The Corn Maze Mystery

At the fall festival for the JCPD each police officer was allowed to bring two tag alongs; Ace Juniper were Webster’s. One of Webster's friends from the police department, Joseph, brought a couple of his friends: Greg and Robert. The group entered the corn maze in intervals of fifteen minutes.
“This has been spectacular Webster, I loved Snap-dragon best,”Ace said.
“Are you kidding that would be have to be the duck races. I thought you’d be more competitive Ace?” Webster said tuning the next corner.
“Do you know how much competition is required for Snap-dragon?” Ace asked.
“Oh, the two of you adolescents, bobbing for apples will always be a classic,” Juniper scolded.
“Uh oh. you two, look at the sun,” Webster noticed.
“You're right if it gets any darker we could play blind man’s bluff,” Ace noted.
“I feel as if we’ve been going around in circles for five minutes, at least. We just can’t seem to leave this close side,” Juniper said.
“Yeah, but there’s not much of a way to know which fork we took last time,” Webster told her. The group was quiet for a while, but by the next fork Juniper had an idea.
“Lets put corn in the fork. Put it here where we came from,” she hull some corn just behind them. “And here where we're going.” She hulled some the path they were going to take. “That way if we see the corn again we know which way we haven’t been.”
“That’s wonderful June,” The two said simultaneously. The team followed Juniper’s suggestion. They had arguments of course over which path to take, and they did find some corn on the ground. In spite of this though they made it out of the maze just at ten minutes before the second person got there. After them seven or eight teams came out of the corn maze.
The thirty people had a dinner dance afterward. It was outside on some beautiful little hay bales.
"Webster! Webster! Greg hasn't come back yet, I'm beginning to worry," Joseph came running as the group went to the tables.
"Why did you ever split up?" Juniper asked him.
“He was adamant one way was better than the other, so Robert and I just went the way we felt was right thinking ‘What could happen all around is corn and nobody can get in or out,” Joseph said.
“Let’s go get a map, we’ll go thru every path there and we’ll find him,” Webster told him. Webster got the map of the field; Joseph and Webster went in. They slowly searched all the paths until they found him.
“Juniper, come in Juniper,” Webster said into a walkie-talkie. “Over.”
“Juniper in. Over.”
“Hello Juniper. I found Greg. Over.” Webster seemed a little uneasy.
“That’s great isn’t it? What’s wrong? Over.”
“Juniper, he’s dead.”
They cleaned up the scene. The two boys brought back the body, and the knife he was stabbed with. Nothing else would be found there, for they dusted for prints.
“Nobody heard anything though,” Juniper noted when the murder was brought up. "Did they?" She asked looking at the others.
"No not a sound," was the unanimous reply. "Inspector, can Webster, Ace, and I take the case?"
"I don't see why not. You'll then be the ones to bend over backward to figure this one out."
"Thank you inspector." Juniper began. “Boy’s we’ll begin by asking for people’s alibis. If someone splits up or get’s abandoned note it, and please literally if you just mentally you’ll forget. Ace have you still got a pencil?”
“No Juniper.”
“Ace, I swear you have a gaping hole in every one of your pockets,” she dive in her bookbag in search of a pencil, and she found one in under a minute. “Here, please don’t lose that one. Get going.”
Juniper and her brothers went they go get there alibis.
Juniper spoke to Officer Hutchings first. He, his wife, and his ten year old son never left each other, not even for a minute. Such a sensitive statement coming out of the giant of a man would have sounded quite odd to anyone else, but for June it was fairly natural. He was the man that happened to come over for meals when Webster first became a police officer.
Ace first spoke to an officer by the name of Jack Martin.
"Sorry, but I was with Mary, and Roy the entire time, and we went the last quarter with Officer Hamilton and her parents." Two of the people with him, a man and a woman, nodded their heads ferociously.
Webster asked Joseph Rantitch first. He knew he had to be careful asking seeing as to him this is the most personal, but him too Robert was right there the whole way. Officer Haley joined them half way thru.
Somewhere in there June spoke to the inspector. "Inspector I'm sorry for asking, but did you or your tag a longs stray from the group ever?"
"No, none of us went anywhere the others didn't," the inspector began. "And Juniper, your murderer must have known how Greg had strayed of which I could not possibly have done.
The very last person Webster talked to was the gate guard to the maze and pumpkin patch itself. He asked two questions. Did you ever go into the field? No, my wife, Susan, and my daughter, Anne can verify that. They nodded in agreement. Did anyone leave the pumpkin patch? No not a soul. The two women nodded again.
Every last person in between was yes, I have an alibi over and over. The only person without an alibi is the victim, and it seemed even he did, he was being stabbed.
“Well what a bust that was. Not a single person strayed. Not a single person falters. No virtues, No vices. Everything is a dead end, but you couldn’t stab yourself that way at all," Webster said.
"No" Juniper said. "There are more than one without an alibi, and I believe one of them pushed in the knife."
With just three hours before everyone left, and the Jones out of hope because the murderer would leave their eyes and begin lurking in the shadows of the case trying their best to stay out of the light. Here, however, the little flickers glistening from inside the pumpkins or off table lanterns keep everyone visible to the watchful eyes of the three Jones. Not a single person seemed nervous of capture. it would be impossible to say if anyone's demeanor had changed. Due to the glittering lights and gleeful songs of the party, everyone was laughing and floating on the soft straw dance floor, chatting quietly on some of the few surrounding hay tables, or eating a few slices of warm pumpkin pie and hot chocolate. Finally Joseph noticing his friends' nervousness came over to ask Juniper to dance.
As she got up she asked her brothers to go search Greg's car top to bottom for anything that may be a motive for his death. Reluctantly making their eyes escape their sister they made their way out to the lot where they found Greg's white ford. They searched all through the truck, but it was the glove box that really gave them any gold. In the box they found at least a thousand dollars total. There were about ten packets wrapped up with little rubber bands. In each packet there was also a small slip of paper. The first read: 7/1 J. The second read: 5/7 R. All of them were written in this format.
On the walkie-talkie Webster spoke to his sister, "Juniper come in Juniper. Over."
"Juniper in. Over."
"Only one thing worth mentioning in here. We found a ton of money in the glove box all in equal packets with numbers on it the lowest number is four twenty-eighths and the highest is ten over one. in the denominator the numbers are either 1, 7, 14, or 28. In the numerator there are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Each has one of each denominator. And on each slip it either has a J or an R. Over."
"Thanks Web. Over."


Challenge to the reader: You now have in your possession all the facts pertinent to the correct solution. Let's see if we got the same result.


Juniper's heart lifted. She joined the others out on the dance floor as she saw how the leaves glittered and the stars danced. Even the moon began walzing to the music. The magic of the autumn breeze began to draw her to flying across the soft grassy ground. All this because she now knew the case was over.
Webster saw his sister's serenity; so he too allowed himself to surrender to the night. He began to dance with the wind itself.
Ace did not share his brother's trust. Slowly he made his way to the buffet table where he carefully began drinking a tall cup of hot chocolate. He watched as he clung to his glass wondering if Juniper truly knew what had happened.
Nearly two hours past and even Ace was captivated by the magic of the dance. Half an hour before 1 a.m., when the dance ended Juniper went over to the inspector.
"Sir, I know who did it."
"Let me guess you want everyone gathered so you can display who did it?"
"Yes, thanks inspector."
It was done. Everyone there was seated while Juniper stood at the front. When everyone was quiet Juniper began.
"The first task in this murder was to narrow down the suspects from thirty to five or six. The first one was easy, Ace and Webster were with me the whole time. After that it gets trickier. Greg you see didn't get tripped up in the most common circle. He actually left at a relatively simple to decipher bit, so the murderer had to know where he fell a stray. We now are narrowed down to Joseph and Robert, but wait they said Officer Haley joined them about halfway through so sorry, but your still in the running," Juniper began.
"Wait, what about Timothy Drakes the gate guard?" Asked Inspector Rehuitz.
Juniper replied, "Same reason they had to have the knowledge that he did split off.
"That's five; now I narrow down by motive. In Greg's truck my brother's found a ton of money with these slips on it. Here I'll pass these around." She handed them to the nearest officer. "On each card we have a fraction. This could be a fraction of the total amount, but each packet has the same amount in it and the fractions are all different. it might be the fraction of the amount he had at the time, but those would all have a one as the numerator. The final thing it could be is dates. If this is true then they start on April 1st and go up until November 7th, just last thursday. But then what would the money be? It could be paychecks, or blackmail payments. You never get the same amount in a pay check."
"So what you're saying is that whoever he was blackmailing killed him?" a tag-along said.
"Yes that is the general idea, but whom? R and J, the letters on the slips. Robert and Joseph. You killed him. You never intended him to have a good time. You coaxed-"
"NO!" Joseph roared. "It was his idea. I didn't plan for him to die!"
"Two needed to have done it. One to keep him quiet; the other to push in the knife. J and R point directly at you."
"Take 'em away,"the inspector said.
The Jones went out to the car dead tired, and started on their way home.