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The Case of the Scarecrow Murder

Suspects:

Jenny, a ten-year-old girl, who loved to play in the fields and ride her pony, but her mother thought she should be in the kitchen, learning how to cook.
Jenny's mother, who left for town after an argument with Jenny's father
Jenny's father, who was always playing pranks on people
Ralph, Jenny's ugly dog, who looked like a cross between Rin Tin Tin and the Shaggy Dog in the movie.

The real estate developer, who had been trying to buy her father's farm.

The scarecrow was sprawled across the floor, as if it were dead, with blood oozing our from under the body. "Someone killed the scarecrow, Daddy," Jenny said as she ran into the barn.

"What are you carryin' on about?" her father asked.

"Our scarecrow is dead on the kitchen floor."

"That's the most absurd thing I ever heard, but let's go take a look," he said. Jenny took his hand and they walked to the house, in through the back door, and there on the floor of the kitchen lay the scarecrow.

"Go back outside, Jenny," her father said. He stooped over the scarecrow and rolled it over. Jenny watched from the back step. Her father called the sheriff, who showed up eventually.

Jenny was ignored for the remainder of the day, as the sheriff, his deputies, and her father tried to figure out what had happened.

Jenny thought back to when her father had built the scarecrow, not that long ago. He had used a pumpkin for a head, and stuffed some clothes with straw, and put a hat on the pumpkin. There wasn't any hat on the dead scarecrow, now that she thought about it. She went out to the garden where there were more pumpkins.

Ralph followed her, and sniffed the pumpkins. She saw the hat her father had put on the scarecrow. She looked at Ralph and asked, "Did you see who took the scarecrow from its post?" she asked. The dog just looked at her. He licked his mouth, which made her think of something else.

"Daddy, Daddy," she said, to get his attention.

"What, Jenny?" he asked.

"I saw blood on the scarecrow, didn't I?"

"No, honey, that was catsup, smeared across the floor you saw. Now, don't be scared. No one was killed. It was just a prank or something, not a real murder."

"But how did the catsup get on the floor?" she asked.

"I'm not sure, but I would guess the prankster put it there to make us think it was blood, for their joke. Not very funny, I might say."

"It seems like something you might do, but not in your own home," the sheriff said. "You pulled any pranks on anyone recently,

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