The Girl Detective

Chapter 1- The Childhood of Cindy Cassel

I was born on April 10, 1919. My parents and I lived in a small house. I had an older brother, only he moved away before I was born.
         My father was a very kind and a softhearted man. He always found time to spend with me. Oftentimes he would have to go on business trips, but he was never gone longer than two or three days.
         My mother was very kind like my father. She would praise me when I did well and discipline me when I had done badly. Every Sunday she would make me homemade bread, which was always very delicious. The smell filled the whole room. It was like you were actually eating it, but not.
         When I was six years old I started school. When I was able to read, I read all the time, in particular mystery stories. At the age of eight, I decided I wanted to be a detective. I began solving mysteries like who took my pencil from my desk at school or what happened to my shoes after I took them off when I came home from school. My father and mother didn’t really mind because they thought it would only last for a little while. Then I’d forget all about being a detective. I was twelve when I first got to see my brother. He wasn’t tall and he was not short, he was somewhere in the middle. He had dark hair and eyes. He had been living in Arizona with this wife. This wife was really pretty. My brother, Andrew, stayed for a week and then left. I never saw him after that.





Chapter 2- A New Member in the Family

         On May 26, 1932, my mother gave birth to a baby girl. My father wanted a son but instead he settled on the name, Mary. My mother agreed, so her name was Mary. I was a little jealous at first because most of the attention was set on her. However I tried my hardest to help around the house.
         When Mary started getting older, she was getting very hard to handle. She would hide somewhere if my mom was going to give her a bath. If she got mad at someone, she would let it out on me or the dog, Daisy. Sometimes she would even throw things.
         I dreamed of the day I’d have to babysit for Mary, but the day finally came. It was my mom and dad’s anniversary so they went out to eat. They left at 7 o’ clock. I sat down with Mary after they left and asked her if she would like me to read her a book. Unexpectedly, she said, “Yes.” I sat down and began reading The Three Little Pigs. Before I got through the first sentence she asked if she could go to the bathroom, I stated, “Yes,” as she ran upstairs.
         I heard the toilet flush and then there was silence. I waited ten minutes and then I went upstairs to check on her. I looked in the bathroom and no one was in there. I raced everywhere, checking all over the house; still no one was in there. I quickly ran to the telephone, almost stumbling onto the floor after tripping on a pair to shoes, to call a few neighbors to find out if they have seen her recently. She could have run outside, I said to myself trying to hold in my tears.
         Not one of the people I called had seen her. I ran outside and looked around screaming her name, but no one answered. I came inside and went to the kitchen. The cookie jar had been raided and the cookie jar was gone, too.
         Just then, I heard a knock at the door. Mary came running in after she opened the door. It was mom and dad. They had told me that the car had stalled, so they had to walk back home. Mom went into the kitchen and looked at the empty space inside of the returned cookie jar. Mary got in trouble for eating the rest of the cookies and candy, and I got in trouble for not keeping a better eye on Mary. I still wonder how the cookie jar magically appeared when mom found that the cookies had been devoured.

Chapter 3- A New but Old House

         My mother and father were thinking about moving because the house was too big. They asked Mary and me what we wanted to do. Mary did not understand anything about moving. I said that I would not mind even though I knew I would miss our house and all my friends and neighbors.
         We started looking for a new house. About a week went by when we finally found our perfect house. As soon as we saw it, our hearts were locked with my parent’s checkbook. We loved it so much that we put a for sale sign in the front of our house.
         A few days later some people came up to our house. I was very excited for I knew that they must be here to buy the house. I opened the front door and asked them to come in. Mom came running from the kitchen when I told her who was here. She demanded that I go upstairs and get dad. Dad came sprinting downstairs to meet the young couple. They stood near the door talking about fifteen minutes, and then dad started to show them around the house. After they were all finished I saw them signing some papers. They must have bought the house, because dad later that day told us that we were going to start moving tomorrow.
         In a week, we had just about everything moved. We were ready to live in the new house. Our new house was big, but not as big as our old one. The outside of the house looked a little run down, but the inside was still in great shape.
         The first night, sleeping in our new house, I heard noises. The noises were so strange that I couldn’t even describe it. It was not very loud, but it scared me very much. I laid awake in the frightening silence until I fell asleep.

Chapter 4- The Mysterious Noise

         For the last week, we have been at our new house, yet I have been hearing some strange noises that for some other reasons no one else in the family has heard. Since my bedroom was close to the attic door, I decided that I would go up there. The attic door cracked and creaked, as I opened it. It was very dark, so I turned on my flashlight while looking for the light switch. I found it next to the cobweb housing two spiders, one alive and the other DINNER, I turned it on. It was only a flight of stairs.
         At the top of the stairs was a large, cherry-wood door that went to the attic. The stairs creaked loudly as I walked up them. I opened the door and turned on my flashlight once again, it was a very small attic. I couldn’t believe it. The room looked almost too small. It was almost like there was a wall that divided the attic into two. I saw a crack in the wall. I went over to it and peered in it. It was fairly dark, but I could make out a small table with a lamp on it next to a chair. Then all of a sudden, I saw something move. Everything went black! Someone was in there and they must have put something over the crack, so I could not see any more.
         I don’t think whomever it was saw me. I quickly and quietly went back to my room. I did not tell anyone because I wanted to figure this one out on my own. I must admit, I felt like a real detective.

Chapter 5- Solving the Mystery

         The next day I decided to have another look at the attic. I had found out how the person got onto the other side of the divider wall. I went into the attic very quietly. I saw a light shining through the crack. I had been looking in the other day. I walked up to the crack and looked in. I saw a man roughly in his fifties. He got up from the chair and started walking toward the crack. I was so scared. I honestly thought that this time he saw me. I quickly ducked into the dark corner because there was nothing to hide behind. He opened a door in the wall that I had never seen before. He walked through the door I had come in.
I heard him walk down the steps. I just had enough time to see him crawl underneath the stairs when I opened the door. It must have leaded outside. I sprang into his little house or whatever it was. There was a small bed, chair, lamp, and a radio. I saw a closet and opened it. Inside there were a whole bunch of suitcases. I opened one and it had diamonds in it, the other ones had tons of money. I ran to the door before he came back and so I did not get in trouble or caught.
Early in the morning, I went to the stairs and crawled under them. I crawled, scraping my knees against the cold metal tunnel, and came across a small trapped door. I opened it and I ended up in the back yard. I decided to take matters into my own hands and set a trap in there, so he would get tangled in a special net. I put a small bell on the net so I could hear the victim get caught.
In the early next morning, I heard the bell ring loud and clear. I got up and locked both doors to this tunnel and called the police. The police got there in about ten minutes. They got the man and shoved him in the back leather seat of the police car. A policeman strolled on over and congratulated me for catching the man that they have been searching for, for over twenty years.
I was later rewarded one-thousand dollars for my services. A few years had passed by before I became a real detective at the age of twenty.

Chapter 6- Later Years

         When I was twenty-four, I got married to a man named Sam Walters. After we got married we left for our honeymoon to Australia. We later lived in Texas until we got the word that my father had died. We moved back home and lived with my mother, who was grieving the loss. Mary got married a month before my father died. Mary moved down to Vermont with her husband.
         Later I gave birth to a baby girl and called her Tracy after my mother. My mom died nine years later. I then retired from being a detective because I did not have enough time to spend with my family. When Tracy turned nineteen, she got married and left to live in Europe with her husband.
         Two years later my brother died, the same way my father died, a sudden death. I had only seen Andrew once, when I was twelve. My husband and I moved back to Texas where we lived the rest of our days.
There is only one thing wrong about this. I suspected foul play with both my father and brothers death. I asked a favor of one of my buddies from the detective squad. Let me take a look at the detailed descriptions of each death. I found out that they died on the same month (different years), the same way, wearing the same color and both had eaten the same food (and at the same restaurant) before they died.
         I guarantee that I will not retire until I find the true answer to both their murders!
To Be Continued- What’s the Verdict?