worried that she was not the right pup for this mission.

Iz da Harlow da right pup for dis mission?

She knew that her Uncle would not have asked such a thing of her unless he felt she could handle it. Of  course, her Uncle had had help from his dear Watson, and Harlow knew she'd need help.  She looked at me and inquired if I would be willing to assist....

Would you help, da Momma?

How could I saw no?  I set aside my laptop and together we re-read the letters that the genius detective had left many years ago, and thus setting our course to solve the greatest crime ever known to pup-dom.

*****

Join us next Friday for Part 2 of our mystery series!  ;)