Sheila and Mortimer walked over to a cafe down the street from their motel and had what Sheila called "The Iowa Special": pork chops with baked potatoes and corn on the cob. When Mortimer suggested apple crunch bars for dessert, Sheila declined and said that tomorrow they'd have to find whatever might pass for Chinese in Des Moines.

Back at the motel, they started to discuss the day's events.

"The big question," Mortimer put forth, is why would anyone murder a checker player?"

"It's happened before," Sheila replied. "But this is hardly the same, and a different question is why commit the crime right out in the open when there's such a high chance of getting caught? Why not pick a better time and place?"

"Unless it's a complete psycho. But that type would charge in with some kind of automatic weapon and just shoot up the place, right?" Mortimer said.

Sheila shivered at the thought. "Well, maybe. I think there's more to this. But you heard the Chief of Police. He doesn't want us involved in any way. Besides it's not an FBI matter ... and I'm not a Special Agent either."

Mortimer half grinned. "C'mon, Sheila, you know you want to figure this one out."

"I know you do, Mort!"

"Hey, I was in the line of fire, kinda. I mean, I was up there in the play area ... "

"Quite a few rows back as I recall," Sheila said. "Hey, look, I'm grateful, if you were winning the tournament you would have been up front and it might have been you ... "

"Wait a minute, Sheila! You just gave me an idea!"

Sheila shook her head and groaned. "Heaven spare us from your ideas," she said. "Okay, what?"

"What if it wasn't just a random shooting?"

"It might have been, it might not have been. What does that tell us?"

"It gives us a place to start."

"How?"

"Well," Mortimer continued, "we can look into this Bob Pace guy and see if we find anything interesting. The other thing we can do is go over all those photos we took before we got kicked out."

"If we find anything, we aren't going to be able to get back in there without probably getting arrested ourselves," Sheila said. "But ... oh, okay. We can have a look. Let's upload our photos into our laptops and we'll start going through them. In the morning, with some coffee? It's already 9 o'clock and I think everyone around here goes to sleep at this hour."

"Can't we just ... okay, in the morning then."

They went to Pancake House and had another "Iowa Special": pancakes with sausage patties. Then they filled up a large thermos with fresh coffee and went back to the motel room.

Sheila and Mortimer each started up their laptops. A couple of hours passed as they paged through dozens and dozens of photos. Every time a photo contained a checkerboard, Mortimer would stop to examine the position.

"Hey, here's something," he said to Sheila. They were sitting on opposite sides of one of those small motel room tables that you always seem to find between the bed and the heating and cooling unit.

"What, honey?" Sheila asked, getting out of her chair and coming around to the other side of the table. Instead of looking at the crime scene photos, Mortimer was on an internet checker site looking at The Checker Fan's Problem of the Week.

"See, now if the next move is this ... "

"Oh, Mort! Stay on task, will you?" Sheila gave him a tap on the top of his head. "You're supposed to be examining photos, not cruising the web for checker problems!"

Sheila waited until Mortimer switched back to the photo directory, and then resumed her seat. They kept working for another hour, after which Mortimer said, "Look! There really is something here!"

Sheila gave him a wry expression. "It better not be another checker problem!"

"No, no, really! Look!"

When Sheila reached the other side of the table Mortimer was pointing excitedly at a the photo that was on his screen. "Right here, honey, see?"

"Just the wall of the tent," Sheila said, and then peered closer. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yup. Looks like a small hole maybe six feet up, and the edges are a bit charred."

"Like someone ... "

" ... put a gun against the tent wall and fired a shot!" Mortimer concluded. "I didn't notice it at the time because the tent walls weren't really all that clean and I was kind of in a rush what with the police showing up and all."

"Likely the police lab will have found it as well, and they'll be able to do some measurements and so on."

"We can make some estimates from the photo," Mortimer replied, "and ... I'm not so confident that the local police will have noticed, either."

"So we really need to tell them. Otherwise we're withholding evidence," Sheila pointed out.

"You think they'll listen to us?" Mortimer asked.

"No. The Chief made that pretty clear. And me being with the FBI and all, he's even less likely to listen," said Sheila.

A moment passed. "Speak of the devil," said Sheila, looking out the window. A Des Moines police car had just pulled up in front of their motel unit. A burly uniformed officer, accompanied by a shorter man in a suit, got out of the cruiser and went straight up to their door.

The uniformed officer knocked on the door, quite hard. "Police!" he said in a gruff, loud voice.

"Close the laptops," Sheila said to Mortimer, "quick!" Mortimer did as instructed as Sheila opened the door.

"Yes?" she said.

"Des Moines police. I'm Officer Tumah and this is Detective Roger. The detective has questions for you two."

Without being invited, the two men pushed past Sheila and into the motel room.

"You two Sheila Larkspur and Mortimer Holmes?" the detective asked, not bothering with introductions. He sat down on the bed while the uniformed office stood at the now-closed door, his arms crossed and legs spread as if he were on guard.

"Yes," Sheila replied. "How did you know ... "

"Chief remembered your name from your FBI badge," Roger said. "Called FBI in Denver. Got all the dope on you including about this here boyfriend of yours. Found out where you were staying, too. FBI ain't the only ones good at detecting. Turns out you ain't no Special Agent and neither is this boyfriend of yours."

"We never claimed to be. So how can we help you, Detective Rogers."

"Roger," the detective said loudly. "Roger, get it, not Rogers. Only one of me and you sure better be glad of that."

"Well then, Detective Roger, I'll ask again, how can we help you?"

"You two was takin' all sorts of pictures yesterday. I come here to get 'em, so hand 'em over."

"Why would you need our photos?" Sheila asked. "You're good at detecting, you said, surely you'll have no use for anything we could give you."

"Don't go gettin' smart with me, lady, I don't care if you're some FBI hot shot, that don't mean nothing to me. Now, the pictures, I ain't got all day. And hey don't this here wimpy lookin' boyfriend of yours ever say nothing?"

Mortimer, who didn't at all like the way Roger was talking to Sheila, finally spoke up. "Yes, I've got something to say, Detective. Show me your warrant."

"Mort, don't ... " Sheila said, but Mortimer kept on talking.

"No warrant no pictures, get it?"

Roger stood up. "Don't you wise off too, peanut," he said. "Gimme the pictures and shut your trap or I'm takin' you both downtown. Got half a mind to do that anyhow."

"All right," Sheila said. "Let me get the cameras and you can take the memory cards."

"That's more like it," Roger said.

Sheila took the cameras out of a dresser drawer, withdrew the memory cards and handed them to the Detective. "You'll return these, right?"

"Don't count on nothin'," Roger said. "Anyhow you got a fancy FBI salary, you can go out and buy a couple more cards no problem." He laughed. "Well, be seein' ya."

Without saying anything more, he and Officer Tumah left the room, got back in their police cruiser, and drove off.

"What was that all about?" Mortimer asked.

"It was interesting," Sheila said. "They figured out how to find us. Sure, that wasn't too difficult. But don't you see? They wanted our pictures because they know I'm from a major FBI crime lab and probably found some things they missed."

"Why didn't they just ask you what you saw?"

"Because they don't want to look like they're asking for help. So they did this big intimidation thing to get their hands on the photos. As if I couldn't see through it. I also think it was a kind of warning for us to keep our hands off the case."

"And?"

"And," Sheila went on, "now I'm with you, Mort. We're going to figure this one out before they do, aren't we?"

Mortimer smiled. "Yes, dear, we most certainly are."

To Be Continued

---

Sheila insisted that Mortimer stick with the program and not solve checker problems in-between. But certainly you can enjoy today's problem; after all you don't have a murder mystery to solve (at least we hope not). Give it a go, and there's no need for a search warrant for you to click on Read More to view the solution, notes, and run-up.

Solution

Today's problem is titled Making It Look Easy and is by Jim Loy. It was the winner of Bill Salots' Contest 10, April 2013. It derives from the following game.

10-14 22-17 7-10 17-13 3-7 25-22 14-17 21-14 9-25 29-22 11-15 24-20 8-11 28-24 5-9 23-18 4-8 32-28 1-5 24-19 15-24 28-19 9-14 18-9 5-14 27-23 11-15 19-16 12-19 23-16 7-11 16-7 2-11 26-23 15-18 22-15 10-26 30-23 8-12 31-26? forms diagram, colors reversed), F. Tescheleit, Master Play, vol. 3, p.163 v.9A.

From the diagram:

*19 16 (corrects Tescheleit's 22 18, colors reversed), 10-15, *27 23, 15-19 (7-10, *23 18, 15-19, same), *23 18, 7-10, *18 15, 10-14, *15 10---A, 20-24, *10 6, 24-27, *6 1, 27-31, *1 5, 31-26, *5-9, White Wins.

A---Not 15 11, *20-24, 11 7, *24-27, 7 2, *27-31, 2 6, *14-17, 21 14, *31-26, 22 18, *26-22, Drawn.

The Checker Maven again thanks Bill Salot and Jim Loy for providing the problems used in this serialized story.